In the Spirit of Christmas By Brian Falconer, Guide Outfitter Coordinator In 2005, our supporters helped us purchase a vast guide outfitting territory on BC’s central coast and end commercial trophy hunting in an area approximately three times the size of Yellowstone National Park. Given the huge success of that initiative, both in terms of stopping trophy hunting and supporting commercial wildlife viewing, we decided to look for similar opportunities. In 2010, we began negotiations to acquire a unique hunting tenure which comprises the home of nearly all the world’s free roaming spirit bears (a white colored black bear). In July of 2011, thanks to your incredible generosity, we raised the $370,000 in acquisition costs needed to purchase the tenure by the deadline.  Since raising the funds, we have been waiting for the BC Ministry of Environment to transfer the new territory to Raincoast.  These frustrating and unnecessary government delays have prevented us from being able to announce this purchase.  However, just this week we received assurances from the provincial government that the territory will be transferred to us early in the new year. The acquisition of this territory, in combination with our initial purchase, means that we have effectively ended commercial trophy hunting in a contiguous area of nearly 30,000 sq km.  This has only been possible because of your support. Going forward, in collaboration with Coastal First Nations, Raincoast is actively investigating the potential acquisition of additional guide outfitting territories. But to do the necessary groundwork (e.g., investigating potential opportunities and negotiating with territory owners), as well as manage and monitor our existing territories, we need your financial support.  We need to raise $75,000 per year to carry out this work on an annual basis. Stand with us as we continue to pursue our goal of ending the trophy hunting of large carnivores on the coast of British Columbia. For the Coast (and the bears), Brian Forward this story to a friend

WE DID IT AGAIN! Your support secured the purchase of the 3,500 sq km ‘spirit bear’ hunting tenure. TrackingRaincoast  into 2012 Be sure to look for the 2012 edition of Tracking Raincoast in your (snail mail) mailbox.   Raincoast Conservation Foundation PO Box 2429 Sidney, BC, Canada V8L 3Y3 Tel: (250) 655-1229Photo Credits: Diane Bradshaw, Klaus Pommerenke, Jamen Rhodes, Larry Travis, Doug Brown

Your support is halting the commerical hunting of black bears which carry the recessive gene that produces the spirit bear’s white coat.	This purchase is also helping to protect the genetically unique rainforest wolves Raincoast has studied for over a decade.	In a vast roadless area, we depend on our research vessel Achiever to access and monitor our territories.

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FISHERIES MINISTER APPEALING FEDERAL COURT’S KILLER WHALE RULING

by Misty MacDuffee
Wild Salmon Program biologist and killer whale advocate
January 2011

Raincoast and our conservation partners recently won a major legal victory for British Columbia’s endangered and threatened resident killer whales. Led by lawyer Margot Venton at Ecojustice, we challenged the federal government’s lack of action to protect the habitat of these marine animals – something the government is legally mandated to do.

The key argument we put forward in our court case was that the federal fisheries minister does not have a choice whether or not to protect critical habitat for threatened and endangered aquatic species such as the killer whales. Rather, section 58(5) of the Species At Risk Act (SARA) states that legal protection of critical habitat for aquatic species is mandatory. Justice Russell confirmed this in his ruling in December 2010, stating it was unlawful for the Minister of Fisheries to rely on discretionary provisions under the Fisheries Act because habitat protection under SARA was non discretionary.

Unfortunately, the federal fisheries minister doesn’t agree and has decided to appeal this key element of the ruling. The minister wants to be able to use discretionary powers under the Fisheries Act to choose when or if they will protect threatened and endangered species.

Raincoast and our conservation partners have no choice but to fight DFO’s appeal. It is unfortunate that the minister has chosen to go back to court instead of supporting the recommendations of their own killer whale recovery team and the scientists’ call for habitat protection.

We have put time and resources into our killer whale protection efforts without any dedicated funding to do so. Yet because we felt this issue was so very important, we persevered regardless.

