What's new // Raincoast updates
Notes, details, updates and miscellaneous thoughts.
By Chris Genovali Calgary Herald, Nov 30, 2009 Re: “Climate plan will take 40 years: Prentice,” Nov. 21. Climate scientist James Hansen of NASA states we have already passed the threshold for “maximum permissible concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
Scientific AmericanBy Anne Casselman Scientists are collecting hairs from live bears to prevent population declines as a result of declines in a principal food source: salmon. For most of May, Chris Darimont, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, poured liters of fermented cattle blood mixed with pureed rotten fish guts on…
Multiple conservation groups concerned about grizzly bears on the BC central coast have sent a letter to Environment Minister Barry Penner requesting a cancellation of the fall grizzly hunt. Anecdotal accounts of very low bear numbers on fall streams warrants an immediate cautionary response by the government. Since no population assessment or annual monitoring is…
Williams, R. and L. Thomas. 2007. Distribution and abundance of marine mammals in the coastal waters of British Columbia, Canada. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management. 9(1):15-28 Marine mammal abundance paper.pdf
Thomas, L., R. Williams, and D. Sandilands, D. 2007. Designing line transect surveys for complex survey regions. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management. 9(1):1-13, Survey Design Paper.pdf
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.
FOCUS September 2009 Re: The elephant in the room, congratulations to Katherine Palmer Gordon for the in-depth article on climate change in August’s Focus.
by Mike Price Times Colonist August 29, 2009 Raincoast Conservation agrees with Clare Backman that caution should be used before laying blame for the Fraser River sockeye collapse on salmon farms (“Don’t blame fish farms for sockeye decline,” Aug. 27).
by Chris Genovali Edmonton Journal August 31, 2009 Re: “Bears kept eating as companions shot; ‘Serious public safety issue’ required quick action, official says,”. The massacre – as one local resident described it – at the Conklin dump is a reminder of similar problems here in British Columbia with “control kills” of bears.
Edmonton Journal, August 10, 2009 By Chris Genovali, A recent Canwest News report described how “China’s energy buying spree is bypassing Canada’s oilpatch.” Depending on one’s viewpoint, this could besomething to lament or something to be relieved about.
I had spent the entire day hiking solo around Trutch Island on B.C.’s central coast looking for the feces of canis lupus for Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s wolf research project. Trutch doesn’t have a lot of distinguishing features and the landscape became somewhat uniform in the stupefaction caused by 10 hours of bush whacking.
Plastics impact the health of our oceans and wildlife. Plastic bag litter has a lethal effect on countless numbers of seabirds, turtles, whales and seals annually. Read our article, “Of Whales and Plastic.” On behalf of our marine ecosystems and future generations, we commend Thrifty Foods for their leadership in eliminating plastic bags from distribution.