We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the observers who came out on April 28, April 29, and April 30 for the City Nature Challenge in Saskatoon and Area. Wow! Your participation in this global community science competition to document urban biodiversity has been truly inspiring! Today, May 1, is the last day to celebrate nature classification for the City Nature Challenge.
The City Nature Challenge is an annual event that engages residents and visitors in finding and documenting plants, animals, and other organisms living in urban areas. The goals are to collect biodiversity data and raise awareness about the importance of biodiversity conservation. This year, Saskatoon and Area are competing for the title of the most biodiverse city, and we’re excited to see the numbers rise higher and higher!
City Nature Challenge CNCYXERanked S2 by SCDC
Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) Hairy Woodpecker male (note the red) (Picoides villosus)Scaup
We’re especially grateful for the participation of Youth group leaders, teachers and their groups and classes respectfully, who have been competing against each other in a friendly challenge. Engaging youth in community science and nature exploration is a fantastic way to foster curiosity, promote environmental awareness, and inspire the next generation of conservationists.
The City Nature Challenge relies on the use of the iNaturalist app and website to document observations. Even if you don’t know how to identify the species you’re observing, help is available through iNaturalist’s automated species identification feature and the community of users, including professional scientists and expert naturalists. It’s easy to participate – simply download the iNaturalist app, take a photograph of nature in your local area, whether it’s a tree, plant, insect, or animal, and upload it to the app. You can log back in later to learn more about what you’ve spotted as teams of experts review and update the information.
By participating in the City Nature Challenge, you are contributing to global efforts to conserve biodiversity and protect our natural world. Biodiversity is essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems, providing food, medicine, and other resources, and supporting cultural and recreational activities. Unfortunately, biodiversity loss is a pressing issue, with many species threatened with extinction, including insects, which are suffering from the sixth global extinction event. This has consequences for our birds and other wildlife, and addressing biodiversity loss is a critical part of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15 to conserve life on land.
Documenting biodiversity on iNaturalist can help us track trends in increases and declines in wildlife populations, which can inform conservation efforts and help us better understand the state of our local ecosystems. It’s a meaningful way to contribute to scientific research and make a difference in protecting our natural heritage for future generations.
As we reach the final day of the Saskatoon and Area City Nature Challenge on May 1, we invite everyone to join us in this exciting competition. Whether you’re participating by yourself, with your family, or as part of a group, every observation counts! Let’s work together to raise the number of observations, species, and engagement in our city, and put Saskatoon and Area on the world stage for the City Nature Challenge 2023. Who will be the one who adds the last ever observation for the City Nature Challenge Saskatoon and area, today May 1 before the midnight bell tolls?
To learn more about the City Nature Challenge in Saskatoon and Area, please visit FriendsAreas.ca. Thank you for your participation and support in conserving our urban biodiversity!
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
– Gandhi
During this National Volunteer Week, April 24 – 30 celebrate the theme; ‘Volunteering is Empathy in Action.’
Have empathy for the very last time you may see a species at risk if action is not taken. Have empathy for the declining songbird population. Have empathy for the many organisms in the insect and fungi taxons which have not even been named yet, and which may go extinct before people pay attention to them.
Your contributions as an observer during the City Nature Challenge taking place April 29 to May 2 does take action to support global conservation efforts! Just download the free iNaturalist app and sign in, then;
Find it!
Snap it!
Share it!
“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”
Winston Churchill
What can you give to protect Mother Earth? The City Nature Challenge is your way to take action, so that you can answer I took action!
Taking a photo of mushrooms (fungi) with a smart phoneMushrooms, Grasshopper, Caterpillar, FungiCity Nature Challenge City Nature Challenge CNCYXE Saskatoon
Celebrate 50 years! Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional park were planted to trees in 1972, 50 years ago. Come out and say Happy Birthday!
“The City Nature Challenge is an annual, global, community science competition to document urban biodiversity. The challenge is a bioblitz that engages residents and visitors to find and document plants, animals, and other organisms living in urban areas. The goals are to engage the public in the collection of biodiversity data, with three awards each year for the cities that makes the most observations, find the most species, and engage the most people.
