Tag Archives: Red Rock Crabs

Rivers & Oceans

Tens of thousands of Canadian marine animals killed or maimed by ‘ghost gear’

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A “shocking” amount of marine life is being ensnared in abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear adrift in Canada’s oceans, internal federal data reveals.

Nearly 86,000 marine animals were caught up in “ghost gear” between 2020 and 2023, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) data obtained by Canada’s National Observer through an access to information request.

Of that total, 85 per cent was classified as a “commercially valuable species,” DFO staff stated in a June 2024 memo to former fisheries minister Diane Lebouthillier.

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Cost of Climate Change

Abnormally high number of Shellfish deaths on Cortes Island

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CKTZ News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

In the midst of a heat wave that may have left as many as a billion dead marine creatures along the West Coast, there appears to have been an abnormally high number of shellfish deaths reported at a number of Cortes Island locations. 

Daily temperature highs of between 35°C and 40°C were recorded, at the Cortes Island School, during the last five days of June.  

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