Stopping habitat loss is the key to saving our endangered species
Canada has been losing and saving species for a long time. Since European settlement, over 100 species have been lost here. These include plants and animals that are extinctand extirpatedand species that are considered historic (no one has seen them in Canada for a long time).
The number of lost species varies between different regions of the country. In the Great Lakes region of southern Ontario, there are extinct species (passenger pigeon), extirpated species (paddlefish) and historic species (Eskimo curlew). There are also species that have vanished from this landscape but still exist elsewhere in Canada. This includes large carnivores, such as cougar, and plants and smaller wildlife, such as white prairie-clover, spring salamander and Melissa blue butterfly.
The causes of species loss in Canada have varied through time, and include over-hunting, pollution, invasive species, habitat loss and climate change. These mirror the threats to species around the world. Canada has made significant progress in reducing some of these threats, and helping some species to recover.
When I was kid in the late 1970s, I had posters of peregrine falcons and American white pelicans on my wall. Their populations had drastically declined, in part, because of the pesticide DDT. When DDT was mostly phased out by the mid-1970s, populations of these birds recovered. While there are still some chemicals that are impacting species, we now know that by reducing environmental pollution, species can recover.
Of all the threats to species and of all the factors endangering Canada’s wildlife, the challenge to our generation is stopping habitat loss. Canada’s commitment to protect 30 per cent of our land and inland waters by 2030 will help us meet an important conservation milestone, but many of these new protected areas and conservation lands will be in our northlands. This is critical for woodland caribou and wolverines, but many of Canada’s most endangered species live in the southern areas of Canada where most of the land is privately owned. This is also a landscape that is under the most immediate threat. In many regions, we have an opportunity for our generation to protect critical habitats for our most endangered plants and animals.
One of the most important roles of the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and other land trusts is to work with private landowners to protect habitat for species that are at risk of being lost from Canada. NCC now protects habitat for over 225 species that have been assessed as endangered, threatened or special concern by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Over the last few years, with support from the Government of Canada’s Natural Heritage Conservation Program, NCC has documented over 20 new species of endangered wildlife on our properties. One example is:
The Canadian distribution of the globally rare Hine’s emerald dragonfly is restricted to the Minesing Wetlands, just west of Barrie, Ont. In 2017 and 2018, NCC protected two properties where the Hine’s emerald has been recorded. In addition to habitat protection, NCC will also be restoring wetlands on the Patrick W.E. Hodgson Property over the next few years to create additional habitat for this species.
Habitat is the linchpin of wildlife conservation. There are important successes in recovery and discovery we need to share. But most importantly, we need to do more conservation and we need to do it faster. No one else can save Canadian wildlife except Canadians.