Fisheries

One more effect of the drought.

The tribal council representing eight First Nation communities in British Columbia’s Okanagan has suspended the area’s recreational and commercial sockeye salmon fishery – and says a full closing of food fishing is likely coming – as the salmon run comes in far lower than expected.

The Okanagan Nation Alliance was set to open the fishery on Osoyoos Lake this weekend with a historic salmon run forecast for the Columbia River system. But only about 18,000 to 45,000 of the projected 375,000 fish are expected to survive the journey.

On February 25, 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) closed the public comment period for the environmental assessment of the AquAdvantage Salmon. Their review of the first genetically modified animal for human consumption concluded with a “finding of no significant impact.”1 Numerous fishermen, consumer safety advocates, public health officials, ecologists, and risk assessment experts submitted comments that directly challenged this finding.

Many pundits and experts are commenting on Mount Polley Mine’s tailing pond spill from afar, but independent marine biologist Alexandra Morton came to the Cariboo last weekend to have a look for herself.

She didn’t like what she saw.

“I am only a visitor to this disaster, but it has strengthened my resolve to do what I can to stop the stupidity of government that seems only interested in pillaging our home,” Morton said.

Morton has dedicated her life to protecting salmon.

New science shows that Pacific Northwest LNG and Prince Rupert LNG are smack dab in the most sensitive spot for millions of Skeena salmon, treasured by fisheries, anglers, First Nations and sushi lovers.

The gas terminals couldn't be in a worse spot, say scientists.

Two multi-billion-dollar LNG marine export facilities slated for the province’s northwest are under fire for being smack dab in the most critically important waters for rearing millions of wild B.C. salmon, a new Simon Fraser University scientific study reveals.

A plume of radioactive contamination from the damaged Fukushima Nuclear plant in Japan has reached the coast of North America earlier than expected. But while concerns for the plume are making headlines, a far more serious effect of human activity is already having dire consequences for West Coast fisheries. Last August, about 250 tonnes of contaminated water - that had been sprayed onto the damaged reactors to keep them cool - leaked out of storage tanks into the ocean.

Ten million scallops that have died in the waters near Qualicum Beach due to rising ocean acidity are the latest victims in a series of marine die-offs that have plagued the West Coast for a decade. Human-caused carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere are being absorbed by the ocean and may have pushed local waters through a “tipping point” of acidity beyond which shellfish cannot survive, according to Chris Harley, a marine ecologist at the University of B.C. Rising ocean acidity is a global phenomenon, made worse by higher natural acidity in local waters, Harley said.

U.S. officials are heading to Greenland for a three-day meeting to persuade other Arctic nations to place a moratorium on high-seas fishing in the Arctic Ocean, where climate change is melting the permanent ice cap and allowing trawlers in for the first time in human history. The United States is proposing an agreement “that would close the international waters of the Arctic Ocean to commercial fishing until there is a good scientific foundation on which to base management of any potential fishing,” said David Benton, a member of the U.S.

London - October 3rd 2013: An international panel of marine scientists is demanding urgent remedies to halt ocean degradation based on findings that the rate, speed and impacts of change in the global ocean are greater, faster and more imminent than previously thought.