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CBEEN Outdoor Learning Store
Discount available to KCP Partners!
The Kootenays is home to The Outdoor Learning Store - a social enterprise of the Columbia Basin Environmental Education Network (CBEEN), and the go-to hub for outdoor and environmental learning equipment & resources in North America. They now offer a variety of stewardship, conservation and Indigenous resources and equipment that are likely to be of interest to many KCP partners. Enter KCP123%$ at check-out and receive a 5% discount (all orders are placed online). And 100% of proceeds go back to supporting outdoor and environmental learning non-profit initiatives.
Click here for The Outdoor Learning Store.
Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative
Bringing the Salmon Home Panel Discussion recording available
For more than 80 years, dams have blocked salmon from returning to the Canadian portion of the upper Columbia River in British Columbia. Bringing the Salmon Home: The Columbia River Salmon Reintroduction Initiative is the Indigenous-led collaboration of the Syilx Okanagan Nation, Ktunaxa Nation, Secwépemc Nation, Canada and British Columbia to return salmon to this river. This online session provides an overview of the Initiative and presentations by Indigenous Knowledge Counsel members and Youth Salmon Warriors from the three Nations. Guest speakers include Valerie Michel, Troy Hunter, Fred Fortier, Chad Eneas, Martina Escutin and Jade Montgomery-Waardenburg.
Click here for the recording.
Columbia Basin Environmental Education Network
2023 Ktunaxa Language Course
Join Alfred Joseph and Mara Nelson for 12 weeks of Foundational Ktunaxa Language Learning. Learn the sounds, words and some history of the Ktunaxa Language. This course is designed for you to garner skills that will enable you to carry Ktunaxa Language forward to your classrooms, in schools and on the land. From January to April 2023.
Click here for more information and to register.
Living Lakes Canada
Monitoring for Adaptation in the Columbia Basin: 2022 Pilot & Technical Reports available
Living Lakes Canada has developed a new framework for an expanded water monitoring network across the Columbia Basin to track and understand climate impacts on water. The data collected will support decision makers in their ability to help communities and industry prepare for inevitable changes to water supply. The Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Framework was implemented in three pilot areas this past summer: the North Kootenay Lake/Slocan Valley region in the West Kootenay, and the Columbia Valley and Elk River Valley in the East Kootenay. In each pilot area, water monitoring sites were selected based on a combination of community priorities and scientific metrics. Overall, monitoring sites were selected for 26 hydrometric stations, eight lake level stations and three climate stations.
Click here for the Pilot Implementation and Geospatial Analysis reports.
Wildlife Conservation Society Canada
Biologists work towards bat conservation in Creston Valley
The Wildlife Conservation Society Canada has been working in the Creston Valley to enhance bat habitat and provide artificial tree roosts for bats to raise their young. Funded in part by the RDCK Local Conservation Fund, this project was recently featured by the Creston Valley Advance newspaper in two different articles.
Click here for the Kuskanook Bat Chalet article and here for the artificial roosts article.
Wildsight Golden
Swallow Project Achievements in 2022
The Upper Columbia Swallow Habitat Enhancement Project’s (UCSHEP) monitoring and data collection efforts have wrapped up for 2022. This is a five-year project (2021-2026), and to date, five large Swallow Condos for barn swallows have been erected and one of those already produced four barn swallow chicks in August 2022. Working with Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service and BC Parks, the project team installed four Motus Wildlife Tracking Stations in the region and subsequently tagged 50 Bank Swallows at two colonies near Invermere in June 2022.
Click here to read the full announcement.
Teck Trail Operations
Help inform biodiversity and reclamation programs
Teck Trail is committed to working with local partners, communities and Indigenous Peoples to conserve ecologically and culturally significant lands. When answering the following questions about the natural environment, please think about the South Selkirks-Lower Columbia area of interest.
Click here to complete the survey.
