One for the list
By Geoff Nixon
Last spring, one of Ontario’s rarest bird species was spotted at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. The seldom-seen yellow and black Kirtland’s warbler is protected under the Species at Risk Act and is designated as endangered.
A bridge too high
By Geoff Nixon
Just outside of Verona Ontario, is a small bridge connecting two lakes west of Frontenac Provincial Park. The mitchell creek bridge, connecting birch and desert lakes, was built in 1930, and for 76 years the bridge has remained in its original form, allowing only small, unpowered watercraft to pass beneath it.
Mining exploration put on hold
By Christine Beevis
An Ontario Supreme Court decision may have set an important precedent concerning the empowerment of First Nations communities across the province. In the last issue of ON Nature, we reported that Platinex, one of the companies the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation blocked from mining exploration in the Big Trout Lake area, had sued the KI community for $10 billion and requested a ban on protests expressing the community’s position. KI responded by suing Platinex for $10 billion and requesting a moratorium on exploration within its traditional territory, claiming that Ontario’s Mining Act was unconstitutional for not taking First Nations communities’ concerns into account.
Prairie home champion
By Wendy Francis
“No road through, over or under Ojibway.” these words from transportation minister Donna Cansfield are the first hopeful sign that an Ontario natural treasure may be saved. This spring, Ontario nature learned of a proposal to construct a truck route through part of the Ojibway prairie complex, a 332-hectare site in the city of windsor that contains 45 percent of the remaining natural areas in Essex County.
A (very big) book
By D’Arcy Jenish
Why are Carolinian species such as the red-bellied woodpecker and the northern mockingbird moving north of their traditional breeding grounds? Why are grassland species such as the henslow’s sparrow and the loggerhead shrike still in decline despite ongoing recovery efforts? During fieldwork for the atlas of the breeding birds of Ontario 2001-2005, scheduled to be published in September 2007, researchers have made startling discoveries that answer these and other questions. The new atlas will update and improve on the first atlas, which appeared in 1987 and was based on field work conducted between 1981 and 1985. “we’re very excited,” says project coordinator Mike Cadman, a songbird biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS). “this book has been a long time in the making.”
Budget woes
By Julee Boan
Vacationers may have noticed some changes to their favourite park this summer. While conservation groups were applauding the new Parks Act, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) was slashing Ontario Parks’ budget, leaving the department struggling to make up a 2.4 million-dollar funding shortfall. As a result, an estimated 226 full-time summer jobs and more than 1,100 seasonal and student jobs were eliminated – 19 percent of the usual summer workforce – leaving park managers strapped to provide park services.
Fantastic flights
Shannon Wilmot
This fall, Ontarians had the rare pleasure of witnessing the largest monarch butterfly migration in 10 years.
Monarchs migrate to Canada from Mexico each spring and return to the sunny south each fall. During the autumn migration, monarchs gather in large groups (numbering from a few hundred to several thousand) along the north shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie before crossing these large bodies of water on their way southward. Between the end of August and early October, enormous groups of the butterflies were spotted at Thickson’s Woods, Whitby (several thousand), on the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto (about 5,000) and in locations along the Niagara peninsula.
