Wayne McCrory, who celebrated his 80th birthday in May, has no plans to retire anytime soon.
“I wouldn’t die of old age, I’d die of boredom,” he says, speaking over Zoom from the “war room” of his timber-framed house in New Denver, B.C., surrounded by research on grizzly bears and wild horses. “And you can’t really sit around when the planet needs so much help.”
A wildlife biologist by training, McCrory has spent nearly five decades working to reduce conflicts between bears and people in Western Canada. He is renowned as one of the leading bear biologists in Canada. Over his long career he has also made significant contributions to the conservation of many other species, including mountain caribou, elk, western toads, wild horses and many other species. But he has done more than research some of the most important species in B.C.; he has also, through decades of tireless activism, helped to protect more than 1.25 million acres for their continued survival.
Kendra Norwood of the West Kootenay EcoSociety nominated McCrory for the Land Champion Award from the Real Estate Foundation of BC, writing, “A lifetime of Wayne’s efforts have led to the protection of some outstanding natural landscapes.” These include the Snk’mip Marsh Sanctuary on Slocan Lake in the West Kootenay, the Jaŝ Chinook Nature Sanctuary in the Chilcotin region, and a mile-long stretch of pristine shoreline on Slocan Lake (dubbed the “Valhalla Mile”) that runs beside Valhalla Provincial Park.
The Land Champion Award recognizes an individual for making exemplary contributions, over time, to protecting land and water and strengthening communities. McCrory was honoured at the Land Awards Gala, which took place on June 9 at the Anvil Centre in New Westminster.
McCrory’s family moved to New Denver in 1948, and he spent his childhood surrounded by spectacular wilderness: the forested mountains of the Valhalla Range on one side, and Slocan Lake on the other. He left to attend the University of British Columbia, graduating with an honours degree in zoology in 1966, worked briefly with the Canadian Wildlife Service, then travelled through Mexico and South America for a few years. “I didn’t want to become a government bureaucrat,” he says. “Personally, I found it stifling.” After a short time working for a mining company in Mexico, he returned with his wife to New Denver to find that many of the surrounding forests had been ravaged by clear-cut logging.
“At that time, the word ‘environmentalist’ didn’t exist,” he says. “And at that point, I didn’t want to be too much of an activist — I loved doing wildlife research.”
But McCrory and other community members in New Denver were alarmed about clear cutting, and they joined the Slocan Valley Chamber of Commerce to raise their concerns at a meeting.
“I said, ‘We need to save the whole Valhalla Range from logging, it’s just awful.’ And everyone sat there, all of them businessmen, looking at each other and saying, ‘Well, we don’t want to take away logging jobs, that’s the economy of the valley.’ I thought to myself, bullshit. There’s something wrong with this.”
A group of concerned citizens, including McCrory and his late sister, Colleen McCrory, formed a committee, which became the Valhalla Wilderness Society. They learned on their feet how to run a campaign, combat misinformation and lobby the government. And after nine years, their efforts were successful: the government created Valhalla Provincial Park in 1983, which protects nearly 50,000 hectares.
Since that first landmark victory, McCrory and the other members of the Valhalla Wilderness Society have successfully led campaigns to protect other important areas across B.C., including the Khutzemate’en Grizzly Sanctuary, Goat Range Provincial Park and the Kitasoo Spirit Bear Conservancy.
“If I just sat around and did wildlife research, which I continued to do, I wouldn’t feel good about myself,” said McCrory. “I wouldn’t feel that I was leaving a legacy behind.”
Along with his ongoing contributions to the Valhalla Wilderness Society, McCrory also serves on the board of the Valhalla Foundation for Ecology, another grassroots community organization that works to protect land in B.C. through complementary efforts. While the society advocates for the creation of designated parks, the foundation leads fundraising campaigns to purchase and restore private lands nearby.
In 2009, McCrory and his wife Lorna Visser, along with the Land Conservancy of BC and BC Parks, raised $1.5 million dollars to purchase 155 acres of shoreline adjoining Valhalla Park, which was under threat of development. They’ve led successful campaigns since to protect and restore other biologically important regions, such as the Jaŝ Chinook Salmon Nature Sanctuary in the Chilcotin Valley, an important habitat for salmon, wild horses and grizzly bears.
McCrory’s efforts often take years to yield results; the creation of the Kitasoo Spirit Bear Conservancy, for example, took 18 years to achieve. But he is patient and unflaggingly determined.
Stephen Herrero, McCrory’s friend of more than 40 years and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Calgary, recalled in a letter of support for the Land Champion Award that McCrory hand-built a fence to protect western toad toadlets from a nearby highway, an effort that took hundreds of hours. But that story epitomizes McCrory’s approach to conservation, which is diligent, thoughtful and deeply involved.
McCrory’s work also demonstrates his understanding that the land in B.C. is also inextricably bound up with First Nations rights and culture, sharing his knowledge as a bear biologist with Indigenous communities and supporting their conservation and ecotourism efforts. Efforts to protect the Great Bear Rainforest also led to the creation of Coast Funds, a permanent funding program for Indigenous-led conservation efforts. “Indigenous people were not adequately consulted in the early days of our conservation work. That was a learning curve for all of us,” he says. “When I worked on saving the Khutzeymateen, we found that working with the Hereditary Chiefs and the First Nations was incredibly important, and the same with the Spirit Bear Conservatory.”
Over his long career, he has witnessed a sea change in public awareness of environmental issues. “There’s a lot more community support, in B.C. and in the world, from people who are on the side of protecting more land,” he says. “The problem is that politicians, who are strongly lobbied by the timber industry and the mining industry, haven’t always followed through with the public sentiment. It takes a tidal wave of effort, as it did with our 30-year campaign to stop the grizzly hunt, to get politicians practically to their knees to do something that the public wants.”
McCrory has no plans to slow down anytime soon. He’s currently writing a book about B.C.’s wild horses, and also devoting time to a number of other conservation efforts.
“I’m working on three toad projects this year, I’m doing work on the Sunshine Coast to save an elk habitat, and I’m working with the Mamalilikulla First Nation to help with their grizzly protected area,” he says. “I still love my work. Why retire when I have all this knowledge and skills to help save the planet?”
“You have to be optimistic,” he adds. “I’m always optimistic. I tell people, if you’re depressed, just go out and save one toad, one frog, one old tree, one acre of land. Speak up, write a letter, do your thing,” he says.
“We have a beautiful planet that we’ve inherited, with beautiful wildlife in B.C., and beautiful wetlands. We have so much. And it’s just a matter of working together to do what needs to be done.”
Read more: Environment
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