One human's trash is an endangered snake's treasure
Gray ratsnake (Photo by Jessica Ferguson)
I spent my summer radio-tracking a female gray ratsnake and assessing habitat characteristics in Norfolk County, for Natural Resource Solutions Inc. (NRSI), an ecological consulting company based in Waterloo, Ontario, and Ontario Nature, a...
Tracking eastern loggerhead shrikes
Eastern loggerhead shrike (Photo by Dave Menke, courtesy of USFWS)
Driving past the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) Napanee Plain Alvar Nature Reserve, north of Napanee, Ontario, you might not notice anything overly special about the site. In fact, if you didn’t stop to have a closer look, you might not...
Badgered into respecting the wild
American badger (Photo by Max Allen/Shutterstock)
It was my co-worker Emily's and my first day out in the field without a manager — the training wheels were off. We were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to impress the property land managers with a thorough property inspection. This...
Heard it from a Scout: 15 things you may not know you can recycle
International recycling logo (Photo by Krdan, Wikimedia Commons)
Now more than ever, it’s important that we reduce our ecological footprint to create a greener world for the future. Scouts Canada has always encouraged members to do their part to create a cleaner environment, whether it be through litter...
A five-year-old entomologist-in-training
Hannah, a five-year-old amateur entomologist taking care of monarch chrysalises. (Photo by NCC)
With the help of my dad, I’d like to tell you everything I know about monarch butterflies. Don’t worry — I’ll explain the life cycle, the special habitat requirements and the incredible migration to Mexico. By the way,...
The incredible migration at Johnson's Mills Shorebird Reserve
Semipalmated sandpiper (Photo by NCC)
From late July to mid-August, the scene at the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s) Johnson’s Mills Shorebird Reserve on the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick is awe-inspiring. There are days when as many as 140,000 semipalmated...
Biomimicry: Every step is a story
A bighorn sheep on Luxor Linkage conservation area (Photo by Bonnie-Lou Ferris)
When I first learned about biomimicry, I was in a math and poetry class at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. It was 2004, and while the professor didn’t necessarily talk about the term “biomimicry,” he introduced us...
Kick-start your conservation career by interning
NCC conservation intern monitoring plant communities (Photo by NCC)
If you’re close to graduating from a post-secondary institution, you may have already started to think about applying for jobs related to your field of study. While school is an excellent place to expand your general knowledge, not all...
Building homes for bats in the prairies
Conservation Volunteers from across Saskatchewan joined together to build bat boxes. (Photo by NCC)
Every year, the Nature Conservancy of Canada's (NCC's) Saskatchewan Region holds a Conservation Volunteers event at its Old Man on His Back Prairie and Heritage Conservation Area (OMB). This year, one of the activities involved building bat boxes...
Snapping up turtle eggs
Snapping turtle eggs were packed in damp sand for transport. (Photo by David Beevis)
Turtle populations face a number of threats, including loss of habitat and being hit while crossing roads. Recently, turtle populations in a local lake near where we live in Port Hope, Ontario, was exposed to a combination of factors threatening...
