Ontario Nature Blog

Following the successful ten-year run of the Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas, Ontario Nature developed a Long-Term Monitoring Protocol (LTMP) to fill important knowledge gaps about Ontario’s common and at-risk snakes. Since 2019, we’ve expanded the LTMP from nine monitoring locations to over 60 sites across the province! We recently published a Story Map where ...

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When I told my parents that my brother and I would be out on a weekend to go to a snake event, they were more than skeptical. Like more than half the world’s population, they’re not particularly comfortable at the thought of being in snake habitat. Snakes are one of the most misunderstood and feared ...

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In June 2024, Ontario Nature joined Field Research in Evolution and Ecology Diversified (FREED) for an immersive five-day event at Queen’s University Biological Station. FREED events provide university students from underrepresented backgrounds in conservation with hands-on field experiences and an opportunity to connect with peers and mentors in their field of study. Teagan and Justine, ...

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The wondrous world of snakes, or gnebigoog, as we say in Anishinaabemowin, was explored last July when Ontario Nature’s Brittney Vezina and Christine Ambre met up with a group of youth from the Bkejwanong Eco-Keepers (BEK) program for a knowledge sharing and training event all about snakes. The Bkejwanong Eco-Keepers is an ongoing Indigenous environmental ...

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I’ve been thinking about Samuel Beckett and Ontario rattlesnakes. There used to be two species in the province, the Massasauga and the timber. But for decades there’s only been one. In 1967, conservationist Barbara Froom said the timber rattler, “that was common in the Niagara Gorge region many years ago, is now extinct in Ontario.” ...

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