Ghost Bear Family Natural World

In these dark, ancient forests lives a creature of legend.

This is not an albino or polar bear,

but a rare North American black bear known as a ghost bear.

This white bear is a mother with two black cubs.

A bear family like this can be found in only one place on Earth.

The rainforest islands on the west coast of Canada.

My name is Jeff Turner and I'm a Canadian wildlife film-maker.

Alongside my own family, I'm heading into this wilderness to tell

the story of these special bears.

There's a lot at stake for this bear family.

They only have a few critical months to find enough food to

survive next winter's hibernation.

And they're not alone.

Hungry wolves...

and much larger bears share their island home.

It's going to take all the skills of this mother bear to get her

cubs through the many challenges they'll face.

This is their remarkable story.

Canada's ghost bears live on the west coast, in an area

known as the Great Bear Rainforest,

part of the world's largest temperate rainforest.

Here, the North Pacific Ocean

meets the coastal mountains of British Columbia.

This is one of the most productive landscapes on the planet,

and the life here is sustained by an abundance of fresh water.

The Great Bear Rainforest shelters thousands of different

species beneath its branches...

..but the one that we've come here to find, the most famous

and elusive, lives deep within the forest.

This isn't my first time I've been here looking for ghost bears.

25 years ago, my wife Sue and I

were the first people to ever make a film about these bears.

We had some amazing experiences and it changed the way

I have understood and worked around bears ever since.

Today, we're heading to a spot

where a ghost bear has been seen in recent years.

Although any bear could be frightened by human presence,

experience has taught me that if you're relaxed,

the chances are the bears will be, too.

And when we find her, this female is just awakening from a long sleep.

White black bears can occur in other places,

but it's one in a million odds, whereas here,

because these bears have been isolated on these islands for

so long, about one in ten black bears are white.

This year, she's come out of the den with two little cubs

that, unlike her, are black.

The genes that create white fur are not always expressed,

and a ghost bear mother is as likely to give birth to black cubs

as she is to white ones.

Getting both her cubs through their first year will be a challenge.

The main risk to cubs comes from other bears and wolves,

so when they're small, she'll keep them back here in the forest.

It's safer here because there's relatively little to eat,

and most animals are out on the coast,

where one of the year's greatest feasts is getting underway.

Hundreds of kilometres of shoreline are covered with sticky, white eggs.

Creatures from around the region are here to take advantage

of the abundant food.

This hungry male bear could easily kill the cubs.

But right now, he seems pretty content

with just licking up the rich eggs.

Wolves are also a threat to the cubs, and they're here, too.

At this time of year, they'll spend hours eating the rich eggs

while trying not to ingest too much of the seaweed underneath.

All these eggs come from Pacific herring

that have come up from deep water to spawn.

Male herring broadcast their sperm into the water,

turning it milky white.

This attracts females to the area,

who deposit their sticky eggs onto the vegetation.

Each female can lay up to 40,000 eggs.

There's a pheromone in the sperm that stimulates both the males

and females into a frenzy of spawning activity.

Herring are the most abundant fish on the coast,

providing rich pickings for any animal that can take advantage.

Like these Steller sea lions.

The big males can eat up to 70kg in a day.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

The herring spawn is one of the most important events of the year...

..but our white bear mother has not been able to take

advantage of this spring feast.

For now, she's continuing to keep her cubs hidden away.

They do seem nervous,

but it's not because there are wolves or other bears around.

We are the first people that these cubs have ever seen...

..and even though these cubs seem shy,

we know what's possible in a relationship

between humans and bears.

25 years ago, we lived side-by-side with the bears of the

Great Bear Rainforest, when our daughter Chelsea was just a baby.

SHE BABBLES

We quickly came to realise that these bears had never

encountered people before.

Over time, we were able to gain their trust,

so that they were comfortable allowing us

close enough to get a special view of their world.

Growing up with bears as her neighbours became normal to Chelsea.

-CHELSEA:

-I don't remember being here as a child,

but the experience must have rubbed off on me,

because today, I feel instinctively comfortable around bears.

It's really special to be able to share this again with my dad,

only this time, I know how lucky I am to have such close,

personal encounters with bears.

Looking at her, this mother bear seems thin.

She needs to build herself up

if she's going to get her cubs through their first summer.

Black bear mothers produce milk that is 30% fat,

some of the richest milk of any land animal in the world.

