TORONTO STAR (Ontario) 24 May 08 Putting the brakes on wildlife deaths; Driving indigenous species off-road may be key to saving them from extinction (Tess Kalinowski)
Catching frogs and turtles on the banks of the Rouge River or Etobicoke Creek used to be a rite of childhood in the Toronto area.
Now it's rare.
In the Toronto region, where development is pushing out animal habitat, there's one more factor that's proving catastrophic to certain species: road kill.
In some cases, it's pushing them to the brink of extinction.
Led by the Toronto Zoo and the 15-member Ontario Road Ecology Group, scientists and conservationists are now trying to stem the damage and engender the kind of protections the British famously lavish on hedgehogs.
The relatively new science of road ecology, which has taken hold in Europe and western Canada, is gaining ground here.
Ontario is stepping up animal protections along highways with more road signs, deer reflectors and extra-high fencing - measures aimed as much at protecting people as wildlife, according to the experts.
The Ministry of Transportation also says it will build at least one wildlife overpass for mammals across the Highway 69 expansion between Sudbury and Parry Sound. It will be similar to 10 such structures that have been built over the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff National Park.
In Richmond Hill, environmentalists claimed a victory about five years ago by having small culverts built under the Bayview Ave. extension through the Oak Ridges Moraine to protect Jefferson salamanders.
But the zoo's curator of conservation programs, Dave Ireland, says he can count on his fingers the number of animal passages under and over Ontario roads.
"British Columbia has policy that demands planners and designers take into account wildlife. We have no policy specifically for wildlife mitigation in and around roads," he says.
While planners and developers are beginning to talk to conservation officials about road expansions, such as the planned Highway 407 route to Clarington through the moraine and Greenbelt areas, ecologists would like those discussions to take place before roads are mapped in such a way that they separate animals from the wetlands they need to breed and feed.
Frog populations, still healthy elsewhere in the province, have almost disappeared here. Six of eight native turtle species are endangered, five of them victims of traffic.
"The wood turtle has all but been extirpated from the Toronto area, where it was thriving 50 years ago," laments Ireland. "You're 10 times more likely to see the American badger dead than you are alive. It's endangered. An almost explicit cause of its status is roads and vehicular traffic."
Road ecologists say data tracking the impact of vehicles is crucial to persuade planners and policy-makers to account for wildlife in road design.
Turtles, for example, are extremely long-lived, and their offspring have a low survival rate. So, relatively few casualties can have a serious impact on a local population.
"The death of turtles is different from the road deaths of mammals like rabbits, skunks and raccoons," says avid conservationist and Brampton teacher Don Scallen. "The survival strategy of these mammals is to breed at an early age and to offer some measure of parental care to their offspring. They don't wait long to become parents, and then the young they produce have a better chance of survival than young turtles."
Scallen was heading to Long Point on April 17 when he came upon a turtle carcass on Highway 24 near Brantford.
Scallen got out of the car for a closer look. By its yellow throat and high- domed shell, he recognized it as a Blanding's turtle, a protected species that's in serious decline. A search revealed six more casualties.
"It was the first warm day after a cool period," Scallen says. "The suspicion is they were hibernating on one side of the road and they wanted to get to the other side, where they would spend the spring and summer, and then return to the east side in the fall."
Fortunately, he found three living turtles and ferried them across.
"Research has found that more than 93 per cent of adult Blanding's turtles need to survive each year to maintain a stable population. In areas like the turtle crossing on Highway 24, the survival rate is likely much lower," says Scallen. "If they're dying at that rate, that population will plummet very fast. "
Scallen's report to the zoo's Turtle Tally, part of its Adopt-a-Pond program, is the kind of public input ecologists are encouraging.
Last month, the zoo hosted a road ecology conference of about 120 transportation planners, conservationists and scientists - people who seldom end up in the same room. The largest contingent of delegates was from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. It's a hopeful sign, says Ireland.
But some believe the window for gathering data is closing as development and roads gallop ahead to keep pace with the region's growth.
Animals have to be studied before a road separates them from their native wetlands. Then the species needs tracking after a road is built, and wildlife passages need careful study to ensure animals are using them to advantage.
Another window is closing, too, suggests Scallen: "You don't miss what you don't know. It's important to bring knowledge of these creatures to kids as much as possible and inculcate the appreciation of them."
But how do you do that if children can't see the animals?
Putting the brakes on wildlife deaths