A few years ago, Central Algoma Land Trust (CALT) staff noticed something unusual. It was just a hunch, but they had begun seeing fewer bats on their properties than usual. Without a baseline understanding of the bats’ activities, it would be difficult for Central Algoma Land Trust to stabilize and further support its bat population. At around the same time, in southern Ontario, the Long Point Basin Land Trust (LPBLT) had a vision of helping a small at-risk butterfly, the Mottled Duskywing, find a home on their land and a place to thrive, but to do so would require meeting the butterfly’s very specific food needs. Each of these projects requires time, energy, and funds to achieve.
Enter the Ontario Land Trust Alliance’s Conserving Species at Risk program (CSAR), funded by Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks’ Species Conservation Program. Since 2016, CSAR has supported 43 land trusts and conservation organizations in developing and implementing targeted actions to support the recovery of priority species, including turtles, bats, birds, snakes, and plants, across Southern and Central Ontario. CSAR works through technical training, one-to-one support, partnerships, and funding.
Thanks to funding from this program, CALT installed seven stationary bat monitors throughout the land trust. They hired summer research technicians to analyze the recordings and identify the bat species. The technicians also work with the local community to engage both children and adults in learning about and protecting bats.
And with support from the Species at Risk Action Fund (SARAF), a funding stream of CSAR, Long Point Basin Land Trust was able to do restoration work at two Nature Reserves, including seeding one of the butterfly’s two host plants, the New Jersey Tea plant. LPBLT released the Mottled Duskywing butterfly in 2025. This spring, when staff assessed the release sites, they were delighted to find that larvae had successfully overwintered and emerged as adult Mottled Duskywings. Read more about how LPBLT transformed the Harlow Dune Nature Reserve from a pine plantation to the sand dune habitat it was meant to be.
CALT and LPBLT are not the only land trusts where CSAR has helped support at-risk species. The program has also helped to fund research into migratory birds at Georgian Bay Land Trust and species inventories at Thickson’s Woods Land Trust, taking some financial pressure off the land trusts while enabling them to do this essential work.
For most land trusts, securing a piece of land is just one step in a conservation commitment that is meant to last forever. Often, like at LPBLT, habitats need to be restored to make room for the species that once depended on them.
Through CSAR, over 180 hectares of grasslands, wetlands and alvar have been restored, enhanced or maintained. And OLTA staff and partners have surveyed over 52 properties to guide stewardship and monitoring decisions to support species at risk. Over the past ten years, OLTA and land trust partners have helped improve habitat for at least 69 at-risk species. We are grateful to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks for supporting this innovative program.
