population analysis | Raincoast Conservation Foundation

Connecting the invisible to the visible

Published on 2020 01 21 | by Lauren Henson, Raincoast Research Fellow | in Notes from the Field

A black bear forages in the estuary with the tide out.

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…

Raising the bar: Recovery ambition for species at risk in Canada and the US

Published on 2019 12 19 | by Raincoast | in Scientific Literature

Southern Resident kill whale, J50, swims off, with the research figures in the top right.

An estimated one million species are at risk of extinction globally. In Canada and the United states, there is legislation that is intended to protect species at risk. However, the majority of species are not recovering in either country.

Increasing salmon hatcheries could do more harm than good for Chinook and Southern Resident killer whales

Published on 2019 08 13 | by Misty MacDuffee, Nick Gayeski, & Chris Genovali | in For the coast

A killer whale chases a chinook salmon in the Salish Sea.

Hatcheries have failed to protect or restore the old ages, big sizes, range of migration times and diversity of wild Chinook salmon. For Southern Residents to recover, the age structure and run timing of wild Chinook runs, along with abundance, need to be restored. This is not the objective of hatcheries…

Salmon species diversity predicts salmon consumption by terrestrial wildlife

Published on 2019 01 07 | by Raincoast | in Scientific Literature

A collage of images and graphs from a published peer reviewed article on salmonid species diversity and bear health: Hakai, Raincoast, University of Victoria, and Spirit Bear Foundation logos at the bottom.

Research by scientists at Spirit Bear Research Foundation, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, and the University of Victoria, led by Christina Service, shows that salmon species diversity – the number of spawning salmon species available – is far more important and positively related to salmon consumption in coastal black bears than biomass abundance…

From meerkats to killer whales

Published on 2018 10 02 | by Andrew W. Bateman, Raincoast Research Scientist | in Inform

A family of meerkats stand together watching, while a young member opens their mouth and shows their tongue.

For animal species that form social groups, living together can have a strong effect on individuals’ chances of survival and reproduction, and ultimately on how population sizes change over time. New work, led by myself in collaboration with a team of researchers from Canada, the UK, and Switzerland, combines theory and data to shed light […]