To donate to the Rouge Valley Conservation Centre click on the button below:

Home

Calendar of Hikes and events

1. -2010 hikes and events
   

Special Events

1. -Ride for the Rouge
   

2. -Rouge Valley Eco Exploration Event
   

3. -2009 EVENT INFO
   

4. -Year of energy conservation
   

5. -25th anniversary of the Rouge valley foundation
   

educational programs

1. -program descriptions
   

Discover the Rouge

1. -Nature Notes
   

2. -Eastern blue birds
   

3. -Deer count
   

4. -hiking trails
   

5. -photos
   

Donate

1. -donate OR become a sponsor
   

About Us

1. -Our mandate
   

2. -directions & map
   

3. -board of directors
   

4. -Pearse House History
   

5. -Our Partners

Rouge Valley Eco Exploration Event

Join us for a great family event on Saturday June 5!

Event Date: Saturday June 5, 2010

Event Time: 10 am - 3 pm

Location: Rouge Valley Conservation Centre

Admission: Suggested donation of $10 per person

Parking:

All visitors should park in the Toronto Zoo Parking Lot #3 across from the Rouge Valley Cosnervation Centre. Parking is free.

Trail Length:

Approx. 4km. It will take approximately 2 hours to complete the hike and visit all the Eco Stations. Please wear appropriate footwear - hiking shoes/boots, running shoes. No sandals or open toe shoes. Parts of the trail may be wet. Baby strollers and wheelchairs are not recommended as only a few stations are accessible.

Guided Hikes:

Two guided hikes will be available for participants who do not wish to hike alone. They will take place at 10:30 am and 1:30 pm. To join one of the guided hikes, please sign up at the registration desk or email events@rvcc.ca before June 4 to sign up.

Henry’s will also be offering a Nature Photography walk at 1pm. Please sign up at the Henry’s tent if you are interested in participating in this walk.

Entertainment:

Please join us throughout the day for a great line up of live entertainment by local artists.

11:30am - 1:00pm Social Potion featuring Carmen Toth

  1:00pm - 1:30pm Noella Choi

Food:

There will be a BBQ at the Rouge Valley Conservation Centre from 11:30-1:30 or until supplies run out where assorted burgers and hot dogs can be purchased. Snacks and beverages will also be available for purchase.

Henry’s Photo • Video • Digital Booth

While you’re at the event, make sure to visit the Henry’s tent in front of the Rouge Valley Conservation Centre where you can pick up your Henry’s goodie bag and an entry into the Rouge Valley Eco Exploration Photography Contest with your $10 donation to the Rouge Valley Conservation Centre.

While you’re there, make sure to sign up for Henry’s guided Nature Photo Walk from 1pm to 2pm and try out a variety of DSLRs and lenses that will take your nature photography to a whole new level. Be sure to check out the Canon and Nikon 300mm f/2.8 IS USM lenses.

Meet our Eco Station Experts

Amanda Bennet, Turtles

Amanda completed her B.Sc. Honours in Zoology and Studio Arts at the University of Guelph, where she worked on frog genetics and developed an interest in herpetology - the study of amphibians and reptiles. She moved on to studying turtles for her M.Sc., which was completed at Laurentian University in Sudbury, ON. Amanda’s Master's research focused on examining the effects of habitat fragmentation on the spatial ecology and population genetics of Northern map turtles along the Trent-Severn Waterway. She has also worked as a field technician on projects involving all of Ontario's native turtle species (except for spiny softshells). Amanda came to Peterborough in January 2010 to start her Ph.D. in Environmental and Life Sciences at Trent University. Her current research examines the effects of perceived predation risk on the morphology and behaviour of leopard frog tadpoles. While living in Peterborough Amanda continues to fulfill her love for turtles and interest in conservation biology at the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Center as an animal care and outreach volunteer.

