Climate change creates 'poster child' for Canada's new wildlife report
World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF-Canada) has put the snowy owl front and centre for its 2025 Living Planet Report, which highlights a significant, worrisome decline for the species and other monitored vertebrae populations in the country from 1970 to 2022
While the title sounds glamorous, being labelled the poster child for a new wildlife report isn't good news for this Canadian species.
The latest assessment from the World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF-Canada) shows a grim picture for the snowy owl in the 2025 edition of the Living Planet Report Canada since it was just designated as a threatened species this year.
RELATED: The world is moving the 'wrong way' on this key issue: Planet report
The report also revealed a negative trend in Canada's biodiversity, with a 10 per cent decline in the size of monitored vertebrate populations, on average, from 1970 to 2022. Significant threats including habitat loss, climate change, pollution, invasive species and disease.
Emily Giles, WWF-Canada’s lead specialist of science, knowledge and innovation (SKI), said the populations of snowy owls, also known as Arctic owls because of their territorial range to northern regions of North America, have declined by 56 per cent since 1970. One of the main risks to snowy owls is climate change.
Snowy owl in Churchill, Man. (WWF-US/Elisabeth Kruger/Submitted to The Weather Network)
"The poster child for our report this year was the snowy owl," said Giles, in a recent interview with The Weather Network.
"Climate change is a threat that we know is already impacting wildlife in Canada. We're expecting that in the years to come, it's going to become an ever-increasing threat."
Five species affected by climate change
As highlighted in the 2025 Living Planet Report Canada, the following wildlife information was provided by WWF-Canada. The information shines a spotlight on five Canadian species that are being impacted by climate change, or will be in the near future.
Snowy owl
Snowy owl in Alberta/ Don Getty via WWF-Canada/Submitted to The Weather Network)
One of the main threats to snowy owls is climate change, particularly since the global Arctic is warming at three times the rate of the rest of the planet. Climate change may affect the abundance of prey, which is particularly critical for birds in their first year of life. In Canada, snowy owl populations have declined by 56 per cent since 1970.
"The reason why climate change affects snowy owls, particularly, is that they depend on lemmings as their main food source, and those lemmings dig tunnels in and through the snow. They need that to access the grass or the moss that's underneath the snow," said Giles.
Snowy owl. (Pexels)
"But with the more mild temperatures that we're getting in the Arctic, including more freezing rain, there is now ice cover on the snow more frequently, which makes it difficult for the lemmings to find food. In turn, their populations are crashing, which causes the snowy owl populations to crash."
Other threats: Invasive species and disease (avian influenza), pollution/poisoning and collisions.
Five-lined skink
High water levels, and more frequent and severe storms associated with climate change are eroding shoreline habitats of skink populations.
Five-lined skink in Muskoka, Ont. (Getty Images/ca2hill/450516833-170667a)
Other threats: Vast networks of roads that fragment habitat and cause direct mortality.
Prairie dogs
Increased drought and higher temperatures are anticipated to reduce the quality and quantity of food available to prairie dogs, potentially leading to lower body condition. A threat that is anticipated to increase over time.
Black-tailed prairie dog. (Conservation Media WWF-US via WWF-Canada/Submitted to The Weather Network)
Other threats: Invasive species and disease (sylvatic plague).
Sea otters
Although not a current threat, warming ocean temperatures, increased ocean acidification and shifts in geographic ranges for marine species brought about by climate change are predicted to affect marine ecosystems and sea otter populations in the future.
Sea otter. (naturepl.com/Pascal Kobeh/WWF/Submitted to The Weather Network)
Other threats: Oil spills, shipping traffic.
Salmon
Climate change impacts salmon by altering their habitat and stressing their physiology. Salmon are cold-blooded and must rely on their environment for temperature regulation. As water temperatures rise, it stresses their physiology, and it may alter which rivers and bodies of water they can inhabit.
Extreme impacts from climate change on salmon have been documented on both coasts.
Salmon. (Getty Images/Murphy Shewchuk/115755273-170667a)
Other threats: Habitat destruction from development and pollution.
New report shows 'most persistent and pervasive declines' seen to date
The newest edition of the Living Planet Report Canada takes a look at changes in wildlife population abundance, unveiling the downward, countrywide trends across species groups and within different habitats.
The dwindling numbers the report revealed about Canada's wildlife species didn't come as a surprise to Giles.
"Unfortunately, I'm not entirely surprised about these findings because we have been seeing these declines since we first started tracking and monitoring wildlife populations," said Giles. "But what we are seeing this year is the most persistent and pervasive declines that we've seen to date."
She noted that the species that faces the most trouble from various threats is the southern resident killer whale, which is endangered, on the West Coast. There are only 73 or 74 of them left. So, we are essentially tracking the demise of this species," said Giles.
Barren ground caribou are also in trouble, she added.
"We've seen some herds in Canada decline by up to 95 or 96 per cent, so we've seen massive population declines in some of those herds," said Giles.
Climate change could explain more sightings of white sharks in Canadian waters
In recent years, white sharks to expand their northern territorial range into Canadian waters, sightings of which were once considered rare, according to an emailed statement from WWF-Canada.
There are several factors that could explain the expansion in range and increase in sightings in Canadian waters, including technological upgrades for tracking and additional reporting.
White shark. (Ken Kiefer/Getty Images/Creative #: 1322459029)
But WWF-Canada noted the northward expansion of white sharks in the Northwest Atlantic may be a result of climate change-induced warming waters and/or an increase in the availability of prey such as seals.
"Despite an increase in sightings in Atlantic Canada, the broader Northwest Atlantic population (beyond Canada) is estimated to have declined by more than 70 per cent since the 1960s, with the primary threat being bycatch in fisheries. Since the 1990s, however, the population has remained stable," said WWF-Canada.
Not all grim news for Canada wildlife, but we need to 'step up' and do more
One reason to be optimistic about Canada's biodiversity is the federal government's commitment to protecting 30 per cent of the country's terrestrial lands and waters, and restoring 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems by 2030 in its 30-by-30 initiative.
"Protecting that habitat and ecosystem is a really critical thing that we need to see happen, so we're pleased that Canada has made that commitment," said Giles.
Little brown bat in Newfoundland. (Sherri and Brock Fenton/WWF-Canada/Submitted to The Weather Network)
However, "on the flip side," Canada is falling behind in fulfilling that commitment, Giles said, adding, "we're not yet anywhere close to that 30 per cent."
"Canada really has to step up and start protecting some of those areas so that we can reach that goal," said Giles.
Despite the sluggish pace at which Canada is attempting to reach its conservation goals and, in some provincial cases, even weakening or removing regulations, there are other countries across the globe that are seeing "more drastic declines" in biodiversity, Giles said.
That means Canada still has an opportunity to reverse its loss of nature.
"We really want to emphasize that now is not the time to stall progress or walk back on some of those key protections that we have for endangered species. Instead, we have to step up our efforts and recover those wildlife populations. We have this small window of time right now where we can still make an impact," said Giles.
WATCH: Warmer winters in Canada could spell disaster for wildlife
Thumbnail courtesy of pchoui/Getty Images/1126023387-170667a.
With files from WWF-Canada.
