Grizzlies are starving in the woods: more protection needed, conservationists note – National Observer
October 11th 2023
Grizzly bears seen starving in the rainforests of British Columbia’s south coast because there isn’t enough salmon to sustain them raises alarm bells for wildlife biologist Wayne McCrory, who’s known as a leading bear expert in Canada.
The science is “crying out” for greater habitat protections for the iconic species as industrial activities eat away at the landscapes the bears depend on, he said.
“There’s a huge amount of protection work that needs to be done that isn’t happening, so you can say it’s in a crisis mode,” he said in an interview.
The federal government listed the grizzly bear under the Species at Risk Act in 2018, classifying the bears as “special concern” following a recommendation by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada six years earlier.
The committee’s report said grizzlies are “highly sensitive to human disturbance” and concluded that concern would grow without a reversal of the “increasing pressures of resource extraction and cumulative impacts” on their habitat.
