Resolving an OMB, creating snake habitat plus family activities

 Pelee Island continued to require a lot of time and energy on a multitude of issues. One of the main ones, was dealing with an Ontario Municipal Board hearing around the ongoing development and operation of a major limestone quarry, that affected a large area of habitat for endangered species.

This first photo shows what the base of Lighthouse Point Provincial Nature Reserve looked like back in the 1970s and 1980s. This open savanna habitat was almost right across the road from the largest quarry on the island. It also happened to be some of the most significant type of habitat for the endangered Blue Racer, as virtually its entire Canadian range was limited to Pelee Island. It prefers grassy/shrubby habitat, with a few openings where it could soak up the energy from the sun especially early in the season, and that was very important for this cold-blooded reptile.

I described finding probably the most significant location for this species overwintering areas in a previous post, and that location was less than a kilometre from this quarry. So once there was a better understanding of the racer's needed habitat, as well as its normal seasonal range, it was clear that at least the undeveloped part of the quarry was very significant, and so restrictions on its expansion were being put in place. And the quarry owner had the right to appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board, which he did. That began a series of many, many discussions, meetings, on site monitoring, research and negotiations over a period of about 10 years. The board chair kept urging both parties to come up with a solution. So we kept on. 

There were two other significant species at risk to various degrees as well. The Eastern Fox Snake occurs across limited areas of southwestern Ontario, but occupies similar types of habitat.

The Lake Erie Water Snake is limited in Canada, to the islands in the western basin of Lake Erie, occurring mostly along the rocky shorelines, but as part of  the quarry was quite close to the shoreline, it was a factor as well.

 It took awhile, several years in fact, but eventually the right combination of people from both sides managed to make some progress. The end result was that some area of the quarry property was not available for extraction, and not only was the remaining area left for high quality habitat, but also there were several locations where four critical habitat needs were established. In addition, with the assistance of a great organization known as the Nature Conservancy of Canada, a significant amount of additional and adjacent property was obtained and allowed to be developed for habitat along with the critical habitat needs.

The four critical habitat requirements especially for the Blue Racer and the Eastern Fox Snake were:

-underground hibernaculum

-piles of material for egg-laying

-shrub piles for snakes to hide in for periods when they were shedding skin, which they did several times a year and were fairly immobile and therefore more vulnerable

-layers of rocks, known as 'hot rocks', which they could bask on

And so the improvements got underway. Pelee Quarries had the staff, materials and the equipment, and with appropriate direction from species at risk biologists such as myself, some real progress was made. A couple of these first photos show the equipment functioning to gather the materials, and also give an idea of the size and scope of the quarry operation, having been dug down several metres into the limestone bed of the island.

The following photos were not all taken at a single site, but are representative of several of the habitat construction areas, so the background for them will not always look like the same location.

The first step was using a back-hoe, to dig down well below the frost line, and start to add various size rocks.

 

Then one had to insert several long pipes from the surface, down to an open space in the  lower rocks, so the snakes could emerge and roam around the spaces for their over-wintering period.

And then cover the entire area, leaving the openings of the pipes exposed.

 

The hibernacula required by far the most work. The upper surface will gradually be overtaken with vegetation to make them a little more naturally functional. The upside down white V at the left of the mound indicates where the pipe opening is.

 

Next was to create an egg laying pile of material, a rather simple thing to do. Snakes lay their eggs in a pile of material, where the embryo inside the egg can develop for several weeks until they are ready to hatch. Exposure of the material is essential to be able to warm up via the sun, so the embryo can develop. A sizeable amount of wood chips were made available.

 

  

Two items done, two more to go.

 

As there are grape growers on the island, there is a good supply of old grape vines, which were available.

 And last but not least, some layered basking rocks, where the snakes can soak up the sun, and also escape to more sheltered parts of the hot rocks, as needed.

 

  

We made these sets of four habitat features, in fairly close proximity to each other, in about 8 different areas scattered across the Pelee Quarry property, as well as some available municipal property and some newly acquired area. It was quite an operation, but everyone felt it was the right thing to do. The Pelee Quarries owner even had this sign made up and posted along the main roadside. 

When all was completed, the PQ owner had a celebratory dinner for the main participants on both sides of the operation. And the OMB chair declared the issue resolved.

 

A happy (?) Eastern Fox Snake

One other thing was to re-write/upgrade the Endangered Species Act, which was originally done in about 1971 and was in need of improvement. Certainly with all of the focus on endangered species in the OMNR district I was working in, and especially with the issues on Pelee Island, I was most definitely one of the OMNR staff involved with this. Not in the actual re-writing, but as the OMNR person most involved with on-the-field experience.

