Thousands of trees, a wetland, and wildlife now fill a once-bare 72-acre farm (representative image). Image Credits: ChatGPT
Shotyk teamed up with Ducks Unlimited in 2016 to build a wetland on the farm. The farm has hosted 145 different bird species, including bluebirds, meadowlarks, green herons, and trumpeter swans. The ultimate reward, he said, was a pair of bald eagles that showed up first in 2024. A 1982 study in the journal Science showed that the birds struggled, then bounced back. It followed eagles in northwestern Ontario, where the number of young per breeding area dropped from 1.26 in 1966 to 0.46 in 1974, then rose to 1.12 in 1981.
Because dDT, a man-made insecticide that was once widely used for pest control, nearly wiped them out, shotyk says the eagles are important.
In the early 1960s, he said, almost nobody would have seen a bald eagle in Elmvale. In the fall, it was nothing more than just a hole in the ground. However, by the following spring, it was full of water, and frogs showed up almost immediately. Then there were waterfowl, followed by a painted turtle, and eventually snapping turtles. Shotyk explains that he has no clue how the painted turtle discovered the wetland. The study was done in another part of Ontario and reflects the larger trend, not the Elmvale birds. Shotyk’s farm is just one small patch of land, but it shows what decades of steady work can help bring back.
The University of Alberta’s Folio news site dates the purchase to 1972. Shotyk began planting in 1975, when he was still in high school. In that summer, he planted 2,000 trees of white spruce and red oak. After some time, he returned with 16 friends and planted 5,000 more seedlings at a penny each. His studies and research work kept him away from the farm, taking him to Europe and later Alberta, where he has been a professor since 2011. Before moving to Europe, he entered into an agreement with the natural resources ministry of Ontario under which the ministry would plant almost 14,000 spruce trees on the farm.
“That’s really when I fell in love with the farm,” he told the audience. BarrieToday reports that Shotyk’s father purchased the farm as per his wishes. The group slept in the old hay barn.
