The Earthshot Prize was designed to find and grow the solutions that will repair our planet this decade. We face our greatest challenge; to regenerate the place we all call home in the next ten years.
We believe in the power of human ingenuity to prove to us all that the seemingly impossible is possible.
ARS TECHNICA
Net energy gain indicates technology could provide an abundant zero-carbon alternative to fossil fuels. Details here.
A study offers new insights into the record 2021 Western North America heat wave
Combined unusual weather systems, supercharged by climate change
COLUMBIA CLIMATE SCHOOL
by Larry Powell
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| The Great Gray Owl (Strix nebulosa). Photo by Drsarahgrace, public domain. |
A new study in Manitoba shows how the “Great Gray Owl,” a common site, either soaring over the plains and perching and nesting in the forests of the eastern Canadian prairies, overcomes many obstacles to find its prey.
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| The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) - Photo by Soebe, public domain |
But the snow presents the owl with other problems way before the “moment of capture,” too. Not only does it hide its prey from site, forcing the bird to rely on its hearing only, it deadens, or attenuates any sound the vole is making, and even "bends" or refracts it, creating an “acoustic mirage,” or false impression of its location. (See above.) The denser the snow, the more pronounced is both the attenuation and refraction.
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The owl soars towards its prey from its perch (above), then hovers as directly over it as it can until it reaches a “listening position” of least refraction and attenuation - defeating that "acoustic mirage" in the process. Then it plummets straight down on its target, forming a “plunge-hole” in the snow.
There are other features that make the “Great Gray” unique, too.
It is the largest owl in North America, with a wing span of well over a metre. It can be found across the province, year-round. And, since Manitobans “adopted” it in 1987, it’s been our official, provincial bird, too!
A three-member team, two from the US, along with James Duncan from “Discover Owls” in Balmoral, Manitoba, used loudspeakers and special cameras in their research.
The above images were extracted, with thanks, from the team's official study, just published in the proceedings of The Royal Society.
by Larry Powell
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| A wild bee on a sunflower. A PinP photo. |
What they found was striking.
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| Flea beetles feast on turnip-tops in Manitoba, A PinP photo. |
In both years, pollination by the bees was “the only significant factor” in both fruit set and marketable yield - even when compared to the harm done by the pests. Not only that, the wild bees increased those yields anywhere from one-&-a-half to three times more than honeybees.
So the researchers conclude; If you want better yields, it’s more important to protect the bees that pollinate them than to kill the pests which eat them!
“These data," they state, "advocate for a reprioritization of management, to conserve and protect wild bee pollinations, which could be more critical than avoiding pest damage for ensuring high yields.”
But the lead author of the study, Ashley Leach, is hesitant to extrapolate those findings to other crops like grains and oilseeds, so dominant on the Canadian prairies, for example.
He tells me in an email; "Our findings are intricately linked" to crops reliant on pollination (like seedless watermelon).
"The pest we studied can have a variable effect of yield," Leach told me.
"However, multiple studies have found that insecticides may negatively impact pollinators so any reduction in insecticide spray could potentially impact yield and associated pollinator health outcomes.
"I wouldn’t recommend growers stop applying insecticides unless they don’t see a loss in yield, or they have another pest management practice in place."
The findings are published in the “Proceedings of the Royal Society.”
by Larry Powell
At first, I thought I had made a mistake - agreeing to review “Of Poets & Pioneers.”
After all, I’m no poet!
The last “poetic gene” in my family seems to have died when my own Grandfather, J.J. Powell passed away in 1953.
But I was soon to discover, one doesn’t need a “poet’s pedigree” to appreciate the values which this work embraces.
Poetry just happens to be the backdrop - a vehicle, if you will - that offers a glimpse into a rare and remarkably close relationship between the author, Bill Massey and his paternal grandfather, “Will.”
Bill’s earlier book, “Of Pork and Potatoes,” details the troubled home he grew up in and helps us better understand why his visits with his grandfather, recorded in this one, provided such a precious haven in his own life.
