The following is a quickly composed a letter on the subject, hence the typos!
There is a very real possibility, almost certainty, of five-lined skinks living in the nearby dunes of Southcott Pines of Lambton Shores and so your letter came as a welcome heads up on its protection. Although I have not seen a skink, I believe that for several hours last summer I photographed typical trails leading across and up into the dunes not far from the path used for access to Lake Huron, nearby. I was of the earlier mind that it was the trail of a small snake, but, it did not match what to suspect and concluded it was a form of lizard because a tiny footfalls, thereto, a skink does make more sense to me.
I encourage you in your efforts to inform people. It is wonderful news that there is the possibility of an endangered species in our locale, and also places a very heavy onus upon us to succeed in protecting it's habitat.
I can really say....wow! wow! Yes, yes, yes! We do need to protect this habitat. I am so pleased that you are on the ball with this and I would / do offer to help get the message out. As a child, I enjoyed so much the older habitats in this region that were conducive to the populations of struggling species. At little lake, we used to see billions of tadpoles one week followed by billions of tiny frogs, followed by billions of snakes.
It matters little that we brought the snakes and frogs back into town and released them into the gardens of neighbours. Little lake is no longer a habitat, except in memory. we have collectively succeeded in killing off what our children need to see and enjoy. our region has been reduced from a bountiful area to a struggling area in so many ways. it's not about working with existing economics, but I am afraid, against a host of economic signals that are false and misleading development. No wonder people are so destructive!
if you have a powerpoint / keynote presentation or film, I would be very interested in using it to help inform people about what to look out for and ways that we can make our community five-lined skink friendly. This is of utmost importance to me and I do hope that you will be able to provide me with some information that you have, or local Ontario research.
I have often thought that the University of Western Ontario should have an environmental department located in Grand Bend where they could study environmental, botanical and biological issues. Much of the proposed development by developers of housing in this area is misguided and needs urgent regulation. Legislation needs to be written that will help reverse the major mistakes while giving a qualitative uplift to the natural resources that we share our space with.
For example, residents in this area, which includes the farming community, need to reverse practices such as ploughing and drainage which have transformed the area from one of the most beautiful natural spots in north america into a wasteland of failed potentials for natural resource and space use. It really does need urgent research from the scientists at Western or elsewhere.
It is so unfortunate that there is no Ontario school of international renown looking at these issues. This I am told by European experts!
I firmly believe that people, flora and fauna can live together to maximize yield of food for human and natural use, but we are terribly terribly ignorant of what to do. Your people need to help us on this. If you give us information we can create a nature friendly habitat area that humans and all living creatures can enjoy and sustain.
Farmers need to be shown how to grow crops that make them independently wealthy and able to resist the absolutely enormous profits to be had by devastating this beautiful landscape with homogenous cropping and factory like attitudes towards food production.
If we remain ignorant and unresponsive to the needs for restraining deadly forms of commericial development outside existing locations, we will see this area and all its flora and fauna disappear. We need help!
We need legistation that sees past the almighty dollar and profit and puts water back into our small lakes and allows our streams to bend naturally. We need people to have access to paths and trails that help the human spirit as well as protecting flora and fauna. So much in Ontario is rectalinear like the thinking that insists on homogenous grassing and farming.
Also, I ask whether you can forward this message on to the relevant parties who might help. Would your government be prepared to assist the Association for Tropical Agriculture survive and enable it to grow in directions that build friendly environments for all the world's endangered species. There is a huge need for retired experts to share their expertise about what to do to get our province back into Carolinian growth mode. Many of them are in tropical agriculture and we could share with them our effort to work together to increase food production yields, eliminate the mindset towards homogenity of natural environments.
We are seeing the Irish potatoe famine issues emerge from / with profit oriented farming technologies that redicule the independent small holder and give excessive advantage to large commercial enterprises that have turned Ontario farmers into a seventeeth century putting out economic system that will destroy our natural habitat further. Will we repeat the destruction of the past and lose everything of value in allowing the spread of forms of habitat racism / genocide?
RT
