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The Frontenac Arch, also called the Frontenac Axis, is a 50 km long extension of exposed Precambrian rock that runs through southeastern Ontario and upstate New York from Westport, north of Kingston, to the Thousand Islands. The Frontenac Arch links habitats of the Canadian Shield in the Algonquin Highlands with those of the Adirondack Mountains to the south.
The Frontenac Arch is a unique area of biogeographic overlap between the northern Canadian Shield forests and southern Carolinian influences compressed over a few miles on a rugged landscape with remarkable landform diversity. The result is a narrow band which supports a high diversity of rare species. In addition, the Arch serves as a funnel for movement and dispersal of wildlife including wide ranging mammals, such as Fisher, through the largely agricultural landscape of Eastern Ontario. The Frontenac Arch is known, in particular, for its high diversity of herpetofauna including salamanders, frogs and toads, turtles, snakes and Ontario's only lizard, the Five-Lined Skink.
The Frontenac Arch supports globally significant biodiversity, important ecological functions and a large number of rare and imperilled species including the Common Musk Turtle, the Least Bittern, the Cerulean Warbler, Blunt-lobed Woodsia and the Gray Ratsnake which is being studied at the Queen's University Biological Station by Patrick Weatherhead of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Gabriel Blouin-Demers of the University of Ottawa.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) works with many partners in the Frontenac Arch Natural Area including the Queen's University Biological Station, Ontario Nature, Canadian Parks and Wildlife Service, Kingston Field Naturalists, Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority, Rideau Waterway Land Trust, The Thousand Island Watershed Land Trust, and the Land Conservancy for Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington. Multiple conservation initiatives focusing on the Frontenac Arch have been established as well including the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve designated under the United Nation's "Man & the Biosphere" program, the Adirondack to Algonquin ("A2A") Corridor, and the "Frontenac Greenway Conservation Vision" coordinated by Ontario Nature. NCC also works with Parks Canada and in 2005 this partnership helped to expand the St. Lawrence Islands National Park to 5,930 acres (2,400 hectares), doubling the size of the Park.
NCC is currently raising funds for the long-term management of its properties on the Frontenac Arch. To find out how you can help email NCC Ontario. Read about the great work being done in this natural area with the help of the Freeman family and at Elbow Lake.
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