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Cats & Birds: Making Communities Safer for Pets, Wildlife & People

Cats & Birds: Making Communities Safer for Pets, Wildlife & People

Submitted by Bryna Turk Cats and Birds is a project of the non-profit Stewardship Centre for BC that helps make British Columbia a safer place for cats, birds, other wildlife, and people. After habitat loss, outdoor roaming cats are the #1 source of human-related wild bird mortality, killing as many as 350 million wild birds every year in Canada alone. Of these, about one-sixth, or over 58 million bird deaths per year are by owned pet cats who are allowed…

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Cheakamus Lake Backpacking Trip

Cheakamus Lake Backpacking Trip

Trip report by Christine Thuring From Thursday to Saturday (June 16-18), a small group of five backpackers enjoyed the trials and tribulations of early summer in Garibaldi Provincial Park. The wildflowers were quite behind schedule, there were 5 active bears in the area and the snow line was surprisingly low. Still, we had a fantastic time.  Our home base was the Cheakamus Lake Campground (at 850m elevation), where we occupied two sites, separated by a thicket of dogwood and hawthorn….

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Roberts Bank Terminal 2 – Petition To Sign

Roberts Bank Terminal 2 – Petition To Sign

Submitted by Adele Liu, NV Treasurer I have been working with James Casey at Birds Canada and Nature Canada after participating in the ‘Nature on the Hill’ week (Nature Canada led environment lobbying) to draft a paper petition for MP Don Davies to present to the House of Commons and deliver to the government. Now MP Davies has reviewed and approved the document and it’s good to go. You can download the PDF file from the link below: Following MP Davies’ advice,…

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Diez Vistas Loop Trip. (Buntzen Lake)

Diez Vistas Loop Trip. (Buntzen Lake)

Report by Adele Tremblay On May 30 a half-dozen hardy hikers tackled the Diez Vistas, fully expecting a showery day and a longer-than-usual return along the west side of the lake. Amazingly, though, skies were brightening up by 9 a.m., and a passerby informed us that the suspension bridge had reopened, both promising omens for our day. At our first stop near the floating bridge, Elena provided some interesting history about the original Lake Beautiful and development of hydroelectric power…

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Encouraging Tree Swallows & Chickadees

Encouraging Tree Swallows & Chickadees

Submitted by Peter Ward It started in 2008, when I made an extension to my home workshop. Somehow building bird boxes brought together a trait that I inherited from my maternal grandfather, and a passion for bird watching. With a couple of friends, John Toochin and Ken Hall, I started building boxes, using some ideas for size from an old publication by BC Provincial Museum, 1979. We targeted local birds known to nest in man-made boxes. It turned out that…

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New Brighton Park Restoration Project Summation

New Brighton Park Restoration Project Summation

This year Nature Vancouver (NV) became involved in an exciting new conservation project at New Brighton Park in Vancouver’s northeast corner, just near the Iron Workers’ Second Narrows Bridge. In the area just to the west of the off-leash dog area, landfill dug from the Shoreline Habitat Restoration Project was deposited in 2016 and 2017 to create a hillock. Sadly, planted native coastal shrubs did not survive the initial years, leaving the area to be populated by invasive Scotch Broom,…

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Tree Walk in Jericho Park

Tree Walk in Jericho Park

Report & Photos by Helen Baker On April 30, Ryan Regier, a tree enthusiast and UBC librarian, and Laura Cottle, a forester, guided a group of tree-lovers through Jericho Park, an urban forest with a mix of deciduous and conifer trees. With Ryan and Laura’s help, we learned to identify some common trees by examining bark, leaves, needles and cones.  Starting at the east side of the park, we followed a path that runs by the duck pond and into the forest. Ryan…

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New Brighton Park Restoration – May 14 Update

New Brighton Park Restoration – May 14 Update

Submitted by Nigel Peck The Saturday May 14th, New Brighton weed pull was led by Alix Noble and Greg leach. It was a resounding success with fourteen people helping to pull piles of bull thistle from the ‘restoration hillock’. The group began by inspecting the different areas and deciding to focus on thistles and leave the blackberry for the next work party on May 28th.   In coordinator Greg Leach’s words: There was a bit of light rain for 10 minutes,…

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Wildflowers at Whytecliff Park

Wildflowers at Whytecliff Park

Trip Report by Jane Srivastava Sometimes it’s good to slow down and look at what’s at your feet. On April 26, eleven of us enjoyed an easy walk to see many delicate wildflowers and other delights along the chain-link shaped trails on the bluffs in the northwest portion of Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver.  We met in the overflow parking lot. Then, passing red flowering currant in full bloom we followed a path from the far end of the parking lot,…

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Western Painted Turtles – Nesting Sites

Western Painted Turtles – Nesting Sites

Submitted by Caroline Penn  An early morning drop off at the Fulford ferry and return trip past Stowel Lake with the sun breaking through a cover of mist caused me to stop and explore the lakeshore, hoping for a few shots of the lake.  This little corner of the lake draws many swimmers on hot summer days but today with spring temperatures still cool enough for a morning frost I found a different attraction. On the short path to the lake…

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