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© Lora Denis
Pickerel weed in wetland © Rusty Clark CC BY 2.0
Since I began volunteering for Ontario Nature last year, I have learned a lot about Ontario’s species at risk. Recently, I discovered that more than 20 percent rely on wetlands for survival. Habitat loss is the key driver of species decline, and wetlands have been hammered by development over the last century. In fact, southern Ontario has ...
Summer evenings used to be filled with the acrobatic flitting of bats chasing their next insect meal. Unfortunately, bats have vacated the night sky over much of eastern North America due to an invasive fungal disease that is decimating populations.
Barn swallow © GrrlScientist CC BY 2.0
When governments pass laws that set out explicit requirements and timelines for action to be taken, you would expect that they’d be prepared to obey the law. Not so with Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA). Under SARA, the federal government must decide whether to list a species within nine months of receiving its designation ...
There are 1,000s of wild pollinators in Ontario. Bees and flies are most significant, but butterflies, beetles, wasps, ants, moths and hummingbirds also pollinate plants. It is important to keep this in mind when reading about pollinator decline, which has been a hot news topic for many years.
We received deeply disappointing news on May 28, 2015 that has galvanized us in the continued fight to protect Ontario’s wild species. Ontario’s Divisional Court upheld a provincial regulation that exempts major industries from the protection of the Endangered Species Act and allows them to kill species at-risk and destroy their habitat.
Paswe Protected Area © Carter Dorscht