OLA members,

Here are two photos of habitat clearances to protect private property values from the Endangered Species Act that took place on May 7.

Photo #1: In Glengarry county, a number of Glengarry Landowners members armed with chainsaws cut down brush and trees on a property to protect the market value of the property by removing the potential of a habitat for an endangered species being identified. This designation would have placed severe land use restrictions on the property that would have devalued the property. The protection of this property was completed. The day was a success. The day was attended as well by several municipal councillors and the local newspapers. There was good coverage in local newspapers.

Photo #3: In Stormont county, A number of Stormont-Dundas Landowners Association members, again armed with chainsaws and tractors, removed a treed fence row to ensure that no endangered species, like the loggerehead shrike, used this as its habitat. The habitat was removed and the market value of this private property was protected. The day was another success. There was good coverage in local newspapers.

In Carleton, we had press coverage by 5 local and rural weekly newspapers and by CTV.

Our next day is June 9th. We will be sending you all a notice of a plan to do a similar action very soon. We will call it "National Landowners Day". June 9th is significant because falls between June 8th - Canadian Rivers Day - and June 10th - World Oceans Day. We encourage every county Landowners Association to plan an event that day. We plan to call each county L.A. to talk about June 9th.

Jack MacLaren
President
613 832 3201