Keeping Roads Open to Research
08/03/22 06:20
On mountain slopes cross-crossed with logging roads in a remote area on southwestern Vancouver Island, volunteers seek out the remaining stands of ancient trees to learn if threatened bird populations are thriving or declining.
They are not alone, around the world citizen scientists are playing an important role in filling knowledge gaps that might otherwise allow threatened or endangered species to remain unnoticed until what's left of their habitat is gone.
A community of scientists and volunteers work together to make discoveries that a single scientist working alone could never achieve.
Dr. Royann Petrell, Associate Professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia, remembers the moment that inspired her effort to document western screech owls and marbled-murrelet.
She and her husband were camping in the Fairy Creek area near Port Renfrew.
“The first time we went there, the very first night we camped, was one of the most amazing moments in my birding life.”
She heard the calls of three distinct species of owls, something she says is almost unheard of.
“The last one was the 'bouncing ball' owl, I recall, which is the western screech owl.”
The distinctive bouncing ball sound is a series of short hoots that speed up toward the end.
An avid birder, Dr. Petrell reported her findings to eBird, a citizen-science reporting group based at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York.
She says the are manager asked her to go back and attempt to record the owl.
Dr. Petrell returned and obtained the first documentation of a western screech owl in the area around Fairy Creek.
Her discovery prompted the B.C. government to send officials into the area to verify the findings.
She has now identified western screech owl and marbled murrelet – two species of birds listed as threatened under Canada's Species at Risk Act – within Tree Farm License 46 (a TFL is an area where exclusive rights are granted to harvest timber and manage and conserve forest resources).
Without her discoveries, little would likely be known about western screech owls at Fairy Creek, or any other forest in nearby watersheds in the mountains northeast of Port Renfrew.
However, it also put her on a path to an unexpected roadblock (literally).
Dr. Petrell is now struggling to get full access to at least eight roads on public land within Tree Farm Licence 46, where Teal Cedar has cutting rights.
The environmental legal group Ecojustice is petitioning the courts on her behalf to have Teal Cedar Products, a part of the Teal Jones Group, open those gates for her and others studying wildlife on roads leading into the stands of old-growth rainforest she needs to access.
It's surprising to learn that much – if not most of the work documenting different species – is being done by citizen-scientists.
Dr. Petrell says there is no legal requirement to do such studies ahead of logging an area, and adds, “they don't, so it's really up to us.”
All of the data she's gathered so far has been reported to various relevant federal and provincial government bodies.
However, forestry road closures in the summer of 2021 prevented Dr. Petrell and others from effectively documenting the threatened species in the area.
“Once you are going to survey for threatened species there are protocols that you need to follow, and these protocols are set up to identify where the habitat is, and where their young disperse to, so they can understand if that's a good habit or a bad habit, so we can advance science.”
She says it's essential for researchers to be able to go into an area at critical times of the year.
Teal Cedar is allowed to close roads throughout Tree Farm Licence 46 under permission from the B.C. Ministry of Forests.
The area includes Fairy Creek, where an injunction enforcement area was established by the B.C. Supreme Court to prevent logging road blockades established by the Rainforest Flying Squad to preserve old-growth forests.
After it received permission from the Ministry of Forests, Ecojustice says Teal Cedar installed gates and hired a private security firm to operate them.
The provincial government has the authority to close or restrict roads if property, public health, or public safety is endangered.
However, Ecojustice says by granting many of Teal Cedar’s requests to restrict public access, the province has done it to protect logging operations.
Rachel Gutman is the lawyer handling the petition and she says it's crown land so there is a presumption in the legislation that the public has the right to access roads in TFL 46.
Gutman says they awaiting the government response to their petition, but their position is that the closures have been made to protect logging operations, and that's not something that's authorized in the legislation,” so the Minister of Forests would not have the authorization to close roads for that reason.
She says these are public lands that are not owned by Teal Cedar or logging companies.
However, the road closures have, in effect, turned public land into private property.
Gutman also notes that Dr. Petrell doing valuable work that has not been done in-depth by the provincial government, and forest companies are not required to do.
“She's really been doing the work that the government should be doing in terms of surveying these areas for endangered species. The TFL 46 is home to some of the last remaining productive old-growth on Vancouver Island. She's the one going out there finding these endangered species.”
Ecojustice says Dr. Petrell’s work is scientific in nature and does not inhibit logging operations and the B.C. Supreme Court injunction against road blockades in the area has made a clear distinction between protestors and people going about their everyday business.
As for the habitat needed by the two endangered species, Dr. Petrell says there is very little left.
She believes the western screech owls have a better chance of survival because they are associated with stream systems.
Logging companies are required to leave a 30 metre buffer of trees along streams and rivers.
As for the marbled-murrelet, Dr. Petrell says it requires vast areas of large old trees for raising its young.
The birds forage in the ocean and lay their eggs up to 50 kilometres inland.
They don't build nests, instead, a single egg is laid in thick moss growing on large branches high above the forest floor.
She says most of the ancient rainforest the marbled-murrelet needs is now gone.
Her fieldwork is being widely recognized and there are many interested in volunteering to join her.
Dr. Petrell says anyone is welcome to get in touch via her email at UBC. She says her group will teach volunteers what to do, supply the equipment they need, and help them get there, but points out having a good quality vehicle to access remote areas via rough forestry roads is very helpful.
