Background Articles

From floods to fires, drought to coastal erosion, climate change is already having an impact on Canada's communities, landscapes and wildlife

Considered the most destructive pest slug in Europe, the Spanish slug, or Arion lusitanicus, or Arion vulgaris, or sometimes Geoff (there’s some controversy over the name, thanks to the fact that the Arion genus contains up to 50 species and they all look a lot like one another) is between 7-15cm long and can weigh up to 15kilos if it’s sitting on a dog.

Warmer temperatures and declining sea ice pulls foreign animals and plants to the Arctic, with drastic consequences for these sensitive ecosystems.

Climate change may be enabling beavers to move deeper into the Arctic. And as they move, they magnify climate change’s effects.

In August 2017, Sun’aq Tribe of Kodiak was awarded funding by USFWS Tribal Wildlife Grant (TWG) Program. The two-year project, titled “Distribution, Movement and Diet of Invasive Crayfish Populations in Buskin River Watershed on Kodiak Island, Alaska” focuses on characterizing the distribution (snorkel/scuba diving surveys), movement (radio tagging) and diet (stable isotope analyses) of the Signal Crayfish population within Buskin Watershed.

Climate change has warmed the waters east of Tasmania at four times the speed of the global average. But the heatwave of the southern summer of 2015/2016 was something exceptional, damaging fisheries and bringing new species to the island. It's a sign of things to come, say the researchers examining these events.

Keeping tabs on capelin — from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to the world wide web.

The Canada lynx, once eliminated from most of New England by forest clearing and unsustainable hunting and trapping, is making a comeback.

Like a horde of slimy green zombies, the incredibly invasive American bullfrog is hopping the border into the West Kootenay.

Somebody is poisoning the moose of Anchorage. It's probably you. And many of your relatives, friends, and neighbors. Because the entire city is a garden laced with poisonous plants.

There's somewhat of a slow motion invasion of a fresh water crustacean happening in Buskin River and Buskin Lake. It has a hard shell, two claws and tastes great in pies.

The lobster population has crashed to the lowest levels on record in southern New England while climbing to heights never before seen in the cold waters off Maine and other northern reaches — a geographic shift that scientists attribute in large part to the warming of the ocean.

A recent study shows that polar bears' mercury levels are declining as melting ice drives them onshore. But is it all good news? Read on.

If you're wondering why British Columbia experienced such a mild winter and early spring, you could maybe blame it on a mysterious "blob" of warm water in the Pacific Ocean.

Human encounters with cougars are on the rise in Alberta, according to wildlife conservation group WildSmart.

The majestic birds of the far north are traveling as far south as Bermuda.

Kays, along with fellow curator Robert Feranec, developed a new kind of carbon isotope test on hair and bone that proved the Sacandaga Lake wolf lived on a diet in the wild, and had never been a pet or zoo specimen fed by humans. Seeing the animal was not a coyote, the hunter gave the wolf carcass to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which called in federal wildlife officials, who confiscated it. The DEC issued a statement saying the study shows federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials need to reverse efforts to remove endangered species protections for wolves in the Northeast. Said Christopher Amato, assistant commissioner for natural resources, "We continue to believe that natural recovery of wolves in the Northeast is possible and urge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its recent proposals and to update its wolf recovery plan to reflect this new scientific information and support the natural recolonization by wolves." In July 2004, federal officials proposed removing the wolf from the endangered species in the east, due to growing wolf populations from recovery efforts in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

A parasitic isopod that scientists identified five years ago has all but decimated mud shrimp populations in coastal estuaries ranging from British Columbia to northern California - with the exception of a handful of locations in Oregon from Waldport to Tillamook.

July 23, 2007 – Over the last five years, large, predatory Humboldt squid have moved north from equatorial waters and invaded the sea off Central California, where they may be decimating populations of Pacific hake, an important commercial fish.