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Presentations seek council support for national park at County’s South Shore

Prince Edward County’s south shore from Point Petre to Point Traverse, including the entire Long Point peninsula, is an internationally recognized Important Bird Area (IBA).

Prince Edward  County Council will receive two presentations at this afternoon’s Committee of the Whole meeting that address protection of the County’s South Shore as a national park and national marine conservation area.
Former South Marysburgh councillor Monica Alyea will open the topic with a presentation on the South Shore, its importance, history and uses.
Karen Hatchard, representing the Point to Point PEC Foundation, will present a letter from its president Richard Copple noting the importance of council’s support.
“We have been working with federal and provincial contacts to get the five ministers involved as well as the prime minister’s office to make this proposal a reality,” his letter states. “We need a resolution of support as soon as possible from PEC council in order to give MP Daryl Kramp and the community your commitment to successfully advance our proposal to the prime Minister’s Office, the Cabinet and the conservative caucus. The people who can make this project into a reality are currently listening and ready to assist with the next stage.”

Hatchard also gave council a presentation of The Value of Natural Capital in Settled Areas of Canada by Ducks Unlimited and Nature Conservancy Canada and a handout noting UNESCO’s global biosphere designation program also a possibility for the South Shore and islands area as it reflects many of the criteria. She also presented a column written by Prince Edward County naturalist Terry Sprague, who remains affiliated with Quinte Conservation.
(full column at http://naturestuff.net/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1307&temid=43)

Sprague notes the South Shore’s designation as a globally significant Important Bird Area and nationally significant under the threatened species category. He concludes “If development – any development – is permitted to take place anywhere along the South Shore Important Bird Area, then the IBA has failed in its purported purpose, and we have failed miserably by allowing it to happen.
“Beyond the wildlife who call this area home, the entire peninsula has a history, albeit sometimes sinister and a bit mysterious. The entire largely undeveloped south shore lies within the infamous Marysburgh Vortex, a place of anomalous activity where missing ships and aircraft have fuelled theories of paranormal explanations. And when the sun sets over the flatlands, the area becomes every bit as dark as Nirvana, a boon for astronomers.”
“You don’t really have to be a qualified biologist to fully appreciate the importance of Prince Edward County’s south shore – from Point Petre to Prince Edward Point; just someone who understands the importance of biodiversity and how all living things, us included, are intricately linked. Proponents have been relentlessly tousting its virtues as a critical staging area for migrating birds for at least half a century. However, through no particular fault of their own, they have overlooked a much larger picture. It is more than just a place where hundreds of thousands of birds land in the spring, exhausted and hungry, after crossing Lake Ontario. It is a breeding ground for several turtle species, including the Blanding’s, a designated Species at Risk. It is where foxes roam, coyotes prowl, Monarch butterflies await suitable weather for a lake crossing, hawks stage, dragonflies hunt and other insects multiply – the same insects upon which the migratory and resident birds feed, in those very stunted shrubs and trees that give the peninsula its character. It is a complex biome, a delicate ecosystem that has been purring along, more or less undisturbed since 1938 when the property was used as an artillery range, the area continuing in that role with the formation of Royal Canadian School of Artillery.

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