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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe hairy woodpecker is seen in this undated photo is one of only 14 species that saw genuine improvement in their status on British Columbia’s list of threatened, special-concern and secure species. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Handout – Peter Thompson (Mandatory Credit)<\/p>\n
There were population increases for the hairy woodpecker, humpback whale, the broad-winged hawk and long-billed curlew, the study says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The researchers defined changes in species\u2019 risk status as \u201cgenuine\u201d when they reflected trends in population or size.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For example, dragonfly populations of blue dashers, western pondhawk and black saddlebag improved as warming temperatures increased their range.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An additional 14 species changed for the worse, like the monarch butterfly and the bobolink, whose status reflected population declines and increasing threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
B.C. lists 493 species in the endangered \u201cred\u201d category, and 1,233 in the vulnerable \u201cblue\u201d category, representing a 25 per cent increase from 2008 that is mostly due to the addition of species on the list.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter Thompson, the study\u2019s co-author and a post-doctoral researcher at Simon Fraser University, said the most common pattern was for nothing to change at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, if a species was put on the red list in 2008, which is the highest category of endangerment, the most likely thing is it\u2019s still on the red list as we speak today,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thompson said the B.C. government\u2019s database has collected an \u201cimpressive\u201d number of new species over the past 20 years, but not enough is being done to help those that are threatened or endangered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
B.C. is the most biologically diverse province in Canada, meaning it has the largest variety of species and ecosystems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Only about one per cent of the province is covered by Canada\u2019s Species at Risk Act, which is meant to protect species on federal land.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rest receive some protection from the provincial Wildlife Act, but only four species have been listed since its inception in 1996: the sea otter, burrowing owl, American white pelican and Vancouver Island marmot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily what protections are offered that\u2019s the problem, it\u2019s the spread of species,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cA lot of the creepy-crawlies, the insects, the little guys, the invertebrates that we don\u2019t know very much about are being left behind.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said researchers documented more than 900 \u201cghost species,\u201d that are known to be at risk but haven\u2019t been placed on the list, and many of them are arthropods such as spiders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dedicated legislation could help fill in the gaps that exist with the Wildlife Act and other B.C. laws that provide some measure of protection for species, Thompson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The study noted the Wildlife Act doesn\u2019t set out legal requirements for habitat protection, recovery planning or timelines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It also suggests there is an overreliance on non-profit land trusts and stewardship efforts, which the authors say results \u201cin uneven and geographically patchy protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson said he\u2019d like to see proactive efforts to improve the status of at-risk species before they\u2019re at the brink of extinction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are still in serious trouble and they still need our help. And that\u2019s not an entirely surprising finding to us, but it\u2019s really important to quantify that, to put it on paper, and to continue raising the alarm that more help is needed for endangered species here in B.C. and across Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2013 As spring blooms in British Columbia, the brilliant orange-and black pattern of a monarch butterfly\u2019s wing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-585605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}