Displaying items by tag: westport

Sept. 3, 2019 — The RVCA and its partners are angling to help walleye stocks recover in Wolfe Lake.

With a generous grant from the TD Friends of the Environment Fund, RVCA staff teamed up with volunteers from the Wolfe Lake Association and the Westport Area Outdoors Association to create two new spawning beds on Scanlan Creek at the end of August.

Walleye stocks have been falling across Ontario, and in Wolfe Lake the population is noticeably on the decline, according to lake association fishing director Margie Manthey.

“The depletion began in the 1980s and 1990s,” said Manthey, who hasn’t missed a summer on the lake since 1978. While she admitted she’s no biologist, she said general consensus is that “road culverts installed 30 or 40 years ago on Scanlan Creek excised kilometres worth of spawning habitat.”

Walleye like to spawn at the same spot every year, and in Scanlan Creek those breeding grounds are now upstream of several culverts that are filled with rushing spring runoff during spawning season. This has effectively cut the fish off from their breeding grounds, according to RVCA aquatic biologist Jennifer Lamoureux, who said the rushing water is too fast to fight.

Where there once might have been dozens of breeding adults counted in the spring, this year local landowners only spotted a few.

To fix this, Lamoureux designed two new spawning beds downstream of the culverts.

“Some may still try to spawn upstream, but these downstream spawning beds mean they have the appropriate habitat if the spring freshet is a strong one,” Lamoureux said.

Staff and 30 volunteers spent two days at the end of August building the new beds. The first day, volunteers installed nets to block and relocate nearly 1,100 fish and other aquatic creatures from the construction zone. The next day, they worked tirelessly to place 70 tonnes of six-inch round river stone in the creek, passing them down the line by hand to cover the river bottom.

The project was the brainchild of Manthey and Don Goodfellow of the Westport Area Outdoors Association, who worked together to develop a Scanlan Creek rehabilitation proposal for the RVCA. It required buy-in from members of both community groups, as well as approval from landowner Bill Blaney, who has owned this section of the creek for the past 12 years.

Blaney said he was happy to help, not only because it’s restoring the creek back to balance, but because he’s noticed a decline at the end of his fishing line.

“I used to catch a fish every second cast, and I could count on getting one or two in a trip. Now there are many times we get skunked,” Blaney said.

He said he hopes to see more walleye on his property as early as two years from now. For more information, visit https://www.rvca.ca/wolfe-lake-scanlan-creek-fish-habitat-enhancement-project.

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WESTPORT, July 14, 2023 – A new weekly Forest School program will cater to kids ages 2 to 5 and their caregivers this September.

The parent-assisted program will run every Tuesday from 9:30 to 11:30 for 12 weeks, beginning Sept. 12. 

“It’s so important to let young kids engage in risky play, explore a diverse landscape, develop their motor skills and of course receive all the wonderful benefits from being outside,” said Foley Mountain site supervisor Rebecca Whitman. “The sooner we can help children build connections to the land and nature, the better off we’ll all be.”

The Forest School model allows students to spend most of their time outside, playing and learning through experiential, hands-on activities that promote curiosity in an active and authentic learning environment. Foley Mountain has offered Forest School programs since 2018. 

“We wanted to serve younger children, so we went with this parent-assisted model that serves a wider range of families,” Whitman said. Caregivers can help younger kids in the bathroom and help monitor risky play. It’s a great way to introduce younger kids to the Forest School environment – and the caregivers appreciate it, too. 

“Especially when they’re little, they want to share this experience with their kids,” Whitman said. 

Each week, the two-hour program will begin with free play prompts like mud kitchens, planks and boards, creature exploration, nature-based art, shelter building and seasonal activities.  Then the group will gather for a snack and story – usually around the campfire – and decide on the day’s big adventure in the forest.

Whitman said this weekly program will differ from Foley’s popular monthly drop-ins, since the same group will come together each week throughout the season, fostering a sense of community and encouraging independence and social learning.

“It’s so rich for all those developmental opportunities,” Whitman said. 

Registration is now open for the fall session at a cost of $216 plus HST. Families with slightly older or younger siblings are welcome to have them tag along.

Fall school-age and kinder Forest School programs are also open for registration. The half-day kinder program will run on Wednesdays starting Sept. 13 and the full and half-day programs for kids ages 6 to 12 will run on Thursdays beginning Sept. 14. 

Visit https://www.rvca.ca/outdoor-education/foley-mountain-ca/foley-mountain-forest-scool to learn more and register. 

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