The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Ministry’s recently released Bobolink Regulation proposal. It is encouraging that the Ministry of Natural Resources has recognized the negative impacts on forage production and livestock pasturing resulting from the addition of bobolink to Ontario’s Species at Risk in Ontario (SARO) list.

Let us be unequivocally clear; Ontario farmers support the principle of protecting and recovering Ontario’s species at risk. However, since the protection and recovery of Ontario’s species at risk is a broad, public goal, providing broad public but not private, benefits, OFA believes that any financial costs associated with achieving that goal should be bourne by the public at large; not by the individual farmers and other rural property owners where bobolink nest. In that light, the OFA supports the proposed Bobolink Regulation as enunciated in EBR Registry Number 011-2901.