User:Jiye Lim/Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary/Mem20 Peer Review

General info
(KathyCho, Yeonji Cho, Jiye Lim)
 * Whose work are you reviewing?


 * Link to draft you're reviewing:User:Jiye Lim/Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists):Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary

Evaluate the drafted changes
Hello! I enjoyed reading your article and learning about this really cool bird sanctuary. The geography section has good variation, talking both about the location and physical geography, while also touching on how this affects the ecology of the region. This is good because it is educational and engaging to read. The lead paragraph is also quite good, it is concise and it sums up the main themes of the article that have importance to ecology. A lot of the sources are government sources, which are quite reliable. I also liked the images showing the different species of birds, because they add a visual element and showcase the diversity among bird species in this small area. To continue with these good things in your second draft, I would encourage tying it all together in the context of ecology and applied ecology and more labeled pictures.

While reading your article I learned a lot about Migratory Bird Sanctuaries, which I didn’t know much about before. I really enjoyed learning about the physical environment of Shoal Harbour and how it creates interesting ecosystems for interesting creatures like sea lettuce, which is a type of algae I hadn’t heard of before either! The section at the end of the article about the birds was very informative as well, and I liked learning about the variety of marine birds that live part time in the Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary.

Content wise, your article explains a few of the different species found there, endangered species (the Horned Grebe) and how the population numbers have changed over time, and the historic use of the area (farming, logging, trapping) but you didn’t mention how this history affected the ecology of the area. You briefly touched on endemic species such as Arbutus and Garry oak trees, but I would suggest diving more into that for it to count as one of the five required topics. I couldn’t find anything in the article about the First Nations of the area, climate change or how the boundaries of the area were decided, so I’d suggest checking out the list on Canvas, picking an extra topic and adding that to the article so that you will have covered five of the required topics and can get full marks.

Further on the content of your article, there are a few parts that might be unnecessary and a few parts that I feel are missing in order to give a full picture of SHMBS. A few of the parts that feel a little unnecessary right now are the “Clarenville’s economic industry” and “Balbo’s Flight,” both of which are in the History section. The history of the economy of Clarenville could be relevant if you tied it in to the ecology or applied ecology of the region, like perhaps how the trapping/logging/farming affected the ecosystem. “Balbo’s flight” also doesn’t have much to do with the ecology or applied ecology of the area, so I’d suggest tying it in to ecology or just deleting it if you don't find a way to tie it in. For more information, I'd want to learn more about are how the sanctuary was created and why. There is a little bit about this in the lead paragraph but it could definitely go more in depth in the rest of the article. I feel like that would give a nice foundation for the rest of the information and contextualize the article a bit more! I am also curious about the Indigenous peoples whose land the sanctuary is on, maybe you could add a little about that. I was also wondering in the part about the bufflehead, why did they decide to make it a priority species?

For clarity, there are a few places where the wording made it a little difficult to understand. In the geography section, it says “highly fruitful,” but I wasn’t quite sure if you meant ecologically productive or fruitful in another way. Cool vocabulary word though!! In the bufflehead section, you write “Also, it occurs in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.” What is occurring? I was guessing that the bufflehead is also found in those provinces, but it could also mean that they breed there, migrate there, or maybe something else, I wasn’t quite sure. Also, “…breeds mainly occur in Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan” feels a little out of place, and I’d suggest rephrasing it in a way where breed is a verb not a noun, like “they breed in___” or they usually breed ____”.

In terms of the structure of the article, it’s well laid out and I liked that you put the physical geography and habitat information before the species information. Some of the geography parts did feel a little repetitive though, and I think you could move the “Overall History of Shoal Harbour” section to the geography part since it is just describing the physical geography of the area. The subsections in the article make sense, but some of the subsections feel quite small and don’t have a lot of information, so maybe group some of the similar subsections together.

The tone of the article feels very neutral and uses neutral language throughout. I’d say it’s quite professional as well, a few of the words could be swapped for more descriptive words (like “146 hectares big” in the lead paragraph, maybe use large instead?) but other than that the tone is neutral and up to par with the Wikipedia guidelines!

There are only nine sources used in the article, so I’d recommend adding a few more, but if you do add more content then more sources would come anyways! There are quite a few statements that should be sourced, any phrase with information that isn’t common knowledge should have a source at the end. In the lead paragraph, “About 35-40 species…” should be sourced, in the history section, “Shoal Harbour was founded on April 10, 1931…,” “The coastline consists of a combination of rocky outcrops…,” “Before Shoal Harbour was founded, loggers, farmers and trappers established a town…,” these are a few of them, but especially in the ecology section, where there is only one source at the end of each large paragraph, and it’s the same source for all three. I checked this source and I found that the information in your paragraphs are actually from links that are linked inside the source, so you would need to make new citations for those, and replace the old citation. The source you used for these three paragraphs is: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/migratory-bird-sanctuaries/locations/shoal-harbour.html but for the bufflehead paragraph you should cite the link https://wildlife-species.canada.ca/bird-status/oiseau-bird-eng.aspx?sY=2019&sL=e&sM=a&sB=BUFF, for the Horned Grebe you should cite https://wildlife-species.canada.ca/bird-status/oiseau-bird-eng.aspx?sY=2019&sL=e&sM=a&sB=HOGR , and for Heermann’s Gull you should cite https://wildlife-species.canada.ca/bird-status/oiseau-bird-eng.aspx?sY=2019&sL=e&sM=a&sB=HEEG. These paragraphs definitely need more than one citation per paragraph, so make sure to cite every phrase with new information. You should also make sure to cite your images.

