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News Article Reaction. Ontario spends $4M fighting invasive species. (Windsor Star)

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News Article Reaction. Ontario spends $4M fighting invasive species. (Windsor Star)

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"Ontario spends $4M fighting invasive species, but it's a $3.6B problem: AG" is an article written by Liam Casey and was published by Windsor Star. The article details the faults of Ontario's actions towards fighting the invasive species in its province. All of the information written in the article came from the provinces General Auditor Bonnie Lysyk, who conducted an annual report on the topic. She found that Ontario wasn't putting very much budget into the issue despite the seriousness of the issue. The lack of budget could be seen in the plans and actions put in place by the province. The province would have year long delays after assessing risk, before starting to regulate the invasive species. An example of this would be the Carolina fanwort, which was left for 5 years after being assessed before becoming regulated. The province also has issues even assessing these invasive species having over 30 harmful species unregulated and unassessed. Their conservations officers are also untrained for identifying these species which has worked to continue the spread of the invasive species. The author seems to have written this article with the purpose of detailing Bonnie Lysyk's findings, Who has the evidence to point that Ontario isn't doing enough to stop and eliminate invasive species. I agree with this as invasive species can ruin whole habitats and ecosystems causing immense damage for the local wildlife populations in those affected areas. The article left me with 2 questions, how did Ontario react to this report? and, Is anything attempting to be done by Ontario?

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/ontario-spends-4m-fighting-invasive-species-but-its-a-3-6b-problem-ag

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TORONTO - Ontario only spends $4 million annually to fight invasive species despite the $3.6 billion economic impact they create, the province's auditor general said in her most recent annual report.

Bonnie Lysyk said Ontario does not track dozens of invasive species in the province and conservation officers have never laid a charge under the 2015 act that sets rules to prevent and control the spread of those species.

"Overall, our audit found that the Natural Resources Ministry is not effectively monitoring and managing the introduction and spread of harmful invasive species in Ontario," Lysyk said.

The auditor general said there were years-long delays in regulating invasive species after the province completed risk assessments. Those regulatory delays are contributing to both the introduction and spread of invasive species, Lysyk concluded.

"The Natural Resources Ministry has only one staff member regularly performing risk assessment work, contributing to the delays in regulating invasive species," she said.

The report found that the Carolina fanwort - an invasive aquatic plant that crowds out native plants, clogs irrigation systems and interferes with aquatic recreation - was not regulated until five years after an expert provided a risk assessment to the ministry.

Lysyk also found that the ministry has left at least 30 harmful terrestrial invasive plants unassessed and unregulated. One such example is the tree-of-heaven, which hosts the spotted lanternfly, a federally regulated invasive insect that destroys vineyards, fruits, vegetables and hardwood.

The auditor general also discovered six of the invasive species - creeping jenny, goutweed, Norway maple, periwinkle, spearmint and winter creeper - can be bought in home and garden centres throughout the province.

The ministry lacks basic information to help monitor invasive species, Lysyk found.

"The ministry's monitoring programs mainly rely on incidental observations instead of a regular and risk-based approach to invasive species surveillance," Lysyk wrote.

"Furthermore, we found that 33 invasive species identified as high risk by nearby jurisdictions were not systematically tracked by the Ministry and have been found in Ontario."

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been working with provinces since 2019 to fight hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive insect that kills hemlock trees. But the CFIA told Lysyk the ministry has not responded to its recommendations, which includes a strategy to act immediately and to create a strategy to use beetles as a biological control.

The province has since told the auditor general it is working with the CFIA on the invasive insect, which has been found in Fort Erie, Ont.

The audit also found the province's conservation officers had not laid a single charge and only issued 11 warnings under the Invasive Species Act since it became law in 2015. The auditor general found the training provided to these officers was insufficient or absent altogether.

"As a result, many would be unable to identify invasive species encountered during patrols, necessitating external expert support to assist in identification when responding to tips," Lysyk wrote.

The ministry has acknowledged that it does not have enough staff to "effectively administer" the Invasive Species Act, Lysyk wrote. In 2015 and in 2018 the ministry requested but did not receive funding to address the issue from the Treasury Board, which instead told the ministry to divert the money from other programs.

The ministry did not do that, Lysyk said.

The ministry said in the report it recognizes invasive species are an "established and growing ecological and economic threat that are negatively impacting the lives of Ontarians and reducing the province's resiliency to climate change."

The ministry said it has taken significant strides to address the impacts of invasive species and has committed to enhancing collaboration to "prevent, respond to, and manage invasive species."

