The following was published in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman.
And they called it Paradise, I don’t know why.
Call some place Paradise, kiss it good-bye.
- The Eagles, from The Last Resort.
A couple trips to Calgary lately have taken me past the main road leading to the Flathead valley. If you don’t know which road it is, find yourself a map and look it up. I’m not going to tell you.
I half expected a large sign to be erected at the turn-off from Highway 3 directing travelers to nirvana. The news lately seems to have been all Flathead, all the time.
Wildsight has been targeting the valley for a while now. Not content with a moratorium on mineral and petroleum exploration and development, their intent remain firmly set on a National Park.
National Geographic has added to the siren call of the Flathead, highlighting the area in its Crown of the Continent campaign encouraging people from all over to come visit the Serengeti of the North.
Is a national park really in the valley’s best interest? While there may be merits to that extent of formal protection, I have trouble supporting it. The Flathead is advertised by park proponents as ‘wild’ or an ‘intact watershed,’ implying there is no significant development within the river’s drainage basin in Canada.
At times, forestry activity has been heavy – chasing beetle epidemics in the 1970s and 80s – but trees grow back much quicker than mountains ripped apart for coal or minerals. Even a giant geezly clearcut looks all soft and fuzzy from a distance within a few years of replanting.
Ultimately, it’s the Flathead’s wildness that appeals to so many. And if the Flathead is still considered wild after a century or more of being ‘unprotected’, then clearly something is going right.
What is going right is there are few people there. There are no towns and the few roads are unmarked, largely unknown and often in miserable shape.
A National Park could very well bring pressure from Ottawa to plant a large brown road sign with a stylized beaver on it somewhere in the Elk Valley (watch for one pointing out Waterton Lakes National Park heading into Pincher Creek). Will there be pressure to pave the road? Put in formal campsites or a visitor centre? Why take the chance?
The shifting sands of Parks Canada Agency management adds little security. In the early 1990’s, Parks was moved to Heritage Canada with the slogan ‘Parks are for People.’ The notion of environmental protection was a distant whim. Then later in the decade, the tide turned. Parks were moved back to the Department of Environment and a national panel on Ecological Integrity shifted the focus back to environment. More recently, Parks Canada Agency operates almost entirely as its own entity and has swung back to the Parks are for People focus with environmental emphasis downgraded. A new park arising under this mandate is very likely to have significant pressures to be marketed for its vast recreational opportunities.
The Flathead is often cited as supporting the greatest density of inland grizzly bears in North America, one result of long-term research by Dr. Bruce McLellan with BC Ministry of Forests and Range. One of Dr. McLellan’s key findings of what limits grizzly bears? Traffic volume. Not so much the road itself, but how much traffic is on it. Gravel’s better than paved, but the best thing for grizzly bears is lack of human presence. Advertising the Flathead as a destination will not help the local grizzly population.
To me, the best option for protecting the Flathead is designating much of it as a Wildlife Management Area (WMA). This would restrict development, but maintain most, if not all the activities currently taking place in the valley.
One the best examples of selecting a WMA over a National Park is the Columbia Wetlands WMA running from Canal Flats to Donald. Local proponents for the WMA wanted to retain hunting and fishing opportunities and felt the full protection of a National Park was not only unnecessary, but unwanted. The leader of that push was the late Ian Jack of Invermere. His job? Chief Naturalist with Kootenay National Park.
So to those seeking greater protection of the Flathead, I ask that you consider more broadly accepted options that may well achieve the ultimate goal most of us want for the Flathead: a wild valley. And please, stop advertising paradise before we kiss it good bye.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Plight of the Pika
The following column was published in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman February 18, 2010.
Most hikers who frequent the local alpine crags are familiar with one of the more endearing mammals of our area. Pikas are more often heard than seen, giving their short, shrill alarm distinct to the high mountains. If you stay still long enough and have keen eyes, you’ll find them looking out from talus pile hideouts watching nervously for trouble.
Pikas are lagomorphs, kin to rabbits and hares, and not rodents. They probably reached their zenith as a family sometime in the Pleistocene, aided by the cooler northern temperatures. They are well adapted to survive frigid mountain winters, but are highly susceptible to heat stress in temperatures over 27ºC. Today, the few species remaining are found mostly in Asia. Two are here in North America. The American Pika is found from central California and northern New Mexico, north to the Prince George area. The Collared Pika is farther north throughout most of Yukon and eastern Alaska. While there may be few species of pika, there have been 18 sub-species of American Pika identified. This reflects their highly isolated populations and minimal dispersal abilities.
