Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club takes part in habitat restoration event

May 9, 2024 · 0 Comments

By ZACHARY ROMAN

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Members of a Caledon club helped restore vital habitat last weekend.

On May 4, the Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club’s biodiversity team partnered with Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority (NVCA) staff and Bruce Trail Conservancy (BTC) staff for a habitat restoration project at Whitetail Refuge Nature Reserve in Mono.

Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club president Sandra Green said a better weather day for the project couldn’t have been asked for. There were around 40 volunteers out to restore habitat, and together they planted 450 shrubs and bare root trees.

The trees and shrubs planted last Saturday will create a forested corridor along Mono Centre Creek. Green explained the creek is part of the Nottawasaga River watershed, which flows downstream from the Niagara Escarpment to discharge into Georgian Bay.

Mara McHaffie is a land stewardship coordinator and ecologist with the BTC. She said the BTC was thrilled to partner with the NVCA and Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club for the May 4 event.

“By planting trees and shrubs along Mono Centre Creek, we are enhancing wildlife habitat and mitigating the effects of climate change on this coldwater stream,” said McHaffie. “Ecological stewardship projects such as this are critical to supporting our mission of preserving a ribbon of wilderness, for everyone, forever.”

Shannon Stephens is a healthy waters program coordinator for the NVCA. She said spring is an exciting time of year when long-planned-for projects can finally begin.

“I always think of some of the NVCA’s community habitat restoration days as an odd matchmaking service between the properties that need some help, and the volunteers that can help them,” said Stephens. “Whether it’s planting trees, rehabilitating rivers, creating wetlands or seeding grasslands, without the help of about 2,000 amazing volunteers a year, great landowners and partners like the Bruce Trail Conservancy, and charitable funders, this type of watershed restoration couldn’t happen… together, we make the valley a wonderful place to live in, for more living things than just people.”