BCAA

The place All in the Family To understand B.C.���s remarkable flora and fauna one needs to understand the Cannings family ��� because they wrote the book on this province���s natural history by Richard and Sydney Cannings British Columbia We spent a fortunate childhood in the Okanagan Valley, rambling almost every day across wide grasslands and climbing rolling hills covered with flowers and fragrant pines. We took the natural world for granted then; it was literally our backyard. Only later, after exploring more of British Columbia and the world, did we realize how lucky we were to have had parents who encouraged us to love the natural world and learn its ways and how lucky we were to have grown up in B.C. British Columbia is a marvellous place for anyone who is curious about nature. Whether strolling in a neighbourhood wood lot, kayaking on the saltchuck, hiking over an alpine pass or driving along a northern highway, the stunning natural scenery lures you on. But B.C. is more than scenery. For the naturalist, this province is wonderful because it is wonderfully diverse: one province encompassing 10 ecological provinces, each with a multitude of natural communities. Over the millennia, unimaginably powerful tectonic forces have pushed and piled up mountains and plateaus, and ages of rain and glacial ice have carved them into complex systems of valleys, canyons, benches, hills, basins and floodplains. Standing on the western edge of the continent, facing the westerly winds, B.C.���s mountain ranges divide this intricate land(clockwise from bottom right) The barred owl, which gets its name from the brown, vertical bars on its belly, nests in cavities in old-growth coniferous forests (B.C.���s rare spotted owl is very similar, but has brown underparts marked by white spots ��� and no brown bars); Bella Coola Valley, central coast; fossilized redwood twiglets from the swampy B.C. Interior of 45 million years ago; Brittle prickly pear cactus in bloom; the Quesnel Lake wetlands; ochre star, giant green sea anemones, blood star and purple sea urchins in a Vancouver Island tidal pool. (centre) B.C.���s genetically unique coastal grey wolf. Three brothers, Richard, Sydney AND ROBERT CANNINGS ��� Make up B.C.���s premier naturalist family. With many years of teaching and research between them, the biologist trio has authored the definitive books on the province���s natural history, covering topics as diverse as the ice age and hair lichens, winning numerous awards and the respect of the natural history community worldwide in the process. The latest generation of Cannings includes Richard���s 25-year-old son, Russell, recently dubbed Canada���s top birder by Maclean���s magazine. Pictured above: the Cannings twins, Richard and Sydney as six-year-olds in the ���60s. scape into climatic stripes of cold and hot, wet and dry. The complex interaction of geology, topography and climate has produced environments where a tremendous variety of animals and plants can flourish. Indeed, B.C. has more species of living things than any other Canadian province, and over the millennia, many of these populations have gone their own genetic ways, creating genetic diversity within each species. Many are found nowhere else in the world; or, B.C. is home to most of their world popula- (coastal grey wolf) Ian McAllister, British Columbia: A Natural History/Douglas & McIntyre, the Cannings p16-17_The Place.indd 17 tions. About 80 per cent of all Cassin���s auklets, for example, nest on the B.C. coast, a million of them on Triangle Island alone (see page 42 for more details). Most trumpeter swans nest in Alaska, but more than half spend the winter on B.C.���s estuaries. Sixty per cent of the world���s mountain goats are also found here, along with 30 per cent of all bald eagles and 25 per cent of all grizzlies. Meanwhile, the face of the world has been radically changed over the last century. The human population is increasing by a quarter of a million people every day. Many of the world���s forests have been felled, and everywhere they are falling faster and faster. The ocean has been efficiently scoured; fishery after fishery has boomed and then collapsed. As prosperity in the developed world increases, people consume more resources and use more energy. And as consumption of fossil fuels increases, so does the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. We have the whole world in our hands. In our small corner of the globe alone, we hold the future of the kelp forests and eel-grass beds, the big sandy bays filled with clams, the steep-walled fiords draped with great conifer forests, the grizzlies fishing for salmon, the oak and arbutus woodlands on island sandstone, the eagles and sea ducks drawn to spawning herring, the ephemeral flower meadows of the mountains, the pine and fir forests on the eastern slopes, the hot grasslands awash with the scent of sage, the deep valleys with moose moving through still waters, the endless plateaus dotted with lakes, and the big northern spruce forests with lynx and hares galloping through thickets of birch and willow. Let���s not let them go. Excerpted from Richard and Sydney Cannings���s British Columbia: A Natural History ��� winner of the Science in Society Award and Bill Duthie Bookseller���s Choice Award (Greystone Books; $39.95). Westworld >> S p r i n g 2 0 1 3 17 13-02-05 9:33 AM

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