Tag Archives: Southern Resident Killer Whales

Rivers & Oceans

Lack of regulations leaves humpback at risk despite BC Ferries slowdown, experts say

By Sonal Gupta, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Researchers welcome a slowdown by BC Ferries through one of the region’s key humpback whale corridors, but warn it’s not enough without binding federal rules for foreign cruise lines and surging LNG tankers.

The company will reduce speeds starting June 1, after one of its ships struck and killed a humpback whale named Midnight in Wright Sound last year.

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Forests

Dr Teresa Ryan: How the Forest Protects us and why we should preserve it

Dr Teresa Ryan is a Tsimshian woman who combines the ancestral knowledge of her people with the cutting edge research coming out of the Mother Tree Project. Her association with Dr Suzanne Simard began when she applied for a postdoctoral fellowship in what is now UBC’s faculty of Forestry and Environmental Stewardship. Simard was one of her four instructors and suggested, “We have to talk. I read your dissertation.” 

Ryan responded, “You did what?”

Reflecting back on that today, she added, “Who would do that? It’s 435 pages, but what she found was that I demonstrated how our Indigenous social institutions are connected to our heterogeneous mosaic landscapes.” 

Continue reading Dr Teresa Ryan: How the Forest Protects us and why we should preserve it →
Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

Feds ignore calls for moratorium, approve commercial herring fishing

By Sonal Gupta, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

When Kurt Irwin was growing up near Salt Spring Island on British Columbia’s southern coast, spring meant herring season. He remembers the ocean turning white as the small fish filled the harbours, the sky alive with gulls and salmon chasing them just below the surface.

“We haven’t seen that in many years… They [commercial fishing boats] literally fished it out,” said the now 58-year-old Irwin, a councillor for the Penelakut Tribe, located near Chemainus on Vancouver Island. Their members have also been pushing for a five-year moratorium on commercial herring fisheries to allow stocks to recover.

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Animals

Canadian and US regulations are at odds in the Salish Sea, and whales are caught in the middle

Editor’s note: The Orcas that visit Cortes, Quadra and the Redonda Islands are mostly members of the northern resident pod, but there also get visitors from the southern pod.

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Salish Sea is one ecosystem but Canada and the US are playing by different rules when it comes to protecting threatened whales, experts warn. 

Continue reading Canadian and US regulations are at odds in the Salish Sea, and whales are caught in the middle →
Animals, Rivers & Oceans

Where Killer Whales and Dolphins Hunt Cooperatively

A new study found that Northern Resident Killer Whales and Pacific white-sided dolphins have formed a cooperative hunting relationship to catch Chinook salmon in the Johnstone Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. The dolphins utilize echolocation to locate fish at depth, but their small teeth are designed primarily to grip prey, and they cannot swallow large species like Chinook salmon whole. Instead, dolphins locate the fish, and then wait for the killer whales move in to tear them apart, scattering bits of tissue and flesh into the water.

Continue reading Where Killer Whales and Dolphins Hunt Cooperatively →