This summer, Fisheries and Oceans Canada released a beautiful-looking report “State of Canadian Pacific Salmon: Responses to Changing Climate and Habitats” which your intrepid editor, asked me to “process into layman terms” for TAKE 5. She didn’t actually say, “Your mission, should you choose to accept it,” but … you remember that music?
The world’s scientists are urging countries to harness Indigenous knowledge and deploy more renewable energy technology after concluding that carbon pollution levels are leading to unprecedented sea-level rise and loss of glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost.
Despite rainy weather, ongoing drought conditions on the North Island may reduce trout and coho numbers as low streamflows leave fish stranded and higher water temperatures snuff out insects that provide them with food.
“It is fairly unusual for the North Island to be this dry,” said Jaroslaw Szczot, senior aquatic ecologist with the provincial Ministry of Forests. “I think the fires last year proved that.”
May 20, 2019 - The federal and Alberta governments are planning to allow tar sands/oil sands companies to release 1.3 trillion litres of liquid waste, currently held in 220 square kilometres of tailings ponds across the northeastern part of the province, into the Athabasca River, under new regulations intended to take effect in 2022, the Globe and Mail reports.
A rushed process that emphasizes hatcheries and coastal fisheries over habitat restoration and inland spawning streams has some worried the province’s new plan is meant, first and foremost, to serve commercial fishing interests
Efforts to create a made-in-B.C. strategy to assure the future abundance of wild salmon is off to a rocky start — marred by rushed consultations and a process dominated by coastal fishing interests, leaving environmentalists, scientists and interior communities on the outside looking in.
The number of heatwaves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest”.
The damage caused in these hotspots is also harmful for humanity, which relies on the oceans for oxygen, food, storm protection and the removal of climate-warming carbon dioxide the atmosphere, they say.
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