International Biodiversity Day in Brockville
Frederick W. Schueler
Due to the failure of an agency to send out the link to the general
press release until a couple of days before the date of the event --
http://pinicola.ca/IBD_press.pdf -- few knew of the International
Biodiversity Day in Brockville (despite a prompt notice in the Recorder
& Times that's reproduced below), and only the reporter who'd written
the notice attended.
"During the Day on Friday" would be a hard time to get People to come
out in any case, even with lead time, so, once we learned how late the
announcement had gone out, we weren't particularly surprised by the lack
of participants.
The theme of the event was Garlic Mustard and Rusty Crayfish, so I put
some nets in the car, and dug up one of the two Garlic Mustard plants
from in front of our hen house (it's because we'd never seen Garlic
Mustard in Brockville that we planned the first part of the event as an
interrogation of local participants along the lines of "Have you ever
seen anything like this?"), and Judy Courteau and I headed south to the
Mac Johnson Wildlife Area, where we found Claire Lefrancois (who had
unlocked the interpretation building for us) lamenting the failure of
anybody to attend (she was committed to a meeting she'd planned before
the idea of the IBD event had come up).
So Judy and I were left on our own to not see any Garlic mustard and to
familiarize ourselves with potions of the the Mac Johnson Wildlife Area
we hadn't visited before, and to do some scouting for the Brockville
Bioblitz --
http://perso.b2b2c.ca/brockvillebioblitz/default.html -- of 5-6 June,
and particularly to see what the Mollusc fauna in the lake was, since
I'd hyped the possibility of finding the endangered Ligumia nasuta
http://pinicola.ca/nasuta.htm -- to the organizing committee.
We worked along the NW shore of the lake, finding it a quite mature
forest with lots of Sugar Maples, a substantial number of Hemlocks, and
a few Butternuts. We turned a little bit of the abundant woody cover,
but didn't find any terrestrial snails or any Salamanders, though we
were inspired to challenge the herpetological team at the coming
bioblitz to find as many Salamanders and native Plilomycus slugs --
http://thenaturejournal.com/aletalog/?p=79 -- as possible.
Beaver, in the always productive performance-art interface of two
Canadian icons, had been cutting Sugar Maples in the woods (Beavers do
shy away from hard work, unless there's no Aspen or Willow on hand),
producing curvaceous multiply-gnawed stumps, and leading us to wonder if
they go after Maples mostly when the sap is running. The lodge off shore
was armoured with freshly debarked long straight sticks of Red & Sugar
Maple and Ash -- some homes boast of hardwood flooring, but this one had
hardwood roofing.
But there were no mussel shells to be seen, and the only Mollusc shells
washed up were a few Helisoma trivolvus and H. campanulatum. I waded 2
100m stretches of shore where the Beavers had opened out the vegetation,
and had the interesting sensation, when I wasn't supported by sunken
logs, of sinking down to flat bedrock under the 80cm or so of water and
muck. It may be that, on this windward shore, mussel shells would sink
out of sight, rather than being cast up on the banks -- and Beavers may
exclude Muskrats' shell-piling predation.
Then off to Lyn (the advantage of our research-based public outings is
that they're still productive of results even if no else one shows up),
where, after a sandwich lunch of roadside weeds, we turned rocks on the
sandy bottom of Golden Creek under the Lyn Valley Road bridge span,
finding that the Crayfish present were exclusively the invasive
Orconectes rusticus, and that all the larger individuals were newly shed
and soft-shelled (above the bridge the water was too deep to sample, and
downstream it was too fast to sample -- planning a Crayfishing event
seems to be one of the most effective magical tricks for enhancing
rainfall). There were also about 13 filleted carcasses of
Pickerel/Walleye/Stizostedion/Sander vitreus which we thought had
perhaps been discarded under the bridge to decrease their visibility to
law-enforcement personnel.
Meanwhile, Nick Gardiner, the reporter who'd written the notice for the
R&T, came by to the bridge, and saw only our one car, but not us, who
were under the bridge. He returned to Brockville, and phoned a "where
might they be" to Aleta who said that we might next be going to the Lyn
Falls on Golden Creek, to see what Unionid mussels and Crayfish were
above these falls.
