Keepers of Wildlife
1972 · 20m · Canada
Directed by Michael McKennirey
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative
Canadian Wildlife Service specialists band, tag and examine birds, fish, bears and buffalo across wilderness areas in an effort to halt declining North American wildlife populations.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1972 wildlife documentary that plays it completely straight—no irony, no formal experimentation, just competent public service filmmaking that refuses to acknowledge its own anachronism. Honestly, that sincerity is almost too earnest to mock.
McKennirey's methodical approach sits comfortably within the Canadian documentary tradition of patient observation and institutional purpose, where the editing rhythm mirrors the scientists' deliberate fieldwork—a film aware of its place in the lineage of ecological cinema.
The decision to let the specialists' hands do the storytelling—the precise choreography of banding, tagging, examining—quietly carries the entire narrative weight, transforming bureaucratic conservation work into something almost tactile and meditative.