And she's had to do this with only plants to eat.

Since coming out of the den, she's been slowly losing weight.

She needs high-protein food,

but she'll have to wait until the salmon arrive.

Waiting in the forest does offer her

and her cubs continued sanctuary, but it must be hard to stay back

from the coast, where the pickings are much richer.

Other inhabitants of these islands can take full advantage

of what this place has to offer.

The Great Bear Rainforest lies adjacent to the

North Pacific Ocean, one of the richest in the world.

The wolves have readily adapted to life in this marine environment.

They are more sea wolves than timber wolves.

They are genetically distinct from their cousins on the mainland

and are incredible swimmers.

They've been seen travelling up to 12km between islands.

SOMBRE MUSIC

Most of the food these wolves eat comes from the sea,

but they also eat bears.

A wolf pack kills at least one or two bears a year

in the Great Bear Rainforest.

There's a good reason the mother bear prefers the forest,

even though there's less to eat.

But with summer's imminent arrival,

she shouldn't have to wait much longer for a decent meal.

Millions of salmon are migrating from their distant offshore

feeding grounds, returning to the rivers where they were born,

to spawn and then die.

Many will swim hundreds of kilometres inland,

deep into the heart of the forest.

And for some, it will mean they have to travel underground.

Underlying huge parts of the coast is a type of bedrock that is

so porous and permeable that water flowing on the surface

will suddenly disappear into a hole.

The water flows underground, often for kilometres,

before re-emerging again, sometimes in a completely different valley.

In these regions, known as karst landscapes,

salmon may have to travel through many of these underground

river systems to reach their spawning grounds.

The water that flows through this special bedrock becomes very

alkaline and carries nutrients leached from the rocks.

Ideal for salmon.

This salmon creek is fairly small, but it's full of fish.

This could be a great spot to set up and wait for the mother bear...

..even though there are other bears here already.

This huge male is one of the biggest black bears I've ever seen.

He must be the dominant bear on the creek,

and could be a real problem for a mother bear with cubs.

There is at least a dozen bears that use this creek,

so I'm not sure our mother will make an appearance.

The salmon only have a few weeks to spawn before they die,

but many won't get the chance.

Those white paws definitely belong to a ghost bear...

..and I'm relieved to see that it's the mother bear.

She has been lured from the forest by the chance of a good meal.

This will be the first salmon she's tasted in almost a year.

Hopefully, the first of many.

But she's left her cubs behind in the forest.

Although they'll be alone, with all the other bears on the creek,

it's probably the right call.

There are so many salmon here,

it's almost like she doesn't know where to start.

PLAYFUL MUSIC

And it looks like she's not going to settle for just one.

I've never seen a bear with one salmon in its mouth

trying to catch another.

She's either really experienced, or very hungry.

Right now, it's still too risky to bring the cubs to the salmon...

..instead it looks like she's taking the salmon to the cubs.

It didn't take me long to learn that the mother bear

liked to eat her salmon beneath a particular tree

that the cubs were often in.

So I was able to set up a remote camera right there

to observe what the cubs thought of their first salmon.

One cub was quick to the dinner table,

but the other was definitely a little more cautious.

And he seemed far more curious about my camera,

than about the fresh salmon his mother brought him to eat.

While the mother bear seems

completely unconcerned by my camera,

she has other worries.

Keeping the cubs in the forest

will really limit her fishing-time.

Soon she is going to have to risk bringing them to the creek.

And she doesn't wait long.

With no other bears around,

she makes the move.

This is a big moment in the cubs' lives.

She's got to be careful, though,

another bear could turn up at any moment.

The cubs are a bit nervous being out in the creek,

and they know they have to stick close to her wherever she goes.

While there are still lots of salmon around,

the mother bear can be selective with what she eats.

She takes a bite of this salmon...

and then drops it.

She can probably tell from the taste it's a male.

Bears need to target the richest, most nutritious food source.

What she really wants to find are female salmon...

..and she'll go out of her way to catch one.

Female salmon are loaded

with thousands of brightly coloured, nutrient-rich eggs.

This is the best part of the salmon,

high in calories and fat...

and she doesn't want to leave any behind.

The cubs, though, still need to learn

which are the best parts to eat.

Though the cubs are still nursing,

they need these protein-rich salmon as much as their mum does.

The whole family has to put on as much weight as possible

before winter hibernation.