And so it proved to be. Since part of what I was doing was introducing
Judy to the wonders of Lyn (a very substantial list, as anyone who's
been there can attest), and since Lyn Falls is high on that list, we'd
decided to stop in to see what the Falls were doing, and if we could
find Unionid mussels and native Crayfish above the falls. And we did:
Orconectes virilis and O. propinquus, our two common native Crayfish in
the furcations of the stream above where it plunges over the 6m falls,
and a fair number of Pyganodon grandis shells, and one living individual
to bolster the idea that this was the only Unionid above the falls. We
didn't turn any rocks in the stream at the foot of the falls, so we
don't know if the rusties have reached there yet.
I'd seen salamandery rocks below the falls, and had slid down, turned
one ideal rock that exposed a Two-lined Salamander (Eurycea bislinata;
the first I've found along Golden Creek) and another that exposed a Wood
Frog, and had climbed back up, but Judy, keen on the wonders of Lyn, had
insisted on climbing down and photographing them, so we were at the foot
of the falls when Nick Gardiner arrived, having followed Aleta's
directions, and called out my name above the roar of the falls.
We climbed back up the rockface and then told Nick this and that about
Garlic Mustard, Crayfish, Lyn & Golden Creeks, ourselves, biodiversity,
life, the Universe, and everything, and were photographed with and
without Crayfish, and promised to send him a photo of a not-wilted
Garlic Mustard plant.
Then we went to the Broome-Runciman dam at the outlet from the Mac
Johnson Wildlife Area, where we found Buell's Creek (the outlet) too
high to profitably search, and the shores too grownup to search for
shells, though the shore behind the nearby house (owned by the
Conservation Authority) which had burned overnight and was taped off as
a crime scene, might have been productive of Muskrat piles of shells if
we'd gone over there.
I won't detail our findings on waterfowl, Great Crested Flycatchers, the
oldfield Dandelion (Traxacum plaustre), huge Water Snakes that exemplify
the motto "Road kills," or Aegopodium podagraria, but needless to say,
they were all noted in their place.
If anyone had come out with us, they'd have had a really good time.
We've got to try to do something about publicity: we're too busy to do a
decent job of it ourselves, and this particular attempt to use the
established channels of public agencies wasn't a huge success.
fred.
------------------------------------------------------------
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca
------------------------------------------------------------
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
Contact: Fred Schueler - Phone: 613-258-3107
E-mail: bck...@istar.ca
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
International Biodiversity Day in Brockville
Brockville, Ontario, 8 May 2009: The Bishops Mills Natural History
Centre, Friends of
Mac Johnson Wildlife Area, and the Cataraqui Region Conservation
Authority will mark
International Biodiversity Day (IBD), May 22nd, with an informative and
exploratory event
for all ages. Come out to survey for invasive Garlic Mustard and Rusty
Crayfish around
Brockville and Lyn Creek. We will also be on the lookout for populations
of the
European snail, Cepaea nemoralis.
Join Fred Schueler, at 09h30 am, Friday, 22 May, at the Mac Johnson
Wildlife Area to
learn more about Garlic Mustard, an invasive herb choking out forest
floor species
across southern and eastern Ontario. From there we will carpool up for a
swing around
Brockville looking for Garlic Mustard (10h30-12h00), then supplement our
lunches with
whatever Garlic Mustard has been harvested.
After lunch (13h30), participants will drive to Lyn Valley Conservation
Area to search the
creeks for Rusty Crayfish (14h00-16h30), an aggressive species that is
expanding its
range in Ontario streams and rivers. “It often eliminates habitat for
fish and other native
species, and often grows too large to be eaten by fish that prey on
native crayfish.”
reports Fred Schueler, research curator at the Bishops Mills Natural
History Centre.
The Mac Johnson Wildlife Area is north of the City of Brockville,
Ontario in the township
of Elizabethtown-Kitley. Take Hwy 29 to Debruge Road/Tincap Restaurant.
Turn east
and the MJWA main entrance will be 2 km down on the right. (View Google map)
Throughout the day, by both searching and inquiry, participants will
seek the brilliant
and striped European snail, Cepaea nemoralis, which is widespread in
southern
Ontario, but is sparse in eastern Ontario. The species is known from
Brockville on the
basis of a few shells washed down Buell's Creek. At the Brockville
bioblitz (June 5/6),
anyone who brings living local Cepaea snails to the Mac Johnson Wildlife
Area, will win
a copy of Aleta Karstad's illustrated book of exploration: A Place to
Walk: a
naturalist's journal of the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail."
