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Save the Bear

Ian McAllister did a convincing job of showing how critical it is to protect one of the most profound ecosystems on the planet—the Great Bear Rainforest. The book is a call-to-arms from the heart of the British Columbia coast and it honors the amazing beauty and diversity of this unforgettable region. A region of towering trees and rare mammals that stretches up the rugged Pacific Northwest coast from the north end of Vancouver Island to southern Alaska, a place world famous for its biodiversity. The author is a longtime resident of the area, an award-winning photographer and conservationist. His life’s work is exploring and documenting the Great Bear’s inhabitants. He introduces us to a few Gitga’at elders from the small community of Hartley Bay, Heiltsuk, engaged in the traditional herring roe fishery, and to the scientists devoted to studying the region’s return of humpback and fin whales. He warns us that today, a number of megaenergy projects now threaten this coast like no other time in history, endangering the Great Bear’s traditional ways of life for humans and non-humans alike; Great Bear Wild shows, in a visceral way, what is at stake if these projects proceed. McAllister points out that this “paradise represents more than half of Canada’s Pacific coast and much of the world’s remaining intact temperate rainforest. The Great Bear includes over a thousand uninhabited islands, two-thousand river valleys hosting wild salmon and one of the largest unexplored, unprotected marine ecosystems on the planet.” He mentions that Canada has the largest coastline in the world. It includes Triangle Island, the “Last Island,” which is extremely important globally as a seabird nesting island, home to approximately thirty thousand pairs of tufted puffins and half the world’s Cassin’s auklet population. The island supports one of the greatest densities of bird and mammal life anywhere in the world. Furthermore, Triangle Island is also the second largest breeding ground for Steller’s sea lions in the world. Princess Royal Island is another island that inspires wonder and awe. This island reflects the interface of ocean and rainforest that defines the beauty and ecological richness of the Great Bear Rainforest. The book is loaded with many outstanding photographs. One that stands out is a photo of a sunflower sea star that lives along the shore. This sea star is the largest of its type in the world. With all these, as well as many others, one is astounded that this place is not considered a place to be off limits to oil and gas development and their tankers by the BC and Canadian government. Great Bear Wild is the home of two of the most amazing mammals in the world. The sea wolves live on the coast and islands, swim great distances and feed on herring roe, fish, seaweed and also hunt seals and sea lions. The Spirit Bear is a unique white form of black bear that will appear in black bear families. This book includes amazing photos of both of these little–known animals. Princess Royal Island is also home to the Gitga’at people, and McAllister tells us that their ancestors “have left some of the greatest displays of petroglyphs on the Northwest Pacific coast.” The petroglyphs offer stories, but the stories are almost impossible to date. They may be the oldest physical connection to Gitga’at ancestry that exists today. Unfortunately, the Gitga’at people’s seaweed and halibut camp is close enough for them to see the proposed oil and LNG tanker route threatening this traditional annual food-gathering ritual. Another resident, the grizzly bear, the animal that can stagger the imagination, continues to be hunted for sport and trophy even in parks and protected areas. (One of the most powerful photos in the book is of a grizzly lounging on moss near a river). Pink salmon, the orphans of the sea, make their multi-year heroic journey through the north Pacific, eventually reaching their home stream. Salmon remain one of the earth and sea’s greatest migrants. Their long and difficult journey back to the river of their birth is one of the great stories in nature. It is myth united to reality. Their return helps the river, the forest, and dozens of animals that live near the shore. The fact is, the salmon and the rainforest are one. Nature established this and what she wanted it to be and made it real. A list of over two hundred mammals, pollinators, flying insects, and birds have built their lives around the return of these salmon. These are the species that directly eat salmon. Indirect species that rely on salmon are measured in the thousands. Positive news regarding the Great Bear is the miraculous recovery of sea otters that have helped “bring back kelp forests and other critical habitat