This pair may well be our last spawning salmon on Byrne Creek in south Burnaby this year.
The run started late and is ending late.
Nice to see that the female was completely spawned, not an egg to be found. Look at her totally abraded tail — she’d been digging hard in the gravel, making a nest for her eggs and covering them up . . .
We didn’t spot any live ones today.
NOTE: Streamkeepers have training and permission to monitor spawning salmon and assess them for species, size, spawning status, etc., after they die. Please keep your dogs on leash around creeks and streams, and stay on trails. And remember that the eggs will remain hidden in the gravel until they start hatching in the spring.
We headed down to White Rock, BC, today to check out the amazing herring run that has been attracting a feeding frenzy of sea lions, seals, gulls, cormorants. . .
Had an errand to run in North Vancouver today, so we combined it with a walk around Rice Lake. It was chilly, but lovely, and fun to watch an American Dipper bop around for awhile.
I’m an animal lover. I’m a wildlife and nature photographer. I’ve always had pets, always cared for them to their dying days. . .
But I think some folks are ignoring reality when it comes to animals.
Humans are terrible? Sure, some are, hopefully not too many. Of course we’ve had huge impacts on wildlife, not to mention on each other.
And factory “farming” is gross and disgusting.
But have you ever watched a large cat disembowel an ungulate, and start eating its stomach and organs while the ungulate is still alive?
Ever watched an eagle or an owl stripping flesh off of a still-quivering rodent?
Ever seen a 12cm coho smolt gulp down a 6cm chum fry?
Is that somehow better than us killing?
Nature is not Disney. It never has been, and it never will be.
I think Disney and its ilk have done a huge disservice to children who’ve fallen under their spell.
Predators are not sci-fi movies or documentaries. Predators are daily life, starting from plankton all the way up the food chain to carnivorous mammals. . .
That does not mean that humans cannot reduce their footprint by reducing meat consumption etc.
But let’s not somehow put wildlife up on pedestals as shining examples of harmony and love and whatever. . . .
Something I think we need to keep in mind when thinking about issues such as “culling” wolves and seals, or working with species at risk, or habitat loss, or sustainability, or climate change, etc., is that here in British Columbia, our homo sapiens species has gone from a population of about 55,000 in 1851 to some 4,648,000 in 2016.
That’s an 85X increase in only 165 years.
And our population continues to grow at 5.6% a year.
Caribou? Elk? Wolves? Seals? All a drop in the bucket compared to our numbers. . .
We checked out the Heritage Christmas at the Burnaby Village Museum on our way home today. Got there a bit early, would look better darker. Free admission!