Friday, May 22nd, one month after “Earth Day,” is designated
“International Biodiversity
Day.” “Biodiversity” represents all the kinds of differences among
living organisms, from
within-population genetic variability, to the grandest branches of the
tree of life. It can be
variously quantified at different levels, but is usually used to mean
“native species, living
in relatively undisturbed habitats.” One of the main threats to native
biodiversity is
human-introduced alien species which invade relatively undisturbed
habitats to attack or
crowd out natives. This year the theme of IBD is Invasive Species, and
the effects they
have on native biota.
Ontario's Biodiversity Education and Awareness Network (BEAN) is
promoting IBD as a
day of local action around invasive species. These actions include the
removal of Garlic
Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) and monitoring the presence of Rusty
Crayfish (Orconectes
rusticus) in Ontario streams and rivers. For photos and more information
on Garlic
Mustard and Rusty Crayfish visit the BEAN website at
http://www.biodiversityeducation.ca/.
The BMNHC is a small independent research institute, run by Fred
Schueler and Aleta
Karstad. Garlic Mustard has been one of their bêtes noire since they
found it
widespread all through Toronto in 1994 during their A Place to Walk
survey, and
they've been fussing about the threat posed by Orconectes rusticus since
they
discovered it in the pages of Crocker & Barr’s Crayfish of Ontario in
1972. Their
http://www.recorder.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1578038
Invasive species sought on Biodiversity Day
Local nature conservation groups are inviting members of the public to
help scour the countryside Friday for signs of three invasive species in
an event to help observe International Biodiversity Day.
The Bishops Mills Natural History Centre, Friends of Mac Johnson
Wildlife Area and Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority are
co-sponsoring the informative and exploratory event for all ages.
Participants will carpool during the day-long event in search of
invasive garlic mustard, rusty crayfish and the European snail around
Brockville and Lyn Creek.
The event begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Mac Johnson Wildlife Area off
Debruge Road when Fred Schueler, research curator for the Bishops Mills
Natural History Centre, will speak about garlic mustard.
This invasive herb is choking out forest floor species across southern
and eastern Ontario, according to a news release about the event.
Visitors will later carpool around the Brockville area from 10:30 to
noon looking for garlic mustard plants, which will be used to supplement
lunch meals.
Participants must supply their own lunch and transportation to the Mac
Johnson area but vehicles for the car-pool will be provided.
At 1:30 p.m., participants will drive to the Lyn Valley Conservation
Area (Lyn Pit) to search the creeks for rusty crayfish from 2 to 4:30 p.m.
The crayfish is an aggressive species expanding its range in Ontario
streams and rivers, said Schueler.
He said the rusty crayfish eliminates habitat for fish and other native
species. It often grows too large to be eaten by fish that prey on
native crayfish.
Throughout the day, participants will also be on the lookout for the
brilliantly coloured striped European snail, now widespread in southern
Ontario but still sparse in the eastern end of the province.
However, a few shells of the European snail have washed down Buell's
Creek in Brockville.
Foreign species remain one of the main threats to native biodiversity
and are the centre of this year's International Biodiversity Day activities.
ni...@recorder.ca
Article ID# 1578038
Frederick W. Schueler
Everyone,
RMB
some nets in the car, and dug up one of the two Garlic Mustard plants
from in front of our hen house (it's because we'd never seen Garlic
Mustard in Brockville that we planned the first part of the event as an
interrogation of local participants along the lines of "Have you ever
seen anything like this?")
Frederick W. Schueler
> I hadn't noticed any garlic mustard out in our neck of the woods (north
> of Perth Road Village) until this springtime. Thursday morning I was
> driving in to town, had Dad with me, and I saw a patch at the side of
> the township road. I slowed, pointed it out to him and commented "if
> you ever see that stuff on our property, rip it out, it's another nasty
> invasive." He told me to stop on the way home so he could have a look
> at it. I did stop, thought he'd grab a plant and hop back into the
> truck, but he was taking too long, so I got out to see what he was
> doing. He was methodically pulling all the plants out by the roots. I
> started to help and then came to a full stop when I saw that poison ivy
> was at the base of the roots.
>
> Well, one patch of garlic mustard gone.
* what's the precise location of this: Garlic Mustard is nice to control
because it's biennial, but it can come back from the seedbank, so if
others knew where it was, they could see if your control was effective.