New Denver, BC, January 24, 2013 VWS scientist Wayne McCrory to present spirit bear report to Enbridge Joint Review Panel Hearings – January 28, Kelowna, BC
Tiny Gribbell Island on British Columbia’s central coast is considered the birthplace of the province’s world-famous Spirit bears, also called the Kermode bear. This rugged island, which has suffered from past clearcutting and depleted salmon runs, is currently proposed for protection as a conservancy by the Valhalla Wilderness Society. About 40 % of the island’s small, semi-isolated population of 100-150 Kermode bear are white-phase, the highest of any area on the central coast. Evolutionary scientists consider Gribbell “the mother island of the white bears” and most likely where the gene for white bear coats evolved. Because of the high number of white bears, safely viewing white bears on Gribbell Island has become the cornerstone of multi-million dollar low-impact ecotourism on the BC coast and the centerpiece of a viable tourism program by the Gitga’at First Nations.
But the Island lies in the most treacherous passage of coastal channels where hundreds of huge tankers would carry Enbridge’s deadly tar sands bitumen to China and other markets.
In their environmental-social assessment submission to the Federal Joint Review Panel, Enbridge claims that, although a tanker spill would mean some threat to birds, mammals, and other biota, the impacts would only be short term and, for bears, would only affect a limited number. In a 2012 report, VWS bear biologist Wayne McCrory compared a review of the Enbridge submission to his own scientific analysis of how a tanker spill would impact the spirit bears of Gribbell Island. His report is called “Spirit Bears Under Siege: A Review Of The Threats An Oil Tanker Spill From The Proposed Northern Gateway Enbridge Project on Gribbell Island – Mother Island of the White Bear”. He found Enbridge’s claims of the low risks of a marine tanker spill and effects on the marine environment and wildlife totally underestimate the devastating and irreversible effects that will really happen.
McCrory combined years of scientific research on the Spirit Bears (the “Kermode” genetic variation of black bears) with statistics from Alaska’s disastrous Exxon-Valdez oil spill, to reveal a deadly future that lies in store for Spirit Bears and much coastal wildlife if the Northern Gateway pipeline is approved and an oil spill occurs. A major oil spill close enough to reach Gribbell Island could wipe out the Spirit Bears and poison the bears on nearby islands and the mainland coast as well. Oil contamination of bears would occur since many bears feed along the seashore where their fur would become coated with stranded bitumen. Also many bears would end up ingesting oil-contaminated salmon, barnacles and mussels as well as dead animals washed ashore after a spill. Many bears would likely die a slow and painful death from things like hypothermia and kidney failure.
The VWS spirit bear report was submitted to the Enbridge Joint Review Process in August, 2012. As a follow up with more information, McCrory is scheduled to give an oral presentation to the review panel in Kelowna on January 28.
Copies of the Valhalla Society’s spirit bear report on Enbridge are available at www.vws.org.
For more information contact Wayne McCrory: 250-358-7796. waynem@vws.org.
Or leave a message for Wayne McCrory at the Sandman Hotel on January 28: 250-860-6409.