RESTORE COOTES

Feel free to join us at 6:30pm - Binkley Crescent at Lakelet.

Reyna Matties (McMaster Biology) took care of visitors to Lot M this week, explaining a brief history of the area, and the current work on the depaved and rehabilitated riparian buffer between McMaster's parking lot "M" and Ancaster Creek. "...around 50 cyclists, a mix of students, professors, and community members, gathered to take part in a bike tour of the city. The bike tour was part of McMaster's Big Ideas Better Cities: Climate Change and Environment week of events. Michael Egan, Associate Professor of History in the Faculty of Humanities, organized and led the event from the Tim Horton's Field in downtown Hamilton through the city to Dundas." http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/article/hamilton-bike-tour-tells-story-of-hamiltons-past-and-future/

Snapping Turtle nesting, photo from DTW With spring just around the corner, turtles will soon be on the move again and Dundas Turtle Watch is looking for some new recruits. Volunteers monitor roads and off road locations and maintain accurate records. Volunteers receive training and are always paired with an experienced Turtle Watcher. Turtle Watchers also collect information about other wildlife killed on the roads. Collecting this information tells us the local hotspots for fatalities so we can improve protection for our wildlife in these areas.  Dundas is home to some species of endangered turtles, snakes and frogs and it is particularly important to record this information for conservation efforts. All data collected by Dundas Turtle Watch will be shared with the Royal Botanical Gardens and Hamilton Conservation Authority and Ontario Nature. In recent years, Turtle Watchers have also been protecting turtle nests.  Nests are covered to protect the eggs from p...

Having visitors from out of province, never mind bright young engaged members of the national Engineers Without Borders (EWB) group, was a real treat and a great way to show-off the changes at McMaster's parking lot "M". No Parking! The 30m buffer displaced car parking to protect Ancaster Creek The EWB crew arrived by city bus at McMaster and were met by Reyna Matties (McMaster biology) and Randy Kay (Restore Cootes/ OPIRG McMaster ). Hamilton is playing host this weekend to an annual national EWB conference, and the tour of Lot M was one of the field trip options. Reyna and I were very happy with the turnout! Reyna (centre) explains the biology of the riparian zone at Ancaster Creek The group had about an hour, so we did a truncated version of our usual tour. It was cold but we ended up spending the entire time outside, resulting in a few cold toes by the end. We walked the length of "Maria's Walk", the last mostly-intact trail from the Ro...

Snapping Turtle. Photo courtesy April Severin  http://www.   aprilseverin.com It's rarely heard, and not by people over 40 years-old, and usually with special equipment underwater, and out of their natural habitat it stops: Turtles do vocalize and we think it's pretty sweet. (see link to article below) But we wonder about the conditions for the turtles of Cootes, swimming in a noisy environment filled with the sounds of traffic. If anyone knows more about turtles communicating, feel free to pipe-up in the comments! LINKS: http://www.newsweek.com/turtles-talk-each-other-parents-call-out-offspring-265613 http://www.seaturtle.org/PDF/FerraraCR_2013_JCompPsychol.pdf

Some tremendously good news - any expansion of protected habitat is welcomed, and this is a fairly significant addition to the Cootes to Escarpment Eco Park. Read the release about the land purchase to create an intact wildlife corridor connecting Cootes Paradise to the Niagara Escarpment here . From the release: The land, in Dundas’ Pleasant View (York and Valley Roads and York and Old Guelph Roads), falls within one of Canada’s biodiversity hotspots.  It is home to more than 1,500 species of plants and animals, including nearly one- quarter of Canada’s wild plants and more than 50 at-risk species.  It provides the last intact ecological connection between Lake Ontario wetlands and the Niagara escarpment.   Later generations may take such protected areas for granted, but it is certainly exciting to see the pieces fall in to place during our lifetime. This is a big project (evidenced by the cooperation from some large institutions) and speaks well of their colle...

Guest blogger: Reyna Matties  Urbanization displaces and degrades ecosystems that are critical for humans, animals, and plants. Sustainable urban development has become a priority in the challenge to re-design our ageing infrastructure. Working to coexist peacefully with the surrounding environment will increase sustainability. As a graduate student of Biology at McMaster University, I am studying the applied ecology and hydrology of a parking lot system (Lot M). Ancaster Creek, a rare cold-water ecosystem, runs along Lot M and is part of an essential wildlife corridor for native species such as salmon, turtle, and deer. Together with Dr. Susan Dudley, I am working to retrofit the stormwater management of the system to minimize the impact of contaminants and runoff into the creek. One method of achieving this goal is through increasing and restoring the land next to the creek. This is called a riparian buffer, which protects the system by providing habitat for animals, incre...