But they're an indicator species for climate change: If habitat changes, wolverines can't move any higher nor can their prey. Wolverines appear to be repopulating the Washington Cascades, from Harts Pass near the U.S.-Canada border to areas around Mt. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., saw one through a spotter's scope in an Alaska trip two years ago. Wolverines are the largest member of the weasel family, elusive creatures who live at high elevation and range over vast areas. Myer Bornstein - Photo Bee 1/Getty Images/Flickr RF Show More Show Less pipelines will draw 650 tankers a year according to a Canadian government study. The other is a proposed oil pipeline terminus at Kitimat deep in a fjord on British Columbia's north coast. Other much greater potential dangers loom. The Makah Indians set off controversy proposing to hunt gray whales. A tagged gray whale was recently found to have undergone the world's longest migration, across the Pacific from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula to Mexico's Baja. The Western North Pacific Population of gray whales, which migrates from Japan north to Arctic waters, is severely endangered. They will, however, have to coexist in the Chukchi will Shell Oil's drilling rigs and thd danger of a spill in ice-choked Arctic Waters. They winter in Baja California, and migrate up the West Coast to feeding grounds in Alaska's Chukchi Seas. Gray Whales along the Eastern North Pacific are a major recovery story. Ed Reschke/Getty Images Show More Show Less 11 of24 Man-caused predation prevails in the Great White North. government has allowed loggers to chop down and fragment the small mammals' habitat. The 2010 Winter Olympics used the Vancouver Island marmot as a symbol. Olympic National Park rangers note long-occupied meadows are no longer home to marmots. Olympic marmots are a species unique to the Olympic Peninsula, as unique to where they live as Vancouver Island marmots across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Adam Jones/Getty Images Show More Show Less Eagles are now a major tourist draw in the Skagit. So is a change of attitude in which the national symbol is no longer considered competition for salmon. The banning of the pesticide DDT is a big part of eagle recovery. The number of occupied nests increased eightfold in the next 25 years, and numerous "non-resident" eagles winter in the "Magic Skagit." Just 105 pairs nested in Washington as of 1980. The major comeback story of America's national symbol is visible from the Skagit River to Whidbey Island to Seattle's Discovery Park. Hakan Karlsson/Getty Images/Vetta Show More Show Less 8 of24īald eagles are thriving. and Canadian governments are panting to bring the carbon economy to the West Coast. Canada is unprepared for a major (or minor) oil spill off southern Vancouver Island and in the Gulf Islands. Expansion of a pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver, could bring hundreds more oil tankers into inland waters. Chemical contamination poses a threat.Ī much greater danger looms. But the great marine mammals remain listed as endangered due to the decline of the orcas' major food source - chinook salmon. Orcas (killer whales): Four babies were born this winter to the southern resident population of orcas (killer whales).
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