A warning from WWF: hundreds of species are facing extinction in Canada

World Wildlife Fund Canada’s James Snider discusses a stark new report which found 52 per cent of species are decreasing in abundance.

Biodiversity in Canada has plunged 10 per cent over the last half century, with hundreds of species facing extinction, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a report Monday.

“On average, every species group included — birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles and amphibians — is trending in the wrong direction,” the WWF said in a statement as it released the 2025 Living Planet report for Canada.

While certain populations, like sea otters, are improving, the conservation group said 52 per cent of all species studied for this year’s Canada report are declining, including the rare snow owl.

“This is the most severe decline we’ve observed since reporting started,” WWF Vice President for Canada, James Snider, wrote.

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

Species globally assessed as at-risk of extinction in Canada, such as the North Atlantic right whale and leatherback sea turtle, declined by 43 per cent, according to the report.

Regions such as the boreal forest with lower levels of human presence saw smaller decreases, while habitats in Canada’s grasslands declined 62 per cent.

Last year, WWF reported a global wildlife population decline of 73 per cent since 1970.

Conservation expert Jessica Curie, who worked on the report, told AFP that habitat reduction -- largely because of agricultural expansion -- “is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss.”

The report notes Canada’s economic reliance on its vast natural resources, but says conservation needs to be front-of-mind in management of industrial or infrastructure projects.

One successful example she pointed to was projects reducing shipping noise to protect whale populations off Canada’s west coast.

WWF noted that actions to reverse population loss were already laid out in Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreement signed in 2022 at COP 15 in Montreal.

Canada aims to meet those targets by protecting 30 per cent of its lands and oceans and restoring 30 per cent of degraded lands by 2030.