It's recently been widely reported that the City of Burnaby planned to dredge Burnaby Lake in order to re-establish a rowing course that is up to international standards, and to prevent the lake from filling in with sediment. On the surface this all sounds great, but if one were to dig a little deeper (literally) one would discover the largest viable population of Western Painted Turtles in the Fraser Valley.
The Western Painted Turtle is on the Endangered Species list in Canada, and is one step away from being completely extinct. During the cooler winter months, turtles hibernate in mud beneath the water in lakes like the one in question in Burnaby. Dredging the lake would put the turtles in imminent danger, and was restricted by the Ministry of the Environment until it could be shown that this beautiful creature was out of harm's way.
According to Jennifer Moreau of the Burnaby Now, "the city came up with an unprecedented plan to use ground-penetrating radar to make sure dredging areas were clear of turtles, a plan the Environment Ministry agreed to as long as the turtles were located and avoided or handled safely and released in spring, depending on how many were found together at a time. But the radar unit is too sensitive and is picking up signals from things like rocks, root masses and debris".
Due to the hyper-sensitivity of this radar unit, it looks like the Painted Turtles are safe - for now.
Personally I'm hoping that by the time the radar unit has been tweaked, temperatures will have climbed into the high teens and the turtles will have climbed out of the lake, onto the rocks in the surrounding areas to sun themselves and enjoy a relaxing dredge-free existence.
Until next time - thanks for reading!
Recent Comments