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Ontario spends $4M fighting invasive species, but it's a $3.6B problem: AG

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TORONTO - Ontario only spends $4 million annually to fight invasive species despite the $3.6 billion economic impact they create, the province's auditor general said in her most recent annual report. Bonnie Lysyk said Ontario does not track dozens of invasive species in the province and conservation officers have never laid a charge under the 2015 act that sets rules to prevent and control the spread of those species.

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News Article Reaction. Zoos - Pros & Cons. (Britannica ProCon) 

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News Article Reaction. Zoos - Pros & Cons. (Britannica ProCon) 

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"Zoo's - 3 Pros and Cons" is an article written by Britannica ProCon. The article attempts to answer the question, do zoos need to exist? by listing both pros and cons to the current zoo system.  The article both provided reasons why zoos should continue to exist and why they should be shut down permanently. Personally I believe zoos serve a purpose in our world and should continue to be open and running for the public, however I do believe the system should be reformed. The article at the end asks the reader this question "Should zoos exist? If you believe they should, consider whether they should remain the same or change." I feel as though that if the right changes were made the zoo would continue being used for its pros while giving its animals a better quality of life, for example providing the larger more active animals with appropriate sized enclosures to benefit their physical and mental health. Two questions the article left me with were, Is anything already being done to reform zoos as to give their animals a better quality of life? And, are there any alternatives to the modern zoo that are better for the health of the zoo? Overall I thought this article provided good information into both the positives and negatives of zoos.

https://www.procon.org/headlines/zoos-top-3-pros-and-cons/

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Zoos have existed in some form since at least 2500 BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia, where records indicate giraffes, bears, dolphins, and other animals were kept by aristocrats. The oldest still operating zoo in the world, Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna, opened in 1752.

The contemporary zoo evolved from 19th century European zoos. Largely modeled after the London Zoo in Regent's Park, these zoos were intended for "genteel amusement and edification," according to Emma Marris, environmental writer and Institute Fellow at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. As such, reptile houses, aviaries, and insectariums were added with animals grouped taxonomically, to move zoos beyond the spectacle of big, scary animals.

Carl Hegenbeck, a German exotic animal importer, introduced the modern model of more natural habitats for animals instead of obvious cages at his Animal Park in Hamburg in 1907. That change prompted the shift in zoo narrative from entertainment to the protection of animals. In the late 20th century, the narrative changed again to the conservation of animals to stave off extinction.

Controversy has historically surrounded zoos, from debates over displaying "exotic" humans in exhibits to zookeepers not knowing what to feed animals. A gorilla named Madame Ningo, the first gorilla to arrive in the United States in 1911 who was to live at the Bronx Zoo, was fed hot dinners and cooked meat despite gorillas being herbivores, for example.

The contemporary debate about zoos tends to focus on animal welfare on both sides, whether zoos protect animals or imprison them.

Should Zoos Exist?

Pro 1

Zoos educate the public about animals and conservation efforts.

As of Apr. 2021, there are 241 accredited zoos in the United States. The zoos attract over 181 million visitors annually, which is more than the approximately 131 million yearly spectators of the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB combined.

According to a study of 26 zoos worldwide published in Conservation Biology, visitors to zoos increased their knowledge of biodiversity and specific individual actions to protect biodiversity.

Robin Ganzert, PhD, President and CEO of American Humane, stated, "zoos provide people, especially impressionable children, with the opportunity to see these remarkable animals up close. People won't protect what they don't love, and they can't love what they don't know. No matter how closely programs like Planet Earth depict animals, nothing will match the bond of seeing them in real life. Just look at a child's eyes at the zoo when he or she encounters a tiger or similarly majestic animal."
Read More

Pro 2

Zoos produce helpful scientific research.

228 accredited zoos published 5,175 peer-reviewed manuscripts between 1993 and 2013. In 2017, 173 accredited US zoos spent $25 million on research, studied 485 species and subspecies of animals, worked on 1,280 research projects, and published 170 research manuscripts.

Because so many diseases can be transmitted from animals to humans, such as Ebola, Hantavirus, and the bird flu, zoos frequently conduct disease surveillance research in wildlife populations and their own captive populations that can lead to a direct impact on human health. For example, the veterinary staff at the Bronx Zoo in New York alerted health officials of the presence of West Nile Virus.
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Pro 3

Zoos save species from extinction and other dangers.

Corroboree frogs, eastern bongos, regent honeyeaters, Panamanian golden frogs, Bellinger River snapping turtles, golden lion tamarins, and Amur leopards, among others, have been saved from extinction by zoos.

Zoos are also working to save polar bears, tigers, and wild African elephants from habitat loss, apes and rhinos from poachers, dolphins and whales from hunters, and bees and butterflies from population declines, among many other efforts to help many other animals.