 

As much time and energy as this required, in addition to several other significant projects going on around my work area which will be featured in a future post, life went on at home fairly normally.

 

Tim had played centre for his high school senior football team, and the team did fairly well. By the first decade of 2000, he gained a lot of interest in rugby, and became an active member of the Chatham-Kent Havoc rugby team. Tim is second from the right.

His position was as a prop, and he is number 16 in this next photo.

 

Marie watching a rugby game

Kristin, on the other hand, played a bit of soccer, and also joined a cross-country running team. At least the one year, the team won the championship.

We even had some time for some traveling. In April, Tim was out on his own, but Marie, Kristin and I had a trip south to explore Shenandoah National Park in the Great Smokies, and also went to the coast of South Carolina.

Redbud tree at Shenandoah

Marie and Kristin looking over a valley at Shenandoah

 

The journey will continue featuring different aspects in the next post.

 

 

The Pelee Island story continues

 Pelee Island was a major part of my career. It was a lot of fun, and also had many challenges associated with it. And there were always photographic opportunities, which I relished. Remember in a previous post, featuring the Fish Point Sandspit?

 Here is what that large triangular pond on the east side of the spit looked like, at sunrise.

 As mentioned previously, Pelee Island is an island with a limestone rock base. On the southeast side of the island, there are glacial grooves visible, that were scoured out during the last ice age!

And most of the shoreline is rocky, with slabs of limestone piled up from the recent wave and ice action.

Being a limestone based island, there are several places where rock quarries had been established. Some, like the one in this next photo, known as the Sheridan Point quarry, have been abandoned decades ago.

It is full of water, naturally, as well as having lots of vegetation around and even in it. And it is a haven for snakes, especially the endangered Lake Erie Water Snake. Here, several of them are taking advantage of a fallen tree trunk, to bask in the sunlight.

 This next photo shows the entrance in the rocks to a snake hibernaculum. 

Pelee Island is popular as a destination for people as well, although it takes some effort to get there. For many years, the main method of accessing the island was by a small ferry called the Pelee Islander, shown next. It traveled from either Leamington or Kingsville, to the island, and also made the trip to Ohio. 

 

 Over the years, it was becoming less adequate, and eventually a much larger ferry became the main one, called the Jimaan, or Little Canoe. It was a slightly smaller version of the Big Canoe, the ferry that travels from Tobermory to Manitoulin Island elsewhere in the Great Lakes system. This first photo shows the Jimaan at rest at the West Dock of Pelee Island, ready to depart first thing in the morning to go to Leamington or Kingsville.

...and here it is en route to Ontario.

 There is a lot of shoreline development, not surprisingly, for summer residents that want a shoreline property. Not all of it is developed, yet, and given that there is lots of rare species habitat along the shoreline, it caused challenges for both the landowner as well as people such as myself, whose task it was to try and protect endangered species habitat. And that certainly was one of the main reasons for so many trips over the years, to evaluate habitat. Some landowners, when they were allowed to build, decided to have a raised cottage, in part to reduce the impact on the habitat, but more often to avoid the problems that could arise if there was significant wave action.

And still others got approval, or more likely got away with doing something like what this next photo shows. Since they just piled a large number of large rocks, it did what it was supposed to, and didn't really destroy the sandy shoreline habitat at the outset. What may have become a problem later on, is that all the rocks may have created some type of habitat for things like the Lake Erie Water Snakes, and the landowners may not have wanted that, but since it was created habitat, there wasn't much that could be done to protect it if the landowners decided to alter it in the future.

 At any rate, a lot of undeveloped, but highly sought after, shoreline looked like this next photo, and it was great for several species at risk. We regularly had to examine the site carefully to assess impacts of human development. 

This next photo created an interesting scenario. The shoreline itself already had limestone boulders to protect the road and inland area from storm damage. However before the house was built, it was a fairly extensive and nice wet woods, and there wasn't a lot of that present on the island. However in our investigation, we couldn't determine the value of this wet woods for species at risk, and so the owner got permission to build.

 

After the house was built, and most of the property was altered with lawn, etc., a work colleague and I stopped in to see the owner. At the end of the on site meeting, I was taken aback when in all sincerity, he asked this question: "what could he do to make the property more natural?" I don't recall exactly what my reply was. How does one reply to such a question???

As mentioned earlier, there were various reasons to go to Pelee Island, and one of them was to lead tours for various sized groups, for birding or just exploring the island. In addition to the two main nature reserves, Lighthouse Point and Fish Point on the northeast and southwest corner of the island, there was the Stone Road Alvar, at the southeast part of the island. It wasn't originally an alvar in the true sense, compared to alvars elsewhere in Ontario. It had been altered in the previous century, and so took on the appearance and function of an alvar.  

