LET’S TALK CONSERVATION

• BY MARION SPÉE

There was a time when zoos exhibited wild, exotic animals and collected species of all kinds simply so visitors could marvel at them. “Nowadays, modern zoological institutions still try to raise people’s awareness of the beauty of nature and animals, but they also have a role to play in helping to maintain biodiversity and conserving endangered species,” says Emiko Wong, head of the live collections and research division at the Biodôme de Montréal. Progress has been made.

Standards have been developed by independent organizations to provide wild species in captivity with the highest levels of animal care, so as to ensure their integrity, health and well-being. In Canada, the organization in charge of this is CAZA (Canada’s Accredited Zoos and Aquariums). It has a three-fold mission: education, research and conservation.

At the Biodôme, for instance, the basic conservation program focuses on species that are part of a captive population management plan, in cooperation with all other institutions that have the same species. The idea is to maintain a genetically healthy population even as animals are moved around and exchanged between institutions. “We try to make sure that individuals with a similar genetic make-up don’t mate, and that instead sufficient genetic mixing occurs,” says Ms. Wong. The other objective of this type of program is to constitute a sort of “reserve” of various species that could be of use in the event of an ecological disaster.

There are also on-site conservation programs, at the Biodôme, as well as at the Jardin botanique and the Insectarium, that seek to reverse the decline of endangered species populations. These programs are structured so that a part of the species’ life cycle takes place in enclosures or greenhouses, and then the individuals are reintroduced into the wild.

AT THE BIODÔME: THE PANAMANIAN GOLDEN FROG

The Panamanian golden frog (Atelopus zeteki) is a an ecological and cultural symbol of Panama. But it hasn’t been seen in the wild since 2009. So the Biodôme, along with 50 other zoological institutions in the United States and Canada, has undertaken to protect it by participating in an effort to maintain a genetically healthy population.

The challenge is primarily environmental. “The frogs come down from the mountains and lay their eggs in streams where there’s a lot of current. In a zoo, we have to be able to recreate optimal conditions for the females to lay their eggs: reproduce a waterfall, a constant movement of water,” says animal care technician Roxan Ouimet. In practice, couples mate by engaging in amplexus, where the male hitches a ride on the female’s back. Once the female finds an appropriate place, she releases her eggs and the male fertilizes them. There is a risk, however, that if if she does not find the appropriate place to lay, the eggs will remain in her abdomen, and she can die as a result. Today, there are some 1,600 Panamanian golden frogs in captivity. The ultimate stage, of course, is to be able to reintroduce them into the wild. “But first,” notes Ms. Ouimet, “the parasitic chytrid fungi that have wiped out the frog populations in their natural habitat, will have to be eliminated.”

AT THE INSECTARIUM: A MONITORING NETWORK FOR QUEBEC FLYING INSECT POPULATIONS

In temperate regions of the world, insect populations are declining dramatically. Quebec is no exception to this trend, but it has no monitoring infrastructure for quantifying the phenomenon. A new flying insect monitoring project was initiated in the winter of 2018–19. It’s the first of its kind in Quebec. The goal is to set up insect traps so as to be able to document not just the diversity and abundance, but also the biomass of various groups of indicators. The more we know about our insects, the better we’ll be able to protect them.

“Initially, we want to test the methodology to make sure it is simple and effective, because the traps will be operated by volunteer collaborators,” says entomologist Michel Saint-Germain. Two sites have been equipped with traps for intercepting insects in flight: the Parc national d’Oka and the Parc-nature de la Pointe-aux-Prairies. “These traps catch flying insects that move upward when they encounter an obstacle, like flies or wasps, but also those that let themselves drop down, like most beetles or crickets,” notes Mr. Saint-Germain.

Processing samples of this kind is demanding in terms of time and expertise. The first step is to classify the collected insects into major groups and take biomass measurements. “This parameter is a better indicator than simple abundance,” the entomologist says, “because an insect’s impact on its ecosystem is partly a function of its weight.”

The objective over the next three years is to have 15 or so stations operating every year. It’s also to cover areas that constitute threats to varying degrees in order to produce an accurate picture of the current situation, for instance with respect to the degree of urbanization or intensive agricultural practices.

AT THE JARDIN BOTANIQUE: FALSE HOP SEDGE

False hop sedge (Carex lupuliformis) grows in shoreline wetlands. In Quebec, it has threatened species status, the most critical level. In 2005, there were only three populations (groups of individual plants), totalling just 30 or so plants in all.

In an effort to increase this very low number, a conservation and reintroduction project was launched in 2006. The idea was to grow the sedge from seed in greenhouses and reintroduce the young plants into the wild. “Often, when it’s a question of rare plants, people think that the seeds have poor viability. But, in a greenhouse, we have success rates of 98%,” notes botanist Stéphanie Pellerin enthusiastically. So it’s not hard to grow false hop sedge, but reintroducing it into the wild is another matter. “At the start of the project, we didn’t know much about its preferred habitat, so we went through a lot of trial and error,” she explains. It has to be said that false hop sedge is fickle: it likes habitats that are not too shady, not too bright, not too flooded, nor too dry either.

The team can be proud now that it has managed to reintroduce over 200 plants into the wild, which is around seven times more than in 2005, grouped into a dozen or so populations. The results are very encouraging. False hop sedge is on the right track, and in good hands!