Sat, 18 Jan 2014

The Mysterious Wolverine

A rare photo showing a bighorn ram amongst a flock of domestic ewes in Arizona’s Dome Valley. Photo Credit: Bob Henry

Planning to be in Victoria next Wednesday? Join the Habitat Acquisition Trust (HAT) for their annual general meeting, which will include a special presentation by wildlife biologist Eric Lofroth on the wild & wonderful wolverine. Learn more about the lives of these mysterious icons of BC’s wilderness, who have only recently been discovered to inhabit the Great Bear Rainforest.  Eric has been researching this solitary species for many years, including being the lead on an HCTF-funded project examining wolverine distribution, habitat and foraging behavior in the North Cascade Ranges.

 

The Habitat Acquisition Trust is a non-profit land trust in the capital region. They have received multiple HCTF grants for their projects promoting positive land use practices and natural area stewardship.   HAT’s AGM begins at 7pm on Wednesday, January 22nd at the Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary Nature House. Everyone is welcome.

Tue, 7 Jan 2014
Tags: Wildlife

Video: Roosevelt Elk Recovery Project

Roosevelt Elk departs truck as part of Lower Mainland Elk Recovery Project

Today’s Globe and Mail features the following video of the HCTF-funded Coastal Mainland Roosevelt Elk Recovery and Management Project. This highly successful project relocates Roosevelt Elk from areas along the Sunshine Coast Highway to remote watersheds in southwestern British Columbia where the species was historically found.

 

By the 1900s, the number of Roosevelt Elk in BC had been severely reduced, and they were all but eliminated from the southern mainland coast. Since 1997, HCTF has provided approximately $750,000 to fund the translocation (and monitoring) of over 450 elk to 22 different mainland locations. The resulting population from these transfers is estimated to be 1,400 animals.

Map showing South Coast Roosevelt Elk Recovery Status

The restoration of this big game species to its former habitats not only has ecological benefits, established populations resulting from translocations also provide some limited-entry hunting opportunities, which benefit local First Nations, resident and non-resident hunters.

Roosevelt Elk departs truck as part of Lower Mainland Elk Recovery Project

To find out more about the Coastal Mainland Roosevelt Elk Recovery and Management Project, visit the following links:

Up Close with Roosevelt Elk: YouTube Video of Canada in the Rough episode featuring project leader Daryl Reynolds darting and collaring a bull Roosevelt elk to collect information on their habitats (helicopter action starts at 9:32).

Elk Herds Repopulate Sea to Sky: Article in Pique Magazine.

Squamish-area elk population boosted  The Chief news article and video of relocated elk coming off the truck. 

Want to read more about HCTF-funded projects? Visit our project profiles page.

Sat, 21 Dec 2013

Happy Holidays

Season’s greetings from all of us at HCTF. Please note that the office will be closed the week of December 23rd, reopening 8:30am Monday, December 30th. Happy holidays!

Fri, 13 Dec 2013

Christmas Bird Counts Start This Saturday

HCTF_7-410_Vanderhoof_sharp_tailed_grouse.jpg‘Tis the season for the Christmas Bird Count! Find a Christmas Bird Count near you and participate in the longest-running citizen science survey in the world. Started by the Audobon Society on Christmas Day in 1900, this early winter bird census involves thousands of volunteers across the Western Hemisphere counting birds in designated areas over a 24 hour period. The counts are held on specific days between December 14th and January 5th. Anyone can participate (it’s free!) but you must make arrangements in advance with the person designated as circle compiler. You can get the contact details for the circle compiler in your area by visiting the website of HCTF grant recipient Bird Studies Canada.

Thu, 5 Dec 2013

New Journals Page

We’ve added a page to our website featuring some of the HCTF projects that have made their way into peer-reviewed journals. We know there are more out there, so if you are an HCTF proponent who has published the results of their project, please send us a link and we’ll add it to the list.

Looking for more information about Foundation projects? The Ministry of Environment provides free public access to EcoCat, their Ecological Reports Catalogue. You can search for Foundation projects by entering “Habitat Conservation Trust” into the keywords field of the search page, and then selecting the “Search for Exact Phrase” option. Happy hunting!

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Tue, 26 Nov 2013
Tags: Education

Okanagan-Shuswap Schools Use HCTF Funding to Connect Students with the Outdoors

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Thanks to Alice Hucul of the North Okanagan-Shuswap District for sending us the following story about how local schools are planning to use their CEAF and PCAF grants to support hands-on environmental learning.

