Hi All.

Damn, I swore I wasn't going to do this anymore, but the particular
circumstance demanded comment.

At 06:34 AM 06/18/2000 -0700, WAYNE WEBER wrote:
>Birders,

The following quote is the song a chicken sings when, after a long trip, it
settles comfortably to its roost. Also an illustration of consequences.

>The north side of Boundary Bay, located in the Municipality of Delta,
>B.C., is an outstanding birding area which has been used by birders
>for decades. It hosts huge wintering populations of waterfowl and
>Dunlin and many wintering raptors (including Snowy and Short-eared
>Owls). In spring and fall, it has impressive shorebird migrations.
>Rare shorebirds which have been seen here include Far Eastern Curlew,
>Bar-tailed, Hudsonian and Marbled Godwits, Snowy Plover, American
>Avocet, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, and Red Phalarope, as well as more
regular species.

>I have lived in Delta for 11 years, and am very familiar with the
>situation. Although there have been occasional traffic and parking
>problems, they have been blown out of proportion by local farmers, and
>these parking restrictions ARE NOT JUSTIFIED. The 3 roads where a
>total parking ban is planned are those which are the best access for
>shorebirds! Delta Council has heard little if any from birders on the
>subject, and is not aware of the serious impact this will have on our
>ability to enjoy our hobby.
(snip)

There is a historical context and an ironic footnote to the above. Forgive
me if I live in the past during this posting, but the present consequences
derive from historical decisions.

I likewise am--well, now it's much more accurate to say 'was'; I never go
to the place any more for reasons which will become obvious--very familiar
with Boundary Bay, sufficiently so to have authored an article sometime in
the late 1980's or early '90's, 'An Annotated Checklist of the Shorebirds
of Boundary Bay', for Discovery, the journal of the Vancouver Natural
History Society--I don't remember the volume or issue number--that appears
to have been of use to some people, and to have contributed the 'Boundary
Bay' section of the Vancouver BC bird-finding guide. At one time, though my
knowledge was only of the surface-scratching type, I knew Boundary Bay and
its birds probably as well as anyone did, and yet was aware there was a
vast amount of further knowledge there, waiting to be learned, but only if
Boundary Bay could be conserved against non-nature-related uses for long
enough.

At one time, in the early to mid-1980's, before the onslaught of
urbanisation and off-leash dog-owners, Boundary Bay was the birding jewel
of western Canada and, properly developed, could have become one of the
top five birding tourist destinations in North America. In the late 1970's
and early 1980's, its main attractions were winter raptor- and waterfowl
birding (and let me make my manners and thank Michael Force publicly for
introducing me to Boundary Bay), and very few birders went there in summer,
Roy Phillips being a regular there and by his own admission he didn't go
often. I know this because I was there a lot during the summer of 1980 and
after, after Paul Yorke and I discovered its east end was chockful of rare
shorebirds that summer even after the northbound migration had passed
through, and that they passed the grassy spit just east of 112th Street as
the tide came in almost as if in review. In the remainder of that summer,
it was extremely rarely that we met another birder at the best daily
tide-related shorebird times, the most likely time to meet one. Vancouver
birders' main attention was paid to Iona Island, the Reifel Refuge,
Crescent Beach (a small estuary and migrant-trap at the E end of the Bay),
and Roberts Bank, and in the early 1980's no one I talked to seemed to know
much about the place except for John Ireland and and a couple other Brit
banders who had done shorebird-ringing there.

I also noted the relative ease of access, and the fact that it was close to
Vancouver and several suburban communities with their extensive tourist
infrastructure, the fact that the timing of its specialty, the southbound
shorebird migration, corresponded almost point-for-point with the summer
tourism season. In other words, Boundary Bay, with its stunningly high
wildlife values, was a potential nature-tourist goldmine, the equal of the
best in North America, and superior to most. That's not opinion, by the
way: Boundary Bay got very high scores on all the criteria which define an
vital or important site. Comparing between different sites such as Manomet,
Montauk, Point Reyes on such things as species totals, rates of
rarity-species occurrence as a proportion of regular-species occurrence,
sheer numbers and the role of the area in providing an important summering
area for non-migrant adolscent shorebirds, waterfowl, and seabirds as well
as hosting massive numbers of migrants and wintering birds, it was clear
the Bay was one of the top such sites of North America.

