by DON STONEMAN

Take the Henslow's Sparrow, for example. A bird watcher spotted one of these shy, retiring creatures in a field near his Prince Edward County home in June 1996 - the only sighting of that species in Ontario that year. The birder reported it on his sightings card and passed it on to Bird Studies Canada, formerly known as the Long Point Bird Conservatory, which in turn passed the information on to the local ministry of Natural Resources Office.

Shortly thereafter, the owner of the property where the bird was seen was notified that destruction of the bird's habitat could result in a fine of hundreds of thousands of dollars and even a jail term. The "habitat" - a hay field - lay unharvested until late summer when the birds were gone. The uncut hay was eventually deemed a fire hazard and cut and hauled away. Renfrew County's Bob Dobson, co-chair of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association (CCA) environment committee, hopes that Bill C-33, the Species At Risk Act (SARA), will never let that happen again. The bill, which passed first reading in Ottawa in April, will face a spirited debate this fall and is unlikely to pass second reading before the end of the year.

Bill C-33 wields a big stick. It strongly prohibits the harming of any species at risk, or its residences, and also contains the power to protect habitat essential to endangered species on all public and private lands in Canada. Fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and sentences of up to five years in jail would make big corporations take notice. But federal environment minister David Anderson has offered a carrot along with the stick. He has promised compensation to landowners who have suffered economic loss because of the experience of hosting an endangered species in their vicinity.

Bill C-65, a law with an even bigger stick, and no carrot in sight, was introduced in the House of Commons in 1996. The Endangered Species Act, say critics like Dobson of the Cattlemen's Association, paralleled legislation passed in the United States in the 1970s, which he says encourages landowners quietly to get rid of rare species rather than make a place for them. Bill C-65, designed to meet Canadian commitments made at a bio-diversity conference in June 1992 at Rio de Janeiro in the 1990s created so much uproar across Canada that it was allowed to die on the order table when that session of the House ended.

Bill C-33 is its successor. Anderson is taking a far more pragmatic approach than the previous environment minister, says Sally Rutherford, executive director, Canadian Federation of Agriculture. The federal legislation won't change much for farmers, she says, since many provinces, including Ontario, already have an endangered species act and are enforcing it. The environment is a shared responsibility between Ottawa and Queen's Park. The provinces will continue to deliver the programs after C-33 is passed. Birds that migrate from province to province will be protected in a uniform manner, with the provinces enforcing the federal legislation.

Peggy Strankman, the CCA's environment coordinator, is encouraged by federal actions so far. She says the federal government has taken the unprecedented step of setting aside $5 million from the Habitat Stewardship Program to compensate landowners this year. She notes that farmers find themselves in an interesting predicament. They can work with biologists to develop habitat for these creatures, but then find that they can't use their property as they would like because maintaining habitat falls under the Land Use Planning Act. SARA may be less than ideal for landowners, but it isn't nearly as bad as it could be, says the CCA, which has been part of a broad-based coalition of landowners and natural resource companies concerned about the effects of such legislation on their businesses.

Jim Turner, Dobson's western counterpart, says "most of us are good stewards." Still, he adds, "you want the species on your land to be an asset, not a liability." While it is uncertain how Bill C-33 will work, "it is far better than C-65."

The CCA's position is that compensation should be triggered if there is any restriction on the use of property, whether farming, ranching or resources, says Dobson. In the United States, property values have been curtailed by the presence of an endangered species. But if the Canadian compensation package is adequate, there should be no reduction in property values, Dobson says. "If it is going to work for species, it has to work for the property where the species lives," Dobson says, "or it's dead in the water."

Dobson says the Prince Edward county case is the type of restriction where compensation would kick in. But he admits that so far the only compensation is "the soothing murmurings" from environment minister Anderson.

Unfair and one-sided

SARA gets the support of prominent Ontario cattle producers such as cattleman and cashcropper Larry Chanda of Simcoe. This year he and his wife Judy won the Environmental Stewardship Award for the province's beef industry. Chanda refers to himself as both a conservationist and a hunter. As a wild turkey hunter, he benefits from one of the most successful wildlife restoration projects ever operated in Ontario. He also sits on the steering committee of the Barn Owl Restoration Project.

But not everyone is pleased with the CCA's support of SARA. On the Prairies, the disapproval comes from the Western Stockgrowers Association, a group of mostly cow-calf operators who own or hold long-term leases on ranch land. In Ontario, the opposition comes from the Ontario Property Environmental Rights Association (OPERA). Coordinator Bob Fowler of Durham says the mandate of OPERA, a coalition of groups across Ontario formed in 1994, is "to protect in law the rights and responsibilities of private landowners against arbitrary restrictions and decisions of government."

