Detroit River Management Strategy - Essex Region Conservation ...

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Natural Heritage
The Detroit River as a Canadian Heritage River
Although the Detroit River’s CHRS nomination is not for Natural Heritage considerations, the watershed’s rich
soils, a moderate climate and a generally flat topography, which have provided ideal conditions for the
development of lush forests, highly productive wetlands and globally significant biological diversity. Significant
facts and values include:
• the watershed possesses remnant tracts of Carolinian Forest, containing a greater number of both flora and
fauna species than any other place in Canada, including 2,200 species of plants, 64 species of ferns, 110
species of grasses, 130 species of sedges and 70 species of trees;
• the watershed contains remnant tracts of tall grass prairie, oak savanna and globally/provincially significant
wetlands characteristic of the Carolinian life zone;
• migration route and home to hundreds of rare and endangered fauna including 65 of the 117 species of fish
found in the Great Lakes System (including northern pike, rock bass, black crappie, yellow perch, and rare
species such as striped shiner, pugnose minnow, spotted sucker and green sunfish) and 27 species of water
fowl, over 17 species of raptors (including eagles, hawks and falcons), 48 bird species (including warblers,
neo-tropical songbirds, herons, egrets, and nationally rare pied-billed grebes, great egrets and black-crowned
night herons) and numerous species of butterflies that migrate annually from Canada to the southern United
States and Central/South America;
• coastal wetlands along the Detroit River provide habitats for rare species of reptiles including the Eastern
fox snake, Eastern massasauga rattlesnake, queen snake and the Eastern spiny soft-shell turtle;
• the Detroit River links the largest wetland complex in the Great Lakes, the St. Clair Flats, with Lake Erie, the
most biologically productive Great Lake; and
• the Detroit River is an important source of drinking water for a large metropolitan region.
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Management Strategy Management - Final Strategy Draft - November 2000