A bald eagle soars over the an estuary in the Great Bear Rainforest, BC.

Bald Eagles

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When visiting a temperate rainforest in British Columbia, look for the bald eagle, a frequent old-growth visitor.

While not bald, the name comes from an older variation of the word, meaning “white-headed.” These majestic creatures can be found searching for their next meal in salmon-spawning rivers, along the ocean shoreline, or nesting high up in the canopies of ancient giants. Bald eagles build the largest nest of any bird in North America. Their nests can reach up to 8 feet (2.5 metres) across and weigh a metric ton! Since they are territorial birds, they will typically return to that same nest year after year for up to decades.

In addition to their enormous wingspans of 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.3 metres), bald eagles are known for their superpower eyesight. They have a 340-degree field of vision, can spot fish under the water’s surface, and can even see into the ultraviolet range. An eagle’s visual acuity is estimated to be 4 to 8 times greater than that of humans. This means that an eagle can see from a distance of 1.6 kilometers what a human with perfect vision can see from only 200 meters away. They also have binocular and monocular vision, allowing them to spot prey from great distances and navigate their environment with remarkable precision.

Along the Chehalis and Harrison Rivers near Agassiz, BC, in the territory of Sts’ailes First Nation, as many as 10,000 bald eagles have been known to congregate in November and December to feed on spawning salmon, making the area home to one of the largest bald eagle concentrations on Earth. It’s an incredible place to view wildlife this time of year! Nearby, at Echo Lake, one of their night-roosting sites, roughly half of the old-growth forests were protected in 2013 as a result of Ancient Forest Alliance’s campaign efforts. The rest of the forests there must now also be preserved.

How does your eyesight compare to an eagle? How many do you think are in this photo from the Harisson-Chehalis River estuary?? Find the answer at the bottom of this page.

Be sure to check out Hancock Wildlife’s live eagle cams and enjoy some of our favourite eagle photos below!

Answer: About 145 eagles can be found in the photo! Wild!

New Video! AFA’s TJ Watt’s TEDxVictoria Talk on Old-Growth Forests

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Earlier this year, TEDxVictoria returned to the stage with the theme “It’s up to us.” Ancient Forest Alliance photographer, campaigner, and co-founder TJ Watt was selected as one of 12 speakers. Like the famed TED Talks, TEDx (which has over 40 million followers on YouTube!) events host a series of speakers who highlight new ideas, challenges, or perspectives, but on a local level.

In his presentation, One Last Shot to Protect Old-Growth Forests In British Columbia, TJ takes us on a visual journey of his work as a conservation photographer, big tree hunter, and National Geographic Explorer. With stunning imagery and passionate storytelling, he shares his life’s mission: helping to secure permanent protection for endangered ancient forests in British Columbia. His talk also touches on how he tracks down giant trees, recent campaign successes, and what solutions are still needed. Be sure to watch and share it below!

A Note from TJ

“I’ve done many talks over the years, but none made me as nervous as this. How do you convey a topic as complex as old-growth forests and your life’s mission to protect them in just 15 minutes? It’s a lot of pressure – especially on a stage in front of 700 people! The opportunity to share my message, photos, and story with such a large audience, including the global reach that TEDx offers, was too important to pass up on, though.

I’ve dedicated the past 15 years to exploring and documenting endangered old-growth forests in BC to help see them saved. From uncovering groves of ancient giants to trudging up steep mountainsides or slogging through soaked clear-cuts, it’s been a beautiful and, many times, heartbreaking journey. It was an honour to share this story on the TEDxVictoria stage. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, please share it with friends and family to help raise further awareness. Thanks to the TEDxVictoria organizers for including me and everyone’s encouragement along the way.”

Portrait of Ancient Forest Alliance photographer TJ Watt at TEDxVictoria

TJ at TEDxVictoria 2024 [o] Lillie Louise Photography

Feeling inspired?

 

Please SHARE TJ’s TEDxVictoria talk on social media and with friends and family to help expand its reach! Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=enF8Zf4EPNg

Or, donate to support Ancient Forest Alliance‘s work to protect old-growth forests in BC.

