Fish scientist Eric Taylor wanted to make a difference.

He was more than happy to toil behind the scenes if it helped to save a slew of at-risk Canadian species, be they the iconic Pacific sockeye salmon or the obscure Acadian redfish.

After chairing the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) for the past four years, however, Taylor departs a frustrated, anxious man.

While the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) has done some good since it took effect in 2002, including increased monitoring, assessments and public awareness, the legislation remains too cumbersome, is riddled with political loopholes and is failing Canada’s most vulnerable species, such as salmon and steelhead populations in B.C.

“A long, winding and never-ending road,” is how Taylor, professor of zoology and director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia, describes the federal process of formally listing a species.

“It just takes too damn long.”

Action plans with no action

COSEWIC is an independent body of scientists established to impartially assess the status of at-risk plants and animals and make recommendations to the federal government for SARA listings, including endangered, threatened or special concern.

Take a deep breath — the listing process is a cumbersome one.

First, COSEWIC makes a recommendation, then government provides a response statement, followed by a round of public consultation, a recovery-potential assessment, a regulatory impact statement analysis, more public consultation and, ultimately, a ministerial recommendation to cabinet — which then has nine months to list the species, to not list or refer back to COSEWIC for further consideration.

“There are several steps in the process, and all it takes is one of those steps … to hold everything else up,” Taylor laments.

Eric Taylor, professor of zoology and director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Freshwater fish specimens, stored at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum where Taylor is the curator of fishes. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Once the government finally decides to list a species as endangered, the process of developing a recovery strategy begins, including more public consultation and, finally, an action plan. Of the latter, Taylor snorts: “It’s a stupid term. It’s a plan to do something. Why not just frickin’ do it?”

When all is said and done, he adds: “There’s nothing in there, nothing mandated, that actually says you have to do anything to help the animals and plants on the ground.”

“They have to report on what they’ve done, and that report could say, ‘we haven’t done anything, yet,’ ” Taylor says.

Critical habitat ‘can be destroyed with impunity’

Indeed, lack of protection for critical habitat is another key weak point in the legislation.

Mike Pearson, an independent biologist and expert in endangered freshwater fishes and amphibians in the Fraser Valley, notes that the vast majority of species listed under the Species at Risk Act are threatened primarily by habitat loss.

The act protects the residence of an endangered species — say, a nest or den — and protects against the animal being killed or harassed.

At least, that’s the theory.

The Oregon spotted frog is the rarest amphibian in Canada and listed as endangered; critical habitat has been mapped and the recovery strategy completed.

Yet Pearson watched helplessly the other day as an Agassiz farmer torched a riparian area within the frog’s known breeding site — and in the middle of breeding season, no less.

A scorched riparian area at an Agassiz farm. Photo: Mike Pearson

Since biologists are not permitted to survey for the frogs on the farmer’s private land “there is no way to prove that the frogs/eggs were present at the time” of the fire, Pearson says.

“Essentially, a lot of endangered species’ critical habitat in B.C. can be destroyed with impunity.”

Few convictions for breaking species at risk laws

There’s been fewer than one conviction per year on average under the Species at Risk Act.

In October 2018, a World Wildlife Fund report concluded that at-risk populations continued to decline by an average of 28 per cent since the act took effect in 2002.

There are 451 vertebrate species in Canada experiencing population declines. Between 1970 and 2014 these species showed an average decline of 83 per cent. Source: Living Planet Index, WWF-Canada. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

There are 64 vertebrate species listed under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) as of 2017. Between 1970 and 2002, when the act was adopted, these species showed a decline of 43 per cent. Source: Living Planet Index, WWF-Canada. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

After the Species at Risk Act (SARA) was introduced in 2002, the 64 species listed in its registry showed a decline of 28 per cent between 2002 and 2014. Source: Living Planet Index, WWF-Canada. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

In some cases, the federal government moves only after being hauled to court.

Ecojustice, a charity that advances environmental litigation, has achieved a handful of successes, forcing the federal government to act on critical habitat of endangered species, including the greater sage-grouse on the Prairies and both the Nooksack dace and southern resident killer whale in B.C.

Ecojustice lawyer Sean Nixon says one of the big problems is that provinces — not the federal government — own most of the land, yet Ottawa is reluctant to force provinces to protect habitat. “It’s jurisdictional timidity, just not willing to step on a province’s toes.”

Marine fishes less likely to be listed

In 1996, the provinces and the territories and the federal government signed an accord on bringing in legislation to protect endangered species. But 21 years later, Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan and the Yukon still have no stand-alone legislation (PDF) on endangered species.

