Toronto’s newest park is turning an industrial landscape into a recreational hub

Located in Toronto’s Port Lands, Leslie Lookout Park will welcome visitors in June 2024, complete with a mini forest, lookout tower and a public beach

As Canada’s largest city, Toronto is well known for being a world leader in business, finance, technology and entertainment. And while top attractions like the CN Tower, Nathan Phillips Square and the Hockey Hall of Fame help to bring in more than 27.5 million visitors annually, the city’s green space is disappearing.

It is no secret that green spaces can promote mental health, mitigate the effects of pollution, provide habitat for different species and create places of refuge within the bustle of city life. But with Toronto’s “average greenness score” declining from about 62 per cent in 2018 to 52 per cent in 2022, things are not looking good for “Toronto the grey.”

Capable of diving at speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour, the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on the planet. And according to new research out of Simon Fraser University in B.C., these birds are as fast in thought as they are in flight.

Long theorized but hard to prove in practice, the Wolf-Mangel model suggests that prey must prioritize safety over food foraging when they feel the threatening presence of a predator. As a result, predators could use false attacks to tactically tire out prey or force them to take bigger risks, then strike when they are most vulnerable.

Scientists observing peregrine falcons have now found evidence that these cunning raptors purposefully take advantage of this prey behaviour by using low-cost false attacks to advertise their presence to Pacific dunlins in Boundary Bay, B.C.

Fire, fire everywhere. That’s certainly what it felt like this summer as wildfires burned a record area of forested land across Canada, fueled by drought and abnormally high temperatures. According to one calculation, the area burned in Canada during the 2023 summer season was greater than half the countries in the world, making it the most destructive wildfire season ever recorded.

As the largest forested habitat in the world, the boreal forest ecosystem has evolved with a natural cycle of fire and regrowth. Historically, wildfires in the boreal have been vital to maintaining its diversity of habitats and wildlife by creating a patchwork of new and old growth areas spread across a massive region, covering almost 60 per cent of Canada.

Not only have boreal plants and animals learned to “live” with fire, but many species have evolved to benefit from fire. Tree species like black spruce and jack pine require fire to regenerate. Pyrophilous – fire-loving – beetles rapidly move into fire-killed trees, followed quickly by burn-specialist woodpeckers that feast on the beetle buffet and excavate nest cavities in dead trees. Fast-growing plants and shrubs provide forage for species like moose and hares before eventually giving way to a regenerating forest. And the cycle continues.