Canada’s wild species are in excellent hands

The landscape is brown, trees have mostly lost their leaves and I know the wild animals are busily foraging, filling their caches and bellies with food to sustain them in the cold months to come.  I am on my way to the fall COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) species assessment meeting; COSEWIC members are top conservation and biology experts from across the country who are passionate about protecting Canada’s species at risk, and they never take a rest from their efforts to help Nature – even in winter!
Meeting formally twice a year for a week to discuss and assign ‘at risk’ designations to Canadian species is just part of COSEWIC’s job; there is a lot of important work going on behind the scenes, too.  From meeting with specialist subcommittees to ensuring that status reports (which form the basis of the designations) are complete and use the best available science, COSEWIC members are kept busy, on top of their regular, full-time jobs as conservation biologists at universities, NGOs, provincial, territorial and federal governments.

Black-tailed prairie dog, Canada (c) Valerie Whetter/WWF
At this meeting, 23 species, ranging from the snuffbox mussel and ghost antler lichen to the yellow-breasted chat and north Pacific spiny dogfish, were assessed. Species can be deemed as special concern, threatened, endangered, extirpated, or extinct, based on a variety of criteria such as distribution range, number of individuals and population projections.
While all species looked at are important for different reasons, two of particular interest to me were the Black-tailed Prairie Dog and the North Pacific Spiny Dogfish. The Black-tailed Prairie Dog, assessed as Threatened, is a squirrel-like, ground-dwelling mammal in the Prairies; it is also the favourite prey of another at risk species, the Black-footed Ferret, one that WWF helped to reintroduce to Grasslands National Park in 2009. Time will tell how these two species continue to co-exist.
The North Pacific Spiny Dogfish, assessed as Special Concern, is actually a small shark found off the coast of British Columbia. This shark is fished commercially but also killed as bycatch and is one of many species we’re continuing to watch and engage on through our shark work.

But the news isn’t always bad! As species are periodically reassessed, new information often comes to light (thanks to more effort in response to the original assessment) which changes the picture. This was the case for the poetically named Ghost Antler Lichen and Hairy Prairie-clover, both which were downlisted respectively to Not at Risk and Special Concern.
From the smallest lichen to the largest marine mammal, each species receives the same amount of research, expertise and care in ensuring that the best assessment is made; Canada’s wild species are in excellent hands, even when they’re snoozing in the winter!