A book on tour that highlights B.C’s inland rainforest and caribou arrives in Revelstoke tonight.
“This is the only remaining inland rainforest on planet earth,” says David Moskowitz, author of Caribou Rainforest: From Heartbreak to Hope. Moskowitz lives in the U.S.
A Q and A and book selling/signing will follow “a multimedia journey” into the critically threatened world of the mountain caribou.
Revelstoke is surrounded by an inland temperate rainforest that covers roughly 40 million acres, roughly the size of Wisconsin, and stretches from Idaho to Prince George, B.C. There are no other inland temperate zones on earth that harbour as many species, including mountain caribou. This rainforest is under pressure from logging and motorized recreation. More than 30 companies hold long-term agreements or tenures to log it.
| David Moskowitz works in the fields of photography, wildlife biology and education. He is the photographer and author of three books: Caribou Rainforest, Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest and Wolves in the Land of Salmon. He has contributed his technical expertise to a wide variety of wildlife studies regionally and in the Canadian and U.S. Rocky mountains, focusing on using tracking and other non-invasive methods to study wildlife ecology and promote conservation. (Submitted) |
He says he worked on this project because he believes it deserves more attention.
“It’s parable for us to think and talk about its future.”
Moskowitz notes that so far most of the talk has been about timber.
“I don’t want to create conflict, but start conversation.”
Moskowitz says he took a dozen trips to Revelstoke gathering material. He spoke with loggers, heli skiers, foresters, and hunting guides.
“To understand their perspective.”
The book is being released just when caribou have become extinct in the contiguous United States. The last few just being flown north of Revelstoke to eventually join the Columbia North herd.
READ MORE: Soon-to-be-extinct caribou moved north of Revelstoke
The book has many close-up caribou photos. Moskowitz says he had a long lens and set up camera traps in areas he thought caribou would go. He took the photos via skis, air, canoe, and backpacking.
“It’s been one crazy adventure.”
“One memorable moment was by Revelstoke. I borrowed a canoe, crossed the reservoir, skied to alpine and spent a week up in the Monashees,” says Moskowitz.
“I’ve never done a canoe ski trip before in my life.”
Moskowitz says something has to change when it comes to caribou as the animal is heading towards complete exstinction.
“There is no stability in the status quo.”
But how it will change? Moskowitz doesn’t know.
According the the publishers of the book, Moskowitz searches for lessons that can transform despair into hope—and become catalysts for charting a new way forward as we strive to balance human needs with preserving the diversity of the natural world.
Moskowitz also produced a short domumentary on Caribou called Last Stand - The Vanishing Caribou Rainforest that came out in 2017. His next book will be a field guide on bird nests.
Last Stand - The Vanishing Caribou Rainforest from Wild Confluence on Vimeo.
If interested Moskowitz will be at the Performing Arts Centre tonight. Doors open at 5:30 and the event starts at 6:00 pm.
For the full tour schedule visit www.CaribouRainforest.org/events
For more information, please look at the Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/2129770120444466/
The tour is sponsored by WildSight, Yellowstone to Yukon, Conservation Northwest, Braided River
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