Fowler considers SARA unacceptable as it presently stands. "This legislation has commendable objectives, but the way it is done is very unfair and very one-sided," he asserts. "The private landowner is in the background and not being considered," he says. Well ahead of landowners is a list of stakeholders, many of them non-government organizations "with an agenda of their own," he says.

The power of the amateur birdwatchers and the nature community in general troubles OPERA. The Ministry of Natural Resources relies on sightings made by amateur birdwatchers, Fowler says. "Why should the nature conservancy tell people what you can and cannot do on your land?"

One member of the OPERA coalition is the eastern Ontario-based Association of Rural Property Owners. That organization cites the case of Danusia Nitchke, a former organic grower and cashmere goat raiser from Montague township, Lanark County, south of Stittsville. Nitchke says she lost her $80,000 investment in a 100-acre farm when she was denied permission to sever and sell a lot to make up for a shortfall in income, and consequently defaulted on payments. The reason: the edge of her property fell just inside a 400-metre circle around a Loggerhead Shrike nest.

"Compensate me," says Danusia, who says her wages from a federal job in Ottawa will be garnisheed for the next three years. She initiated legal action against a real estate agent for failing to disclose to her that the presence of a rare species nearby might limit the use of her property. She says the agent has declared bankruptcy and left the province.

The amateur bird watching community has far too much power over property owners, says Richard Nitchke, Danusia's husband who wonders if it was even a Loggerhead Shrike that was seen by birders near his wife's property. He says it would be easy to mistake the smaller, more common Kingbird as a shrike from a distance, especially in flight. "Was it black and white, or was it white and black?" he asks.

The property formerly owned by Danusia Nitchke has changed hands several times and is now for sale again. The real estate agent currently involved says there is still nothing on the title to indicate that the property's use is restricted because it is part of what amounts to a privately owned wildlife preserve. Adds Danusia's husband Brian: "If it's for the good of the public, have the public pay for it."

Compensation critical
The Loggerhead Shrike is a particularly sore point in eastern Ontario, where most of the 20 or so pairs seen in Ontario are thought to nest. Better Farming's inquiries about problems with the Shrike near Napanee were met with bitter comments. Where the Shrike goes, it seems, dissension follows.

Dobson asserts that a good compensation program would have alleviated Nitchke's concerns and the property wouldn't have been devalued. The federal compensation package is supposed to cover the loss of property value as well as interrupted farming operations.

Dobson says Environment Minister Anderson cites the example of a campground when he talks about compensation packages. In Anderson's example, half of the sites would be closed because a rare species was found nesting in the campground. If the gross from the campground was normally $30,000, the camp operator would get $15,000 from the government.

As well as a yet-to-be-determined budget for compensation, there is also a federal stewardship fund which starts at $15 million annually and rises to more than $30 million by the fifth year. Dobson says the environment department expects farmers to voluntarily sign up for the stewardship package. Enhancing habitat may require that shrubs and trees be planted. "It may mean retiring some of the land" from cropping or grazing, Dobson says. Unlike the Nitchkes, Dobson would welcome Loggerhead Shrikes on his property. He has planted trees, including those bearing berries, along the edge of the pastures to encourage a number of different birds. "I've had biologists who said this would be ideal shrike habitat, but I've never seen any around," Dobson says. Shrikes like hawthorns and open pasture. The Shrike catches insects such as grasshoppers in the open fields, impaling them on hawthorn spikes to eat later.

As far as OPERA, the Stockgrowers and SARA are concerned, Dobson says "we keep talking to them and trying to explain. We think it is a pretty good balance and that there is more to be gained than lost." But the wording in the federal legislation needs to be cleaned up regarding what happens to someone who accidentally kills a rare bird while doing fieldwork. "Accidents happen," Dobson says.

While private landowner groups and farmers are trying to make SARA better for them, they say the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Federation are working hard on the other side. Dobson says both groups have teamed up to put money into 20 ridings across Canada where government MPs are deemed to be on thin political ice, hoping to pressure them into supporting tougher wildlife measures.

Champion of the wildlife groups is Toronto MP Charles Caccia, chairman of the House of Commons standing committee on the environment. Caccia declined to be interviewed by Better Farming. His staff directed a reporter to look at Caccia's comments in the House of Commons last April, when SARA was introduced. Hansard, the Parliamentary record, indicates that Caccia wants the "political interference" of the federal cabinet removed from the decision-making about which species should be on the federal list and says the decisions should be made on a "purely scientific" basis. The current list of species recommended by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COWESIC) should be a starting point, and the list expanded from there, as directed by the federal environment minister.

