|
About 30 college and university summer students from across the province were in Peterborough Tuesday for an invasive species boot camp.
As prospective members of the provincial Invasive Species Hit Squad, the summer students learned how to identify and prevent alien threats to Ontario's biodiversity.
The Invading Species Awareness Program is an education and outreach initiative, jointly run by the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters and the Ministry of Natural Resources.
The two-day seminar was held at the OFAH Mario Cortellucci Hunting and Fishing Heritage Centre on Guthrie Dr.
The purpose of the workshop was to prepare the students with the information and skills they will need to have a successful summer season when they return to their home communities across the province, program manager Francine Mac- Donald said.
"The goal is to give them the tools so they can learn to identify, to take specimens and to communicate to the public the problems that invasive species cause to our biodiversity," she said.
Having feet on the ground is the most effective public awareness strategy, MacDonald added.
"It's really important to have a voice on the ground to actually speak to the anglers and the boaters and the hunters and the cottagers right in their own communities about invasive species," she said. "People don't realize it's actually happening in their own lakes and their own forests."
Lakehead University student Scott Vaillant put the course to use last summer in Thunder Bay.
"I learned how to identify different invasive species, how to talk to the public and how to portray the message," he said. "Mostly people were unaware of the issue and how important it was. It wasn't that they tried to spread invasive species, it was just they weren't aware of the issue."
Loyalist College student Dave Simon spent his summer in the Belleville area teaching horticulturists what species to avoid.
"A lot of them just simply did not know. They didn't realize some of the species they were bringing into their gardens, how they would affect the ecosystems," Simon said. "Nobody had brought it to their attention before."
Over the next several months, the hit squad will participate in a variety of events and presentations and will work to engage the media in their area to raise public awareness about the social, economic and ecological impacts of invading species. They will also share strategies for preventing the further spread of aquatic and terrestrial invasive species.
|
