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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Nature on the edge / 4 It's a Wild West of endangered critters out there

Reviewed by: Scott Forbes

Posted: 02/20/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Wild West

Nature Living on the Edge

Endangered Species of Western

North America

By Heather Beattie and Barbara Huck

Heartland Associates, 360 pages, $33

At the dawn of the 19th century, 25 million bison roamed the Great Plains of North America.

Following the "Great Slaughter," just over 1,000 remained at the end of the century. Their northern counterpart, the Wood Bison, suffered the same fate.

A population of 168,000 in 1860 was nearly gone by 1893 with fewer than 300 still alive. These iconic animals that had dominated the North American landscape for more than 1,000 millennia had been brought to the brink of oblivion.

This locally produced eco-guide chronicles the history and biology of more than 50 endangered plants, animals and ecosytems from across western North America.

The authors have chosen as their subjects examples that are still with us but either in a state of decline (lake sturgeon, Pacific salmon, tall grass prairie) or where the decline has been arrested, still of concern (black-footed ferrets, California condor, whooping crane).

Each account describes the current state of affairs, and the recent and evolutionary history. The text is remarkably up to date with revisions that must have been added in the hours and minutes before it went to press.

The authors are not biologists by profession but have consulted widely to compile engaging and accurate accounts of endangered species and places.

Manitoba biologists including Ken De Smet, Jim Duncan, Micheline Manseau and Pam Rutherford were consulted on the project, and their work on endangered species is featured throughout the pages of Wild West.

The book is copiously illustrated with arresting photographs of the flora and fauna of interest, many which were taken by Manitoban Dennis Fast.

Thus the modest price is a pleasant surprise. Both authors have strong Winnipeg connections. Barbara Huck, a journalist, is also a managing partner of Heartland Associates, the Winnipeg publishing company that produced this volume.

And Heather Beattie is an archivist with the Hudson Bay Archives and holds degrees from both the universities of Winnipeg and Manitoba (as well as one from a lesser university to the east).

A few minor factual errors slipped through the cracks. For example, coelacanths were rediscovered off South Africa in 1938, not India in 1939. A critically endangered population of sockeye salmon is found in Sakinaw, not Saginaw Lake, on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. These fish, now virtually extinct, used to spawn on the beach of our family cabin.

But these are trifles and do not distract from the goal of drawing attention to the current conservation challenges.

Reading this book reminds one of the great work of the many wildlife and conservation biologists who toil in relative obscurity.

The reason that whooping cranes are still with us is due in large part to people like Ernie Kuyt of the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) who in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established a spectacularly successful captive breeding program.

What we know about polar bear and barren ground caribou owes much to the careers of CWS research scientists such as Ian Stirling and John Kelsall. These agencies and their provincial and state counterparts have a rich and proud history and have played a vital role in wildlife conservation.

But, sadly, they are now endangered agencies, with threadbare budgets that are the first to the cutting block when budgets are trimmed. A book like Wild West showcases the importance of this conservation work.

Beattie and Huck have produced a handsome volume that would be a terrific gift for both the budding naturalist and those naturalists who have already bloomed.

Scott Forbes is a professor of biology at the University of Winnipeg and author of A

Natural History of Families.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 20, 2010 H10

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