Nick de Silva, Bees

Nick de Silva is an MSc candidate in Biology at York University. As an undergrad at York he began working in
Dr. Laurence Packer's lab as a part-time technician before taking on a project involving DNA barcoding the bees of Thailand. At present his research focuses on the taxonomy and systematics of bees, specifically a group of 20 or so cuckoo bees that may be found across Canada.

Sheila Dumesh, Bees

Sheila Dumesh is a graduate student at York University's biology department. She completed her Honours thesis in 2007 under the supervision of Laurence Packer and continued on to her Masters. She is currently working on a rare group of Mesoamerican (Halictid) bees that are restricted to high altitude cloud forests. Her work is mainly in taxonomy: describing new species and constructing keys to the species. Sheila has traveled to Arizona, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico in search of these bees..

Bev Edwards, Dragonflies

Bev became interested in dragonflies when she volunteered for the annual Carden Plain Odonate Count in 2005. Since then, she has participated in the count every year and has surveyed for dragonflies at the family cottage. This year, she and Richard Aaron have organized the first ever formal dragonfly survey of Rouge Park. Bev graduated from the University of Toronto with an Hon. B.Sc. degree in Biology and from Sir Sandford Fleming College as an Environmental Technician. She has spent many hundreds of hours in Rouge Park removing invasive plants and conducting various plant, bird, lichen, fish, crayfish, frog and salamander surveys for Rouge Park, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and/or Citizen Scientists. In addition, since 2002, Bev has drafted articles on various environmental topics for the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario.

Don Ford, Geology

Don has been employed in the Ecology Division of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority since November, 2002.  He manages the Geoenvironmental group, and is the practice leader for hydrogeology. Prior to his involvement with TRCA, he was employed for approximately 16 years as an environmental consultant in the assessment and remediation of contaminated sites.

Natasha Gonsalves, Plants

Natasha graduated from Saint Mary's University with a B.Sc degree in Biology and from Sir Sandford Fleming College as Ecosystem Management Technician. Since then she has worked with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) as an Environmental Technician; collecting long-term monitoring data and carrying out field inventories of vegetation communities and flora species according to TRCA's protocols and the Ecological Land Classification System. As a crew leader for Citizen Scientists, Natasha has also conducted fish and benthic macroinvertebrate surveys.

David Lawrie, Fish

David is currently an Aquatic Analyst with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) and a member of the Provincial Redside Dace recovery team representing the TRCA. A graduate of Waterloo and York Universities, he has ten years experience in the environment field. During this time David has worked in many areas including natural channel re-construction, bio-engineering and restoration, terrestrial and aquatic field surveys, planning development and permit review, and ecological analysis for the development and implementation of resource planning documents including Fisheries and Watershed Management Plans. David is also a Rouge Valley Foundation board member and spearheaded his own non-profit group Citizen Scientists, a volunteer based, aquatic environmental monitoring and education group.

Mark Looker, Benthic Invertebrates

Spending his early years in Muskoka has given Mark a great appreciation for the outdoors, and drive for exploring natural habitats. During his childhood he often explored the streams nearby his house, coming home covered in mud as he tried to catch small fish with his hands. He went on to study Wildlife Biology and Environmental Conservation at the University of Guelph and graduated in 2009 with an Honours BSc. and Certificate, respectively. During his studies Mark completed a thesis on stream benthic invertebrate identification and morphology. He is currently completing a post graduate certificate in GIS at Mohawk College, and working as a Water Resources Assistant for Credit Valley Conservation. Here he will work with a multidisciplinary team studying the biology, chemistry and geology of stream habitats throughout the Credit Valley. Mark is also a Citizen Scientists crew leader enjoying teaching volunteers about stream habitats and learning more and more about them each year.

Vicki MacDonald, Rouge Park

Vicki graduated from the University of Guelph with an Honours Bachelor of Science degree specializing in zoology. Vicki's career includes work at the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority in areas of natural heritage and stewardship.

