With its fertile rainforest, giant trees and coastal underworld, the Great Bear Rainforest offers habitat for a vast number of different animals and birds.

Its name derives from the three types of bears that live there - black bears, grizzlies and Kermode bears, a white-coated variation of the black bear found almost exclusively in the .

Because logging and development have destroyed so much of the habitat, animals like the coastal grizzly are relentlessly threatened.

Along the forest floor, these bears cut their own trails, scratching the side of trees along the way.  Nearby, grey wolves search for food in packs.

In the forest, also live the black tail deer, elk, bats and Northern flying squirrels.  Mountain goats, with their long beards, wander down the hillsides every winter to eat moss from the trees growing close to stream banks.

A diverse variety of insects live in the forest canopy, alongside squirrels and woodpeckers. Swallows, chickadees, martens and owls make their homes in the forests and meadows, while the harlequin ducks, bald eagle and endangered Marbled murrelet visit the coast to nest.

Meanwhile, off shore is a wide-open playground for Orcas, porpoises, Humpback whales, seals and sea lions. Out of sight is an ocean underworld rich with mollusks, seaweeds, crustaceans and planktons, and of course fish. Six varieties of salmon swim through the rivers of the Great Bear, the backbone of the rainforest's health.

photos: Adrian Dorst (banner), O'Neill/Greenpeace (centre)