Woven between the poetic parts are stories “Grandfather Will” wrote about a sometimes harsh life in a British public school and later about the trials and tribulations he faced as a pioneering farmer in Manitoba.
Bill’s own stories and poetry only add to the book’s appeal.
If there were ever to be a literary contest with a “Labour of Love” category, “Of Poets & Pioneers” would definitely be a contender!
The National Observer
Pervasive disinformation around Canada’s voluntary fertilizer reduction plan makes it hard to have a rational discussion on this critical topic, Green and NDP MPs say.
The National Observer
Last month, a video was posted to Pierre Poilievre's Facebook page accusing the federal government of causing high food prices and driving farmers to ruin. The post on the Tory leader’s page laid the blame on "proposed fertilizer cuts" that would force Canadians into an "irresponsible" reliance on expensive imported food.
The video was misleading. Story here.
The National Observer
Days after signing a landmark $2.5-billion deal with the provinces and territories to subsidize Canada's farmers, federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says she was betrayed by a cadre of conservative premiers. The leaders of the three Prairie provinces, who had supported the pact, echoed a far-right disinformation campaign linked to Canada's Freedom Convoy movement telling farmers the feds were going to force them to drastically curb fertilizer use.
By Dennis Gruending
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| A PinP photo. |
A man being described as a “farm czar,” owns 225,000 acres of Saskatchewan farmland. That is equal to the size of about 125 farms based on the average farm size in the province.
Is that what we want for rural Canada? Story here.
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| A farm fertilizer plant in Brandon, MB. Photo by Larry Powell. |
SASKATOON, Sask: The National Farmers Union (NFU) recently released a report entitled Nitrogen Fertilizer: Critical Nutrient, Key Farm Input, and Major Environmental Problem. The report takes a big-picture look at nitrogen fertilizer, details its many benefits and also its negative impacts, and makes the case for optimizing rather than maximizing tonnage.
The report examines the path governments and farmers must navigate as we make our way toward Canada’s 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas (GHG) emission-reduction commitments. The report is the NFU’s submission to the federal government’s consultations on its target to reduce fertilizer-related emissions by 30%.
GHG emissions from Canadian agriculture and farm input manufacturing are up by one-third since 1990. The primary cause is rising emissions from nitrogen fertilizer production and use. Darrin Qualman, NFU Director of Climate Crisis Policy and Action, commented: “These upward trends in emissions from agriculture and fertilizer are incompatible with Canada’s commitment to reduce economy-wide emissions by 40% by 2030.”
Nitrogen fertilizer is a crucial and valuable farm input that most farmers will continue to use. But rapid increases in nitrogen tonnage in Canada and around the world are creating problems. Canadian tonnage has almost doubled since 2006; Saskatchewan tonnage has quadrupled since 1992. Qualman noted: “GHG emissions won’t go down if fertilizer tonnage continues to go up.”
He underscored the voluntary nature of the government’s 30% reduction target for fertilizer-related emissions, saying: “Contrary to rhetoric from some, governments are not proposing bans or forced reductions; governments are using incentives and cost-sharing programs to get farmers onside with voluntary efficiency measures and rate reductions. Federal and provincial governments have allocated hundreds-of-millions of dollars to fund these voluntary cost-share programs. And as governments help farmers use fertilizer more efficiently, farmers’ costs can go down and their margins can go up.”
The NFU report also details lack of competition in the fertilizer sector and potential profiteering. “Record-high fertilizer prices and company profits cut deep into farmers’ incomes. We can reduce farmers’ dependence and vulnerability and reduce emissions at the same time,” said Qualman.
He concludes: “Defending fertilizer is not the same as defending farmers. Fertilizer companies prosper when they sell as much as possible. Farmers prosper when they use only as much as necessary.”
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For more information:
Darrin Qualman, Director of Climate Crisis Policy & Action
(306) 230-9115
qualman@nfu.ca
Biology Dep't. - University of Ottawa
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| Bee on scarlet-runner bean. A PinP photo. |
Climate change is waking bumblebees earlier from winter hibernation, putting the species at risk with impact on human agricultural crops
New research from the University of Ottawa has found the earlier arrival of spring in parts of North America negatively impacts bumblebee survival, which could potentially threaten bee-pollinated agricultural crops and other plant sources.