One thing that OPERA does like about SARA is that the federal cabinet can control the list of species that are deemed to be at risk. Caccia calls this "political interference." OPERA's Fowler says final clearance by cabinet will keep the non-governmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund at bay. "We support the Cabinet," Fowler says, asserting that "many scientists are paid employees of non-government organizations."

Fowler expects that if and when SARA passes into law, there will be strong pressure to add more species to the list of those, endangered, threatened and vulnerable. The provincial ministry of natural resources has "a wish list" of species it wishes to be added by the national committee, Fowler says. Farmers can expect that more species of birds, snakes, reptiles and plants and trees will be added to the list of those that are already deemed to be in danger of disappearing from Ontario's landscape.

There is a sometimes fierce debate over whether some of these species are really native to Canada and should be preserved here. Even some naturalists argue that the Loggerhead Shrike is native not to Canada, but to the Ohio Valley. It wasn't seen in Ontario until the settlers cleared land. A great fire in eastern Ontario in the 1890s also cleared trees to make habitat for the Shrike. Eastern Ontario is at the extreme end of its range. That hasn't prevented the federal government from committing major resources to the preservation and expansion of its habitat. Recently environment minister Anderson committed $200,000 to a Loggerhead Recovery Project, a naturalist newsletter says. BF

But even Sprague admits that the grief that was caused by the sighting took its toll on his neighbours, on whose property the sparrow was sighted. "I was wondering if I should even have reported this," says Sprague, a naturalist at the local Quinte Conservation Authority who used to own the farm where the bird was seen. An Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources conservation officer responded to Sprague's report of the Henslow, a shy, retiring creature which sounds like a cricket and prefers to run around in the thick thatch of abandoned fields. The officer banned the owner of the land and the tenant, who wanted to harvest a crop, from cutting hay in the six-acre field.

"It was an enormous nuisance that Terry found the Henslow's Sparrow," says Kathy Vowinckel, co-owner of the property.

Terry Sprague was able to get the Ontario Society of Field Ornithologists to contribute $300 to the Vowinckel-Lewis cause to compensate for loss of the hay crop, but Vowinckel considers it "a token amount."

Lewis, the Picton hay farmer who had planned to harvest Vowinckel's field in 1996, says he had a sharecrop arrangement with the owner, taking two-thirds of the hay in payment for cutting, raking and baling. As for the $300 compensation, "I have never ever seen it."

Lewis hopes the federal compensation available under SARA will be adequate. Lewis makes a living most years cutting about 2,000 acres of hay per year for different markets. This year Vowinckel's field yielded 900 bales of mixed alfalfa, bromegrass and timothy hay. Lewis expects to sell it on the horse hay market for $2 a bale. The $300 that local birders scraped together four years ago was a token amount indeed. BF

The Barn Owl is designated as "threatened." Native to North America and Europe, "it is a cavity nester" at the extreme north end of its range, says Reid, and it is uncertain if the bird lived in this area of North America before settlers came. Reid says its numbers have fallen in recent years as mixed farming operations, with granaries that attract mice and lots of grass and pasture land, gave way to "clean farming" operations. Ironically, the only confirmed sightings in recent years have been two road kills near Chatham, an area of the province where "clean farming" is pervasive.

Grasslands and early succession lands - meadows that are gradually turning over into shrubs and to trees - "are the rarest form of habitat we have left in North America," Reid says. "So the species that thrive in that habitat are in short supply."

In the long range, the project is encouraging the growth of buffer strips along streams and fencerows. In the short term, the committee is looking at bringing in "rehabilitated' Barn Owls from the United States, which can be bred so the offspring can be released into the wild.

The chances are that the Barn Owl project won't be as successful as the Wild Turkey Recovery Project, says Reid. The wild turkey population in Ontario has risen from zero in 1984 to about 25,000 this year, Reid says. BF

Of these species, 115, the majority, are native to the "deciduous forest" of Ontario, the rich farming belt south of a line roughly extending from Amberley on Lake Huron across to Newmarket and tapering to the north edge of Lake Ontario at Coburg. There are some duplications with the 68 species at risk in the "mixed forest" area that encompasses eastern Ontario and a belt of land extending along the top of Lake Superior to the Manitoba border.

The 115 species listed in the deciduous area includes four that are well past risk: they are extinct. The list includes the Passenger Pigeon, which was killed off by hunters more than 100 years ago, and also five "extirpated" species, creatures no longer existing in the wild in Ontario.

