Ontario Nature Blog
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© Lora Denis
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 as at risk by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Yet about 150 designated species at risk are stuck in limbo awaiting listing decisions.
Until they are listed under SARA, species at risk fall outside the law and its safeguards. No recovery plans. No action plans. No management plans. No protection against harm to the species or its habitat.
In our view, these delays are unlawful.
Here are some of the Ontario species waiting for the federal government to meet its legal obligations.
Once widespread across Canada, COSEWIC designated this bee as endangered in May 2014.
This forest-dwelling bird has shown significant long-term population declines and COSEWIC designated it as threatened in November, 2012.
This beloved bird is one of many aerial insectivores experiencing alarming population declines. COSEWIC designed it as threatened in May 2011.
COSEWIC designated this fish as special concern in 2006 and reassessed it as threatened in May 2012.
Several populations of this fish are at risk in Ontario and other provinces. COSEWIC designated the Great Lakes – Upper St. Lawrence population as threatened, and the Winnipeg River and English River populations as endangered in November 2006.
One of several freshwater mussels at risk in Ontario, the hickorynut was designated as endangered by COSEWIC in 2003.
Wolf Lake © Ryan Mariotti