Gulf of St. Lawrence aster COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 12
Existing protection or other status designations
Part of the Havre aux Basques lagoon population is located in a migratory bird staging area, but this does not give it any legal protection. Development work in the Barachois marsh at Fatima began in the fall of 1995 with the aim of protecting and enhancing the salt marsh that it supports. The Quebec Natural Heritage Information Centre (Centre de données sur le patrimoine naturel du Québec) was consulted in the course of this project to ensure that the issue of plant species likely to be designated threatened or vulnerable, including Gulf of St. Lawrence Aster, is taken into account.
The Prince Edward Island (PEI) National Park helped fund the study by Guignion et al. (1995) and has monitored occurrences of the species since 1997. The park authorized the participation of researchers from the University of PEI and Holland College in the annual surveys (Lajeunesse, pers. comm.). In addition, Kouchibouguac National Park has drawn up a management and monitoring plan that takes into account the presence of the species in the park (Dietz and Chiasson, 2001).
International status
No international status is accorded to this species, since it is present only in Canada.
National status
Gulf of St. Lawrence Aster was designated rare in Canada in 1989, transferred to the vulnerable category when the former was replaced in 1990 (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada [COSEWIC], 1998) and transferred to Special Concern in 1999 when the vulnerable category was replaced by special concern.
Provincial status
The species is currently designated threatened in Quebec (Government of Quebec, February 8, 2001) and endangered in New Brunswick (New Brunswick Endangered Species Act, 1996). In Prince Edward Island, it is considered rare (Day and Catling, 1991), but has not been designated in the list of the Wildlife Act.
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