The apparent deliberate attempt to mislead the public about the number of "species at risk" within the park.
The CRD published a Species at Risk Fact Sheet see here
That fact sheet is headed up:
Species at Risk
Island View Beach Regional Park
Fact Sheet Winter 2014
and says on the front page:
"CRD Regional Parks is compiling updated information about where species at risk occur within regional parks boundaries in partnership with the BC Conservation Centre (CDC), who is the primary repository for species at risk occurrence information in the province. There are 33 confirmed species at risk at Island View Beach. "
and on the second page the "Fact Sheet" lists 33 species.
This is appears to written with the intent to mislead the public to believe there are 33 confirmed species at risk within Island View Beach Regional Park. But this is not true - 24 of those species listed are birds, mostly marine birds, and no evidence has been shown by the CRD that they are ever in the park - in fact the comments below about the BC Conservation Data Centre show the BC CDC told the CRD that they could not imagine some of these being in the park, and speculated that the list was a 5km radius around the park! The second page of the "Fact sheet" has a tiny tick alongside only 9 species, and this is what the CRD acknowledges as in the park, 9 species not 33. In another section we raise doubts about this number of 9. ( See here )
The BC Conservation Data Centre
On November 18, 2014 CRD Parks sent the BC Conservation Data Centre their working copy of species they felt were in the "Proposed generalized area of IVB" for the purpose of the public presentation. The BC CDC replied to the CRD on November 18, 2014, saying:
"I'm looking over this with Leah who is our zoologist, but is the list below from CDC? I can't imagine some of these vertibrae being within the park, and I noticed that your list says "Proposed generalized area of IVB" which leads me to believe that this is perhaps a list of species within a certain radius of the park, perhaps 5k?"
And on November 21, 2014 the BC CDC told the CRD:
"...... I suspect that a lot of the eBird data is for incidental sitings and don't represent nests which is the minimum criteria for making a EO in many bird species, except for foraging areas important to large flocks of birds."
And on November 21 2014, the CRD said
"I recognize that there are all kinds of databases out there and their quality or accuracy may not always be something you can assess easily. Simlarly, nailing down nesting activity vs. feeding and occasional use or transitory/migratory use are all important concepts to consider."
Despite being told by the BC Conservation Data Centre that they felt the CRD list was of a 5km radius of the park, and that they suspected a lot of the eBird data was of incidental sitings and didn't represent nests which is the minimum criteria for making an EO in many bird species, CRD Parks stated to the public that "There are 33 confirmed species at risk that use the park or immediate foreshore." At the time of making this statement, CRD Parks knew
- that not all these species were confirmed, and
- that they were neither in the park nor in immediate foreshore.
Below is the "Species at Risk, Island View Beach Regional Park" "fact sheet" published by CRD Parks.
