Terry Taylor, Lawrence Brown and Bev Ramey of the Vancouver Natural History Society/BC Nature joined SECS members Meg Fellowes and Nikki Kozakiewicz and Linda Dupuis, Ascaphus Consulting, to update inventories of plant communities in the Squamish Estuary. This photo was part of a static display based on a power point presentation which was in turn part of the report Conservation Priorities for the Squamish Estuary, Linda Dupuis, Ascaphus Consulting, (Squamish Estuary Conservation Society, 2003).
Conservation Priorities for the Squamish Estuary was commissioned by SECS under the leadership of Jean Wilkinson, with funding from BC Nature. It’s acknowledged as contributing to Skwelwil’em, Squamish Estuary Wildlife Management Area Plan, (BC, Ministry of Environment, Environmental Stewardship Division, 2007).
Plant inventory work continues in 2018 with the work of Judith Holm. A key part of her project is to confirm if the species recorded are still growing within the boundary of the project by recording them using the iNaturalist platform.
Meg Fellowes
February 2018
Terry Taylor’s survey was not published. At the conclusion of his plant list from the survey, Terry wrote:
“The Squamish Estuary is less impacted than most such sites in the Lower Mainland, both from the point of view of human activity, and from impact of invasive plants. I was very surprised to not find any purple loosestrife or yellow iris, which are almost invariably present in such wetland sites.
There will be more species present than are shown in this one-day survey, because some plants are not easily identified this early in the season.
The numbers of some of these plants are quite remarkable. Henderson’s checker mallow is blue listed. I have never seen as much of it in any other site as there is here. Sweet grass occurs sporadically along Georgia Strait, but the amounts here are much greater than other marshes I have inspected. The black lily is also scattered throughout our seaside marshes, but the numbers of them in the Squamish delta are also much greater than in other local marshes. The Alaska plantain is also scattered along the BC coast, but I have not previously found it in the Lower Mainland.”
Link to a copy of Terry’s survey
Photo: (L to r) Terry Taylor, Linda Dupuis, and Lawrence Brown. Photo courtesy of Meg Fellowes.