The mother bear is always alert to potential dangers to her cubs.

Surprisingly, it's another ghost bear.

This one looks like a large male.

The cubs know that when another bear is around,

they have to get out of there.

They retreat to the safety of the trees.

The mother bear is much smaller than him,

but she's still going right after him.

I'm not sure that's such a good idea -

he could certainly do some damage to her.

And he doesn't seem much deterred by her approach.

That's a risky move on her part.

Any time two bears physically interact like that,

there's a good chance one of them could be hurt.

They're very powerful animals.

I don't know her character well enough yet to decide

if she's foolhardy or brave.

Only time will tell.

But her cubs knew what to do in this situation -

they knew that their best defence was to get up as high into a tree,

as quickly as possible.

Bear cubs always seem so at ease in these big trees,

so far off the ground.

They'll use their teeth as well as their claws

to hang on and move around.

The mother bear seems to have won the day,

but these encounters with other bears will be stressful for her.

She wisely decides to take her cubs back into the safety of forest.

With the arrival of the salmon,

the mother bear may also have to worry about the resident wolf packs.

Wolves on this coast are known to catch salmon in these streams.

It's lucky for her the ocean provides such a bounty

that the wolves seem content to spend their time

patrolling the shoreline.

And they find a dead sea lion that has washed up onto shore.

The whiter wolf is the old grandmother of the pack.

Her teeth aren't strong enough

to chew through the tough, rubbery hide,

as this younger wolf is starting to do.

For now, the old wolf must scavenge the beach for smaller prey.

THEY HOWL

Wolves use howls to communicate.

When they find food they alert the other pack members to the discovery.

The abundance of food from the ocean means that these sea wolves

can survive on just 60 square kilometres,

whereas wolves inland can range well over 1,000.

This is a real bonanza for them -

many kilos of fat-rich meat -

and it will feed the pack for a week or more.

Eventually, even the old grandmother wolf gets her chance to feed.

The younger pack members have peeled back the hide

and the heat from the sun has softened the carcass

so she is able to eat her fill.

While the summer sun has helped this old wolf get a meal,

it brings tougher times for some of the other residents

of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Water levels on the creek are dropping,

and it's getting harder for the bears to catch salmon.

The salmon can't make it up and over the falls now...

..so they hole up in the remaining deepwater pools.

The bears keep trying...

but salmon are very deep difficult to catch in deep water.

Chelsea and I are going to set up our underwater camera

in one of the pools to get a salmon's-eye view.

We wanted to test a theory about why ghost bears are so prevalent here.

We want to find out if white bears catch more fish than black ones.

There's new research that indicates they can catch 30% more salmon

during the day than black bears,

because their white fur

is less visible against the sky.

This would give them a distinct survival advantage.

Salmon have excellent vision - surprisingly similar to humans.

We need to place the camera

so that it's just the right spot to see the bears against the sky.

My dad asks me to do my best bear imitation!

Once we are happy with the camera replacement,

we just have to wait.

It's not long before a black bear arrives.

From the salmon's perspective,

he seems to blend in very well against the trees.

He even makes a lucky catch.

On this narrow creek, the forest obscures most of the sky above...

..then I see our mother bear approaching.

She seems to stand out even more against the trees

than the black bear.

But she still makes a successful catch.

Later we pointed the camera more towards the sky

and she did seem better camouflaged.

It wasn't a very scientific test,

but I think a bear's fishing ability

is as much to do with its age and experience,

as it does with its fur-colour.

The more time we get to spend around this bear,

the more we are learning about her skills.

So far, she's managed to catch lots of fish and keep her cubs safe.

But the busiest and most important part of the salmon season

is still to come.

While the mother bear lives on these islands year-round,

there are other creatures that only come for a visit.

These are North Pacific humpback whales...

..and 25 years ago you rarely saw them on this coast.

Today, there are about 2,000 that spend the summer on BC's coast.

The humpbacks feed by lunging sideways into the water...

..gulping down millions of tiny krill in massive mouthfuls.

The humpbacks share their summer feeding grounds

with Steller sea lions.

GURGLING, BARKING GROWLS

The juvenile sea lions

are very curious about their giant neighbours.

Filming at sea level, it wasn't clear exactly what was going on.

Were the sea lions trying to feed around whales,

or were they trying to play with them?

We just couldn't tell.

