What's new // Kitasoo-Xai’xais
The research found that bears can avoid ecotourists and take multiple weeks after encounters to return to their baseline activity levels. This new information can help fine-tune bear management and sustainable business practices.
The first signs happened decades ago. KXN community members began to report a decline in sightings of goats once frequently seen from river valleys and the ocean. These patterns were alarming, given the immense cultural value of goats to the Kitasoo Xai’xais people.
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.
In 2021, Raincoast welcomed a new marine operations manager and Captain, Drew Grav-Graham, to the team. Having made the jump from the ecotourism industry, Drew brings a wealth of experience and renewed enthusiasm for SV Achiever and the marine program. Diving straight into months of seabird surveys off the west coast of Vancouver Island in the winter…
Recent projects highlight a couple recent and tangible ways in which our research supports not only human-wildlife coexistence but also renewed self-determination by Indigenous governments.
On the central coast, genetic analyses have identified three genetic groups of grizzly bears — bears are more likely to be related to other bears within their own group than to bears in another group.
In the landscape on the central coast of what is now known as British Columbia, genetic analyses have identified three distinct genetic groups of grizzly bears. The spatial areas of these groups align strikingly well with the geographies of three Indigenous language families (Tsimshian, Northern Wakashan, Salishan Nuxalk). The explanation the research partnership favours is…
The paper, “Intrapopulation foraging niche variation between phenotypes and genotypes of Spirit bear populations,” was published in the open-access journal Ecology and Evolution.
This year’s exceptional winning papers span topics as diverse as spirit bear genetics, coral reef productivity, plants reclaiming mining land and classifying elephants as refugees.
In this last session of Coastal Insights, we will be joined by some of the inspiring young leaders who are taking action in their communities to sustain and protect the coast.
Umbrella species like the grizzly bear and apex predators such as the killer whale are a focus of Raincoast’s conservation efforts precisely because they are reliant on a broader range of species and processes, and a more complex system to which they contribute to and depend on…
White on white is hard to see. It is especially difficult when what’s white is a mountain goat tucked into the nooks and crannies at the top of a mountain. These elusive animals cling to the windswept peaks of the coastal mountains of British Columbia where they find relief from warm summer temperatures and the…