Published in Biological Conservation, this paper is among the first to study climate change’s influence on seasonal weather changes in relation to bumblebees. Researchers from the Faculty of Science found the bees are not correspondingly shifting their activity timing earlier in the year, threatening their ability to find food sources or causing bees to miss out on them altogether.
“This study represents crucial groundwork for understanding that climate can impact the seasonal timing of biological events,” says lead author Olga Koppel, a PhD student in the Faculty of Science’s Department of Biology.
“Bumblebee survival is strongly in our best interest, as we rely heavily on bee-pollinated agricultural crops, including vegetables, fruits, and even clothing fibres such as cotton. The over 40 bumblebee species that are native to North America provide this invaluable economic service.”
Climate change is being linked to global biodiversity decline and its impact on species is a quickly growing field of research. Climate change increases the likelihood of earlier spring onset and flowering in many areas including spring plants, wild plants and trees. These are a necessary food source for winter hibernating bumblebee queens, who search for pollen and nectar after waking up hungry in need of energy.
Being able to match the timing of floral resources gives bumblebee species an edge. Survival, however, for those emerging from hibernation before the arrival of spring flowers – their main food source –is unlikely and leads to smaller colonies with lower odds of persisting in that area the following year. Bumblebees who sync with the changing timing of spring take full advantage of the season’s floral resources and are more likely to persist over time.
Lead authors Koppel and Jeremy Kerr, a Full Professor and Chair in the Department of Biology, examined the relationship between climate and bumblebee spring emergence in a database of specimens from museum collections across North America, comprising 21 species and 17,000 individuals. The authors found climate strongly explained variation in spring emergence timing in 15 of the 21 bumblebee species.
“This research has demonstrated that bumblebee emergence timing can be biased heavily in the direction of climate changes, which has implications for similar research on other species, as well as for the urgent conservation of these valuable pollinator species,” says Koppel. “This study provides a roadmap for evaluating large-scale temporal responses to climate change for many insects and other animals.”
Scientific Report
A small number of industrialised fishing nations are contributing the majority of floating plastic waste in the North Pacific Garbage Patch, reports a new paper published in Scientific Report. The findings highlight the important role fishing industries play in both contributing to and solving the problem of oceanic plastic pollution.
The North Pacific Garbage Patch (NPGP) is a large mass of plastics floating in the North Pacific subtropical gyre (a system of ocean currents). Previous expeditions have suggested that fishing nets, ropes and larger plastic fragments may form up to three quarters of the objects in the region.
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| Plastic Research at The Ocean Cleanup, analysing the items caught by System 001/B in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, looking for clues on origin based on language and country codes. Credit: The Ocean Cleanup. |
Laurent Lebreton and colleagues analysed 573 kilograms of debris (consisting of 6,093 items larger than 5 centimetres) collected from the North Pacific subtropical gyre during an expedition between June and November 2019. The debris was collected from latitudes between 33.0 and 35.1 degrees North and longitudes between 143.0 and 145.6 degrees West. The plastic debris pieces were inspected for evidence of their country of origin, such as language, company name or logo. The authors also modelled how plastic debris may enter the ocean using ocean current data.
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Although 33% of the debris were unidentifiable fragments, the second largest category of objects (26%) was fishing equipment such as fish boxes, oyster spacers, and eel traps. Plastic floats and buoys made up 3% of the objects, but accounted for 21% of the total mass. The authors report that, for the 232 plastic objects where the origin could be identified, 33.6% (78) were from Japan, 32.3% (75) were from China, and 9.9% (23) were from South Korea. A further 6.5% (15) of such objects originated from the USA, 5.6% (13) from Taiwan, and 7.3% (11) from Canada. The authors report that, according to their models, plastic debris in the NPGP was more than ten times more likely to originate from fishing activities rather than land-based activities. They note that most of the identified countries contributing to the plastic debris have industrialised fishing.