By using our small remote-control aerial camera,

my son Logan was able to capture

a bird's-eye view.

With the footage from above, we could see that the sea lions

were taking turns swimming closer and closer to the humpbacks -

like dare-devilish teenagers.

And we could see now that the humpbacks were clearly not happy

with the sea lions' antics.

This tail side-swiping is a sign of aggression in whales.

For the sea lions, it's a dangerous game -

a smack from a humpback's tail would be deadly.

The humpbacks slap the water with their pectoral fins and tails

in an effort to drive off the pesky sea lions.

While the humpbacks have made a remarkable recovery,

on this part of the coast, their future is far from secure.

There are plans to ship oil and gas in massive tankers

right through the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Humpbacks have no biosonar capacities

and are therefore very vulnerable to collisions with large ships.

The traffic in these waters

is expected to climb more than 100-fold

if the planned pipelines and tanker depots get built.

It's not just whales that may be impacted...

..these rich, coastal waters provide foraging opportunities

for lots of other wildlife.

Sea birds like these gulls, loons and guillemots

are all here to take advantage of the schools of young herring

living in these inland waters.

The guillemots are expert underwater hunters.

They can easily dive up to 100 metres.

Herring will avoid swimming through bubbles.

The guillemots take advantage of this to corral the herring

and drive them up to the water's surface.

The trails of bubbles are air trapped in the guillemots' feathers

and squeezed out by the water pressure as they dive.

The guillemots remain underwater for several minutes as they herd

the frenzied herring into bigger and bigger bait balls.

Forming a bait ball is the herrings' last-ditch defence.

With the guillemots pushing them up from below,

the herring are driven to the surface

where the gulls have been waiting to attack.

Many dive into the bait ball to try and make a catch.

But some try a different technique...

Piracy!

These feeding frenzies don't last long, though,

the herring eventually escape diving deep out of reach

of these surface predators.

Back on the salmon creek,

the water is low and the mother bear is spending more time

out here with her cubs scavenging salmon carcasses.

Fishing is tough right now.

What's nice to see is how increasingly tolerant

she's becoming of us.

She just goes about her day like we're not even here.

This is because the people she has met before

have treated her well.

We're collaborating with local bear guide

Marvin Robinson, a member of the Gitga'at First Nation.

He spent a lot of time

among the white bears in his traditional territory,

protecting them and guiding photographers and tourists

to see them.

He has treated the bears with respect and tolerance.

This has really helped us establish a relationship

with this mother bear.

She is so comfortable in our presence -

she'll even take a nap right in front of us.

In fact, she's looking so relaxed it's actually a little worrying.

While she doesn't need to be concerned with us,

she still does need to watch out for other bears.

At least the cubs are up in a tree.

If she wants to avoid a close encounter with another bear,

she needs to literally sleep with one eye open.

And this is what I was worried about.

This big male doesn't know the mother bear

is asleep on the other side of the tree.

His sudden appearance startles her.

LOUD GROWLING

She has no idea of his intentions.

LOW GROWLING

She is very upset by how close he got

and reacts with real aggression.

GROWLING CONTINUES

This is just the sort of encounter

that most mother bears try to avoid.

It was a dangerous situation for her to get yourself into.

She is lucky the big male didn't fight back.

He's so much bigger than her

that one swipe of his paw could've injured or even killed her.

For bears at this time of year,

the stakes are high.

And the next morning brings a stark reminder of just how high.

It's a little male black bear.

He was most likely killed in a fight with another bear -

possibly the big male.

Competition for salmon can be fierce and, occasionally, fatal.

The presence of this dead bear

appears to have really upset the mother.

She needs the salmon,

but the risk to her cubs is too high to stay out on the creek right now.

Luckily, this stressful situation is about to change.

The autumn rains finally arrive after a long, dry summer.

This place is called the Great Bear Rainforest for a reason -

more than three metres of rain falls on these forests every year.

It is one of the wettest places in the northern hemisphere.

This huge influx of fresh water

cascades off the rocky mountain slopes

filling the streams and creating surging waterfalls.

Rising water levels

mean that the salmon that have been trapped in shallow water,

can now continue their migration upstream.

But the higher water means that it can sometimes take 24 hours

and dozens of attempts

for them to leap a single waterfall.

The salmons' efforts are made even more challenging

by the presence of hungry black bears.

These two bears are very skinny.

