Tired of an overgrown beach

A group of Okanagan Falls residents are offering a $500 bounty for anyone that can find new populations of an endangered plant, an initiative launched in an attempt to reclaim Christie Memorial Beach. 

The beach on the south end of Skaha Lake is critical habitat for the short-rayed alkali aster, a small herb not uncommon in the United States and Mexico but extremely rare in Canada. It is found at just eight locations country-wide, all of them in the South Okanagan.

One of the largest populations is found at Christie Memorial Beach. After the species was federally listed as endangered in 2007 and a recovery plan was finalized in 2013, critical habitat like the beach in OK Falls and others along Osoyoos, Vaseux and Max Lakes have been protected.

At Christie Memorial Beach, signs are up asking the public to avoid the plants and the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen is only allowed to rototill the sand in the fall and winter. 

A group of OK Falls residents have now joined together to form a nonprofit in an attempt to find populations of the plant elsewhere in the hopes they can have their beach back.

“We all feel we have a real gem,” organizer Matt Taylor said of the community of OK Falls. “The beach is a big part of that. The aster, while we can appreciate that it's a valuable part of the environment, we feel that there are probably other populations of it elsewhere.”

The group is offering $500 to anyone that can find a verified new population of the short-rayed alkali aster in the hopes that the federal government will take their beach off the critical habitat list.

Taylor says visitors to OK Falls do not understand why the beach is allowed to overgrow every year, with questions about a perceived lack of community pride coming up. 

“Generally tourists coming here do not appreciate that at all,” he said. “They don’t understand why we would be doing this with a beautiful beach.”

South Okanagan-West Kootenay MP Richard Cannings, a biologist previously involved in the listing of several endangered species, says a great deal of thought would have gone into listing the short-rayed aster as endangered.

“This is all done very scientifically and with criteria that are set out in advance so it's not a ‘oh we like this plant so let’s declare it endangered,” he said.

Cannings could not speak specifically to the short-rayed aster, but said the federal government has re-listed species in the past or made adjustments after new populations were found.

“They try not to list things that are just spurious or simply rare,” he said. “They want to list things that are a legitimate part of the flora and are threatened by certain actions.”

The federal government's page dedicated to the aster says they were previously, briefly, found on the banks of the Fraser River in Surrey and New Westminster but those populations have not persisted. The plant requires seasonally fluctuating water levels and sand to survive, germinating when water levels recede in the late summer months. 

One of its biggest listed threats includes excessive trampling and recreation like beach use. 

More information on the OK Falls’ group seeking to find the plant elsewhere can be found at savetheastersavethebeach.com