In February 2018, a University of Ottawa study concluded that the Species at Risk Act’s failings included inadequate funding, insufficient incentives for stewardship among private landowners and industry, patchy efforts to protect the act on provincial and territorial crown land and private land and a lack of information on effectiveness of recovery actions.

The process of listing has been especially problematic for marine fishes. It’s no exaggeration to say you could fill an aquarium with all the species recommended for listing by COSEWIC that are still awaiting federal protection under the Species at Risk Act.

Ottawa is reluctant to list a species if doing so may have serious economic and social implications.

And when it does act, Taylor says, government tends to choose the least protective option, listing these species as of “special concern” — a category that avoids no-take, no-harm directives.

“It is a well-known fact that things hunted and fished tend not to get listed by the minister.”

As of 2018, he noted, almost 100 per cent of birds recommended by COSEWIC had been listed compared with fewer than 40 per cent for marine fishes — the lowest of 10 categories ranging from birds and mammals to molluscs and mosses.

“If you’re a bird and you get a recommendation for listing by COSEWIC, it’s almost always a slam dunk,” Taylor says.

“If you’re a marine fish, chances are you will not get listed.”

Government action not guaranteed for listed species

Typically, it takes two years for COSEWIC to reach a recommendation, but emergency assessments can be made much faster when there is an imminent and dire threat.

Even in those cases, there is no guarantee of government action.

In January 2018, COSEWIC recommended emergency listing for endangered Chilcotin River and Thompson River steelhead runs after the number of returning adults dipped to just 58 and 177 individuals, respectively.

Steelhead trout spawners over the last threegenerations have declined 79 per cent (over 15 years) for the Thompson River unit and 81 per cent (over 18 years) forthe Chilcotin unit. Source: Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has still not acted.

“They could do it in 24 hours if they wanted to,” Taylor says. “If the political will is there, they can do these things. SARA for salmon and steelhead? It’s a major disappointment. It’s done very little for those animals.”

COSEWIC strictly looks at the species’ conservation status, while Canada must consider the greater implications of a listing.

“Protecting species under the Species at Risk Act, even on an emergency basis, is a regulatory decision with potential impacts on Canadians,” federal fisheries spokeswoman Janine Malikian said in a written statement. “We want to ensure that decisions support sustainability and the best results for Canadians.”

“SARA for salmon and steelhead? It’s a major disappointment. It’s done very little for those animals.”

While a decision has yet to be made on Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead, Malikian said: “Conservation of these steelhead populations remains an extremely high priority and will be a focus of decisions with respect to fisheries management plans for the year ahead.”

Canada, Taylor argues, wrongly believes it can have it all.

“They don’t want to protect them because they have this crazy notion that you can somehow grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time. In most cases, they’re two opposites. You can’t have both at the same time.”

Endangered stocks can migrate upstream with larger healthier mixed-stock runs and become caught in fisheries, including First Nation gillnets in the Fraser River.

“I don’t really care who you are,” Taylor says. “No group has the right to fish something to extinction. Fisheries can be a very important part of reconciliation, but these fish shouldn’t be sacrificed to reconciliation and I don’t think any First Nation would want that.”

More public engagement, stricter timelines needed

Taylor asserts that the federal decision to list a species is influenced by business, jobs and votes. Climate-change related events, such as destructive floods and fires, may help to change public minds and pressure their government to act more quickly, including for marine fishes, he adds.

COSEWIC designated the Cultus Lake sockeye endangered in an emergency listing in 2002. The federal government decided against listing the population, citing “significant socio-economic impacts on sockeye fishers and coastal communities.”

Taylor said the public needs to be more engaged.

“You need millions of people to care about these animals and plants and most people just don’t. It’s sad but it’s true.”

Taylor at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Beaty Biodiversity Museum, University of British Columbia. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Freshwater fish samples, collected in B.C. in the 1950s and stored at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Little has changed on the ground since the Liberals took power in 2015, Taylor argues.

“The bottom line, I’d say that the state of our biodiversity in Canada hasn’t changed much since they’ve come in,” he says, noting it will take more than a single four-year term of office to reverse a “legacy of inaction.”

“You need millions of people to care about these animals and plants and most people just don’t. It’s sad but it’s true.”

The federal government announced several measures Tuesday to help protect depressed chinook stocks on the Fraser River, which prevents sport anglers in southern B.C. from taking chinook until July 14, followed by a daily limit of one per person through December 31. Season limits drop to 10 chinook from 30.

