Post by L Roebuck on May 3, 2006 12:25:58 GMT -5
Progress at more than a snail’s pace
By Dave Husdal
Tuesday May 02, 2006
Banff Crag & Canyon — While the Banff Springs snail remains listed as an endangered species, the effort to better protect this national park’s best known mollusk is moving forward with a recovery plan and the study of options that could someday deliver more habit to the snail.
The rare snail was put on the endangered list of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada in 1997. Since that time, Parks Canada has tried to address a loss of snail habitat, and balance its ecological integrity goals with the goal of preserving cultural resources like the Cave and Basin National Historic Site -- the birthplace of our national park system that just happens to be in the middle of the habitat for an endangered snail.
The recovery team looking out for the snail provided a public update on where it’s at last week, and where the snail is at -- or could be at -- including the Upper Hot Springs.
While there aren’t snails surviving in the Upper Hot Springs right now, Charlie Pacas, head of the recovery team and Parks Canada’s aquatics specialist for the Banff field unit, said at last week’s presentation there may be an opportunity for the snail to again make its home in the Upper Hot Springs.
“The feasibility of trying to re-establish a population is being looked at, but there are some difficult things to overcome there,” Pacas said.
Namely springs that don’t always keep flowing through the winter.
While the springs that partially feed the commercial hot pool operation on the edge of Sulphur Mountain haven’t run dry this year, it’s the first winter in a few years where they haven’t stopped flowing.
“With no water, we can’t get there,” Pacas said, referencing recovery of the population in its previous Upper Hot Springs habitat.
The snail is now found in four locations around the Cave and Basin site, and also in Kidney Springs and Upper Middle and Lower Middle Springs. It was reintroduced successfully to Kidney Springs.
Security systems help protect the springs where the snails live.
Around the Cave and Basin, French and English signs also warn against behaviour harmful to the snails, but recovery team members acknowledge some signs are missing the mark, particularly with visitors who don’t speak French of English as their first language.
To that end, Pacas said, there are plans to upgrade signs and look at ways to better get the message across that limb dipping isn’t helping snails.
Those who turned out to last week’s Bow Valley Naturalists meeting also heard that the recovery team is dealing with the tricky issue of the value of ecological integrity versus commemorative integrity.
More specifically, it knows that anything done to improve snail habitat at the Cave and Basin could potentially damage historical resources.
Pacas said the team is looking at trying to improve populations of snails in the terrain below the historic hot pool complex where water often flows too swiftly to favour the snail.
Naturalists members also heard the snail is but one creature being studied in a very diverse, though threatened ecosystem. There are 28 rare mosses and a similar number of bacteria species in the springs, along with many rare species yet to be catalogued.
Pacas said the recovery of the once overlooked snail remains important for Banff National Park and an agency concerned about ecological integrity.
“I think it’s super important. We’re here dealing with the whole concept of ecological integrity and maintenance of ecological integrity and the snail is a component of that, and so trying to ensure that we can maintain snails on the landscape is integral to our overall mandate,” Pacas said.
Crag & Canyon
Physella johnsoni
By Dave Husdal
Tuesday May 02, 2006
Banff Crag & Canyon — While the Banff Springs snail remains listed as an endangered species, the effort to better protect this national park’s best known mollusk is moving forward with a recovery plan and the study of options that could someday deliver more habit to the snail.
The rare snail was put on the endangered list of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada in 1997. Since that time, Parks Canada has tried to address a loss of snail habitat, and balance its ecological integrity goals with the goal of preserving cultural resources like the Cave and Basin National Historic Site -- the birthplace of our national park system that just happens to be in the middle of the habitat for an endangered snail.
The recovery team looking out for the snail provided a public update on where it’s at last week, and where the snail is at -- or could be at -- including the Upper Hot Springs.
While there aren’t snails surviving in the Upper Hot Springs right now, Charlie Pacas, head of the recovery team and Parks Canada’s aquatics specialist for the Banff field unit, said at last week’s presentation there may be an opportunity for the snail to again make its home in the Upper Hot Springs.
“The feasibility of trying to re-establish a population is being looked at, but there are some difficult things to overcome there,” Pacas said.
Namely springs that don’t always keep flowing through the winter.
While the springs that partially feed the commercial hot pool operation on the edge of Sulphur Mountain haven’t run dry this year, it’s the first winter in a few years where they haven’t stopped flowing.
“With no water, we can’t get there,” Pacas said, referencing recovery of the population in its previous Upper Hot Springs habitat.
The snail is now found in four locations around the Cave and Basin site, and also in Kidney Springs and Upper Middle and Lower Middle Springs. It was reintroduced successfully to Kidney Springs.
Security systems help protect the springs where the snails live.
Around the Cave and Basin, French and English signs also warn against behaviour harmful to the snails, but recovery team members acknowledge some signs are missing the mark, particularly with visitors who don’t speak French of English as their first language.
To that end, Pacas said, there are plans to upgrade signs and look at ways to better get the message across that limb dipping isn’t helping snails.
Those who turned out to last week’s Bow Valley Naturalists meeting also heard that the recovery team is dealing with the tricky issue of the value of ecological integrity versus commemorative integrity.
More specifically, it knows that anything done to improve snail habitat at the Cave and Basin could potentially damage historical resources.
Pacas said the team is looking at trying to improve populations of snails in the terrain below the historic hot pool complex where water often flows too swiftly to favour the snail.
Naturalists members also heard the snail is but one creature being studied in a very diverse, though threatened ecosystem. There are 28 rare mosses and a similar number of bacteria species in the springs, along with many rare species yet to be catalogued.
Pacas said the recovery of the once overlooked snail remains important for Banff National Park and an agency concerned about ecological integrity.
“I think it’s super important. We’re here dealing with the whole concept of ecological integrity and maintenance of ecological integrity and the snail is a component of that, and so trying to ensure that we can maintain snails on the landscape is integral to our overall mandate,” Pacas said.
Crag & Canyon
Physella johnsoni