These findings highlight the need for transparency from the fishing industry and strengthened cooperation between countries to regulate waste management on board fishing vessels and monitor abandoned fishing gear in the oceans, according to the authors.
Nature Climate Change
The overall loss of ice from the Greenland ice sheet — alongside increasing precipitation, ice flow discharge and meltwater runoff — will lead to at least 274 mm in sea-level rise, regardless of future climate warming projections, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change.
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| The glaciologist team setting up an automatic weather station on the snowy surface above the snow line during the melt season. Credit: The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS |
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| Professor Jason Box taking ice samples standing on exposed ice below the snow line of the Greenland Ice Sheet in West Greenland during the melt season. Credit: The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS |
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| In the recent (2000–2019) climate, the Greenland ice has built up a disequilibrium which will inevitably correct itself by reducing total mass by at least 3.3 percent in order to regain equilibrium at a new average snow line in a higher alteration. Credit: The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS Losses from the ice sheet will already lead to a rise of at least 274 mm in sea level from 5,900 km2 of ice retreat — equivalent to a volume loss of 3.3% — regardless of future climate scenarios. .
If the high melt year of 2012 is considered to be indicative of normal in the future, then ice loss and consequent sea-level rises could be committed to 782 mm, which the authors conclude should act as a warning for Greenland’s future, as temperatures rise in the twenty-first century. |
Nature
Four separate papers exploring how forests and tree species respond to global changes — such as rising temperatures — are published in Nature this week. The studies highlight some of the challenges forests in North America and the Amazon may face in response to climate change.
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| Credit: Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira |
A study of nine North American boreal tree species, including maples, firs, spruces and pines, shows a decline for all species in the survival of saplings in response to warming or reduced rainfall. In a five-year open-air field experiment, Peter Reich and colleagues found that fir, spruce and pine species abundant in southern boreal forests had the largest reductions in growth and survival due to changes in climate.
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| Temperate deciduous tree with a dendrometer band, of the type used in the study, in the ForestGEO plot at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, VA.Credit: Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira |
However, the species that experienced lower rates of mortality and were more likely to experience growth in response to warming, such as maples, are rarer in southern boreal forests and are unlikely to expand their distribution in this region fast enough to compensate for regeneration failure of the current dominant species.
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An otherwise barren, unnamed valley in the west-central Brooks Range of Alaska, USA, supports a population of boreal white spruce that likely provides the seeds carried many kilometers away by winter wind to germinate in Arctic tundra. Credit: Roman Dial
In another paper, Roman Dial and colleagues describe the northward migration of a North American population of white spruce (Picea glauca) into the Arctic tundra, unoccupied by this species for millennia, at a rate of more than 4 km per decade. The authors found that increasing temperatures together with winter winds, deeper snowpack and increased soil nutrient availability have supported this treeline advance. They argue that increasing Arctic tree cover could lead to a decrease in the habitat available for migratory species and a redistribution of carbon stores.
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| Two white spruce trees, each probably under 30 years old, overlook a remote tundra valley in northwest Alaska, USA. Recent climate warming, winter winds, and an increasing deep snowpack are facilitating the colonization of Arctic tundra by this boreal species. The trekking pole is one meter long. Credit: Roman Dial |
Kristina Anderson-Teixeira and colleagues paired dendrometer band measurements with 207 tree-ring chronologies from 108 forests across temperate deciduous forests of eastern North America. They found that warmer spring temperatures advance the timing of stem growth but have little effect on total annual stem growth. The authors suggest that barring rapid acclimation of these forests to warming conditions, they are unlikely to sequester increasing amounts of carbon as temperatures rise.
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| In this picture at the Ely site (one of two of the experiment) we see one of the ambient plot in the foreground and some heated plots in the background. All plants are in the process of fall senescence with slowly developing differentiation in plant senescence between ambient (and the research plots surrounding vegetation) and warmed plots due to the effect warming has on plant phenology. |
Finally, Hellen Fernanda Viana Cunha and colleagues show that limitations in the availability of phosphorous directly impact the productivity of the Amazon forest by restricting its responses to CO2 fertilization. This may potentially affect forest resilience to climate change.