Beyond the rewards of helping to preserve threatened species, Dr. Petrell says there's nothing like being immersed in a rainforest – hearing and seeing and being there.
She believes it would be “one of the magical moments of their life.”
They are not alone, around the world citizen scientists are playing an important role in filling knowledge gaps that might otherwise allow threatened or endangered species to remain unnoticed until what's left of their habitat is gone.
A community of scientists and volunteers work together to make discoveries that a single scientist working alone could never achieve.
Dr. Royann Petrell, Associate Professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia, remembers the moment that inspired her effort to document western screech owls and marbled-murrelet.
She and her husband were camping in the Fairy Creek area near Port Renfrew.
“The first time we went there, the very first night we camped, was one of the most amazing moments in my birding life.”
She heard the calls of three distinct species of owls, something she says is almost unheard of.
“The last one was the 'bouncing ball' owl, I recall, which is the western screech owl.”
The distinctive bouncing ball sound is a series of short hoots that speed up toward the end.
An avid birder, Dr. Petrell reported her findings to eBird, a citizen-science reporting group based at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York.
She says the are manager asked her to go back and attempt to record the owl.
Dr. Petrell returned and obtained the first documentation of a western screech owl in the area around Fairy Creek.
Her discovery prompted the B.C. government to send officials into the area to verify the findings.
She has now identified western screech owl and marbled murrelet – two species of birds listed as threatened under Canada's Species at Risk Act – within Tree Farm License 46 (a TFL is an area where exclusive rights are granted to harvest timber and manage and conserve forest resources).
Without her discoveries, little would likely be known about western screech owls at Fairy Creek, or any other forest in nearby watersheds in the mountains northeast of Port Renfrew.
However, it also put her on a path to an unexpected roadblock (literally).
Dr. Petrell is now struggling to get full access to at least eight roads on public land within Tree Farm Licence 46, where Teal Cedar has cutting rights.
The environmental legal group Ecojustice is petitioning the courts on her behalf to have Teal Cedar Products, a part of the Teal Jones Group, open those gates for her and others studying wildlife on roads leading into the stands of old-growth rainforest she needs to access.
It's surprising to learn that much – if not most of the work documenting different species – is being done by citizen-scientists.
Dr. Petrell says there is no legal requirement to do such studies ahead of logging an area, and adds, “they don't, so it's really up to us.”
All of the data she's gathered so far has been reported to various relevant federal and provincial government bodies.
However, forestry road closures in the summer of 2021 prevented Dr. Petrell and others from effectively documenting the threatened species in the area.
“Once you are going to survey for threatened species there are protocols that you need to follow, and these protocols are set up to identify where the habitat is, and where their young disperse to, so they can understand if that's a good habit or a bad habit, so we can advance science.”
She says it's essential for researchers to be able to go into an area at critical times of the year.
Teal Cedar is allowed to close roads throughout Tree Farm Licence 46 under permission from the B.C. Ministry of Forests.
The area includes Fairy Creek, where an injunction enforcement area was established by the B.C. Supreme Court to prevent logging road blockades established by the Rainforest Flying Squad to preserve old-growth forests.
After it received permission from the Ministry of Forests, Ecojustice says Teal Cedar installed gates and hired a private security firm to operate them.
The provincial government has the authority to close or restrict roads if property, public health, or public safety is endangered.
However, Ecojustice says by granting many of Teal Cedar’s requests to restrict public access, the province has done it to protect logging operations.
Rachel Gutman is the lawyer handling the petition and she says it's crown land so there is a presumption in the legislation that the public has the right to access roads in TFL 46.
Gutman says they awaiting the government response to their petition, but their position is that the closures have been made to protect logging operations, and that's not something that's authorized in the legislation,” so the Minister of Forests would not have the authorization to close roads for that reason.
She says these are public lands that are not owned by Teal Cedar or logging companies.
However, the road closures have, in effect, turned public land into private property.
Gutman also notes that Dr. Petrell doing valuable work that has not been done in-depth by the provincial government, and forest companies are not required to do.
“She's really been doing the work that the government should be doing in terms of surveying these areas for endangered species. The TFL 46 is home to some of the last remaining productive old-growth on Vancouver Island. She's the one going out there finding these endangered species.”
Ecojustice says Dr. Petrell’s work is scientific in nature and does not inhibit logging operations and the B.C. Supreme Court injunction against road blockades in the area has made a clear distinction between protestors and people going about their everyday business.
As for the habitat needed by the two endangered species, Dr. Petrell says there is very little left.
She believes the western screech owls have a better chance of survival because they are associated with stream systems.
Logging companies are required to leave a 30 metre buffer of trees along streams and rivers.
As for the marbled-murrelet, Dr. Petrell says it requires vast areas of large old trees for raising its young.
The birds forage in the ocean and lay their eggs up to 50 kilometres inland.
They don't build nests, instead, a single egg is laid in thick moss growing on large branches high above the forest floor.
She says most of the ancient rainforest the marbled-murrelet needs is now gone.
Her fieldwork is being widely recognized and there are many interested in volunteering to join her.
Dr. Petrell says anyone is welcome to get in touch via her email at UBC. She says her group will teach volunteers what to do, supply the equipment they need, and help them get there, but points out having a good quality vehicle to access remote areas via rough forestry roads is very helpful.
Beyond the rewards of helping to preserve threatened species, Dr. Petrell says there's nothing like being immersed in a rainforest – hearing and seeing and being there.
She believes it would be “one of the magical moments of their life.”