Participants primarily use the iNaturalist app and website to document their observations, though some areas use other platforms, such as eBird in Saskatoon. The observation period is followed by several days of identification and the final announcement of winners. Participants need not know how to identify the species; help is provided through iNaturalist’s automated species identification feature as well as the community of users on iNaturalist, including professional scientists and expert naturalists.” [source]
City Nature Challenge CNCYXE Saskatoon area versus YQRCNC Regina and area in a mini SK challengeCity Nature Challenge CNCYXE Saskatoon area versus YQRCNC Regina and area in a mini SK challengeYellow Sunflower Moth
Stiria rugifrons on top of Curlycup Gumweed Grindelia squarrosa
Celebrate 50 years! Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional park were planted to trees in 1972, 50 years ago. Come out and say Happy Birthday!
Ethnobiology embarks on the scientific study of how human cultures interacted with the environment, and the ever-changing relationship with biota and organisms. Ethnobiologists investigate how human societies have used nature, and how do they view nature in the distant past, to the immediate present. They investigate the common lore or the folk knowledge of how humans interact with organisms. Traditional knowledge is rapidly being lost, and the field of ethnobiology is a process of knowledge acquisition and organisation for the management of useful plant and animal populations in the natural system and environment.
Besides wild animals, humans have been known to value the nutritional value of these plants. In addition to people and animals, worms and insects have an affinity for the nutrition value of the rose hips, so it is best to check for worms before eating a rose hip. According to Joseph Shorthouse in his report, Galls Induced by Cynipid Wasps of the Genus Diplolepis (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) on the Roses of Canada’s Grasslands, native rose plants “are host to insects in a variety of guilds, including leaf chewers, leaf miners, fluid feeders, stem borers, pollinators, and gall inducers.”
Rose hips with seeds and skins removed make jams, marmalades, catsup, jellies and syrups. Rose hips are tastiest for those used to a North American diet after the first frost which brings out the sweetness. This same rose hip pulp may be dried and ground into powder form as an addition to baking recipes or puddings. Young green rose hips can be peeled and cooked. Rose petals are known for their perfume.
Please be stewards of both the afforestation areas – Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional Park forest communities, do not harvest too many parts of the rose plant. Learn and check into the scientific names of plants, and make a good native rose plant identification from Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3| Part 4 | Part 5. Nature is very diverse, and evolves and plant species may hybridize with each other. When in doubt, please leave the plant out before harvesting so that other visitors and animal foragers may enjoy the native roses. It is wise take only pictures and to leave no trace when visiting the Saskatoon afforestation areas to mitigate ecological damage. The afforestation areas are experiencing an exponential increase in the human footprint, and a little foresight will ensure that the plants are not extirpated from the greenspace. Consider where you are digging and harvesting: do you have permission? Who do you get permission from? Who owns the land, and who manages the land of the afforestation areas?
“If a man loses one-third of his skin he dies; if a tree loses one-third of its bark, it too dies. If the Earth is a ‘sentient being’, would it not be reasonable to expect that if it loses one-third of its trees and vegetable covering, it will also die?” Richard St. Barbe Baker
Buds and flowers or the soaked and boiled root cambium can be used in the making of rose water, a base for eye wash treatments. Leaves, flowers and buds can be infused in the making of teas. When using the bark of the rose bush for a tea decoction, muscles would find relief and diarrhea would be relieved. Flowers and flower buds may relieve diarrhea or stomach upset.
First Nations people sometimes smoked the inner bark-like substance of the rose bush like tobacco. There are reports that native persons ate the rosehip rinds, and left the seeds to grow again. Eating the layer of hairs around the seeds may cause irritation to the mouth and to the digestive tract. The rose hips may create diarrhea, if too many are ingested. A compress from the boiled rose roots would relieve swelling. The solution made from boiled rose roots could be gargled to relieve swelling of tonsillitis and sore throats, or mouth sores.
Besides the ethnobotanical uses of wild roses, rose wood can be fashioned into arrows and pipe stems. Rose hips would be used historically as beads before mass-manufactured beads were acquired through trade as early as the nineteenth century. The Cree called the Rosehip (singular); okiniy (plural); okiniyak ᐅᑭᓂᕀ
Do you think you would like to be an ethnobiolgist? Why or why not?
Debate the efficacy of native rose plants related to ethnobiology and health science, including developing materials to support the arguments for and against a posi៝tion. Would ethnobiological approaches contribute to mental, physical, or spiritual perspectives on health?
