By Misty MacDuffee and Chris Genovali

BC’s coastal grizzlies often have a hard time securing their life requisites, as humans interfere with their day-to-day existence.

Grizzlies face a myriad of threats, from the degradation of their habitat through industrial forestry to their direct killing via trophy hunting. They also face fierce competition for their most important food source, wild salmon, from commercial and sport fisheries. That competition may have gotten more extreme this summer, as BC’s north coast commercial salmon fishermen have discarded over 20 per cent of their catch, including 1.4 million pounds of chum salmon. Many of these fish are from stocks that fisheries scientists have described as “conservation concern.”

Most of the discarded fish are not expected to survive because salmon hauled up in nets and onto decks need careful handling to be released back to the water unharmed. But in competitive fisheries with short time limits, careful release of unwanted salmon puts fishermen at a disadvantage.  This disincentive means tens of thousands of salmon die from stress and injury, losing their one chance to spawn after returning from the Pacific Ocean. One-half of these chum discards (335 metric tons) came from areas in and around the Great Bear Rainforest.

There are several problems with fisheries that discard “bycatch” in the manner described above. The abundance of many stocks of chum salmon on the central and north coast is too low to withstand significant fishing pressure, so there is a conservation concern.  Secondly, the discarded chum could have fed bears, eagles, wolves, and dozens of other wildlife species in our coastal rivers. Specifically, there are growing concerns over the impact that low salmon abundance has on coastal grizzlies, other wildlife that rely on salmon, and the healthy functioning of salmon-dependent ecosystems.

The massive amounts of nutrients and energy that salmon bring back to BC’s watersheds every year can be likened to the wildebeest migrations of the Serengeti.  Similar to their African ungulate counterparts, spawning salmon provide an essential seasonal food to many species.  For coastal grizzlies, the health of individuals, the number of cubs per female, and population densities are all strongly related to the consumption of salmon. Grizzlies have smaller and less frequent litters in lean times. Given that chum used to provide a high percentage of salmon to these bears, its decline could mean fewer bears and less resilient populations over time.

Bears also drive productivity within coastal streams and forests by transferring salmon carcasses from streams to the forest floor.  They are riparian gardeners; providing nutrients and energy to stream bank food webs, including insects, birds, mammals and other fish.  In terms of nutrients, 335 metric tons of discarded chum salmon translates to 9 metric tons of nitrogen and 1 metric ton of phosphorous, 80 per cent of which would have been of delivered by bears.

The economic value of spawning salmon is significant and undeniable. The rising popularity of wildlife ecotourism suggests that salmon may be worth more to coastal economies alive than dead. Wildlife ecotourism has grown impressively in the past 20 years. The number of operations bringing tourists to see BC’s coastal bears has more than quadrupled since the 1990s and local First Nations have been an important component of this growth. However, this promising economic activity requires abundant salmon populations for bears and other wildlife drawn to fall streams.

Changing the way we fish for salmon could significantly reduce impacts to stocks of concern, like chum salmon in the Great Bear Rainforest. This could be achieved by moving fisheries away from “mixed-stock” areas where it is impossible to target strong stocks while avoiding weak ones, by employing proven selective fishing techniques, and by transitioning to quota-based fisheries.

Misty MacDuffee is a biologist with Raincoast Conservation Foundation. Chris Genovali is Raincoast’s executive director.

Island Tides Sept 8, 2011

By Misty MacDuffee and Chris Genovali

By Anne Casselman

HEILTSUK TRADITIONAL TERRITORY, British Columbia—”Remember, if she charges, don’t run,” Doug Brown, researcher and field station manager for Raincoast Conservation Foundation and member of the Heiltsuk First Nation, who tells me as we climb out of the boat at the head of one of the countless inlets found in the of the Heiltsuk Traditional Territory along British Columbia’s central coast.