Now, to preserve the entirety of our legal victory we need your financial help. As always, it is your support of these initiatives that allow us to undertake them using legal, scientific and ethical arguments to defend coastal species.

To support this law suit please visit Defending Our Killer Whale Lawsuit Victory Giving Page, or contact me at misty@raincoast.org

Thank you for your support.

Misty

December 2010

By Chris Darimont, Director of Science for Raincoast

This Holiday Season, I would like to share the introduction published in Tracking Raincoast into 2011. From my family to yours, I wish you all the best of 2011 and ask you to join me in honoring our precious coast.

The future of coastal British Columbia means much more to me now. Being a new parent, I am invested in tomorrow like never before.

This spring, baby Maëlle adventured into the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. There she entered ancient river valleys blessed with salmon – an ocean food that has fed grizzly bears, wolves, eagles and a whole web of life for millennia. I shared with her an ocean bustling with fish, whales, seals, sea lions, dolphins, and birds.

This precious coast will always be a part of who Maëlle is. I envision her exploring tide pools like I did as a child; tasting salmon for the first time; and learning to sail from her grandfather.

But obscuring these idyllic visions are some disquieting thoughts. What if Maëlle inherits a coast like Prince William Sound, where the Exxon Valdez spewed oil across a landscape that is still impacted by the disaster’s aftermath? What if she one day suffers what children of the Gulf Coast will endure over the next several decades in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe?

Why do I worry?

Enbridge Inc. filed their application for the Northern Gateway Project with the National Energy Board in June.

Their troubling scheme includes a twinned pipeline over the rugged Rocky and Coast Mountains between Alberta’s tar sands and the port of Kitimat. Condensate would be shipped to the north coast and piped to Alberta to dilute the thick tar sand’s bitumen. In return, “the world’s dirtiest oil” would be pumped back to the coast and shipped via supertankers to Asian and American markets.

The plan is nothing short of arrogant in its ambition to taunt one of the world’s most rugged landscapes and perilous coastlines. We hear dubious promises of “world-class” safety practices. Will pipeline maintenance match existing Enbridge standards that have polluted Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, wildlife, and people? Are their ocean transport protocols similar to those delivered by BC Ferries, which lost the Queen of the North along the proposed tanker route a few years ago? Will their clean-up responses match BP’s, which failed the Gulf Coast? If anything has been learned from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, it is that even the best available technology can be reduced to irrelevance by human error, malfunction, bad luck, weather, and their wicked convergence.

As you will read in this year’s Tracking Raincoast, our major focus for now and the foreseeable future is addressing and curtailing the risks posed by Northern Gateway. Raincoast is engaging on this issue from every angle with research, education, and advocacy. Everything we have worked for and continue to work for is at stake.

We seek your support for our urgent and important efforts to safeguard BC’s treasured coast.

Dr. Chris Darimont
Science Director, Raincoast Conservation Foundation

TRACKING RAINCOAST INTO 2011

In the coming week you will receive a copy of our annual publication Tracking Raincoast into 2011 in the mail. We would like to share a preview of this beautiful publication today. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to receive a copy, please email christine@raincoast.org.

SEAONS GREETINGS FROM CHRIS GENOVALI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

A sincere thank you from everyone at Raincoast to all our donors for your continued support. In 2011, Raincoast will continue to implement creative strategies and pursue innovative solutions to conservation challenges.

We invite you to join in our efforts on behalf of wild places and wild species throughout the BC coast.

Raincoast Conservation Foundation PO Box 2429 Sidney, BC, Canada V8L 3Y3 Tel: (250) 655-1229
Web: raincoast.org

Photo Credits:

Larry Travis, Eric Sambol, Klaus Pommerenkem, Doug Brown, Tim Irvin

Tracking cover shot: Guillaume Mazille

iend

A conservation update from the Great Bear Rainforest

While sockeye are now entering some of the Fraser River watersheds in the millions, delivering nutrients and food to forests and wildlife, other runs of BC salmon -like chum and pink runs from the Broughton Archipelago up through the central and north coasts – are returning in extremely low numbers. For Raincoast biologist Misty MacDuffee, her prime motivation to protect salmon runs is the importance of these fish to coastal ecosystems. Increasingly, too few salmon are reaching their spawning grounds and the bears and wildlife that need them the most. Chum and pink are the primary salmon source for many coastal bears, yet they are running a marathon gauntlet of nets, hooks, fish farms and habitat changes that prevent them from reaching their spawning destinations.

