A Trout That Goes to Sea
Slender and streamlined, the steelhead trout of the Cowichan River is an anadromous, ocean-going version of its famous rainbow cousin. In freshwater, it shares most of the physical characteristics of the rainbow-an absence of teeth at the base of the tongue, a black-spotted blue-green body, and a distinctive red lateral stripe while spawning. Steelhead maturing in the ocean, however, develop a brilliant silvery sheen that is essential to survival in the marine environment.

Unlike Pacific salmon, some steelhead trout may spawn more than once. (Fish that measure more than 70 centimetres are almost always repeat spawners.) Occasionally, fish will return to their spawning stream within a few months, but most repeat spawners spend at least one winter in the sea between spawning migrations.


Black-tailed Bucks and Does
As the sun rises along the banks of the Cowichan River, Columbian black-tailed deer feed warily along the forest edge, their large rotating ears tuned to the sounds of nearby danger. Reddish to greying-brown in colour, with a white underside and a tail that is mostly black, the Columbian black-tail is one of the most common mammals of the Cowichan River valley.

More compact than the mule deer of northern regions, the black-tailed deer of the North American Pacific mountain coast is nevertheless regarded as a sub-species of mule deer. Black-tails prefer grassy fields at forest edges and recently burned or logged-over areas covered with thick, protective bracken. The winter diet of the black-tail is well-served by the Douglas firs of the lower Cowichan, supplemented by trailing blackberry, red huckleberry and salal branches.

Fawns Beneath the Ferns: If food is plentiful, black-tailed does give birth to twin fawns in early May, when the bracken ferns have grown tall enough to hide their speckled offspring. Lacking in predator-attracting scent, the fawns lie still beneath the ferns for up to 12 hours at a time, as does go off to feed.  

Life in the wild can be treacherous for black-tailed deer, with survival threatened by:
• winter starvation
• parasitic infection
• predation by dogs, cougars and human hunters.

While black-tails raised in captivity may live as long as 25 years, few of their wild counterparts survive past 10 years of age.

A Taste of the Mediterranean in the Coastal Douglas Fir Zone
From its headwaters in the Vancouver Island Mountains, the Cowichan River begins its run to the sea in a rain-drenched land of cedar, balsam and Western hemlock. But by the time the river nears the coast at its estuary, it has entered a more arid world of Douglas firs, broadleaf maples, and Pacific dogwood.

In the dry rainshadows of the mountains, the Douglas Fir Ecosystem occupies the Gulf Islands and the south-eastern coast of Vancouver Island, extending as far north as Campbell River. With less than half the average rainfall of the wet interior, the sub-humid climate is distinctly Mediterranean.

Lacking in sufficient moisture to support the Western cedar and hemlock of higher elevations, the coastal forest is dominated by Douglas fir and complemented by red alder, grand fir, arbutus and lodgepole pine. Trilliums, calypso orchids, and Indian pipe carpet the forest floor, while red-flowering currant and salmonberry attract rufous hummingbirds and black bears. Salal, Oregon grape, red huckleberry and sword fern can be found on the drier sites.