qathet Living, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
It’s been a century since sockeye and chum have spawned in Unwin Lake. That’s because the creek between Desolation Sound and Unwin was dammed for logging.
Now, Tla’amin Nation’s new lands and resources director, Denise Smith, is spearheading a project to reintroduce the salmon.
Continue reading Dammed for 100 years
National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Canada aims to tackle illegal international fishing and lead global commitments on marine protected areas with the close of the United Nations Ocean Conference last week.
Joyce Murray, minister of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), headed a delegation at the five-day summit in Lisbon with a focus on sharing science and data to solve the ocean crisis driven by climate change, overfishing, biodiversity loss and pollution.
Continue reading Canada hopes to lure more nations into fighting illicit fishing on the high seas
A new UBC study found that the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale population isn’t getting enough to eat.
As lead author Fanny Couture explained, “The study goes from 1979 to 2020. We were trying to understand whether the Southern Resident Killer Whale population had enough food to eat to sustain their energy needs. So a human needs 2,000 calories a day, a killer whale will need about 170,000 calories a day. What we found is that they were in energy deficits for six of the last 40 years. Some of them are spread out throughout the study period, but three of the last years (in the study), 2018 to 2020, they were in full energy deficits. They did not have enough food in the spring, the summer and the fall.”
Continue reading Southern Resident Killer Whales are not getting enough to eat, study saysIt has been twelve months since billions of marine animals along the West Coast of British Columbia perished during a record breaking heat wave. Temperatures of between 35°C and 40°C were recorded at the Cortes Island School during the last five days of June.
Continue reading One year after the marine die-off
Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced a two-year renewal of licences for marine finfish aquaculture facilities outside of the Discovery Islands.
“I have mixed opinions about the announcement. I think there’s some good things and there are some not so good things,” said Stan Proboszcz, senior scientist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. “They received a license for two years based on these conditions and those conditions are rules that the salmon farms need to follow. Part of the problem is, we actually don’t have a copy of those rules yet.”
Continue reading Two year renewal of fish farm licenses
