Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

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Let's help keep our shorelines sparkling! Registration is open for the 20th annual Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. September 21 – 29, 2013 Visit ShorelineCleanup.ca to register for a shoreline in your community. As you enjoy spending time outdoors along rivers, lakes, oceans and ponds this summer, be sure you’re part of the solution to keep those waterways clean and healthy for the coming fall - and year. Many of you may have already registered for this year’s Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, presented by Loblaw Companies Limited, but if you haven’t yet, now is the time. While you’re at it, take the additional step of encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to join you. During last year’s Shoreline Cleanup, enough litter items – such as cigarette butts, plastic bags, and food containers – were collected to line the entire length of highway between Vancouver, B.C. and Thunder Bay, Ont. (a little over 3,000 km). It’s a lot of litter (over 136,000 kg worth!), but it doesn’t even come close to encompassing the total amount of litter that still plagues Canada’s shorelines. That’s why this year, even more volunteers and site coordinators are needed. This year, we’re hoping for 64,000 participants – please help us reach our goal! Remember, cleanup locations are registered on a first come first serve basis, so register today for the spot of your choice, ShorelineCleanup.ca.

Q: I want to organize a shoreline cleanup with my group, but there are only public cleanups available. Can I still register? When you spot a blue circle on our cleanup sites map, this indicates a public cleanup, one that already has a site coordinator, and is in need of more volunteers to join. You can still register your group to join a public cleanup, but please check with the site coordinator to make sure they can accommodate your group. Simply register as a participant and then use the online message centre to let them know how many people you plan to bring. This is also a good time to ask if there is any way which you can assist, such as bringing additional cleanup supplies. If you have more questions about how to contact the site coordinator or would like to discuss options for organizing your own cleanup, feel free to email shorelinecleanup@vanaqua.org for assistance.   Truth: Plastic bags do not biodegrade, but they will photodegrade - breaking into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic until they can no longer be seen. These pieces of plastic can then get ingested and enter our food web. Last year, Shoreline Cleanup participants removed more than 69,700 plastic bags from shorelines across Canada. That’s the equivalent to one person using a plastic bag every day for the next 189 years. Dare: We dare you to make a difference by bringing your own reusable bag. Over the course of a lifetime, just one person using reusable bags could keep over 22,000 plastic bags from entering into our environment, thereby exponentially reducing the amount of plastic that can eventually enter the food web. Isn't that a good reason to take on this dare?

PRESENTING SPONSOR PROVINCIAL SPONSORS CONSERVATION SUPPORTERS

WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE PROVIDED BY THE PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

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We practice permission-based emailing. If you are not interested in receiving further mailings from us, you can unsubscribe here. Alternatively, you can also send mail to: Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup c/o Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, P.O. Box 3232, Vancouver, BC V6B 3X8. To help ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox, please add our email reply address (shorelinecleanup@vanaqua.org) to your address book or safe sender list. © 1986 Panda symbol WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature (also known as World Wildlife Fund). ®“WWF” is a WWF Registered Trademark.

Low Water Levels -

The pond below Yukon College by the Blue water station has been dropping at an alarming rate.  Soon, it will return to just being a creek, as the beavers are not there to keep the pond full, and the water levels must also be controlled from higher up the Creek at the pump station.

Want to be happy? Live near a park!

Interesting article - want to be happy?  Live near a park!


http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681792/want-to-be-happy-live-near-a-park

Sadly, the water levels continue to drop in the little pond below the Yukon College.  Removing the beavers has upset what was a lovely area for ducks to hatch their young, for people to enjoy the water canoeing, and other features of nature.

There are still people building fires there, along the shore line, and near the water station.  It is very dangerous with things being dry, and with this park being close to residences, and all it takes is one spark to dry areas for a fire to start.

Awhile back, there was a fire that may have been caused from a lightning strike, and fortunately a senior in the residence spotted the smoke and reported it.  I came across the fire fighters as they were finishing putting the fire out.

I have been taking photos like crazy, like the little rose bush beginning to grow right in the middle of the trail, tire tracks around it, the many different flowers, the eagle on its perch, and of course the rushing water in the creek as it passes near the bridges.  It never ceases to amaze me how nature survives even the toughest treatment.

I hope you are all out enjoying the good weather we have been having, and you know what is really great about the middle McIntyre Creek area - there no mosquitoes in the afternoon!!!  Now doesn't that make a hike more enjoyable?!?!?

I hiked the trails in the Crestview area with a friend in the middle of the afternoon, and was buzzed, and harrassed constantly by swarms of the little biters!  Although the trails are lovely, with little streams, and lakes, I wouldn't hike there again in the summer, just because of the bugs.  The fact that I never needed bug spray in the 26 years I have been hiking middle McIntyre Creek has always been amazing to me, and just makes me appreciate this area even more as a little local paradise.

So everyone, get out and enjoy the summer while you can, before we are again stomping out our trails in the snow.

By the way, be careful on the trail below the Yukon College, as the erosion is reducing the trail even more, and it seems daily, although I am sure it isn't that fast, but it is a sharp drop off, and if you aren't watching your feet, and perhaps watching the eagle on its perch, you could be in for a nasty fall.