No Salmon...No Bears, No Trees?

Sorry about the long commentary...but this is an issue I feel passionate about...

Gruesome image? Yes. But the circumstances leading to the death of this black bear are even more chilling than this image. Read on...

The black bear who formerly lived within this skull inhabited an area of the northern coast of British Columbia, Canada that is known as the "Great Bear Rainforest. It was killed and eaten by a brown (or grizzly) bear in October of 2008. Normally grizzlies in the Great Bear Rainforest feed largely on spawning salmon in October. But in the autumn of 2008 an event with potentially catastrophic consequences occurred in a large number of drainages in the Great Bear Rainforest - virtually no salmon returned to spawn. The immediate result? A LOT of hungry grizzly (and black) bears were forced to turn to alternate food sources during a time when they are desperately trying to build up the nutritional stores needed to sustain them through their winter hibernation. We observed bears that are normally gorging themselves on salmon digging for relatively low-nutrition roots and bulbs, and, on two instances (in 8 days) we observed the outcome of grizzlies attacking and killing black bears. And, we saw a lot of bears that were much thinner than they should have been in October. While there'll be no scientific study done to verify this, it's likely that over-winter mortality of bears will be higher than normal this year and that many cubs will go un-born (i.e., the bear's reproductive rate will drop).

The long-term result? The temperate rainforest and ecosystem that makes up the Great Bear Rainforest is adapted to the (normally) huge annual inputs of nutrients and energy provided by the (normally) almost countless millions of salmon that spawn and then die (and are eaten or decompose) in the rivers of the region. Studies have shown that even the massive trees found in the Great Bear Rainforest contain isotopes of nitrogen which ultimately came from the carcasses of salmon (bears and wolves - especially subordinate ones - regularly drag salmon carcasses away from the rivers and off into the forest to eat in peace and, of course, leave the scraps to decompose). Remove the massive annual input of nutrients/energy from the equation and EVERY aspect of the ecosystem is affected. How dramatically will the ecosystem change and what form will the ecosystem change to? No one knows for sure...and I for one hope to hell we never find out!

So why almost no salmon in so many rivers in the fall of 2008? No one knows for sure yet, but every suggested cause (over-fishing; diseases and parasites introduced by fish farms; damage to the spawing streams through increased particulates associated with logging; warmer than normal ocean currents in the ocean off the west coast of Canada; etc.) is linked to human intervention/disturbance to the environment. Perhaps it's time for a complete moratorium on sport and commercial fishing of salmon on the Pacific coast until we have a better handle on what's going on. Too much is at stake to ignore the issue...

If anyone is interested, all the contextual information surrounding this shot (field notes, all camera settings and processing details, conservation, etc.), can be found here:

http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/latest/detail_5.html.

Thanks for looking, and thanks in advance for any feedback on this image or issue.

Cheers...

Brad