Canada wildlife decline ‘most severe’ in decades: WWF

Biodiversity in Canada plunged 10% in the last half century, with hundreds of species confronted with extinction, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a report on Monday.

“On average, each group of species included – ODS, Pisces, Mammals and Reptiles and Amphibians – is trendy in the wrong direction,” WWF said in a statement by publishing the report on the living planet 2025 for Canada.

While some populations, such as sea otters, improve, the conservation group said that 52% of all the species studied for this year’s Canada report decrease, including the rare snow owl.

“This is the most serious decline we have observed since the start of reports,” WWF vice-president for Canada, James Snider, wrote.

WWF said that between 1970 and 2022, biodiversity in Canada had decreased by 10%.

Global species evaluated as at risk of extinction in Canada, such as the right whale of the North Atlantic and the leather turtle in leather, decreased by 43%, according to the ratio.

Regions such as the boreal forest with lower human presence levels have experienced a lower decrease, while habitats in Canada meadows decreased by 62%.

Last year, WWF declared a global drop in wild population of 73% since 1970.

Conservation expert Jessica Currie, who worked on the report, told AFP that housing reduction – due to agricultural expansion – “is one of the main drivers of the loss of biodiversity”.

The report notes Canada’s economic dependence on its vast natural resources, but says that conservation must be frontal in the management of industrial or infrastructure projects.

A successful example that she underlined was the projects reducing shipping noise to protect whale populations off the west coast of Canada.

WWF noted that actions aimed at reversing population loss were already presented as part of the framework of world biodiversity (GBF) signed in 2022 at COP 15 in Montreal.

Canada aims to achieve these objectives by protecting 30% of its land and oceans and restaurants 30% of degraded land by 2030.

© 2025 AFP