Blogs posted from this ecoregion:
- Wing runners off Haida Gwaii (June 2026)
This ecoregion is exclusive to the Canadian province of British Columbia.
As an archipelago, there are no adjoining ecoregions per se but the nearest mainland ecoregions are: i) the Northern Pacific Coastal Forests (NA0520) to the north in Alaska; ii) to the east the British Columbia Mainland Coastal Forests (NA0506); and iii) the Central Pacific Coastal Forests (NA0510) of Vancouver Island.
The only North American ecoregion restricted to an island complex, it covers the entire archipelago of Haida Gwaii (formerly named Queen Charlotte Islands) of British Columbia.
Although biologically similar to the rich coastal forests of the mainland, the island’s isolation and large size contributes to its classification as a separate ecoregion.
Description of the Ecoregion
For a brief overview of the ecoregion, I have borrowed and abridged the text from the OneEarth site.
Haida Gwaii is the most isolated archipelago off the Pacific coast of Canada, lying some 90 km west of mainland British Columbia. The Haida Gwaii Conifer Forests ecoregion encompasses all 150 islands and the many islets in this archipelago. The islands are characterized by irregular, steep slopes in the west and gently sloping lowlands in the east. Naturalists have long been interested in the islands because of the many endemic species and subspecies that have evolved here in isolation.
The dominant vegetation is coastal temperate rainforest modified by the windy maritime environment. On the west coast, vegetation is stunted, open-growing western red cedar, Alaska yellow cedar, shore pine (a stunted form of lodgepole pine), and western hemlock. Sitka spruce occurs on better-drained sites. Bogs and other wetlands are common.
The last glaciers departed from the archipelago about 18,000 years ago, 2,000 years earlier than the adjacent mainland. It is possible that at least part of the archipelago was unglaciated and thus served as a climatic refugium, which would have enhanced the evolution of endemic forms.
The number of endemics is surprising for a high-latitude archipelago. Three species of endemic Carabid (ground) beetle are found here, as well as a stickleback, a slug, and 10 species, subspecies, and varieties of plants within 9 genera and 8 families (for birds see below).
Endemic mammal taxa include subspecies of a deer mouse, dusky shrew, short-tailed weasel (ermine), black bear, marten, and caribou (extinct). Several species of mammals have been introduced to the islands, including black-tailed deer, elk, raccoon, rats, eastern gray squirrel, and beaver, and are having negative impacts on the native vegetation and fauna. Some common mainland species are naturally absent from the islands (e.g. grizzly bear, wolf, and cougar).
Although most of this ecoregion is now protected, logging threatens the small amounts of remaining old-growth forests and introduced animals are proliferating. Priority conservation actions for the next decade are to: 1) place a permanent moratorium on all logging of old-growth or naturally disturbed early-seral forest; 2) control or eradicate populations of non-native and invasive species; and 3) carefully manage cruise ships and other tourism and recreation throughout the ecoregion to sustain its wild character.
Birds of the Ecoregion
The following is sourced from the OneEarth site and from other sources such as the birdfinding guide of Cannings & Cannings (2013).
Endemic bird taxa include subspecies of the Northern Saw-whet Owl (the most distinctive of all the Haida Gwai taxa, being strikingly more buffy than mainland forms), American Goshawk, Hairy Woodpecker, Steller’s Jay, Brown Creeper, Swainson’s Thrush, Varied Thrush, and Pine Grosbeak.
A spectacular natural phenomenon is the arrival and breeding activities of some 1.5 million seabirds from May through August. These species include burrow-nesters such as the Ancient Murrelet (the majority of the world’s population nests on Haida Gwai), Rhinoceros Auklet, Cassin’s Auklet, Tufted Puffin, Horned Puffin, and Leach’s and Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels. Also nesting along the coast are hundreds of Bald Eagles and Peale’s Peregrine Falcons. Marbled Murrelets nest on the islands in old-growth Sitka spruce-western hemlock forest.
The islands are considered critical stopover habitat for waterbirds migrating between Alaska and Mexico.
What is also remarkable are the birds that are not here, including common BC birds such as Ruffed Grouse, Great Horned Owl, Cooper’s Hawk, Downy Woodpecker, etc.
Resources for the Ecoregion Birder
Resources of interest to the ecoregion birder traveling to this ecoregion:
- Cannings, Russell and Richard Cannings, 2013. Bird finding in British Columbia. Greystone Books (see review at http://blog.aba.org/2014/07/birding-british-columbia.html). This guide has about 15 pages of information on birds and birding on the islands.
- Birds of British Columbia. The 3-volume publication from the Museum of Natural History of British Columbia.