Pikas are strongly associated with talus slopes, where they make their homes and seek refuge from predators, that are adjacent to grassy meadows where they forage for food. This specific habitat requirement limits them to alpine areas and crossing the forested landscape between their preferred habitats is not an easy task. Life as a dispersing, juvenile pika is not easy.
Their habitat is best viewed as ‘islands’ in a sea of inhospitable forests which isolates one group of pikas from the neighbouring alpine area. Their population ecology is an excellent fit of Island Biogeography theory that I discussed in my last column. Rather than number of species however, the question is the number of individuals. Smaller alpine ‘islands’ will support fewer individuals, which will leave them susceptible to random environmental effects such as poor weather which may wipe out an entire year’s reproduction effort. Smaller populations are more vulnerable to disease, genetic inbreeding and other impacts.
Once a population is lost, the empty habitat can only be recolonized by other pikas that manage to cross the inhospitable forested sea. The more isolated a population is from other pikas, the less likely it is to experience successful immigration.
Their patchy distribution today is a remnant of the last ice age, when more continuous populations are thought to have occurred throughout western North America. Research backs this up, with evidence of pikas from the late Pleistocene in areas where they no longer exist. The average elevation of now extinct pikas 8 to 10 thousand years ago was 1750 m, while today pikas in the same area of the US Great Basin occur at an average elevation of 2530 m.
Research on prehistoric pika populations suggests their extinctions were driven by increasing temperature, decreasing moisture and changes in plant communities. These three conditions are all key predictions of current climate change models, which does not bode well for pikas. However, last week the US Fish & Wildlife Service released their review of the American Pika in the USA in which they determined that, though climate change may impact the small lagomorphs, they are not currently at risk under US Endangered Species legislation.
Hopefully the same holds true here in BC. If American Pikas do decline under predicted climate change conditions, their populations will likely contract toward the cooler north. This would make BC responsible for an increasing proportion of the species’ global range.
Farther north there is more concern. Biologists have documented significant declines in Collared Pika numbers in the Yukon leading the committee responsible for assessing status of endangered species in Canada (COSEWIC) to launch a review of the species and whether it merits listing under our federal Species at Risk Act.
Hopefully pikas will continue to find a way to persist should their alpine habitats continue to shrink upslope and northward. Talus slopes can be barren, unfriendly grey places. A little company is always welcome.
The pika picture above is by Dave Sindholt, a Cranbrook naturalist, who sent me the picture after reading the column. Thanks Dave! Great shot!
Most hikers who frequent the local alpine crags are familiar with one of the more endearing mammals of our area. Pikas are more often heard than seen, giving their short, shrill alarm distinct to the high mountains. If you stay still long enough and have keen eyes, you’ll find them looking out from talus pile hideouts watching nervously for trouble.
Pikas are lagomorphs, kin to rabbits and hares, and not rodents. They probably reached their zenith as a family sometime in the Pleistocene, aided by the cooler northern temperatures. They are well adapted to survive frigid mountain winters, but are highly susceptible to heat stress in temperatures over 27ºC. Today, the few species remaining are found mostly in Asia. Two are here in North America. The American Pika is found from central California and northern New Mexico, north to the Prince George area. The Collared Pika is farther north throughout most of Yukon and eastern Alaska. While there may be few species of pika, there have been 18 sub-species of American Pika identified. This reflects their highly isolated populations and minimal dispersal abilities. Pikas are strongly associated with talus slopes, where they make their homes and seek refuge from predators, that are adjacent to grassy meadows where they forage for food. This specific habitat requirement limits them to alpine areas and crossing the forested landscape between their preferred habitats is not an easy task. Life as a dispersing, juvenile pika is not easy.
Their habitat is best viewed as ‘islands’ in a sea of inhospitable forests which isolates one group of pikas from the neighbouring alpine area. Their population ecology is an excellent fit of Island Biogeography theory that I discussed in my last column. Rather than number of species however, the question is the number of individuals. Smaller alpine ‘islands’ will support fewer individuals, which will leave them susceptible to random environmental effects such as poor weather which may wipe out an entire year’s reproduction effort. Smaller populations are more vulnerable to disease, genetic inbreeding and other impacts.
Once a population is lost, the empty habitat can only be recolonized by other pikas that manage to cross the inhospitable forested sea. The more isolated a population is from other pikas, the less likely it is to experience successful immigration.
