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The Gem of Pelham: the Short Hills

Reflections of a Naturalist

To be forthright, Pelham is not exactly a nature lover’s paradise—at least not anymore. There is nothing resembling wilderness left in the town, and residential expansion persists at an alarming rate.

As far as waterways go, Pelham can boast a few nice creeks, yet its only river, the Welland River, leaves a lot to be desired.

I have canoed the river on numerous occasions, and can tesitfy that it requires a rather vivid imagination to mistake it for something like the French or even Grand River.

In boyhood days I endeavoured my best to imagine it as the mighty Mississippi (and myself as Huckleberry Finn) but with somewhat limited success.

Fortunately, Pelham does have at least one redeeming natural gem: the Short Hills. And best of all no imagining and romanticizing is even required to spice up the natural beauty of the Short Hills.

Located in North Pelham, the Short Hills constitute an oasis of natural splendour in our densely populated Niagara Region.

The rolling hills, Carolinian forests, deep ravines with gentle streams running through them, and magnificent waterfalls nearly seem like a world away from the hustle and bustle of the city, rather than a ten minute drive from downtown St. Catharines.

Short Hills Provincial Park protects 735 hectares of this area, making it the second largest protected space in the Niagara Peninsula. (The Wainfleet Bog Conservation Area ranks first, at 801 hectares.)

While the park is not pristine—transmission lines cut across the southern portion of the park like a scar, subdivisions encroach just beyond the north boundary, and a scouts camp with mown lawns and several buildings is contained by the park—it is still a remarkable place.

I personally have experienced many memorable walks through the Short Hills, and never fail to encounter some form of wildlife. Wild Turkeys are prevalent in the park, as are whitetail deer and coyotes. It is also an excellent locale for bird watching.

Perhaps the park’s most notable feature is Swayze Falls, a waterfall of impressive height that plunges into a deep gorge. In the spring at high water Swayze Falls is truly an awe-inspiring sight, and for the more imaginative visitors, they can picture it as the scene of Sherlock Holmes supposed death in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem.”  At least I like to do so.

The park also offers trails for horseback riding and mountain biking. While I have not as of yet ridden a horse in Short Hills, I have on several occasions exhausted myself along the winding paths and steep hills on my mountain bike.

As far as mountain biking in Niagara, the trails of Short Hills Procincial Park are unsurpassed.

All motorized vechiles are thankfully prohibited within the park, as is camping and campfires. These measures help preserve the park’s ecological integrity and keep the human impact on the park’s flora and fauna to a minimum.

A dedicated group of volunteers, the Friends of Short Hills Park, works to preserve the park. For more information on their projects and the park itself visit their website at www.friendsofshorthillspark.ca.

Although Pelham may not be a nature lover’s paradise anymore, the Short Hills is the best vestige of what must have been at one time a true paradise of natural wonder.

Wildlife of Pelham: Past and Present

Reflections of a Naturalist

Once upon a time, black bears, eastern cougars, and wolves all roamed the hardwood forests of what is today the Town of Pelham.

However, these large predators, as well as several other species, were gradually extirpated from Pelham and most of Southern Ontario as a result of increasing human populations and rampant hunting.

Today, these creatures’ ranges have been pushed further north, far away from Pelham, which personally, as an avid naturalist, I consider to be rather unfortunate.
(Though there are claims that the eastern cougar is making a comeback.)

On the brighter side, some species were once extirpated from the area but have since been successfully reintroduced. The most outstanding example of a reintroduced species found in the woods and fields of Pelham is the wild turkey.

For years now I have encountered these large birds while on my frequent excursions in woods across Pelham. Just the other day while taking a stroll through the forest surrounding my family home in Fenwick I collected a couple of turkey feathers.

Indeed, the Ministry of Natural Resources’ wild turkey reintroduction program of the 1990s was such a success that the birds are once again hunted for sport in the province.

Another popular game bird that can be found in the fields of Pelham is the ring-necked pheasant, which in fact is not native to North America. These beautiful-looking birds were actually introduced here from overseas for the purpose of providing ideal game for sport hunters.

Certain other specices, such as the coyote and opossum, have expanded beyond their historic ranges on their own account, and are now prevalent throughout Southern Ontario. Warmer winters might explain the opossum’s migration northward to this area, whereas the coyote was able to expand its range in the wake of the wolves’ extirpation.

For those of us who enjoy a jaunt in the woods after dark, the howl and yapping of coyotes is a common sound.