The equivalent Washington State site, Bowerman Basin, was an hours-long
drive from any major city and, once there, was--relative to Boundary
Bay--difficult to reach, and there was little tourist infrastructure once
there, but most importantly, was based more or less on the migration
dynamics of one species, Western Sandpiper Calidris mauri, yet was highly
popular. Boundary Bay had much more and was comparatively within walking
distance. And it was clear that, whether shorebird, raptor, or waterfowl,
the astounding species mix *itself* was the draw of such a site. There were
birding destinations with far less that were very successful. Then,
Boundary Bay would have ranked in the top five or ten sites in North
America, up there with Pelee and Montauk, and without having to lift a
finger to do more that put in some viewing towers and boardwalks. If
nothing else, it could have become a stellar Bird Observatory. It was all
there, ours for the losing.

Vancouver birders began to pay frequent and sustained attention to the
north side of Boundary Bay in the early 1980's *only after* it became clear
that it was a generator of shorebird rarity sightings equalling even Iona
Island, and with a far larger shorebird species mix (I believe that the
shorebird species total for Boundary Bay is now at fifty-one or fifty-two,
with thirty to thirty-five annually-occurring species of varying degrees of
abundance from very common to quite rare). As I said, I was there during
those years and I *saw* how little attention birders paid to the place: any
other version would be crude revisionism. But usage also increased
throughout the 1980's as more birders moved from Vancouver to the suburbs
nearer the Bay. It's worth remembering that for about ten years beginning
in the early 1980's birders were not only the largest full-time user group
of Boundary Bay's resources, far larger than the hunters' association, they
were throughout the year virtually its only such group, and had they
represented themselves aggressively *then*, many of the problems
experienced since, including this one, might not have or would not have
occurred.

And, you know, we could have had it. One of the best shorebirding sites in
western Canada could have been saved for just that purpose, and--with the
fact that this was Canada's best wintering raptor location and there were
enormous flocks of waterfowl and seabirds of great variety, with many
rarities, in large migrant and wintering flocks--turned into a big tourist
money-spinner as well. In the early 1980's the owner of the house at the
end of 112th Street died, and his widow was willing to sell the property
there to any conservation group willing to buy it. At first, she hadn't
considered the possibility, but in frequent conversations with her as I'd
straggle back from the 112th Street Spit she came to see the Bay's value.
Well, I went to Canadian Wildlife Service: not interested; BC Wildlife: not
interested; Vancouver Natural History Society: not interested. No one was
interested. The widow died in 1983, and the opportunity came and went, and
everything devolved from then on into its present dog-and-pony political
stasis and tokenism, where one or two government players for years have
skillfully played the many minor interest-groups off against each other,
and done it well enough that most have been well-coopted into the process,
rendering them less threatening. Nothing is more subtle, nor a bigger waste
of taxpayers' money and conservationists' time, than a sleek Ottawa-based
naturecrat wearing a suit which cost as much as you and I make in a month
at what he's pleased to call his work.

It's that last organisation cited, the VNHS, that--given the context of
this request--contains the ironic component. When I proposed the idea of a
birding park along the lines of Point Pelee at Boundary Bay to the Bird
Committee of the Vancouver Natural History Society, without whose approval
the proposal--vital to any such initiative--would go no further in that
organisation, I was told by that Committee's senior member, whose opinion
normally carried the most weight in that organisation on birding matters
and on whom the executive of that group would rely for endorsement or
rejection of a birding issue, and I stress this is a verbatim quote, and
one I'll never forget, "Michael, Stanley Park is *far* more important than
Boundary Bay!" And the proposal was discussed no further. The irony is that
the author of that remark is now the author of the impassioned appeal to
make birders' voices heard to maintain access to the very area of the Bay
he dismissed as unimportant in the years crucial to its protection, years
that were then wasted.

Well, it appears from the quoted posting that there has been a change of
heart, not to say an appropriation of what I was been trying to sell people
for all those years since 1980: buy the land, and keep the dogs out. It's
worth remembering that the parking issue is actually a dog-control one: for
every birder parking at the S end of one of the Bay roads, there's vastly
more dog-owners, the largest user-group of Boundary Bay since the
mid-1990's. But, there's more joy in Heaven: personal enlightment is better
late than never.

