Please do not transfer the…

Please do not transfer the lands at Wasaga beach from the state to the township.

Piping Plover habitat in Wasaga Beach is protected and managed through regulations that apply within the provincial park boundaries. If these boundaries shift as the proposal outlines, the recent weakening of habitat protections under the Ontario Endangered Species Act with the passing of Bill 5 means this important Piping Plover habitat will be left with no provincial protection. Additionally, federal legislation doesn’t protect Piping Plover habitat in Ontario unless it’s on federal land.

Piping Plovers returned to breed on the shores of Ontario’s Great Lakes in 2007 after a 30-year absence, thanks largely to major conservation efforts in the United States. It was a celebratory moment– a sign that this struggling endangered species was starting to recover.

Habitats like the ones Piping Plovers nest at in Wasaga Beach are increasingly rare. Piping Plovers make their homes on wide sandy beaches with a mix of vegetation, pebbles, driftwood and dunes. When these natural beaches are mismanaged, it leaves Piping Plovers without a place to raise their young, and can take decades and millions of dollars to properly restore.