Rouge Valley Conservation Centre
Nature Notes
By Steve Gahbauer
January 2010
It's good news time.
The start of a new year is a good time to reflect upon our ability to roll with the punches and do some good. In nature, wildlife is always adapting to change, but the speed with which change occurs because of human activity is overwhelming. We have created some irreversible damage and a mess that threatens the existence of many species. We are obliged to do all we can to clean it up. Some laudable attempts are being made in that direction. Here is some good news:
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-In the Spring, Ontario Nature delivered 60,000 petitions from concerned individuals, urging the provincial and federal government to increase protection of at least 50% of the boreal forest, our “bird nursery of the north.”
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-Nature Canada says we are one step closer to protecting an endangered prairie bird after a scientific review helped convince a judge that an inadequate government recovery strategy for the Greater Sage Grouse had to be rewritten. And more than 22,000 children had a positive nature experience through Nature Canada's Parks and People Program this year.
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-In Canada, more than 2.9 million hectares of wetland and upland habitat have been secured thanks to funding from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (which provides funding for wetland habitat conservation projects) and through generous support from partners.
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-In Nova Scotia, the province added $66 million to the conservation budget, finalized a big new protected area near Halifax, and took steps to create new marine protected areas.
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-After 32 years, the Nahanni National Park Reserve has been expanded to six times its original size. The federal government and the Dehcho First Nation announced a plan to permanently protect more than 30,000 km² of boreal wilderness in the reserve.
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-Arctic wildlife will get a boost as the federal government plans to spend $5 million to study a proposed marine conservation area in Lancaster Sound at the eastern gate of the Northwest Passage. The region has been on Parks Canada's conservation list for decades.
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-TransCanada Corp. is committing $1 million to support bird conservation across Canada.
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-The Canadian Wildlife Foundation is funding several wildlife conservation projects. Among them: $7,500 to assess how grizzly bears respond to industrial development; $4,000 to educate Grade 4-12 students about wetlands projects; and $5,000 to David M. Bird, Professor of Wildlife Biology and Director of the Avian Science and Conservation Centre in Montreal, to research the potential benefits of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in wildlife conservation.
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-Bird Studies Canada and the “Friends of Long Point Bird Observatory” have received a capital grant of $64,300 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to upgrade facilities at the Long Point Bird Observatory, including the Old Cut Field Station and the Visitor Centre.
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-Norway agreed to pay Guyana up to $250 million to preserve forests in that South American nation as part of a scheme to slow climate change.
Other good news includes encouraging wildlife recovery stories:
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-Giraffes of West Africa were on the verge of extinction. The breed had been overhunted and displaced by human populations and advancing deserts during the last century. In 1996 a mere 50 still roamed the continent. But now the giraffes have made a remarkable comeback. It is estimated that the population has quadrupled in just 13 years, thanks to government intervention, conservationists and concerned locals who are working together to protect these wonderful creatures and their habitat.
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-Swift Fox populations which had disappeared from Canada by the 1940s have now been reintroduced to the grasslands of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Swift Foxes are staging a comback and currently number around 650 animals.
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-Beavers have been returned to the wilds of Scotland after an absence of nearly five centuries. The 11 reintroduced beavers are from Norway. Beavers have also returned to Switzerland and are multiplying at great numbers in the southernmost part of Argentina.
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-Black-footed Ferrets are one of the most endangered mammals in North America. They haven't been seen in the wild in Canada since 1936. Early European settlers converted ferret habitat to farmland and then killed their main prey – prairie dogs – believing that the creatures competed with farm animals. Conservationists say that it is so easy to create havoc in ecosystems that deciding to do nothing becomes an attractive option. A better option is to try and repair the damage we've done. The Toronto Zoo is a partner in a groundbreaking captive breeding program and has released a group of 40 ferrets in Saskatchewan's Grasslands National Park.
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-About the size of a house cat, these sleek ferrets with black feet, face and tail tip were believed to be extinct, when in 1981 a small population was discovered in Wyoming. Disease had wiped out almost all of them by 1987 and wildlife biologists brought the remaining 18 into captivity to establish a breeding and release program. Only seven of the original 18 had kits. They became the progenitors of an estimated 800 – 1,000 ferrets now living in the wild in the U.S. and Mexico. It's great to see them back in Canada again!
Finally, some closing thoughts on Spring. The question of when one season ends and another begins is difficult to answer. One simply blends into the other. Such perpetual transition leaves one with a grasp of what season one is in, but not when it starts or ends. This is particularly true of Spring. Monte Hummel of World Wildlife Fund Canada fame opines that Spring arrives on the wind during the first sunny afternoon in March. Whatever someone thinks, one thing is sure: Spring must and will come.
Pretty soon the first wildflowers will poke out of the ground, trees will start budding, and the first early migrating birds will make their appearance. Already in February, Robins begin to return to their northern nesting grounds, and the Bluebirds aren't far behind. Red Maples will kick-start an arboral colour fest in April. Other tree and shrub flowers include the blossoms of fruit trees, as well as White Cherry, Hawthorn, Dogwood, Viburnum, Elder, Witch Hazel, Mountain Ash and Serviceberry. Beeches will show their greenish flowers, and all the Willows, Poplars, Birches, Alders, Oaks and Ironwoods will produce catkins as flowers, while the Pines, Spruces, Junipers and Cedars all put out flowers in the form of separate tiny pollen and seed cones – the former pollinating the latter – which then develop into the larger, more familiar “pine cones.”
In April and May, volunteers will again plant thousands of trees in areas designated by the Rouge Park. The interpretive Sunday hikes will become more popular as the weather gets warmer, and with the longer daylight there will be new things to observe in the Valley. We'll talk more about reawakening nature in June, in the Summer edition of Rouge Valley Nature Notes. Until then: happy hiking.
Sources: Canadian Wildlife Federation, Bird Studies Canada, Ontario Nature, Toronto Zoo, World Wildlife Fund Canada, Nature Canada, Wintergreen, Maclean's, and collected personal field notes.
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