Birch Island Conservation Easement

We’re thrilled to welcome one more conservation property to close out the year!

The Birch Island Conservation Easement protects nearly 15 acres of beautiful shoreline and forest habitat in Wah Wah Taysee. It has been donated anonymously by a family wishing to ensure that the land they have stewarded for 50 years will remain wild into the future.

This property is characterized by a rugged landscape with a gently sloping shoreline surrounding much of the island and a more rugged interior. The shoreline is dominated by open rock barren and exposed granite habitats, which transition into an interior composed primarily of mature, conifer forest, including areas dominated by Eastern White Pine. Within the interior, a patch of mature forest dominated by Northern Red Oak is present, adding further structural and ecological diversity.

The island also supports several wetland communities of high conservation value. Two pockets of thicket swamp occur within the interior and represent a provincially rare ecosystem type. In addition, the eastern portion of the island contains shoreline wetland habitat, including a graminoid coastal meadow marsh community that extends along portions of the southern and eastern shorelines; these shoreline wetlands are also considered provincially rare.

In total, this island supports a diversity of habitats and contributes significantly to biodiversity within Georgian Bay by providing important habitat for a wide range of species, including several species at risk.

The donors of the easement tell us:

“We have been stewards of our island on the east coast of Georgian Bay for over 50 years. We have had great joy swimming, fishing, canoeing and watching sunsets with our children in that beautiful place. We have also had an opportunity to observe a relatively pristine corner of the natural world. We have loved watching bass spawning in the clear water, osprey raising their young, painted turtles laying their eggs, and mink running over the rocky shore. We have also noticed, over the years, an increase in the number of boats and cottages. We realized that most of our island could remain in a natural state, in perpetuity, if we granted a conservation easement to the Georgian Bay Land Trust. It was an easy decision.”

We are so grateful! Thank you for choosing to leave this legacy for nature.