Tag Archives: BC shellfish Grower’s Association

Food, Rivers & Oceans

Oysters: Unsung climate heroes for your holiday buffet

Editor’s note: Shellfish harvesting is one of Cortes Island’s largest employers. According to Paul Muskee, Klahoose Aquaculture probably employs ‘about 20 different people between Klahoose and Islanders.’ While Cortes Currents has not seen any recent numbers, Island Sea Farms employed 21 people when COVID broke out. Erik Lyon, President of the Bee Islets Growers Corporation, in Gorge Harbour, said there are about 10 lease holders in his organization. In previous articles, Rochelle has identified the Steve Pocock mentioned in the following article as both a Read Island grower and a Quadra Island grower. (These are not mutually exclusive statements.) Oysters are a significant local business on Quadra and Read Islands and there are numerous shore leases around all three Discovery Islands.

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

There are moments when Steve Pocock questions the wisdom of his chosen profession as a shellfish farmer.

Picking oysters off a beach in the dead of night during a low winter tide, then navigating whiteout conditions to get a loaded vessel home to port, while freezing and weary, is one of those times.

However, his disillusionment is short-lived when he hits mirrored waters at daybreak. Odds are he’ll also cross paths with orcas, bald eagles or sea lions during the morning commute.

Continue reading Oysters: Unsung climate heroes for your holiday buffet →
Cost of Climate Change

B.C. launches blueprint to fend off climate’s ‘one-two punch’ on the ocean

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

B.C. has unveiled an action plan to tackle the two greatest climate threats to the ocean, coastal communities and marine ecosystems on the West Coast. 

Ocean acidification and hypoxia (OAH), or plummeting oxygen levels, that often occur in tandem with a snowball effect, are spiking due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. 

The plan’s goals include strengthening scientific collaboration and research and public awareness on these issues. Finding ways to adapt to or mitigate the negative impacts of OAH is also a priority. 

The province also wants a better understanding of how or if blue carbon — CO2 captured naturally from the atmosphere by marine plants and algae — could or should be used as a natural solution to buffer acidification and hypoxia.  

Continue reading B.C. launches blueprint to fend off climate’s ‘one-two punch’ on the ocean →
Rivers & Oceans, Waste

Quadra Island’s ‘Dream Team Beach Clean-up’

Quadra Island’s 3-month-long beach clean-up finished over the weekend.

“Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, we would go on a remote beach hike,  to different areas on Quadra that were hard to access.  We had to go hiking for maybe an hour or so to some of these places and then collect and leave debris, and then we’d have to return by boat another day,” explained Nevil Hand, who organized the campaign.

Continue reading Quadra Island’s ‘Dream Team Beach Clean-up’ →
Rivers & Oceans

Growers Perspective: Boats and Aquaculture in Gorge Harbour

On Monday March 6, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) closed the waters and intertidal foreshore of Deep Bay Harbour, on Vancouver Island, to oyster and scallop growers, due to ‘sanitary reasons.’ 

 Erik Lyon, owner operator of Rising Tide Shellfish on Cortes Island explained, “The problem is too many people  in too close a proximity to shellfish farms. You can’t have any shellfish destined for human consumption in  water where there’s any kind of a man-made dock, boat liveaboard or float house within 125 metres. That’s a setback that’s always been in place.” 

Continue reading Growers Perspective: Boats and Aquaculture in Gorge Harbour →
Rivers & Oceans, Waste

West Coast infrastructure is on the rise to stem the wave of ocean plastics

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Editor’s note: FOCI volunteers carried out a ‘Mother’s Day Beach Clean-up of the beach between Hollyhock and Seaford Road, Cortes Island on May 9, 2022.

Coastal community cleanup groups on eastern Vancouver Island have been itching for the opening of B.C.’s newest ocean debris recycling depot. 

The Cumberland site, operated by Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) in partnership with the Ocean Legacy Foundation, opened in mid-June to tackle the tonnes of plastic washing ashore in the region, said Stephanie Valdal, CSWM’s waste management services co-ordinator. 

Continue reading West Coast infrastructure is on the rise to stem the wave of ocean plastics →