Cherry birch (Betula lenta) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 10

Limiting factors and threats

The high levels of land clearing and development in the Niagara peninsula have reduced the amount of potential habitat for cherry birch and other Carolinian species. Residential development has occurred all around the presently occupied habitat and only the steep slopes down to 15 Mile Creek and associated ravines remain in natural forest cover. Likewise, the other sightings are on narrow strips of habitat, one on the lakeshore bank of a residential property and another along the forested slopes of the adjacent 15 Mile Creek watershed to the south, with a small fruit farm on the level land above. With less forest cover, storms coming off Lake Ontario have a higher impact on the remaining vegetation, as exemplified by the loss of trees of this species in a violent storm in May of 2004. Other trees were lost in the late 1990s, including the big Honour Roll tree (Ontario Forestry Association [OFA], 2005) on the bay slope and the large tree on edge of the eroding lakeshore bank.

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