National Wildlife Week

Make an intimate connection with the natural world around you. Put your five senses to work during National Wildlife Week. There’s a world of discovery awaiting you when you explore nature using sight, sound, scent, touch and taste. Even though animals share these same senses, it doesn’t necessarily mean they use them in the same way as we do.

Some species see in ultraviolet light revealing a brighter, hazier world filled with new patterns. Others use their tongues to smell by collecting scent particles from the air. Awaken your senses and be inspired by what they reveal. Conserving wildlife begins with noticing, listening and connecting.

Imagine standing in complete darkness. No moon. No stars. No flashlight. Now imagine still being able to “see” everything around you. This is the astonishing power of echolocation. Used by remarkable animals like bats and whales, echolocation is nature’s way of turning sound into sight. It allows these creatures to build a living, breathing 3D map of their surroundings—even in places where light cannot reach.

As night falls and the sky grows dark, a bat releases a rapid series of incredibly high-pitched sounds—so high that human ears can’t detect them. These sound waves travel outward, strike objects in their path, and bounce back as echoes. And in those returning echoes lies a world of information.

From the faintest ripple in the air, a bat can detect the size of an object, its shape, its distance—even whether it’s moving. A tiny insect fluttering in the dark becomes as clear to a bat as a bright object under a spotlight.

Though bats have good eyesight, in the night sky it’s echolocation that becomes their superpower. It allows them to weave effortlessly between branches, avoid obstacles mid-flight, and precisely track fast-moving prey—all in total darkness. Where we might switch on a flashlight, these animals switch on sound. Echolocation is more than a survival tool—it’s a reminder that the world can be experienced in ways far beyond our own senses. In the dark, where we would be blind, bats are brilliantly aware —navigating a hidden landscape drawn in echoes.

Take a deep breath in. That simple act—breathing in the world around you—begins with your nose. And with it comes another sense: smell. For us, the nose does both.

Now step into the astonishing world of snakes, and nature reveals a different design. Snakes do have noses, but they use them only for breathing. Smelling? That job belongs to their tongue. Yes—their tongue.

That forked tongue you see darting out of their mouths is not a sign of aggression. It’s a living, moving chemical sensor. Each time a snake flicks its tongue into the air or brushes it along the ground, it is gathering invisible scent particles—tiny chemical clues left behind by the world.

Those collected scent molecules are delivered to a special organ called the vomeronasal (VOM-uh-ro_NAY-zul) organ, which connects directly to the brain’s smell centers, and translates chemical traces into detailed information about the environment around them.

What’s the deal with the forked tongue? The snake’s tongue is split into two tips. This isn’t an accident. Each tip gathers scent from a slightly different direction. The brain compares the two signals, allowing the snake to determine where a smell is stronger—left or right. It can literally “taste” which direction its prey has travelled. Imagine being able to follow a trail simply by sampling the air! In a world we often experience through sight and sound, snakes move through a landscape of scent—a hidden map written in molecules. 

Step into a garden on a sunny afternoon and you might think you’re seeing the full picture—petals in shades of reds, yellows, and purples. But many insects like bees and butterflies, they see a hidden world painted in ultraviolet light. Many flowers carry secret patterns—glowing nectar guides that act like landing strips—visible only in ultraviolet. To humans, a petal may look ordinary; to a bee, it has unique patterns. Other pollinators including flies, beetles, wasps, moths and butterflies can perceive this invisible spectrum, using it to find nectar and/or pollen. In every meadow and garden, an unseen world is shining—a radiant map written in light beyond our sight, guiding pollinators through a world far more vibrant than we ever knew.

Imagine being able to taste the world not just with your tongue — but with your entire body. A catfishes body is often referred to as a swimming tongue as it has taste receptors covering their entire body.

In the shadowy rivers and murky lake bottoms where visibility fades to almost nothing, catfish move through a universe guided not by sight, but by other extraordinary senses. These remarkable fish are covered in thousands upon thousands of taste buds—far more than humans possess. Their soft whisker-like barbels, extending from their faces, are made of skin and are loaded with tiny taste buds and special olfactory sensors, allowing them to taste and smell for food. Catfish also have lateral lines on the sides of their bodies which allows them to sense the world around them with precision.

To a catfish, the water is alive with information. They do not need to see their food to find it—they taste, smell and sense its presence from a distance, following invisible currents like a living compass.

What seems like silent, muddy water to us is, to a catfish, a rich and flavorful landscape—an underwater tapestry of signals waiting to be savoured.

Stand beside a tree and press your palm against its bark. You might feel texture. But to a woodpecker, that same tree is alive with signals.

High in the forest canopy, a woodpecker begins its rhythmic drumming. Each rapid tap sends tiny vibrations rippling through the wood. When those vibrations bounce back, they carry secrets from within—hollow chambers, hidden tunnels, even the faint movements of insects burrowed deep inside. Through its highly specialized skull, the woodpecker can feel these subtle tremors with extraordinary precision, turning solid wood into a living map of echoes and pulses.

It’s a bit like the human sense of touch—like placing your hand on a wall to feel footsteps on the other side, or sensing the bass of distant music through the floor. But where we might detect only the strongest vibrations, the woodpecker perceives delicate, almost imperceptible shifts, distinguishing between solid timber and a feast concealed within.

To us, a tree trunk seems silent and still. To a woodpecker, it hums with hidden life—an unseen world revealed not by sight, but by the language of vibration.

In 1947, Canadian Parliament officially proclaimed the week of April 10 as National Wildlife Week. April 10^th is the birthday of the late Jack Miner, a Canadian naturalist known by some as the "father" of North American conservationism. "Wild Goose Jack,” as he was often referred to, was one of the first conservationists to determine the migratory paths of North American birds and is credited with helping to save the iconic Canada Goose from the brink of extinction. While we won’t all save an animal from extinction, we can all have a positive impact on our wildlife and the places they call home when we #DoMoreForWildlife.