Category Archives: Animals

Animals, Forests

‘Birders, not blockaders’ ask B.C. to protect old-growth in Fairy Creek to save marbled murrelets

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Birders and biologists are banding together to urge the B.C. government to protect ancient forests on southwestern Vancouver Island in a bid to save threatened marbled murrelet nesting sites.

Around a dozen citizen scientists are documenting the rare robin-sized seabird, which raises its young in old-growth forest found in tree farm licence (TFL) 46, which includes the Fairy Creek region near Port Renfrew, said team leader and avid birder Royann Petrell.

Continue reading ‘Birders, not blockaders’ ask B.C. to protect old-growth in Fairy Creek to save marbled murrelets →
Animals, History, Indigenous Nations History

A Breed Apart: What was the Coast Salish woolly dog, and can we bring it back?

Editor’s note:  Salish Woolly dogs are believed to have been common throughout Coast Salish territories, so were most likely kept by the ancestors of the Homalco, Klahoose and Tla’amin First Nations. The oldest remains of this breed date back 4,000 years and were found in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea. Sheep wool is believed to have replaced dog wool in Indigenous communities after 1862.

By Mina Kerr-Lazenby, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

If you had been wandering the Coast Salish territories of British Columbia some 4,000 years ago, rambling dense woodland and visiting village longhouses, you would likely have spotted a number of small, white, flocculent pooches.

Continue reading A Breed Apart: What was the Coast Salish woolly dog, and can we bring it back? →
Animals

The last 33 caribou: fighting for the survival of a Wet’suwet’en herd

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

There’s a serene pocket of mountainous habitat in northwest B.C. where 33 caribou live, drinking from glacial-fed creeks and grazing on alpine lichens. Though it’s peaceful, they have nowhere to go. They’re surrounded.

They’ve been cut off from where they gave birth to their young and the tracts of land that supported them through the long northern winters by highways, hydroelectric dams, rail lines, clearcuts and farmland. The herd’s range has been fragmented for more than a century and faces imminent threats.

Continue reading The last 33 caribou: fighting for the survival of a Wet’suwet’en herd →
Animals

Logging continues in ‘critical’ mountain caribou old growth forest: Valhalla Wilderness Society

By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The province’s choice to continue to log old growth forest in B.C. is not only endangering mountain caribou but also the environment and its people, says a local conservation group.

Craig Pettitt, chair of the Valhalla Wilderness Society, said the provincial government has put the welfare and survival of the “deep snow” mountain caribou — otherwise known as the southern mountain caribou — and old growth forests behind logging profits.

Continue reading Logging continues in ‘critical’ mountain caribou old growth forest: Valhalla Wilderness Society →
Animals, Education, Rivers & Oceans

Wild Cortes (Part 2): Beyond the Main Exhibition Area

(This is the second part in a series about WIld Cortes, in Part 1 Sabina Leader Mense shows us through the main exhibition area.)

Cortes Island’s natural history centre just expanded. In addition to the main exhibition area, Wild Cortes now has displays in the Linnaea Education Centre’s lower atrium area. 

While the Ecolab has been operational for some time, it has not been widely publicized. In the conclusion of a two part series about the 2023 displays at Wild Cortes, local biologist Sabina Leader Mense (SLM) takes us outside of the main exhibition area.

Continue reading Wild Cortes (Part 2): Beyond the Main Exhibition Area →