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Pacific WildLife Foundation Projects for 2008
The Pacific WildLife Foundation conducts independent study of marine ecosystems throughout the Pacific Ocean with an aim of sharing the information with scientists and the public. We assemble teams of scientists to conduct the research and educators to provide the information to a variety of audiences from children to adults and multiethnic backgrounds. In all cases, our messages are based on the results of rigorous, objective scientific research. Most of the research and post-production work is done on contract. Many of our research projects are filmed for web broadcast, television or DVD. We provide advice and influence through numerous international and national scientific advisory panels and boards. Our aim is to restore wild species populations to levels that are sustained by nature. Each of our projects originated in our conservation plan. Our focus is on recovery, restoration, and measuring change.
New Projects
Mapping British Columbia’s Birds British Columbia has over 300 species of breeding birds – more than any province in Canada. PWLF is teaming up with Bird Studies Canada who leads the project to map the distribution and abundance of all breeding bird species in BC. Dr. Rob Butler of PWLF is coordinating the BC Breeding Bird Atlas Project for Bird Studies Canada. The aim of the atlas project is to map the presence and abundance of breeding birds throughout the province. The results will form the foundation for government conservation policy in the years to come. PWLF will participate by taking teams to the remote Great Bear Rainforest. We will sail in May and June onboard one of our boats. We will spend each morning tallying the breeding birds in the rainforest. This atlas project will continue the long history of natural history explorations to little known areas. You can help We are looking for adventurous individuals who would like to travel with us to the Great Bear Rainforest by sponsoring one or more weeks of the expedition. Please contact us if you can help.
On-going projects
Rebuilding an Ecosystem A damaged ecosystem is being rebuilt from the bottom up by transplanting plants and attracting herring and other small fish that are the basis of the marine food web. New techniques are emerging that allow for restoration of damaged marine ecosystems. The Pacific WildLife Foundation home port is Port Moody Inlet on the east end of Vancouver Harbour, British Columbia where an intertidal mudflat ecosystem, salmon streams and old growth forest were present a century and a half ago. Remnants of that ecosystem remain interspersed among marinas, industrial ports and suburban residences within the City of Port Moody. Over 30 years ago, salmon hatcheries began to operate on Mossom and Noons Creeks. Log booms stored on the mudflat were moved to deep water a few years ago setting the stage for a recovery. PWLF has received three years of funding from Environment Canada’s Environmental Damages Fund to restore eelgrass meadows in the inlet. Our aim is to learn how to rebuild the mudflat ecosystem in Port Moody Inlet and export the science to other restoration projects. A test transplant of eelgrass with the Seagrass Conservation Working Group and Pacific Salmon Foundation was initiated in 2007. The transplant was successful and in May 2008 we completed another transplant. A final transplant is planned for August 2008. We will be tracking the changes in fish and bird abundance through the three-year project and into the future to document how quickly recovery occurs. MORE You can help We will require individuals to help transplant seagrass this summer. Contact us if you would like to help.
Return of the Eagle The Return of the Eagle project explores how the recovery of the eagle is echoed in the ecology of rivers and shores along the west coast of North America. The return of the bald eagle to former abundance along the north Pacific began in the 1980s following a ban on the use of persistent chemicals and reduced persecution by humans. Today eagles are widespread and abundant. We think that spawning salmon is key to their survival as a source of food in autumn and winter. If this hunch is true, then the fate of eagles is tied to how well we conserve salmon stocks. The recovery of eagles also adds a new predator to the landscape. Eagles return to the coast to prey on seabirds and ducks after spawned salmon are gone from rivers in late winter which might affect where these birds choose reside. The objective of the Return of the Eagle project is to follow eagles on their annual migrations between the coast and salmon streams. Studies of eagles at Washington salmon rivers have shown that they travel as far away as the interior of Alaska and the Northwest Territories to breed and that eagles stay as long as there are salmon there to eat. We want to know how good and poor salmon runs affect eagle movements and their prey. This new project began in the Strait of Georgia on the west coast of Canada by Dr. Rob Butler and Dr. Dan Esler of PWLF using a generous grant from the Seadoc Society. We will be reporting on the first phase of this project in 2008 when field work and data analysis is complete. Individual or corporate donations are welcome. Please contact us through this web site. For more information on eagles, click here.