Gnome Plant

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Beautiful and truly bizarre, the gnome plant is a rarely seen and poorly understood resident of the coastal rainforest.

Lacking stems or leaves, this plant briefly emerges from the soil in dense clusters of pink flowers with yellow centers, resembling the little rosettes of icing that decorate birthday cakes.

The lack of leaf or any trace of green on the gnome plant reveals that this is a myco-heterotroph: a strange guild of plants that includes the ghost pipe and groundcone that do not photosynthesize like other plants. Rather than spinning its own sugars from sunlight, the gnome plant taps into the complex network of mycorrhizal fungi under the forest floor and steals the solar energy they’ve traded from the trees. A beautiful parasite!

Look closely at this plant’s densely clustered flowers, and you will see the petals are covered in tiny hairs. Though no one is entirely certain what species of insect pollinates the flower, the dense hairs suggest the gnome plant is choosy about its accomplices, with the hairs perhaps screening out small insects looking to steal nectar while allowing a moth with an extended proboscis to be its sole customer. The small fruits of the gnome plant are said to have a somewhat “cheese-like” odour, which some believe may attract small rodents that can spread the seeds of this strange being across the forest floor.

Rare and understudied, the gnome plant is one of countless examples of the magic and mystery in our ancient, complex forest ecosystems. In the shadows of the coastal rainforest, it carries out its cryptic relationships with fungi, insects, and rodents, a strange and beautiful node in a web of connectivity. When forest ecosystems are destroyed through logging, we unweave these fragile life networks, often without comprehending what is lost.

Your best chance of encountering the mysterious gnome plant blooms is during the summer months, so keep your eyes peeled!

 

camas flowers bloom in a garry oak meadow in uplands park

Camas Lily

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The emblem of an endangered ecosystem, of deep cultural significance, and simply gorgeous, the camas lily is one charismatic plant. This flower, native to the Garry oak ecosystem of southeastern Vancouver Island is instantly recognizable for its glorious blue-purple flowers that can blanket whole meadows in springtime.

There are two species of blue camas on Vancouver Island — the common camas and the great camas — separated by size and the arrangement of the petals, which on the great camas twist together. Neither should be confused with death camas though, a white flowering species with bulbs that can be lethal to consume.

For the Coast Salish people, camas have traditionally been no mere ornament but a way of life. Indeed, it was considered second only to the all-important Pacific salmon in its importance in trade on the coast. This is because the rich, starchy bulb of the camas is a fantastic source of carbohydrates, traditionally filling the role of potatoes, bread, or rice in other cultures. Camas bulbs would be cooked in pit ovens for 24–48 hours to allow the complex starches to become sweet and easily digestible.

purple camas close up.

Traditionally, Indigenous camas harvesters have not been passive consumers of a wild plant, but instead active cultivators of camas meadows, including carrying out controlled burns to maintain the oak savannahs where camas thrive. Archaeological research suggests that Indigenous people in North America have been cultivating camas ecosystems for at least 3500 years, a legacy of care and stewardship that has helped maintain this biodiverse ecosystem and all the creatures that depend on it.

Today, due to development for housing and agriculture, Garry oak ecosystems are among the most threatened habitats in Canada.

To see some of the best camas displays this spring, visit one of the beautiful meadows at Uplands Park, Summit Park, or Beacon Hill in Victoria (late April/early May are the best times). Here, one can still wander among the fields of flowers and be reminded of the interwoven human relationship that goes back thousands of years 💜

 

 

 

Fawn Lily

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A graceful straight stem, curving elegantly at the top like a tiny streetlamp with beams of golden light spilling down — the fawn lily is such a picturesque beauty, that once seen, it will never be forgotten. On the BC coast, there are actually two species of fawn lily that match each other in elegance.

The pink fawn lily is a lover of damp forests, especially the rich soils of river floodplains — flourishing in the coastal rainforests of the west coast. First Nations people have traditionally enjoyed eating the bulbs of the pink fawn lily, digging them as the leaves first open in the spring (followed by water to prevent an upset stomach).

By contrast, the white fawn lily is found in drier, well-drained spots on the east side of Vancouver Island, brightening the Garry oak meadows and sunny glades in forests of Douglas-fir.