It’s June and the early morning summer sun rapidly scales over the steep slopes flanking the inlet. Several hundred meters away a grizzly mother is grazing along the edge of the estuary with her two and a half-year old cubs. “Cub,” however, is a misnomer in this instance. These are three-year-olds, large beasts in their own right. Through my binoculars I see the mother lift her broad head to sniff the wind. The muscles powering her lumbering 135-kilogram-plus body ripples still. “So how far away does the bear need to be for the bear spray to work?” I ask Doug. “Ten feet,” he replies. I picture just how large this grizzly would be that close—and how fast she would close that distance. “Wow,” I mutter. Doug replies: “Yeah, that’s why I carry two canisters.”

This mother’s triplets are likely the fruit of a banner salmon run four years ago, a rarity, given the poor runs seen here since 2003. Like so many marine and terrestrial animals of the Great Bear Rainforest—roughly defined as the north-central coast of British Columbia—the grizzlies here rely on salmon in their diet to sustain their life cycles, which may be a problem because the salmon aren’t doing so well. “All of us are governed by the same ecological currencies, and the currency here is salmon,” Chris Darimont, chief scientist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation (RCF) and conservation ecologist at University of California, Santa Cruz, says. “When the wealth of salmon goes away there’s poverty for the people here, and also ecological poverty.”

To read the rest of this article, please visit the Scientific American website.

By Chris Genovali
and Misty MacDuffee

As last year’s returning wild Pacific salmon headed upstream, scientists spawned a thought-provoking proposal about how taking less salmon might bring more benefits to both ecosystems and economies…To read the rest of this article, please visit The Huffington Post website.

New peer-reviewed scientific paper outlines why and how it should be done

For Release: Oct 22 2010

Sidney, British Columbia – As this year’s returning Pacific Ocean salmon head upstream, scientists have spawned a game-changing idea about how taking less salmon might bring more benefits to regional ecosystems and economies.

Writing in the peer-reviewed journal Conservation Letters, researchers from Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Canadian universities, and US universities propose shifts to harvesting in which fisheries take smaller catches of known runs closer to shore. Their paper is titled Salmon for terrestrial protected areas.

“Although more than a hundred wildlife species – like grizzly bears, wolves, and eagles – depend on salmon, fisheries often capture more salmon than all of these animals combined, even from runs bound for protected areas that were created to safeguard these wildlife,” said Dr. Chris Darimont, science director for Raincoast.

These aforementioned alternative harvesting strategies are known to generate higher prices and more employment. Also, catching less fish, can support other industries. Specifically, less valuable pink and chum species might be worth more alive than dead in areas with salmon-dependent ecotourism that includes bear- and killer whale-viewing.

“Anticipating concerns from harvesting interests, we suggest that spawning runs bound for terrestrial parks and protected areas would be the best candidates for early implementation, but on a graduated schedule to help moderate the change for those people most affected by the reallocation of fish,” said Raincoast’s senior scientist Dr. Paul Paquet.

Current maximally exploitative fisheries policies for Pacific salmon do not account for the needs of wildlife and ecosystems.

“The question arises whether a protected area is truly protected when its foundation species, in this case Pacific salmon, are not safeguarded and are subject to such high levels of exploitation,” said Dr.Chris Wilmers, assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a co-author on the study.

Without changes, species like BC’s coastal grizzlies that are particularly dependent on salmon will decline; salmon-dependent species already at great risk, such as BC’s small and endangered population of southern resident killer whales, could face declines that might ultimately lead to their disappearance.

Contact: Chris Darimont (250-589-7873) Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Paul Paquet (306-376-2015) Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Chris Wilmers (831-459-3001) University of California, Santa Cruz

Link to paper:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2010.00145.x/pdf

Salmon for terrestrial protected areas list of authors:

Chris T. Darimont1,2 , Heather M. Bryan2,3 , Stephanie M. Carlson4 , Morgan D. Hocking5 , Misty MacDuffee2 , Paul C. Paquet2,6 , Michael H.H. Price2,7 , Thomas E. Reimchen7 , John D. Reynolds5 , & Christopher C. Wilmers1

1 Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
2 Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Denny Island, BC, Canada V0T 1B0
3 Department of Ecosystem and Public Health, University of Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 4N1
4 Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
5 Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada V5A 1S6
6 Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4
7 Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3N5

BC’s bear populations are intimately connected to the salmon on which they feed. But according to recent research, that connection goes all the way to the forest itself.   Read more…..