Przewalski's horses, the last wild horses, were declared extinct in the wild in the 1960s when about 12 lived in zoos. By 2018, breeding programs at zoos increased the number to 2,400 horses, and 800 were reintroduced to the wild.
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Con 1

Zoos don't educate the public enough to justify keeping animals captive.

A review published in Animal Studies Repository concluded, "to date there is no compelling or even particularly suggestive evidence for the claim that zoos and aquariums promote attitude change, education, and interest in conservation in visitors." Even a study widely cited to justify the argument that zoos educate the public stated, "there was no overall statistically significant change in understanding [of ecological concepts] seen" because visitors know a lot about ecology before going to the zoo.

TV shows such as Planet Earth bring wild animals into living rooms, allowing people to see the animals in their natural habitats without causing harm to animals such as the endangered snow leopard. Romesh Ranganathan, a British comedian, stated, "It still slightly surprises me that anybody thinks that we should have zoos at all. The animals always look miserable in captivity... [T]he idea that kids only get excited about things they can see in the flesh is ridiculous. My kids are obsessed with dinosaurs that no longer exist, and Skylanders, which have never existed."
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Con 2

Zoos are detrimental to animals' physical health.

A study of 35 species of carnivores, including brown bears, cheetahs, and lions, found that zoo enclosures were too small for the animals to carry out their normal routines, which led to problems such as pacing and more infant deaths. Polar bears, for example, had an infant mortality rate of 65% due to small enclosures.

About 70% of adult male gorillas in North America have heart disease, the leading cause of death among gorillas in captivity, although the condition is almost completely absent in the wild. Other great apes have similar health problems in captivity.

Captive elephants live about half as long as wild elephants: 18.9 years v. 41.7 years for Asian elephants and 16.9 years v. 35.8 years for African elephants. Of 77 elephants in 13 zoos, 71 were overweight and spent 83% of their time indoors, contributing to early death.
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Con 3

Zoo confinement is psychologically damaging to animals.

A study of captive chimpanzees found that "abnormal behaviour is endemic in the population," and includes behaviors such as eating feces, twitching, rocking back and forth, plucking hair, pacing, vomiting, and self-mutilation, among others. The study concluded that the cause of such behavior could be mental health issues.
Read More

Discussion Questions
1. Should zoos exist? If you believe they should, consider whether they should remain the same or change. If you believe they should not, consider how else to accomplish zoo's conservation efforts.

2. Extend the debate to other human-made animal habitats, such as safari parks and animal sanctuaries.

3. What other conservation efforts are important to saving wildlife? Explain your answer(s).
Take Action
1. Analyze " Eight Reasons Zoos Are Good for Conservation " from conservation scientist James Borrell.

2. Consider the pros and cons with a video from Above the Noise.

3. Explore conservationist Damian Aspinall's opinion that zoos are "outdated and cruel."

4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the "other side of the issue" now helps you better argue your position.

5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives.
Sources

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Proponents say zoos educate the public about animals. Opponents say wild animals should never be kept captive.

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Global warming has become a serious problem effecting the climates of every part of earth, this has begun to create major issues for animals which need a specific climate to survive. An example of a species which requires a specific climate to live and thrive is the polar bear. As the species name states the bear needs a "polar" climate to live. Polar bears feed a large amount of their diet with seals which spend large amounts of their time in the water and on the ice, not on land. As global warming has became worse the climate in these arctic regions has become warmer and in turn has begun melting the ice which these bears need so that they can hunt seals. Without this food source the animals will need to find new food sources which will be extremely hard or even impossible in the area. To try and solve the issue people must continue to attempt to be more climate friendly and use more sustainable options for their daily tasks like transportation.

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Deforestation is one of the major factors in habitat loss for species in almost every forested area in the world. Through these often times unsustainable practices, causes climate change, soil erosion, and plentiful other problems for the environment and local animal species. An example of a species suffering due to the loss of forest space is the Monarch Butterfly. The species which spends its time in the winter seasons in Mexico has begun to become at risk due to the loss of habitat in Mexico due to the clear cutting of trees. To help solve or at least reduce the issue of deforestation governments need to put in regulations which limit the amount of space trees can be cut each year. And more sustainable operations need to be put in place, like planting saplings in place of tress that have been cut down.