Do native rose plants provide any important macronutrients to maintain human, insect or animal health?
Do humans still rely on native rose plants for treating illness, disease, or to improve health and wellness? Are native rose plants a common garden plant for most city residents? How have communities and people changed historically to contemporary times? Could you purchase herbs, vitamins, essential oils from native rose plants in the local grocery store? in the health food store?
Have native rose plants contributed to traditional or indigenous rituals or ceremonies or in health care? Do native rose plants contribute in these same ways to any other culture world wide?
If a health care professional must weigh the following ethical decisions would a health care professional work hand in hand with an ethnobiologist?
What can be done for the patient? (intervention technologies)
Does the patient understand the options? (informed consent)
What does the patient want? (autonomy)
hat are the benefits? (beneficence)
Will it harm the patient? (non‐maleficence)
Are the patient’s requests fair and able to be satisfied? (justice)
Are the costs involved fair to society? (economic consequences)
When relying upon the various components of the native rose plant for health care; contrast – researching the differences, and compare -delving into the similarities through study those decisions made related to ethnobiology and health care from the various viewpoints of individuals who hold different beliefs.
How do plants – the native rose bushes, and animals – humans harvesting petals, root parts, and leafs interact to meet their basic needs?
What are some uses of the various parts of a rose bush plant based upon the form and materials that the plant is made of?
Compare the texture, and properties of the various part of the native rose plant. How do the leaves, petals, rose hips and stems compare with hardness, smell, flexibility, etc How do the characteristics of the rose plant create a useful feature for the plant in its survival? How do these same characteristics suggest that the various parts of the rose plant might be useful for a specific function, material source or usefulness for different objects.
How do people show respect for living things such as the native rose bush plants?
Describe and evaluate the methods in which the parts of the native rose plants may be used appropriately and efficiently to the benefit of themselves, others, and the environment.
How do humans and animals take note of their senses as they interact with a native rose bush. If humans were to eat the rose hip or smell the rose flower, what are some safety considerations?
What season would be great to find a rose hip? What time of the year would people locate a rose flower? Why do roses make these adaptations?
What are the consequences of combining a professional health care approach with the ethnobiologist report? Create and debate with arguments for and against a posi៝tion or hypothesis.
Do you know of another way that humans interacted with native rose bushes?
Nîhiyawak (Cree) refers to “those who speak the same language.[*]” The etymology of the nehiyaw has two roots; it comes from Nîwo translated as four and -iyaw or miyaw meaning body or souls, four aspect, four directional beings.[*, *,*,*,*]. Wahkohtowin is a word from the Cree language meaning those acts of being in kinship. Then there is the Cree word “maskihkiwiskwewiw” which loosely translated into English would be medicine woman[*]; “maskikiwiyiniwiw” meaning medicine man[*]. To fully understand ethnobotany, one must delve into the maskihkîy or medicine inherent in the native rose bush. This would be to take on the world view of the nehiyaw to be in true wahkohtowin with the rose bush, to speak the same language as the roses.
Identify both macronutrients and micronutrients found in the various plant parts of the native rose bush. Show how these sources and the amounts found in the native rose plant are necessary for health, and how they may affect the wellness of a human or animal.
Create a through scientific investigation into ethnobiology regarding native rose plants. Start with a question, then create a hypothesis, and then design a procedure to test the hypothesis with those details needed to collect and analyze the data.
What structural or physiological adaptations and methods does the rose hip employ to defend itself against predators?
Analyze and debate how the personal beliefs, culture and understanding effects the appreciation of place based learning with the environment is influenced by personal experiences and cultural understandings.
Discuss the roles of native rose plants as providers of medicinal, spiritual, nutritional needs of Western, First Nations, Métis and other cultures.
How many native rose bushes would you need to grow to sustain healthy eating practice for various ages, sizes and types of people for their lifestyle requirements?
What is appeal from the three native rose species to animals that live in the afforestation areas? Prickly Rose (Rosa Acicularlis Lindl.) the Prairie Rose (Rosa arkansana) and Wood’s Rose, or Wild Rose (Rosa woodsii)
What is appeal from the three native rose species to humans historically? Do the rose species offer the same advantages? Prickly Rose (Rosa Acicularlis Lindl.) the Prairie Rose (Rosa arkansana) and Wood’s Rose, or Wild Rose (Rosa woodsii)
Are there any other rose species which you may see in the afforestation areas? Why or why not?