Perhaps quite a few readers would be surprised to learn that Canada’s national animal, the beaver, is one species that has managed to maintain a foothold in Pelham despite the widespread destruction of its habitat.

Specifically, a beaver colony exists on the lower reaches of Coyle Creek, a slow flowing, meandering waterway that stretches across the Pelham-Welland municipal boundary. The creek is an important tributary to the Welland River, and drains much of Southern Pelham.

I first became aware of this little colony of beavers in the spring of 2001, while fishing on the creek with a couple of friends. We first noticed the telltale signs of several pencil-shaped tree stumps, which could only be cut by a beaver, and later discovered a few beaver lodges.

Last summer, out of concern for Coyle Creek’s beavers, I decided to form the Friends of Coyle Creek (the FCC), with the aim of preserving the creek and thus the beavers. The FCC has since grown into a group of over a dozen dedicated volunteers.

In order to keep the human impact on the beaver’s fragile environment to an absolute minimum, we conduct all our clean-up operations via canoe. In this manner, we are able to avoid disturbing the beavers on land, where they gather wood for their lodges and bark saplings for sustenance.

Pelham’s bears, cougars, and wolves may all have disappeared long ago, but the town remains home to plenty of fascinating creatures from the animal kingdom. Hopefully, these creatures, from the beaver through to the turkey, will continue to find homes in Pelham if we all do our best to preserve the local natural environment.

Not Another Highway

Welland Tribune

For the Welland Tribune: by Adam Shoalts

For the past six years there has been talk of inflicting another scar upon Niagara’s landscape in the form of a major new highway.

This proposed highway, known variously as the mid-peninsula corridor or the Niagara to GTA transportation corridor, has from the start faced stiff opposition from environmentalists.

Indisputably, a four-lane highway along the lines of the current Queen Elizabeth Way would be detrimental to Niagara’s natural environment.

Wildlife movements would be severely restricted, woodlots would be sliced in two, and of course air quality would deteriorate as a result of the increase in fossil fuels via vehicles.

More specifically, environmentalists have rasied concerns that a new highway would further endanger the already beleaguered Niagara Escarpment.

The fact that in 1990 UNESCO designated the escarpment a World Biosphere Reserve in recognition of its ecological uniqueness is no guarantee that a four-lane highway will not cross it.

To permit a major highway to cut across this ridge of greenery would be a terrible shame. The escarpment’s current role as a wildlife corridor would be put in serious jeopardy, not to mention the ruinous effects on the natural beauty of the area.

Additionally, any creation of a mega-highway through Niagara’s countryside would shatter rural peace and quiet, and radically transform the surrounding area.

As of yet, no definite route for a highway has been determined. However, it is believed any route would traverse southern Niagara, including Wainfleet and Lincoln.

It is hard to conceive that anyone currently living in these rural areas could desire a noisy mega-highway running through their backyards. And of course, a major highway would cause neighbouring residential property values to plunge.

Nor is it at all logical, in light of a little problem called global warming, to be contemplating the construction of another highway.

After all, shouldn’t the provincial government (and all other levels of government for that matter) be doing everything possible to encourage people to drive less and instead rely more on public transport?

Certainly, constructing four-lane highways would seem like a major step backwards in the fight against climate change.

Even if one were to cast aside all environmental, aesthetic, and human concerns, there are still strong economic grounds to oppose the idea of constructing a highway.

The whole basis for establishing another highway linking the Greater Toronto Area to Niagara and Buffalo revolves around the rather dubious assumption that highway traffic is going to increase or at least remain at current levels.

However, for this to happen a steady supply of affordable oil is required, and with inexorably rising gas prices it appears the era of cheap oil is over.

High gas prices are a result of increasing demand in developing nations, particularly China and India. As such, it is not something that is likely to change.

Even more importantly, world oil production is inevitably going to peak, which will probably occur within the next couple of decades at the latest. (See Robert L. Hirsch et al., “Peaking Oil Production: Sooner Rather Than Later?, Issues in Science and Technology 21(3) [1991].)

Accordingly, as the world’s oil reserves are depleted, gas prices will skyrocket to a point where the average Canadian can no longer afford to fuel up regularly.

It is therefore apparent that people will be driving vehicles less, not more, in the not-too-distant future.

Claims that biofuels can supply the solution to the world’s oil supply crisis are pure fantasy.

Repeated studies have proven that the production of biofuels actually necessitates the expenditure of more energy than is worth the effort. (See Marcelo E. Dias de Oliveria et al., “Ethanol as Fuel: Energy, Carbon Dioxide Balances, and Ecological Footprint.” Bioscience 55, July 2005.)