Letter to the Brandon Sun
I am a first-generation Canadian, born and raised on a Manitoba farm in the 1930s.
I did not take up farming as my livelihood. However, I did learn to recognize that farm life can be extremely rewarding in so many different ways. I also learned to appreciate and realize that water and nature (environment) were to be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy and with a sense of dignity.
Now retired, I, along with so many, have become very concerned and worried how those once-valued principles have deteriorated and crumbled.
Corporations and their investors have taken over, interested only in benefiting from the current unsustainable economic activity. Huge hog producing factories threaten our health, our water and our environment.
Part of the problem is that our economy, our governments and our society does not account for the social and environmental consequences that are being experienced and inflicted upon the communities and our precious water sources.
The rivers of yesterday (in Manitoba) provided a means of transportation, a source of food and clean water. Today, the rivers are regarded, for the most part, as handy and open-air sewers — someplace to dump the leftovers.
All but our most northern and isolated water sources are being affected. Lake Winnipeg, the 10th-largest fresh water lake in the world, has become a huge sewage lagoon and is dying.
Now, the rural people of Manitoba have a common purpose that brings them together to face a shared enemy and the malignant forces of the expansionism of corporations and industries. For the people now have come to realize that the future of our generations is at stake, and the risks cannot be tolerated any longer.
I agree with a competitive and profitable agriculture industry, but never at the expense of our health, our waters and the environment.
Feeding the world with pork and exploiting and destroying our finite resources in the process is just not acceptable. In fact, it is very irresponsible, ignorant and immoral.
It seems to me that Mother Nature is literally screaming about the impact that we are putting on her, yet we think wistfully of what has been lost and dismiss it as “the price of progress.”
It’s about time we started to put moral ethics back into our present-day society. Also, it’s about time we started redefining “progress.”
JOHN FEFCHAK
Virden MB
Big Industry Hiding the Truth
Let the Public See How Pigs Are Housed
(Winnipeg July 14,2022) – Hog Watch Manitoba supports the goals of Amy Sorrano and Nick Schafer, convicted animal rights activists. They have asked that cameras be installed in intensive confinement hog barns in order to monitor how pigs are being treated in these huge facilities.
Currently, there is no way for the public or concerned citizens to ensure that pigs are being treated humanely or to even understand how the pigs are being raised.
Entry into the barns is tightly controlled for biosecurity and public relation reasons.
“The hog industry has good reason to keep their barn doors tightly closed” says Vicki Burns, Hog Watch Manitoba Steering committee member, “They know that many of the public would be disgusted by how these animals are forced to live, crammed in with hundreds of animals, above pits of their urine and feces, breathing in toxic gases rising from the manure pits.”
Hog Watch Manitoba advocates for the industry to shift to more humane conditions for the animals which includes fewer animals housed together and straw-based barns. The manner in which the animals are housed now amounts to institutionalized cruelty because of the lifelong chronic suffering the animals experience, never getting outside, no straw or pasture to root in, tails docked because of being tightly packed in with other pigs, adult female pigs confined in gestation stalls their entire adult lives.
Hog Watch Manitoba does not support criminal activities but efforts to show the public how pigs are kept is essential to shifting consumers and the industry away from factory raised pork.
“ If the public knew the facts, as consumers they may make different purchasing choices and that’s bad news for the hog industry. Cruelty to support profits is not acceptable. Positive changes can be made in the housing of pigs and still have a viable industry”.
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For more information contact:
I
Vicki Burns , Hog Watch Manitoba Steering Committee
204-489-3852 vickiburns@mts.net
Bill Massey , Hog Watch Manitoba Steering Committee
204-461-3468 wmassey@highspeedcrow.ca
Alternatives to factory model of hog production:
· Animals housed in barns with straw bedding and having access to outside pastures, no liquid manure slurry system
· Fewer animals per barn
· No antibiotics in animal feed. Only antibiotics administered if the animal is sick and has been prescribed by a veterinarian
· Examples of alternative systems - Xaletto Straw housing System Germany - Xaletto: the economic management system for closed houses with straw bedding - Big Dutchman
Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms SECRETS to raising PIGS for LAND REGENERATION & PROFIT - Bing video
National Observer
In the early hours of Dec. 7, 2019, members of the social justice group Rose’s Law entered a barn through an unlocked door at the Porgreg pig breeding facility in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que. Inside, they videotaped vile conditions. Seven hours later, they were arrested. Story here.
