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Straddling the border between Alberta and the Northwest Territories, WOOD BUFFALO NATIONAL PARK covers an area larger than Switzerland, making it Canada's largest national park (45,000 square kilometres) and the world's second-largest protected environment (the largest is in Greenland). Though wild and vast in its extent, the park is limited to low hills, lakes, grasslands, boreal forest, salt plains and marsh; these drain into the Peace and Athabasca rivers and then into Lake Claire, forming one of the world's largest freshwater deltas in the process. To the casual visitor the landscape is likely to be a disappointment - there are no real "sights" or scenic set-pieces to compare with the Rockies - but for dedicated naturalists or those who are prepared to spend time (and money) allowing the landscapes under their skin, the park holds much of interest, embracing North America's finest karst (limestone) scenery, classic swaths of boreal forest and rare salt-plain habitats in the park's topography. In addition to the park's 46 species of mammals, including black and grizzly bear and lynx, the Peace-Athabasca river delta in the park's southeast corner boasts 227 species of wildfowl - no fewer than four major migration routes overfly the area. The park is the world's only river rookery of rare white pelicans and the last refuge of the critically endangered whooping crane - first discovered in a remote part of the park as late as 1954. Though there were only 21 of the majestic birds when they were first discovered, there are over 130 today - about half the total world population (most of the others being in captivity) - each boasting a 2.4-metre wingspan and nesting far from any human contamination on the park's northern fringes. The first refuge here was created in 1922 to protect a rather different species - an estimated 1500 wood buffalo , the longer-legged, darker and more robust relative of the plains buffalo. At the time they were being hunted to the edge of extinction, much in the manner of the plains bison in the preceding century. Six years later the federal government moved some 6000 plains buffalo to the park from the now nonexistent Buffalo National Park near Wainright, Alberta, when their grazing lands were appropriated for a firing range. Most of the present herd, now down to some 2500 members, is probably a hybrid strain, and has become the subject of considerable controversy . At present you'll still see plenty at the roadsides, more often than not wallowing in dust to escape the region's ferocious mosquitoes. The presence of the bisons, not to mention that of the cranes and the various rare and unspoiled habitats, saw the park declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
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