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The 1996 Provincial Policy Statement under the Planning Act gives Ontario municipalities the responsibility for protecting natural heritage features and areas within a land use planning context. With the exception of wetlands and Areas of Natural or Scientific Interest (ANSIs), the methods by which municipalities identify natural areas and features are not specified by the Policy Statement. While this approach allows a variety of means to the same end, it also confers upon municipalities the task of determining what criteria should be used for identifying significant natural heritage features. Bird Studies Canada has just released a report, "Conservation Priorities for the Birds of Southern Ontario," that identifies bird species of high conservation priority with the aim of assisting municipalities with this task. The report is the result of work over the last three years by Bird Studies Canada, the Canadian Wildlife Service, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and several other partners, including the Ontario Heritage Foundation.

Birds are an important component of Ontario’s biodiversity, and indicators of ecosystem health and integrity. The conservation of birds will contribute considerably to the conservation of southern Ontario’s wildlife, ecosystems and natural areas. Birds provide services to people by eating insects and weed seeds as well as bringing pleasure to the substantial segment of the population who enjoy watching birds either as a serious hobby or simply as casual observers. Bird watchers contribute substantial sums to local economies in southern Ontario through purchase of bird food and bird feeders, through tourism, and the purchase of bird watching equipment.

For a municipality that wishes to protect a diversity of bird species through land use planning, the task may seem daunting. There are large numbers of species and birds are almost everywhere. The intent of the report is to help municipalities to identify "significant" natural heritage features using the occurrence of birds species that have been identified as being of conservation priority. Standard criteria have been applied to the bird species that occur in each upper tier municipality across southern Ontario. These criteria relate to a species’ breeding range distribution, its biological characteristics that render it susceptible to disaster, and its habitat-area requirements. The resulting lists provide a tool that municipalities might use when identifying significant natural heritage features, especially significant wildlife habitat and significant woodlands.

Check below to download your own copy of the report that has been designed for upper tier municipalities in southern Ontario.  To access lists of priority species for specific municipalities, check the frame to the left and click on the "Priority Species Lists" link.  NB:  these lists are NOT contained in the main report or appendices, you must download them separately.  Technical appendices are provided in a separate document for those who wish to learn more about the methodology. For further information, please contact Andrew Couturier (phone: 519-586-3531; email: acouturier@bsc-eoc.org).  Your feedback concerning the utility of the lists is encouraged.  We are especially interested to know who is using the lists and  for what purpose, so that we can maintain a database of users.  In this manner, your suggestions can be incorporated in future revisions of the methodology.  Thank you!

Clicking on the following links will allow you to view the main report and the technical appendices in Adobe Acrobat Reader.   If you wish to download the reports to your hard drive for viewing and/or printing later, right-click over top of the links and a menu will pop up.  Choose "save link as" (Netscape) or "save target as" (Internet Explorer) to save the file to your hard drive.  If you do not have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, click on the icon below to download a free copy of the program.

To learn more about the Conservation Priorities project, including a description of a joint BSC/Grand River Conservation Authority project, click the "News and Success Stories" link in the left frame.   Updates will be posted periodically.

Acknowledgements

This project, coordinated by Bird Studies Canada, has been a cooperative effort among several individuals from a variety of provincial and federal government agencies and non-governmental organizations. Major partners consist of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the Canadian Wildlife Service (Ontario Region). Committee members on the project included:

Additional suggestions and helpful comments were provided by the following individuals: Anne Marie Braid, Ken Elliott, Neil Hester, Virgil Martin, Suzanne McInnes, Bill McMartin, Rob Milne, Mike Puddister, Debbie Ramsay, and Paul Smith. We also wish to thank the Canadian Wildlife Service, in particular Don McNicol, for providing bird habitat association information.

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