Geographic Magazine_Bears and Salmon.pdf

By Misty MacDuffee, Corey Peet and Chris Genovali

As the Canadian federal inquiry examining the 2009 Fraser River sockeye salmon collapse in British Columbia kicks into full gear, one might be surprised to learn that at the same time, the Marine Stewardship Council wants to designate this fishery as “eco-certified.”

Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for the Fraser River sockeye fishery raises serious questions about the process and methodology for MSC certification, especially given the latest Fraser sockeye collapse of some eight million fish. Even the possibility of MSC certification for Fraser
sockeye has led many of BC’s environmental NGO’s to express qualms about the logic and rationale of the MSC, as their judgment in this matter has, thus far, overlooked serious concerns about the status and management of Fraser sockeye.

It is an unfortunate situation as the existence of MSC certification should signify an opportunity to increase the protection of wild salmon on the coast and to work around the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) who have been a major obstacle to achieving that goal.

MSC began in 1997 when the World Wildlife Fund and Unilever – a major seafood buyer – formed a partnership to try to leverage buying power into transformative change for global fisheries and collectively define sustainable, or at least environmentally preferable, fisheries. A collaboration of this type represents a potentially powerful step forward, as conscientious members of industry can work with NGOs to integrate conservation and social justice agendas into fisheries sustainability.

This new approach also changes the role of governments, given their poor track record at managing fish, into a follow-up function that implements policy as it is defined by the collaboration between industry and NGOs. This scenario has the potential to drive substantial change as long as the
environmental NGOs involved fully grasp the conservation science at the local level. It is also key that they never lose sight of the fact that establishing sufficient rigorousness for such a process is of paramount importance to ensuring that their integrity is not squandered for bad tradeoffs.

The Raincoast Conservation Foundation recognizes the value that certification could play in terms of improving fisheries practices. However, we are concerned that MSC relationships between the client (industry) and the certifier are far too close and not independent. Secondly, we are concerned that the MSC criteria sets a low bar and will not result in transformative change. These factors have allowed them to endorse fisheries around the globe that are not sustainable. For example, the stock status of
both Alaskan pollock and New Zealand Hoki have declined under MSC certification. Their criteria also lack sufficient ecosystem considerations. For example, BC salmon fisheries do not consider whales, bears or other wildlife that depend on salmon. In addition, if the Fraser River certification moves forward then Cultus Lake or Sakinaw sockeye would also be certified; this leads us to raise the question, is the MSC actually sanguine about certifying endangered fish populations?

Certification must account for all environmental (and social) issues facing the certified fish in question, even if this means committing to continuous improvement on certain issues, especially as science and conservation objectives evolve. Failure to do so is greenwashing and forces NGOs who are also working on these issues into difficult positions, where they find themselves opposing the MSC instead of supporting it.

As an example, the industry is proposing that MSC give the green stamp of approval to pink and chum salmon runs in the Great Bear Rainforest, the area where Raincoast has been working for over a decade to protect salmon- grizzly systems and other important salmon ecosystem linkages. In the last
several years, however, there has been a disturbing silence at the time of year when these streams should be vibrant with spawning fish and splashing bears. Raincoast believes it to be imperative to account for these types of ecosystem functions when considering a fisheries sustainability.

We suggest that the MSC re-examine both their process and certification standards are determined and pay much more attention to their ecological shortcomings if they want long-term legitimacy from conservation groups. They need a transparent, independent and impartial certification process, as
well as a mechanism for ongoing improvement of criteria that would continually push for the highest fishing standards and truly drive conservation in the world’s oceans. To attain this, they must address the structural flaws in their certification process and commit to incorporating ecosystem objectives for marine and terrestrial environments. Their brand reputation is at stake and they run the risk of turning their theoretical supporters into very real opponents if their approach to these issues is
allowed to continue.

