A total of 32 people were contacted for information during the course of the project, most multiple times.
Contacts were asked for the following information on a provincial/territorial scale:
• what types of roadside maintenance occur in your province/territory?
• how much area (in hectares) is affected by each type of maintenance?
• when does each type of maintenance occur?
The collection of roadside disturbance information began on January 4th, 2010, and attempts to obtain good quality data continued for a full month. Early in the process of collecting these data, it became clear that many jurisdictions did not have ready access to the information we needed.
In some cases (e.g., Saskatchewan, Ontario), many kilometers of road are maintained by individual Municipalities and maintenance information is simply not available at a provincial scale; getting it would require contacting many hundreds of people (e.g., there are 444 Municipalities in Ontario alone). For Ontario, the Ontario Good Roads Association agreed to circulate a simple survey to members to collect the information we needed directly from the municipalities that do the maintenance. At the time of writing, 33 responses had been received.
Our contact at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities also circulated a survey to members, and 18 responses were received. British Columbia also has a tiered road
maintenance system, and information from the Districts about their maintenance activities is only available from the individual Districts. In this case, however, the proportion of roads under District management is very small relative to that managed by the Province (Angela
Buckingham, pers. com.).
Roadside Disturbance Inquiries
Thirty-two people were contacted across the country, some multiple times, for information about the area of roadside maintained and the area of land cleared for road construction, and the timing of these works. The following table lists those people whose contributions moved our research forward, and summarizes their input.
British Columbia
Dianne Froese, Manager Procurement, Highway Maintenance Contracts Dianne.Froese@gov.bc.ca
roadside maintenance is performed by independent contractors who are paid a fixed price per month, and her office doesn't track their activities; maintenance is done according to general specs, but these don't dictate what time of the year or how much to mow/brush; the Districts oversee maintenance; maintenance operations must comply with all applicable federal, provincial and local laws, including the MBCA; if maintenance is going to impact birds and/or nests, a permit can be obtained from WLAP
Fred Hughes, District Operations Manager - West Kootenay District Fred.C.Hughes@gov.bc.ca
forwarded our request to Brent Bailey for response (see next entry)
Brent Bailey
West Kootenay District 250-354-6517
there is no province-wide summary of maintenance operations on roads managed by the Districts; data for provincial roads should be available in an annual summary road maintenance report; contact Monique Meek in Victoria
Monique Meek
Monique.Meek@gov.bc.ca forwarded our request to Angela Buckingham Angela Buckingham, Chief
Environmental Officer, Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
agreed to collect the required data (both maintenance and construction); not readily available so will take some time; can only provide information for roads under Provincial management, but these constitute the vast majority of roads in BC; timing windows for maintenance and
Angela.Buckingham@gov.bc.ca construction, during which operations are prohibited in order to protect nests/eggs/nestlings, vary depending on latitude; to date, have not received land clearing for construction information for BC
Marni Fedoruk, Project Analyst Environment, BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure Marni.Fedoruk@gov.bc.ca
sent details on area maintained for roads managed by the Province; "The timing is impossible for us to track here …"; sent details on timing windows for each region:
South Coast March 15 to July 31 (if works are to occur during the critical period, use a nest survey protocol)
Southern Interior April 1 to July 31
Northern dates will vary depending on a project’s geographic location (e.g., for Omineca in Region 7, the prohibition window is April 30 to August 1; see pg. 6 of http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/bmp/omineca_tw_bmp.pdf) Alberta
Don Collins, Divisional Coordinator, Alberta Transportation
(don.collins@gov.ab.ca
mowing is typically done once or twice per year on high volume highways (i.e., divided highways and busy undivided ones); mowing is done late in the season when the grasses are high; less busy roads (including unpaved ones) are typically not mowed at all; 2 additional contacts have elicited no further response
the Province manages >26,000 km of provincial highways; the rural municipal road system, managed by local governments throughout the province, covers nearly an additional 134,000 km (mostly gravel roads); sent requested information for both maintenance and construction;
suggested contacting the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities for information about rural roads
Dale Harvey, Assistant Executive Director, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities
dharvey@sarm.ca)
information on area maintained and area cleared for construction is not tracked; gave only a general sense of timing; indicated concern about asking SARM members for information about their maintenance activities because municipalities have been frustrated lately by "illogical and unnecessary cost increases and delays due to regulations and processes of Fisheries and Oceans and Navigable Waters."
