Last month we printed a request for information on badgers in Lambton County. Here is more on the subject from 'Wildlife Wise', a publication of the O.M.N.R.

It's a classic story about the importance of habitat. Our native grasslands have become one of the most endangered communities in Ontario and North America. As tallgrass prairie habitat has become rare through urbanization and intensive agriculture, so too have many wildlife species that rely on it.

Doug McGee and his brother Dave, cash crop farmers in Lambton County, are actively involved in tallgrass prairie restoration through the Rural Lambton Stewardship Network. They have planted tallgrass prairie in odd corners of fields, adjacent to woodlot edges, in buffers along watercourses and on portions of bottomlands.

The badger is the mascot for Tallgrass Ontario, an organization dedicated to prairie restoration. The badger is a top predator in the prairie ecosystem. If its population is healthy, then you know the whole ecosystem is healthy. But Ontario's badger population is in trouble - estimated at less than 100.

Badgers, renowned for their digging ability, have been dubbed nature's excavators. Weighing up to 40 pounds, their front legs scoop and back legs paddle the dirt out of their path, as they burrow for groundhogs, rabbits and other rodents. They help keep rodent populations in balance.

Badgers are highly territorial with a large home range, up to 500 square km. You never find them in concentrated numbers. Juveniles are born with the instinct to find new territory, but with suitable habitat so sparse and fragmented, they are forced to disperse considerable distances. Increasing and reconnecting habitat is crucial to restoring badgers to a sustainable position within the fabric of southwestern Ontario's landscape. It's a tall order, but strides are being made in restoration of tall grass prairie.

Over the past five years, McGee and other landowners have planted close to 100 acres of tallgrass prairie, with another 40 acres planned for 2002.

At $2-3000/acre, tallgrass prairie is costly to establish, but technical advice and funding to cover material costs is available through Rural Lambton Stewardship Network, part of Ontario Stewardship. On the plus side, once established, native grasses boast greater drought tolerance and ability to stand up to erratic weather. Tallgrass prairie species are native warm weather grasses that mature later than the introduced cool weather grasses of many existing grasslands. Using appropriate grazing management, tallgrass can provide sustained warm season pasture for cattle. McGee reports that there may be other economic spin-offs, such as native seed production plots and/or provision of hunting opportunities for game species such as bobwhite quail and wild turkey that frequent this type of habitat.

Tallgrass prairie provides good winter cover for wildlife. It also produces more seeds and insects than our cool weather grasses-more insects means more birds; more seeds means more rodents and more badgers. And ultimately, a self-supporting ecosystem typical of what used to be here.

Is a sustainable badger population a realistic objective? It is feasible that the habitat can be restored, but whether enough of it can be restored, soon enough, remains to be seen. Many species at risk depend on tallgrass prairie. Not only badgers stand to benefit from the restoration of this historical ecosystem.

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"It used to be that the only good snake was a dead snake," says Alec Vittie, a farmer living next to the Wainfleet Bog in the southern reaches of the Niagara Peninsula. But that attitude is changing. As people are becoming more aware of the environmental issues and the dependency of all living things, snakes are becoming less the enemy.

Mr. Vittie is co-operating with OMNR Niagara in a Recovery Project aimed at restoring a local population of the threatened Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake. These snakes were once much more common in Wainfleet, but human persecution and habitat destruction over the years has drastically reduced their numbers. Most of us associate rattlesnakes with the Georgian Bay area, where we see them basking on rocks in the sun. Wainfleet Bog, one of the few acidic bogs left in southern Ontario, also offers habitat essential for the Massasauga's survival. Perhaps most critical are the deep peaty soils of the bog, in which the rattlesnake makes it's hibernaculum or overwintering den.

Alec Vittie s farm backs on the 1200 hectare Wainfleet Bog. He remembers when the Massasauga was much more common. "Thirty-five years ago, they would come right up to the barn. We would see them regularly. Thirty years ago we would find them in the grain stooks when we brought them in. Ten years ago we would see them occasionally when making hay, and then we didn't see them at all until about four years ago

My neighbour had a rattlesnake in the doghouse. I got the snake in a pail and let it go near a pond next to the bog on my property." And that was what sparked the start of the Recovery project.

As part of the project, OMNR is using telemetry to track the snakes' movements. In 2001, they outfitted 40 rattlers with a microchip, called a pit tag, each with a unique number. As snakes are captured in the future, biologists will scan them for a tag. Data collected will provide information on longevity, activity and estimates of population size.

Vittie hasn't had to modify his farming practices to coexist with the rattlesnake. He does his plowing in the fall. The snakes have moved back into the bog by then to overwinter. Spring plowing can be disruptive to snakes, as they like to bask in the sun in the fields. And he's always appreciated the role the Massasauga plays in helping keep rodent populations in balance.

Along the edge of the bog, he leaves a grass buffer that he mows just enough to control woody vegetation. This provides cover for resting, hunting, gestation areas and shelter. He tries to mow during non-basking times and sets his mower blade high enough so as not to disturb any snakes that might be there.

There's also a dug pond that provides frogs, another source of food. He used to burn his brushpiles, but now that tracking data have shown the importance of some of these as gestation sites, he leaves the ones that he knows the female snakes are using.

Reprinted from 'Wildlife Wise', a publication of the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association and the OMNR.

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Bruce Peninsula National Park On July 19th, 2002, a controversial road that would have sliced through Bruce Peninsula National Park was successfully halted. After several years of legal wrangling over access to lands adjacent to the Park owned by a logging company, Sierra Legal was pleased to announce that the Nature Conservancy of Canada had purchased these lands for the purpose of permanent conservation. The southern portion of the lands originally slated for logging will now become part of the Bruce Peninsula National Park. The controversy began in 2000 when a logging company proposed to build a road on an old right-of-way through the existing National Park lands in order to access lands it wanted to log. The Chippewas of Nawash, Chippewas of Saugeen First Nations and CPAWS-Wildlands League were concerned about possible unsustainable logging practices on these sensitive lands and the prospect of the road being built through the park. Only hours before the logging access road was to be approved, Sierra Legal halted the road construction by obtaining a last-minute Superior Court injunction on behalf of the three groups. The groups then entered into a settlement agreement with the municipality approved by the Superior Court that stipulated that a provincial environmental assessment must be completed before approving the road's construction. At the same time, Sierra Legal filed a petition with the federal government on behalf of the above named clients as well as the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, CPAWS-National, and the Canadian Nature Federation, requesting a full environmental assessment of the effects of the proposed road and logging plan on the neighbouring national park lands. The federal government later responded favourably to a proposal from CPAWS to sponsor and provide funding for a mediation process to attempt to resolve the issues. The mediation process ultimately resulted in an agreement that the land instead be protected through a sale to the Nature Conservancy of Canada at a price satisfactory to the logging company. To help encourage the settlement, Sierra Legal also agreed to waive its right to collect on a Court costs award against the logging company, which had resulted from the Superior Court proceedings in "We are pleased that this process has resulted in a creative solution satisfactory to the logging company, conservation groups and Parks Canada", said Sierra Legal managing lawyer Jerry DeMarco. "The mediation process resulted in the best possible solution for nature protection."

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