Discovery prompts scientific expedition
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Only July 11, 1989 during a routine survey in Carmanah Valley, Canadian Wildlife Service biologists discovered a flock of marbled murrelets circling above the rainforest canopy. Only 14 marbled murrelet nests have been discovered in the world and scientists have been eager to locate the first Canadian nest. In B.C. these pelagic seabirds are thought to nest only in the treetops of never-before-logged forests. An earlier survey by jet ranger helicopter, sponsored by logging company MacMillan Bloedel, failed to find the murrelets of Carmanah.
Immediately after the discovery of marbled murrelets, the Wilderness Committee appealed to the scientific community for additional study. The response was overwhelming.
On August 5, the WCWC Carmanah natural history expedition was camped in the upper Carmanah valley at a camp dubbed Hummingbird. The expedition had a contingent of 7 full Doctors of Science, including ornithologists (bird specialists), entomologists (insect specialists) and botanists (plant specialists).
For several days the scientists and their assistants fanned out on round-the-clock inventories for plants and animals. More murrelets were sighted. When all the individual reports were combined, they painted a portrait of a diverse and complex living landscape.
The scientists pointed out that B.C. lags far behind its neighbours in Washington and Oregon states when it comes to the study of ancient forest ecosystems. They advocated that Carmanah Valley remain unlogged as an important (Italics) bio-yardstick (End Italics), a pristine valley against which other valleys could be measured. The scientists noticed that naturally wild places such as Carmanah are becoming fewer and fewer, yet they are critical for the study of problems like global warming, plant and animal extinction, soil erosion and air and water pollution.
"Like a heritage house, the forest contains vast quantities of extrasomatic intelligence - that is information that we cannot hold in our brains or even books or computers! When we destroy such a heritage house, an encyclopedia of art and craft, we may never be able to build one like it again."
- Dr. Allan Austin, associate professor of biology at the University of Victoria and One of the team members.