Manitoba
Kimber Osiowy, Manager of Environmental Services, Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation Ph: 204 945-2053
forwarded our request to David Block (see next entry)
David Block, Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation
david.block@gov.mb.ca
explained our data requirements on the phone and with a follow-up email (including introductory letter from EC); 2 additional contacts (by email) have not yielded any information from Manitoba
Ontario
John Small, Environmental Planner, Ontario Ministry of Transportation john.small@ontario.ca
Provincial Roads: standards for conducting mowing and vegetation control activities are generally based on the height of the vegetation in relation to visibility/traffic safety, but there is a general Special Provision (SSP 080S06) which applies to all such operations and imposes specific requirements for the monitoring/reporting of bird nesting activity; "MTO takes the migratory bird issue very seriously, and we are always looking for better ways to minimize our interference with active nesting. This week, for example, I was involved in a meeting with a falconer, whose services we are considering to deter swallows from nesting on structures slated for construction activity which would otherwise destroy their nests."
Ontario Good Roads Association Scott Butler, Policy and Research Manager
Ph: 905-795-2555 x 24
recommended that we speak to Frank Hull
Ontario Good Roads Association
Frank Hull, Manager of Technical no central database of information about road right-of-way maintenance, or of area cleared for road construction; municipalities handle these operations on their own; gave us a contact for
frank@ogra.org sample of the municipalities Paul Johnson, Operations Manager
Wellington County paulj@wellington.ca
offered to circulate a simple survey to OGRA members; did this immediately, and received 20 responses within the first 2 weeks (there are 444 municipalities in Ontario that manage 145,000 km of highway)
Quebec Yves Bedard
Transportation Quebec, Quebec ybedard@mtq.gouv.qc.ca
this person is one of the authors of the Quebec mowing report (Belanger et al. 2006); called (left message) and sent follow-up email detailing our data requirements; received 1 emailed response "I received your request for information and I hope to answer it as soon as possible and in best my knowledge but that will take some time."; followed up again by email, but to date we have received no information for Quebec
New Brunswick
Kevin Maclean, Assistant Director Highway Maintenance and Environment, Transportation Kevin.MACLEAN@gnb.ca
forwarded our request for construction information to Dale Forster, and will try to compile the information we need on maintenance by the middle of next week; to date, we have received no maintenance information for New Brunswick
Dale A. Forster, Director of Construction, New Brunswick Department of Transportation Ph (506) 453-2673, email:
dale.forster@gnb.ca
to date, we have received no construction information for New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
called to say he would collect the information we need, and we sent email with introductory letter; called to follow up and left message; to date, no information has been received for Nova Scotia
received required maintenance information, including pictures of the equipment used for mowing and brushing; was directed to Stephen Yeo (Chief Engineer/Director, Capital Projects) for land clearing for construction information
called and left message; followed up with detailed email and introductory letter; to date, no construction information has been received for PEI
Newfoundland/Labrador John Morrissey
Transportation and Works morrisseyj@gov.nl.ca
roadsides are not mowed; brushing occurs late in the season (late October through December);
clearing for road construction also occurs late October through December, except in Labrador where construction seasons is short; received all required information
Nunavut
John Hawkins, Director of Transportation Policy & Planning Division
jhawkins@gov.nu.ca
called and left a message; followed up with detailed email and introductory letter; called again a week later and left another message; to date, no information has been received for Nunavut
Northwest Territories Kevin McLeod, Director Highways &
Marine
forwarded our request to Adnan Aamir (see next entry)
KEVIN_MCLEOD@gov.nt.ca
received all required maintenance information from Mr. Hobbis' administrative assistant, Sonia Gay (sonia.gay@gov.yk.ca)
Robin Walsh, Director Transportation Engineering
robin.walsh@gov.yk.ca
received all required construction information
General Inquiries
A total of 18 people were contacted for information about what studies have already been done on avian mortality as a result of roadside mowing/brushing. The following table lists those people whose contributions moved our research forward, and summarizes their input.
Angela Kociolek, Research Scientist Road Ecology Program Area, Western Transportation Institute
Montana State University
angela.kociolek@coe.montana.edu
identified Catlin and Rosenberg (2006) as the only attempt she knows to quantify incidental take due to roadside maintenance operations
Mandy Karch, Co-ordinator Ontario Road Ecology Group mkarch@torontozoo.ca
"… the lack of data points to the importance of this type of research"; OREG only has a small set of vehicle strike data
Chris C. Maguire
Geo-Environmental Section, Oregon Department of Transportation
christine.c.maguire@ODOT.state.or.us
"… ODOT has no data on bird mortality in the right-of-way. We know it exists, but no one has any idea about the magnitude."
