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Livingroom Science: What Our Best and Brightest are Pretty Sure is Happening with Wildlife

Humpback Whale

Salamander Night is a time of cheap thrills for the naturalists of Nova Scotia, requiring only a flashlight on the first rainy evening in April over 9°C. Under these conditions several of the province’s amphibians depart their wintering grounds for the ponds in which they’ll soon breed, and no species is more noteworthy in this short, seasonal migration than the Spotted salamander, who, about a decade ago, was caught breaking the rules of biology.

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Social Distancing Isn’t Just a Human Thing: How Bats and Trees Stay Apart to Dodge Extinction

Northern Long-Eared Bat

The human being is a deeply social animal, which is why, amid the upheavals this pandemic has forced onto daily life, be it the closure of businesses, the sealing of borders, the cancellation of flights and cruises, the most radical imposition on our Canadian identity has been social distancing.

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On Mining, Part 2

St Mary’s River

How, then, to reconcile the uncomfortable realities of modern mining with those of climate change, environmental integrity and the rights of Canadians to health and natural beauty? It’s a messy maze at best, but Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch Canada, a coalition of sorts concerned with the shortcomings of Canadian mining nationally and abroad, had plenty to say.

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On Mining, Part 1

Moose River Gold Mine

About 370 million years ago, when Nova Scotia was in the act of mountain building, our planet’s tumultuous crust permitted the escape of two elements which, to this day, are found concentrated together in our province’s bedrock. These were arsenic and gold which, eons later, would be respectively shunned and sought by a curious primate, touting 21st century civility while inexorably drawn to all thing shiny.

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A Flower for the Prosecution: Nova Scotia Naturalists Take Provincial Government to Court Over Species-at-Risk

Ram's Head Ladyslipper

I found my first Ram’s Head Lady Slipper while on hands and knees along an obscure walking trail in Hants County, Nova Scotia, its delicate purple flower, no larger than my fingernail, now the focal point of a groundbreaking lawsuit in the provincial capital.

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Owls Head

Owls Head

For years now, members of the conservation community and even anonymous government employees have expressed to me their worry that exactly this would happen – that years of lethargy from our provincial government would result, finally, in their abandoning the Parks and Protected Areas Plan.

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Prescribing Nature: Why Academics and Doctors Recommend the Pursuit of Wilderness

Canada Warbler

It was too cold even for insects, the glassy surface of Lake Superior faithfully reflecting a ruby sky as the sun rose over Pancake Bay Provincial Park, crisp beams of light cutting through the branches of old growth maple, birch, oak, spruce and pine. The mist burned away and birdsong swelled to fill the open chambers of this lakeside wood. I was alone.

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Aqua-Controversy: Communities of Queens County Concerned Over Open Pen Aquaculture

Liverpool Open Pen Fish Farm.

Bob Swim has fished the waters of Port Mouton 51 years now, and his luck was pretty good until the mid 1990s.

That decade saw the arrival of open pen aquaculture to his home bay, a relatively inoffensive operation with three pens raising fin fish from spring until fall. The picture changed with the arrival of Cooke Aquaculture a few years later, purchasing and expanding this fish farm until Bob and his colleagues noticed a change.

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