The comeback of eight animal species in Cascadia illustrates how humans can change destructive practices of the past, say scientists
The news is often filled with the dangers confronting mammals and birds of the West Coast, whether Orca whales, spotted owls, bats, swallows or Grizzlies.
Articles cite the many ways that human recklessness, pollution, climate change, building development, pesticides, hunting, micro-plastics and more put the creatures of B.C. at risk.
While it will always be necessary to probe the ways humans harm wild creatures, some biologists, ecologists and environmentalists believe it’s also worth noting when people have figured out ways to shore up the natural world.
Sea otters. Peregrine falcons. Humpback whales. Elephant Seals. These are just some of the species that have recovered in B.C.
“There’s hope,” says author and conservationist Rob Butler, who worked for decades as a biologist for the Canadian Wildlife Service. “If you just give things a break, species will come back.”
Over decades, even over a century.
Many lessons can be learned when animal populations successfully return, which scientists say has become possible because humans have developed greater appreciation of the world’s inter-connectedness.
“There’s more understanding that there are modest things we can do that can bring about big changes in animal populations,” says University of B.C. forestry biologist Peter Arcese. “There’s good evidence that, to a large degree, we have agency in the environment.”
To spell out the way forward, Butler puts it this way: Animal conservation has “three Ps,” he says.
“Stop persecuting them. Stop polluting them. And give them a place to live. If you do that, generally a species will recover and come back.”
The following is a look at the approaches that have worked for eight species of mammals and birds on the West Coast:
Bald eagles
In 1975 a study found just 90 bald eagles in all of western Washington state.
People were hunting and killing bald eagles for their wing feathers and feet, largely for costumes and ornamentation.
“I hate to say it, but eagle parts were the kind of things that some people used to dry and hang in cars on their rearview mirrors,” says Arcese.
It was illegal, but laws mostly went unenforced.
In the past 50 years, however, there has been a dramatic turnaround in bald eagle populations.
“Now there are at least 90 eagle nests in the Greater Vancouver region alone,” Arcese says.
And it wasn’t just that humans became outraged by the callous use of bald eagle parts. It was because the agricultural pesticide DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972 and in Canada in 1985.
Peregrine falcons
This predatory bird, which feeds on ducks and shorebirds, went on the endangered list in the middle of the last century.
It was particularly vulnerable to DDT, which concentrates in eggshells and makes them thin. Young falcons’ eggs would easily break during incubation.
“Yet now those birds are reproducing as they did historically,” says Arcese. “They’re coming back in abundance.”
Trumpeter swans
These magnificent birds were aggressively hunted in the 1950s on the Fraser River Delta.
“When I was a kid some biologists were wondering if this species would become extinct,” says Butler, 74. “But when the hunting was stopped, and they were provided with habitat, they came back. They’re no longer on the endangered list.”
He invites Metro Vancouver bird-lovers to head out to see trumpeter swans in November when they migrate through.
Sea otters
In the 1970s the few sea otters that survived on the West Coast were in California and Alaska.
“Sea otters once numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the North Pacific Ocean,” says the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission. “But due to the fur trade, their numbers plummeted in the early 1900s. The threat to the southern sea otter posed by oil spills prompted its listing as a threatened species in 1977.”
Sea otters had disappeared from B.C. by the 1950s. But in 1969 Canadian and U.S. biologists captured 89 sea otters in Alaska and flew them to Checleset Bay on the remote northwest coast of Vancouver Island. They began forming colonies. Their population in B.C. is now estimated at about 7,000. Biologists hope they will soon start returning in numbers to the Salish Sea.
Humpback whales
Stories from the 1890s recount humpback whales feeding mightily on millions of oolichan at the mouth of the Fraser River.
“But we hunted whales until 1968 in British Columbia, including in the Strait of Georgia,” says Arcese, bringing them close to extinction.
It was only long after the hunting of humpback whales was internationally banned that their numbers slowly began to climb.
In 2022 the Canadian Pacific Humpback Collaboration, a collection of groups that collate sightings from researchers and citizen scientists, found 400 humpbacks in the Salish Sea.
