Cootes Paradise is a property with many boundaries, but is primarily a property of the Royal Botanical Gardens at the western end of Lake Ontario, but is also remnant of the larger 3700 acre Dundas Marsh Crown Game Preserve established by the province of Ontario in 1927.,[1] dominated by a 4.5 km long rivermouth wetland, representing the lake's western terminus. It is found on the west side of Hamilton Harbour and is located in the municipality of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Cootes Paradise Environmentally Sensitive Area is larger "core area" within the City of Hamilton's Natural Heritage System and has a very similar boundary to the original Dundas Crown Game Preserve.
The Cootes Paradise Nature Sanctuary area is a 600 hectare environmental protection and education area within the core natural heritage area, owned and managed by Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG), a charitable organization established in 1941 by the Government of Ontario. The wetland/marsh is also often referred to as Cootes Paradise but is part of the Cootes Paradise Nature Reserve and core area, with these lands representing 99% of the unaltered lands along the local Lake Ontario shoreline (~25 km). The site carries multiple designations, including a National Historic Site, a Nationally Important Bird Area (IBA), and is also central to inspiring the local principles for the World World Biosphere program. Within the regions local Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere, it is unique as the only point of physical connection with Lake Ontario.
The marsh has also been referred to as the Dundas Marsh, a product of its surveyed location largely within the boundary of the former town of Dundas, and highlighted in conservation efforts initiated in the 1860s. Unusually, Royal Botanical Gardens is both the owner of the land under Cootes Paradise Marsh as well as regulator of activities on the water, despite it being an inlet of Lake Ontario. Water area activity regulation was formerly under the Hamilton Harbour Commission (now Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority) as part of the area's historical federal port regulation. In the late 1970s, the Harbour Commission and Royal Botanical Gardens made an agreement transferring regulation of use of the water/ice area to the Gardens' in support of the environmental protection mandate. However, Royal Botanical Gardens has no regulatory ability for the condition of water quality flowing into the marsh.