Scientists and the Wuikinuxv Nation in British Columbia form an unusual partnership to study how native fishers and grizzly bears can share scarce salmon runs. When sockeye salmon return from the ocean, everyone wants a piece. Gulls feast on carcasses littering riverbanks. Grizzly bears devour the fatty bellies and brains of fish they pluck from the water. Human anglers prize sockeyes for their rich, dark-pink flesh. But what if there aren’t enough fish to go around? The Wuikinuxv Nation on the coast of British Columbia, Canada teamed up with scientists in an unusual collaboration aimed at striking a balance between the needs of people and the needs of grizzlies when divvying up the annual supply of spawning salmon. The results illustrate how science can combine with the values of an indigenous people to manage scarce natural resources. “We’re trying to think about a catch that wildlife might need and a catch that local people might need,” says Megan Adams, a wildlife biologist who led the research through the Raincoast Conservation Foundation , a conservation science non-profit in British Columbia. The traditional fishing grounds of the Wuikinuxv (pronounced “Oh-wee-key-no”) Nation once flooded with as many as 3 million sockeye salmon […]
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