Point Ellice House & Victoria’s Migratory Bird Sanctuary

Point Ellice House, Museum & Gardens National Historic Site is a green oasis surrounded by industrial lands on the shores of the Selkirk Water. The Point Ellice House shore is a component of the Victoria Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary and the Victoria “naturehood,” as recognized by Nature Canada. The site’s vegetated shoreline was restored in 2014 and is among the wildest left in Victoria Harbour and nearby waters. This restoration work continues today. To be a part of our ongoing efforts, consider volunteering at Point Ellice House.

Guest Post by Jacques Sirois, Co-Warden – Trial Islands Ecological Reserve, Caretaker – Victoria Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary.

Stand up paddle boarders in front of the Point Ellice House shore

Interestingly, three B.C. Ecological Reserves within the Victoria capital region of British Columbia are closely associated with the historic, federal Victoria Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary (MBS) comprising 1,840 hectares and established in 1923. While Ten Mile Point ER (1975; 11 ha) and Trial Islands ER (1990; 23 ha) lie entirely in the MBS, Oak Bay Islands ER (1979; 205 ha) lies partly in it and largely next to its eastern flank. The MBS is 28 km long from west to east, from Portage Creek (Portage Inlet) to Gyro Beach (Cadboro Bay), through Victoria Harbour.

This is the oldest Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Pacific Canada, it was established in light of
declining bird numbers to control hunting in an urban area. The MBS was apparently meant to rein in recreational, subsistence and market hunting, particularly of waterfowl like Brant, a favourite Christmas meal 100 years ago.

Hunting and fishing in Greater Victoria apparently “took off” during the gold rush of 1858 when 30,000 “hungry” folks, gold miners and settlers showed up “overnight”. Much of the actual border of the MBS makes no particular ecological sense. It appears to have been drawn just to keep hunters away from the city. However, the federal Order-inCouncil of October 27, 1923 recognizes the area as “the resort of many valuable and interesting species of migratory birds”. It mentions that this federal MBS will replace a Bird Sanctuary previously created by the Province of British Columbia, in light of the new (1917) Migratory Bird Convention Act which recognized federal jurisdiction over migratory birds and the questionable legality of provincial jurisdiction over tidal waters.

Largely forgotten for decades, Victoria Harbour MBS is still with us today. It is now the object of renewed interest for various reasons in the context of urban renewal. The fact is that it is home to remarkable “urban” wildlife, birds, rare plants, fishes, whales etc. Arguably, we have some of the best coastal and marine wildlife in urban Canada. The MBS is also benefiting from decades of costly and serious restorations, cleanups and deindustrialization at numerous sites. As a result, water quality has not been this good in many areas in more than half a century and is still improving.

The restoration of the Gorge Waterway, Selkirk Water, Rock Bay and Laurel Point (still unfolding) are cases in point. Like it or not, the unfolding construction of an expensive ($800M+), controversial, regional wastewater treatment plant in the Victoria Outer Harbour, at McLoughlin Point, which will divert sewage from the Clover Point and Macaulay Point outfalls in and next to the MBS, to be completed in late 2020, is also part of this renewal.

This year, the restoration of the Trial Islands, initiated by cowarden and rare-plant botanist Matt Fairbarns in the early 2000s, has continued in earnest. It has been a Herculean task, but the large maritime meadow and its rare plants look very good. The restoration of Griffin Island (Oak Bay Islands ER), also undertaken by Matt and his team of contractors and volunteers (see article on page 13), has also gained tremendous momentum. The year 2019 may also be the year when Rhinoceros Auklets are confirmed nesters on one of our precious islands. So, Victoria Harbour MBS and its three associated ERs are home to valuable biodiversity, including 270 species of birds, 28 species of mammals and 95+ species-at-risk, mostly rare plants. Concretely, this includes vast beds of clams and eelgrass, large patches of surfgrass and kelp forests, maritime meadows and other Garry Oak associated ecosystems.

Marbled Murrelets, Rhinoceros Auklets, Western Purple Martins, Brant, Golden Paintbrush, Victoria’s Owlclover, Macouns’ Meadowfoam, Vancouver Island Ringlet, Coho Salmon, Pacific Herring, Olympia Oyster, Northern Abalone, Pacific Giant Octopus, Killer Whale (transient and sourthern resident), Humpback Whale and many others are all inhabitants of the MBS. Numerous challenges, many not under our control, remain including for example, the recovery of overfished Pacific Herring, which alone would bring back and sustain a lot more birds and other wildlife in Lekwungen (Songhees & Esquimalt) traditional territory. After all, the name in Lukwungen means, “the place to smoke herring”.

These areas are part of Victoria’s glorious marine front yard. They sustain nature in the city and form a remarkable “naturehood”, as recognized by Nature Canada (formerly Audubon Society of Canada) on July 12, 2017, in the presence of the former Lt. Gov. of BC, Her Honour Judith Guichon, at Government House. They bring the Salish Sea into our capital city, something worth celebrating as we prepare for the 100th anniversary of Victoria Harbour MBS on October 27, 2023.

This post originally appeared in the Friends of Ecological Reserves Spring/Summer 2019 Newsletter.

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