Wild Animals of Canada: Iconic Species From Coast to Coast

Canada’s wildlife at a glance

Canada is huge, and its wildlife changes with the landscape. The 2020 national assessment of wild species lists 223 mammals, 696 birds, 49 reptiles and 47 amphibians in the country, most of them concentrated in the warmer south.

The beaver: Canada’s national animal

The North American beaver (Castor canadensis) is the largest rodent in North America. Adults usually weigh 11–32 kg (24–71 lb), with a body 74–90 cm (29–35 in) long plus a flat, scaly tail. Beavers cut trees with their orange-fronted teeth and build dams, canals and lodges that turn streams into ponds, creating wetlands used by fish, frogs, ducks and moose.

The beaver shaped Canada’s history. Demand for beaver fur in Europe drove the fur trade, the Hudson’s Bay Company and much of the early exploration of the interior. In 1975, Parliament made the beaver an official symbol of Canada, and it has been on the five-cent coin since 1937. The world’s longest known beaver dam, about 850 m (2,790 ft) long, was spotted on satellite images in 2007 on the edge of Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta. See our beaver profile for more.

Moose: giant of the boreal forest

The moose (Alces alces) is the largest deer in the world and the tallest land animal in North America. Bulls typically weigh 380–700 kg (840–1,540 lb) and stand 1.4–2.1 m (4.6–6.9 ft) at the shoulder, and a mature bull’s broad, flat antlers are typically 1.2–1.5 m (4–5 ft) across. Moose live across almost all of forested Canada, feeding on willow, birch and aspen twigs and wading into lakes in summer to eat water plants.

Newfoundland’s moose are not native. A pair was released in 1878 and four more in 1904, and the population grew so large that moose are now the island’s most common large mammal. Studies in Gros Morne National Park have found moose densities several times higher than in comparable areas elsewhere in Canada. Moose are usually calm but can charge if crowded, especially cows with calves in spring and bulls in the fall rut, so watch from a car or at least 30 m (100 ft) away. Our moose profile covers their life cycle.

Caribou: herds of the tundra and the northern forest

Caribou are the North American form of the reindeer (Rangifer), and they live across northern Canada from Yukon to Labrador. Barren-ground caribou make long seasonal migrations between summer calving grounds on the tundra and winter range in the northern forest. Woodland caribou live in smaller, more settled groups in the boreal forest and western mountains, and a caribou head has been on the Canadian 25-cent coin since 1937.

Many herds are in trouble. The George River herd of northern Quebec and Labrador fell from roughly 800,000–900,000 animals in the 1990s to fewer than 9,000 by 2018. Boreal woodland caribou have been assessed as threatened in Canada since 2002, mainly because logging, roads and energy development fragment the old forests they need. Globally, the IUCN lists reindeer and caribou as Vulnerable.

Polar bears of Hudson Bay

Canada is home to about two-thirds of the world’s polar bears (Ursus maritimus), a species the IUCN lists as Vulnerable, with an estimated 22,000–31,000 animals worldwide. Adult males usually weigh 300–800 kg (660–1,760 lb), making the polar bear the largest land carnivore on Earth. Polar bears hunt seals from the sea ice, and climate change is shrinking the time they have on the ice.

Churchill, Manitoba, calls itself the Polar Bear Capital of the World. When Hudson Bay melts in summer, the bears come ashore and wait, eating little, until the bay freezes again. In October and November they gather along the coast near the town, and guided tundra vehicles let visitors watch them in safety. Read more in our polar bear profile.

Black bears, grizzlies and the spirit bear

The American black bear is Canada’s most widespread bear. It lives in forests in every province except Prince Edward Island, where it has been gone since 1937, as well as in Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and surveys in the 1990s suggested that roughly 400,000–475,000 lived in seven provinces alone. Despite the name, black bears in western Canada can be brown, cinnamon or blond.

Grizzly bears, the North American brown bear, live in British Columbia, western Alberta, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and parts of Nunavut. Banff, Jasper and Yoho national parks in the Rockies and the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary near Prince Rupert are known for sightings. On British Columbia’s rainforest coast lives the Kermode bear, a black bear subspecies. On a few islands, such as Princess Royal and Gribbell, 10 to 20 percent of the bears are white “spirit bears” because they carry two copies of a recessive gene. The spirit bear became British Columbia’s official mammal in 2006.

Canada lynx and the snowshoe hare cycle

The Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) is a medium-sized wild cat of the boreal forest, weighing 5–17 kg (11–37 lb), with tufted ears and huge furry paws that work like snowshoes. It depends heavily on the snowshoe hare, and the two rise and fall together in a cycle that peaks roughly every 10 years. When hares are plentiful, lynx raise large litters; when the hares crash, lynx numbers follow a year or two later.

This cycle is one of the most famous in ecology because fur-trade records kept for more than a century by the Hudson’s Bay Company show it clearly. The species is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN, but it is shy and mostly active at dusk and night, so most people only see its tracks. Our Canada lynx page explains how it hunts in deep snow.

Common loon and Canada jay: voices of the north woods

The common loon (Gavia immer) is the sound of a Canadian summer. Its eerie wail, laughing tremolo and the male’s territorial yodel carry across northern lakes, especially at night. Loons dive as deep as 60 m (200 ft) to catch fish, weigh 2.2–7.6 kg (4.9–16.8 lb) and are so clumsy on land that they nest right at the water’s edge. The loon is Ontario’s provincial bird and appears on the one-dollar coin, nicknamed the “loonie.” Learn more in our common loon profile.

The Canada jay (Perisoreus canadensis), also called the gray jay or whisky jack, is a fluffy gray relative of crows that lives year-round in the boreal forest. Each bird hides thousands of food items in summer and fall, glued into bark crevices with sticky saliva, and it nests in February or March when snow still lies deep. In 2016 a Canadian Geographic project chose it as Canada’s national bird, but the choice has never been made official.

Belugas, orcas and other whales

Canada’s three coastlines attract a long list of whales. Thousands of belugas move into the Churchill River estuary in July and August, and visitors can see them from small boats and kayaks. A separate, isolated population of about 900 belugas lives year-round in the St. Lawrence River estuary and is endangered in Canada. The Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park near Tadoussac, Quebec, is the place to see them, along with fin, minke, humpback and blue whales in summer. Our beluga whale profile explains why they are white.

On the Pacific coast, orcas are the stars. About 150 orcas use Johnstone Strait, off northeast Vancouver Island, in summer, where the Robson Bight (Michael Bigg) Ecological Reserve protects beaches where they rub on smooth pebbles. Fish-eating “resident” orcas and mammal-hunting “Bigg’s” orcas both live off British Columbia, and the southern resident population is endangered.

Where to see wildlife in Canada

• Churchill, Manitoba: polar bears in October and November, belugas in July and August, and Arctic birds in early summer.
• Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario: moose along Highway 60 in May and June, beavers, loons and Canada jays.
• Banff and Jasper national parks, Alberta: elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears and grizzlies.
• Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia: grizzlies, black bears and the white spirit bear.
• Johnstone Strait, British Columbia: orcas, humpback whales, Dall’s porpoises and sea lions.
• Tadoussac, Quebec: belugas, blue whales and other whales in the St. Lawrence.
• Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta and Northwest Territories: wood bison, and the only natural nesting area of the endangered whooping crane.
• Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland: moose, caribou and seabirds.

Dawn and dusk are the best times for mammals. Use binoculars, stay in your vehicle near large animals, never feed wildlife and follow park rules on distances from bears. In an emergency, call 911.