The summer work season finished at the end of August, and we had an amazing year with five incredible students working for 15 weeks with Skills PEI funding. Many thanks to the Wildlife Conservation Fund for their funding, and to the Province for continuing to support watershed groups in their essential work through the Watershed Management Fund, and to our many generous members and donors. We have federal funding to employ two students until January, and all of our other summer students will be doing a small amount of work for TREC over the winter too – including bat monitoring, developing habitat management plans, and continuing to work on various projects.
At the end of August we completed the removal of an inactive beaver dam on Hope River, and seeded the mud that was left behind. Next year we will plant the area with trees, as the flooding had killed the trees in that area. We mounted a wildlife camera on a tree, and saw a lot of wildlife including this shot of a blue heron watching a muskrat taking apples to its winter store! The footprints in the foreground are from a group of young grey partridge.
In August we traveled 13km of streams to remove wild cucumber – an invasive species. Wild cucumber will completely smother native plants, and pulling it out in August prevents it from producing seeds for next year. Invasive species are not native, out-compete our native species, and are not a food source for native wildlife. We have a number of these including Glossy Buckthorn, Japanese Knotweed, and Garlic Mustard. If you would like more information, just google PEIISC.
Thanks for your continued interest in TREC,
Trout River Environmental Committee
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