Big oil and the future of the Great Bear Rainforest.

CANADA | Monday, 14 January 2013 | Views [608] | View Smaller Image

With its mouth and paws stained from the blood of salmon, a spirit bear takes a break to shake the rain from its fur. This rare subspecies of American black bear, with a recessive gene for white fur, is only found in the Great Bear Rainforest. With a population estimated at just 400 animals, an oil spill here could have grave consequences for the spirit bear's future.

After avoiding hungry predators like seals, wolves and bears on their upstream migration to spawn and die, the carcasses of chum salmon are swept downstream and pile up on a boulder. Bears and scavengers spread salmon carcasses into the surrounding forest, where the nutrients from their decaying bodies will fertilize the trees. Meanwhile the forest regulates the waters that rear the next generation of salmon. Ocean and forest are not distinct entities here - they nourish each other in a continuum.

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The deep tracks of a large adult grizzly beside a rainforest stream are evidence of a bear searching for salmon. Grizzlies get as much as 65 percent of their yearly calories from these oily fish. Nobody knows exactly what would happen if an oil spill happened here, but most people suspect that salmon populations would collapse, leaving the great bears and the entire ecosystem, in jeopardy.

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Big oil and the future of the Great Bear Rainforest.

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