PROTECTED
AREAS
The rich diversity of rare plants and
animals in many areas of Wainfleet Bog are now protected.
The Ontario Ministry of Natural
Resources has identified the bog as a provincially significant
wetland.
Part of the bog has been identified by
the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources as a provincially
significant Life Science ANSI (Area of Natural or Scientific
Interest). These designations reflect the importance of this landscape
in Ontario. Significant patches of this rare habitat, or associated
buffer areas that link a diversity of habitats, is on private
property.
The bog and its
species have protection under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act,
the Planning Act, the Conservation Authorities Act, Statement of
Conservation (Federal), and is managed for rehabilitation by the
Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority Wainfleet Bog Management
Plan.
THREATS
In the past few decades, human actions
have drastically changed the Wainfleet Bog area. These changes have
reduced or fragmented much of the natural habitat.
Commercial interests dug drainage
ditches to lower the water table, providing dry access to the bog for
peat extraction, local farming, and potential development. Drainage
caused the water table to be altered and resulted in a subsequent loss
of soil moisture. Wildlife biologists are also concerned about snake
deaths from traffic on the area’s highways.
Much of the bog was once privately
owned by a peat extraction company. Today, 74 percent of the Wainfleet
Bog is publicly owned, thanks to a joint purchase by the Niagara
Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA), the Nature Conservancy of
Canada (NCC) and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR). Led
by the NPCA, management of the wetland and its species is achieved
through these contributing parties and landowners adjacent to the bog.
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