Metchosin Foundation
Healthy lands and waters – the foundation for a healthy community.
Community Foundations Conference visits Metchosin–June 6, 2019
Canada’s annual Community Foundations Conference took place in Victoria this year, hosted by the Victoria Foundation (VF). The Metchosin Foundation helped the VF to organize an outing in Metchosin for conference participants. Two dozen of the more than 700 participants arrived on a bus on Thursday, June 6, to look at rural life in Metchosin and some of the work of the Metchosin Foundation.
Metchosin Foundation Director Morgan Yates had carefully choreographed the group’s itinerary. The event began in Victoria, where local Metchosin naturalist Andy MacKinnon met the bus group. He rode to Metchosin with them, talking on the bus about the natural systems of Southern Vancouver Island and some of what they would see that day.
First stop on the tour was Witty’s Lagoon CRD Park. The group paused at the map and Andy outlined where the walk would go.
The group stopped at the Sitting Lady Falls overlook, then hiked to the beach. The tide was out, providing a wide vista over the beach area and the Olympic Mountains beyond.
At the beach sand spit, Andy introduced the group to the extremely rare Camissonia contorta, the Contorted-pod Evening Primrose, and talked about plans to protect areas of the spit where it occurs. The group also got to see the blue-listed Abronia latifolia, the Yellow Sand- verbena, in full bloom.
Leaving Witty’s, the Community Foundations Conference group reboarded the bus and Paige Erickson-McGee from Habitat Aquisition Trust (HAT) talked briefly about the work of the Trust. HAT is a frequent partner of the Metchosin Foundation in its environmental work
The bus made a quick stop at the Metchosin Hall. At the Hall, Paige told the group about HAT’s work in bat protection. Local resident Janet Gray described the colony of about 1500 bats in the loft of the Metchosin Hall and what was being done to keep the loft bat-friendly.
A brief stop for refreshments at the Metchosin House gave Nicole Lalonde, one of the Directors of the Metchosin Foundation, a chance to talk about the importance of the House for residents of Metchosin.
2019 Metchosin Foundation AGM
On June 1, 2019, the Metchosin Foundation hosted its Annual General Meeting at the Metchosin Community House. The meeting began with a retrospective of the last year's work, reported by Chair Chris Pratt and the other Directors. After the report, local eco-futurist Guy Dauncey challenged the audience to continue and intensify local efforts to counter anthropogenic global warming. The talk was followed by a break for refreshments baked by the Directors, then a short business meeting to hear the 2019 financial report and to pass an omnibus bill. Current Directors were all re-elected (Chris Pratt, Michael Fischer, Jacqueline Clare, Beverley Hall, Joel Ussery, Nicole Lalonde, Morgan Yates, Kem Luther). New Directors Carol Carman (returning after a one-year absence) and Joan Rosenberg were also elected to the board.
Guy handed out a two page summary of what Metchosinites can do to address climate issues.
Guy played for the audience a section of Greta Thunberg’s speech given a few days earlier at the Austrian World Summit.
May 2019 Bioblitz
See the events section of the Metchosin Biodiversity site to read more about the iNaturalist bioblitz of Metchosin Wilderness Park and Weir’s Beach on May 11, 2019.
Insect biomass study, first year
Over 25 years of research hints at a stark, harsh truth: worldwide, both the bio-diversity and biomass of insects has declined dramatically, leading to such alarming phrases as “insect Armageddon” and “insect apocalypse.” We suspect this decline is happening in our own backyard, but we don’t have the data to prove it yet. This is changing, however. In a multiyear project sponsored in part by Metchosin Foundation, local Metchosin families have adopted Malaise traps, tent-like devices that allow scientists to figure out the amount (biomass) and distribution of flying insects across the municipality of Metchosin.
During the pilot project in the summer of 2018, insects caught in the traps were collected at two-week intervals. Over the winter, the University of Victoria scientist Dr. Neville Winchester and his students meticulously sorted each of the collections (145 in total) into major flying insect orders (e.g., flies, bees, wasps and ants). The number of individuals and the biomass for each insect order was recorded.
The total biomass for each trap varied, based on location. It is clear that some areas are very productive in terms of flying insect biomass, others less so. What attributes do some of these sites have that promote higher insect collection numbers? This, in part, is what will be measured in the summer of 2019, during the second collection season. One result, however, that has already emerged: the amount of flying insects in Metchosin tends to peak in the middle of the growing season (July).
Dr. Winchester, his students, and the Metchosin Malaise trap adopters are looking forward to a second season of collections.
Kennedy Nikel assisted Dr. Winchester in collecting and describing the first year’s data. Her honour’s thesis on the study can be viewed here.
The total insect biomass for each of the 15 Metchosin Malaise trap sites from July 22 to October 26, 2018. Each circle size is the relative total biomass, based on 145 collections, and the black dots indicates the location of the trap.