They need your help.

This Thanksgiving weekend Raincoast Conservation Foundation, with its staff, volunteers, board members and supporters will participate as an official pledge charity in the 31st Annual Goodlife Fitness Victoria Marathon.

Your marathon support will fund our youth outreach initiatives that inspire young people to protect this ecological heritage of coastal lands, waters and wildlife.

Raincoast Conservation Foundation and title sponsor Hemp and Company present SALMON RUN 10-10-10.

THE SALMON RUN TEAM 10-10-10:

Maggy Wages – Raincoast U.S. Board – Full Marathon Giving Page

Misty MacDuffee – Raincoast Biologist – Half Marathon Giving Page

Heather Bryan, Raincoast Biologist – Full Marathon Giving Page

Kyle Artelle, Raincoast Biologist – Half Marathon Giving Page

Andy Rosenberger, Raincoast Researcher – 8 km Road Race Giving Page

Peter Ross, Raincoast Board Member – 8 km Road Race Giving Page

Jane Woodland, Raincoast Board Chair – 8 km Road Race Giving Page

Erin Renwick, Raincoast Supporter – Full Marathon Giving Page

Rachel Maser – Raincoast Supporter – Full Marathon Giving Page

Dariel Sidney – Raincoast Supporter – Full Marathon Giving Page Giving Page

Tanya Brown – Raincoast Supporter – 8 km Road Race Giving Page

Bill, Lorna and the Staff at Hemp & Company Victoria – Title Sponsor Giving Page

A conservation update from the Great Bear Rainforest

Fall 2010 voyage into the land of the Spirit Bear

From Brian Falconer, Raincoast’s Captain of Achiever

Wouldn’t it feel good to know that while you’re having a great time, you’re also supporting a great cause?

We would like to invite you on an extraordinary voyage. Journey with Raincoast into the heart of spirit bear country to experience one of the world’s rarest bears and build support for their protection at the same time.Raincoast now has limited space available on two trips this fall designed to raise awareness about the purchase of a new commercial hunting tenure, as well as fulfill our “hunting obligations” within our existing guide outfitting territory. These trips all occur at the height of the salmon spawning season and present a spectacular opportunity to see bears. The voyage dates are:

Monday September 13 – Sunday, September 19, 2010

Monday, September 20 – Sunday, September 26, 2010

The expedition will be undertaken aboard our sailing vessel, Achiever. The tour starts and ends in Bella Bella, BC from which we will explore river valleys, photograph bears, experience whales, wolves and wilderness throughout our existing guide outfitting territory and within the new guide outfitting territory we intend to acquire.

Trip details:

• Each expedition includes 6 nights aboard Achiever.

• All meals and food are included, as is wine with dinner.

• Special eating requests are easily accommodated with advance notice.

• All trips are guided by trained professionals such as our Captain, Brian Falconer and our licensed Guide Outfitter, Rocky Ashton.

• You will need warm and waterproof clothing including rubber boots.

• Expedition Cost is $3,500 CDN per person.

• Costs for travel to and from Bella Bella, as well as arranging travel to and from Bella Bella, are the responsibility of expedition participants.

Cheques can be made out to Raincoast, or call us with your credit card information. If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to call Brian (250-715-6024) or myself (Chris 250-655-1229, ext 225).

We hope you can join us!

Chris Genovali
Executive Director

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by Michael Price, Biologist, Wild Salmon Program.

