WWF-Canada’s flagship report offers a window into the nation’s ecological health and provides solutions for protecting and conserving wildlife.
Canada is home to a wide array of wildlife — from iconic species like the Atlantic walrus and barren-ground caribou to lesser-known but equally important ones like the Vancouver Island marmot and wood turtle. But their habitats – their homes – are increasingly under threat from human-induced pressures that threaten their very survival.
A different approach to conservation is needed: one that can more effectively address multiple threats to biodiversity and Canada’s ecosystems, including the accelerating climate crisis.
Populations of Canadian species assessed as at risk nationally by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) have declined by 59 per cent, on average, from 1970–2016.
Species of global conservation concern — assessed as threatened on the IUCN Red List — also have declined in Canada by 42 per cent, on average, from 1970–2016.
At-risk species in Canada face an average of five threats, including the accelerating threat of climate change.
The WWF-Canada’s Living Planet Report Canada (LPRC) 2020 has analyzed wildlife population trends and found that efforts to protect and recover vulnerable wildlife at local, provincial and national scales are not nearly enough.
Canada is not only home to wildlife of national conservation concern — it also hosts species of global conservation importance. Declines of species of global conservation concern in Canada magnify our international responsibility for their recovery.
Embracing Indigenous-led conservation is vital to advancing reconciliation and renewing relationships with Indigenous Peoples. First Nations, Métis and Inuit have been stewarding these lands and waters for millennia. Supporting Indigenous knowledge, governance, sovereignty and leadership is essential to advancing reconciliation and conservation across the country.
To expand our consideration of other vital ways of knowing in the 2020 LPRC, we have included a series of species stories to further explore trends in wildlife in Canada told from the perspective of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge systems. This is one step towards WWF-Canada’s journey toward embracing “two-eyed seeing” — which includes learning to see and embrace the strengths of Indigenous knowledges from one eye, and the strengths of scientific knowledge from the other.
The Living Planet Report is the World Wildlife Fund’s flagship publication. Released every two years, this report provides a comprehensive study of trends in global biodiversity and the health of the planet.
The Living Planet Report Canada is WWF-Canada’s complementary publication . Originally released in 2007 with follow-ups in 2017 and 2020, this report provides a snapshot of the nation’s ecological health.
COSEWIC Status: Threatened
IUCN Red List Status: Endangered
Wood turtles are semiaquatic freshwater turtles that inhabit both riparian (along the banks of rivers) and terrestrial habitats. As a long-lived species with a late sexual maturity, they are vulnerable to population changes. As a result, any adult mortality above the natural rate can dramatically cause population declines.
COSEWIC Status: Endangered
IUCN Red List Status: Vulnerable
The primary threat to leatherbacks in Canadian waters is fishery bycatch. This means they’re incidentally captured or entangled in fishing gear. Leatherback mortality rates in the Canadian Atlantic are estimated at more than 20 per cent. Unlike other turtles, a leatherback sea turtle cannot retract its head or flippers into its shell, nor can it swim in reverse, which means it cannot extract itself from entangled fishing gear.
COSEWIC Status: Special Concern
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern
Collared pikas are small mammals that inhabit alpine areas, which are patchily distributed above the tree line. The Yukon, Northwest Territories and northwest British Columbia are home to over half the global distribution of this species (the remainder extends into Alaska). Collared pikas spend the summer collecting plants and storing them as hay piles in rock crevices to eat during the freezing months of winter. Due to this food hoarding, pikas do not hibernate, and instead stay warm by eating their food stores.
COSEWIC Status: Special Concern
IUCN Red List Status: Near Threatened
Atlantic walruses are massive marine mammals that weigh about as much as a minivan. They play a key role in the food web — walruses feed on mollusks and other animals on the ocean floor and they are scavenged upon by polar bears. Indigenous communities also rely heavily on the walrus as a food source. Climate change is anticipated to negatively impact the population.
COSEWIC Status: Endangered
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern
Burrowing owls — which nest in abandoned burrows of small mammals like prairie dogs, ground squirrels and badgers — have faced habitat loss and degradation of their native grasslands, which has been accompanied by declines in small mammals and suitable burrows. In addition to habitat loss, new and emerging threats may be compounding population declines.
COSEWIC Status: Endangered
IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered
The North Atlantic right whale is an example of how interacting threats — including the indirect effect of climate change — can negatively affect species abundance. Right whales are extremely dependent on copepods (tiny crustaceans) and follow them wherever they’re highly concentrated — in this case, from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The problem is that oceanographic shifts from climate change have shifted the endangered whales to an area that, prior to 2017, did not have measures in place to reduce threats such as ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.
Human activity has shifted the natural equilibrium of ecosystems.
Successful recovery of at-risk species is dependent on the effective mitigation of threats — the factors that are responsible for population declines.
COSEWIC-assessed at-risk species are affected by multiple, cumulative pressures. These species have been impacted by five threats on average. Generally, amphibians and reptiles were the most threatened taxonomic group, facing seven threats on average. Eighty-seven per cent of species monitored were impacted by more than one threat.
Threats affecting species in Canada and around the world include:
Conservation actions that target only a single threat are unlikely to successfully stop and reverse wildlife declines as threats to species are often cumulative or synergistic and can have cascading effects.
Conservation strategies need to embrace systematic and multifaceted approaches that tackle both biodiversity loss and climate change at the same time. One way to do this is through nature-based climate solutions — like protected areas and restoration — which help stop wildlife loss by addressing multiple threats to biodiversity while also mitigating climate change by sequestering carbon in natural ecosystems.
WWF-Canada’s Living Planet Report Canada 2020 findings demonstrate the need for immediate action and heightened ambition. The next decade will be critical in reversing catastrophic wildlife loss and climate breakdown. Canada can — and must — provide global leadership by strengthening its goals and commitments at home and showing the world the way forward for nature and people.
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