Fawn lilies are named for their dappled leaves, reminiscent of the spots on a baby deer (the stiff leaves themselves have been likened to the pricked ears of a listening fawn). It is appropriate that two of the most beautiful flowers on the coast are emblematic of two of the most magnificent and endangered ecosystems, the Garry oak meadows and the valley-bottom rainforest floodplains.

Be sure to try and catch a glimpse of their fleeting beauty in early spring. A great place to see white fawn lilies is the St. Mary’s Church & Cemetery in Metchosin, where thousands of these flowers blanket the ground in early April. Pink fawn lilies are commonly seen around the San Juan Spruce near Port Renfrew, among other spruce floodplain zones on the west coast.

 

Hair Ice

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Hidden among the rainforests of BC you can find wonders of ephemeral beauty and minute delicacy, and few of these are stranger or lovelier than the phenomenon of hair ice.

Also known as “frost beard” or “ice wool”, hair ice appears only on dead deciduous wood when the temperatures are hovering just below zero degrees and when the air is humid. At first, it looks like a silvery moss or fungus, but a closer inspection shows instead a mass of fine icy filaments. These are incredibly slender, about .02 mm in diameter. Densely packed, they form a pearly cloud of ice. The slightest touch of a warm finger or even a breath will dissolve this fragile sculpture like cotton candy on the tongue.

But where does it come from? This magical winter phenomenon, like so much that is strange and mystical in forest ecology, is associated with a particular species of fungus: a jelly fungus called Exidiopsis effusa.

Under ideal conditions, a process called “ice segregation” occurs. This is when water freezes on the outside of dead wood, sandwiching a thin film of water between this ice and the wood pores. At this “ice front”, water is then drawn up through the wood pores towards the ice surface, where it freezes and adds to the existing ice. Lignin and tannin from the fungus are found in the ice and are thought to work as a sort of anti-freeze, inhibiting the delicate ice from recrystallizing into coarser structures and helping stabilize their unique shape for hours.

Because hair ice is associated with a specific fungus inside the wood, the same pieces may produce hair ice year after year. Around Vancouver Island, these are commonly the dead branches of red alder trees. If you are lucky enough to find it, take careful note of the exact spot, you may be able to repeat the encounter, even several years later, when the conditions are once again just right!

 

What are “Forest Productivity Distinctions”?

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“Forest Productivity Distinctions” and “Ecosystem-based Targets” are two phrases you’ve heard us use a lot, but what do they mean? And, why are they important regarding the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (BEHF) and the greater conservation of BC’s natural spaces as a whole? Read on to learn more!

Ecosystem-based protection targets ensure the full diversity of ecosystems in BC receive the protection they need, rather than concentrating protection in certain ecosystems and largely excluding others.

“Forest Productivity” refers to the capacity of the forest to produce large trees, with the endangered, higher productivity forests generally featuring the giant ancient trees that BC is famous for.

High-productivity forests, as well as lower elevation forests, grasslands and wetlands in general, have the greatest concentrations of biodiversity, species at risk, salmon and fish-bearing streams, and areas of greatest cultural value to First Nations in the province. However, these same ecosystems have been disproportionately excluded from protection at the behest of industry.

Ecosystem-based targets used in conjunction with forest productivity distinctions ensure the ongoing expansion of protected areas in BC prioritizes the endangered, big-tree forests, rather than focusing protection on the boggy, subalpine, and tundra ecosystems of the province. The latter of which has been the status quo for decades.

The proposed BEHF is a first-rate opportunity to ensure these high-productivity forests get the protection they need and deserve.

If you haven’t yet, please send an instant message to political decision-makers (while the January 31st deadline to make a technical submission to the bureaucrats has passed, the elected BC Cabinet — the Premier and Ministers — ultimately decides the final version) to support strong ecosystem-based targets with forest productivity distinctions.

Flip through these slides to get a break-down of forest productivity distinctions and why they’re so important! And, visit our Instagram for more educational resources!

All About the Biodiversity & Ecosystem Health Framework

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BC’s proposed Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (BEHF) is the greatest chance in BC’s history to direct the expansion of its protected areas system in the right direction.