Which rose species have you seen in the afforestation areas?
What happens from over-harvesting?
What is a hori hori?
Who owns the land, and who manages the land of the afforestation areas?
Can you establish native rose plants in your own yard, or in your community garden?
Brennont; et al. (October 24, 2018), Sessility (botany), Wikipedia, retrieved June 19, 2019
Britton, Nathaniel Lord; Brown, Addison (1970), Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Volume 2 of An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada: From Newfoundland to the Parallel of the Southern Boundary of Virginia, and from the Atlantic Ocean Westward to the 102d Meridian, Dover Books on plants. Dover Books. Courier Corporation, ISBN0486226433, 9780486226439, retrieved June 20, 2019
Conrad, C. Eugene (July 1987), Common Shrubs of Chaparral and Associated Ecosystems of Southern California(PDF), United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, California. General Technical Report PSW-99., retrieved June 20, 2019
Coxhead, Peter; et al. (June 17, 2019), Stamen, Wikipedia, retrieved June 20, 2019
Culver, Denise; Smith, Pam (June 26, 2018), Botany Primer(PDF), Colorado Natural Heritage Program. Warner college of Natural Resources. Colorado State University., retrieved June 20, 2019
Hauser, Alan S (2006), Rosa arkansana, Fire Effects Information System (Feis) Syntheses about fire ecology and fire regimes in the United States USDA, United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laborator, retrieved June 20, 2019
Rosa arkansana (Prairie Rose), Minnesota Wildflowers A field guide to the flora of Minnesota, 2006–2019, retrieved June 20, 2019
Runesson, Ulf T., Rosa acicularis Prickly Wild Rose, Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University, retrieved June 20, 2019
Salick, Jan (1998–2014), What is Ethnobiology?, Society of Ethnobiology. partially excerpted from 2002 NSF Biocomplexity Workshop Report: “Intellectual Imperatives in Ethnobiology”, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO, retrieved June 20, 2019
Soltis, Doug; Soltis, Pam; Edwards, Christine (2005), Core Eudicots, Tree of Life Web Projects, retrieved June 20, 2019
Species: Rosa acicularis, Fire Effects Information System (FEIS). USDA. US Forest Service Department of Agriculture, 2019 June 10, retrieved June 19, 2019
Stevenson, Dennis William (2019), Angiosperm Plant, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., retrieved June 20, 2019
Taylor, Thomas N.; et al. (2019), Rosids, first published Paleobotany (Second Edition), 2009. Republished. Science Direct. Elsevier B.V., retrieved June 20, 2019
Tbhotch; et al. (April 18, 2019), Plant Reproduction, Wikipedia, retrieved June 20, 2019
Tdslk; et al. (May 28, 2019), Achene, Wikipedia, retrieved June 20, 2019
Trondarne; et al. (May 30, 2018), Vessel element, Wikipedia, retrieved June 20, 2019
Wild Rose Comparison, The Friends of the Wild Flower Garden, retrieved June 19, 2019
Wild Rose (Rosa acicularis), British Columbia Outdoor Wilderness Guide. BC Adventure, 1995 – 2018, retrieved June 20, 2019
Wild Roses, Canadian Wildlife Federation, 2019, retrieved June 20, 2019
Wood’s Rose Rosa woodsii Lindl.(PDF), Plant Guide. United States Department of Agriculture USDA. Natural Resources Conservation Service., 1995 – 2018, retrieved June 20, 2019
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063 Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map
Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail)
Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date!
“The simple act of planting a tree, which is in itself a practical deed, is also the symbol of a far reaching ideal, which is creative in the realm of the Spirit, and in turn reacts upon society, encouraging all to work for the future well being of humanity rather than for immediate gain. ” Richard St. Barbe Baker
“We forget that we owe our existence to the presence of Trees. As far as forest cover goes, we have never been in such a vulnerable position as we are today. The only answer is to plant more Trees – to Plant Trees for Our Lives.” ~ Richard St. Barbe Baker
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. George Genereux Urban Regional Park. 