It has been a year of animal delights, surprises and milestones.
B.C. is known for its varied and teeming wildlife and the animals and pets that call our province home continue to make the news throughout the year.
Here are 10 of those stories.
In March, a dog and his owner were counting their lucky stars after a high-angle rescue in North Vancouver.
Grizzly, a goldendoodle, ran off the edge of Quarry Rock. The owner, Esther, said he was chasing a ball that got dropped.
The curious canine lost his footing and slid down to a ledge, prompting the rescue by District of North Vancouver firefighters.
“Grizzly’s ball fell off so I leashed him, and then he went to say hi to somebody and he slipped the leash. He went to try to find his ball and then he fell,” Esther said.
Just a few days later, a video capturing a natural phenomenon off the coast of Vancouver Island coast generated interest worldwide.
Every year, when the herring spawn, the water turns turquoise like a bubblegum or cotton candy blue.
Geoff Johnson, a photographer in Ucluelet who runs the channel UkeeTube, had always wanted to capture the herring spawn and this year was his chance.
“This year, the planets aligned, it was a beautiful sunny day, I got the heads up, in time,” he said.
He’s a cheeky seal!
In April, despite the efforts of officials and volunteers, Emerson the elephant seal just loves his adoring public too much to stay away.
His latest trip involved swimming hundreds of kilometres in just five days to land back on the beaches of Victoria.
“(He’s) an animal we know well,” Paul Cottrell with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada told Global News. “We even know he was born in the U.S., just across the border at Deception Pass Park. And his mom ended up giving birth right in this park.”
Cottrell said after three or four weeks, the weaning period was over, and his mom took off.
“So this young pup was looked after by volunteers for quite a while,” he said. “And Emerson has kind of grown attached to people. And now two years later, he’s weighing over 500 pounds and he’s taken a liking to Victoria.”
Also in April, British Columbia’s humpback whales made their debut in one of the world’s premier nature documentary series, just in time for Earth Day.
The massive creatures, and the work of B.C. researchers who study them, appeared in an episode of Planet Earth III.
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“It’s unbelievable. It’s crazy to be able to describe it,” said Christie McMillan, co-founder and science lead with the Marine Education and Research Society.
“Hearing David Attenborough say the name of the humpback that we nicknamed and talk about the research strategy that we described, you never really dream of it happening, it’s amazing.”
A mother bear, with her cub dangling from her mouth, decided she needed to stop and have a little break in Coquitlam in early May.
Mama and her cub were spotted in Susi Buonassisi’s backyard in Burke Mountain.
In video Buonassisi took of the incident, the bear spots a saucer tree swing and drops the cub from her mouth.
In what seems to be a bid to take a much-needed break and have some fun, the mama bear then spends a few moments trying to get into the swing.
In June, a couple in Lillooet witnessed a rare sight in their backyard: the birth of three fawns.
Marine Rose told Global News that she and her husband noticed a doe hanging around their house and refusing to leave.
Deer are common in their area so they didn’t think much about it, however, just a few days later, they found the doe in their children’s old sandbox, giving birth to three fawns.
“The doe was standing up cleaning the first two off when she had the last one, and it literally dropped into the sandbox,” Rose said. “It was an incredible sight.”
A rare sighting in the waters off B.C.’s coast in August had nature lovers excited that a species may be making a comeback.
Nick Gallant with Island Magic Experiences told Global News that during a recent excursion, his wife spotted an incredibly rare creature in the water.
They had a group of guests on Wallace Island in the Gulf Islands with some hanging out at the camp or going for a paddleboard.
Gallant said his wife decided to go paddleboarding and take her camera and when she came back she said she had seen a basking shark.
“I was immediately like, ‘No, you didn’t. Like, you know, as cool as that would be, I very much doubt it,’” he said.
Turns out, it was.
An incredible scene was caught on camera off the coast of Vancouver Island in September.
Tomis Filipovic, a naturalist and educator with Eagle Wing Tours, told Global News they were out with a group around William Head when they spotted a local humpback whale known as Zillion.
She was feeding on a bait ball and it turns out she wasn’t alone.
“When I zoomed in on the photos after she kind of stopped, I saw the seal getting sloshed around in the mouth and eventually spilling out of the sides,” Filipovic said.
Luckily, the seal was ok.
In early December, an amazing sight was captured by accident off the coast of Vancouver Island in Barkley Sound.
The humpback whale, along with some sea lions, was going after a bait ball, which is a swarm of small fish that swim together to protect themselves from predators.
Cinematographer Peter Mieras was testing his underwater camera when it fell to the bottom of the sound.
By sheer chance, when he retrieved the camera, he discovered it had captured some amazing footage of the humpback feeding on the bait ball.
And finally, a Boxer had had enough of waiting in the car while her owner was shopping in a Nelson grocery store.
Crystal decided to do what anyone might do if they were impatient enough – lay on the horn.
