Can a city and a wetland live in harmony?
KITCHENER  Samuel is about the size of a baseball hat. A Blandings turtle, he was found in the Huron Natural Area and tracked for two weeks. In that time, he travelled almost a full kilometre, says Chris Spere, manager of engineering construction at the City of Kitchener. Kitcheners latest Strasburg Road extension  between Rush Meadow Street and the future intersection with Robert Ferrie Drive  goes through known Blandings turtle habitat. The multi-phased Strasburg Road extension has been planned for decades and has been the subject of controversy over the impact on ecosystems and wetland in the southwest area. The Blandings turtle is listed as threatened by the province, so extra measures were expected of the city to try and protect them. The city negotiated with the province and got an overall benefit permit to begin the extension under the Endangered Species Act in 2017, meaning the construction could go ahead under the condition that measures are taken to minimize impact on the species, and also to improve overall circumstances for it. One of the measures was to monitor Blandings turtles in the area. They were able to find one  Samuel. Blandings turtles have banana-yellow throats, domed army-helmet shells and little smiles that hint at a can-do attitude. Turtles are very great climbers actually. You can find videos of snapping turtles circumventing chain link fences, says Alison Forde, an ecologist with SNC Lavalin, the company hired by the city to carry out the ecological aspect of the citys required mitigation measures. They just climb right up them and then fall overtop.  Along with finding and monitoring Samuel, the city needed to build mitigation infrastructure. Now complete, it includes a short cement wall with a lip at the top to prevent turtles from climbing over. The wall runs along the road for the length of the wetland, with extra fencing for a few hundred metres on either end. A tunnel was built under the road to help wildlife cross safely underneath. A multi-span bridge was also built over two legs of Strasburg Creek tributaries, so that the road wont interfere with the wetland, creeks and wildlife that use this corridor, says Spere. To try and improve circumstances for Blandings turtles overall, five nesting mounds were built. The nesting mounds are piles of gravel and sand about three feet high, and three meters across. Its troubling, but turtles seem to prefer this gravel and sand mix for their nests, the same material used along roadways, says Forde. Now, Spere, Forde and their teams must wait and see if their work is successful. They will monitor the mounds via wildlife cameras to see if any turtles  hopefully Blandings, but other turtles are welcome  use them for nesting. Forde says turtles can take a few years before they start using a site, but if they do, the team will place nest protectors overtop to protect them. Fordes team will also monitor the road for any turtle deaths. The road will be monitored once a week to three times a week depending on the season, until 2024. The nesting mounds will be monitored until 2023. So far, no turtles have used one. 2020 was the first year of road monitoring. No turtle mortalities were found, says Forde. Samuel was found in Huron Natural Area in early May 2018, just after he woke up from hibernation. He was named after a Blandings turtle character in a childrens book by a local author. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... When they found him, the upper part of his shell, the carapace, was 242 millimetres long, and the lower portion of his shell, the plastrum, was 220 millimetres long. He weighed 1,950 grams, and had reached sexual maturity, which can take between 15 and 25 years. The team notched his shell and attached a tracker to him. In the two weeks the team was able to monitor Samuel, he travelled nearly a full kilometre hopping between various ponds and wetlands within a radius of hundreds of meters, further than anyone thought he would travel. Its safe to say he moved into areas that we didnt expect him to move to. He crossed busy roads, says Spere. Ontario has eight native turtle species, all of which are federally designated as species at risk, says Mandy Karch, executive director of the Ontario Road Ecology Group. The two leading causes of turtle population decline are habitat loss and road mortality, she says. Karch says that because turtles take about 20 years to reach sexual maturity, losing reproducing adults is the biggest problem. If not enough young turtles reach sexual maturity today, real loss will be felt in 20 years time when there are too few that are able to replenish the population. The Ontario Road Ecology Group is hosting a project on the iNaturalist app where people can post sightings of wildlife on the road, dead or alive. This data will help policy-makers and scientists understand where the hot spots are for wildlife in Ontario. Ducks Unlimited Canada has mapped wetland loss across southern Ontario and found that overall, Southern Ontario has gone from 2,026,591 hectares of wetland in the 1800s to 560,844 hectares in 2002. Sean Rootham, a provincial policy specialist with Ducks Unlimited Canada says wetland loss is usually not experienced in large recognizable chunks, but more often a few hectares at a time. These small bits of wetland loss add up. Between 1982 and 2002, approximately 3,500 hectares of wetland were removed annually in Southern Ontario, according to Ducks Unlimited Canada. Rootham says this rate of removal still holds today. Today, Kitcheners wetland may still be fairly well connected. A photo of Samuel was posted on the iNaturalist app two years after Fordes team lost track of him. The location was 11 kilometres away from where he was last tracked. Forde says a well-meaning person could have moved him, but after looking at a map and consulting with colleagues, she thinks its possible he made the journey himself. Between the two areas was still a good network of creeks, woodland, farmland, wetland and roads of course too, but it wouldnt be impossible for a creature to traverse that area.  Before the pandemic, Forde launched a volunteer program for neighbours interested in helping with road monitoring, bat box surveys, documenting road mortalities and helping any animals they find trying to cross the road. In-person training was planned, but the program has been put on hold during the pandemic. Anyone interested in joining once it is up and running can contact Forde at alison.forde@snclavalin.com.