Misty MacDuffee is a biologist with Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s wild salmon program. Ecologist Corey Peet is an aquaculture specialist and Raincoast board member. Chris Genovali is Raincoast’s executive director.

When British Columbia Conservation Officer Andrew Anaka learned that a Bella Coola Valley resident was threatening to “pop” a grizzly bear mother and her three cubs for stealing salmon off his deck, Anaka advised the man to instead remove his salmon. He said the family of bears should only be shot if they were an imminent threat. The resident did not remove the salmon and later shot all four bears.

Read the full story at  Huffington Post

By Chris Genovali and Misty MacDuffee

As the Canadian federal inquiry examining the 2009 Fraser River sockeye salmon collapse in British Columbia kicks into full gear, one might be surprised to learn that at the same time, the Marine Stewardship Council wants to designate this fishery as “eco-certified.”

For the rest of this Raincoast article visit The Huffington Post at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-genovali/would-a-grizzly-bear-cert_b_615947.html

Re: Grizzlies at risk: province; Dwindling bears given threatened status,  The Journal, June 4.

Sustainable Resource Development Minister Mel Knight should be commended for finally listing the province’s grizzly bears as a threatened species and for keeping the trophy hunting ban in place. However, he falls critically short by failing to restrict access to grizzly habitat, as universally recommended by ecologically informed bear biologists.

Significantly reducing incursions into the bear’s habitat by the energy and forestry industries will be required if Alberta’s grizzly population is to recover.

In addition, the article states categorically that there are 17,000 grizzlies in B.C.; this number is speculative and should always be qualified as such. Grizzly population estimates in B.C. have been in dispute for many
years and remain a point of controversy.

Chris Genovali, executive director, Raincoast Conservation, Sidney, B.C.

In one of Nature’s most elegant pas de daux, salmon and bear engage in a delicate dance for survival.  The bear is losing…

We’re searching for solutions to one of the most critical questions facing coastal B.C. today: how to guarantee grizzlies enough salmon to ensure their survival. – Chis Dairmont

Download the pdf story

As Raincoast’s research vessel Achiever pulled into the inlet on British Columbia’s north coast I glassed the port side shoreline with my binoculars, checking for wildlife.  It was that magical time right before dusk when unexpected and unusual things often manifest in the coastal fall alpenglow.

No one else was on deck and I was standing in the observation tower. On the port side of the inlet, at the water line, was a bear. As I focused in I could see this was “not your average bear,” to paraphrase a well-known (cartoon) bruin. Everything about its appearance was distinctive. The coat was a champagne-type colour I had never seen on a coastal bear.

At first I thought it might be a Spirit bear (Ursus americanus kermodei), but as I peered through my binoculars it appeared to have all the physical characteristics of a grizzly, with the dish shaped face, the hump between the shoulders, the size of the feet and length of the claws.  But the perplexing factor was that this bear’s skin colour – the pads on the feet were pink, the fleshy end of the snout was pink, the skin around the eyes was pink – all signs of albinism.

Was I really looking at an albino grizzly?

I called my colleagues to come up on deck from down below.  They all emerged with binoculars in hand and we proceeded to go back and forth speculating on exactly what kind of bear we were observing.  There seemed to be consensus that it was an albino, but whether it was a grizzly or not was discussed and debated at length.

To this day I’m convinced it was Ursus arctos, although in the end I suppose it doesn’t matter – seeing an albino bear of any species is a once in a lifetime experience.  More importantly for me, it was yet another confirmation of the power and mystery of the Great Bear Rainforest in the half-light before sunset.

Did You Know?

Animals can be pure or partial albinos. Pure albinos usually have pink eyes, scales and skin. They’re pink because, without colouration, the blood vessels show through. It’s estimated that at least 300 species of animals in North America have albino individuals.

BC’s Spirit bear is a black bear that has white fur due to a rare genetic trait; it is not an albino, as it typically has a brown nose and eyes.

A new decade has dawned and in a few months yet another year of grizzly bear hunting will commence in British Columbia.The B.C. grizzly bear hunt has been a source of unrelenting controversy. Both sides are stuck in an expert-driven argument in which both camps claim science supports their positions.