The quality of the sources is pretty good, you used a lot of government sources which are pretty accurate. The Clarenville source ( https://clarenville.ca/discover-clarenville/our-history/ ) seems ok, might be a little biased since they are talking about themselves but reading it over it looked pretty good.

But unfortunately there is a lot of really close paraphrasing and patch-writing in this article, and I’ll mention some of them below so you can be sure to fix them before submitting.

Your writing (in the “Overall History of Shoal Harbour): “Shoal Harbour was founded on April 10, 1931, as it includes 144 hectares of sheltered bays and extensive intertidal mudflats in North Stanch and Sidney.”

The writing from https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/migratory-bird-sanctuaries/locations/shoal-harbour.html : “Shoal Harbour Bird Sanctuary was established on April 10, 1931 and includes 144-hectare of sheltered bays and extensive intertidal mudflats in North Saanich and Sidney.”

Your writing (in the “Overall History of Shoal Harbour): “The coastline consists of a combination of rocky outcrops and beaches of sand, gravel and silt. The island supports remnants of the Coastal Douglas-Fir ecosystem, including the Garry oak and Arbutus.”

The writing from https://www.crd.bc.ca/docs/default-source/es-harbours-pdf/bird-santuary/migratorybirdsanctuary-inserts-shoalharbour.pdf?sfvrsn=2 : “The shoreline is a mix of rocky outcrops and beaches of sand, gravel and silt and the upland areas support remnants of the Coastal Douglas-Fir ecosystem, including the associated Garry oak and Arbutus.”

Your writing (in History of Clarenville in line with Shoal Harbour): “Before Shoal Harbour was founded, loggers, farmers and trappers established a town called ‘Clarenville’ in 1891. It consists of the settlements of Lower Shoal Harbour, Dark Hole, Brook Coe, Broad Cove and Red Beach and was originally known as ‘Clarenceville’.”

The writing from https://clarenville.ca/discover-clarenville/our-history/ : “Originally settled by loggers, farmers and trappers, Clarenville was established in 1891 by the amalgamation of the settlements of Lower Shoal Harbour, Dark Hole, Brook Cove, Broad Cove and Red Beach and was originally known as ‘Clarenceville’.”

Your writing (In Balbo’s Flight): “On July 26, 1933, a historic event unfolded as the largest armada of aircraft to attempt a transatlantic journey successfully landed in Random Sound. Pioneering aviator, General Italo Balbo and his fleet of twenty-four seaplanes decided their final destination to Shoal Harbour on their awe-inspiring flight from Orbetello, Italy to the Chicago Century of Progress Exhibition.”

The writing from https://clarenville.ca/discover-clarenville/our-history/ : “On July 26, 1933, the largest armada of aircraft to make a transatlantic flight landed in Random Sound. This accomplishment put Shoal Harbour in the international spotlight. Pioneering aviator, General Italo Balbo and his fleet of twenty-four seaplanes landed at Shoal Harbour to complete the last leg of their spectacular flight from Orbetello, Italy to the Chicago Century of Progress Exhibition.”

These are the most apparent ones, but I’d suggest checking the whole article just in case. You got this, don’t worry!

The article gives a pretty good overall picture of the sanctuary, but some of the parts could go a little more in depth about why (like why the sanctuary was created and what were the goals of creating it) and tying in ecology to some of the parts that don’t have a lot to do with ecology (such as the “Clarenvilles’s economic industry” and “Balbo’s Flight.”) I went to check the main page of the article but it looks like you posted your sandbox to the official article page, so the missing information is for sure missing, and I’d recommend adding a little more on that if you can!

In the article there aren’t too many perspectives being shared, since most of the sources are either government or municipal sites, and there is no Indigenous perspective or history. Indigenous voices are very important, and are necessary in conservation and environmental work, so I’d really suggest finding some Indigenous sources and adding what they have to say to the article. That would give a more balanced view to it, as opposed to mainly a governmental view.

Finally, the “northern Victoria” hyperlink in the Lead paragraph takes you to a wikipedia page about Australia, so you might want to switch that around :)

I hope this was helpful, and I'm excited to read your final draft.