Jacqueline Miller, Bats and Mammals

Jacqui graduated from the University of Toronto with an MSc. in Anthropology. She is currently a PhD candidate in Zoology and has spent the last several years compiling data on vocal communication and its evolution in rodents.  Jacqui has over a decade of field and laboratory experience, published in several scientific journals, and presented internationally on topics ranging from the molecular systematics to vocal communication in singing mice. Jacqui’s research has taken her from Canada to the Southwestern USA, Mexico, and Central America. She has surveyed small mammals in a variety of habitats locally and abroad, from semi-desert environments to montane tropical cloud forest. Jacqui has a special interest in relationships between behavioural ecology and species diversity. She has been an instructor for several field courses in Latin America and supervised undergraduate research theses, imbuing her passion for biology to many university students. Jacqui is currently affiliated with the Department of Natural History at the Royal Ontario Museum, where she continues her research and participates in several taxonomy projects with ROM curatorial staff.

Patricia Mohr, Plants

Patricia is a graduate of the University of Toronto. She has worked as an environmental biologist for all levels of government, private consulting firms and non-profit organizations carrying out a range of activities including biological inventories, natural heritage planning, water quality evaluation, policy and legislation analysis, and invasive plant control. Patricia is a Citizen Scientists Crew Leader and a Rouge Valley Foundation board member.

Mark Poos, Fish

Mark Poos recently completed his doctoral degree from the University of Toronto in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and is now a Visiting Research Fellow at the Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. His doctoral research focused on improving statistical models for endangered species by understanding the impacts of methodological choices. For much of this research, Mark has used the endangered minnow the, redside dace, as a study organism. Through a collaboration with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, Mark developed a unique tagging study to understand the population dynamics of redside dace. Mark has over ten years of experience working on aquatic species at risk, including studying several endangered fish and mussels in southwestern Ontario for his M.Sc. which he obtained from the University of Guelph in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada; as well as studying the endangered Atlantic salmon during his B.Sc. which he obtained from the University of Western Ontario. Mark has sat on numerous government panels which assess impacts to aquatic systems, and has authored several peer-reviewed publications and book chapters on aquatic biodiversity.

Paul Prior, Birds

Paul started birding in the UK in the early 1970s. He gave up a contract position studying the then endangered Red Kite population in mid-Wales to come to Canada to band migrant songbirds at Long Point Bird Observatory on Lake Erie in 1991. Paul stayed there as warden for the next 7 years and then, having settled in Toronto, continued working on Endangered Species (Bald Eagle, Prothonotary Warbler and Loggerhead Shrike) contracts for Bird Studies Canada for several years before starting his current job as a fauna-biologist with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. His current position requires maintenance of the fauna database for the region, a dataset based primarily on the annual field-inventories conducted on natural cover throughout the nine watersheds.

Annelise Riquier, Biocontrol of dog strangling vine

Annelise is an MSc candidate in Biology in France. During her BSc in Ecology, she became very interested in the protection of ecosystems and so continued her studies with a Masters in this area.  She is at the University of Toronto for the summer completing an internship as part of her MSc. She is working on an experiment investigating biological control of the invasive plant dog strangling vine (Vincetoxicum spp.) using herbivorous insects.

Kathleen Ryan, Invasive insects

Kathleen Ryan is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto. She has a MSc in Entomology from the University of Manitoba. She is currently conducting research examining the interactions between the introduced woodwasp Sirex noctilio and other woodboring insects in southern Ontario. Her work focuses on the role that insect vectored fungi play in these interactions. She sits on the Sirex noctilio Science Advisory Panel.

