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Published: September 18th 2007
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Hello folks
For the past nine days I have been in Terrace. Terrace is a town of approximately 20,000 people in Northern British Columbia (BC). Terrace is a relaxed, pleasant, very green town. There are a few nice hiking trails in Terrace, including Ferry Island, which has piles of small faces carved into the trees and tiny toads hopping across your path. I have been helping McElhanney (a consulting company) to establish the locations of important forested habitat for wintering moose and foraging grizzly bears.
(In the words of Brad Pollard)
"In BC, there is a provincial policy to manage wildlife as part of forest harvest planning. There is an assumption that the majority of species/biodiversity will be maintained with general forest harvesting procedure (retention of within cut block reserves, retention of old growth management areas, riparian reserve areas, and seral stage management). For those species that are known to fall outside this regime, a system of management strategies has been developed. For grizzly bears these include Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHA) and include the forested buffer adjacent to high value feeding sites. For moose the approach includes the identification and management of winter range. This project goal was to look at an area approximately 3240 km2 and locate the most appropriate areas for grizzly WHA and moose winter range. Funding was provided by the provincial Forest Investment Account through West Fraser Mills and BC Timber Sales."
So after weeks hiking in Canada trying to avoid bears, here I was searching high probability areas! On the first day of work I was presented with a variety of anti-bear devices. These include an air horn (to scare them away once the helicopter had departed), bear spray (concentrated pepper spray in case they get way too close) and bear bangers (another noise deterrent). Although noticeably no-one mentioned anything about the black flies (=sandflies), mosquitoes or leeches! I was given numerous warnings about Devil's Claw though, a spiny plant. However Canadians have never come across ongaonga, bush lawyer, Spaniard grass, leatherwood or any other of the New Zealand nasties which make Devil's claw was mild in comparison.
The helicopter drop us off in teams of two, and I spent the first day working with Tasha and the following three with Megan. At each site we classified the ecology to the site series (i.e. fen, marsh, forest etc) and seral stages (old
Group shot
Julia, Tasha, Brad, Megan, Steve, Dan and me growth, regenerating bush etc) and rated the quality of the habitat and evidence use for both the wintering moose and foraging bears. Evidence of use include foot prints, scat or droppings, foraging and scratch marks or rubbings on trees. I can tell you it’s quite an eerie feeling standing in the middle of bear bed, with fresh scat all around you. It’s like you’ve wandered uninvited into a house and are hoping that the owner isn’t planning to return anytime soon (Goldilocks-style!). After uplifting from one site, the helicopter turned and there were three (a mum and two cubs) grizzly bears about 150m away from where we had just been sitting. The helicopter had obviously scared them, it was an awesome site, I think that image of the mother raising onto her hind feet facing the helicopter is one of those images that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Although I think I would have preferred them to be not quite so close to us! In total approximately 200 sites were examined.
I think someone forgot to mention to Len that wetlands aren't the best place to swim. As we were flying back on the
helicopter one day, Len grinned and started to point to his crotch. Not somewhere any polite girl would look, but somethings can’t be helped. Anyway, once we looked we saw this little slimly thing edge out of his fly. Len grabbed it and started to pull. The body stretched out and eventually out popped this leech. Which he then proceeded to dangle in front of all the girls eliciting screams from all of us! The squirming room in a helicopter is rather limited.
Preliminary conclusions for this project indicate that grizzly bear populations are not very high in the study area but they will congregate seasonally around the Kwinageese watershed to capitalise on available sockeye salmon in autumn and the White River for moose calf foraging (spring). Moose winter range is also different than in several other areas where similar work has been completed. Because the much Nass River is in a canyon, floodplain ecosystems play a much smaller role in winter forage production (with the exception of the White River area). It is estimated that this project will likely result in the establishment of 1000-1500 small buffer reserves for grizzly WHA and two or three larger moose winter
range management areas (Brad's words again).
At the completion of the work I spent Saturday exploring the nearby town of Smithers with Megan and her partner Kevin. A nice way to end an awesome week.
Thank you Brad, for a truly awesome experience. I found the work to be highly interesting, rewarding and informative, I will now be observing the Canadian wilderness through different eyes (sign hunting!). And thank you for your wonderful hospitality, your cooking alone is worth travelling across the world for!
Take care everyone,
Cielle
P.S. I’m back in Vancouver now having safely navigated the transit system (3 buses in total) back to Andrea & Rich’s house. I will spend the next few days here, catch up with Glyn, head to the art gallery, and work Thursday night. On the 22nd I’ll fly to Montreal to meet up with Emily and commence our tour of Eastern Canada.
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Michelle Carson
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Canada dreaming
I feel like I'm travelling Canada with you Cielle. Look forward to hearing of your next instalment of adventures