[All] Destruction of wetland & habitat for endangered animal

Sun Jul 2 23:00:58 EDT 2017

FYI

----- Forwarded Message -----
 From: Lanteigne <water.lulu at yahoo.ca>
 To: Brian Bourke <brian.bourke at waterloo.ca>; "bob.mavin at waterloo.ca" <bob.mavin at waterloo.ca>; Angela Vieth <angela.vieth at waterloo.ca>; Diane Freeman <diane.freeman at waterloo.ca>; Jeff Henry <jeff.henry at waterloo.ca>; Mark Whaley <mark.whaley at waterloo.ca>; Melissa Durrell <melissa.durrell at waterloo.ca>; Ken Cornelisse <ken.cornelisse at mnr.gov.on.ca>; "grca at grandriver.ca" <grca at grandriver.ca>; MIN Feedback (MNR) <minister.mnr at ontario.ca>; Chris Gosselin <cgosselin at regionofwaterloo.ca>; Minister MOECC (MOECC) <minister.moecc at ontario.ca> 
 Sent: Sunday, July 2, 2017 10:16 PM
 Subject: Destruction of wetland & habitat for endangered animal

Hello everyone
Construction is currently taking place at 500 Erbsville Road which is a habitat for Snapping Turtles. I know because I just spent the last 2.5 hours with the one that came from that marshland. 
The pond is currently being augmented by ongoing construction activity to place a telephone poll and the marshland was augmented by heavy machinery that removed plants and areas of the wetland. There was no sediment fence placed at all to protect the animals or the water. I witnessed this construction happening last week on Wed, Thurs. and Friday.  I photographed the construction vehicle involved as seen in the attachments. It was at the sight today. 
Today at approx. 5pm, June 2, 2017  I was on my way to Food Basics from my subdivision of Columbia Forest. I saw cars lined up and at the head was a man trying to get a turtle safely across the street. I suspect the turtle is likely female looking for a place to lay her eggs.  Having had some experience handling turtles, (I've helped rescue a few with Turtle Haven in the past) I went out to assist him. The man was scared to handle the animal so I lifted her up with the lower quarters of her body and carried her safely to the west side of the street where she was heading. Because I am a long time volunteer with Ontario Turtle Tally for many years, I wanted to understand more about why she wanted to cross the street so I observed, filmed and photographed her at a distance. 
The first thing the turtle did was go into the standing water of a ditch. She had been bone dry when she crossed the street so she used this fresh standing water to bask in for a bit.  Then she proceeded to try and cross the fence of the property located at 515 Erbsville Road. She spent 2 hours trying to find a way through and often attempted repeatedly to climb the fence raising her entire body off the ground, only to end up falling on the plants beneath. I captured the behavior on video.  Then I noticed that the whole side of the Eastern portion of the wetland she came from was fenced off by the property of 500 Erbsville Road. The only accessible roaming habitat she was this ditch area located across the street on the west of Erbsville road between the road and the fence. On the other side of this fence was  lush grasses which would have made great hunting grounds and there was a wetland area on the property of 515 Erbsville Road for many years until the city willfully drained it. Residents along Butternut Ave. had frogs and salamanders escaping onto their property when the pond was dug up. The first pipe they installed sank so they had to reinstall it. 

I have a report that references the draining of this pond in the attachments for your reference starting on page 25 of the power point.  The area of the pond in front of 500 Erbsville Road and the property of 515 Erbsville Road are sitting on primary recharge for our municipal well systems. 
This turtle I observed was approx. 1 foot wide, and 30-35 inches from top of the shell to base. It is likely older than my subdivision and I remember the 515 Erbsville Road property before the fence so this animal likely had no barrier between the two habitats for years. 
As she tried to get through the fence I had to tell cyclists, pedestrians and dog owners to avoid the animal. A cyclist ignored me and almost hit her. 
Snapping Turtles are protected by the Species At Risk Act and the Ontario Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. They are at serious risk of extinction. The fact there was no habitat allocated for this animal to roam is not reasonable. The widening of this road will clearly post a risk for this animal. How will the city address this? 
To allow work to be done on primary recharge and wetland habitat without any sediment fence is a violation of law which is why I filed a formal compliant with the MNR's tip line.  The primary recharge at this location gathers our water supply and if road salt enters the marsh we're basically risking future well closures. It would be very wise to place a physical barrier at this point to protect the long term water quality but it must also include a method to allow the turtles to survive too in order to protect biodiversity. 

At this point a simple wildlife passage by way of a tunnel or simple hole in the fence would go a long way to helping this animal and it's young survive. 
In the attachments are the photos I took of the day to illustrate what I witnessed. 
Here are links to the videos I took of this animal: 
This first video shows the damage to the wetlands and the construction vehicle involved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI74TC4Dn3Q
This second video shows how the turtle's pond was surrounded by fences with no area allocated to roam safely or to nest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY5ZVnMxVe0
The third video shows how the turtle kept climbing the fence.and falling repeatedly and it moved me to tears because she simply didn't give up. She just kept trying and it was heart breaking because there was no safe passage for her.  As an Indigenous woman, it was hard to bare witness to such cruelty by design. The reason we hold such animals as being sacred is because they protect what must be protected, the water supply and sacred plants that we use to fight cancers and other diseases. I saw them beyond that fence. My grandmother was a Mi'kmaq Acadian healer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gezz72OtoxE

After two and a half hours I had to go but I felt it was important to show the risks of this activity for our water supply and for these endangered species. This is destruction was in my view, by design and it not reasonable or acceptable. Please see what you can do to help that turtle find safe passage through that fence or find a way for kind to co-exist because she protects your water. If her kind dies you will lose your water with the same ignorant disregard you killed her kind with. 
Plan with care. 
Wela'lin
Louisette Lanteigne700 Star Flower Ave.Waterloo Ont.N2V 2L2  

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