Tag Archives: Crabs

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.  

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The ocean’s kelp forests are worth serious coin

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Underwater forests represent an average of $500 billion annually in benefits to commercial fisheries, ocean pollution removal and carbon absorption, a new international study shows.

The study is the first to examine the value of kelp’s ocean canopies — found along a third of the world’s shores and on all three of Canada’s coasts, said Canadian co-author Margot Hessing-Lewis, a researcher with the Hakai Institute and the University of British Columbia. 

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Why do oceans matter for climate change?

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As the climate crisis gets worse, oceans — the planet’s greatest carbon sink — can no longer be overlooked. 

Spanning 70 per cent of the globe, oceans have absorbed nearly a third of the planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans and 90 per cent of the excess heat those gases create. 

The heat stored in the Earth’s entire atmosphere is equal to what’s stored in the top few metres of our oceans. If that wasn’t enough, oceans produce more than 50 per cent of the planet’s oxygen and regulate our climate and weather patterns. 

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Campbell River’s ‘catch and release’ Aquarium

There are only seven ‘catch and release’ aquariums in British Columbia, and one of them is in Campbell River. The Discovery Passage Aquarium is also in the first building dedicated to this purpose in British Columbia. 

“This job is very interesting and engaging, but it’s all a means to an end.  We want to work hard to change our relationship with nature, because in its current state it is unsustainable,” explained Ricky Belanger, Manager of the Discovery Passage Aquarium.

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West Coast poacher gets lifetime ban for fisheries violations 


National Observer, 
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A notorious West Coast poacher is banned from stepping aboard a fishing vessel for life after he was convicted of harvesting crabs under the cover of darkness and leading enforcement officers on a dangerous high-speed pursuit.

Scott Stanley Matthew Steer, a repeat offender under Canada’s Fisheries Act, was recently sentenced to a lifetime fishing ban and prohibited from being on board any fishing boat by a B.C. Supreme Court Judge after being convicted of five offences.

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