Spring is early this year, and signs of its bloom abound. Life on the coast races against time to proliferate before summer sun fades to dark. Less visible are the millions of young sockeye salmon migrating out of their ice-free lakes on route to a salty existence. The majority are travelling down the Fraser River, Canada’s largest salmon producing system. Some have travelled 500 km since the ice retreated; others, 1,000. Their journey has only just begun.  

Photo: Juvenile sockeye are infected with sea lice when they migrate past fish farms in the Discovery Islands.Raincoast is in its fourth year examining the health of juvenile sockeye in Georgia Strait. We’ve noted that these fish are more heavily infected with sea lice than pink and chum salmon, and infection of the young salmon increases as they pass salmon farms. We’ve documented the release of blood, tissue, and live sea lice in the effluent from a fish farm processing facility in the region. Although we have yet to understand just how detrimental these factors are in terms of disease and parasite transfer to juveniles, they are clearly not beneficial.

Fraser River sockeye returned in record low numbers last fall, one percent of what they were a century ago. Fishing pressure has not helped. Low ocean productivity may be partly at fault. Loss of habitat and pollution have surely been detrimental. But what exactly has caused the sharp decline in Fraser sockeye, no one can say with certainty. It may be that the resilience and buffering capacity that allowed populations to recover from harsh and unforeseen events in the past, has been exhausted from a century of human abuse. All we really know, and all that matters, is that they are at the tipping point in their existence.

I am new to parenthood, and all my partner Clare and I think of is how to ensure our son is shielded from as many harmful stressors as possible – instinctively, we know this will improve his chances of living a full life. We can’t protect him from everything, but we can avoid the harmful ones. When it comes to salmon, and particularly vulnerable young Fraser River populations, should we not provide them the same protection? If we are serious about salmon conservation, and wish to ensure our children’s children inherit plentiful returns of salmon, we must begin by alleviating as many human-induced stressors as possible.

Compared to the far-reaching threat of changes in ocean productivity associated with climate warming, risks to wild salmon posed by industries such as salmon farming are far more easily mitigated. One way is to simply remove net-cage salmon farms from the migration routes of juvenile salmon.

The challenge for our generation is to act.

Our spring field season has arrived and is led by Dr. Chris Darimont, Raincoast Director of Science

by Chris Darimont

Possessing only a rudimentary knowledge of gravity, delicate little claws for braking, and pure trust in their momma, brand new grizzly cubs are slip-sliding their way down snowfields this month as they emerge from their high-altitude dens.

Just how many of these adorable little puffballs pop out and greet the Great Bear Rainforest, however, remains to be seen. It depends not just on the severity of last winter or how romantic their parents were in June, but on how many salmon their moms ate the previous fall.

Will hope ‘spring’ eternal for grizzlies this season, or will it be another desperate year on a coast that owes the bears its name?

This question means more to me now than ever. I’ve been blessed with my own ‘cub’ this spring (our first). My partner, Alison (aka ‘Momma Bear’), and I were fortunate; we had access to abundant and high quality foods throughout our pregnancy. Maëlle emerged from the womb happy and healthy. The same may not be true for the bears.

Chris Darimont & family prepare for the field season in the Great Bear

My family will travel with me and the Raincoast team to the Great Bear this week. We will embark on the second year of what we believe to be the most important applied conservation work on the coast: counting bears and cubs, and assessing their health in an era of dwindling salmon runs.

Our work is more urgent than ever. At the policy level, we are pushing forward meaningful changes to salmon harvest regulations that now allocate only a tiny amount of salmon to bears and other wild creatures. Plus, our work provides evidence-based arguments for abandoning the grizzly bear trophy hunt.

These gains — if they come — will be the result in large part of our outreach efforts, which have inspired more and more British Columbians to care about the future of wild salmon and the non-human animals who depend on them.

I ask you to join us this spring. Follow our new blog. Drop us an email. And consider helping us help the cubs of the coast. Your donation, however modest, could lead to something invaluable. Consider it an investment in grizzly cubs for future generations like Maëlle’s to appreciate, enjoy and respect.

