Most visitors to Georgian Bay Islands National Park know it from its single largest chunk, Beausoleil Island, and for good reasons: it's where the campsites, cabins and other shelters, hiking and biking trails, and docks for transient boaters are. But the park's holdings extend much farther than that. The park's website has nothing to say …
Feds warned Ontario about planned cormorant hunt
More digging from the CBC has revealed that Canada's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change warned Ontario's Ford government that its proposal to allow a mass slaughter of cormorants under the guise of a hunting season could cause hunters to run afoul of the law. Cormorants routinely congregate with birds protected under migratory convention …
Continue reading "Feds warned Ontario about planned cormorant hunt"
Peaceful Parks Coalition on Ontario’s cormorant hunt plan
Just received an email blast from Peaceful Parks Coalition, providing a link to the CBC story on government scientists' opposition to their own government's proposed cormorant hunt. (see my earlier post). PPC notes that the proposed hunt was supposed to begin today, and says (in part): The season was scheduled to open today March 15 …
Continue reading "Peaceful Parks Coalition on Ontario’s cormorant hunt plan"
Open-water cage aquaculture study gives hope to Great Lakes industry
The results are not a slam-dunk endorsement, but the results of a multi-year study of cage aquaculture in Canada's Experimental Lakes Area suggests the practice may significantly benefit wild lake trout and prey species like minnows. But there were also negatives, as I report in this news item for Cottage Life.
Ontario’s government scientists are upset with their own government’s proposal for a mass cormorant slaughter
CBC has used FOIA filings to winnow out considerable concern among scientists in Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests (MNRF) over the proposed new provincewide hunting season for double-crested cormorants. Those concerns echo the issues I raised in my submission of comments on the proposed measures, after the province posted them on the Environmental …
Fish farming
The results of a multi-year study on the impact of fish farms on freshwater lakes in Freshwater Biology is being greeted as good news for the aquaculture industry, which has long dealt with accusations that its operations in the Great Lakes are not a good thing for the environment. I wrote about the controversy for …
Varley’s “Stormy Weather”
Here’s an image to get everyone in the mood for another summer: Frederick Varley’s Stormy Weather, Georgian Bay (1921). It was painted by the Group of Seven member in the vicinity of Dr. James MacCallum’s cottage on West Wind Island on eastern Georgian Bay. The painting hangs in the National Gallery of Canada.
