Coaldale’s Birds of Prey partnered with Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump for Family Day

By Erika Mathieu
Sunny South News

After several years of cancelled events, tourist spots in Southern Alberta are eager to kick off the 2023 year.

As provincial and regional initiatives continue to support the expansion of the domestic and ecological tourism sector in Alberta, Coaldale’s own Alberta Birds of Prey (BOP) Foundation hit the road for family day fun.

The Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump (HSIBJ) site hosted a day of family fun for the provincial holiday this past Monday.

HSIBJ site marketer, Quinton Crow Shoe said the free event kicks off the first “full” season and noted the upcoming 2023 season will be different from recent years, following COVID restrictions which impacted the site’s on-site event programming.

Crow Shoe said 2022 was a, “transition season (which) saw lower than usual visitation numbers,” down 10-15 per cent from pre-COVID numbers, but added the coming season should see a greater influx of visitors.

“We’re done our transition, now we’re going to get back into our special events and return to where we were pre-COVID in terms of visitor experience.”

He said HSIBJ, “kept in close contact” with Birds of Prey, in recent years as both sites navigated COVID restrictions and closure, but said, “this is the first special event that we’re going to be doing since COVID.”

The Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation traveled to the UNESCO world heritage site just to help celebrate the “Full Moon of the Eagle” with live flight demonstrations.

With the 2023 tourism season approaching, Crow Shoe said “It was a no-brainer to reach out to our regional partner at the Birds of Prey. They embraced the opportunity to work along with us again moving forward.”

Crow Shoe said HSIBJ has, “been partnering with Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation for a long time; we are industry partners, and (they) have helped enhance visitor experience here in many of our events over the years.”

The 2023 Birds of Prey season is set to kick off for site visits May long weekend, with new site amenities breaking ground this year. For more information about Coaldale’s own Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation visit,  http://www.burrowingowl.com/, or https://headsmashedin.ca/ to learn more about the HSIBJ site.