'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Fir trees are dying at a high rate in Canada's Pacific Northwest with researchers sounding the alarm for more action to protect forests.
In the wake of severe droughts and heat waves that hit Canada and the United States in recent years, a researcher tells CTV's Your Morning that fir trees have died in record numbers.
Compounding the climatic impact, bark beetles are taking a toll.
"There's a bark beetle associated with Douglas fir, Lodgepole pine, Balsam fir, and so on," Suzanne Simard, professor of forestry and ecology at the University of British Columbia told CTV's Your Morning on Wednesday. "Right now, under changing climatic conditions, bark beetles are really having a surge across Canada."
The small beetles bore through the tree, mining the layer between the bark and the wood, the B.C. Ministry of Farming, Natural Resources and Industry website reads. The insects can cause widespread mortality of trees during outbreaks, the website states.
Beetles will often attack old-growth trees, which can be detrimental to Canada's boreal forests.
"The Douglas fir bark beetle is certainly active in British Columbia, as well as the Spruce bark beetle and Balsam bark beetles," Simard said. "When (trees are) under climatic stress, for example, droughts and the heat dome that we had, those all predispose these trees to further infections."
The largest pine beetle epidemic happened in the 1990s and 2000s in B.C., according to the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada website. More than 18 million hectares of forest were impacted, resulting in the loss of 53 per cent of merchantable pine volume by 2012.
Simard said, if the tree is dead but "in good shape" the wood can be turned into timber and not wasted. This is called "salvage logging" but she said this solution can be overused.
"I think that can go a little bit far, in my opinion, because oftentimes there are healthy trees in and amongst the dying trees, and salvage logging can take healthy trees at the same time," Simard said. "So I think we have to be very careful to not harvest these areas because the next generation of trees really is coming up under those dying trees."
Simard says more research is needed when it comes to saving the wood for harvesting.
"We really need to understand the full impacts of doing those kinds of cleaning operations on the ecosystems because it can be quite damaging," she said.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.