Living Lakes Canada
Kootenay Lake foreshore survey leads to lakeshore permit review
Living Lakes Canada’s FIMP project (Foreshore Integrated Management Planning) has the overarching goal to improve the quality and quantity of information about lake foreshore habitat integrity and species at risk in the Upper Columbia Basin. In 2021 for Year 3 of the project, Kootenay Lake was one of 3 priority lakes surveyed, and the survey identified 4.5 kilometres of Kootenay Lake’s natural shoreline lost to development over a nine-year period. In response, the Regional District of the Central Kootenay has been conducting a review of its lakeshore permitting guidelines.
Click here for the news story.
Kootenay Native Plant Society
KNPS fall planting season supports monarch butterflies
In October, Kootenay Native Plant Society launched its 2022 planting season with the help of a team of volunteers and supporters at Fort Shepherd and Syringa Creek Park. As part of its larger Pollination Pathway Program, KNPS’s aim was to plant 13 sites with more than one million native plant seedlings and seeds including Showy Milkweed, Pink Fairies and Brown-eyed Susans to support pollinating insects in our region, including the red listed Monarch butterfly.
Click here for the full article.
Canadian Wildlife Federation
National seed strategy framework – complete the survey
Are you interested in contributing to a seed strategy framework for Canada? With support from ECCC, CWF is beginning a process to engage native plant experts from across the country to help inform the strategy and highlight priority actions Canada needs to take to protect and restore our flora. Here’s a link to a short survey where you can tell us more about your experience with native seeds, and your level of interest in joining a collaborative strategy framing process.
Click here for the survey.
Wildsight & Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative
Work progressing on project to reduce Elk Valley wildlife collisions
Work is continuing on a project to reduce the number of wildlife collisions in the Elk Valley. Wildsight officials said crews completed work on two crossing locations this year, as part of phase one of Reconnecting the Rockies. The project is a plan to create a system of wildlife crossing structures, such as overpasses and underpasses, along an 80-kilometre stretch of Highway 3 through the Elk Valley. The goal is to have 11 wildlife structures in place by 2025, with stretches of fencing connecting each one.
Click here for the full article.
KBA Canada
Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it - Tobacco Plains KBA declared one of 7 in BC
British Columbia's Tobacco Plains area is the only occurrence in Canada of Palouse Prairie ecosystem. It contains 100% of the Canadian population and an estimated 2.1% of the global population of Spalding's Campion (Silene spaldingii). This rare flowering plant is listed as G2 (2013) and N1 (2016) by NatureServe and as Endangered (2005) by COSEWIC. The site therefore meets KBA criterion A1b globally and criteria A1a, A1e, and B1 nationally.
Click here for details.
Nature Conservancy of Canada
Spotlight on conservation: Kootenay River Ranch
Featured in Canadian Geographic: When you think of the Rocky Mountains, you likely don’t think of open grasslands and wetlands. And yet, in the valleys below the snow-capped peaks and glaciers that dominate our imagination lies an astonishing diversity of habitats that support a wide array of wildlife. This is especially true at the Kootenay River Ranch Conservation Area, which protects part of a critical wildlife corridor in a rapidly developing valley in the Rocky Mountain Trench in southeastern British Columbia. Here, thanks to the efforts of the Nature Conservancy of Canada and its partners, crucial habitats are being protected and restored.
Click here for the full article.
Canadian Museum of Nature
Invermere resident awarded Lifetime Achievement
Larry Halverson of Invermere received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canada Museum of Nature at a special gala on November 14. Throughout his life, including 38 years as a naturalist with Parks Canada, Larry Halverson has created initiatives to protect nature, including co-founding the Wings Over the Rockies festival that has inspired similar festivals in North America.
Click here for the awards announcement.
Province of BC
Subscribe to Recovery Documents
Did you know that you can subscribe to the provincial government Recovery documents website for automatic notifications as soon as any new documents are posted? (See subscribe box at the top of the page.) This page provides links to B.C. and federal recovery documents (i.e., management plans, recovery plans/strategies, action plans, implementation plans) written for species and ecosystems occurring in B.C., including terrestrial, aquatic, and marine. It also has a very user-friendly search/sort feature to easily find documents by keyword, species, and date.
Click here to subscribe.
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