'We have an extraordinary ability to adapt and survive': Sarika Cullis-Suzuki

We’ve survived climate changes in the past. Will we rise to the challenge again?

Why are we so fascinated with the idea of survival? From news stories to survival camps to TV shows, it's clear just how obsessed we are. Reality shows like Naked and Afraid, Man vs. Wild, Survivorman, Alone, and Extreme Survival all speak to a primal question: do we have what it takes to survive alone in the elements?

True Survivors, a documentary for The Nature of Things, began with this question. But it quickly morphed into something bigger and more pertinent: a quest to find out if humans can survive the greatest threat today — climate change.

Sarika Cullis-Suzuki reflects on the place that changed her life forever.

I was six years old when I first told my mother that I was going to be a marine biologist. “And you can be my assistant,” I kindly informed her. We were exploring the intertidal zone — that extraordinary world between high and low tide — on a very special beach: the beach I grew up on.

BC just gave the Kinder Morgan pipeline the go-ahead. Shipping traffic will increase, and with it, marine noise.

While scientists have long described the acoustic world of cetaceans, it is only recently that we've begun to acknowledge the importance of sound to other marine life. As a marine biologist based in BC, this has been a focus of my work

Movie Review

“March 15, 2000. The day of infamy as far as I’m concerned.” The film opens with Kenneth Balcomb recounting the day he wit-nessed his first mass whale stranding in the northern Bahamas. Old home video shows Balcomb trying to push a dazed beaked whale out to sea, but the whale keeps returning to the shallow water. Over the next few days, Balcomb would find 16 beached whales in the area. He became obsessed with figuring out why. Sonic Sea is the story of how human-made noise is over-whelming the oceans and destroying the lives of cetaceans around the world.

His film ‘Sharkwater’ drew us in, compelled us to act, and inspired us.

Along with people in Canada and around the world, I am heartbroken with the loss of Rob Stewart.

There was no one like Rob and the loss is profound. Those of us who were privileged to know him will never forget his passion and his magnetism. Rob drew you in. He was one of the truest and most influential advocates for the oceans and for the Earth.

The Pacific Coast of North America from California to Alaska features some of the most diverse and spectacular marine life of any cold/temperate-water ecosystem on the planet. While there have been many fine photographic books that celebrate the beauty of tropical coral reefs, there are very few that focus exclusively on cold water ecosystems. Filmed entirely in British Columbia, Beneath Cold Seas successfully challenges the widespread belief that cold water marine life is dull and uninteresting. Informative and lively text by the author describes his experiences while pursuing the photographic images for the book. An introduction by marine biologist Sarika Cullis-Suzuki focuses on conservation issues, and Christopher Newbert, author of the bestselling photography book Within a Rainbowed Sea, provides the foreword.

Allen Kruse was a voice on the phone, the seventh fisherman I’d talked to that day. After completing my master’s degree at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, I had accepted a contract to interview fishermen from Texas to Florida about reef fish bycatch. Some of the men were chatty, others less so. Kruse was particularly concise, our interview lasting only 14 minutes.