Stewardship News Spring 2020
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REGIONAL PARKS
Spring 2020
Stewardship News
Metro Vancouver Regional Parks are important to people as places to
connect with nature and get away from the pressures of the city.
They’re also critical wildlife habitat, and provide ecosystem services such as
cleaning the air and helping to control temperatures. Each year, staff, partners
and volunteers invest time and effort to restore the health and beauty of these
special places. Here are some recent highlights.
Species Highlight: Rough-skinned Newt (Taricha granulosa)
By Brian Titaro
Regional parks are home to a variety of amphibian species Regional Parks staff are currently monitoring rough-skinned
including the rough-skinned newt. An inhabitant of forest newt populations at Belcarra Regional Park to learn more about
environments, they are easily recognizable by their grainy their seasonal dispersal, and to help us better manage park
dry skin and characteristic dark brown top and bright yellow infrastructure to protect this unique species.
or orange belly. Brian Titaro is the Natural Resource Management Technician for Regional
Parks, Central Area.
Rough-skinned newts spend most of their adult lives in
and under rotting woody debris. The exception is the spring
breeding season when newts migrate to still or slow-moving
bodies of water to breed and lay single eggs on the stems
of vegetation.
Rough-skinned newts are carnivores, seeking out aquatic
invertebrates, slugs, worms – even other amphibian eggs
and larvae. They stay off the menu of most predators by
being the most poisonous amphibian in the Pacific Northwest.
However, one type of predator – the garter snake – has
managed to evolve a certain amount of resistance to rough-
skinned newt toxin. Unlike most predators, it can ingest a
rough-skinned newt; but if a newt is too toxic, the snake will
regurgitate it!
Rough-skinned newt
For those newts that escape the grips of a garter snake, life can
go on for more than a decade in the wild.
Our Meetup.com group – Metro Vancouver Regional Parks Ecological Restoration Team – is the place to find out about
stewardship events and become a volunteer. Interested in helping? Just join the group, lend a hand and help spread the word!
www.meetup.com/Regional-Parks-Connect-Metro-Vancouver
A new wetland at Colony Farm Regional Park will provide habitat for a wide variety of wildlife.
Colony Farm Regional Park – New Trail, New
Wetland, New Stewardship Opportunities
By Brian Titaro
At Colony Farm Regional Park, park visitors can once again More than 30,000 native plants were established along the
walk the Sheep Paddocks Trail, a 1.3 km connector that wetlands shore that was once colonized by invasive reed
parallels the Coquitlam River from Mundy Creek to canary grass. But there is still more work for Regional Parks
Pitt River Road. staff and volunteers to do to ensure the success of this
Erosion and flooding had closed the old trail in 2008. But habitat creation project.
work had been underway since then – not only to reestablish Later this year the Colony Farm Park Association (CFPA)
the trail on higher ground, but to provide improved habitat will be recruiting volunteers to participate in a host of new
for a myriad of wildlife that depend on Colony Farm stewardship opportunities in the park including bird surveys,
Regional Park. water quality analysis, invasive species removal and native
The re-designed trail now passes a new 1.2-hectare wetland plant maintenance along the length of the new trail, at
that provides habitat for ducks, herons and other water the wetland site and the historic Sheep Paddock habitat
birds as well as amphibians and western painted turtles enhancement project sites.
throughout the year. Brian Titaro is the Natural Resource Management Technician for
Regional Parks, Central Area.
Metro Vancouver Regional Parks Stewardship News Spring 2020
Kanaka enhancement project provides
new habitat for salmon, trout and other
aquatic species
By Janice Jarvis and Roy Teo
Thornvale Creek is one of the main
tributaries to Kanaka Creek. In some
years, more than 200 spawning coho
salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) return
to the creek, but the off-channel
habitat that young salmon need to
develop is rare.
In 2015, Metro Vancouver purchased
a property that protects a portion
of Thornvale Creek in Kanaka Creek
Regional Park. The property had three
excavated ponds that would make for
good rearing habitat but they weren’t
connected to the creek.
So, an enhancement project was A staff member checks out one of the new inhabitants of the enhanced habitat.
designed to provide that access. An
intake from the creek to the ponds
was installed, along with channels to
connect all the ponds. A small hand-
built fish ladder was also constructed
to allow juvenile fish additional
access to the ponds. Soon, the
artificial ponds were transformed into
800 square metres of off-channel,
overwintering pond habitat for juvenile
salmonids and other aquatic species,
including salamanders and frogs.
Students from Take a Hike Foundation
assisted by planting over 800 native
plants around the ponds, providing
shade for fish and habitat for wildlife.
Volunteers dig spots to plant new native shrubs.
Planting was particularly challenging
given the rocks and clay in the ground.
Despite tough conditions, the students off-channel ponds. It was exciting and Janice Jarvis is the Natural Resource
persevered and completed the project Management Specialist and Roy Teo is the
rewarding for volunteers and staff Natural Resource Management Technician for
with care and attention. to document the presence of fish, Regional Parks, East Area.
This past fall, local students and knowing their hard work had paid off
regional parks staff returned to and that the enhancement was
Thornvale Creek to monitor the a success.
restoration site for fish. Over several This project is supported by the Pacific
sessions, they managed to trap Parklands Foundation, which obtained
juvenile coho salmon and cutthroat a grant from the Pacific Salmon
trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii) in the Foundation.
A close up image of a male Oregon fairy shrimp shows the 11 pairs of leaf-like phyllopodia (swimming legs) that allows them to move quickly through water. Photo: Thalia Grant
Fairies found at
Pacific Spirit
Regional Park
By Sam Cousins
Something magical is happening in Pacific Spirit Regional
Park: fairies have been found thriving in ponds in the forest.
Before you think we’ve ventured into the world of fantasy
and make-believe, it’s true: Pacific Spirit Regional Park
is home to small populations of Oregon fairy shrimp
(Eubranchipus oregonus) – tiny crustaceans that have
adapted over millions of years to live in ephemeral ponds.
Eubranchipus oregonus is the only species of fairy shrimp
found in BC’s Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the
Gulf Islands. They live in ephemeral woodland pools that
contain water in the fall, winter and spring months but dry
up in summer. (The adult fairy shrimp die off, but the eggs
remain in the mud.)
In 2014, researchers had to relocate a population of fairy A group of fairy shrimp swim in a small ephemeral pond in
Pacific Spirit Regional Park.
shrimp from an area that was slated for development near
UBC to sites in Pacific Spirit Regional Park. Years later,
those populations continue to exist in the park. There may well be other populations out there. If you see
these amazing creatures, please send a photograph and a
Fairy shrimp are adapted to survive harsh conditions as
location to sam.cousins@metrovancouver.org
their eggs are drought resistant and can remain in the
dried-out ground awaiting optimal conditions to hatch. Sam Cousins is the Natural Resource Management Technician for
They are principally threatened by climate change, habitat Regional Parks, West Area.
loss, habitat disturbance and development.
Currently in the Metro Vancouver region, fairy shrimp
have only been confirmed in a few sites in Pacific Spirit
Regional Park and one site in Campbell Valley Regional Park
in Langley.
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