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The federal government has refused to issue an emergency order to protect endangered southern resident orca whales, saying it will instead pursue “incremental measures” to help the ailing population off the south coast of British Columbia. Those could include establishing new limits on pollution from ships and increasing the distance boats must keep from the whales.

It’s the second time in recent years that Ottawa has declined to step in and take emergency action to help the orcas, prompting conservation groups to warn the decision “has put this iconic and critically endangered population at greater risk of extinction.”

The government released its decision on Friday afternoon, five weeks after conservation groups launched legal action against two federal ministers for what they said was an unreasonable delay in recommending an emergency order to cabinet.

Southern resident orcas, also known as killer whales, continue to struggle in the face of noisy, polluted waters, declining food stocks and a shrinking gene pool. As of last July, only 73 whales remained in the southern resident population.

Days before the government’s decision was made public, a pod of the critically endangered orcas was spotted off the southeast coast of Vancouver Island.

Observers with the Center for Whale Research tracked the orcas as they travelled from Oak Bay into Haro Strait, then north to Gibsons, back south to the Gulf Islands, then further south into the waters off Washington state.

Over the course of a few days, the pod travelled at least several hundred kilometres through the Salish Sea, navigating busy shipping corridors frequented by oil tankers and cargo ships — swimming through waters polluted by urban runoff, untreated sewage and industrial wastewater, all the while searching for increasingly elusive salmon.

For years, environmental organizations have pushed the federal government to take urgent action to protect the orcas — asking Ottawa to stop major projects, like the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and Roberts Bank Terminal 2, that will increase shipping traffic, to require ships and fishing boats to slow down and give the whales more space and to limit fishing for Chinook salmon so more food is available for the orcas.

Ottawa has taken some steps to address known harms to the population. But late last November, federal scientists determined the orca population continues to face imminent threats to its survival and recovery. That determination meant Fisheries and Oceans Canada Minister Diane Lebouthillier and Environment and Climate Change Canada Minister Steven Guilbeault were required under the federal Species At Risk Act to recommend the federal cabinet issue an emergency order.

Emergency orders, a rarely used tool in the act, allow the federal government to take urgent action to protect species facing pressing threats to their survival and recovery. The final decision about whether to issue an emergency order is up to the federal cabinet.

Instead of issuing an emergency order, the government said in its decision document that it will pursue incremental measures under other legislation. It said it had considered “social, economic, policy and other factors, and the broader public interest.”

The government said it will consult on possible additional measures to protect the whales, including increasing the distance boats must keep from the whales from 400 metres to one kilometre, adjusting fishing closures for either or both of 2025 and 2026, establishing underwater noise objectives and establishing new limits on pollution from ships.

Conservation groups met the decision with dismay and disappointment.

“The repeated failure of the federal government to enact an emergency order for southern resident killer whales, Canada’s most endangered whale population, is an abdication of their responsibility to protect species at risk,” Hussein Alidina, lead specialist for marine conservation at World Wildlife Fund Canada, said in a statement issued jointly by several conservation groups.

“While political events and emergencies dominate headlines, the southern resident killer whales are in an urgent fight for survival,” Michael Jasny, director of marine mammal protection at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in the statement. “There are permanent consequences to deferring solutions for endangered species. Delay increases the risk that this population will decline beyond the point of recovery.”

Conservation groups call new measures to protect endangered orcas ‘vague’ and ‘not enough’ 

It’s not the first time the federal government has declined to issue an emergency order to protect the southern resident orca population. Environmental groups also petitioned the government to issue an emergency order in 2018. 

Even though the government found the southern residents were facing imminent threats to their survival in 2018, the federal cabinet also declined to issue an emergency order at that time.

In its most recent decision, the federal government noted it has implemented significant measures since 2018 to mitigate threats to the whales, including annual salmon fishing closures in key foraging areas, voluntary shipping slow downs in portions of their critical habitat and restricting how close boats can get to the whales.

Despite those measures, in its latest imminent threat assessment the federal government noted there have been “no significant changes” to the threats facing southern resident killer whales.

“It may take a long time, even decades, to observe the biological effects of these measures, as southern resident killer whales are long-lived animals that reproduce slowly, and their recovery is expected to take time,” the government said in a written statement.

Alidina said the new, incremental measures won’t be enough to help the orcas. “The new measures the government has proposed are vague, open to dilution and lack any timelines. They are largely a continuation of ‘half measures’ that we know from past experiences are not enough. We are presiding over the extinction of southern resident orcas and future generations will judge us accordingly,” he said.

Beatrice Frank, the executive director of Georgia Strait Alliance, echoed those concerns.

“The federal government has continued to fail to implement robust actions, and instead they are offering proposals for more consultation, leaving orcas struggling unnecessarily,” she warned. 

Despite disappointment in the government’s decision, Frank said Georgia Strait Alliance remains committed to fighting for the southern resident orcas.

“This is a blow to orcas and to the Salish Sea ecosystem and communities, but this is not the end, it is a detour,” she said.

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