Hello Wheatley River watershed members,
We’ve wrapped up another successful summer field season at WRIG! We had an exciting and productive summer thanks to our excellent field crew. We really appreciate all the hard work that was done by our crew, consisting of: Tessa Craig, Francisco Sanchez, Nick LeClair, Sam Pastoor, and Marika Dykstra. It was very beneficial to have received student funding from ECO Canada, Skills PEI, Canada Summer Jobs, and PEI’s Jobs for Youth program.
With a large crew, we accomplished a great deal these past 3 months. In total, WRIG planted, watered, and maintained about 415 native trees & shrubs on private properties and riparian areas in the watershed! We also donated trees during public events, such as the River Clyde Pageant and WRIG’s River Duck Race. The crew was able to remove blockages from over 5 km of stream along the Wheatley River, thanks to having a certified chainsaw technician on the crew, and they built over 650 feet of silt-catching brush mats. Well done team! Every week, water quality was monitored at 20 sites in the watershed, and every 3 weeks a canoe survey to the Oyster Bed estuary was conducted to assess for signs of anoxia. WRIG also collaborated with neighbouring watershed groups to conduct shoreline clean-ups, to provide information to the public, and to share learned skills amongst the groups. We’d like to acknowledge the Wildlife Conservation Fund for continuing to support these initiatives.
Finally, our group spent quite a lot of time working in the Rackham’s Pond area, including maintaining the walking trail and cutting a new trail on the far side of the pond. During the last week of August, the team did a fantastic job re-building the footbridge across the outlet of the pond to gain access to the new trail. WRIG would like to extend a big thank you to the Cymbria Lions Club for supporting our work and contributing to building supplies for this project.
More details and photos of all of the activities conducted over the summer are summarized on our website (wheatleyriver.ca). As always, please feel free to contact us with any questions or ideas you have. We can be reached by email at manager@wheatleyriver.ca or on our Facebook page.
Maggie McConnell
Watershed Manager
Wheatley River Improvement Group
https://www.wheatleyriver.ca