Tag Archives: Moose

Chronic Wasting Disease reported in the Kootenay Region

On January 31, 2024, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed that two cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) have been found south of Cranbrook, in the Kootenays. ‘The first sample came from a ‘harvested’ adult male mule deer and the second from a white-tailed doe that was struck on the road. 

CWD is a highly infectious and fatal disease, which the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention states, “affects many different species of hoofed animals including North American elk or wapiti, red deer, mule deer, black-tailed deer, white-tailed deer, sika deer, reindeer, and moose.”

This is the first report of CWD west of the Rocky Mountains in Canada or the United States.  

Continue reading Chronic Wasting Disease reported in the Kootenay Region

‘Heartbreaking’: an overhead view of Coastal GasLink sediment spills into Wet’suwet’en waters, wetlands

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Sleydo’ Molly Wickham was composed and quiet as she stared out the window of a helicopter flying over vast stretches of TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory (yintah). Below, a wide swath cut through forests and wetlands, crossing creeks and rivers. 

A wing chief of the Gidimt’en clan, Sleydo’ was part of a small group on a monitoring flight to document the contentious project’s impacts as soaring temperatures rapidly melted last winter’s heavy snowpack.

Continue reading ‘Heartbreaking’: an overhead view of Coastal GasLink sediment spills into Wet’suwet’en waters, wetlands

Site C, “As long as the Sun Shines, the Grass Grows & the Rivers Flow”

By Roy L Hales

The First Nations that signed treaty #8, in 1914, were promised the right to continue with their traditional way of life “for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow.” The antiquity of their presence site is evidenced by prehistoric chert arrowheads, burials and local tradition. It has continued into modern times as a summer gathering place. When BC Hydro dams the Peace River, on site C, they will be taking away lands on which these people have hunted, fished and gathered their traditional medicine plants. Of Course a century ago no one knew that this could become one of the most promising liquid natural gas fields in the world.

The land that is about to disappear is also home to about 20 threatened species. It is a migration route for fish such as the bull trout and arctic grayling, as well as home to the mountain whitefish. The islands are calving grounds for moose, mule deer & elk, habitat for red & blue listed neo-tropical birds.

Continue reading Site C, “As long as the Sun Shines, the Grass Grows & the Rivers Flow”