Carmelita Nelson, Coordinator Roadsides for Wildlife (Minnesota) Carmelita.nelson@dnr.state.mn.us
the program provides local road authorities with information on state mowing laws with the aim of reducing disturbance of nesting wildlife
"There is some research, but not enough"; sent excerpt from a book on ring-necked pheasant (Farris et al. 1977) that includes some roadside density information and a recommendation to not mow, but no data or references for mowing-related mortality; sent excerpt (literature review) from MDNR (2005) (written by Ken Varland)that contains nest success/density information for pheasant, partridge, grouse and waterfowl, but no data or references for mowing-related mortality
Keith Hobson, Research Scientist Environment Canada, Saskatoon Ph: 306-975-4102
author of incidental take report for the forestry sector; called and left message asking if he had calculated species-specific take results and, if so, would he be willing to share them for use in the land clearing for road construction portion of the roads tally; to date, no response has been received
Pierre Mineau, Head EC – Ecopathology, Ottawa Pierre.Mineau@ec.gc.ca
shared background information for Tews et al. (2009) incidental take report for the agriculture sector (related papers, breeding and population data, including regression equations used); had no data or papers on avian mortality due to roadside mowing; suggested I contact Luc Belanger to ask about his recent study of mowing impacts on roadside habitat quality in southern Quebec Luc Belanger, Manager
CWS - Population Conservation, QC Luc.Belanger@ec.gc.ca
one of the authors of recent report of mowing impacts on roadside habitat quality (Belanger et al. 2006); asked if he has any papers or data he'd be willing to share with us about bird mortality related to roadside mowing; Luc responded by forwarding request to one of the other authors (Benoit Jobin) and asking him to respond (see below)
Benoit Jobin, SAR Biologist
EC – Ecosystem Conservation, Sainte-Foy
"The project aimed at evaluating bird use of roadside rights-of-way along 3 highway sections in southern Québec. We did not look at the actual effect of mowing on birds. We were looking a the effect on bird use and habitat characteristics of a reduction of the frequency of mowing .."
Benoit.Jobin@ec.gc.ca nest searches in the roadside habitat found a single nest – mallard Brenda Dale, Wildlife Population
Biologist, EC - Population Assessment Unit, Edmonton
Brenda.Dale@EC.gc.ca
sent a large number of papers/reports about various impacts on nesting success (e.g., habitat fragmentation/connectivity, vegetation structure), roadkill, invasive species, effects of haying on habitat quality, effects of roads/trails on bird community structure, and a number of papers to help determine what species nest in roadside habitats; also provided expert opinion and review of draft list of roadside nesting birds
Kathryn Lindsay, Senior Manager EC - Habitat Landscape Conservation
& Biodiversity Standards, Gatineau Kathryn.Lindsay@ec.gc.ca
provided input for list of roadside nesting birds (sent Best et al. 1995), and reviewed draft list
Peter Blancher EC – Ottawa Ph: 613-998-7311 peter.blancher@ec.gc.ca
recommended talking to local birders to get information about roadside nesting birds; also recommended Brenda Dale, EC – Edmonton for input; also provided guidance with the use of the Partners in Flight Landbird Population Estimates Database
Don McNicol, Head
EC - Population Assessment, Ottawa Ph: 613-949-8266
Don.McNicol@ec.gc.ca
NatureServe web site provides GIS layers for bird breeding ranges http://www.natureserve.org/getData/animalData.jsp
Connie Downes, Landbird Surveys Biologist; EC - Species Abundance and Distribution, Ottawa
connie.downes@ec.gc.ca
described Breeding Bird Survey methods, and limitations for use in calculating nest densities;
sent an English translation of Executive Summary for Belanger et al. 2006
Becky Stewart, Maritimes Breeding Bird Atlas Coordinator, Sackville bstewart@bsc-eoc.org
requested information about nest density estimates for savannah sparrow and song sparrow as these are not represented in the CBBC (Kennedy et al. 1999); "I'm afraid it hasn't already been summarized--all I can provide you with is the raw data from Nature Counts on our website www.mba-aom.ca"