In the first of a series of articles from Cortes Islands recent Wildlife Coexistence Gathering, Cortes Currents looked at Vancouver Island’s first wildlife coexistence program in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. The problem at that time was human/bear conflicts. By the time Sabina Leader Mense reached out from Cortes Island, in 2009, Bear Aware (later renamed WildSafeBC) had been dealing with wolves and cougars for more than a decade. 

Bob Hansen, Pacific Rim Coordinator for WildSafeBC, described the wolves’ sudden appearance. 

“Up until this point in time, it was bears and nothing but bears.  In 1998/99, the wolves showed up after being missing from our area for  decades.  Their presence was very dramatically felt.  I remember getting a phone call from the local paper in January of 1999,  ‘have you been getting wolf reports?’ I checked our database, and we’d had  six wolf reports since 1972.  I said, ‘nope.’ Within two weeks it started, the wolves were back.” 

Hansen suspects that modern forestry methods may be at least partially responsible for the influx of wolves and cougars into his area.