This installment of Nearby Nature Project includes a lengthy news feed, a book recommendation, updates on my wildlife-friendly garden (spoiler – it’s struggling due to heat / watering restrictions) and a call to action re: Canada’s grizzly bears.
News Feed
Calgary’s Ongoing Water Emergency
Last installment of Nearby Nature Project, I wondered how long our water re-using practices would endure. For example, having a bucket under the kitchen sink tap, to catch water used to wash fruits, vegetables and hands. I still don’t know the definitive answer. But I can report they are still in effect. And they will continue through September.
How do I know? A few days ago, our Mayor announced that effective August 26, Calgary is returning to a total ban on outdoor watering and a voluntary indoor water reduction of at least 25%. Why? Because the City has detected so many more “wire snaps” along the Bearspaw feeder main, they’re shutting it down for approx. 4 weeks for a program of proactive reinforcement. The plan is to prevent a catastrophic break over the coming winter.
As for future years? Options include lining the existing line with a plastic sleeve or even a full replacement line. Time and engineers will tell us. Meanwhile, my appreciation for ready access to safe drinking water continues to deepen.
Canada’s Parks Day
Canada’s Parks Day was the third Sunday of July. The annual event promotes fun, educational, family-oriented events in parks across the country. Many activities highlight the important role that parks play in maintaining healthy and resilient ecosystems, protecting critical habitat for species-at-risk and contributing to human health and well-being.
The concept of Parks Day is an interesting backdrop to a recent CBC news article: Can urban parks protect biodiversity as they welcome more visitors? It’s a good question, particularly in light of Parks Canada’s commitment to develop 15 new national urban parks by 2030 (part of Canada’s biodiversity strategy).
My hopeful answer is YES. But park developers will have to use fences to supplement educational signage to have the best chance of promoting healthy and resilient ecosystems, especially those that are home to species-at-risk. I have lost faith in humans voluntarily complying with “keep out to protect nature” signs.
World Nature Conservation Day
World Conservation Day is July 28th each year. It’s dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of preserving and protecting our natural resources and ecosystems. And it serves as a reminder of the critical role each of us plays in safeguarding the environment for future generations to come.
I admit that in the throes of yet another post-travel illness, I failed to take any specific actions for Nature on World Conservation Day 2024. But I can bring this recent article to your attention. In The Conversation, authors Robert Davis, Bill Bateman and Claire Greenwell delve into the positives and negatives of posting/liking/sharing nature posts on social media.
They make a strong case for ensuring that any social media posts about rare flora or fauna do NOT contain location information. And they list examples of accidental and deliberate behaviors (drones, baiting, bird calling, trampling) that can harm or damage vulnerable species. Here’s one example from the article:
“In 2010, a new species of slipper orchid (Paphiopedilum canhii) was discovered in Vietnam. Photos with location information were posted online. Just six months after discovery, more than 99% of all known individuals had been collected. The orchid is now extinct in the wild.”
For anyone who posts Nature photos on social media, there’s plenty of food for thought (and behavior change) in this one.
Wild Hope
If you’re like me, the climate change doomsday scenarios in your feeds can sometimes be overwhelming. I haven’t yet watched all episodesl, but this free, stream-on-demand series highlights small victories on the biodiversity front. An episode or two might be just the counterpoint you need on a tough day. 🙂
The Importance of Nature Connection for Business
The World Economic Forum reports biodiversity loss is now one of the top global risks reported by business leaders (over a ten year risk horizon). More than half of the world’s GDP (US$44 trillion) is moderately or highly dependent on nature or its services.
It’s clear to me that there are both challenges and opportunities ahead – for employers, employees and consumers – as humankind figures out how to shift making, selling and buying to a sustainable model. This post on the Finding Nature blog provides a deeper dive into some of the risks and potential rewards.
Cultivating My Nature Connection
Thanks to my friend, Janet of Tweed, for recommending The Lost Spells. I’ve read and re-read this smallish book of beautifully illustrated poem/songs/spells and envision returning to its pages on a regular basis.
While UK-centric, many of the animals, insects and plants have cousins across the Atlantic, here in Canada. Some are very similar, such as red foxes. Others look quite different, including some of the moths, jays and goldfinches. Some have no direct counterpart, such as the jackdaw. But even though I was unfamiliar with jackdaws, reading the poem made it clear to me that they are members of the corvid family. And the sounds and behaviors have much in common with American crows and common ravens.