It is time that the debate was conducted within the context of ethical considerations, as the present conflict will likely never transcend the deeply entrenched inflexible stances.

In his paper, Environmental Ethics and Trophy Hunting, Alastair Gunn states that “Nowhere in the (scientific) literature, so far as I am aware, is hunting for fun, for the enjoyment of killing, or for the acquisition of trophies defended.”

Many who are outspoken advocates of grizzly hunting do not recognize, or choose not to recognize, that it is a moral matter. They feign that hunting grizzlies is amoral when, in fact, it is not.

They pretend the trivial value of hunting grizzlies somehow outweighs the much greater harm done to the bears.

In Ethics and the Environment, Dale Jamieson writes of the problematic nature of deciding to “choose amoralism and opt out of morality. The very ties that bind us to a society entangle us in a morality. Morality is ubiquitous; amoralists are rare.”

The compulsion to kill these intelligent, powerful and beautiful animals in order to “bag a trophy,” as opposed to simply observing and fully experiencing an encounter of two inextricably linked species, is something poll after poll has shown the average British Columbian cannot fathom.

Doug and Andrea Peacock address the human-bear connection in their book The Essential Grizzly:

“The concurrent colonization of North America by brown bears and humans is a remarkable story. Both men and grizzlies . . . lived together for thousands of years, and perhaps travelled the same route south to the continental United States. Genetic evidence indicates a single invasion for both grizzlies and humans . . . ”

Grizzly bears are primarily shot and killed for gratuitous reasons. They are targeted by trophy hunters and guide outfitters for entertainment or for profit, with approval by government authorities who sanction this activity as a legitimate management tool.

Michael Nelson and Kelly Millenbah have stated in their recent paper The Ethics of Hunting that “To the degree the wildlife community begins to take philosophy and ethics more seriously, both as a realm of expertise that can be acquired and as a critical dimension of wildlife conservation, many elements of wildlife conservation and management would look different.”

Imagine a scenario in which wildlife managers and the politicians they must answer to were required to incorporate ethical considerations into the decision-making process for the grizzly hunt.

The debate would no longer be limited to metrics such as population estimates, kill quotas, harvest-able surpluses and other strictly mechanistic arguments which lend themselves to endless stalemates.

According to Paul Paquet, a former member of the B.C. government’s grizzly bear scientific panel, the fact that we can hunt grizzly bears does not mean that we ought to hunt them.

Further, while science provides information, it does not give us permission to do things. In other words, the statistics that have been generated ostensibly to inform, but in actual practice to justify, the trophy hunting of grizzlies do not contain an intrinsic approval to do so.

Unfortunately, B.C. is saddled with a policy framework for wildlife conservation and management in which ethical considerations simply do not exist.

Large carnivores, in particular grizzly bears, pose a threat not so much to human “life and property” rather to human self-conceptualization. They challenge our imagined “rightful place” in the world, primarily our hegemony over nature and its non-human inhabitants.

It is this mindset that blocks us from extending ethical considerations to grizzlies, for instance, both in the way we govern our society’s interactions with such animals and in how we wield power over bears given our technologically based supremacy (high-powered hunting rifles, jet boats, helicopters).

To evolve B.C.’s relationship with large carnivores, we could start by placing greater emphasis on examining the ethics and morality of the very concept of hunting for recreation and entertainment, as opposed to elevating trivial values like trophy hunting grizzlies above the welfare of the bears themselves.

— Chris Genovali is the executive director of Raincoast Conservation.

A disturbing number of grizzly bears are being shot as ‘control kills’ in BC’s Bella Coola valley. Most of these kills are as a result of humans who don’t secure bear attractants. Despite this, virtually no enforcement action is being taken against individuals responsible for the needless deaths of these bears.

Raincoast is calling on the BC government to reform the Wildlife Act so that provisions addressing bear attractants are more stringent and enforceable. We are also calling on the government to provide sufficient funding for Bear Smart/Bear Aware education in the Bella Coola valley.  More details are in the letter.