Scott Sampson, Vernal Pools

Scott is the President and one of the founders of the Ontario Vernal Pool Association. Scott is also the Senior Natural Heritage Ecologist for Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) and is responsible for the collection and management of information on the natural features and functions of the Credit River watershed. Much of Scott’s work with CVC includes conducting inventories and assessments of natural areas using the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System and the Ecological Land Classification for southern Ontario. Scott is also a member of the Jefferson Salamander Recovery Team and a graduate from the Integrated Resource Management Program at Fleming College. Vernal pools, or ephemeral wetlands, are landform depressions that temporarily fill with water following a heavy rainfall, the snowmelt in the spring, or as a result of a high water table. They vary in size, shape, depth, the timing and duration of flooding, and the types of species that are able to use them. Vernal pools are important because of their contribution to groundwater recharge, flood attenuation, maintenance of water quality, as habitat for species at risk (e.g. Jefferson salamander, Blanding’s turtle, and spotted turtle), and to the preservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity. For more information, please visit the Ontario Vernal Pool Association website at www.ontariovernalpools.org.

Sheryl Santos, Rouge Park

Sheryl has always loved being involved with environmental and community events since she was in grade school, whether it was a litter cleanup or a hike in the forest. She completed an honours degree at York University, specializing in Conservation Ecology. Her main area of interest was in ornithology and she completed research on Wood Thrush in Pennsylvania and Chickadees in Southern Ontario. Sheryl currently works as the Stewardhip Coordinator at Rouge Park which intermingles both her conservation background with her interest in event planning and working with volunteers. Sheryl works on a number of volunteer stewardship projects at Rouge Park such as bird counts, frog watches and invasive species removals as well as the natural heritage projects such as restoration monitoring and vegetation inventories.

Kate Siena, Turtles

Kate is the Volunteer / Outreach Coordinator for Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre in Peterborough, ON, and is completing her B.Sc Honours in Biology at Trent University. She has over 15 years hands-on experience working with over 200 different species of native wildlife at Toronto Wildlife Centre, which included running the largest Wildlife Hotline in North America.

Erin Stevens, Trees

Erin Stevens is the Residential Planting Program Assistant at LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests), an incorporated, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the protection and improvement of the urban forest.  Erin holds an Honours Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto in both Forest Conservation Science and Geography – Environment and Natural Resource Management. She has held various forestry field positions in the Yukon Territory and Toronto where she researched forest ecosystems and helped to restore Toronto’s delicate natural environments.

Laura Timms, Invasive Forest Insects

Laura is an entomologist with interests in the ecology and management of insects, and is currently completing her PhD in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto. During her graduate career she has studied two notorious invasive forest insects - the emerald ash borer and the gypsy moth. Laura's main research interests relate to the impacts of various kinds of disturbance on native insect community diversity and structure. She has also worked on a variety of other projects in entomology, including: describing the within-tree distribution of the emerald ash borer; identifying the habitat requirements for the little glassy wing, a locally rare butterfly in the Rouge Valley; studying the efficacy of biocontrol agents for the lily leaf beetle, an introduced pest of lilies; and assessing the impacts of B.t. corn pollen on monarch butterflies.

Brenda Van Ryswyk, Vernal Pools

Growing up in rural Ontario south of Ottawa gave Brenda a great appreciation and love for nature and the outdoors. Having spent much of her time roaming around outside as a child not a whole lot has changed as she grew except the objects of her study continues to expand or shift. First introduced to the world of vernal pools through exploring the ones in her own back yard she quickly developed an appreciation for these life filled ephemeral pools. Currently residing near Hamilton, an area rich in natural diversity, she works in the field she loves as a Natural Heritage Ecologist for Conservation Halton doing plant and wildlife inventories, Ecological Land Classification and other monitoring work as well as  mapping and documenting this information. A portion of her job is monitoring salamanders in the Conservation Halton watershed and she also inventories the local vernal pools. She spends much of her free time chasing or photographing insects and she occasionally leads others in counts or educational workshops in her area and encourages more people to get involved with the natural world and nature watching.

Event Details

Rouge Valley Eco Exploration Eco Stations Map

2009 Rouge Valley Eco Exploration Sponsors

Main Sponsor:

2010 Rouge Valley Eco Exploration Supporters

Supporters:

Event Itinerary

Rouge Valley Conservation Centre © 1995 – 2010 All rights reserved