If done right, the new biodiversity framework could usher in a major paradigm shift that safeguards the most endangered ecosystems in BC rather than primarily protecting areas with low timber value and which are less coveted by industry. These endangered ecosystems include “high productivity” old-growth forests with classic forest giants, such as the ones you see in all our photos, along with diverse valley bottom and low-elevation ecosystems.

The current draft has many promising components that should be retained, such as creating a Provincial Biodiversity Officer, but is still missing key pieces to give it the teeth it needs to be transformational.

“Ecosystem-based protection targets” devised by science and informed by Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees that incorporate all ecological communities and forest productivity distinctions (distinguishing between sites that tend to grow small vs large trees) are needed to guide the expansion of the protected areas system and the expenditure of conservation funding in BC.

The standard and permanency of new protected areas must also be upheld while enforcing accountability and transparency of the framework through legally binding milestones, objectives, and timelines.

Please join us in calling on the BC government to ensure this new framework results in the protection of old-growth forests and other threatened ecosystems across BC! Send an instant message to decision-makers using our newly updated Take-Action Tool here.

And read through these slides to learn more about this potentially history-making framework!

Roosevelt Elk

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Autumn is the season of romance for the magnificent Roosevelt elk of the coastal rainforest. Males “bugle” for females, and, wielding their massive antlers (which can host six or more pointed tines branching out from the main beam), contend with each other for access to mates. The Roosevelt elk is Vancouver Island’s largest and most charismatic land mammal, weighing up to 1100 lbs/500 kg! Both sexes of elk are easily distinguishable from other ungulates by a thick dark brown mane on their head and neck and beige body and rump. These large mammals are an important food source for wolves, cougars, and many First Nations people.

, Roosevelt elk spend winters browsing for woody plants such as devil’s club and elderberry along the banks of rivers in rich, valley-bottom forests. With their abundant shrubs and huge trees that block out the falling snow, old-growth forests provide Roosevelt elk with critical habitat, especially in the harsh winter months.

It is fitting that Vancouver Island’s largest land animal is drawn to the habitats that produce BC’s biggest trees: the nutrient-rich floodplains of coastal rivers. The sight of a herd of elk browsing in an old-growth riparian forest full of towering Sitka spruce and ancient moss-draped maples is the pinnacle of rainforest beauty and majesty: charismatic megafauna combined with charismatic megaflora!

With only around 3,000 Roosevelt elk on the island, they are considered a species of special concern by the province. The number one constraint on their population is the destruction of their old-growth wintering habitat, making the protection of our richest-valley bottom ancient forests an essential step in ensuring these magnificent creatures continue to roam our forests for generations to come.

 

Banana Slugs

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BC’s coastal rainforests are famously home to giant organisms. But beyond the big trees, these forests also produce giant slugs! The banana slug is the second largest slug on earth, being able to reach 9 inches (23 cm) in length. These charismatic, often bright yellow creatures are signature members of the rainforest community.

Banana slugs are enthusiastic omnivores that feed on plants, detritus, and carrion, but they seem to have a special fondness for mushrooms. Feeding is done through their specialized rasp-like tongue called a radula. This tongue is equipped with over 20,000 ‘teeth’ that the slugs use to shred their food. If mushrooms have nightmares, they’re probably of tooth-studded tongues!

Another secret to the banana slug’s success is its slime, which is hydrophilic and able to absorb 100 times its weight in water, keeping the slug moist. The slime also provides the animal with locomotion, adhesion, and protection.

The slime is neither solid nor liquid, but a strange substance known as a liquid crystal, in which the molecules are fluid but structured. The slime is, paradoxically, both an adhesive (allowing the slug to stick to things) and a lubricant, allowing the slug to slide without resistance. Thanks to slime, a slug can even travel across a razor blade without injury.

Finally, the slime provides protection, as it contains a paralytic toxin. Any human foolish to give a slug a big lick will find their tongue and lips go numb. Clever raccoons will roll the slugs in dirt in order to bind up and remove the slime before these little bandits dine on banana-escargot.