They've both been drawn to the falls

in a desperate attempt to catch one of the leaping salmon.

But they have to be in exactly the right position,

just a little bit off the mark

and they won't catch a thing.

This bear knows he needs a better position to fish,

but there is a real danger -

a fall into this surging water could be fatal.

Not only does he have to stand in this fast water,

but he has to be secure enough to reach for leaping fish.

The other bear needs to get closer,

but there's no place for him to stand.

They are so close...

And yet, just out of reach.

The bear on the other side of the fall looks on in vain...

He is just too high above the water.

But this bear's precarious position finally pays off.

With water levels up on the creek,

the salmon are able to push further upstream

and the bears have more opportunities to catch them.

With higher water, the mother bear has moved to the falls

where the salmon are most active.

But the big male has taken over the best fishing spot.

She needs to keep herself safe,

but she also needs access to salmon.

She cautiously moves closer to the big male.

She's probably still a little unsure of him

after their last encounter.

There's lots of salmon swimming through the falls now,

but with big male so close by,

she can't really move around as freely as she needs to.

The big male has control of the best fishing site.

But due to the closeness of the mother bear,

he also seems to be losing some of his focus.

MALE BEAR GROWLS

Then he manages to grab another salmon.

However, this one is a male, and he lets it go.

The mother bear is less fussy right now,

but she's unable to take advantage of the opportunity.

Neither bear is very happy with the presence of the other.

The mother bear decides to move in

and take advantage of the scraps the big guy's left behind.

The big male seems annoyed by her presence so close behind him.

Something has to give.

At this rate, neither bear is going to be successful.

The mother is getting more confident...

growling at the big male,

letting him know she wants him out of there.

Finally, she builds up the nerve to storm his position.

GROWLING

LOW, SUSTAINED GROWLING

Even though she's much smaller than him, she's not backing down.

She wants access to the salmon more than he does.

The big male tries to intimidate her with his much larger size...

..but she holds her nerve - refusing to leave.

Finally, the big male's had enough,

and moves on to other fishing grounds.

Now the mother bear has the falls all to herself.

This has been a hard-won salmon,

but I think there's going to be lots more where this came from now.

Watching her these past months

I've really been impressed by how well she's done

for herself and her family.

She's a committed mother, who will do what it takes

to provide for her cubs and keep them safe.

As winter approaches, they should be in good shape for hibernation.

But she still had one more surprise in store for me.

On the very last day of filming,

she allows me to get the camera close enough to her cubs

to see the world through the eyes of an individual bear.

25 years ago, when Sue and I first came here,

we had never before been in a place where the wildlife allowed us

to get so immersed in their world.

It's been such a privilege to be able to come back here

all these years later

and have the opportunity to see even closer into the world of bears.

It's a testament to just how special the Great Bear Rainforest is -

this temperate rainforest right next to

the cold, rich North Pacific Ocean

combine to make this a unique environment full of life.

And nowhere else on the planet

can you find a family of bears like this.

With such a great role model to follow,

I don't think these cubs will have any trouble

eventually making their own way on these islands they call home.

As a wildlife film-maker

I've had the opportunity to film all around the world,

but coming back here to the Great Bear Rainforest with my family

reminds me again what a unique and extraordinary place this is.

There's nowhere like it in the world

and it needs to be celebrated and protected.

There is such richness and diversity everywhere you look,

but during our filming we discovered

that it still had some amazing secrets to reveal.

The Great Bear Rainforest on the west coast of Canada,

is a huge, largely intact, wilderness

74,000 square kilometres in size.

British Columbia contains one fourth

of all the temperate rainforests left on Earth.

It's a forested archipelago of thousands of islands,

fjords and inlets.

What makes this place so unique

is the fact that it's adjacent to the rich North Pacific Ocean.

The sea here supports an abundance of life.

Harbour seals spend all year here feeding.

Surf scoters...

..and the aptly named goldeneye ducks,

travel here to feed on the abundant fish.

During our past visits

we've always focused our filming efforts on the land,

but there's an incredibly rich world beneath the surface.

Kelp thrive in these cold fast-moving waters.

It's one of the fastest-growing plants on Earth

and can reach up to 30 metres in height.

This is the first time we've taken our cameras underwater

to film the kelp forests.

And for the seals that lived here,

they were just as curious of our cameras as we were of them.

