Calgary pollinator garden destroyed, volunteers devastated

CALGARY – A pollinator corridor in northeast Calgary has been destroyed, and along with it, countless hours of volunteer time and some City of Calgary savings.

Creating Coventry YYC founder Moraig McCabe says sometime Monday evening, someone removed “Nature at work” and “No mowing” signs from a garden area built for bees on Country Hills Way, mowed the corridor, and put the signs back up.

She and other volunteers are devastated.

“If there hadn’t been any signs there… totally I could see somebody doing this by accident. But unfortunately, I believe this was deliberate.”

McCabe says the volunteer group had worked with the city on the test project to determine if native Alberta plants could grow in such a harsh environment as a road median.

Volunteers found the funding and then nurtured the bee boulevard by weeding, planting, and watering.

“Kids wanted a bee garden or a butterfly garden. They wanted something that would help the pollinators,” McCabe shared.

“We were reimagining our community parks.”

Photos posted on Facebook show the garden flowering as recently as June 26.

And after three years of hard work, the project was starting to translate into savings for the city.

“About two weeks ago it finally got sign off as being ‘established’ which means after that point it starts saving the city money,” she explained.

The volunteer group is determined to reflower the corridor–and it will get a boost thanks to some local donors–but McCabe asks anyone who might have dashcam footage of the mowing to contact 311 or the Ward 3 councillor’s office.