It has been many years since I first heard of an effort to rehabilitate the population of the Northern Spotted Leopard Frog. I once spoke to a university student I guess biologist and he related to me the ball he had coming over in the summer to work on this frog project. Lots of girls and all that. But in all those years I have never seen a report about how successful the project has been. It appears it can’t have been too successful as they have now spent thousands of dollars to hire two large excavators and a bulldozer to build a series of frog ponds at Duck Lake.
These ponds were constructed on virgin undisturbed soil, some on the east side of Channel Road and some on the West side of Channel road near the east side of the south Duck Lake pond. No publicity of the construction, sort of a covert operation. Like what are these ponds for. Nothing explained!! Spending our dollars and not saying a thing about it. Like is this an experiment. They dumped a load of merchantable timber “LOGS” into the ponds. I’m guessing for resting places for the frogs and turtles to get a little sun like we have all seen them do.
If they are actually designed for a resting place for frogs and turtles and maybe other reptiles they are also resting places for other wildlife species of wildlife like raptors. I wonder if these frog people ever heard of Bald Eagles, Heron, Cormorant, and Osprey. There are many others. I don’t think it matters if it is a frog or a fish it is food. These large logs protruding out of the water are an excellent perch for any of these. I’ve seen an immature Bald eagle sitting on one of those logs. I saw an Osprey come out of the pond area with a sizeable snake. The bird made it to its nest but when the snake got traction there was a big fight and it flipped out of the nest and fell to the ground. The Osprey looked pretty down on the matter probably like Dare Swain and his wife did when they came to the Gate.Lots of things to see down there but there is a gate across the road and it you can’t walk like a lot of us can’t you are out of luck. These frog people have built good dinner plates for these critters
I have come to the conclusion that the Duck Lake area should be removed from the authority of the CVWMA. Along with it should come a pro-rated piece of money from the dollars that B.C. Hydro allocates the CVWMA annually? This venture should be managed by a local committee with two members from the region.
Duck Lake is a grandeur local facility and somebody better start looking after it or it will be lost to neglect.
Cyril Colonel | Wynndel