Return of the Humpback Whale
The Return of the Humpback project is documenting a slow return of these whales to the eastern Pacific Ocean and discovering where they travel through their lives. In the 1980s the Pacific WildLife Foundation (then West Coast Whale Research) undertook pioneering research of humpback whales on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Now we are using those data to document their recovery along the east and west coasts of Vancouver Island. Identification of individual whales allows us to understand how whales use the waters of the Pacific. Humpback whales can be identified by markings on the undersides of their tail flukes. By regularly ‘sampling’ areas using photographs of whale’s tail flukes is the basis by which estimates of population size and definition are drawn. Over time a picture emerges how individuals use an area, how long they are present, their migratory destinations, birth interval and age of sexual maturity. Humpback whale photo-identification sampling occurs annually in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Canada, both through dedicated surveys by Dr. Jim Darling of PWLF, other researchers and contributions from whale watching operations in the region. All photo-identifications, in conjunction with ID collections from throughout the Pacific will be used to further our understanding of the abundance and behavior of humpbacks whales. This information is critical to development of meaningful management and conservation policies. Our partners include Remote Passages and Jamie’s Whaling Station. For more information humpback whales click here and to learn more about this project or contribute, click here.
Humpback Whale Identification Project
Identification of
individual whales allows us to understand how whales use the waters
of the Pacific. Humpback whales can be identified by markings on the
undersides of their tail flukes. By regularly ‘sampling’ areas using
photographs of tail flukes is the basis by which estimates of
population size and definition are drawn. Over time a picture
emerges how individuals use an area, how long they are present,
their migratory destinations, birth interval and age of sexual
maturity.
Humpback whale
photo-identification sampling occurs annually in Clayoquot Sound on
the west coast of Canada, through dedicated surveys by Dr. Jim
Darling of PWLF, other researchers and contributions from whale
watching operations in the region. All photo-identifications, in
conjunction with identification collections from throughout the
Pacific further our understanding of the abundance and behavior of
humpbacks whales. This information is critical to development of
meaningful management and conservation policies.
The humpback whale
was at one time, the most abundant large whale along the British
Columbia coast. Commercial whaling between 1903 and 1966 killed
nearly 2000 of them in British Columbia and the species was declared
endangered worldwide in 1966. During the 1970s, humpbacks were
occasionally reported along the west coast of Canada but it was not
until the 1990s that the whales began to return to their former
inshore waters. The good news is that the species is rebounding
throughout the North Pacific as a result of protection from hunting,
an abundance of food, and high reproductive potential. An estimated
20,000 humpbacks now occur in the North Pacific of which about
200-400 reside in summer in our Southern Vancouver Island study
area. Whales photographed off Vancouver Island have also been seen
in the breeding grounds near Hawaii, Mexico and Japan.
Long-term data collected since 1995 by Jim Darling has provided an insight into the rate of recovery of the whales and to make a link between the breeding sites in Mexico, Hawaii and Japan to the summer feeding grounds along Vancouver Island. The data includes 241 individuals photographed between 1995 and 2007. It shows that 107 of the 241 individual whales were seen in two or more years, most quite recently. Prior to 2001, most (97%) of the sightings were of new whales to the region compared to 60% in 2007. The recovery of the humpback took over three decades to begin and it will likely require many years before the recovery is complete. For more information on humpback whales click here and to learn more about this project or contribute, click here.
Black Oystercatcher Project
The Black Oystercatcher Project is using the biology of a common bird to provide signals of changes in ocean ecosystems.
If we hope that wild populations will continue to survive we need to ensure that natural conditions are in place to support them. The rocky shore of the northeast Pacific Ocean is home to an abundance of animals from sea otters to sea stars. The aim of the Black Oystercatcher Discovery project is to discover how much the oystercatcher can tell us about changes to the ecology of rocky shores by humans and the recovery of sea otters. Our research is being conducted in the Strait of Georgia, Barkeley and Clayoquot Sounds on the west coast of Vancouver Island and Laskeek Bay in Haida Gwaii (a.k.a. Queen Charlotte Islands). We are collaborating with Parks Canada’s Gulf Islands National Park Reserve to advise on the management of the rocky shore ecosystem. So far we have discovered that there are more oystercatchers in the Strait of Georgia than two decades ago and that nesting success is much greater in the sheltered waters of the Strait than on the outer shores where storm waves are a frequent occurrence. In 2007, colleagues on the west coast of Vancouver Island and Alaska attached transmitters on several oystercatchers to track movements. We collaborated by banding young oystercatchers with unique colour bands in the Strait of Georgia. We published a scientific paper in Northwest Science documenting the Strait-wide survey of locations of nesting oystercatchers. Click here to learn more about Black Oystercatchers. To read about recent results on this project, click here.
Current PWLF Projects
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