After a month of trudging through the vast wilderness of South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park, Robin Naidoo is starting to enjoy the fruits of his labour. Sometimes travelling with a team of packhorses, the research scientist with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US) had up to five heavy cameras with him every day, fastening them to …
During a recent routine check of a marmot colony near Castlecrag Mountain in Strathcona Provincial Park, a pair of researchers discovered a welcome surprise. Molly the marmot, an offspring from one of the first Vancouver Island marmots released into the wild nine years ago, had produced six pups of her own. It is an accomplishment …
BC Parks is excited to be partnering once again with the Vancouver Aquarium as a conservation supporter of the WWF’s Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup! Since 1994, over 700,000 participants from coast to coast have removed nearly 1.2 million kilos of garbage from Canada’s shorelines. 2017 marks the sixth year BC parks has supported this conservation …
$240,000 is now available for BC Parks community engagement projects taking place in 2017/18. Each of BC Parks’ five regions have been allocated $20,000 to support conservation projects, and $20,000 to support recreation projects. To access this funding for a specific park, please contact your local BC Parks staff or email BCParks.Volunteers@gov.bc.ca to find out who you should …
By Sara Bunge and Sharilynn Wardrop Over the past five years, BC Parks staff in the Okanagan have been working with volunteers to monitor bat populations in three parks: Sun-Oka Beach, Okanagan Lake and Fintry. In these parks, there is a close connection between the buildings and the bats, with many of the heritage and …
White nose syndrome (WNS) is a deadly fungus that grows on the noses and bodies of bats. It first appeared in the Eastern United States in 2006. Since then, over six million bats have died from WNS. Little Brown and Northern bats both received emergency listing as species at risk under Canada’s Species at Risk …
If you go to Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park’s main parking lot area and follow the trail to the beach you may be surprised to learn that just a few months ago, there was a 650 m long, >1 m high concrete seawall along the shoreline. The seawall was built in 1971 to prevent logs from …
In 2011, BC Parks launched its Long-term Ecological Monitoring, or LTEM, project. This project is designed to measure environmental change over a long period of time. Parks provide relatively pristine areas in which to do this, and can teach us a lot about how the environment responds to climate change. Our LTEM plots measure either …
I’ve been a Ranger for two seasons now and can’t count the number of times I’ve given my “bear aware” talk to visitors on the trails. Wildlife education is one of the greatest tools we can use to keep people safe from bears and bears safe from people. For those of us who love being …
The changing seasons bring with them changing opportunities to experience wildlife and connect with nature in our parks. As the summer comes to a close, nature begins its autumnal preparations for winter. With autumn comes spawning salmon. With salmon come bears. With bears come…people – from far and wide, hoping to get a chance to …