For the bears and salmon,

Chris

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

SPRING HUNT 2010
By Chris Genovali

A new decade has dawned, but this month 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 each camp claims science supports their position. Perhaps it is time the debate was conducted within the context of ethical considerations as well.

Captain Brian Falconer leads Raincoast’s Spring and Fall hunts. For more information and to reserve a voyage on the Achiever, please contact brian@ raincoast.org. Don't miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to travel in the realm of B.C.'s coastal bears on Raincoast’s research vessel Achiever and experience a different kind of "hunt.”

In his paper, Environmental Ethics and Trophy Hunting, Dr. 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.”

The compulsion to kill these intelligent, powerful and beautiful animals in order to “bag a trophy” is something poll after poll has shown the average British Columbian cannot fathom.

Raincoast lead the campaign to get a province-wide moratorium on the grizzly hunt enacted in 2001. That ban lasted one hunting season as with a change in government via the spring 2001 election came a revocation of the moratorium. Raincoast’s response was to look for new and creative ways to further grizzly bear conservation – a particularly noteworthy one being the purchase of a 24,000 square kilometer commercial hunting tenure in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Managing and monitoring our guide outfitting territory costs money, as does our efforts to investigate potential additional acquisitions. Speaking of which, we are on the verge of moving forward with another guide outfitting territory purchase – details to come!

We need your support to continue our work to protect bears and other large carnivores on the B.C. coast.

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

By Chris Genovali

"BC has a dark history of marine mammal exploitation..." said Misty MacDuffee, Raincoast biologist and a report author.

Lessons from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska have shown that even after two decades, some species and fisheries still have not recovered.

This includes killer whale populations, some seabird populations, shellfish harvesting and the commercial herring fishery. If the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is constructed from Alberta’s tar sands to Kitimat, we could see supertankers like the Exxon Valdez in BC waters transporting oil to Asian and American off shore markets.

“Our findings show that a spill the size of the Exxon Valdez, which is not even in the top 50 largest oil spills, would have a profound impact on marine mammal and marine bird populations on the BC coast,” said Dr. Paul Paquet, Raincoast senior scientist and an author of the report.

“BC has a dark history of marine mammal exploitation. Since we stopped hunting whales, sea lions, and sea otters to the verge of extinction, we are witnessing their recovery in our coastal waters,” said Misty MacDuffee, Raincoast biologist and a report author. “Now there is talk of putting tanker routes in their feeding grounds and risk their habitats to the threat of a catastrophic spill. More sea otters died in the Exxon Valdez oil spill than exist on the entire central and north coast of BC.”

“Terrestrial wildlife also face great danger from an oiled coast. Coastal grizzly bears and wolves, which rely on marine foods, would suffer in an Exxon-like catastrophe,” said Dr. Chris Darimont, Raincoast large carnivore scientist and an author of the report.

We appreciate your past support.  Your donation will support Raincoast’s efforts to stop the Enbridge pipeline and keep oil tankers off BC’s north coast.

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

By Ian Jansma, Research Assistant

Denny Island Field Station

When I signed up as a volunteer on Raincoast’s salmon-carnivore study, I didn’t realize I’d be spending my days up to my armpits in blood. In the moist, pungent darkness of the ‘Blood Shed’, I mix fish oil and cow’s blood into a frothy cocktail with a stench so eye-wateringly acrid, yet so sickly sweet, that it will be irresistible to grizzly bears.Though distasteful to the vegetarians among us (and to the omnivores, for that matter), at least I’m making good use of fishing and beef industry byproducts. Better still, I’m helping with an important and unprecedented grizzly study in the Great Bear Rainforest. Alongside a companion project undertaken by our partner, Coast Watch (a Heiltsuk First Nation initiative from nearby Bella Bella), our studies are providing the first scientific analysis of grizzly bear numbers and distribution on the central coast.

Some of the other volunteers are on their way to remote estuaries, or hiking centuries old bear trails into the rugged coastal mountains. Meanwhile, this is my time to shine. I must act quickly – before the blood coagulates too much – and add the final ingredient: a splash of beaver castor oil.

