Photo: RDCO
UPDATE: 2:00 p.m.
RDCO is now pumping water into the children's fishing pond and turtle pond at Mission Creek Regional Park, in an effort to save the remaining turtles.
Manager of park planning and capital projectsWayne Darlington confirmed his teams are using multiple pumps and hoses to pump water into the ponds as an interim solution.
"We have the City of Kelowna assisting with the children’s fishing pond and getting some water into that pond, and then we’re trying to top up the turtle pond as well, so we’re drawing water off of Mission Creek on our water license and we’re trying to get some water up.
"We’re pushing a fair bit of water, so it’s going to take a while for it to come up but we’re going to make sure we’re getting it up, and then we’re going to keep monitoring the pond as we always do.”
Darlington says they too are concerned about the wellbeing of the turtles, and are working hard to find a sustainable solution.
“We share the same concerns with everyone else about the turtles and the health of the turtles and we are working on the well. It’s coming here hopefully within the month, but we’re also looking at a temporary fix in the meantime by putting water in now."
UPDATE: 11:30a.m.
After local residents voiced concern over a popular children's fishing pond drying up and putting the turtle population at risk, a Castanet reader has sent in a photo of a turtle found dead.
The photo was taken on Wednesday at the Hall Road pond in the back end ofMission Creek Regional Park.
The western painted turtle is the only native pond turtle left in B.C. and is a protected speciesconsidered vulnerable to habitat loss.
It is listed on the provincial conservation blue list anddefined as "of special concern"with a medium to high degree of threat to the population.
"The interior population of Western Painted Turtle has been impacted by wetland loss and habitat alteration from human activities," reads the provincial status report. "Other serious threats include road mortality and introduced species."
ORIGINAL: 4:00a.m.
An East Kelowna resident is worried about the future of the at-risk and protectedwestern painted turtle population asa popular children’s fishing pond dries up.
The children's fishing pond, located inthe back end of Mission Creek Regional Park, lost its water source about two months agoand has been decreasing in volume ever since.
Resident Kim Pritchard has lived in the area for six years, and often brings her kids to the pond to count turtles.
She says it's disappointing to watch what has happened over the past few months.
She's seen dead turtles, dead fish, and is concerned it won't take many hot days for the pond to dry up even further, posing a significant risk to the turtle population.
When the water source was switched from the South East Kelowna Irrigation District system to city water, which adds chlorine and could not sustain the ecosystem of Mission Creek Park, Pritchard understands there was little to no contingency plan made for the turtles.
"There seems to be very little plans that were in place to begin with before work commenced."
"Originally it was an intermittent wetland - it would have been wet in the spring, maybe the fall, and then in the summer it would dry up. When they brought in the water source many years ago, they created a whole new ecosystem,and that ecosystem became an incredibly great habitat for an endangered species which is a turtle we have here in southern B.C.and not very many other places, so that’s a very large oversight from a natural resource management or any land use management planning perspective."
Pritchard was joined at the pond by a local biologist on Tuesday, who assured her the turtle population is not at an alarming level of risk just yet. She says if RDCO acts fast enough, there is hope for future generations of turtles to continue populating the area.
"Right now the females are crawling out of the ponds and they’re going up the banks and they’re going across the trails and they’re laying their eggs on the southern slopes. Those eggs are going to hatch sometime next spring and then the baby turtles will make their way back to the ponds. Hopefully we will not be desperate for those baby turtles to come back and repopulate these ponds once the water gets turned back on but in the sad case that we do lose a large number of the current turtle population we are really going to be needing those babies for next year."
"What the public can do is be very careful on the trails. Try not to go off the trails especially on the south facing slopes, and if you see a turtle that happens to look lost because it’s walking through the forest, it’s actually not lost - it’s going to lay its eggs, so just leave that turtle. I know you might be inclined to want to move it to water, but it is doing what it needs to do right now, so just let the turtles do what they need to do."
RDCOmanager of park planning and capital projectsWayne Darlington says his team are working as quickly as possible to implement a new source of water for the pond, which has an expected completion date of summer 2020.
"In regards to the Children’s Fishing Pond in the back end of Mission Creek Regional Park, we are working as quickly as possible to implement a new source of water for the children’s fishing pond.We are in process to find a qualified well driller that can drill and install the proper equipment that will provide us a sustainable source of water to the pond. While we work through that process we are looking at temporary solutions to provide additional water to the pond."
"We have made this a priority for our capital projects in 2020 and are working as quickly as we can. In addition, we are currently working towards completing the Mission Creek Regional Park Management Plan this summer, and to date the water supply project is consistent with what we have heard from the public regarding this portion of the park."
Photo: Contributed