Hogs at the tail end of misguided provincial planning allowing intensive hog operations on flood plains.
“Where is the wisdom allowing these type of operations to be built on flood plains” says Janine Gibson long time member of HOG WATCH who resides among the heaviest concentration of these operations in Southeastern Manitoba.
As a known flood plain, the Red River Valley experienced severe floods in 1997, 2009, 2011 and now again, this year.
“What on earth was the province thinking when the moratorium was lifted to allow these massive hog operations to further expand. Now we face increasing amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen into the watershed,” she adds.
In 2017 the provincial Conservative government removed key sections in the Environment Act that restricted new hog barn development on known floodplains.
Recent aerial photos from HOG WATCH clearly show hog operations and fields within a vast sea of water covering thousands of acres routinely used for hog manure spread fields. HOG WATCH members touring some of the flooded areas were assaulted by the stench of hog manure as it washed over the flooded land.
Bill Massey, who raises sustainable pigs for private use and has been contesting a large hog operation in Rock Lake Colony near Grosse Isle Manitoba for over 18 years, says the math is simple;
“Much of the manure spread last Fall will be carried away this spring as soils become saturated. Phosphorus and nitrogen have not had time to be taken up by any crops and tons will be carried into our rivers and lakes as well as other bacteria, feeding toxic blue-green algae blooms this summer.”
Typically hog manure is either injected into the soil or spread onto fields as nutrients for crops. Excessive manure can contain harmful bacteria like E. coli or and viruses causing groundwater contamination and fish kills.
Janie Gibson sums up this way, “The time has passed where pursuing profit at any cost to Manitoba’s environment makes sense. It doesn’t! Manitoba is the largest hog producing province per population in Canada and the government takes pride in its plans for more intensive hog industry growth. This has to end!”
Hog Watch Manitoba is a non-profit coalition of environmentalists, farmers, animal welfare and social justice advocates, trade unions and scientists that promotes a hog industry in Manitoba that is ethically, environmentally and economically sustainable.
For more information and to arrange an interview:
CONTACT(s):
(Winnipeg April 27, 2022) – Hog Watch Manitoba is asking for help for rural residents whose lives are negatively impacted by noxious odours from neighbouring hog barns. Those bad smells are not just a nuisance but can contain toxic gases that have human health impacts.
“Hog Watch Manitoba recently purchased a hydrogen sulfide gas monitoring device ACRULOG H2S to measure gases causing foul smells for rural residents” says Vicki Burns, Hog Watch Manitoba spokesperson. “We don’t have any government support like the inspectors who take measurements in the city. The Manitoba government seems to expect rural residents to put up with it as a routine cost of living in the country”.
Recent readings from one location near a hog barn have documented high levels of hydrogen sulfide. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) exposure to hydrogen sulfide may cause irritation to the eyes and respiratory system. It can also cause apnea, coma, convulsions; dizziness, headache, weakness, irritability, insomnia; stomach upset.
Over the years Hog Watch Manitoba has heard many stench related complaints from rural residents. “We felt that we needed to collect actual data to prove that this is a legitimate health concern and not simply a nuisance. We are asking the province of Manitoba to require odour mitigation measures around all factory hog barns in Manitoba” explains Janine Gibson, Secretary of Hog Watch Manitoba. “This is an interim measure until we can shift the industry to smaller, straw-based barns that are environmentally sustainable, treat the animals and the human workers in a more ethical manner and are economically stable”.
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Hog Watch Manitoba is a coalition of farmers, environmentalists, animal welfare advocates, scientists and rural residents who are advocating for a move away from industrial factory style barns to smaller straw-based farms that are environmentally, ethically, and economically sustainable. Hog Watch Manitoba - What's the Big Stink?
