Carden Alvar landscape
by Ron Reid, CC
Current Projects - Carden Alvar
The Carden Alvar, an Important Bird Area near Lake Simcoe, provides an outstanding opportunity to demonstrate improved management practices for grassland and shrubland birds on traditional cattle ranching areas with thin soils. The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and the Couchiching Conservancy (CC), in cooperation with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and other organizations, have purchased over 5200 acres of ranchlands on the Carden limestone plain.
Cattle ranching has a long history on the Carden plain (the Carden Alvar is set within the broader limestone plain), and the continuance of this activity appears to be essential to maintain breeding populations of Eastern Loggerhead Shrikes and some of the other grassland and shrubland birds. The large area of grazing areas in conservation ownership on the Carden Alvar provides opportunities to implement improved grazing practices to benefit bird habitats, and to communicate the benefits of those practices to ranchers operating on similar terrain.
NCC's work on the Carden Alvar has included conducting breeding bird surveys, characterizing habitat conditions, mapping nest sites and developing management plans for properties owned by NCC and CC. Management planning is critical to establishing ways of mitigating bird threats and improving habitat quality through restoration and maintenance.
This work on the Carden Alvar will:
- Provide a baseline for long-term volunteer monitoring of the response
of grassland/shrubland birds to changes in cattle grazing and other management
practices;
- Clarify the relationship between breeding distribution of grassland/shrubland
birds on the Carden Alvar and habitat conditions and management;
- Provide a scientifically-reliable basis for development and implementation
of management plans oriented to protecting and enhancing breeding bird habitats
and;
- Develop demonstration sites and materials that will help educate rural landowners about biodiversity conservation in the context of grasslands and shrublands.
