{"id":23597,"date":"2019-04-18T12:53:32","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23597"},"modified":"2019-04-18T12:53:40","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:53:40","slug":"wildlife-crossing-areas-marked-for-st-johns-henderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wildlife-crossing-areas-marked-for-st-johns-henderson\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildlife Crossing areas marked for St. John\u2019s, Henderson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did the turtle\ncross the road?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, for some poor\ncreatures, getting to the other side of a busy road is more of a dream than an\nachievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New illuminated road\nsigns, however, are hoped to give turtles and other critters more of a fighting\nchance to make it across St. John\u2019s Sideroad and Henderson Drive in the weeks\nahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This spring,\nsolar-powered illuminated wildlife crossing signs will be installed near\nwetlands on these busy thoroughfares following concerns from residents in the\nHenderson area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council approved\n$7,000 for the installation of four signs and some turtle nesting boxes \u2013 two\nsigns in each neighbourhood \u2013 as part of the 2019 Budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was hoped these\nsigns and nesting boxes would be in place by the time nesting season rolls\naround at the end of this month, but budget constraints have put the nesting\nboxes in question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a budget of\n$7,000. The signs have already taken us over that,\u201d said Al Downey, Aurora\u2019s\nDirector of Operations, at last week\u2019s Council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Downey was\nresponding to questions from Councillor Wendy Gaertner on the status of the\nsigns and nesting boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the budget\nprocess, Councillors Gaertner and Sandra Humfryes were the most vocal\nproponents of installing nesting boxes and wildlife crossing signs in these\nparticular areas, citing concerns they had received from neighbours and the\nefforts residents had gone to either help the turtles cross the road from\nadjacent ponds and wetlands, or care for turtles that had been injured in the\nprocess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery year, we have\nan issue with wildlife crossing over certain roads,\u201d\nCouncillor Gaertner told her colleagues at the March 18 Budget Meeting, paying\nparticular attention to Henderson and St. John\u2019s. \u201cIt concerns residents and\nlast year I drove Mr. Downey crazy [about signs] but I think we need to put\nsomething in the budget to try and address this problem. [Acting Parks Manager]\nJim Tree said maybe we could hire a consultant and figure out the best way to\ndo this, but I think [at this point on Henderson at least] I would like to is a\nplaceholder in the budget. It won\u2019t be a lot of money\u2026and it would give Mr.\nDowney and the residents and Council some flexibility to deal with this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was, added\nCouncillor Humfryes, an \u201cimmediate concern\u201d with the arrival of spring and\nanimals starting the mating game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could do\nsomething this year to protect wildlife,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we\u2019re kind of\nrunning out of time. With this motion, I think for next year for sure, we\u2019ll\nneed to get a study done and some real expertise, but this year we\u2019re going to\nmiss an opportunity to protect this wildlife. It is short-term and long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Harold\nKim agreed with their efforts, noting residents had, just a few months\npreviously, made a number of recommendations to address the problem that seemed\ncost-effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward, and\nthe four signs have already gone $1,000 over the allotted budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe would like to\npost [these signs] as soon as possible,\u201d said Mr. Downey last week. \u201cI have\ncontacted the [Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority] and they are able to\nput in turtle nesting areas. However, we are over-budget at this point and\nwe\u2019ll have to give some consideration on that. We\u2019ve directed staff to install\nsilt fencing along Henderson to help with the turtles crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will be meeting with the Conservation\nAuthority to find out whether or not this is something\u2026they have the\ncapabilities of doing it, [and] whether or not we can look at doing that in\nthis budget, or whether we look at this as an overall plan when we do road\nreconstruction at Henderson.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Why did the turtle cross the road? Well, for some poor creatures, getting to the other side of a busy road is more of a dream than an achievement. New illuminated road signs, however, are hoped to give turtles and other critters more of a fighting chance to make it across St. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-68B","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 12:30:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}