Reporting by CTV.

Raincoast believes that the most serious threat to coastal grizzly bears, both in the short term and into the future, is the lack of security for salmon. We first began sounding an alarm about extremely low salmon abundance in the fall of 2008 (read story).   Yet concerns for wildlife are not factored into management objectives for fisheries.   Given the importance of spawning salmon to grizzlies and other terrestrial wildlife, we see this gap in resource management as a significant oversight. We hope that our current research initiative on salmon and carnivores that examines the health of grizzlies relative to salmon abundance will inform these critical management issues.  The current lack of ability to corroborate anecdotal accounts about grizzly populations (whether collapsed or healthy) currently does not exit because the province has no baseline information.   This  information gap highlights the compelling need for our research on this matter.

Additional actions by Raincoast on low salmon numbers and concerns for grizzlies

Letter to Environment Minister September 2009

Silent Fall Monday Magazine November 2008, Island Tides November 2008,

Watershed Watch produced the animation ‘Wild Salmon in Trouble’ to clarify why sea lice are a problem for wild salmon and to provide an overview of the salmon life cycle so the public can make informed decisions regarding the seafood they purchase.

Wild Salmon in Trouble’ is illustrated from the perspective of migrating wild salmon before and after the advent of salmon farming. It highlights the fact that even low numbers of sea lice on individual farmed salmon can translate to large numbers of sea lice being released into the nursery grounds of wild salmon. It also emphasizes the fact that although sea lice are a natural part of ocean ecosystems, sea lice from salmon farms are unnatural and may cause serious problems for juvenile wild salmon.

The animation is based on published, peer-reviewed scientific research and foreshadows an unknown future for coastal ecosystems and communities if something isn’t done to protect wild salmon from farm derived sea lice.

Grizzly Bears are under pressure from hunting, habitat loss and declining food supply. In 2005, Raincoast and its partners at the Institute of Ocean Sciences and the University of Victoria, published a paper on an additional concern, the threat from global pollution.

This paper documented the presence of Persistent Organic Pollutants (such as DDT and PCBs) in grizzly bears. It also documented newer chemicals known as brominated flame-retardants. POPs, including flame retardants, are bio-accumulative toxins that act as hormone mimics once inside the body. Flame retardants are currently doubling in the BC environment every four years.

To learn more about our second study, which examines how hibernation affects these chemicals, check out the Grizzly Bear Contaminant Project. Also read Raincoast’s appeal to Environment Canada on the need to ban all forms of flame retardants.