In the Hamilton area are fortunate to have many local wetlands. Wetlands were thought to be dirty places and had a reputation for being dangerous. Movies like "The Swamp Thing" came from the imagination of people who were raised in a time when wetlands were considered of little value or even frightening. We now know that they are important habitats that provide homes for many endangered species and that they help to control floods and filter some pollutants. It is hard to imagine thinking of them as undesirable today, which is good because 33% of Ontario's and 14% of Canada's land mass is covered by wetlands. . Unfortunately, up to 90% of southern Ontario's wetlands have been lost to urbanization and agriculture. Wetlands are often thought of as areas where there is water with many plants and usually amphibians and birds. But what are wetlands exactly? There are many definitions of wetlands. The word 'wet-land' tells us that they are lands that are wet. These ecosystems fall somewhere between terrestrial (land) and aquatic (water) categories. They are often found in similar surroundings as lakes and may occur around lake margins. They are not lakes or ponds because they are more shallow and characterized by the presence of vegetation rather than open water. The definition often used by Canadian scientists is:
The term 'saturated' means waterlogged (full of water). Hydrophytic means 'water-adapted' or 'water-loving', 'hydrophilic' means the same thing. Wetlands then, are indeed lands that are wet and whose plant and animal communities are adapted to living on waterlogged soils. |
Habitats of Hamilton and Halton © Hamilton Naturalists' Club