BRITISH COLUMBIA Wolf muralS raise timely questions about animal and environmental health.

 

Two large outdoor murals depicting wolves have been painted in Vancouver and in the province’s interior, in Nelson.  Both serve as a medium to invoke heightened awareness, education and inspiration to engage in a future that prioritizes coexistence and healthy landscapes for all species across BC.  The artwork aims to catalyze consideration of the essential role that wolves play in maintaining healthy ecosystems. The work will also portray the distinctive beauty of wolves, honed over millennia, to provoke reflection on their intrinsic value and sentient nature. The painting, created by talented professionals of Drift Mural Co., is financed by a coalition of NGOs, foundations and businesses. 

“The murals will help to convey the importance of maintaining large carnivores and functional predator-prey systems across BC; an opportunity that is diminishing worldwide ,” explains Sadie Parr, co-ordinator of the mural project and founder of WeHowl, a collaborative conservation effort. “A much-needed discussion looms about protecting these ancient relationships, as part of healthy provincial ecosystems and a healthy planet.”
“Besides the many ecological benefits that wolves provide, it is worth considering how the province's winter aerial wolf-kill program may have wider ecosystem impacts,” states Lesley Fox, Executive Director of The Fur Bearers. “Some of these costs are economic, while others, such as cultural and ecological services provided by wolves, may prove invaluable and irreplaceable.”   

BC began its government-sanctioned winter wolf-kill program, ostensibly to help caribou, in 2015, while industry, (largely clear-cut logging), continues in some caribou habitat.  More than 2,000 wolves have been killed since the program’s inception.

“Rather than fully protecting critical caribou habitat and aiding recovery through efforts such as decommissioning roads, BC is scapegoating wolves to avoid solving the habitat issues” explains Wayne McCrory, a Registered Professional Biologist (RPbio.) who has studied barren ground and mountain caribou. “There is scientific consensus that caribou decline in western Canada is largely due to the destruction of their habitat from clearcut logging and mining activities that are still on-going today. Backcountry winter recreation such as snowmobiling and heli-skiing have also contributed, as has past over-hunting”. 

"Aerial gunning can result in long, drawn-out deaths of individual animals. Chasing wild animals to the point of total exhaustion to gun them down from a helicopter is unconscionably cruel and shows a complete lack of respect for the province’s native wildlife." states Kelly Butler, wildlife campaign manager of Humane Society International/Canada.

“Neglectfully, no environmental impact assessment has taken place to take into account the consequences this program will have on wolves, or the wider ecosystem”, adds Hannah Barron, conservation director of the registered charity Wolf Awareness. 

Rob Laidlaw of Zoocheck says “To reassemble ancient forests that caribou require would be like unscrambling an egg. Rather it is imperative to maintain the natural environments in which they live.” He adds, “Clear-cut logging in core caribou range is indefensible.”

Those involved in the mural project recognize that art can invoke inspiration, raise questions, and foster change. This project has become even more timely with BC's first confirmed cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in February 2024 and serves as a reminder that predators, and specifically wolves, are the first line of defence in maintaining healthy ungulate populations, which depend upon healthy plant communities.

​

CWD is a 100% fatal, not treatable disease that can have devastating effects on species such as  in moose, caribou, white-tailed deer, mule deer, red deer, sika deer, black-tailed deer, and North American elk (Wapiti).  Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a similar disease, better known as “mad cow disease”, proved to be transmissible from cattle to humans. There is a possibility that CWD may do so as well. Several variants have been identified, and in experimental studies, it has crossed the species barrier beyond members of the deer family.
Research suggests that wolves are among the strongest line of defence against the spread of CWD.  Wolves selectively target slow, sick or infected individuals when they hunt and may recognize CWD at such an early stage that they remove sick individuals and prevent CWD transmission to other animals at an early stage, before symptoms become recognizable. 

When it comes to dealing with this disease, world-renowned large carnivore expert Dr. Paul Paquet, who has monitored the spread of CWD for decades, describes “Maintaining healthy wolf, cougar, and bear populations in BC would be beneficial”. 

“We will need the moral commitment in addition to Traditional Ecological Knowledge, science and technology to preserve species diversity and planetary health” ends Parr.