Giles: Ontario must not dismantle protection for endangered wildlife

The Eastern wolf is among many endangered species that will lose protection under a proposed Ontario government bill. Photo by Garth V. Reilley, iNaturalistArticle content

On the Thursday before the Easter long weekend, the Ford government introduced a bill that, if passed, would have devastating consequences for species at risk, all in the name of fast-tracking economic development.

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Bill 5, the “Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy” act, would strip away essential protections for wildlife — including scrapping the province’s landmark Endangered Species Act — at a time when many conservationists, myself included, are increasingly concerned about the state of our natural world.

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In October, the World Wildlife Fund released new global data that showed catastrophic population declines in wildlife — an average decrease of 73 per cent — since 1970. In Canada, populations of at-risk species of global concern have declined by an average 42 per cent over the same time.

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A glaring rejection of science

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The Ford government isn’t just making a policy change. It is sending wildlife that is already on the brink over the edge and is a glaring rejection of the science that tells us what’s needed to stop the slide toward extinction.

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We’ve done the research and know what it will take to recover Ontario’s rich biodiversity. And importantly, we have a good idea how much it will cost.

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A recent study led by WWF-Canada and the University of British Columbia, conducted before Bill 5 was introduced and currently under peer review, looked at the state of biodiversity in the Lake Simcoe-Rideau ecoregion of Southern Ontario, a hotspot for species at risk.

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The region, home to big cities such as Ottawa and Kingston, has been heavily impacted by dense development, habitat degradation and nature loss. Species like the piping plover, gray fox and Blanding’s turtle face multiple threats and are all at risk of extinction. They are also currently protected under the Endangered Species Act.

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A Blandings Turtle, one of the Ottawa Valley’s endangered species, depends on wetlands for survival. Photo by Grant DobsonArticle content

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In fact, Ontario has more than 270 species at risk of extinction. Our research focused on 133 of them, whose declining populations or conservation status make them priorities for local and national environmentalists. Using a tool called priority threat management, we predicted the likely outcomes for these species under different conservation strategies, policies and funding scenarios through to 2050.

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The results are stark: Without intervention, 98 per cent of these species are on a path to local extinction. Only three of the 133 species studied are likely to have self-sustaining populations into 2050. In other words, our data shows that without action, Ontario is on the path to losing iconic species such as the Eastern wolf, American badger and barn owl.