TORONTO STAR (Ontario) 30 October 04 The right questions not asked (Cameron Smith)
In the ongoing struggle about creating a green corridor that will sweep from the Niagara Peninsula across the top of Toronto and Cobourg, in the controversy over the expansion of a quarry on the Niagara Escarpment, and in all the arguing about whether development will lessen the ability of the Oak Ridges Moraine to store groundwater, no one thought to talk with James Bogart about salamanders.
As a sort of town crier for news from nature, salamanders have few equals, and Bogart, a professor of zoology at the University of Guelph, is Ontario's leading authority on the amphibians.
Salamanders have special requirements. They need moist conditions, especially in leaf litter or rotting logs, because for the most part they don't drink water — they absorb it through their skin. They require a healthy forest canopy to keep out direct sunlight, which can dry up their habitat, and a nearby pond or wetland rich in aquatic life where eggs can be laid and larvae (the salamander version of tadpoles) can develop. Water tables have to be sufficiently high to maintain ponds and wetlands. Finally, there should be no pesticide or fertilizer runoff, which salamanders immediately absorb through their skin.
Put these requirements together and you have a vibrant forest ecosystem. (A different species of salamander can live in dry conditions, but that's another story.)
A good example of how salamanders serve as nature's emissaries exists in the expansion of the quarry operated on the Niagara Escarpment by Dufferin Aggregates, a division of St. Lawrence Cement Inc. The quarry can be seen from Highway 401 just west of Milton, where the company has chewed a gap through the escarpment to create a road for its trucks.
The quarry, which will soon cover more than twice the area of the proposed Downsview Park in Toronto, has lowered the water table.
The company promises that, as part of its eventual restoration plan for the worked-out southern portion of the quarry, it will pump water up to the restored surface to create a pond and wetland.
Will that be good enough for salamanders? Bogart is skeptical. He doesn't know the answer because no one has asked him to analyze the issue. If it won't be good enough for salamanders, Dufferin will simply be maintaining its abysmal interruption in the escarpment ecosystem.
As for the green corridor through the Oak Ridges Moraine, the question is: What does green mean? Is it to be habitat for salamanders? Is it to include golf courses that poison salamanders with pesticides? Is it to be green open space with so little forest cover that it will be too dry for salamanders? Will development demands lower the water table too much for them?
Most people, I suspect, have never seen a salamander. Except for their annual trek to a pond for breeding, they're out of sight in damp, hidden places.
Their trek, I'm told, is a sight to behold. They'll come swarming to a pond on a rainy night in March when the temperature is about 3C, and there's still some snow on the ground and ice in the centre of ponds.
Salamanders have no sexual organs, so there's much thrashing about in the ponds as they search for the right mate and, once found, encourage the deposit of sperm and eggs. Then they're gone, back into hiding for another year.
Since they can live more than 30 years and don't travel much, there can be huge numbers in areas of good habitat. So, the more there are, the better — for them and for us.
The right questions not asked