First Nations protesters danced and drummed around a crackling fire in front of the B.C. legislature Thursday, calling for an end to open-net fish farms.
Leaders of the protest, which drew about 200 supporters, say now that the NDP says it’s listening, they want to see farm tenures revoked.
Thursday marked Day 70 of the occupation of two Marine Harvest farms in the Broughton Archipelago, off northeast Vancouver Island.
A Fraser Valley-based conservation group has lodged a formal complaint with the College of Applied Biology over a Trans Mountain biologist’s role in the installation of matting to discourage salmon from spawning at stream sites where the company plans pipeline crossings.
A new study from UBC analyzed more 1,000 aquatic species for vulnerability to the effects of climate change, and the news for three B.C. food fish is not good. William Cheung — an associate professor at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries — brought together biological data relevant to adaptability and applied “fuzzy logic” to the computations. The exercise identified 294 marine species worldwide that are most at-risk due to climate change by 2050. Here are some highlights for species native to B.C. waters:
The National Energy Board has issued a stern warning to the company building a major west coast pipeline expansion about apparent violations of federal law.
The federal regulator called Kinder Morgan to task this week for installing mats in streams to discourage fish from spawning where the pipeline is to be built.
The mass of warm water known as “the blob” that heated up the North Pacific Ocean has dissipated, but scientists are still seeing the lingering effects of those unusually warm sea surface temperatures on Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead.
SEATTLE — The mass of warm water known as “the blob” that heated up the North Pacific Ocean has dissipated, but scientists are still seeing the lingering effects of those unusually warm sea surface temperatures on Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead.
PORT HARDY, B.C. — Members of two British Columbia First Nations say they have occupied a salmon farm on a small island on the province’s coast, the second such protest to be held in the past week.
Chief Willie Moon, also known as Okwilagame, said about 16 members of the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw and the Kwikwasutinuxw Haxwamis arrived at the Wicklow Point salmon farm on Thursday afternoon.
He said about five protesters plan to stay until the provincial and federal governments revoke permits for the facility on Broughton Island, about 50 kilometres east of Port Hardy.
British Columbia’s new NDP government campaigned on a promise to transition the province’s fish-farming industry away from open-sea pens to land-based sites, but First Nations are pushing for more aggressive action. They want the province to revoke the licences of unwanted salmon farms operating in their territorial waters.
B.C.’s aquaculture industry was once again in the spotlight last week after thousands of Atlantic salmon may have escaped a Washington State fish farm near the border.
