MARCH 2024
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OUR PEOPLE, OUR COMMUNITIES, OUR STORIES
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 3
Seventy years of service
Definitely a business for girls
06
10
Native plants and pollinator gardens
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A corridor of essential migratory bird habitats
P
rotecting migratory birds, including shorebirds, in Canada dates back to the early twentieth century when Canada and the United States began to work together on conservation following the extinction of the passenger pigeon. The core legislation in Canada today is the Canada Wildlife Act of 1973, which allows for the protection of wildlife and wild habitats. Shepody Bay National Wildlife Area, located just south of Riverside-Albert, falls under the aegis of the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS), a branch of Environment and Climate Change Canada. Says Garry Donaldson, Manager of Protected Areas and Stewardship for the CWS in Atlantic Canada, “we look throughout our regions to see, ‘where are those really special places for birds that need to be protected to ensure their survival?’ Mary’s Point
was always really high on our list … especially in mid-to-late summer for migrating shorebirds.” The most famous, although by no means the only, of the inner bay’s seasonal migrants are semipalmated sandpipers. Along with other shorebirds, says Donaldson, they carry out an extraordinary, long-distance migration. “You get hundreds of thousands of shorebirds that are breeding across the arctic and they funnel down the eastern seaboard of North America. Many of them come to the inner Bay of Fundy, and a lot of them end up at Mary’s Point to feed. “They have expended all their fuel, their fat reserves, so they spend three weeks fattening up, doubling their weight, and then they fly from the Bay of Fundy directly to northern South America, across the ocean.” Other shorebirds use the marshes of the inner Bay of Fundy and its rivers
The Semipalmated Plover is one of the migratory shorebird species that relies on a corridor of habitats from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America, including Mary’s Point in the Shepody National Wildlife Area. (Photo courtesy of Garry Donaldson, Canadian Wildlife Service).
as well. Says Donaldson, “that speaks to the importance of both salt marshes and mud flats in the inner Bay of Fundy.” Mary’s Point has been recognized by three international organizations dedicated to shorebird habitat – the Ramsar Convention, named after the city in Iran in which it was signed and also known as The Convention on Wetlands; the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN), where it is designated
as a Site of Hemispheric Importance; and BirdLife International, where it is designated as an Important Bird Area. The sandpipers feed on what are known as mud shrimp, a tiny crustacean that burrows into mud flats. They can occur in concentrations of up to 60,000 per square metre and provide an essential food source to migrating shorebirds. Donaldson notes, Continued on page 3
Shepody National Wildlife Area. (Photos courtesy of Garry Donaldson, Canadian Wildlife Service).