Published on Apr. 9, 2026, 4:25 PM<\/p>\n
Under the new system, some species, particularly migratory birds and aquatic life, will have to rely instead on federal protections through Canada\u2019s Species at Risk Act.<\/p>\n
Ontario is making a major change to how endangered species are protected, repealing the long-standing Endangered Species Act<\/a> and replacing it with a new Species Conservation Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n The province says the changes are meant to speed up development and streamline approvals, arguing the previous system could delay housing, infrastructure, and resource projects.<\/p>\n The Species Conservation Act, proposed under Bill 5, went into effect last year, but the repeal of the Endangered Species Act is only coming into force now.<\/p>\n \u201cHabitat for a species under the old Endangered Species Act was basically about life processes … and now it’s being reduced to den and nest in areas immediately surrounding them,\u201d Rachel Plotkin, Boreal Project Manager for the David Suzuki Foundation, tells The Weather Network.<\/p>\n This shift in defining habitat could have real consequences that could affect species like caribou that depend on larger ecosystems to survive.<\/p>\n Plotkin says ecosystems play a role in how landscapes respond to weather because healthy forests mitigate flood risk and landslides, while regulating the climate and protecting against natural disasters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on Apr. 9, 2026, 4:25 PM Under the new system, some species, particularly migratory birds and aquatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-593449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}