We bet you feel that your waterfront property is a unique retreat. We certainly do! And it definately is, not only for you, your family and friends, but for the living things that survive near your shoreline. A wide variety of plants and animals live in the water region near the shore, also known as the littoral zone, and on land along the banks, which can be called the riparian zone. Without these zones, the health of the lake is threatened. Why? Because littoral habitat is a home for many living things,
complete with a weedy security system! It acts as a living room, kitchen, bedroom, nursery and bathroom all in one! Riperian habitat also is home for many different plants and animals, but it does double duty as a filtration system and retaining wall, filtering out some chemicals and reducing erosion. To do these things, both types of habitat have to be intact. In the Haliburton Highlands a great deal of this unique habitat has been lost, but we can do something about it by conserving what is left
and rehabilitating altered habitat!
Lets not allow the fate of our waterfront to become a riparian raffle or a littoral lottery, with end results completely due to chance! Our hope is that we, the year-round and seasonal residents of this county, will form a positive partnership to meet the challenges of shoreline rehabilitation. We present you with this beach bet or water wager.
If the easy strategies below are used on nearshore habitat in Haliburton County, we bet that a healthy future for our waterfront habitat is a "shore" thing!
Littoral : of, relating to, or situated or growing on or near a shore especially of the sea
Riparian : relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural water-course (as a stream or river) or sometimes of a lake or a tide water
Ecotone : a transition area between two adjacent (side by side) ecological communities usually exhibiting competition between organisms common to both