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Understanding Whistler’s habitat

Work begins on biodiversity inventory of Whistler Valley

Armed with his camera, guide books, some funding, and the leading biology experts in a variety of fields, local ecologist Bob Brett has started to work in earnest on a biodiversity inventory for Whistler.

The inventory will one day catalogue all species, plants, insects, and animals sited in Whistler, as well as the type of habitat where they were spotted.

While some basic inventories have been made as part of the Community Habitat Resources Project and the Protected Areas Network Strategy, through environmental assessments, and by groups like Whistler’s birding community, there are still a lot of blank areas to fill in.

"The goal is to survey all species, from ants to large mammals to fungus to grasses to trees – everything that’s out there," explained Brett of Snowline Ecological Consulting. "No one has ever taken this kind of in-depth look at what is in the valley, so how can we know what’s worth protecting, or even how our habitat functions?

"There are very few opportunities like this to do a valley-wide study that isn’t constrained by boundary lines or by the client who is paying for an environmental assessment."

Brett started the project earlier this summer with some seed funding from the Resort Municipality of Whistler, $2,500 from the Community Foundation of Whistler, and $5,000 from AWARE.

While that’s a relatively small amount of funding for a project of this scope, Brett’s decision to use experts in various fields, rather than consultants, will keep costs down.

In recent weeks Brett has hosted rare plant experts Adolf and Oluna Ceska and Dragonfly expert Derrick Marven, covering a wide range of habitat from wetlands to high alpine.

"One of the benefits is that these experts will pick up on things that I might miss, like a rare species or exotic species that maybe doesn’t belong there," said Brett. "They really know their stuff, and how these ecosystems work.

"Best of all they work relatively cheaply, which is one reason I’m confident that we can complete something like this."

Brett is calling the biodiversity study the Whistler 2010 Biodiversity Project, which he hopes to wrap up before the 2010 Winter Games.

While the project will serve as a reference catalogue for all of the different species in the valley, Brett says there are several practical uses for the information.

One of the most important is the fact it will complement the municipality’s Protected Areas Network (PAN) Strategy. The RMOW has already hired consultants to map all of the different habitat areas within the valley, and the PAN will apply a general degree of protection to those habitat areas based on their ecological value. Wetlands, for example, will have the highest level of PAN protection, and only certain types of activities or development will be allowed within or adjacent to wetlands.

"PAN is based on habitat protection because that’s generally the fastest, safest way to protect species, but there are really two approaches to protecting species," Brett explained. "One is habitat based, like PAN, and the premise is that if you protect the areas where species are likely to live you’ll protect the species.

"But that doesn’t guarantee the species because you don’t really know what’s really using the habitat. At some stage you have to go out and find out what species are actually using an area, and then it’s easier to refine a conservation strategy."

As well as determining what biodiversity exists in the valley, Brett’s study will also focus on where species are located, as well as the habitat type, and the condition of the habitat. The research will show how habitats and species are linked, "how species move, and how plant species occur within different ecosystem types, conditions and stages – because the type of plants is going to help determine what kinds of other species you’ll find there."

Another use for the study is to determine whether Whistler has any rare or endangered plants or animals that require a higher level of protection. According to Brett the only rare species so far listed in the area is a type of grass that occurs in the Callaghan Valley, but one high alpine trip already netted the discovery of a unique butterfly well outside its traditional range and habitat.

In addition to rare species, Brett’s study is looking for introduced species that can be harmful to local habitat. One example is scotch broom, a type of Mediterranean shrub that is taking over parts of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, driving out native species of plant life as well as the native species of insects, birds and mammals.

Another is the pine blister rust that is killing off whitebark pine trees in Blackcomb’s alpine.

"If we have these kinds of species here we need to know about them so we can come up with a plan to deal with them, or at least establish a baseline to find out if it’s expanding or not," said Brett. "(Introduced species) can take over habitat that would otherwise be habitat for native species."

The project will also help to create a comprehensive list of native species that could be used for naturescaping. Rather than importing plants, trees and grasses for local gardens, the municipality would use plants that are native to the area while encouraging other residents to do the same. The benefit is that local plants are better adapted to the environment, and require less water and care than imported species. Native species will also function as habitat for other native species.

"If you want to have native butterflies or hummingbirds, plant native wildflowers that they would normally frequent," said Brett.

The goal, once the biodiversity inventory is complete, is to compile the data in map form, such as the Community Habitat Resource Project (CHiRP), so people can learn more about native species and where they are located. Ultimately Brett would like to get the schools involved in helping to collect the data, "to do real surveys, year to year, to contribute real data and to get a sense of what real science is like."