I don’t wish to take away from an excellent thread, but as a fourth generation BC coast dweller, with two more behind me, I want to respectfully add some educational value to three items, all of which tourism, marketing and Wikipedia have embellished and blurred.
The Inside Passage.
From 1778-93 when Captains Cook and Vancouver first charted these waters, until the Alaska cruise industry muscled their way in, the Inside Passage was between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert. Tourism, US recreational boaters and anyone who loves fancy buzz words over history, continuously stretched the Inside Passage from Southeast Alaska to where Wikipedia marks Tacoma as the southern boundary. The same has been done with the Great Bear Rainforest and those three ugly letters, PNW.
Otters.
What is pictured in post 18 and described in post 20 are river otters; large rats, a nuisance and completely different from sea otters.
Sea otters spend their entire lives in the water diving to great depths for food and swimming mostly on their backs. Average females grow to about 50 pounds and males to about 60. They can be as large as 100 pounds. River otters are normally 10-20 pounds, spend most of their time out of the water, hanging out around fresh water streams, creaks and wherever humans provide food and structures for them to rip apart for nest building.
The feet, tails, fur, nurturing and foraging behaviors are as different as night and day. Canadian sea otters were completely wiped out during the fur trade and reintroduced to northern Vancouver Island in the 1970s. Since then their range has expanded southward to Telegraph Cove and various locations on the west coast of Vancouver Island. There is one sea otter (Ollie) at Race Rocks near Victoria and another (Odin) off San Juan Island. Otherwise there are none on the east side of Vancouver Island.
Bears.
There are plenty of black bears on our coast away from the trash cans of cavitation. In 2022 more black bears were seen from the Discovery Islands to the Broughtons than in recent history. This was primarily because the drought killed their normal inland vegetation, driving them to the shores to forage for mollusks and small tidal pool fishes. In September they would have moved from the beaches to the rivers and streams to hopefully find enough salmon to fatten up for winter. If they in fact do hibernate, when they emerge in spring they eat sedges, skunk cabbage and other greens, along with shoreline treats. In the summer, they usually move higher up to feast on berries while awaiting the salmon runs.
2022 was a disruptive, if not devastating year for all nature on the BC coast.
The Inside Passage.
From 1778-93 when Captains Cook and Vancouver first charted these waters, until the Alaska cruise industry muscled their way in, the Inside Passage was between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert. Tourism, US recreational boaters and anyone who loves fancy buzz words over history, continuously stretched the Inside Passage from Southeast Alaska to where Wikipedia marks Tacoma as the southern boundary. The same has been done with the Great Bear Rainforest and those three ugly letters, PNW.
Otters.
What is pictured in post 18 and described in post 20 are river otters; large rats, a nuisance and completely different from sea otters.
Sea otters spend their entire lives in the water diving to great depths for food and swimming mostly on their backs. Average females grow to about 50 pounds and males to about 60. They can be as large as 100 pounds. River otters are normally 10-20 pounds, spend most of their time out of the water, hanging out around fresh water streams, creaks and wherever humans provide food and structures for them to rip apart for nest building.
The feet, tails, fur, nurturing and foraging behaviors are as different as night and day. Canadian sea otters were completely wiped out during the fur trade and reintroduced to northern Vancouver Island in the 1970s. Since then their range has expanded southward to Telegraph Cove and various locations on the west coast of Vancouver Island. There is one sea otter (Ollie) at Race Rocks near Victoria and another (Odin) off San Juan Island. Otherwise there are none on the east side of Vancouver Island.
Bears.
There are plenty of black bears on our coast away from the trash cans of cavitation. In 2022 more black bears were seen from the Discovery Islands to the Broughtons than in recent history. This was primarily because the drought killed their normal inland vegetation, driving them to the shores to forage for mollusks and small tidal pool fishes. In September they would have moved from the beaches to the rivers and streams to hopefully find enough salmon to fatten up for winter. If they in fact do hibernate, when they emerge in spring they eat sedges, skunk cabbage and other greens, along with shoreline treats. In the summer, they usually move higher up to feast on berries while awaiting the salmon runs.
2022 was a disruptive, if not devastating year for all nature on the BC coast.
