Cottage Life is pleased to announce that the Sunshine Coast Wildlife Project is one of the 2012 recipients of the Cottage Life Environment Grant.
This group's goals are to foster local environmental stewardship and help protect the western painted turtle, a federally endangered population (and the only freshwater turtle species in B.C.), by building turtle nesting habitat and educating fellow cottagers about how to maintain and protect wildlife habitat on their properties.
Their efforts are focused on a landowner program and a volunteer program, both of which involve cottagers in a hands-on way. The group's activities include: installing two new turtle nesting beaches at areas popular with landowners, under consultation with the provincial western painted turtle recovery team; recruiting and training volunteers to participate in turtle nesting and hatching surveys, amphibian breeding surveys and wildlife habitat enhancement activities; distributing stewardship guides and conducting one-on-one stewardship visits with landowners to help them understand, maintain and enhance habitat on their property.
Biologists Michelle Evelyn and David Stiles head up the project and have been working for the last five years to protect species at risk in the area. Their approach provides opportunities for cottagers to help wildlife with fun, rewarding family-friendly activities.
Their revamped website (www.coastwildlife.ca) includes a catalog of vertebrate species on the Sunshine Coast and online forms for reporting frog, salamander, turtle and snake sightings.
The Cottage Life grant program provides financial assistance for projects that help preserve and enhance the environment in cottage country. For more information, visit www.cottagelife.com/cleg.
Applications for the 2013 grants are due Sept. 12, 2012.
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