Family donates New Brunswick island shoreline to charity

An Ontario family has preserved habitat for the endangered piping plover bydonating land on an island off New Brunswick's northeast shoreto the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Miscou Island in theGulf of St. Lawrenceis home to sand dunes, ocean lagoons and large peat bogs. It is also home to thousands of migratory shore birds.

The provincial government opened a bridge to the island a decade ago. Since then, there has been a big increase in recreational use, especially by all-terrain-vehicles.

The land was owned by Dr. John Connolly and his family, who decided todonatefive separate tractstotalling 90 hectares.

There are fewer than 500 piping plovers left in all of Atlantic Canada. Conservancy land securement officer Denise Roy said Friday thatMiscou Island provides a critical breeding and feeding ground for the birds.

"They're very hard to see. They're just a tiny little bird," Roy said."They breed right on the beach and they're very hard to see.… If we walk on the beach too close, it disturbs them and they will stop feeding, which is a problem. And one of the biggest problems where we don't see the eggs is we may walk on them, and that wouldn't be good at all. "

Piping plovers are tiny shore birds that nest in dune grass at the high tide mark on coastal beaches during the summer. The nests are vulnerable to predators such as dogs, who eat their eggs, and to destruction from motorized vehicles that drive over the dunes.

Roy said the Conservancy won't ban access to the island, but will take steps to ensure the natural habitat is undisturbed.

"It is important for migrating waterfowl and shore birds," she said.

Securing a long-term future

The Nature Conservancy of Canada is the country's only national charity dedicated to preserving ecologically significant areas through outright purchase, donations and conservation easements.

Since 1962, it has secured a long-term future for more than 1,400 properties across the country. The conservancy has secured 56 Atlantic Canadian properties totalling approximately 8,094 hectares, much of that coastal wetlands.

Dr. Roland Maurice gave the Conservancy 10 hectares of New Brunswick shoreline near Shediacthree years ago to protect the birds that live there.

"The last five years or so they disappeared because there was an invasion of four-wheelers and all-terrain-vehicles. As you know, those birds nest in the sand in the grass of the dunes, sothey squashed all the birds, and the birds disappeared.Now they're starting to come back."

Maurice's grandchildren have convinced him he made the right decision."Those kids, you have no idea how they started to get interested in the birds, and they study their names, the scientific names, and the song and so forth. That in itself is a reward that I already have."

One of the Conservancy's largest properties is Pendleton Island, a 121-hectare island in Passamaquoddy Bay off New Brunswick's southwest coast.Anne Pendletonconvinced135 of her relatives to agree to the donation three years ago.

"It's nice that I was able to find an organization like the Conservancy to help us protect it because it's a good thing. It's going be there for, hopefully, two or three generations," she said.