Photo by Katie Starr Author Jan Everett has written a children’s book about turtles traversing the Long Point Causeway. By Katie Starr, Norfolk News It started with a birthday present. After giving her baseball fanatic husband John tickets to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field the year before, Jan Everett knew the pressure was on for birthday number 61. “So I decided to write him a book,” Everett said at her book signing in Simcoe last weekend. “It was something I had just giggled about doing before, but the words and illustrations just came to me.” Everett’s gift wasn’t just[…]

By Pat Finney, Port Rowan Good News November 18, 2013 – The vision of further reducing reptile and amphibian mortality on the Long Point Causeway road and increasing the historic movement of water between Big Creek Marsh and the Inner Bay of Long Point, is one important step closer to becoming reality. At a Council-in-Committee meeting on November 5, Council agreed a) to be the proponent of the next phase of the project to install as many as nine more ecopassages: two aquatic or ‘wet’ ecopassages and seven more dry ecopassages, potentially bringing the overall total to 12 b) to[…]

Simcoe Reformer, July 18, 2013 Construction is expected to start next year on more eco-passages to take turtles, snakes, and frogs safely under the Long Point Causeway. A group of concerned citizens, which installed three tunnels under the roadway last fall, announced Wednesday they have received another $211,500 in provincial funds. Combined with $223,000 in federal grants from earlier this year, the Long Point Causeway Improvement Project says it has enough money to build at least four, and possibly six, new passages. LPCIP co-ordinator Rick Levick said the group’s next step will be to approach the county, which owns the[…]

By Monte Sonnenberg, Simcoe Reformer Tuesday, June 25, 2013 10:09:49 EDT PM LONG POINT – The Ministry of Natural Resources is asking the public to be on the lookout for people behaving suspiciously around area ponds and wetlands. The ministry has received reports in recent weeks of people in the local area helping themselves to turtles in the wild. The reports are disturbing because poaching of this sort can be devastating to species-at-risk. “We are speculating as to why they are taking them,” Emmilia Kuisma, a district strategic officer with the MNR in Aylmer, said Tuesday. “It’s either for the[…]

By Sarah Doktor, Simcoe Reformer Snakes, turtles and other critters will have more opportunities to cross from one side of the Long Point Causeway to the other thanks to new funding. The Long Point Causeway Improvement Project (LPCIP) steering committee recently received approval for $223,000 in funding over three years from Environment Canada’s Habitat Stewardship Program (HSP) for Species at Risk to install up to six new ecopassages along the Long Point Causeway. The funding will enable LPCIP to design, engineer and receive approval for the additional passages recommended in the project’s original feasibility study. “Having that certainty for three[…]

The newly-installed ecopassages under the Long Point Causeway are featured in an article in the winter 2012-13 edition of Ontario Nature magazine. The article can be found on page 8 at the following link : http://www.vdocshop.com/doc/on-nature-magazine/winter2012-13/2012112201/#0 Since it was established as the Federation of Ontario Naturalists in 1931, Ontario Nature has been a champion for nature in Ontario protecting wild species and wild spaces through conservation, education and public engagement. Ontario Nature is a charitable organization representing more than 30,000 members and supporters and 140 member groups across Ontario.

by Chris Mcmillan, CD 98.9 Simcoe It’s been a long time coming, but construction on three ecopassages under the Long Point Causeway has begun. The first shovel went into the ground earlier this week and the Long Point Causeway Improvement Project Coordinator, Rick Levick tells CD989 he expects a majority of the project to be completed by the end of December. The three Eco-Passages are being installed to allow turtles, snakes, frogs and other wildlife to avoid the dangers of the roadway. Something Levick is looking forward too. “It’s great to have construction finally underway but I’ll have to wait[…]

By Daniel R. Pearce, Simcoe Reformer Wednesday, October 3, 2012 The underground eco-passages that will provide a safe route for endangered species of turtles and snakes to pass underneath the Long Point causeway will cost town hall $60,000. The community group heading up the project has said for the past six years it could fundraise all the money needed — roughly $900,000. But the approval process for the concrete culverts that will run between the marsh and the inner bay cost more than expected, councillors were told Tuesday night before they agreed to help fund the project. The catch is[…]

02 Oct 2012 by Aaron Gautreau Construction will begin in mid-November on three eco-passages under the Long Point Causeway, allowing smaller animals to avoid the dangers of the roadway. That, in part, is thanks to Norfolk Council who approved 60-thousand dollars from their budget to help with the Long Point Causeway Improvement Project shortfall in funds. LPCIP currently has spent upwards of 200-thousand dollars in required studies from the province, something they or Council didn’t foresee. Co-ordinator for LPCIP, Rick Levick says he’s grateful. “The costs of getting the all of the approvals just kept climbing. As I watched the[…]

August 21, 2012 by Crystal Robertson, Adopt-A-Pond Staff, Toronto Zoo Biologists in the cottage community of Long Point, Ontario are excited for a long term solution to high numbers of wildlife road mortality. The peninsula of Long Point is attached to the mainland by a narrow causeway. Designed in 1927 this stretch of roadway originally bisected the Big Creek Marsh with a series of bridges between existing sandbars. As time went on the bridges were removed and a solid roadbed was put in its place, leaving only one bridge for the outlet of Big Creek. As part of the Long[…]