The jewel in the crown of environmental habitat in Simcoe County
Southern Ontario was covered by nearly continuous forest less than 200 years ago, but today urban development and agriculture has replaced the forest with only primarily second growth forest remaining, writes Bob Bowles.
Bob Bowles is an award-winning writer, artist and naturalist, as well as the founder and co-ordinator of the Ontario master naturalist certificate program at Lakehead University.
Simcoe County has many great environmental natural areas, but the crown has to be the Oro Moraine and the jewel in the crown, the Copeland Forest. However, the crown has been tarnished and bent by economic development and the jewel shattered into many pieces by recreational development. I have written several articles about the crown, the formation and ecology of the Oro Moraine, but this is about the history and ecology of the jewel in the crown, the Copeland Forest.
This is the first of a series on the history and ecology of Copeland Forest. Solid, mature, old growth forest covered our area before European visitors arrived in the early 1600s and the settlers arrived in the early 1800s. Southern Ontario is the most densely populated region in Canada, home to 35 per cent of Canada’s population and 15 per cent of Ontario’s total land mass, but 92 per cent of Ontario’s population lives here.
Southern Ontario was covered by nearly continuous forest less than 200 years ago, but today urban development and agriculture has replaced the forest with only primarily second growth forest remaining.
Studies published more than 20 years ago found forests in southern Ontario largely fragmented woodlands less than 250 acres. Deep wood interior habitat with no edge effect greater than 200 acres was less than three per cent in southwestern and eastern Ontario. These large forest tracts are more protective from winds and storms, extreme temperature variability, less noise pollution and retain moisture through the driest days of summer. Many birds, plants, insects, mammals, reptiles and amphibians require these conditions, even more now with climate change, and without these large forest blocks become listed as special concern, threatened or even endangered.
Copeland Forest is an ideal example of this large forest habitat, with 4,400 acres (1,760 hectares) of wildlife habitat on the edge of the Oro Moraine. Fed by cold-water aquifers and streams and covered by a high-quality deciduous canopy, provincially significant wetlands, headwaters to many rivers and streams in three different watersheds and home for many species at risk and rare species.
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