VIDEO: Ottawa accused of turning its back on endangered species

There are an estimated 4,000 species potentially at risk in Canada, and by the time we get a handle on it, many of them will be gone forever.

That's the word from Jesse Zeman, executive director of the BC Wildlife Federation.

He's trying to draw attention to a damning assessment by the auditor general into the funding of work aimed at saving species at risk.

"The government is determined to protect resource extraction at the expense of fish and wildlife," said Zeman.

He spoke to us from near his home in West Kelowna.

An auditor general report lays out how the federal government supported assessments and reassessments on just 60 species this year with no formal analysis of why that number was chosen.

At that rate, it would take over a century to complete the assessments required, the report points out.

"We're talking like generations of people before we even know what is going on with endangered species," he said.

"They're going to be gone by then."

Zeeman says Canadians should demand better.

The organization that relies on the funding is the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada or CSEWIC.

Zeman said the second issue is the tendency to leave certain species off the endangered list, including southern mountain caribou and Interior Fraser steelhead.

He said the tendency is to avoid dealing with animals with large and complicated habitat ramifications.

"If it has a habitat larger than a bathtub, the government of Canada just says 'no we don't want to list them,'" said Zeman.

And he argues that the reason comes down to the impact on business.

"With the Species at Risk Act," argues Zeman, "the reason we don't use it is that it will impact industry."

He said to save the Caribou, we need to stop logging in their habitat, and he understands that is a tall order.

And saving the steelhead is also complicated.

"There is no reason for us to say 'we're just going to let Interior Fraser steelhead disappear,'" Zeman continued.

While all of this discussion goes on, he believes we are not taking the action we already know is necessary.

"We're talking when we should be doing stuff," he said.

"There are things that we know we can do for steelhead right now and there's things we know we can do for caribou right now," said Zeman.

"And a lot of times we choose not to do them."

In his opinion, Canada is failing in its duty.