So-called species at risk can be sorted into a number of categories, as determined by the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario (COSSARO) a Ministry of Natural Resources committee that evaluates the conservation status of species in Ontario. COSSARO in turn tries to get species that still haven't made the grade onto the list of Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) which is the official list recognized by the federal government.

The categories are defined as follows:
Endangered: Any native species that is at risk of extinction or extirpation throughout all or a significant portion of their Ontario range if limiting factors are not reversed.
Threatened: a native species that is at risk of becoming endangered.
Vulnerable: a native species that is of special concern in Ontario but is not a threatened or endangered species Extirpated Any native species no longer existing in the wild in Ontario but existing elsewhere in the wild.
Extinct: Any species formerly native to Ontario that no longer exists anywhere.

Endangered
Eastern Cougar, Acadian Flycatcher, Bald Eagle, Eskimo Curlew, Golden Eagle, Henslow's Sparrow, King Rail, Kirtland's Warbler, Loggerhead Shrike, Northern Bobwhite, Peregrine Falcon, Piping Plover, Prothonotary Warbler, White Pelican, Blanchard's Cricket Frog, Blue Racer, Lake Erie Water Snake, Timber Rattlesnake, Frost Elfin, Karner Blue Butterfly. Cucumber Magnolia, Drooping Trillium, Engelmann's Quillwort, Gattinger's Agalinis, Heart-leaved Plantain, Hoary Mountain-mint, Large Whorled Pogonia, Pink Milkwort, Prairie White Gentian, Prickly Pear Cactus, Skinner's Agalinis, Slender Bush Clover, Small Whorled Poginia, Small White Lady's slipper Orchid, Spotted Wintergreen, Wood Poppy, Aurora Trout.

Threatened
Barn Owl, Hooded Warbler, Eastern Massassauga, Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle, American Chestnut, Birds-foot Violet, Bluehearts, Blunt-lobed Woodsia, Colicroot, Deerberry, False-Hop Sedge, Ginseng, Goat's-rue, Golden Seal, Kentucky Coffee Tree, Nodding Pogonia, Pitcher's Thistle, Purple Twayblade, Red Mulberry, Small-flowered Lipocarpha, White Wood Aster, Black Redhorse, Blackfin Cisco, Channel Darter, Eastern Sand Darter, Deepwater Sculpin, Lake Simcoe Whitefish, Margined Madtom, Shortjaw Cisco, Shortnose Cisco.

Vulnerable:
Eastern Mole, Grey Fox, Polar Bear, Southern Flying Squirrel, Wolverine, Woodland Caribou, Black tern, Caspian Tern, Cerulean Warbler, Great Gray Owl, Least Bittern, Louisiana Waterthrush, Prairie Warbler, Red-headed Woodpecker, Red-shouldered Hawk, Short-eared Owl, Yellow-breasted Chat, Eastern Hognose Snake, Fowler's Toad, Smallmouth Salamander, Spotted Turtle, Wood Turtle, Monarch Butterfly, West Virginia Butterfly, American Columbo, Blue Ash, Branched Bartonia, Broad Beech Fern, Climbing Prairie Rose, Dense Blazing Star, Dwarf Hackberry, False Rue-anemone, Few-flowered Club-rush, Green Dragon, Hill's Pondweed, Hop-tree, Indian Plantain, Prairie Fringed Orchid, Round-leaved Greenbrier, Shumard Oak, Swamp Rose Mallow, Water Willow, Western Silver-leaf Aster, Wild Hyacinth, Bigmouth Buffalo, Black Buffalo, Blackstrip Topminnow, Brindled Madtom, Central Stoneroller, Greenside Darter, Kiyi, Lake Chubsucker, Northern Brook Lamprey, Orangespotted Sunfish, Pugnose Minnow, Pugnose Shiner, Redside Dace, River Redhorse, Silver Chub, Silver Shiner, Spotted Gar, Spotted Suck, Warmouth.

Extirpated (without verified reports of breeding in past 20 years):
Least Shrew, Bewick's Wren, Black Guiliemot, Greater Prairie Chicken, Turkey (now reintroduced). Eastern Tiger Salamander, Northern Spring Salamander, Persius Dusky Wing, Regal Fritillary, American Shad, Atlantic Salmon, (now reintroduced) Gravel Chubb, paddlefish.

Extinct:
Eastern Elk, Passenger Pigeon, Blue Walleye, Deepwater Cisco, Longjaw Cisco. Twenty-eight plants have apparently been extirpated in Ontario, including Blue-eyed Mary and Illinois Tick-Trefoil and 31 others not found in the last 20 years. BF