What's new // Raincoast updates
Notes, details, updates and miscellaneous thoughts.
I’m a Papa now, and in my new role I have learned a lot about just how hard Mommas work. Gestating. Lactating. Comforting. Safeguarding. Loving. (Not) sleeping. Sacrificing. Repeat. Hour by hour. Day after day. For years. Today I want to share with you a very special mother. She is the mother-of-three grizzly we wrote…
To protect BC’s wild sockeye salmon and truly drive conservation in the world’s oceans, the Marine Stewardhip Council (MSC) needs to address the structural flaws in their certification process and commit to incorporating ecosystem objectives for marine and terrestrial environments.
Now that this year’s field crew for the salmon carnivore project has disbanded I find myself reminiscing about the experience by obsessively cycling through photos. Though a vast amount of photos were taken during the field season, wildlife images captured by our trail cameras stand out as especially extraordinary. There’s something intensely captivating about watching…
As the field season draws to a close, I finally have the time to reflect on some of our experiences. As it appears, somebody else is doing some reflection. We are pulling some of our remote cameras and inspecting the images of bears at our non-invasive hair-snagging stations.
The ancient Goddess of Justice, Themis, stands with her scales; an avenger in her earliest portrayals, but evolved to wear a blindfold in more recent times to represent the principles of modern law. For me, today’s goddess of justice is standing in the middle of a federal courtroom in downtown Vancouver, conveying the facts and…
The field crew has just ended the final round of helicopter sites. I stayed on terra firma for this round, and as such the past few days have taken on a more relaxed pace. With my feet firmly on the ground and with time to reflect on the weeks gone by my head has been…
Ever been thrilled with lots of traffic during your morning commute? We were yesterday. Heading up a nearby channel to hit our bear hair-snagging stations, we encountered a herd of about 75 Pacific White Sided Dolphins. We maintained our course and speed and they chose to come play with us.
We approach the site in silence, hoping to find evidence of an ursid visitor. Crouching close to the ground, we examine each barb along the 25 m of fencing we set up. Having set up 71 of these barbed wire hair snagging stations across 5000 square kilometers, our work now consists of returning to each…
Fraser River sockeye returned in record low numbers last fall, one percent of what they were a century ago
Elected officials need to hear public support for allocating salmon to bears. The federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans makes decisions every day that effect the allocation of salmon to various interests. Until very recently, wildlife were never mentioned in the decision-making process. Now, a policy exists that states the ecosystem, specifically bears and other…
I think about the future of this precious coast much more often now. This is because I am now invested in it like never before; my partner and I have brought a little girl into this world two months ago. She’s in Bella Bella with me during field work. She’s had her first boat rides,…
Last week we had a howling southeast rip through. Good timing.