There were many, many rare species that occurred in or adjacent to it, including such things:

Miami Mist

This next one is of Oval Ladies'-tresses, an extremely rare orchid that I believe was first discovered for Canada on Pelee Island.

 Here is a photo of Marie, Tim and Kristin in the lower left, along a few members of a group I was giving a tour for, back in 1996. We were on the Jimaan ferry.

 

 The Pelee Island story will continue in a future post.

 

 

If you would like to subscribe to Life Is A Journey, send an email to me at: prairietramper@gmail.com 

A Pause in PAW'S life journey

 One of the main reasons I started Life is a Journey, was due to the things I experienced in the last few years. Those things made such a difference in life, that I could never have planned for. But as I read in a recent devotional, The Word For You Today, there are numerous transitions in life that God brings, and one must be ready to transition. And so life has been a very major transition for me in the last few years, but especially in the last year or so, as Marie was on a significant decline.

Exploring Tulip Tree Trail

I thought that since this blog is about a journey, I should start more or less at the beginning, and go through some of the most significant changes and events, somewhat in order, and I did that for the first few blogs. However there are so many things intertwined throughout much of my career, that for some things, like Pelee Island and Tallgrass Prairie, I chose to discuss them more thematically. I plan to get back to that order of the journey, so the next post will probably continue with more of the Pelee Island story. But in looking through so many photos of our past, as well as seeing so many things around the house and garden that brings back numerous great memories of Marie, it has been a tough process at times. Even shopping together, getting out locally for various reasons, or visiting friends, life isn't the same. And some songs on the radio can trigger intense emotions, such as I Can Only Imagine, or this one, Scars in Heaven. When life with a spouse involves so much daily communication and interaction that makes the relationship so rewarding, being alone makes daily living a lot less inspiring! It results in praying so many things, and this song, called Honest has been quite insightful. I expect that most readers will have prayed like this on occasion!

So the grieving process continues. Some grief specialists have indicated that the grieving process can take as long as one year for every 5 years of marriage. Yikes, Marie and I were married for almost 48 years! I know that any readers who have lost a spouse will likely relate to these thoughts. For those of you who still have a spouse, love them and appreciate them while you can. Even though the end for one is coming eventually, you can't really prepare for it.

What follows are a few of the photos I dug out of the numerous boxes of slides and scanned them to share. This first one is on one of our trips west, to visit my sister Patricia who lived in Nelson B.C. We were hiking a trail on the opposite side of the town, from Pulpit Rock, which looked out over the town. Marie has the orange back pack.

   Coming down from Pulpit Rock.

 

On another hike at Nelson, this time in the upper Selkirk Mountains.

Marie and I enjoyed camping at various provincial parks, and usually chose some that were not that busy, or at least went at a time when they were less busy. This next photo is of Marie looking out over Mazinaw Lake, at Bon Echo Prov Park.

We had university friends living at Pembroke, so we visited them. They were right along the Ottawa River, with gabion baskets to protect the shoreline during high water. But Marie enjoyed the quiet ripples of water flowing downstream at a time of low water level.

Not sure exactly where this next one was taken, but likely on one of our camping trips...

...and on one of our other trips west, we visited the Badlands in South Dakota, where Marie was making friends with a Black-tailed Prairie Dog.

 This next one was at Rondeau, where a Ruffed Grouse came out to meet her.

 

  Exploring the giant redwoods in California...

...enjoying the spectacular arch formations, at Arches National Park.

Hiking along a trail in Zion National Park.

The arrival of kids added a new, and delightful, dimension to our lives. This next photo is of Marie and Tim sitting on the boardwalk of Tulip Tree Trail, enjoying the sunshine and the slough habitat.

On one occasion when I had been away for a few days for a work-related event, I came home to this welcome! Marie was always so thoughtful, and liked to use her creativity as well, and doing it with the kids made it more meaningful.

A few years later, Marie and the kids came with me to Ojibway Prairie Prov Nature Reserve, in Windsor, where I wanted to photograph the incredible display of the provincially endangered Dense Blazing-star. I took a ladder along, to get a slightly elevated view, as these plants are often one to one and a half metres tall. Marie and Kristin got the elevated view as well.

This is what I was photographing, with a wide angle lens to capture the extent of the blazing-stars from the base of the ladder to almost the forest.

  

 Just some of the many memories of a wonderful spouse! I am still amazed that God had Marie for me, and now she is even more beautiful and perfect in God's heavenly realm!