This article is over 5 years old and may contain outdated information.

Wildlife

Four Nova Scotia islands protected for endangered roseate tern

Environment and Climate Change Canada applied a critical-habitat protection order to Country Island, Sable Island and North Brother and South Brother islands
  • Jan 31, 2017
  • 360 words
  • 2 minutes
roseate tern endangered nova scotia protected habitat Expand Image
Advertisement

For roseate terns, not much will have appeared to change when the endangered seabirds start returning to Canada from their South American wintering grounds about three months from now.

As they’ve long done, some of the three per cent of the world’s population of roseate terns that nest in Canada will settle on Quebec’s Magdalen Islands. Others may find their way to New Brunswick’s Machias Seal Island. The bulk of them, however, will make for a quartet of islands off the coast of Nova Scotia, and when they arrive they’ll swoop onto newly protected land and waters that could help ensure their survival on Canada’s East Coast.

In November, Environment and Climate Change Canada applied a critical-habitat protection order to safeguard the species, of which only 73 breeding pairs were counted in Nova Scotia in 2016. The order immediately protected the land and waters surrounding Country Island and the waters surrounding Sable Island and North Brother and South Brother islands.

Sable Island’s status as a national park and migratory bird sanctuary and the Brother islands status as provincial wildlife sanctuaries meant that roseate terns were already afforded a measure of protection on each. Critically, though, the order extended the protection 200 metres into the water, where the roseate tern fishes for its food.  

Andrew Boyne, head of conservation planning for the Canadian Wildlife Service, told CBC that the order makes it illegal to destroy the habitat, noting that it would be forbidden to do something such as build a wharf or disturb the seabed.

Such human-related development are among the threats facing the roseate tern. According to the federal government’s Species at Risk Public Registry, local threats to the bird also include: predation and displacement of colonies by herring gulls and great black-backed gulls; predation by American mink (in 2003, the registry notes, “a single mink killed almost the entire population of chicks on the Brothers Islands colony.”); loss of habitat due to erosion and increases in large ship traffic.

Advertisement

Are you passionate about Canadian geography?

You can support Canadian Geographic in 3 ways:

Related Content

Arctic tern on Machias Seal Island, New Brunswick

Wildlife

Should we kill one bird to save another?

On New Brunswick’s Machias Seal Island, predatory gulls are pushing endangered Arctic tern colonies to the brink, creating a dilemma for wildlife managers

  • 2151 words
  • 9 minutes
illegal wildlife trade, elephant foot, ivory, biodiversity

Wildlife

The illegal wildlife trade is a biodiversity apocalypse

An estimated annual $175-billion business, the illegal trade in wildlife is the world’s fourth-largest criminal enterprise. It stands to radically alter the animal kingdom.

  • 3405 words
  • 14 minutes
A grizzly bear lies dead on the side of the road

Wildlife

Animal crossing: Reconnecting North America’s most important wildlife corridor

This past summer an ambitious wildlife under/overpass system broke ground in B.C. on a deadly stretch of highway just west of the Alberta border. Here’s how it happened.

  • 3625 words
  • 15 minutes

Wildlife

Do not disturb: Practicing ethical wildlife photography

Wildlife photographers on the thrill of the chase  — and the importance of setting ethical guidelines 

  • 2849 words
  • 12 minutes