Archive for category: News

While wolves die, old-growth forest is decimated

This information is mostly focused on the Deep Snow Mountain Caribou of BC’s Interior Wetbelt, which is an Inland Temperate Rainforest ecosystem. No other kind of caribou in the world spends winter in subalpine forests where the snow is up to 10 meters deep. They need to descend in spring to low-elevation  forest. A food that’s key to their survival is tree lichens; trees must be at least 140 years old to grow enough lichens to support caribou.

Moose, deer and elk prefer young forest caused by fires and other conditions, where they can eat abundant vegetation, including young trees. Clearcuts have vastly increased young forest and depleted old forest, drawing and multiplying moose, deer and elk. Wolves prefer to eat these larger animals, and follow the moose, deer and elk into clearcut areas. The caribou become isolated in patches of forest left between the clearcuts, which makes them easy for predators to find. The most urgently needed conservation actions are protection of remaining old growth forest, restoration of already-disturbed habitat, and exclusion of winter recreation from high-value winter caribou habitat. These actions serve as non-lethal wolf control. Scientists say that killing  predators without protecting enough habitat will not save caribou.  Research has also shown that there is no statistical basis for wolf control as a conservation method for caribou. Read more to find the following information:

1. VWS’s View on Predator Culling for Mountain Caribou

2. Kinds of Mountain Caribou

3. Failure of the Mountain Caribou Recovery Plan

4. Misleading Government Rhetoric about Wolves and Caribou

5. VWS: 40 years working to protect caribou

Read more

Along the scenic Highway 31A, between New Denver and Kaslo, a developer has proposed a luxury resort for skiing and mountain biking, with a capacity for 1,750 guests a day. Gondolas would carry up to 1,500 guests a day onto London and Whitewater Ridges. The whole area is prime grizzly bear and mountain goat habitat, and is frequently used by many residents of the region for noncommercial recreation.

Global amphibian populations have experienced significant declines in recent years, warning scientists of a greater biodiversity collapse that must be addressed immediately to keep our remaining ecosystems intact.

Valhalla Wilderness Society researchers are taking action to protect a significant population of BC’s native Western toad at Fish Lake in the West Kootenay’s Highway 31A corridor. Their efforts have also been expanded to a second important breeding area at Beaver Lake where planning for unnecessary population mortality is now underway.

Visit this link to read more about the ongoing project that’s now in its seventh year, and download a summary report from the first five years of our Western toad highway mortality mitigation project at Fish and Bear Lakes.

A recently metamorphosed Western “toadlet” is small enough to fit on the tip of a thumb.

 

For more information, watch senior Western toad researcher Marcy Mahr’s presentation to Wildsight Revelstoke below.

The Central Selkirk caribou are Deep-snow Caribou that range between Nakusp, New Denver and Kaslo. Environment Canada has declared that all the Southern Mountain Caribou are under imminent threat to their recovery and must have immediate action…

 

In 2018 Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) declared that BC’s endangered mountain caribou face imminent threat to their recovery under the Species at Risk Act. The Imminent Threat Assessment acknowledged that not enough habitat had been protected to sustain BC’s mountain caribou populations, and that BC’s ongoing wolf cull in the absence of further habitat protection would not protect caribou.

The ECCC assessment meant that the federal government could issue and Order for BC to protect more habitat, but since the report was released in 2018 BC’s southern mountain caribou herds have not received any additional habitat protection. The habitat protected during the 2007 Recovery Plan left a quarter to more than a third of the remaining core habitat unprotected for some herds and included heavily fragmented areas, steep slopes, burns and high alpine areas of almost no value to caribou. Some herds received almost no habitat protection, and all herds have continued to suffer massive habitat loss at the hands of government and industry, leading to continued herd extirpation.

Just three weeks before public meetings input meetings were to be held across BC, a team of ten biologists, including government advisors, released a paper claiming that previous wolf culls had improved caribou populations, and that changes in forest cover had had no effect (Serrouya et al., 2019). Media exploded with claims that saving caribou simply meant killing a lot of wolves. This led to inflammatory misinformation campaigns that dominated some of the public meetings, and was likely instrumental in Forests Minister Doug Donaldson then claiming that the southern mountain caribou herds would receive no further habitat protection.

During the slaughter of 463 wolves, and the ongoing destruction of caribou habitat, a team of six scientists (Harding et al., 2020) have spent over a year re-analyzing the data claiming that wolf killing should take precedence over habitat protection. Their review of the study found that it had serious flaws. The data showed no statistical basis for wolf culls and maternal pens in the conservation of mountain caribou, and no basis for claiming that habitat protection would be ineffective.

Read the July 16th press release here.

Read the full backgrounder here.

The photo above shows 2019 logging at Trout Lake, in habitat of the Central Selkirk herd of the Deep-Snow Mountain Caribou.

Public review and comment processes for the following forest practices laws are coming to a close. There is just enough time for you to write some comments:

For Crown land logging: the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) — deadine July 15

A government discussion paper and online form are available at: http://engage.gov.bc.ca/forestandrangepractices. But it would be better to send a letter to engageFRPA@gov.bc.ca.

The old Forest Practices Code was massively weakened in 2004 to produce the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA). Now stronger rules are desperately needed to respond to the dual crises of climate change and species loss. These are VWS’s top priorities for amending the FRPA:

1. End the logging of old-growth forests 250 years or older.
2. Five-Year Plans with public access to maps showing the location and size of clearcuts should be restored.
3. Provisions for protecting slope stability and watersheds, such as those in the old Forest Practices Code, should be restored. It used to be illegal for companies to cause landslides, but under the FRPA, the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and the  Ministry of Environment don’t even investigate landslides.
4. Consumptive-use watersheds should be a distinct category, identified in the FRPA and in logging plans, and protected under law, not under guidelines. This category should have increased protective measures.
5. Waste volumes rose substantially under the FRPA while fines for it declined.  This requires stronger regulation.

For more recommendations download VWS’s full submission to government here.

For Private land logging, the Private Managed Forest Land Act (PMFLA) — deadline July 22.

Government background information and online comment form: https://engage.gov.bc.ca/privatemanagedforest/ However, VWS urges you to write a letter instead, because the online form  skirts the major problems with this law and program. You can send letters to government to PMFLProgramReview@gov.bc.ca. VWS calls for three important changes to the PMFL Act:

1. The Private Managed Forest Land Program should be mandatory for all private land logging.
2. The forest practice regulations for the PMLF Program should be strengthened to the level that is required on Crown land.
3. The PMFLA should not provide participants an exemption from restrictions on logging passed by local governments.

For more information download VWS’s full submission to government here.