Each kelp strand provides a habitat for up to 200 species

and tens of thousands of individual creatures.

When we first filmed here 25 years ago,

there were no sea otters in this part of the central coast.

They were hunted to extinction

all along British Columbia's coast.

A small number were reintroduced about 40 years ago

and the richness of this environment

has allowed the population to grow to more than 5,000 today.

They are re-colonising areas of the coast

that have not had sea otters for 100 years.

Another success story on this coast

has been the arrival of the Pacific white-sided dolphin.

These agile hunters can reach speeds of up to 40km an hour.

25 years ago, they were virtually non-existent here.

Now, about 20,000 are making these inshore waters their home.

The productivity of life beneath the sea,

is directly linked to that of the forest above.

Along the boundary between the sea and the forest,

sandhill cranes arrive to spend the summer.

CROAKING CALLS

Pairs return from California every year to breed

and raise their young in this rich forest environment.

Their distinctive resonant cry can carry up to 5km.

These temperate forests harbour a greater abundance of life

than any other type of forest on earth.

A big part of the reason for this

is due to what's happening beneath the surface.

It has to do with the way water flows through,

and even beneath, this forest.

Many of the trees grow on the permeable karst bedrock.

Here the land is so soft and fractured,

that water flowing on the surface

can suddenly disappear through a hole in the ground.

Down here there are many kilometres of underground tunnels and chambers

that the water flows through.

It's this water that's the key to the forest's success.

Wherever this soluble karst bedrock occurs,

the trees grow to incredible heights.

The soil that develops on top of this bedrock is well-drained,

so the tree roots don't get waterlogged.

If the soil was removed you could see

the convoluted and cracked surface of the bedrock

that the rainwater flows through.

This type of carbonate bedrock is rich in nutrients.

The eroding rainwater carries these nutrients

throughout the karst system feeding the trees.

And this makes them highly prized by timber companies.

Many of them, especially on Vancouver Island,

have already been logged.

When the trees are cut down,

the thin topsoil is vulnerable.

If a fire occurs,

this soil can be washed away exposing the bare karst rock below.

It could take hundreds of years before a site recovers.

I was keen to document life beneath these forests.

It's an important part of the salmons' story.

Filming in these underground rivers

was something that had never been attempted before,

and I knew I needed help to make it happen.

Whoa!

So, let's put it down there, try to run it through the tunnel.

If it doesn't fit, we'll leave it back on the left, then assemble it

and we can just form a little line in.

Travelling light today.

'The first challenge was getting hundreds of kilograms

'of diving and underwater camera gear into the caves.'

Put it just below you, and then we'll stage everything down to here.

All this for one shot!

THEY LAUGH

'This was no place for anyone who might suffer with claustrophobia!'

Go ahead of me there.

That's a bit of a squish, isn't it?

-It's quite exciting.

-OK.

-Yeah.

'This was a first for all of us.

'We were exploring a hidden world.'

It's an amazing experience being under here.

These formations you just had no idea existed here.

'Once we got through the narrow part of the cave,

'it opened up into larger chambers.'

During the wet season, these tunnels can fill with water.

But eventually, we arrived at this underground lake,

where we heard the salmon had been seen in the past.

This is one of the deepest freshwater cave dives in Canada.

The water is connected to the river that flows above ground,

so fish like this sculpin can move in and out of the caves.

For the dive team, this is a cause for concern.

I heard that the current can get up to eight knots

in certain places here. That's way too strong to swim against.

It looks OK, Alex?

I think it looks good.

'Once the guys decided the current was safe, they were in the water,

and their camera gear was lighting up this dark underwater world.

It didn't take long until the salmon showed up,

drawn to the sudden appearance of light.

This is the first time that salmon have been filmed

in these underground karst caves.

While the salmon may have to navigate these cave systems,

the water here offers them something extra.

Thanks to the alkaline karst bedrock,

the water here is particularly rich in nutrients and aquatic insects

offering rich pickings to hungry salmon.

Research in Alaska shows that salmon living in karst streams

tend to be larger and more numerous than in other rivers.

It's become clear to me that the karst landscapes

of the Great Bear Rainforest

are vitally important to the animals that make their home here.

But it's also a fragile landscape.

Without stronger protection for these karst regions,

we may lose a key component

of what makes the Great Bear Rainforest

such a rich and diverse wilderness.

And home to some very special wildlife.