Roberto Torres, a Senior Environmental Advisor at Suncor's MacKay River site, is passionate about his work. He has turned a childhood love of nature and animals into a long career creating sustainable habitats for animals near our operations. Roberto has assisted in the direction of a wildlife monitoring program that includes the installation of 27 cameras throughout the site. The programs and photographs continue to demonstrate the incredible diversity and breadth of our animal population, which includes moose, lynx, whitetail deer, black bears, martens, fishers, squirrels, coyotes, wolves, spruce grouse, and many others.
“The importance of the monitoring program is to ensure we minimize impact on animals from our activity,” says Roberto, who has been with Suncor since 2009. “And as you can see from the photos, we continue to see great diversity around our sites and we hope to see more diversity with continued monitoring.”
Roberto understands that what we see from the cameras is important, but he believes that the attitude of the people on the ground is more important for wildlife conservation. He told of workers arriving on site to work on the HVAC system on the roof of a main operations building. As the workers ascended to the roof, they noticed an owl fleeing as they approached. The workers were surprised to see an owl and began looking around to see if they could find out where the owl had come from. They discovered a plastic box left on the roof from previous work. There were two baby owlets in the box.
The workers immediately flagged off the area to avoid further disruption and notified Roberto to seek further advice. Fish and Wildlife was notified, and Roberto continued to monitor the location for three months, with the help of the operations team, until the owlets were old enough to fly on their own. It exemplifies our mission of "caring for one another and the Earth."
“We’re surrounded by natural habitat, so we need to care for what we have,” says Roberto. “The nature of our business means we do have to disturb some land. But with the team and their care for the environment around them — it’s why we continue to see such great wildlife diversity around our sites.”
Suncor continues to grow and expand wildlife monitoring programs at our facilities to ensure that we have the least possible impact on the land around our operations. More Suncor environmental stories can be found by clicking here.