Where the Wild Things Aren't

Posted by Eric de Place

06/07/2007 05:30 PM

New report says BC's wildlife is in jeopardy.

The David Suzuki Foundation just released a new report on the state of British Columbia's wildlife. The title pretty much says it all: "Rich Wildlife, Poor Protection." To take just one example of the problem straight from the press release:

B.C. has lost 49 known species and subspecies since pre-settlement (including the Dawson caribou, greater sage-grouse and western pond turtle).

The problem is particularly acute in the province because -- and this is something that few Americans realize -- neither BC nor Canada has an endangered species act. So while American policymakers have been busy stripping away the ESA's power; Canadian advocates are still pushing to get the law on the books in the first place.

I should mention too that the Suzuki Foundation sets a high bar for quality, and this report is no exception. It correctly points up the contradiction between the province's impressive land conservation on the one hand, and the location of species that actually need protection on the other.

I'll also add that BC and the US Northwest can learn a lot from each other when it comes to wildlife protection. As Sightline's wildlife indicator and many maps demonstrate, the US Northwest is inches away from losing the last remaining caribou in the continental US; BC should take note and get serious about protecting the caribou's Rocky Mountain habitat farther north lest the Canadian caribou make like their American cousins -- and vanish. Just so, sage-grouse have already disappeared from BC, and nearly so from Canada entirely; meanwhile in the US, sage-grouse populations are so depressed that the bird's existence in many places, including Washington, is under serious threat from dozens of causes.

Coverage of the report in the Globe and Mail, here.

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Comments

Posted by Pamela 06/08/2007 06:26 PM

Eric, as a conservation biologist in BC who works on species at risk I couldn't agree more with the "monitoring towards extinction" that we may end up doing. However....its important to be accurate in your reporting, so just to clarify - Canada does have an ESA its called SARA (Species at Risk Act) and it was enacted in 2004. The problem is the regulations that really set out the do's and don'ts haven't been adequately fleshed out (and may not with our present neo-conservative federal government). What is more frustrating and likely to really allow things to get worse is that the province of BC has been dragging its feet in establishing provincial level species at risk legislation - which they have to do as part of thier responsibilities to SARA. Anyway things are in the works and some Acts have been developed (e.g. for SAR in crown forestry land uses), but the U.S. still has 35 years up on us. A little public pressure from south of the border wouldn't hurt - given we share the ranges of many of the same species on the edge!