Help protect Spirit bears
The Kitasoo Xai’xais and Gitga’at Nations are proposing to close black bear hunting within their respective territories in a small area of the Great Bear Rainforest with the highest concentration of Spirit bears.
Research: Dietary differences among individuals with different genes and coat colours gives insight into the maintenance of the Spirit bears among black bear populations
The paper, “Intrapopulation foraging niche variation between phenotypes and genotypes of Spirit bear populations,” was published in the open-access journal Ecology and Evolution.
Connecting the invisible to the visible
As modern scientists, we frequently deal in abstraction. We are separated from the species and ecosystems we study often by hundreds of miles, bureaucratic bubbles, cloistered campuses, and the machinations of innumerable statistical analyses whirring silently away in the electric flatness…
B.C.’s human-wildlife conflict response needs reform
Recent events have raised important legal questions about the policies, practices, and procedures of the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service (BCCOS) for responding to human-wildlife conflicts. This past summer was marked by multiple encounters involving people and black bears in the Lower Mainland, with accompanying BCCOS-related controversy as well. In a high-profile incident in Coquitlam,…
Update: closing in on securing the Nadeea tenure
We now have bids on a number of pieces and we’ve sold limited editions prints. Thanks to numerous donations, large and small, we have now raised $313,182…
Notes from the (pre) field: “Caution – bear research in progress”
With spring comes organized chaos as graduate students and research associates transition from laboratory work, data analysis and writing, to a flurry of preparation for an upcoming season of monitoring bears on the central coast of British Columbia. We are headed to Gitga’at, Heiltsuk, Kitasoo/Xai’xais, Nuxalk and Wuikinuxv Territories to join…
Raincoast submission on the grizzly hunt consultation
On November 1, 2017, Raincoast submitted our comments to the Province of British Columbia’s grizzly hunt consultation process…
Decade-long increase in hunting licences for grizzlies & black bears
Travis Lupick / Georgia Straight
This season, more bear hunters are expected to take to the province’s forests than in any year in recent memory…
The economics and ethics of trophy hunting
Judith Lavoie / Focus Magazine
Instead of boosting the profitable bear viewing sector, the BC government is re-opening the grizzly hunt in three areas of the province…
Wildlife wandering in the city unlikely to get out alive
By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
When conservation officers respond to a bear or cougar in a populated area, the animal will usually be shot rather than relocated, says B.C.’s top conservation officer…
Black bears prefer waterfront
By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
December 18, 2010
Remote waterfront property has its limitations when it comes to comfortable, long-term winter accommodation. None of that, though, apparently deters Vancouver Island black bears…
Coexisting with bears
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.