Meant to be read aloud, the poems/songs/spells weave among trees, dive into the sea and take flight across the sky. There are beautiful descriptions of red foxes, snow hares and other four-legged creatures. Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris convey just what will be lost if we fail to protect these unique manifestations of Nature.
I borrowed a copy of The Lost Spells from my local library, but I will definitely add it to my personal library. I’ve put a copy of its “big brother” book, The Lost Words, the first collaboration by Macfarlane and Morris, on hold at my local library. The Lost Words was provoked by the removal of The Oxford Children’s Dictionary. Since its publication in October 2017, The Lost Words has been widely acclaimed, won numerous prizes and inspired many creative thinkers, including musicians.
I encourage you to borrow either of these titles from your nearest library. 🙂
My Nearby Nature Projects
Birding
Overall, we’ve found birding while kayaking Vermilion Lakes to be a less prolific than past summers. But we certainly enjoyed bird watching from sea kayaks in Greenland!
Other Wildlife
We didn’t see a lot of wildlife in Greenland, but we were fortunate to spot several different kinds of whales: humpbacks, fin, sperm and minke. Here’s one of my favourite photos, which shows the setting quite effectively:
Wildflower Appreciation
Our Canadian Rocky Mountain parks and the Bow Valley have just passed peak wildflower season, but there are still pockets of blooms around. And some blossoms are turning into berries. I spent one afternoon in our yard pruning back wild rose shrubs weighed down with a bumper crop of rosehips.
Wildflower highlights for me this go around = flowers we spotted in Greenland! Some are close cousins of wildflowers here, but others were unique to the world’s largest island!
Nature-Friendly Gardening
With outdoor watering restrictions in place since early June, it’s clear that some of our trees and shrubs are under varying degrees of stress. Fortunately, water restrictions eased in the back half of July, so I’ve been deep watering our trees and making judicious use of our 2 hrs/week of sprinkler time.
However, I’m sad to report that our cotoneaster hedge is infested with aphids, busily farmed by ants. What’s a nature-friendly gardener to do in this situation? Enlist the help of ladybugs! A few evenings ago, I released 1000 ladybugs into the yard, along the base of the hedge. The next morning, there were still a few hanging about on the ground. Two days later, I spotted a half-dozen in our vegetable garden. I have my fingers crossed that enough are hanging about they will ease the aphid infestation as summer progresses.
As for the vegetable garden, it’s hard to have much of a harvest without regular water. Mother Nature has provided intermittent rain. But my carrots are still so small they barely warrant thinning. There are two surprising successes however: 1) our raspberry harvest is the largest in years (although the berries are tiny and take FOREVER to pick); and 2) kale (which has benefited from our household water re-use program), although it’s more bitter than past years with more generous irrigation.
Call to Action
Background
You may have seen this news: on June 8, 2024, Nakoda, a rare white grizzly bear, died due to injuries sustained in a vehicle collision on the Trans-Canada Highway in Yoho National Park. Just hours previously, Nakoda’s two young cubs were struck and killed on the same stretch of highway. One day later, a male grizzly was killed in similar circumstances.
My Thoughts
These incidents underscores the need for further mitigation measures to protect grizzly bears and other wildlife in our Canadian mountain parks. The need becomes even more urgent in light of the Alberta government’s recent changes to the Wildlife Regulation Act. A Ministerial order from the Minister of Forest and Parks – an order made without input or support from wildlife biologists, relevant scientific data, public consultation, or proper legislative review – that effectively reintroduces a grizzly hunt in Alberta.
Grizzly bears have status as a “Threatened” species in Alberta, ranked as S3? (Vulnerable Uncertain) in British Columbia and are of ‘Special Concern’ under federal legislation. We can and should do better by these apex predators. In addition to biodiversity considerations and human-wildlife coexistence aspirations, grizzly bears are one of the wildlife species that attract tourists to this part of the world. If grizzly bears disappear from the landscape, so will a portion of the tourism dollars that contribute approximately $10 billion towards Alberta’s GDP and nearly 90,000 jobs (full-time equivalent) to Alberta employment rolls.
How You Can Help
There are two letter-writing / petition campaigns underway. One calls for a rollback of the change to Alberta’s Wildlife Regulation Act. The other calls on the federal government to make improvements to the Trans-Canada highway to reduce vehicle-related grizzly mortality.
If the facts above don’t motivate you to join one or both of these campaigns, perhaps this CBC Gems documentary on the mixed success of re-wilding orphaned grizzly cubs will. It’s free to watch, but you do need to set up a CBC Gems account to stream.