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May 2025

Vol 35 No. 1 Spring 2025

May 2025

Can We Learn to Coexist With Cormorants?

A recent Cottage Life Mar/Apr '25 article, "If cormorants aren’t actually bad for the ecosystem, can we bear to let them exist?", highlights the complexities of human-wildlife conflict and asks readers to rethink our wildlife acceptance capacity. GBA President, Liz Phillips, was interviewed for the piece and emphasized the "need to learn to live with the natural behavior of wildlife that can survive in our human-dominated environment." Double-crested cormorants, once vilified as an invasive species, are actually native to Ontario. Their population decline in the 1960s and '70s was due to toxic chemicals like DDT, but they've made a remarkable recovery. Despite scientific evidence showing they don't significantly impact native fish populations, a government-sanction

May 2025

Help Save the Lake Partner Program!

The Lake Partner Program (LPP), a vital water quality monitoring initiative, is at risk due to the impending end of its 5-year agreement with the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP). Despite its immense value to the public and Ontario, a new agreement has not been confirmed, putting the program's future in jeopardy. The LPP is a volunteer-based water quality monitoring program that helps track the health of Ontario's lakes. The program relies on the dedication of 629 volunteer Lake Stewards who monitored 546 lakes at 917 sites across the province in 2024. However, the program needs Ministry-backed lab testing and coordination support to function. With nearly three decades of effort invested, the program's collapse would leave lake associations

May 2025

Ontario's Bill 5 is a Threat to Species and the Environment

GBA is seriously concerned about the effect of Bill 5, Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025, a sweeping omnibus bill aimed at opening mining opportunities in Ontario's Ring of Fire. This bill will make massive changes to the requirements for protecting endangered species and archaeological sites in the province. Bill 5 empowers the Ontario government to designate “special economic zones” which are exempted from provincial laws and municipal by-laws to expedite development. - What's at stake? If passed, this legislation will: - Repeal the provincial Endangered Species Act and replace it with the much weaker Species Conservation Act, 2025 Allow development to begin immediately after online registration rather than