RESTORE COOTES

I've been invited to join a panel discussion “Stories of the ‘More-than-human’ World” on Thursday, February 2, from 3-5pm at the McMaster Centre for Continuing Education. You can register for the event here: http://bit.ly/MoreThanHumanWorld The sponsor of the panel is the Centre for Community Engaged Narrative Arts ( CCENA ) and this is only their second Long Table Gathering of the Year. So, yes, honored to be invited! I'll be excitedly chatting about Lot M/Coldspring Valley with some cool people, and engaging in an open discussion, so I get to learn while I'm there too! Hope you can make it out, and share your experience too! If you ever want a tour, grab 3 friends and I'll set you up to visit the site! dundastard@gmail.com

CBC Hamilton brings attention to the buried creeks in the city, and talks to some Restore Cootes allies about the work they are doing in Lot M. McMaster Biology's Reyna Matties and Geography and Earth Sciences' Dr. Mike Waddington are featured in the article by CBC Hamilton 's Samantha Craggs. Mike was one of the first professors to really get behind Restore Cootes' project to have McMaster depave the parking lot and look for ways to enhance and protect the health of the adjacent Ancaster Creek. Link to CBC Hamilton article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ghost-rivers-hamilton-1.3922966 Restore Cootes and McMaster Biology leading a history and science tour at Parking Lot M after the de-paving (note, commenters on the CBC article rightly point out the problem with this sentence: "Centuries ago, Hamilton was a blanket of lush green space. Then along came humans, who wanted more space to build." - of course there were already people here who...

Updates from Royal Botanical Gardens, McMaster University, City of Hamilton and others about Cootes and the Dundas Wastewater Treatment Plant. 

Dress for success! We will see ghost trails, pioneer cemeteries, lost ponds, and a whole lot of former parking now turned into a riparian zone beside Ancaster Creek. This event is free. Be ready to go at12:30pm at McMaster University Student centre room 229, Tuesday, November 8/16.

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...