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Saskatchewan's Faults on Species Protection 

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Saskatchewan's Faults on Species Protection 

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Saskatchewan is home to many different wildlife species yet has done very little to ensure these species are healthy and safe living in their habitats in Saskatchewan. The government of Saskatchewan despite having the Wildlife act which is supposed to list endangered, extirpated, and threatened species has failed to list current species that fit into these categories. The Wildlife act which was created in 1999 hasn't had one new species added, or species that have either switched categories or needed to be removed form the list. As of 2018 this is still the case despite another source for endangered species, COSEWIC stating that Saskatchewan has 33 threatened, 21 endangered, and 2 extirpated species, while the Wildlife act states their are 1 threatened, 9 endangered, and 5 extirpated species, COSEWIC lists many more species that have become a part these categories since 1999 while the Wildlife act still lists those same species. I believe that Saskatchewan needs to either reform the current system or completely create a new system which better informs the people of the current endangered species so that we can properly help their species bounce back to a healthy size.

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Pollution can be a huge issue for our wildlife and environments. I've seen the effects of pollution firsthand right here in Swift Current. Near my house there are many coulees that used to be used for dumping garbage, for the most part this practice has stopped however majority of the garbage and pollution is still there. Pollution can cause issues for wildlife through polluting the water sources in that area, it can also cause groundwater pollution which may effect the plant species in the area. In this area there are also many vehicles that have been dumped and left, these vehicles have rusted and deteriorated causing them to be dangerous to animals as they can get injured on the sharp metal surfaces. Pollution can also cause issues for the wildlife in the form of sickness and disease if the pollutants are toxic. I believe that something should be done in this area to reduce and remove the pollution as the space would make for a great place that animals and plants could thrive.

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"The fight for Africa's rhinos" is a documentary published Mar 2, 2022 by DW Documentary. The documentary is about the issue of rhino poaching in Africa and the things being done to solve or stop the issue. The documentary starts off by showing what some rhino task forces are doing to stop the poachers, like finding intel on potential poachers, setting up heck points for vehicles, and dehorning the animals in an attempt to stop poachers from targeting them as poachers hunt them for their horns. Next a meeting between the heads of a rhino task force and some poachers from a town in Mozambique known for housing many poachers. A solution that could stop people from considering poaching would be creating infrastructure, businesses, and better education in these often times poverty stricken areas that rely heavily on poaching for their economy. Watching this documentary taught me lots on the issue and the reasoning for many of the poachers to even consider hunting these animals. Before watching I hadn't even considered that building infrastructure could give the poachers reason to no longer hunt the animals, as the documentary described it usually these acts of poaching were often times last ditch efforts to gain a better income and the men hunting the animals often didn't care weather they died or were arrested. If these ventures create better economies and quality of life for the people in these areas it could solve not just the poaching issue but give these people a better life. If I could ask the producers some questions about their experiences filming this documentary I would ask if there were other tactics being done to attempt to solve the poaching issue that wasn't mentioned in the documentary? I would also ask about the thoughts of the poachers on the documentary, did they consider the documentary being a good or bad thing for themselves?

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The fight for Africa's rhinos | DW Documentary

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Image Sources.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/
(Global Warming Image)

https://www.brinknews.com/catastrophic-biodiversity-loss/
(Deforestation Image)

Extra Information Sources.
https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/
(Saskatchewan's Wildlife Faults)

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Current Wildlife Issues Video Playlist. 2

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Current Wildlife Issues Video Playlist. 2

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1. (Climate Change)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v5uTdLIPKQ
2. (Urban Sprawl)
https://youtu.be/fpnUypcEbqE
3. (Wildlife Disease)
https://youtu.be/o5ECFLG2EwI
4. (Poaching)
https://youtu.be/JT3TwRjW-P4
5. (Impact of Drought)
https://youtu.be/WkJhWgn77cQ

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After finishing my first 9 entries, I feel that my understanding of many of the issues I researched has grown and I have learned lots about them that I didn't know before. One topic I learned much about was the lack of effort from Saskatchewan and Ontario when it comes to protecting threatened and endangered species in their provinces. Before looking into this I had no idea there was so little being done, I had just assumed since its a major issue they were doing lots to protect those species. I've also learned more about the actions being taken to stop and prevent poaching at parks and reserves in Africa. Before looking into the topic I had no idea they were attempting to remedy the poaching issue by creating infrastructure in areas which relied on poaching for their economy. I also gained a better understanding on the effects zoos have on their animals, I didn't know what effects their enclosures had on the animals that are under the zoos care. Learning this changed my opinion on zoos.

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1. (Impact of Plastic Pollution on Wildlife) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASloNrDkSZk
2. (Illegal Wildlife Trade)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv388lsBy2U
3. (Habitat Loss Caused by Deforestation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utUttHCCHXk
4. (Invasive Species)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIgysZ5Hho8
5. (Over Exploitation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siyNmqnH56k