The beaver oil is bottled for hunters, and we use it for much the same purpose as they do: to attract bears. But, while hunted bears may find themselves between a bait barrel and the barrel of a gun, the bears in our study area will find only an unsatisfying pile of bloody moss that smells strangely of fish and beavers. We don’t desire bear hides on our floor; we want only a few hairs. Our bears will investigate the bait, leave small tufts of hair on a strand of barbed wire that surrounds the site, and move on.

We have a hundred sites across a vast area, and we all work around the clock for six weeks each spring to bait them and collect the hair samples. The hair will go to laboratories where DNA, stable isotopes, and even hormones are extracted. DNA, along with GIS mapping, tell the tale of the coastal bears’ numbers and movement patterns. Stable isotopes are used to calculate the amount of salmon each bear has eaten. Collectively these data, taken over several seasons, will be vital in determining how bear birth and growth rates are affected by changes in salmon abundance. Overall, we will have a remarkably vibrant picture of bear health on our coast.

Having reliable information on the health of bear populations will help direct conservation efforts. It will also inform any debate in which bears are stakeholders, including the debate over trophy hunting. One thing is already clear: bears suffer an increasingly long list of abuses to their way of life, from decimation of their habitat by industrial forestry to depletion of their food source by chronic overfishing, fish farms and changing ocean conditions. Hunters’ bullets and arrows are not the only things killing bears. Still, I’m confident that one result of our work will be to help end the hugely unpopular trophy bear hunt in British Columbia.

While “bear baiting” is not a legal hunting method in BC, trophy hunting is permitted for big carnivores, including grizzly bears. The debate over trophy hunting in our province is unresolved and seems to be at a standstill. The political weight of overwhelming public opposition doesn’t quite outweigh the political clout of trophy hunting lobbies. What’s needed is a good dose of real science to tip the scales.

Meanwhile the bears try to go on as they have for millennia. For some bears we realize the science will not come soon enough. That’s why we also encourage everyone who cares about bears to take action and demand more from our government. After I scrub off the smell of stale blood and fish oil, I’m going to write my MLAs demanding they take the health of our bear populations seriously, for there is blood on their hands as well. After all, it’s an ethical issue as well as a scientific one, and a groundswell of public support increases the impact of our recommendations.

In the meantime, the lab technicians need not worry that they have the least glamorous part of the research. But if from the Blood Shed I can help inform better fisheries management, inspire people to share resources with bears, and of course end the bloodshed, then I do it gladly.

Click on the Canada Helps button to support this work.

Three pillars form the underpinnings of Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s mission: informed advocacy, scientific research, and environmental ethics. Informed advocacy drives all Raincoast’s conservation efforts; it’s a distinctive approach that has earned us a unique niche in the environmental movement. Our advocacy is informed by rigorous scientific research and guided by environmental ethics. This allows us to broaden the knowledge of our fragile coast but also deliver a strong conservation message.

As a long standing supporter of Raincoast, I encourage you to invest in their science and research protecting coastal wildlife in British Columbia. Dr. Bristol Foster, Raincoast Board Member Emeritus and Raincoast Donor

For example, Raincoast is re-defining animal welfare. We believe the philosophical boundaries that have traditionally defined animal welfare should be broadened to include protection of wild species and their habitat. In our view, securing the life requisites for marine and terrestrial wildlife is the quintessential application of animal welfare.

Safeguarding carnivores from the trophy hunt.  Protecting species from the dangers of oil spills. Ensuring animals are not deprived of critical food resources, like spawning salmon. Advocating for strategies that will help wildlife survive in the face of climate change. In our view, these are all animal welfare issues.

Raincoast continues to implement creative strategies and pursue innovative and practical solutions in 2010 and beyond – from science like our Salmon Carnivore research that links salmon abundance with bear health, to acquiring additional guide outfitting territories, to bringing our conservation message to millions through traditional and new media sources.

Your support of Raincoast enables this work. It protects coastal wildlife, it builds science literacy in youth, and it inspires ambassadors and protectors of our precious coast line.