Last year, marine naturalist Tasli Shaw recorded 800 individual sightings.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see it,” Arcese said. “But two years ago I was kayaking out of Port McNeil and went past six humpback whales and a bunch of sea otters,” he says. “I was nearly upended when a humpback came up underneath me.”
Marmots
But Adam Taylor of the Marmot Recovery Foundation estimates 316 Vancouver Island marmots are now living at 30 sites, most in colonies in the alpine of either the Nanaimo Lakes region or Strathcona Park.
While many of the marmots are now born in the wild, their ancestors were bred in captivity in intensive recovery programs, then released. The programs were initiated in 1997 by the Marmot Recovery Foundation, the province of B.C., the Toronto Zoo, Calgary Zoo, Mount Washington Alpine Resort and timber companies such as Mosaic Forest Management.
Red-tailed hawks
These birds were once labelled “chicken hawks” because they would harass people’s chickens, ducks and geese in their backyards. They were trapped and killed.
While Arcese says people have a right to protect their domestic animals, he finds it hopeful that red-tailed hawk populations are expanding again because there is “increasing public awareness these species aren’t just pests.”
Elephant seals
These massive marine mammals were hunted for their blubber and oil in the late 1800s on the West Coast of North America.
“Some think their numbers declined to as few as 45 individuals in the early 1900s,” says Arcese. Since they were losing genetic diversity, there was skepticism about whether they could come back. “So one of the more amazing stories is the recent arrival of elephant seals.”
“Now the issue is keeping our eyes wide open,” cautions Arcese. That’s because elephant seals hungrily devour clams, especially geoducks, which are a prized product of B.C.’s aquaculture industry.
Lessons learned: Room to grow is key
What lessons are to be learned from the recovery of these eight species and more in B.C.?
In addition to putting an end to the persecution and pollution of mammals and birds, it’s been crucial to give creatures an expansive place to live.
About four decades ago less than one per cent of the Fraser River Delta, which stretches from north of Vancouver airport to Boundary Bay, was protected for wildlife. Now, says Butler, about 40 per cent of it is under various wildlife management agreements.
“There is no way we can protect species in piecemeal, postage-stamp-size environments,” says Arcese. That’s why he supports a worldwide initiative to designate at least 30 per cent of the planet’s land and sea as protected areas by 2030.
However, despite the progress in some regions, including B.C., there remain many mammals and birds on the West Coast of Canada that are nowhere near as abundant as in the past — like salmon, cod, swallows, oolichan, swifts and the oft-cited spotted owl.
And while environmental groups like the Wilderness Committee and the Sierra Club have been pressing Victoria to create standalone species-at-risk legislation, the B.C. government emphasizes such creatures are protected through various pieces of provincial legislation, such as the B.C. Wildlife Act, the Land Act and the B.C. Forest and Range Practices Act.
While generally endorsing such measures, Arcese adds one clarification: efforts to “protect” species shouldn’t mean eradicating all their natural predators. Predators can be highly beneficial to land and sea systems, whether they’re wolves or peregrine falcons. Natural predators “put the fear” into animals, Butler says, causing them to adapt their migration, nesting and feeding patterns in often ingenious ways, which can help preserve their own species and others.
When it comes to finding sources of hope for the future of threatened species, Butler is encouraged not only by various kinds of legislation and conservation efforts, but also by the way humans are growing evermore appreciative of natural systems. He’s thrilled that the bird-watching movement has exploded, for instance, and that donations to conservation efforts continue to rise.
More and more people are realizing that they’re an integral part of the landscape, says Arcese. Long before European settlers came to what is now called B.C., he says Indigenous people harvested plants and trees and hunted birds, fish and mammals — practising “stewardship.”
Since human populations are increasingly spreading into natural habitats and challenging animal populations, Arcese proposes we keep searching for the best ways to be responsible stewards of nature, whether by reducing pollution, adjusting hunting rules or providing animals with more space.
“I think one of the biggest lessons is recognizing it took us 100 years to understand the ramifications of human impact on the landscape,” he says. “So now we need to look at the past and re-evaluate what’s been successful and what hasn’t.”