Go here to send a letter to Environment Minister Barry Penner to express your concerns about their approach to grizzly bear management.

Your support makes this work possible! Click here to support the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.

By Chris Genovali, Special to the Victoria  Times Colonist,
January 21, 2010

A new decade has dawned and in a few months yet another year of grizzly bear hunting will commence in British Columbia.  The B.C. grizzly bear hunt has been a source of unrelenting controversy. Both sides are stuck in a continual expert-driven argument in which both camps claim science supports their positions.

It is time that the debate was conducted within the context of ethical considerations, as the present conflict will likely never transcend the deeply entrenched inflexible stances.

In his paper, Environmental Ethics and Trophy Hunting, Alastair Gunn states that “Nowhere in the [scientific] literature, so far as I am aware, is hunting for fun, for the enjoyment of killing, or for the acquisition of trophies defended.”

Many who are outspoken advocates of grizzly hunting do not recognize, or choose not to recognize, that it is a moral matter. They feign that hunting grizzlies is amoral when, in fact, it is not. They pretend the trivial value of hunting grizzlies somehow outweighs the much greater harm done to the bears.

In Ethics and the Environment, Dale Jamieson writes of the problematic nature of deciding to “choose amoralism and opt out of morality. The very ties that bind us to a society entangle us in a morality. Morality is ubiquitous; amoralists are rare.”

The compulsion to kill these intelligent, powerful and beautiful animals in order to “bag a trophy,” as opposed to simply observing and fully experiencing an encounter of two inextricably linked species, is something poll after poll has shown the average British Columbian cannot fathom.

Doug and Andrea Peacock address the human-bear connection in their book The Essential Grizzly:

“The concurrent colonization of North America by brown bears and humans is a remarkable story. Both men and grizzlies … lived together for thousands of years, and perhaps travelled the same route south to the continental United States. Genetic evidence indicates a single invasion for both grizzlies and humans….”

Grizzly bears are primarily shot and killed for gratuitous reasons. They are targeted by trophy hunters and guide outfitters for entertainment or for profit, with approval by government authorities who sanction this activity as a legitimate management tool.

Michael Nelson and Kelly Millenbah have stated in their recent paper The Ethics of Hunting that “To the degree the wildlife community begins to take philosophy and ethics more seriously, both as a realm of expertise that can be acquired and as a critical dimension of wildlife conservation, many elements of wildlife conservation and management would look different.”

Imagine a scenario in which wildlife managers and the politicians they must answer to were required to incorporate ethical considerations into the decision-making process for the grizzly hunt.

The debate would no longer be limited to metrics such as population estimates, kill quotas, harvestable surpluses and other strictly mechanistic arguments which lend themselves to endless stalemates.

According to Paul Paquet, a former member of the B.C. government’s grizzly bear scientific panel, the fact that we can hunt grizzly bears does not mean that we ought to hunt them.

Further, while science provides information, it does not give us permission to do things. In other words, the statistics that have been generated ostensibly to inform, but in actual practice to justify, the trophy hunting of grizzlies do not contain an intrinsic approval to do so.

Unfortunately, B.C. is saddled with a policy framework for wildlife conservation and management in which ethical considerations simply do not exist.

Large carnivores, in particular grizzly bears, pose a threat not so much to human “life and property,” rather to human self-conceptualization. They challenge our imagined “rightful place” in the world, primarily our hegemony over nature and its non-human inhabitants.

It is this mindset that blocks us from extending ethical considerations to grizzlies, for instance, both in the way we govern our society’s interactions with such animals and in how we wield power over bears given our technologically based supremacy (high-powered hunting rifles, jet boats, helicopters).

To evolve B.C.’s relationship with large carnivores, we could start by placing greater emphasis on examining the ethics and morality of the very concept of hunting for recreation and entertainment, as opposed to elevating trivial values like trophy hunting grizzlies above the welfare of the bears themselves.

Chris Genovali is the executive director of Raincoast Conservation.