BIODIVERSITY RESERVE
On August 27, 2025, the City of Regina City Council passed Motion MN25-12 to establish the Municipal Grasslands Biodiversity Reserve, an approximate 68 acres of land situated between the Wascana Creek on the north and east, Sandra Schmirler Way and the Caledonian Curling Club on the west and Regina Avenue on the south.
Nature Regina will be collaborating with the City of Regina on stewardship of this reserve with the hope for educational opportunities for residents and an outline of stewardship guidelines going forward with engagement and guidance from Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers.
Perennial grassland, and native grassland in particular, provides carbon sequestration, climate mitigation and crucial habitat but it continues to be converted to annual crops and other forms of development, rural and urban. Almost all the native prairie on the Regina Plains has been lost, making remnants like this one especially valuable.
The McKell Wascana Conservation Area conserved by the city with the assistance of Ducks Unlimited Canada was an important contribution. There are grassland birds nesting there, including Bobolinks, a threatened species. The grass is mostly non-native but still provides the climate change values and habitat for some wild insects, mammals and birds. The new Biodiversity Reserve adds an important new prairie remnant with prairie wildflowers such as the Crocus which are not found elsewhere in Regina. As grassland advocates, we often hear from members of the public that they have not seen a crocus since they were living on the farm many years ago.
Although disturbed, this site includes patches of native prairie along the creek bank, and native plants are naturally reestablishing in other areas. With stewardship, this land can continue to regenerate and become a significant ecological, educational, recreational, and cultural asset for Regina residents.
Drive, walk, ride a bike or take a bus—anyone in the city can get there and see some of the iconic flowers of a prairie summer: Blanket Flower or Gaillardia, Prairie Smoke or Three-flowered Avens, Beardtongue, Moss Phlox, Scarlet Mallow, Pasture Sage, the Asters and Goldenrods, just to name a few. Our supporters and naturalists from Nature Regina have recorded those and more than two hundred other plant species on the site, as well as many native insects, mammals and birds.
Pairs of Western Meadowlarks nest there, and endangered species like the Barn Swallow hunt over the grassland, along with Swainson’s Hawks and other birds.
These birds and the other creatures that depend on the grassland do not ask for much—simply that we let them continue to live in a tiny slice of what the Regina plains was only 150 years ago before the native grassland was plowed under.
In an age where we are becoming aware that human activities are rapidly degrading the landscapes—woodlands, wetlands and prairies—that the more-than-human world depends on, people need to see communities taking steps in the other direction. And in areas like Regina where the natural world has been radically altered that means working to heal damaged places that still show signs of life.
The pristine prairie is long gone, and this remnant is dominated by non-native grasses to be sure, but the native species that remain have not given up. We should follow their lead and not give up either. Healing damaged places can heal communities too.