Long Point Causeway Improvement Project

LPCIP News

Causeway Committee receives Norfolk Dogwood Award

Causeway Steering Committee members John Everett, Rick Levick, Paula Jongerden (chair), Jan Everett and Peter Carson accepted the award certificate and sculpture on behalf of all committee members.   Simcoe, June 4, 2018: The 2018 Dogwood Award for contributions to Norfolk County’s culture and heritage by a group was presented to members of the Steering Committee of the Long Point Causeway Improvement Project.   “This committed group is the very best in community leadership, support and hard work,” said Melissa Collver, Norfolk’s Director of Heritage and Culture as she presented the award   This 10-year, $2.7 million project was a[…]

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Long Point Causeway Project media coverage

Media from across Canada, the United States and around the world have chronicled the success of the Long Point Causeway Improvement Project in significantly reducing the numbers of turtles killed by vehicles on the 3.6 kilometer road. Major media outlets in Canada such as the Canadian Press, Toronto Star, Winnipeg Sun and Halifax Chronicle Herald published articles about the Project. As well, the CBC, CTV and Global television networks carried the story. In the US, the work of the small Ontario community to reduce turtle road kill was featured on the Good News Network, CNCnews.net, NRIPress and an upcoming issue[…]

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Saving turtles along a deadly stretch of road

By Kristin Rushowy Toronto Star Locals in Long Point fundraised and helped conduct research on dangerous area of causeway For too long, it was the road to ruin for wildlife in the area each year – including a number of at-risk species of turtles and snakes – and locals were upset at the carnage along the Long Point Causeway. An estimated 10,000 animals were dying annually on the 3.6-kilometre, two-lane stretch at a Lake Erie peninsula, making it the fourth worst in the world for turtles. So citizens pushed, and fundraised, for a solution – securing a total of $2.7[…]

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This Small Town in Canada Spent 10 Years and $2.7 Million to Save Turtles

MOTHERBOARD – Bryson Masse May 26 2017, 1:00pm A community bands together for the love of reptiles. One of Rick Levick’s earliest memories is seeing two smooshed snapping turtles along a causeway that cuts through this at-risk reptile’s wetland habitat, Lake Erie’s Long Point peninsula in southern Ontario, where he’s been cottaging since 1956. In 2006, he helped launch a fight to save these critters—and after ten long years, it’s a stunning success in protecting animals and their habitats, one that came from the grassroots. The Long Point Causeway, which allows tourists and cottagers access to Lake Erie’s famous sandy[…]

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Endangered turtles saved by citizens of Ontario hamlet

By Nicole Mortillaro, CBC News ‘To achieve a reduction of 80 to 90% mortality is just amazing. That was the biggest surprise’ Long Point is a popular camping destination in southern Ontario, a rich ecological site with an abundance of wildlife, and part of UNESCO’s World Biosphere Reserve. It is full of marshes, dunes, beaches and forests. But it is also deadly.  On a 3.6-kilometre stretch of road on Lake Erie’s Long Point Causeway, thousands of frogs, snakes, turtles — approximately 10,000 by some counts and some that are endangered or threatened like the Blanding’s turtle — were killed annually until recently. Residents of the area could no longer[…]

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Ontario community’s work to prevent turtles, snakes being killed on roads a model for others

By Michelle McQuigge The Canadian Press A rural Ontario community’s work to prevent endangered reptiles from being killed on a 3.6-kilometre stretch of road — once considered among the world’s deadliest for turtles — is being held up as a successful example of how to protect vulnerable wildlife. A new research paper, published Friday in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, details the community of Long Point’s construction of roadway fencing and culverts — tunnels used for animal travel — to decrease the numbers of turtles and snakes dying on the Long Point Causeway in a southwestern part of the province. The[…]

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Turtle disaster avoided with roadkill rescue

BBC News By Sean Coughlan, Education correspondent 31 May 2017 For anyone on a long drive on a country road, one of the bleakest sights is the amount of roadkill you see punctuating the passing miles. It shows the fatal incompatibility between our need to get to places quickly and wildlife trying to get across a road. In terms of the odds being stacked up against an animal, it’s particularly bad news for the slow-moving turtle. They’re not exactly going to sprint away from danger. But research published by academics at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, reports on the major[…]

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Ontario Town’s 10-year $2.7 million Effort to Save Endangered Turtles  Offers Global Lessons

A newly completed project in a remote corner of southwestern Ontario is being hailed as a landmark achievement in the protection of at-risk species and a model for other communities around the world seeking to reduce the number of animals killed on roads that run through fragile ecosystems. For decades, the causeway linking Lake Erie’s Long Point peninsula with mainland Ontario was among the deadliest places in North America for threatened and endangered reptiles. Researchers estimate that, since 1979, as many as 10,000 animals per year – representing more than 100 species of reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds – were[…]

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McMaster research study: The true cost of partial fencing

Evaluating strategies to reduce reptile road mortality One of the deadliest roads in North America for species at risk fragments a marsh-lake ecosystem. To reduce road mortality, stakeholders installed >5 km of exclusion fencing along a southwestern Ontario, Canada, causeway in 2008–2009. Between 2012 and 2014, 7 culverts were installed to provide safe crossings. We evaluated the success of these mitigation strategies by 1) comparing results of road surveys conducted 5 years before and 5 years after fencing installation; and 2) monitoring use of culverts by turtles using motion-activated cameras at culvert openings and stationary antennas placed to detect movements of[…]

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Causeway insights shared with world

By Monte Sonnenberg, Simcoe Reformer Friday, May 26, 2017 5:13:23 EDT PM The organizers of the Long Point Causeway Improvement Project are bracing for a wave of inquiries now that their efforts have been featured in a prestigious wildlife journal. Readers in this part of Ontario will have seen updates on the project over the past 10 years. That experience went international Friday when an in-depth article was posted on the Wildlife Society Bulletin website. Rick Levick of Toronto, co-ordinator of the causeway project, expects to field numerous emails and phone calls from individuals and wildlife professionals who want to[…]

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