Furthermore, with oil prices rising transport-trucking will rapidly become uneconomical, resulting in a greater reliance upon shipping by rail and canal.

Without transport trucks on the roads, and with fewer vehicles in general, the construction of new mega-highways becomes utterly unnecessary.

So why should we invest millions in the construction of a major new highway, and burden future generations with something that in all probability won’t be needed?

Fortunately, the provincial government has proceeded at a snail’s pace on this issue, and has thankfully not yet ruled out constructing rail services as an alternative to a highway.
If the reader, like me, does not want to see this highway built, I urge you to visit www.niagara-gta.com and submit your concerns to the Niagara-GTA Corridor environmental assessment committee, or write to your member of provincial parliament.

NPCA Needs to Go Green

Welland Tribune

For the Welland Tribune: by Adam Shoalts

A recent walk in the woods confirmed to me what the calendar confidently asserts: spring has indeed returned to Niagara.

The birds were singing, the frogs were croaking, the pike were running, the swamps were brimming, and best of all, the hordes of mosquitoes were still absent.

I think it’s only natural that such beautiful spring weather should breed optimism for the future—optimism about real change being implemented in conservation issues here in Niagara.

Specifically, that this upcoming summer, the good folks who constitute the upper echelons of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority will finally experience a long overdue conversion to environmentalism.

Readers can be forgiven if they mistakenly believed that environmentalists already run this organization. The name after all, certainly seems to suggest it.

As a matter of fact, the NPCA does contribute positively in some respects to conservation. However, in other respects, this organization falls dramatically short of its own mandate.

The NPCA includes 36 conservation areas across the Niagara Peninsula, which combined encompass roughly 2,800 hectares. Unfortunately, the NPCA fails to preserve significant portions of some of these sites.

Indeed, strange as it may sound to someone not acquainted with these sites, the NPCA in fact engages in ecologically destructive practices at many of them.

For example, the NPCA irrationally and irresponsibly maintains artificial habitat, namely mown lawns, which has nothing to do with the conservation of Niagara’s natural habitat. Obviously, short-mown grass cannot provide needed habitat for wildlife.

The mown lawns of the NPCA occupy space that should and could be used to plant trees. This would restore at least some of Niagara’s natural habitat, which has been regrettably destroyed over the years.

Indeed, when one simply considers that fewer than three centuries ago, Niagara was entirely blanketed by virgin forests, it should reinforce the immense scale of deforestation that has since occured. The peninsula underwent a dramatic transformation from virtually 100 percent forest cover to perhaps five percent today.

Reforesting the entire peninsula is of course a fantasy. However, what can be restored should be without delay. The NPCA, unfortunately, seems not to share this view.

With a population in excess of 400,000 people, the Niagara Peninsula is one of the most densely populated areas in the whole of Canada. As such, we cannot afford to persist with hopelessly outdated approaches to conservation.

Furthermore, the NPCA’s construction of a multimillion-dollar complex at Ball’s Falls is quite frankly outrageous.

The construction of such a large building will not only degrade the natural environment on site, but also severely diminish the historic atmosphere of the place.

Claims the new visitors centre will be environmentally friendly are meaningless; any construction of a large modern building on a conservation and heritage site is not an improvement. Moreover, it does not take a genius to perceive that those funds could be put to infinitely better use elsewhere.

Such as, for example, the purchasing of tree saplings to be planted at Chippawa Creek and Long Beach conservation areas, to name but two of many sites in need of reforestation.

These two conservation areas, Chippawa Creek and Long Beach, are abominations: far from preserving a natural environment and providing habitat to wildlife, these sites have become virtual trailer parks. In contrast to maintaining the natural ecosystem, the parks contain vast stretches of mown lawns and motor homes, as well as basketball and volleyball courts.

The NPCA would do well to reforest these sites, as far as feasible, and to limit camping to strictly tents, not trailers. This would perhaps scare off a few of the surbanites who currently spend their summers there in all the comforts of their trailer-homes.

However, by signifying that the NPCA is at last becoming serious about conservation and reforestation, new visitors and campers would surely fill the void.

With opinion polls indicating that environmental issues are at long last taking centre stage in the minds of Canadians, what better time could there be for the NPCA to truly go green?

And once the NPCA converts to true environmentalism and ceases the mowing of lawns at conservation sites, perhaps other organizations, such as the Niagara Parks Commission, can be presuaded to follow suit.

Adam Shoalts for the Welland Tribune.