The Narwhal
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| The huckleberry. A Wikimedia photo. |
To the forestry industry these plants are pests, but for berry pickers they are important foods and medicine. Story here.
RELATED:
Contaminants found in traditional berries of First Nations people in Manitoba, but still declared to be safe to eat. (Video).
YAHOO finance
CaNickel Mining Limited was ordered to pay $200,000 after pleading guilty in the Provincial Court of Manitoba to two offences, which are violations of the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations made pursuant to the Fisheries Act. The fine will be directed to the Government of Canada's Environmental Damages Fund. Story here.
The Manitoban
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| The bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) A PinP photo We need to rethink the way we regulate noise pollution from oil rigs as the noise from oil drilling can be harmful to prairie songbirds, including species that are at risk. These findings come from a new study authored by Nicola Koper and Patricia Rosa. Koper is a professor at the natural resources institute at the University of Manitoba and Rosa is an assistant professor at St. George’s University. They both study how human activity can interfere with songbird behaviour. Story here. |
Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation (KXN)
the Raincoast Conservation Foundation,
and the University of Victoria.
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| Mountain Goat - Oreamnos americanus |
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| Photos by Connor Stefanison |
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.
“Historically, access to goats influenced the location of village sites and camps. Alarmingly, we don't see goats in these locations anymore, a dramatic decline from several decades ago” Douglas Neasloss, Chief Councillor of the KXN.
Motivated by these early alarm bells from the community, the KXN compiled multiple independent, but complementary, data sources. First, they conducted comprehensive interviews with knowledge holders who collectively had centuries of knowledge and experience in goat country in Kitasoo Xai’xais territory. Participants were asked how frequently they saw mountain goats from 1980 to the present day. The result was a striking decline in the number of goats observed over this time. In 2019, when the interviews were conducted, no one had even seen a goat that year.
Secondly, the KXN led helicopter surveys across more than 500 km2 of KXN territory in the summers of 2019 and 2020 to better understand contemporary mountain goat density. Building upon their own wildlife research program, the KXN collaborated with a team of wildlife scientists, led by Tyler Jessen, PhD student at UVic and scholar with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, to analyze the data. Results show that KX goats occur in low density, especially when compared to interior populations, such as those that inhabit the Rocky Mountains.
Finally, wanting broader context and yet another independent source of information, the research team also examined hunting records that stretched across BC and back to 1980. They found that the success of BC hunters (unaccompanied by professional guides) has declined over the past four decades. All else being equal, if a hunter has to spend more days looking for a goat to kill than they did in the past, then there may be less goats than there were before. This pattern occurs well beyond KXN territory.
Collectively, these information sources all pointed to the same reality: that mountain goats are of conservation concern in KXN territory; either the abundance or distribution of goats has changed – possibly both. There are either less of these creatures, or they spend more time at high altitudes where they cannot be seen or hunted easily. If they are at higher elevations, this means that something is driving them upwards, such as warming alpine temperatures, which can cause heat stress. Additionally, mountain goat food quality and quality are often reduced at higher elevations. Combined, both of these factors can ultimately lead to population decline.
Either way the Kitasoo Xai’xais, having first detected these patterns, are not going to let these goats slip away. Their thick white coats are adapted to the chilly mountaintops, but as alpine temperatures rise, goats might have less habitat left to escape the heat. Against this climate change background and towards a precautionary approach to reflect the uncertainty around population abundance, the KXN will look to adopting management measures to safeguard these precious and culturally important animals from other harms. Specifically, the KXN are exploring tightening up restrictions within their territory including high-elevation logging, air traffic access, and hunting. Indeed, KXN members voluntarily stopped goat hunting decades ago in response to reduced sightings.
Shedding light on an elusive mountain animal would not have been possible without early insight from KXN. As Jessen explains, “A broader takeaway from this study is that Indigenous peoples commonly detect changes that go undetected by western scientists and managers.”
This study highlights a growing resurgence of Indigenous research and management and shows how pairing Local Ecological Knowledge with scientific information can enhance our collective understanding of ecosystems.