Their patchy distribution today is a remnant of the last ice age, when more continuous populations are thought to have occurred throughout western North America. Research backs this up, with evidence of pikas from the late Pleistocene in areas where they no longer exist. The average elevation of now extinct pikas 8 to 10 thousand years ago was 1750 m, while today pikas in the same area of the US Great Basin occur at an average elevation of 2530 m.
Research on prehistoric pika populations suggests their extinctions were driven by increasing temperature, decreasing moisture and changes in plant communities. These three conditions are all key predictions of current climate change models, which does not bode well for pikas. However, last week the US Fish & Wildlife Service released their review of the American Pika in the USA in which they determined that, though climate change may impact the small lagomorphs, they are not currently at risk under US Endangered Species legislation.
Hopefully the same holds true here in BC. If American Pikas do decline under predicted climate change conditions, their populations will likely contract toward the cooler north. This would make BC responsible for an increasing proportion of the species’ global range.
Farther north there is more concern. Biologists have documented significant declines in Collared Pika numbers in the Yukon leading the committee responsible for assessing status of endangered species in Canada (COSEWIC) to launch a review of the species and whether it merits listing under our federal Species at Risk Act.
Hopefully pikas will continue to find a way to persist should their alpine habitats continue to shrink upslope and northward. Talus slopes can be barren, unfriendly grey places. A little company is always welcome.
The pika picture above is by Dave Sindholt, a Cranbrook naturalist, who sent me the picture after reading the column. Thanks Dave! Great shot!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
A Cup of Songbird Friendly Coffee
This column was originally published in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman January 6, 2010.
In the dark, early January morning of a northern winter, there is nothing so welcome to many as the smell of freshly ground, freshly brewed cup of coffee. Coffee is that magic elixir that manages to both appease tension while at same time providing a physical stimulus of a caffeine injection. And while you savour that morning java, know that you’re not alone. Of all the world’s agricultural commodities, coffee is number one, generating over $55 billion a year world wide.
Coffee’s origins are as an understory tree from montane tropical ecosystems of sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. However, our thirst has led to industrial scale monocultures of sun-drenched plantations in attempts to raise production. As a result, coffee plantations in the northern Andes Mountains of South America suffer some of the highest deforestation rates in the neotropics.
Thankfully, demand has grown for “shade-grown” coffee over the past decade. It is now widely available at pre-brewed at local coffee shops and in most grocery stores. Most shade-grown coffee comes with the added benefit of being a “Fair trade” product as well.
Shade-grown coffee is cultivated under the conditions to which coffee trees are adapted – beneath a canopy of trees, often themselves of direct economic benefit. Beyond the advantages of requiring less irrigation, pesticides and fertilizer applications, there are a host of social and ecological advantages to fostering a strong shade-grown coffee industry. Most say it tastes better too.
One of the tags often used on shade-grown coffee is “songbird friendly”. This is because many of our neotropical migrant birds – the small, colourful songsters that migrate north from tropical wintering ground each spring – are reliant on the montane ecosystems where coffee is cultivated throughout Central and South America.
A recent paper in the scientific journal Biological Conservation reports on the implications of shade-grown coffee plantations on the Cerulean Warbler. Unfortunately, Cerulean Warblers are not found in the East Kootenay at any time of year. They are a brilliant blue bird that nests in the mixed deciduous forests of Eastern Canada and the US. In the winter, their core range directly overlaps with coffee plantations of Venezuela and Colombia. Habitat loss on their wintering grounds may account for the 83% decline Ceruleans have suffered over the past 40 years.
The research, led by Marja Bakermans at Ohio State University compared population density, body condition and survival of neotropical migrant birds in shade coffee plantations to those in primary forest sites in the Cordillera de Mérida of Venezuea’s Andes mountains. [as an aside, this brought back memories of Kari & I visiting Mérida, Venezuela, in 1995. A great town and wonderful place]
They found songbird population densities were up to 14 times higher in shade coffee plantations than nearby forest, while the body condition of birds in plantations steadily increased throughout the “winter” season. This measure is particularly important because Ceruleans and other species migrating north each spring face daunting physiological stress. Birds leaving their wintering grounds in better condition arrive on breeding grounds sooner and are more successful at rearing young.
Better body condition helps survival too. Bakermans and her colleagues banded 20 Cerulean warblers in the first season on shade plantations and recaptured or resighted 13 (65%) of those the following winter. When only adults were considered, that rate increased to 89%. That’s an excellent return rate for a small bird with a short life span traveling thousands of kilometres twice a year.
