Severn reserve a wildlife haven
ENVIRONMENT: Alexander Hope Smith Nature Reserve is home to 'critical habitat' in key corridor
Posted By COLIN MCKIM, THE PACKET AND TIMES
Posted 2 months ago
When you call the family pet in at night, you don't expect a full-grown moose to come trotting up to the house.
The gangling bull moose had lost its fear of humans, possibly due to a brain disease, says Page Kennedy, who lives on the Green River north of Washago.
"We would call the cat and the moose would come. It would spend the night standing on the lawn."
For two years the moose hung around Riverdale Drive like a long-nosed, knobby-legged big dog, Kennedy recalls.
"You'd be walking through the bush and it would be right there. It wouldn't move."
By the time it was found dead on a neighbour's lawn, the moose had become something of a mascot in the area.
"Everybody on the street had a story. We got a ton of pictures."
The friendly moose is just one of a host of creatures that have inhabited the Alexander Hope Smith Nature Reserve across from her home, says Kennedy.
"We've seen porcupines, deer, fox, coyotes, beaver, mink, hawks and a barred owl."
There are also a number of species-at-risk dwelling in the 223-acres of woods, creeks and wetlands bordering Boyd's Creek.
The most startling is the hog-nosed snake, which raises its head like a cobra, spreading flaps of skin on either side of its snub-nosed head.
If provoked, the stubby snake will strike -- but it has no teeth or venom and is just as likely to roll over and play dead.
Kennedy, who has explored much of the reserve, has also seen skinks, a kind of northern lizard that hides under rocks and logs.
The large tract of undeveloped bush was originally part of a larger holding called the Washago Lands, purchased by Kennedy's great-grandfather, Alexander Hope Smith.
The land, tucked inside the J formed by Riverdale Drive, was divided and passed down to his five sons, including Kennedy's uncles, Cornwalis and Alfred.
Cornwalis's daughter Elizabeth Hope Smith donated 113 acres of land south of Boyd's Creek in trust to be preserved as wilderness.
Alfred's son Stan sold 110 acres north of the creek to extend the reserve and almost double the area of land protected from development. Funding for the land acquisition came from the Ontario Heritage Trust and its Natural Spaces Land Acquisition Program and other partners.
Managed by the Couchiching Conservancy, the Alexander Hope Smith Nature Reserve is one of a number of properties in the Severn River corridor protected by conservation agreements, said Gayle Carlyle, the conservancy's outreach co-ordinator.
This stretch of land between the limestone plains to the south and the Canadian Shield to the north has extraordinary biodiversity, said Carlyle.
"It's critical habitat -- that corridor."
As well as the skink and hog-nosed snake, the Blanding's turtle, golden-winged warbler and Eastern butternut tree, all found in the area of mixed pine and hardwood are at risk of extinction.
"Seven of eight turtles in Ontario are on the species-at-risk list," said Carlyle.
The conservancy has been carefully laying out trails through the reserve and may take steps to create parking off Riverdale Drive or Cooper's Falls Road.
The best and most scenic access to the property is by canoe, said Carlyle.
Because of beaver dams, there are no motor boats on Boyd Creek.
"It was phenomenal the wildlife we saw," said Carlyle, who paddled into the creek from the Green River.
"It's a huge boon to Washago to have that area protected," she added.
"The Alexander Hope Smith Nature Reserve provides a wonderful natural linkage between undeveloped Crown land in the east and the Severn River corridor to the west," said Mark Bisset, executive director of the Couchiching Conservancy,
"We're very grateful to both the Ontario Heritage Trust and our other partners for making it possible to double the size of this important reserve," said Bisset.
cmckim@orilliapacket.com
