Category Archives: Rivers & Oceans

Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

5,000 Chum fry released back into Basil Creek

More than 20 people gathered at the Klahoose hatchery in Squirrel Cove to watch around  5,000 Chum fry be released back into Basil Creek on Wednesday, April 20, 2022. Six of them were women and girls from the Klahoose village, who came to sing a prayer song. Seven were homeschool students, enrolled in the Partners in Education (PIE) program, who came with their mothers. There were also a handful of Cortes Island streamkeepers, three Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) personal and two reporters. 

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Rivers & Oceans

Rare cold-water coral garden in peril on B.C. coast

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A remarkable coral garden tucked away in a remote inlet on B.C.’s wild central coast is in danger unless the federal government takes immediate steps to save it from destruction before prawn fishing season gets underway, conservationists say.

Heavy prawn traps and ropes, which make contact with the seabed, are particularly destructive to the delicate red tree corals, or Primnoa pacifica, in a unique area in the centre of Knight Inlet, said professional diver, filmmaker and naturalist Neil McDaniel. 

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Rivers & Oceans

47 days until a decision must be made: sea lice and pathogens

As we get closer to June 30, when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has to decide whether to reissue the licenses for 79 British Columbian salmon farms, independent biologist Alexandra Morton points to yet more problems. 

A recent Global and Mail article revealed the existence of a decade old Department of Fisheries (DFO) report about the ‘transmission of the PRV virus from farmed to wild salmon.’

Morton said the fish farm industry has exceeded the three lice per fish threshold every week since the out-migration season began on March first. Two to five active farms have exceeded that limit every week, for the past five weeks. Morton claims that no sooner had the industry brought the lice on one farm under control, than another exceeds the limit. 

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Rivers & Oceans

The three sea lice monitoring windows

Taken from a BC Salmon Farmers Association email to Cortes Currents

Salmon farm conditions of license specify area-based and site-specific sea lice monitoring requirements for each farm. In general, the sea lice-related conditions of license divide each year into 3 sea lice monitoring ‘windows’ defined by the out-migration pattern of the juvenile salmon:

  • Non-migration Window: July 1 – January 31
  • Pre-migration Window: February 1 – February 29
  • Out-migration Window: March 1 – June 30.
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Rivers & Oceans, Tourism, Waste

Wave of pollution from cruise ships expected regardless of new federal wastewater rules

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Environmental groups are hoisting red flags as the cruise ship season relaunches after the easing of COVID restrictions on the West Coast despite Ottawa’s recent announcement it will roll out stricter wastewater dumping rules. 

The federal government’s proposed environmental regulations are ambiguous, but signal Transport Canada is starting to acknowledge cruise ships have been taking advantage of Canada’s lax standards to dump billions of litres of dirty water waste along the B.C. coast, said Anna Barford, Stand.earth’s shipping campaigner. 

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