Wildlife Tree Stewardship Initiative (WiTS)
Wildlife Tree Stewardship completed reports on Bald Eagle Nesting Results for six geographic areas on Vancouver Island and the Southern Gulf Islands. View the reports on these areas:
- Capital Regional District
- Oyster River to Menzies Bay
- Deep Bay to Little Qualicum River
- Comox Valley
- Saturna Island
- Mayne Island
- City of Nanaimo
- Cowichan Valley Regional District
- Regional District of Nanaimo
The Wildlife Tree Stewardship Initiative (WiTS), is an environmental stewardship program of the BC Nature that aims to create, coordinate and assist a network of community stewards interested in conserving wildlife tree habitats through volunteer monitoring, landowner agreements, and community education in southern BC. First established in 2001 on Vancouver Island, it since has expanded to the Lower Mainland and south Okanagan.
Mature trees and mixed tree stands with documented high levels of wildlife use are of especial concern. Communities on Vancouver Island, in the Lower Mainland and in the Okanagan are losing important wildlife tree habitat to development (subdivisions and commercial ventures), agricultural clearing, and logging. As communities become more heavily populated and urbanized, wildlife habitat is shrinking.
To retain the available wildlife tree habitat, it is necessary for communities to become aware and educated on the importance of this habitat. To accomplish this goal, WiTS is working with communities including landowners, NGOs and local/regional government with support from federal and provincial government representatives.
The WiTS program aims to document wildlife usage and location of wildlife trees as well as conserve wildlife trees. By definition, a wildlife tree is any standing dead or live tree with special characteristics thatprovide valuable habitat for the conservation or enhancement of wildlife. They play an important role in forest ecosystems by contributing and maintaining the biological diversity in BC forests.
Read more information and check out the WiTS website.
