Brian Lee
Everywhere I look, I find dead western red cedar trees. I first noticed it on my property this spring, orange beacons standing out against the familiar wall of green. A closer look revealed dozens of them, all with matching red foliage indicating a simultaneous end. Death seemed to favour the immature trees but not exclusively so, because the orange often stretched high up into the canopy. I started noticing it in other places, such as Francis Point Marine Park and along the highway or shore of any lake. I challenge you to not see it the next time you gaze at a wall of bush.
Clearly we have experienced a significant die-off — likely the delayed effects of last summer’s extreme drought. According to the Regional District of Nanaimo, last summer saw only four per cent of normal seasonal rainfall. This past June, YVR recorded 58.2 mm of precipitation compared to 11 mm last year. By July 19, we accumulated 32.8 mm of rain compared to 20.8 mm for the entire month of July 2015.
Cedars need plenty of water and suffer more than species like Douglas fir during drought conditions. But the number of mature (20-plus year old) trees affected that must have survived other, less severe droughts, makes for an interesting discussion about the potential for a rapid shift in the distribution of species. Scientific consensus tells us that we should expect occurrences like last summer’s drought to be more frequent.
On my property, which is mostly rocky slope, I’d say 20-30 per cent of the cedar are red and dead. If nothing else, the volume of dead, dry cedar has created a fire hazard. But it’s also another reminder of how our natural landscape is changing faster than ever before in human history.
We know arbutus trees have also suffered in recent years, possibly due to natural fungi that seem to be more lethal than previously seen. In the ocean, sea urchins have proliferated as their natural predator, the starfish, mysteriously disappeared. The sea urchins are already having an impact on kelp forests, described in one CBC news report investigating the phenomenon as a "kelp clearcut."
Acidification of the ocean (caused by increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) is having a profound effect on the ability of shellfish like scallops and oysters to reproduce. Increased acidity reduces the calcium carbonate available that shellfish larvae use to grow their shells. The Province newspaper recently reported that Island Scallops, which provides seed oysters and scallops for farmers, lost 90 per cent of its oyster larvae last year due to acidification.
But climate change isn’t the only culprit set to alter our natural landscape. According to British Columbia: A History by Richard and Sydney Cannings, over 4,000 species have been introduced to British Columbia by humans. Over 500 of those are plants. If you take note of plant life along the highway, you’ll find species we take for granted, like salmonberry, being rapidly overtaken by Japanese knotweed. Knotweed’s rampant growth is made all the more threatening by the fact that it spreads faster when cut.
As our industrial momentum pushes us past the point where we can expect to reverse our impact, we can only observe these ominous trends — and wonder what else is to yet to come.