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Adventure Traveler Garry Sowerby in his own words:
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Kirkfield and Peterborough, Ontario
Environmental Initiative #37
Carden Alvar, Important Bird Area, Kirkfield, Ontario
Lou Probst and his wife Judith were kind enough
to give up their Saturday morning and tell us a bit about their
efforts to protect Carden Plain, a favourite haunt of birders
and botanists right in the Probsts’ backyard. The Plain,
because of its natural features, has been designated an Important
Bird Area (IBA).
The effort is admirable when you consider what
the Probsts and others who want to protect the Plain are up against.
The land in question was formed by the departing Wisconsian Glacier
about 11,000 years ago. The top soil is thin and allows easy
access to the limestone underneath. It’s prime quarry land
for limestone gravel. And quarry companies want the land badly.
But the Carden Plain is a globally significant
birding area. It has been given the international designation
of IBA – Important
Bird Area – a rare alvar habitat that supports an abundance
of grassland birds, including the endangered Loggerhead Shrike
and the rare Golden-wing Warbler.
It’s not just about the birds, either.
The vegetation is unique as well. Indian Paint Brush, Prairie
Smoke, Tufted Hairgrass and Northern Dropseed are some of the
typical alvar plants that grow in this beautiful, mostly flat
expanse of land.
One of the endangered Loggerhead Shrike’s
jobs here on the Carden Plain is to consume large numbers of
grasshoppers, field mice, and meadow voles, all major pests of
agricultural crops.
Loggerhead Shrikes are cute little, ‘masked’ birds
about the size of a robin. Cuteness aside, they hunt like hawks,
impaling their prey on thorns before settling in for dinner.
Of the only 26 pairs of Loggerhead Shrikes
that nested in Canada this year, 14 of those pairs made the Carden
Plain their home. They need a lot of real estate when they are
nesting – 100
acres per pair to stretch out in.
These interesting birds are rapidly disappearing throughout the
world increasing the importance of protecting the Carden Plain,
one of the top 200 important bird areas in the world.
The website (http://www.cardenplainimportantbirdarea.com/threats.htm)
details some of the threats to the preservation of the Plain, including
limestone quarries and the disruption they cause both ecologically
and behaviourly for the bird inhabitants.
Lou and Judith’s work to save the Carden
Plain is under the auspices of the Nature Conservancy of Canada
(NCC).
The NCC is “… Canada's only national
charity dedicated to preserving ecologically significant areas
through outright purchase, donations and conservation easements.
Since 1962 NCC has secured a long-term future for more than 1,200
properties, comprising 1.73 million acres of magnificent woodlands
and seashores, internationally significant wetlands, threatened
prairies, and a host of other precious natural places.”
In the case of the Carden Plain, the NCC and landowners for the
cause are trying to raise money to buy the ranches from farmers
on the verge of retiring and wanting to sell their land. To match
the kind of money that the aggregate operations offer is difficult
to say the least.
Lou and Judith have willed their land to the Nature Conservancy.
This is one way to ensure that the Carden Plain is, and remains,
for the birds.
Mission Green salutes the efforts of the Nature Conservancy of
Canada and the Probsts for their forward-thinking and concrete
plans for preserving and protecting the important Carden Alvar
for the future of the planet.
http://www.cardenplainimportantbirdarea.com/welcomeh.htm
http://www.natureconservancy.ca/files/frame.asp?lang=e_®ion=1&sec=welcome
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Environmental Initiative #38
Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre, Peterborough, Ontario
The Mission Green team made some great friends
today. Oh sure, we’ve made many along the way as we’ve
travelled across the country searching for special people and
places that are working to protect and preserve the earth and
its species but today was exceptional.
Our new friends had curious little dark eyes peering up from their
pointy heads that were fully extended outside of their shells to
get a good look at us. Yes, our new friends were turtles and it
was difficult not to get carried away with their cuteness since
the one greeting us now had just hatched about ten minutes before
we arrived at the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre at the Zoo here
in Peterborough.
Our hosts, taller friends with no carapace strapped to them, were
Jack Sisson, Curator of the Zoo and his wife Debbie, Kristy Hiltz,
Veterinarian and the founder of the Trauma Centre and Husbandry
Expert, Brian Short. Also on hand for our visit were Centre volunteers
Cathy Dixon, Sue Cowin, Toby Wells and Stewart Stick.
“This is my favourite stop so far!” Peter
Schlay, newest member of the Mission Green team, stated emphatically.
Personally I could have stayed there a lot longer, too.
We were feeling so welcome because of our human
hosts of course, but the one-year-old Wood Turtles scampering
over to me, vying for my attention, didn’t dispel the warm
feeling for sure.
The Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre sounds like a place of distress
but we found it to be just the opposite. It is a happy hospital
where constructive help is being given to injured turtles where
before there was none.
There are all kinds of different turtles that are brought in by
kind souls who find distressed turtles usually hit by vehicles
and left on the side of the road. Most are native Peterborough
County turtles but they come from as far away as Midland, Owen
Sound and Hamilton. Right now there is a New Brunswicker here as
well.
The Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre has inspiring
beginnings. A few years ago, Kristy Hiltz's young children and
their friends at school started talking about turtles getting
hurt on a highway near Millbrook, close to Peterborough . One
pre-school student painted a ‘turtle crossing’ sign
to warn drivers. However, less than 24 hours later, the sign
had been vandalized. Kristy told us that this prompted the kids
to take action. They subsequently raised $5,000 for new signs!
Unfortunately, the turtles kept getting hurt.
A veterinarian at the Peterborough Pet Hospital , Kristy felt
compelled to act. She decided to open the Turtle Trauma Centre
to treat injured turtles from across Peterborough County .
The Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre provides medical, surgical
and rehabilitative care to injured native turtles in order to eventually
release them back into their natural habitat.
There are ‘mini’ IVs and tiny operating
surfaces. Injuries range from broken legs to cracked shells to
broken jaws which occur when a snapping turtle instintively retracts
its head when suffering a trauma.
So why all the tumult about turtles?
The preservation of turtles preserves earth’s biodiversity
and history… and we’re talking old, old history here.
Turtles are “… creatures who are entitled to regard
the brontosaur and mastodon as brief zoological fads” ( Gilbert
B 1993 The reptile that stakes its survival on snap decisions.
Smithonian 24:93-99 ).
And if snapping turtles seem a bit cranky,
well, that may be because they are reptiles that “…shared the earth
with the dinosaurs for a time and are now obliged to share it with
the human species, [and they] might well report that the former
companions were far less stressful.” (Carroll DM 1996 The
Year of the Turtle: A natural history. St. Martin ’s
Griffin , New York ).
Nesting females use their long-term memory to find the same nesting
site year after year, and will take the same route regardless of
what dangers await them.
The Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre makes sure to return healed
turtles back to the exact location where they came from.
Mission Green made some friends in Peterborough today, both with
shells and without.
Here’s to the Kids in Millbrook that
had the passion to protect the turtles and to all the volunteers
who give so freely to the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre.
http://www.kawarthaturtle.org/
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