Writings to Our Mother VI | Page 15

12
ing Waters Forest before the cut began is Adrian Williams. He studied the forest in part since it provided excellent habitat for the Grey-Tree Frog. Although 35 acres of the forest was cut, the 10 acres that remained until 2015 continued to provide habitat as was witnessed by Joyce Sankey of the Niagara Falls Nature Club. She also documented significant declines by documenting calls by monitoring at Oldfield Road. until the 10 acres was reduced to three in 2015.
Being an old growth forested swamp the destroyed forest was perfect habitat for the Grey Tree Frog. To escape predators, it spends most of its life in the tops of trees, preferring giants, moving down just to breed in vernal pools. They love to hide in the rotten logs and tree cavities which are also characteristic of old growth forests. Ontario Nature notes that“ Treefrogs depend on forests. Therefore, habitat loss and degradation due to clear cutting, roads, agriculture and urbanization are the main threats to these frogs.” Currently the species is not threatened, but the problem of continuing habitat loss illustrates the point of the need to take action before a crisis, such as what has happened to the threatened Fowler’ s Toad, develops.
What happened in late June of 1992 was documented in an article on July 11, 1992 in the St. Catharines Standard by Doug Draper. He told me that what he found especially disturbing was the large numbers of colourful birds he saw dazed wandering around logging debris.
The article illustrates how all the powers needed to protect the entire Thundering Waters Forest, specifically wetland protection were available to government when the first assault took place in 1992. The Ontario wetland evaluation policy was in place-the problem was that because of a few points caused by later identified species, such as the Black Gum and Blue-Spotted Salamander, the