“This is black bear country. It has always been black bear country. Northern Cortes Island is likely where most of the bears live. Black bears can travel very far in one day and they are good swimmers. They do travel from island to island and there are likely year-round bears here. In the fall of 2019, there was a bear sighted at Blue Jay Lake. Then in April 2020, there was a black bear around Green Mountain. Since then, we’ve had conflicts with two bears: one in Whaletown and one in Squirrel Cove,” said Autumn Barrett-Morgan, a volunteer co-ordinator with the Friends of Cortes Island’s wildlife COEXistence program.
Continue reading Coexisting in Black Bear countryTag Archives: Basil Creek
Frequency of bear raids decreasing in Squirrel Cove
This program was funded by a grant from the Community Radio Fund of Canada and the Government of Canada’s Local Journalism Initiative.
After two very intensive weeks, the frequency of bear raids along Squirrel Cove road, on Cortes Island, appears to be decreasing.
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The Chum have returned to Basil Creek
This program was funded by a grant from the Community Radio Fund of Canada and the Government of Canada’s Local Journalism Initiative.
The Chum have returned.
Squirrel Cove’s eagles have been announcing this to anyone listening, for weeks.
Three juveniles rose to flight, in response to the human presence at the mouth of Basil creek. They left their meal on the bank. The head of a salmon had been pecked off. Its body lay further up the bank.
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How The Basil Creek Culvert Project Is Over The Top
By the time you hear this, the Ministry of Transportation crew will have left Basil creek. As Cortes Streamkeeper Cecil Robinson observed, prior to this “if the fish came early and the rains were late, they just simply couldn’t get through the old culvert. They died right there.” Now more of them will swim upstream to their spawning grounds. Then he proceeded to describe how the “Basil Creek culvert project was over the top from the very beginning. Everything that needed to be done, is done: and then some more, always some more.”
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Replacing the Culvert at Basil Creek
Two weeks ago, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure closed a small segment of Whaletown Road on Cortes Island. The impact on the local community is minimal. However British Columbia’s threatened fish stocks greatly benefit from projects like replacing the culvert at Basil Creek.
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