Cathedral Grove

This is the largest standing tree in Cathedral Grove, a protected park on Vancouver Island. I read a book called the "Golden Spruce" that gave testaments of early loggers talking about the sheer magnitude of the trees they cut down and the expansiveness of forest that stretched on and seemed to have no end. I find it heartbreaking that such an expansive, healthy, and complex ecosystem like the Pacific temperate rainforest could be reduced to less than a tenth of its original size within a few centuries. Many of these trees take hundreds of years to grow to impressive heights as tall as skyscrapers, so it is imperative to protect the forests that remain as they provide important habitats for a diverse network of animals. Many birds rely on trees of a certain age and structure to nest. For example, the Marbled Murrelet is a small, north Pacific seabird that depends on large mossy platforms in old-growth forests for nesting habitat. Rather than build a nest, they make their nests on large, mossy branches. These birds are now at risk because their habitat is decreasing from logging activities.