 

This fall, four schools in the North Okanagan-Shuswap District were successful in earning grants from the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation. M.V. Beattie, South Broadview, Carlin Elementary Middle School and Eagle River Secondary School had their proposals approved for funding. M.V. Beattie’s program received a Public Conservation Assistance Fund (PCAF) grant while the other three received funding from the Conservation Education Assistance Fund (CEAF). The grants are being used by the schools for different activities but have one common theme – all will help expand the classroom to include outdoor learning for students!

North_Okanagan_Shuswap_HCTF_Grant_2.JPGAt M.V. Beattie, the $3,200 PCAF grant is helping change a wet “problem area” on the school grounds into a replica of Shuswap River, and will become a place where students can study wetlands. Retired principal and outdoor activist Kim Fulton (aka Dr. Fish) has been helping M.V. Beattie with this project. He explains wetlands are one of the most threatened, undervalued, and misunderstood ecosystems in B.C. By re-creating a wetland system on the playground, classes will study its evolution, and come to know its beauty and ecological benefits. Hopefully, present and future decision makers will be better equipped to make informed choices for fish and wildlife. Principal Denise Brown says that, in future, a solar powered waterfall will be added into the existing wetland. “The movement of the water is important to the environment and the aesthetic value will be appreciated by our students and the community in general. Often the children spend their break times in the wetland exploring and watching nature.”
A public trail will be constructed to go right past the wetland, allowing the community at large to enjoy and also develop a better understanding and appreciation of the function and beauty of wetlands.

South Broadview Elementary received a $3,500 CEAF grant, which will be used to fund experiential outdoor learning opportunities taking place throughout the school year. Thanks to the grant, the 85 students in Grades 4 & 5 will be travelling to some 25 different sites to enhance their classroom learning. In September, students visited Gorge Creek, where they photo documented the ecosystem and plant and animal interactions, witnessing decomposers in action. They also had to analyze simple food chains and create a presentation. Later in the year, students will visit the Salmon Arm landfill, the sewage treatment plant and the water treatment plant. To learn about the strategies municipalities are implementing to reduce their ecological footprints, students will observe first-hand what is happening to waste and water in their community. The teachers have tied this grant in with the school district’s action research initiative, which gives schools some seed money to do a project which helps develop student engagement in learning. With the addition of the CEAF grant, the school was able to add in some further outdoor learning opportunities including cross country skiing, snowshoeing, biking and a trip to the Kingfisher Interpretive Centre.

Carmen Dawkins’ Grade 4-5 Class at Carlin Elementary Middle School received a $486 CEAF grant which will be used to connect students with local habitats. Dawkins explains her school is starting to explore the local and larger watershed, using the Shuswap Watershed Project as a guide. “We will give students two different field experiences to increase their knowledge of this watershed: one at White Lake, which includes following its outlet to Shuswap Lake, and the other at Adams River, which also flows in to Shuswap Lake but at a different location,” Dawkins says. “First-hand experience under the leadership of knowledgeable adults is a way to build community and further connect our students with local habitats. We will use local professionals who work in the field of biology and individuals who are developing expertise through participation in various local ecology projects or groups. We will travel to two different farm locations to illustrate to students how White Lake flows in to the Shuswap. We will visit the Adams River to expand students’ understanding of how broad the Shuswap Watershed is.”
“Learning about the turtles and the Turtle Study project at White Lake serves to educate students and parents that as a community we can all contribute to the health of our watershed. Having similar field experiences will build community within our student body,” she adds.

Eagle River Secondary in Sicamous received a $1,500 CEAF Grant to offset the transportation costs for various field trip opportunities. Principal Scott Anderson says the grant will allow the school to provide an even richer outdoor experience for students.
“We support a great deal of field trips to support and enhance learning activities in the ‘real world’, but this grant has been critical in increasing the number of trips, the complexity of activities, and the number of students we’re able to accommodate. Without the grant we would not be able to support to nearly this degree.”

“To date we have taken kids to pick vegetables from farms that were then donated to local food banks, participated in shoreline cleanups, science field trips to identify local plants and their traditional First Nations uses, the Encountering Wildlife program at the Kamloops Wildlife Park, local walking trail maintenance and cleanup, GPS mapping/ex-ploring/geocaching of local wilderness areas.”

All those involved would like to thank the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation and anglers, hunters, trappers and guides who contribute to the Trust, for making a significant financial contribution to support these projects.