But, politically, this appeal comes far too late to help birding at
Boundary Bay's best areas. Years too late. For want of action *then*, and
it could have been done, Boundary Bay has degraded since. There is the
deliberate intrusion of helicopter training in the Bay's *most* sensitive
part, at its east end in Mud Bay, whatever its protected designation, and
expansion of the Boundary Bay Airport to handle regular jet traffic (the
federal Department of Transport showing its normal perennial and
comprehensive contempt for wildlife, Canadian Wildlife Service and BC
Wildlife Branch their equally-eternal impotence in the face of the more
powerful ministry, and nature organisations their deep-dyed reluctance to
enter actual confrontation when the interests of wildlife are arrogantly
overridden by government), by hordes of off-leash dog owners, by
ATV-drivers, by windsurfers on the Bay, all kinds of nature-destructive
activities that have corroded the Bay's wildlife values to a shade of its
former self. Only a small token section, overrun by off-leash dogs, at the
opposite end of the Bay from the best parts (which are 104th Street east to
Mud Bay/Crescent Beach) is designated as a public nature site. The answer
to the question of who actually does what to protect Boundary Bay's
birdlife is simple: nobody, and nothing.

Birder apathy and perverse decison-making over the years have directly led
to this situation. To those involved, a hearty 'Well Done!'. Watching the
degradation of Boundary Bay over the last two decades has been one of the
bitterest experiences of my life, and--not to say it can't be done--but it
is hugely difficult for me to find forgiveness in my soul for those who had
decisional control and did not use it during those crucial years when
actual protection was possible before other, much more aggressively
self-interested interest groups appropriated the agenda of Boundary Bay
usage by default. Off-leash dog owners, not the least of them.

Well, off the top of the head, here's a possible solution to the North-side
access problem. Have a responsible local organisation make a request *at
the organisation level* to the Delta AirPark at the S end of 104th Street
to lease annually a part of their parking lot for birder-parking, and set
up some kind of fee structure to charge birders to use it, and birder could
then walk the 3 km east to the 112th Street Spit. Decide whether to use a
per-car or per-occupant fee or both. Approach area farmers and see if a
similar deal can't be worked out. Decide to charge it up-front or roll it
into the membership fee of the organisation. A smart organisation would set
up a system of preferential parking, then advertise it as a membership perk.

>From my old 1980's proposal for a Pelee-style nature park at Boundary Bay,
here's a suggestion for access to such a spread-out location: because of
the distances involved, set up with the GVRD a small electric shuttle along
the dyke such as they run at Point Pelee, usable by anyone for, say, a buck
a ride; and maybe get a local business or businesses to sponsor its
purchase &/or maintenance &/or operation, and--this is important--yes,
allow advertising on it, and use the money and business connections made to
expand services. At the organisational--*not* individual--level, make the
hospitality industry aware of what a potential tourist resource they have
here right under their noses (don't tell them how fast it's going) and get
them onside. When a single birder calls for enforcement of leash-laws,
civic bodies ignore that person, but if the hotel industry makes the same
recommendation, those bodies tend to pay attention. In time, they'll be the
ones to promote the resource. Why shouldn't they? Having Boundary Bay as a
big, dependable birding tourist destination is far better for local
business and for the birds than the Regional District running Boundary Bay
as Greater Vancouver's biggest dog shitter.

Instead of taking everyone and everything for granted as we have for so
many years, and thinking government will give us access just because we
birders are morally superior to all those nasty other interest groups,
instead of taking that free ride as though it'll last forever, while others
organise and fund-raise to protect their interests, look for solutions that
work. That means money, usually, and competent organisation and management
(note I say management, and not administration: from what I've seen and
experienced, most nature groups strangle from a from a dearth of the former
and an overabundance of the latter, where, unless you're part of the top
clique, it would take fourteen committee and sub-committee meetings and
eighteen months for the executive to decide just which hand they'll let you
use to scratch your butt). From what I've seen over the last twenty years,
birders have now gone to the bottom of the pile in Greater Vancouver, even
as they're gaining that long-overdue political and economic ascendancy in
some other venues. Here, I'll save you the cost of a consultant's fee: get
some aggressive, smart, responsible leadership--even if you have to pay for
it: competence is rarely free--and start making up for lost time. Who
knows, in time, with enough grit, savvy and push, you might even get a
piece of the best Boundary Bay areas back for birders' use. For now, take
the punishment, lick the wound, learn the lesson.

Best of luck.

Michael Price

PS: I know there are going to be screams of self-justifying rage and
protest from some involved in the above historical process. I don't care:
I'm not interested in either private or public vindictiveness or
butt-covering revisionism on this subject, so save your time & bandwidth.
Instead, put your energy into looking for practical solutions and ways to
prevent such situations from re-occurring, and try to recover some of the
damage caused by past indifference and inactivity.


And take upon us the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies...

--Wm. Shakespeare, King Lear