Category Archives: Rivers & Oceans

Rivers & Oceans

Canada is claiming credit for tackling ghost gear, despite scuttling funding

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada continues to tout itself as a “world leader” in tackling ghost gear’s threats to marine life and coastal communities even though funding for the program dried up in 2024. 

Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO’s) former investments to address abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear, were axed without explanation by the federal Liberals more than a year ago, said Gord Johns, NDP MP for the Courtenay-Alberni riding on Vancouver Island. 

Core pillars of the ghost gear program to retrieve the plastic pollution and responsibly dispose of, recycle, or return ghost gear, have been cut completely, or dramatically scaled back, since the program launched in 2020, Johns said. What’s more, Ottawa remains silent about future ghost gear funding after the release of the recent budget in November.

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Rivers & Oceans

Update from the Quadra Island Salmon Enhancement Society

The Quadra Island Salmon Enhancement Society grew out of poor salmon runs in the 1970s and 80s and has been a non-profit organization (and registered charity) since 1981. In this morning’s interview Lauren Miller, a director,  talks about the 2025 salmon run, climate change and some of the projects her organization has undertaken.

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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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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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Rivers & Oceans

2025 Chum Run on Cortes Island

Two months have passed since the 2025 Chum run. Unlike previous years, the Cortes Island Streamkeepers have not released a final count. 

A Tideline post at the beginning of the run noted, “Basil Creek is usually the first on Cortes to receive returning salmon, and true to form, the first chum showed up on October 23. These first Chum are gorgeous, big, strong, with no decay, and moving steadily up the creek. The Chum typically have a 4-year cycle – we saw good returns in the fall of 2021, so we can expect this year to have a strong return of spawning Chum.” 

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