Carol Patterson

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Carol Patterson

Five things you don’t know about the Calgary Zoo’s Panda Passage

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Five things you don’t know about the Calgary Zoo’s Panda Passage

Sure the pandas are cute. Whose heart doesn’t melt a little at all that black and white cuteness rambling around the Calgary Zoo’s Panda Passage? But unless you read this e-zine regularly there are five things you will probably overlook when you visit the pandas.

The building the pandas live in is recycled

Not content with recycling pop bottles, the zoo recycled an entire building! The panda’s new home is where I used to ride elephants back in the day. So you know this building is really old!. When the elephants moved to Washington, DC, the zoo renovated the building rather than disturb nearby river habitat. They also undertook the Living Building Challenge (green building standards even higher than those in LEED buildings).

Detectives were involved

Maybe not police detective but the zoo required every contractor to trace the source of their building materials to ensure they were local (54% were sourced within 500 kilometers) and traveled the shortest distance possible to the zoo. You can travel the shortest distance to pandas during summer months by booking a time in the panda lineup when you come through the main entrance.

A tiny bit of China

The Zoo designed Panda Passage with architecture and art from China. You’ll feel like you’ve travelled thousands of kilometers when you pass through the bamboo entrance. By carefully framing your photos in the exhibit, your friends may believe you took the pictures in China.

You can breathe deeply

Okay, you may get a whiff of panda poo if you’re lucky (the keepers work hard to keep the enclosures clean). But you won’t be breathing in unhealthy chemicals. Builders and suppliers were asked to eliminate any chemicals that appear on the Living Building Challenge list of 700 chemicals with the greatest impact on humans and ecosystems.

You’re part of a property swap

The Calgary Zoo has set aside 6,870 m2 of natural habitat to offset the footprint of the Panda Passage. So when you’re oohing over the pandas, you can feel good knowing a large piece of natural area is also being protected. If you do your panda peeking early in the morning or later in the afternoon you have the best chances of seeing the pandas at their most active.

To learn more about The Living Building Challenge click here or to book panda programs click here.

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Chickens make better wine?

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Chickens make better wine?

Mission Hill winery is one of Kelowna’s first family-owned wineries. They were also first to bring international acclaim to Okanagan wines winning an Avery award for their 1992 Chardonnay at the International Wines and Spirits Competition judges were so shocked an Okanagan wine won they repeated the blind tests with the same result).

Now Mission Hill aims to have Canada’s biggest organic vineyard. Two years into a five-year process they are converting 1,200 acres to organic farming.

Standing beneath a bell tower reminiscent of European missions with a bell tolling every fifteen minutes (four bells represent winery owner Anthony von Mandl, his dad, mother and sister), Graham Nordin, Director of Wine Experience, explained, “becoming organic requires significantly more manual labour.”

Organic farmers get less sleep 

He described how vines are vulnerable to cutworms, a nocturnal pest that eats their way up the vine stems. “Last year at 2 a.m. we (winery staff) went out with headlamps and picked cutworms off the vines and put them in buckets. We discovered it (manually picking) was the same cost as pesticides.”

Perhaps wanting more sleep, they researched other methods of pest control and found chickens eat worms. “So now we have chickens in some of our vineyards,” Nordin smiled.

Working with landscape

The vineyard also made bottles lighter to lower logistics without decreasing wine quality. They have partnered with the University of British Columbia to try to recycle wastewater on-site or use in a biofuel program.

Although the move to organic certification is recent, guests will see earlier indications that owners were sensitive to the landscape. Cellar walls are bare volcanic rock, helping with humidity control, and the gate to the property is so narrow only one car can pass at a time. That and the distance from the parking lot to the winery force visitors to slow down.

All the better to enjoy the wine and the connection to the land providing it.

Find other sustainability initiatives at https://www.missionhillwinery.com/estate_winery/sustainability.aspx

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A Hawk’s Eye for Wine

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At Cooper Hawk’s Vineyard (CHV) in the Windsor-Essex tourism region the winery is named for one of the unofficial staff members.

Cooper hawks nest near the vineyards and patrol the fields around the winery. These crow-sized raptors are fearsome predators with a taste for birds like starlings and mourning doves. They rely on stealth to sneak up on prey and have been known to drown its catch before ripping it into bite size pieces. Knowing a Cooper’s hawk is in the neighborhood is enough to scare away birds that like to feast on the grapes.

Because the habitat surrounding the vineyard supports a healthy hawk population, Tom O’Brien, Founder and President of Cooper Hawk’s Vineyards, and his team does not need to place nets over the vineyard, something few wineries in the region can boast.

Wildlife doesn’t punch a time clock so to make sure birds think twice about visiting the grapes CHV staff have made recordings of the Cooper hawk calls and play them in the vineyard when the hawks aren’t around. They also have fake hawk kites that flutter above rows of grapes.

O’Brien and his staff like sharing their 70-acre property with birds. “I love wildlife!” O’Brien enthused. “We have planted over 7,000 trees. When we do (wine) tours people ask about the name. We encourage them to walk out (around the vineyards) and look at birds.”

Assistant wine maker, Anthony Miller, was an environmental scientist for more than ten years before he became a vintner. Now he shares his bird sightings with his boss. “He tells me we have some unusual birds,” explained O’Brien.

Judging by environmental ethic that includes installing solar panels and constructing a wetland, this is a winery that makes going to the birds part of the wine tasting experience. O’Brien observed, “When people leave the winery they are happy!”

To learn more about this bird-friendly winery click here.

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