With spring giving way to summer across the country, we hope you are enjoying or preparing for a warm and wonderful summer season. If you’re looking for spots to explore, why not check out one of the 400+ IBAs that will meet KBA criteria, or one of the 450+ new sites that will likely meet KBA criteria? Both of these interactive dashboards have been recently refreshed to display more information about these sites in progress. If you have perspectives or information about these sites and their associated species, please get in touch.
This spring saw the first in-person KBA workshop in over two years, as the Québec KBA team based at Université de Sherbrooke hosted over 15 experts to discuss and identify KBAs in southern Québec for fish, invertebrates, herps, plants, and more. Other recent virtual expert workshops across the country for Arctic plants, maritime lichens, and Newfoundland species added even more potential KBAs to the list of sites in-progress.
As the list of KBAs-in-progress grows, we are looking forward to October 2022, which will mark the release of the new KBA Canada National Registry and website. This website will bring together all KBAs into the same map for the first time(!), and will be a one-stop-shop for all info and data about KBAs in Canada.
About a year since the last Ontario KBA webinar, KBA Coordinator’s Robyn Rumney (WCS Canada) and Amanda Bichel (Birds Canada) presented an update on work in the region. In the last year, Birds Canada has continued the reassessment of the 51 presumptive bird-KBAs in Ontario, while over 90 sites for non-bird species have been scoped in the province. Watch the full webinar here et https://kbacanada.org/fr/contact-us/ to get involved.
A recent webinar on the work on KBAs so far in Québec gave an overview of the over 75 KBAs currently in progress there. While work has so far focused on southern Québec and the Estrie region, the KBA Coordinators at Université de Sherbrooke are planning to soon expand into the northern parts of the province. Watch the webinar here, et le reach out to get involved.
June will feature two KBA webinars focused on Atlantic Canada!
Join on Monday, June 27th, at noon Atlantic Time for an information session on the work to identify KBAs in Nova Scotia. RSVP and add the event to you calendar here.
On Tuesday, June 28th, at noon Atlantic Time, will be another information session on the work to identify KBAs in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. You can RSVP and add the event to your digital calendar here.
For both webinars, feel free welcome to forward the invitation to any others who may be interested.
The recordings for all past webinars can be found on our website.
Hello from the KBA Canada Secretariat! In preparation for the integration of bird and non-bird KBA data for the upcoming National Registry, KBA Canada staff from WCS Canada and Birds Canada met in-person in the beautiful Long Point Peninsula and Marshes KBA this spring. Did you know that there are over 22 species of birds, herps, fish, and plants likely to meet KBA criteria at this site? Photo courtesy: Peter Soroye.
We are always looking for more stories about KBAs and the fascinating species within them. If you have a story about a KBA or a potential KBA species that you’d like to share, write to us at KBA Canada.
As always, please get in touch if you have questions or if you want to learn more.
Peter Soroye
Canada Key Biodiversity Areas Assessment and Outreach Coordinator / Coordonnateur de l’évaluation et de la sensibilisation des zones clés pour la biodiversité
