This year, we were retained to ensure that adverse impacts to of one the most endangered amphibians in Canada – the Oregon Spotted Frog – did not occur during routine channel maintenance work in the Fraser Valley. To achieve this objective, intensive monitoring was undertaken during the works, including the thorough examination of vegetation removed from watercourses. The Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP) routinely salvaged amphibians including Red-legged Frogs, Northwestern Salamanders, Rough-skinned Newts, Pacific Chorus Frogs (Tree Frogs) and, the highly valued Oregon Spotted Frog (photograph below).

Oregon Spotted Frog (Rana pretiosa)

AquaTerra was retained by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations to conduct ground-truthing surveys at a number of existing Pacific Water Shrew capture sites. Between October 2011 and April 2012, AquaTerra completed the surveys, authored management plans for each site, and recommended changes to existing polygons based on ground-truthing results. Deliverables included a 265 report and GIS data to assist in the management of this federally ‘endangered’ and provincially ‘red-listed’ species-at-risk.

Pacific Water Shrew Habitat Survey

AquaTerra recently assisted a large environmental consulting firm in the collection of songbird data for four (4) wind farms in Northeast BC. Our staff have completed songbird surveys as well as pre-clearing nest surveys, breeding bird surveys and songbird nesting surveys for the District of North Vancouver, Anmore, and Kiewit-Flatiron and have completed coursework in bird identification and song identification.