We hope you will consider a donation today to our annual Fall appeal. Please do not hesitate to call me with any questions or comments at (250) 655-1229 extension 225.

Sincerely,

Chris Genovali
Executive Director
Raincoast Conservation Foundation

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

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by Mike Price

Biologist, Raincoast Aquaculture Campaign
September 2009

The headlines continue to blare across local, regional, and national newspapers: 11 million Fraser River sockeye missing; poor early marine survival blamed.

Earlier this summer, Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s aquaculture field crew was searching the waters among the Discovery Islands at the northern end of Georgia Strait for juvenile sockeye. An unexpectedly beautiful and rich waterway off Vancouver Island’s east coast, the Discovery Islands host one of the largest salmonid migrations on the planet. It is also now home to BC’s highest concentration of salmon farms. There is growing concern that farm-origin sea lice are infecting migrating juvenile sockeye from the Fraser River; hence, our study.

The now missing Fraser sockeye were on course to migrate through this region in the summer of 2007, the first year of Raincoast’s sockeye project. Roughly 60% of the sockeye smolts we sampled that spring were of Fraser River origin, with Chilko and Quesnel stocks dominating the samples. Chilko is the largest producer of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River, and over 78 million fry left the lake in the spring of 2007 heading towards the Discovery Islands.

Even at a low survival rate, the return from these fish alone should have been 1,000,000 sockeye. Since ocean conditions were considered favourable for marine survival during the 2007 out-migration, DFO predicted high spawner returns of over 10 million sockeye. Yet, these fish have failed to show.

Could sea lice infection be the reason so many sockeye of Fraser origin failed to return, just as pink salmon populations have shown declines in another farm region? We are currently trying to answer this. One idea emerging from the scientific community is not that juvenile salmon necessarily die as a direct result of being infected by lice, but rather indirectly. For example, juveniles infected by lice show slower swimming speeds and ‘loner’ behaviour, two characteristics that encourage increased predation risk; more juveniles infected with lice from farms, more food for natural predators, less returning salmon.

Poor early marine survival is the likely cause for the missing Fraser sockeye – question is, are salmon farms the culprit. At Raincoast, we hope our Discovery Islands sea lice research will shed some light on the Fraser sockeye issue.

Support this work

by Caroline Fox
Raincoast Biologist and UVic PhD Student

Hazard Point April 2009

Leaning over the side of my skiff at dusk, I peer into the clear, blue waters off Hazard Point, Quatsino Sound. Just below the calm surface, hundreds of tonnes of tightly-packed Pacific herring school. They dart and boil in a camouflaged blue-black unison broken only by the occasional silvery flash of their sides. Contained within their bodies, eggs and milt are almost ready to be released in one of the most spectacular events on the coast; the annual spawning of herring.

And it all begins sometime during the night. Aggregations of male herring release milt or sperm, coloring the nearshore water chalky white as they “milk the beach”, as the fishermen say. And in the opaque white water, each female herring lays thousands of sticky eggs upon the eelgrass and kelps, upon the rockweed and upon the rocks themselves. Once buoyant canopy kelps grow heavy with layers of eggs and in a few places, they begin to lay down in great tangled mats on the seafloor.

In the vast kelp forest spread out before me at dawn, hundreds of Mew, Bonaparte’s, Glaucous-winged, Thayer’s, Herring and California Gulls forage on herring eggs in a wild, swirling cacophony interrupted by predatory Bald Eagles. Scoters, dabbling ducks and cormorants whir past on their way to feed in the sheltered bays further up the inlet while hundreds more settle together in dense flocks in deeper waters. Sea otters dive, bringing up kelp blades encrusted in eggs to be eaten at the surface. A grey whale snuffles in the shallows while humpback whales and Stellar’s sea lions chase the adult herring back and forth across the bay.

