This Couple Manage Their Caledon Forest as a Wildlife Sanctuary

By Peter Kuitenbrouwer

A dark sky threatens rain, but Fred and Melodie Belusa aren’t worried. Practically dressed in hiking boots and windbreakers, the couple head up a trail that winds west from their house. The Belusas own 45 acres of forest in the Albion Hills of Caledon, about 60 km north of Toronto.

We pass a shelter where their tractor, wood splitter, and new wood chipper rest. Beside us rise Sugar Maples, beech, ash, and birch trees. Soon, we walk by stands of towering, straight Red Pines, planted in 1945.

Melodie leaves the path and picks her way through tangled piles of vines which the couple previously pulled off young maples. She stoops and points.

There sits a bird about the size of a duck, almost perfectly camouflaged in the tall, dead grass. A few days ago, the bird flew off her nest at the Belusas' arrival, revealing four eggs; today she remains on her nest, resolute. Melodie snaps a photo. She later identifies the bird: it is an American Woodcock.

"I guess I've always been a naturalist, almost from birth," Fred says later, drinking tea in an open-air alcove of their home. In the winter, this alcove stores 14 cords of firewood that they cut and split themselves. Outside the overhang, rain falls in sheets on the pond that spreads below their house.

Fred was born in Kaliningrad, then East Prussia and now part of Russia. When he was four-years-old he stomped on an insect. His mother asked, "Don't you think that bug deserved to live, too?" Since then, he's defended the natural world. He came to Canada in the 1950s and made a career in the air conditioning industry. In 1972 he bought a forest here, close to the Bruce Trail and Niagara Escarpment.

In 2000, Fred wrote the first forest management plan to enroll this forest in Ontario's Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program (MFTIP). Landowners who enroll in the MFTIP can qualify for a 75 per cent reduction in property tax on eligible land.

"Encountering the abundant birds and wildlife, watching them feed, breed, and tend to their young is a joy to behold year-round," Fred wrote in that first plan.

Wildlife appreciation is a pillar of the MFTIP. Photos of birds and mammals fill the Belusas' photo albums and grace their Christmas cards. As part of their forest management plan, the Belusas worked with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) to plant riparian shrubs and trees around their pond and installed habitat boxes for birds, Wood Ducks, owls, and bats.

"We've got these funny critters that live under our pond," says Melodie. "We've seen Green Herons and Blue Herons. We planted perennials to attract butterflies. The deer will come and eat our hosta."

Melodie is a convert to the wonders of the great outdoors.

"Our first date was ballroom dancing, and now we are on wood splitters and chippers and chainsaws," she says with a laugh. "The first gift I got was a lawn mower colour-coordinated to my jogging outfit. I should have known then and there."

The couple has learned forest management over the years. Paul Aird, then Dean of Forestry at the University of Toronto, walked the property to approve the forest plan nearly two decades ago now.

"He said, 'How many stick trees i.e. dead standing trees do you have?' " Fred recalls. "I said proudly, 'They don't last very long around here. I cut them down for firewood.' That's when I got my wrist slapped."

Forest plans typically encourage landowners to preserve dead trees that do not pose a hazard to forest users, as these ‘stick trees’ are home to over fifty species of birds and mammals. These days, dead trees get to remain in the Belusa forest.

Loggers have thinned the pine plantations over the years. However, the couple is more enthusiastic about planting trees than felling them. They are in talks with TRCA to plant more trees here.

Both Fred and Melodie enjoy their work in the forest. Recently, they cut poplar saplings that competed with a new conifer plantation. The Belusas also control buckthorn, an invasive species. The work keeps the couple healthy.

"People say, 'You keep buying machinery,' " Fred says. "And I say, 'How much did you spend on your health club membership?' "