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Burns Bog

Burns Bog is the largest domed peat bog on the west coast of North America, covering approximately 3,000 hectares of the Fraser River delta between the south arm of the Fraser River and Boundary Bay. Burns Bog is almost five times the size of Stanley Park.

Bogs are peat-accumulating wetlands that support unique plant communities able to thrive in waterlogged, acid and nutrient-poor conditions. They are largely raised above the influence of groundwater by the accumulation of peat. Over thousands of years, sphagnum mosses, leaves and roots accumulate faster than they can be decomposed, and peat forms.

Burns Bog is globally unique on the basis of its chemistry, form, flora and large size. Forty per cent of the original bog area has been lost by development and more than half the remaining bog has been disturbed by human activities. As well, the Bog is now isolated from adjacent natural ecosystems by urban, industrial and agricultural development.

Ecological Value

  • Peat bogs (a form of wetland) store more of the world's un-decomposed carbon than forests. Only 17% of Canada's original wetlands remain. BC contains 1% of the country's total wetlands.
  • Sphagnum mosses form the base of Burns Bog and appear much like a thick carpet in various shades of green, red, and yellow on the Bog floor. The moss is acidic, poor in nutrients and holds water like a sponge (up to 30 times its weight in water). Sphagnum moss is an antibiotic.
  • Labrador tea grows prolifically. Its leaves make a tea which, for thousands of years was used by the Haida as a medicine for sore throats and colds.
  • Besides moss in the Bog that most likely does not exist anywhere else in Canada, there are a variety of rare insect species, including two sub-arctic species of the Blue Darner dragonfly.
  • Also residing in the Bog, are several nationally and provincially listed species of wildlife including the Pacific Water Shrew.
  • Significant areas of undisturbed plant communities remain in Burns Bog. Plants reach extremes of adaptation such as dwarfed pines, insect-eating plants and acid-producing mosses. This special community of bog plants is adapted to wet, acidic, and nutrient poor conditions. These plants can't compete with vegetation in richer soils and other vegetation can't compete in the bog.
  • Burns Bog is home to over 200 species of birds, including the Great Blue Heron, the Lower Mainland's largest population of Bald Eagles and the threatened Greater Sandhill Crane.
  • Thousands of waterfowl, including the Trumpeter Swan and other migratory birds, use the ponds in the Bog as seasonal feeding grounds.
  • Burns Bog is home to up to 22 species of raptors. It has 10 species of amphibians, 6 species of reptiles and up to 48 species of small mammals and several species of larger mammals.
  • Mammals at Burns Bog include: red fox, black tailed deer, black bear, porcupine, bobcat, beaver, snowshoe hare, spotted skunk , the northwestern jumping mouse and the rare southern red-backed vole.
  • Burns Bog offers the opportunity to see living organisms and the physical environment acting together to produce a self-sustaining ecosystem, a superorganism. The importance of Burns Bog for these biota is increased by the general absence of such habitat in the surrounding area.

Habitat loss is the greatest threat to the conservation of wild species. Human population growth in the Georgia Basin has already resulted in a dramatic loss of habitat of a variety of species. The conservation of this area is important to the quality of life of species here in Canada, including our own.

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