Tag Archives: Wolves on Cortes

Forests

Cortes Community Forest Five-Year Plan Update: Tour of the Larsen’s Meadow Cut Block

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Public consultation around plans for the next five years of timber harvesting got back underway on Saturday, March 23, with a tour of the Larsen’s Meadow cut block led by Operations Manager Mark Lombard. Two more public tours are currently scheduled: March 30 in the Carrington/Coulter Bay area and April 20 in the Green Mountain area. These outdoor tours are part of the follow-up to an initial public meeting in the Spring of 2023, when maps and preliminary plans were presented.

Lombard works for the Cortes Forestry General Partnership (CFGP), which holds the tenure (right to log) for the Cortes Community Forest, comprising much of the Crown Land on Cortes Island. CFGP is a partnership between Klahoose First Nation (KFN) and Cortes Community Forest Co-operative (CCFC). 

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Animals

Wolf Tales from Cortes Island

Cortes Island’s wildlife coexistence programs can be traced back to  human/wolf conflicts in 2009. Local biologist Sabina Leader Mense reached out to Bob Hansen, then wildlife-human conflict specialist with Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.  The Cortes Community Wolf Project is modelled on the Wild Coast program that Hansen had been running in the Pacific Rim for more than a decade. Hansen and Conservation Officer Ben York helped Sabina write ‘Learning to Live with Wolves on Cortes Island,’ a five-point primer which FOCI endorses and posts throughout the community.

Hansen returned to Cortes at Sabina’s invitation, for the first time since 2011, on February 3. He gave a workshop on electric fences and a demonstration on using bear spray at Linnaea Farm. There were also a lot of ‘wolf stories’ and new information. 

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Animals

Conservation Officer Meets Cortes Island Residents

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Conservation Officer Jillian Bjarnason came to Cortes on Saturday, January 13, 2024. 

“I was invited over to do some public outreach, mostly pertaining to human-wildlife conflict. There’s a population of wolves on the island  and sometimes there’s some encounters with people. I’m just really excited to be able to get to meet folks that live here, chat with them and provide education and how to co-exist,” she explained. 

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Animals

Recent sightings: Co-existing with wolves on Cortes Island

There’ve been reports of wolf sightings on Cortes island, which actually isn’t too surprising.

“We’re incredibly lucky to have wolves on Cortes. They’ve disappeared on a lot of the other islands. This is one of the last islands in the Salish Sea with wolves on it. Obviously we want to do everything we can to make sure that they can carry on living here, and that we can coexist alongside them,” explained Helen Hall, Executive Director of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI). 

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Animals, History

A walk through memory lane to Carrington Lagoon and Grandmother Grove with George Sirk

George Sirk explained some of the history and wildlife that he and Kim and their friend Janet Gemmel recently explored during a walk to Carrington Lagoon and Grandmother Grove.

“Janet Gemmel came to visit us for a week. Her husband, Jim Palmer, died last December. He had a very rare lung cancer.”

“Jim and Jan lived out in Carrington, at the Reversing Rapids, in the 80’s.  So Jan wanted to take the ashes back and release them there, but she forgot to bring them from Courtenay.”

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