On Dec 7 and 8, 2022 Steven Bercek of BC Parks hosted meetings online with the Kootenay and the Okanagan area’s volunteer wardens. There were also a good number of BC Parks staff in attendance at each meeting. We hope that other areas in the BC parks system may in the future hold similar wardens meetings. It might be further suggested that these meetings may be made open to the public when they are live online. This would help to educate the public about the need for Ecological reserves.
At both of the meetings, Dr. Tse-Lynn Loh of the BC Parks Foundation introduced the 25/25 program of protecting 25 beautiful places in BC. before 2025. She went on to give a presentation on the use of iNaturalist for documentation of biodiversity in Ecological reserves and other locations.
Presentations were made by Ecological reserve wardens, Screenshots
with a few slides of several of the presentations are shown below;
Big White and Browne lake Ecological Reserves .. warden Don Guild: Don outlined the issues of each location
Buck Hills and Lily Pad Lake: Warden– Norbert Maertens and Justin Oblak
- Norbert Maertens and Justin Oblak are the Ecological reserve wardens for these reserves
- Pikas live amongst the boulders in Buck Hill ER
- approach to Lilypad Lake
- A memorial plaque commemorating the service of Malcolm Martin
- Lily pad lake at highwater
- The same lake at low water levels
- Moose frequent the lake
- A trail Cam installed at the lake has captured many good images of wildlife
- A young moose on the Trail camera
Cougar Canyon Ecological reserve #108: Warden– Harold Sellers
- Harold
- New species observations at the south end of the canyon on iNaturalist
- Cougar Canyon ER
Harold referred to the difficult access to this reserve but the relative success had by the BC Parks INaturalist group who were able to add significant amounts of information to the database https://inaturalist.ca/projects/cougar-canyon-ecological-reserve
Fields #33 and Haynes Lease #100 ERs: Warden –Robert Calder
- Robert Calder warden
- Hayne’s Lease
- Boulders on hayne’s Lease
- Fields lease– tree on fence
Campbell Browne (Kalamalka Lake) ER#77. Warden– Linda Kennedy
Linda was unable to join but Steven gave her presentation. A concern was mentioned about the increasing numbers of introduced species on this reserve.
Trout Creek ER#7 . Warden Kathryn McCourt
- Trout Creek
The proximity to the golf course often creates problems