The research demonstrates the importance of agro-ecosystems. Birds were more abundant in shade coffee plantations than primary forest, so protection of the dwindling pristine forests alone will not stem songbird declines. But demand for shade-grown coffee must be maintained and increased. Bakermans and her colleagues cite reports that 40-50% of shade coffee plantations in Latin America were converted to sun coffee in the 1990’s, including 70% in Colombia.
The research suggests we can have our coffee and maintain functioning ecosystems at the same time, but to do so, we need to support shade-grown coffee producers. Ask for a cup next time you’re in a coffee shop or pick up a pound at the store. Then relax, close your eyes and drift off to tropical mountains, warm breezes and colourful birds.
It’s almost enough to forget its January.
In the dark, early January morning of a northern winter, there is nothing so welcome to many as the smell of freshly ground, freshly brewed cup of coffee. Coffee is that magic elixir that manages to both appease tension while at same time providing a physical stimulus of a caffeine injection. And while you savour that morning java, know that you’re not alone. Of all the world’s agricultural commodities, coffee is number one, generating over $55 billion a year world wide.
Coffee’s origins are as an understory tree from montane tropical ecosystems of sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. However, our thirst has led to industrial scale monocultures of sun-drenched plantations in attempts to raise production. As a result, coffee plantations in the northern Andes Mountains of South America suffer some of the highest deforestation rates in the neotropics.
Thankfully, demand has grown for “shade-grown” coffee over the past decade. It is now widely available at pre-brewed at local coffee shops and in most grocery stores. Most shade-grown coffee comes with the added benefit of being a “Fair trade” product as well.
Shade-grown coffee is cultivated under the conditions to which coffee trees are adapted – beneath a canopy of trees, often themselves of direct economic benefit. Beyond the advantages of requiring less irrigation, pesticides and fertilizer applications, there are a host of social and ecological advantages to fostering a strong shade-grown coffee industry. Most say it tastes better too.
One of the tags often used on shade-grown coffee is “songbird friendly”. This is because many of our neotropical migrant birds – the small, colourful songsters that migrate north from tropical wintering ground each spring – are reliant on the montane ecosystems where coffee is cultivated throughout Central and South America.
A recent paper in the scientific journal Biological Conservation reports on the implications of shade-grown coffee plantations on the Cerulean Warbler. Unfortunately, Cerulean Warblers are not found in the East Kootenay at any time of year. They are a brilliant blue bird that nests in the mixed deciduous forests of Eastern Canada and the US. In the winter, their core range directly overlaps with coffee plantations of Venezuela and Colombia. Habitat loss on their wintering grounds may account for the 83% decline Ceruleans have suffered over the past 40 years.
The research, led by Marja Bakermans at Ohio State University compared population density, body condition and survival of neotropical migrant birds in shade coffee plantations to those in primary forest sites in the Cordillera de Mérida of Venezuea’s Andes mountains. [as an aside, this brought back memories of Kari & I visiting Mérida, Venezuela, in 1995. A great town and wonderful place]
They found songbird population densities were up to 14 times higher in shade coffee plantations than nearby forest, while the body condition of birds in plantations steadily increased throughout the “winter” season. This measure is particularly important because Ceruleans and other species migrating north each spring face daunting physiological stress. Birds leaving their wintering grounds in better condition arrive on breeding grounds sooner and are more successful at rearing young.
Better body condition helps survival too. Bakermans and her colleagues banded 20 Cerulean warblers in the first season on shade plantations and recaptured or resighted 13 (65%) of those the following winter. When only adults were considered, that rate increased to 89%. That’s an excellent return rate for a small bird with a short life span traveling thousands of kilometres twice a year.
The research demonstrates the importance of agro-ecosystems. Birds were more abundant in shade coffee plantations than primary forest, so protection of the dwindling pristine forests alone will not stem songbird declines. But demand for shade-grown coffee must be maintained and increased. Bakermans and her colleagues cite reports that 40-50% of shade coffee plantations in Latin America were converted to sun coffee in the 1990’s, including 70% in Colombia.
The research suggests we can have our coffee and maintain functioning ecosystems at the same time, but to do so, we need to support shade-grown coffee producers. Ask for a cup next time you’re in a coffee shop or pick up a pound at the store. Then relax, close your eyes and drift off to tropical mountains, warm breezes and colourful birds.
It’s almost enough to forget its January.
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