Kudos to the forest protectors camping in the woods of Digby County to save some environment for the mainland moose.
The largest land mammal in Nova Scotia has been on the endangered list since 2003 and now it is facing imminent extinction. An aerial scan undertaken by the province back in 2018 failed to locate more than a few.
So how, in the wake of this spring’s Nova Scotia Supreme Court order to better protect at-risk species, are massive clear cuts approved at all? When the decision came down in favour of endangered species, the former lands and forestry minister told the CBC that he respected the court’s decision. Since that department has permitted the degree of clear cutting planned for Digby County, I have to believe the government is acting hypocritically.
After all, as respected wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft has indicated, 40 per cent of this province’s forest land base has been clear cut in the last 24 years.
"The scale of the removal is mind-boggling,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of the forest protectors last week, Nina Newington said they would like lands and forestry to put a halt to logging in the New France area and leave a place for the moose. Is that too much to ask when tracks have been seen in the area?
Here in the Annapolis Valley, the Blomidon Naturalists Society, along with two kindred organizations, stood up to be counted. They took the province to court over its failure to uphold the Endangered Species Act of 1998. The ruling in June stood up for a flower, the moose, a turtle, two birds and a tree.
I believe Nova Scotians are growing dismayed at the amount of clear cutting and toxic chemical spraying going on. It appalls me that Crown land is being decimated in the name of short-term profit.
Two years ago, this government promised it would respond "as soon as possible" to the review of the province's forest practices headed by University of King's College president Bill Lahey. That report, which estimated 80 per cent of forest harvesting is carried out by clear cutting, recommended protecting ecosystems and biodiversity. We have heard virtually nothing positive since Lahey submitted his sage advice.
Early in September, forest protectors, like Don Osburn of Burlington, successfully protested chemical spraying. Osburn asked us all “to stand up and join us to get the province to agree to end the spraying of herbicides on the woodlands in Nova Scotia. It has to stop. It’s unsustainable. We’re in a climate emergency. That’s all there is to it.”
A hundred years ago, moose were routinely observed in rural Nova Scotia. In Hants County, moose sightings made the news. The monarchs of the woods were shy and when they got the scent of a stranger sometimes made a wild dash, but other times they were up for racing. In 1930, a moose travelling at 35 mph raced a car at West Gore for nearly five miles and won.
Mary Elizabeth Clark wrote in The Hants Journal about being in the woods early enough to catch a moose napping with the grass steaming as he jumped up from his bed. Once she got lost and discovered a ‘moose yard’, which she described as “a place where moose will stay for weeks in hiding, feeding until they have eaten everything near them. She believed it was a retreat from sportsmen.
She reported concern in 1934 as two mills were active in the woods around Clarksville. “We do hope there will be enough left to feed and shelter the moose.”
Born in the 1860s, Mrs. Clark could recall a time when caribou roamed the woods.
“When I was a little child, they were in Panuke but were driven out by hunting with dogs, but I saw one, one time. The moose will not become extinct if the lumbermen are careful as they thrive on the young saplings that spring up, particularly the poplar.”
Today the Clarksville area, and far too much of this province, are full of nasty clear cuts and ugly softwood forestry plantations, while mainland moose are fast disappearing. First caribou, then moose.
Columnist Wendy Elliott is a retired Advertiser and Register journalist living in Wolfville.
