Vertebrates
Mammals
Bat Species
Mountain Beaver
Pacific Water Shrew
Townsend’s Mole
Birds
Barn Owl
Barn Swallow
Great Blue Heron, fannini subspecies
Marbled Murrelet
American Goshawk, laingi subspecies
Short-eared Owl
Western Screech-Owl, kennicottii subspecies
Amphibians
Coastal Giant Salamander
Coastal Tailed Frog
Northern Red-legged Frog
Oregon Spotted Frog
Western Toad
Reptiles
Common Sharp-tailed Snake
Painted Turtle, Pacific Coast Population
Fish
Nooksack Dace
Salish Sucker
Invertebrates
Insects
Dun Skipper
Grappletail
Johnson’s Hairstreak
Molluscs
Olympia Oyster
Oregon Forestsnail
Plants
Non-Vascular
Poor pocket moss
Vascular
Phantom orchid
Streambank lupine
Tall bugbane
Vancouver Island beggarticks
Ecological Communities
Arbutus
Coastal Douglas-fir
Coastal Sand Ecosystems
Coastal Western Hemlock

As a species, Western hemlock, along with Douglas-fir and Western redcedar, are probably the most easily recognizable conifer species on the South Coast. As a broader community, the Coastal Western Hemlock (CWH) biogeoclimatic zone extends from Alaska to Oregon, occurring at low to middle elevations (sea level to about 900 metres on windward aspects up to 1050 metres on leeward aspects).

  • Coastal Western Hemlock

The Coastal Western Hemlock biogeoclimatic zone is mainly found on the west side of the Cascades and coastal mountains along BC’s coast. The Georgia Depression and uplands of the Fraser Lowlands are dominated by this community. The Mountain Hemlock zone is usually the subalpine zone found above “CWH”. While Western hemlock as a species is widely distributed, the biogeoclimatic zone where it is found includes a number of red and blue-listed ecological communities on the South Coast.

 

Resources