Metchosin Biodiversity Project

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Dreary schmeery

Fog, East Sook Parke beach, 2006

"Metchosin looked its best, the beautiful slopes, the richly tinted foliage, the bright clear sky, the warm sunshine, the glassy smooth sea and the grand mountains in the distance, formed a combination of indescribable beauty. I felt an exhilaration of mind which led me to wander away through the woods towards the white cliffs bordering the sea from whence I contemplated its placid waters with delight."

Sir James Douglas, in an 1873 letter to his daughter in England

Metchosin BioBlitz: Links

Local Organizations with special interest in the identification of Metchosin species

• Τhe District of Metchosin. See here for a map of the parks and trails managed by the District.
• Metchosin's Lester B. Pearson United World College has extensive lands and manages Race Rocks.
• The Metchosin Foundation works toreserve and safeguard Metchosin’s unique ecosystems, flora and fauna.
• Habitat Acquisition Trust helps people understand and care for natural environments in the Capital region through land acquisition, covenants, and education. They have helped several Metchosin landowners establish conservation covenants.
• The Nature Conservancy of Canada has many specific BC projects related to conservation land acquisition and conservation covenants.
• The Royal BC Museum in Victoria maintains extensive collections of BC flora and fauna and carries on important research relating to the species that inhabit Metchosin.
• Canada's Department of National Defence manages significant tracts of Metchosin land at Albert Head, Mary Hill and Christopher Point and Rocky Point. The Environmental Science Advisory Committee of the Canadian Forest Service runs several natural history projects on the DND lands.
• Camosun College has a 65-hectare property in Metchosin that is used by students in its students (especially its Environmental Technology program).
• The Southern Vancouver Island Mycological Society, SVIMS, uses Metchosin as a site for some of its forays.
• The Victoria Natural History Society, VNHS, does outings to Metchosin properties.
• The Rocky Point Bird Observatory, a member of a national network of 25 migration monitoring stations with Bird Studies Canada, has a facility on the DND lands at Rocky Point.
• The Capital Regional District manages the Galloping Goose Trail and Witty's Lagoon, Albert Head Lagoon, Matheson Lake, and Devonian Regional Parks in Metchosin.
• The Victoria Chapter of the Sierra Club of BC
• The Native Plant Study Group
• The Vancouver Island Rock and Alpine Garden Society
• The Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team (GOERT) has a special interest in the Garry Oak meadows of Metchosin.

Web sites with a general focus on BC species, BC biodiversity, and BC Ecosystems

• The Species at Risk website generates a list of at-risk species in the CRD region.
• The British Columbia's Coast Region Species and Ecosystems of Conservation Concern site offers access to many of the factsheets on species and plant communities that have been published by the BC Ministry of the Environment.
• The BC Ministry of the Environment also provides a Species and Ecosystem Explorer that lets web users see what is in the Ministry database on most BC species and ecosystems.
• Many of the Canadian provinces maintain Conservation Data Centres that serve as clearinghouses for a broad range of scientific data on species and ecosystems. The BC Conservation Data Centre website is a portal to several of the databases.
• The Biodiversity of BC web site provides an overview of BC biodiversity with background papers and links to worldwide species databases. It is a gateway into the next two sites in this list, E-flora and E-fauna.
• E-Flora BC is a volunteer-driven, biogeographic atlas of the vascular plants, fungi, algae, bryophytes, and lichens found in British Columbia. It now includes more than 8,000 individual atlas pages along with many thousands of user-submitted photographs.
• E-Fauna BC is a collaborative biogeographic atlas of the wildlife of British Columbia, including mammals, birds, amphibians, fish and other marine creatures, insects and arachnids. Over 40 specialists and 250 photographers document more than 1600 species.
• The Biogeoclimactic Ecosystem Classification (BEC) of the BC Ministry of Forests and Range is the most detailed breakdown of BC ecosystems and their boundaries.
• The BC Ministry of Environment maintains a complementary classification system for BC ecosystems, listing them as ecodomains, ecodivisions, ecoprovinces, ecoregions, and ecosections.
• Dave Ingram's Island Nature blog has a wealth of information on many BC species.

Web sites with a focus on specific groups of BC flora and fauna

• Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops has a page on the Reptiles of British Columbia.
• The Ministry of Environment has a Frogwatch page with species keys and background on the various species of BC
• The Birding in BC site has forums, articles, and rare bird alerts.
• The British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas tracks the more than 300 species of birds that nest in BC each year.
• The A U.S. spiders website has a listing for British Columbia spiders.

Other annual British Columbia bioblitzes

• Whistler
• Burnaby Lake
• Pender Island/Sunshine Coast
• Sierra Club's Flathead Bioblitz