Tag Archives: Trumpeter Swan

Environment

Restoring Life to Dillon Creek

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Originally published, as part 3 of the Cortes Island Resonance series by the Cortes Community Radio Society.

The algae blooms that began appearing in Hague and Gunflint Lakes in 2014 signaled a looming ecological crisis on Cortes Island. Fueled by excessive nutrient runoff—particularly phosphorus from septic systems, runoff from gardens, farms, and soils and sediments from eroding ditches—these blooms posed a serious threat to water quality and lake life. Recognizing the urgency, the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) launched a lake-monitoring program and, through years of data collection and expert analysis, identified wetland restoration as a key solution. That’s where the Dillon Creek Wetland Restoration Project began.

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Forests

Logging in watershed frustrates Quadra Island residents

Editor’s note: On January 27, 2022, Mosaic unveiled its three year plan to log Cortes Island. Community opinion quickly turned against them after it became apparent that the forestry giant intended to harvest the forest at a rate six times greater than that of the Cortes Forestry General Partnership. Many Cortesians want to see the forest restored to what it was before the advent of industrial scale logging. In the face of a potential large scale community resistance, Mosiac has not commenced logging.

In 2010, the Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island was formed to purchase 600 acres of Mosaic’s land in the James Creek Watershed. Negotiations have been ongoing, and there is hope that the deal will soon be finalized.

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A Quadra Island community is increasingly frustrated by its inability to protect vital watersheds from being clear-cut despite the increasing risks of climate change. 

Many residents in the Copper Bluffs community and elsewhere on the island have been urging Mosaic Forest Management to reconsider logging remnants of mature forests, particularly in stream sheds and wetlands. 

Despite long-standing opposition from residents, Mosaic has harvested six parcels totalling five hectares from tree farm licence 47 (TFL 47), which spans most of the island north of Gowlland Harbour and Hyacinthe Bay. 

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Animals

The 2023 Christmas Bird Count

The Cortes Island Museum has been sponsoring two birding events every year for the past two decades.* 2,873 birds were seen during the 2023 Christmas Bird Count, but this number would have been much higher if there were more participants. 

“We can only go to a certain number of places where we know there will be birds, and that’s mostly along the coastline,” explained Laurel Bohart, a keen birder as well as co-curator of Wild Cortes.

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Cost of Climate Change

Saving the Cowichan Estuary from drowning in a climate-fed ‘coastal squeeze’

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

High atop a dike hemming the Koksilah River as its fresh waters meet salt, red-winged blackbirds call out as they patrol their territory.

Noisy heralds of spring, the blackbirds return to the Cowichan Estuary each year to nest and protest human intrusion with sharp signature trills from the brush along the riverbank.

Today the interloper is Tom Reid, conservation land management program manager with the Nature Trust of British Columbia (NTBC), who stands atop the 15-foot-high rock embankment he is working to destroy.

The dike, built to fortify farmland stolen from the estuary, is stifling the tidal marsh vital to the survival of a host of endangered salmon and bird species that rely on it for breeding, feeding and migration, he said.

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Animals

A very cold but rewarding 2022 Christmas Bird Count

Cortes Island:  The results from this year’s Christmas Bird Count are finally in. As expected, the numbers are down. According to George Sirk, this was because of the weather.

George Sirk: it was really cold and it was the day of the World Cup soccer final. I was at home nice and cozy with Kim, having breakfast and coffee and watching this tremendous finale of the World Cup. I had told Gina Trzesicka at the Cortes Island Museum that I was not going to be available until about 10 o’clock because I had wanted to see this finale

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