As one of the great, historically abundant and heavily exploited fishes of the North Pacific Ocean, Pacific herring still underpin much of the coastal foodweb. Spawning where the land meets the sea, Pacific herring also provide an opportunity to examine the trophic relationships and ecological consequences of a herring pulse to coastal ecosystems, many of which remain unknown to science. Unlike a number of other areas along the coast, herring still reliably spawn in this remote inlet located on Northern Vancouver Island. Part of the ‘silver wave’, this spawn is one of many that still stretch south to north along the Pacific coast of North America and over to Asia each year.

Chris Genovali
Executive Director, Raincoast
May 2009

Last fall I visited numerous watersheds in the Great Bear Rainforest where an unnatural silence filled the air due to the lack of returning salmon. In many systems not a single bear, wolf or even eagle was to be seen. When I did finally see grizzly bears, what I witnessed was deeply disturbing. At a time when they should be gorging themselves on salmon for winter fat, these grizzlies had resorted to furiously digging in the estuary for plant roots.

Grizzlies-especially coastal grizzlies-face a suite of threats to their survival. Destruction of their habitat and overexploitation of the salmon on which their very lives depend may be complicated, multifaceted issues to address. But one threat is not: trophy hunting.

Photos, video and hunt sales on eBay are time sensitive. These photos were downloaded April 30, 2009.

That the government of British Columbia continues to permit grizzly bears to be shot and killed for sport in our parks and protected areas is not only anachronistic from a wildlife management perspective, it is ethically deplorable as well.

While hunters, governments, and conservationists continue to argue about the population status of grizzlies, the inescapable truth is that killing these magnificent animals for sport, trophy, and profit has no place in today’s society.

It’s hard to believe, but these “recreational hunting opportunities” are now bought and sold on the world’s largest on-line auction site, eBay.

In February 2009, Raincoast and our US partner Big Wildlife, approached eBay to request they end sales of carnivore sport hunting on their website, citing that such sales glorify and promote profound animal suffering for fun and profit. Due to eBay’s hesitation, we met with them personally in California to present additional evidence of the ecological, evolutionary, economic and ethical arguments to stop trophy hunting. Further talks ensued. eBay had until April 30 to decide.

Note that eBay also sells African leopard and lion hunts. To see a full listing of hunts that eBay offers go to: Home/Buy/Sporting Goods/Outdoor Sports/ Hunting /Hunting Trips & Leases.

On May 1, eBay announced they would continue their sale of trophy hunting, arguing that the activities “comply with applicable laws” and they only discontinue sales of items the public finds offensive. Clearly, eBay needs to hear from you as to whether gunning down grizzlies as they fish for salmon, treeing cougars with dogs, and blasting away wolves for fun is offensive. We urge you to contact eBay and add your voice to this debate.

The campaign to stop eBay’s auctioning of trophy hunts is just one of our efforts to protect grizzlies and other coastal carnivores. In 2005, Raincoast purchased a guide outfitting territory, forever putting the conservation of grizzlies as the top priority in a 24,000 sq km region. We are currently in discussions to add additional territories and, with the necessary funding, dramatically expand our protection and monitoring efforts.

Most spring grizzly hunts have largely been sold, however they will be back for the fall hunt. Click on photo to watch a grizzly hunt promotional video by the BC Guide Outfitters

Action empowers. Action matters. Use the link in the side bar to donate today. And please consider joining our Monthly Giving program for sustained support of our work.

You can help us in the fight to ban trophy hunting of grizzlies, black bears, wolves and other large carnivores in the Great Bear Rainforest. We need your financial support to continue our leadership role in protecting wildlife in this region. Your dollars translate into a voice at the table where key decisions in the debates that matter to you are taking place.

Thank you for your support! We’ll keep you updated on the eBay campaign and our other initiatives.

Email ebay at press@ebay.com

Sample Message to eBay: I have recently learned that eBay sells trophy hunting of North American bears, wolves, and cougars as well as African cats. I believe this is ethically indefensible and that these activities further violence toward animals for ego gratification and profit. Further, trophy hunting adds to the many threats these species already face. I am asking you to end the sales of these activities.