Commercial troll fisheries for chinook are closed until August 20, while First Nations’ food, social and ceremonial fishing is closed until July 15.

In 2017, Richard Cannings, a prominent naturalist and NDP MP for South Okanagan-West Kootenay, introduced a private member’s bill to amend the Species at Risk Act to impose stricter timelines on the government.

The bill would have required that after receiving a COSEWIC recommendation, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change would have one year to recommend to cabinet that the assessment be accepted and the species added to the list, the species not be added or the matter be referred back to COSEWIC for further consideration.

Cabinet would have one month to act or the minister would by order list the species, or provide reasons why not or what action is planned.

Under the current situation the clock only starts ticking on action once the minister informs cabinet of a COSEWIC recommendation — a loophole the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper exploited to ignore COSEWIC.

“It was a very reasonable bill,” Cannings told The Narwhal. “The whole point is to make it a timely, open and transparent process.”

A skeleton of a blue whale, on permanent display at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Cannings withdrew the bill after Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna agreed that as a matter of government policy a decision on listing a species would be made within two years — or three years for commercial/hunted species.

“To give them the benefit of the doubt, they’re facing a very big backlog of species that have been ignored during the Conservative years,” Cannings allows.

Taylor’s solution is “very firm time limits” on when the minister must make a decision on recommendations for endangered species listing.

The feds should automatically accept COSEWIC recommendations for listing to avoid the “active harming or killing” of species at risk. Then “take all the time they want” to consider the social and economic consequence of maintaining or tweaking the listing.

“They should automatically go on the list, right away.”

Simply pouring more money into the problem is not the answer, he says.

Federal fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and B.C. Premier John Horgan announced last month that the two governments will provide a total of $142.8 million toward a five-year program to protect and enhance wild salmon.

“Come on people,” says Taylor, noting the time for concrete action is long overdue.

“They love to throw money at things … but it won’t do any good.”

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Canada’s great, white north seems to be getting a little less white as the years go by thanks to above-average increases in Arctic temperatures and increasing levels of industrial development.

Still, the north remains great, and there’s nothing more emblematic of that greatness than the astounding 1,000-kilometre seasonal migration of the region’s barren-ground caribou herds.

Named for their habitat — sprawling Arctic tundra which extends beyond the northern tree line — barren-ground caribou have experienced alarming population declines for years, according to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), and those declines are occurring alongside unprecedented levels of climate change and habitat disturbance.

The committee recently changed the status of barren-ground caribou herds from a species of ‘special concern’ to the more dire category of ‘threatened’ — one step away from ‘endangered.’

“These caribou are in trouble,” Justina Ray, co-chair of the Terrestrial Mammals Subcommittee with COSEWIC, a group of cross-country wildlife experts and scientists, told DeSmog Canada.

“We did a large analysis of 15 herds, which hasn’t been done before.”

Some of these far north caribou herds have experienced population losses of more than 90 per cent over recent decades, slowly caving to the layered pressures of a warmer climate, development, resource extraction and hunting.

Image: WWF Canada

Cumulative Impacts Overlooked in Project Approvals

The caribou’s threatened status comes about just as a federal panel is reviewing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act under which major projects must seek approval.

Ray can’t help but see the link between the status of the caribou and the status of Canada’s environmental assessment laws.

“The problem for these caribou is a combination of cumulative impacts and novel disturbance — new things that are occurring in these barren ground ranges that weren’t there before,” Ray said.

The failure to connect the overall impacts of resource development and human disturbance on these travelling species is a major factor in their decline, Ray said.

“It’s very illustrative of this piecemeal decision-making,” Ray said. “No one is looking at establishing limits to that or checking in in an overarching fashion.”

Right now with major project approvals, we’re simply “chipping away one decision at a time in a way that leads to this gradual destruction.”

Ray said the recent COSEWIC review of at risk species identified a number of migratory species that are not faring well in today’s environment, including Coho salmon, Nuttall’s cottontail bunnies and monarch butterflies. 

“It really struck us, how impacted migratory species are.”

A 2013 report from the Conference Board of Canada predicted a 91 per cent increase in mining in northern Canada.

The race for resources in the north has prompted the Canadian World Wildlife Fund to campaign for revoked mining licences in caribou calving grounds.

Ray said researchers don’t know just how much development barren-ground caribou can tolerate.

“Sometimes just one new road in an area can have a disproportionate effect because it’s this novel disturbance that can be a disproportionate issue for caribou that is experiencing truck traffic, dust, etc. for the first time.”

“That can be incredibly disruptive. If you combine that with harvest, resource development, climate change and these other uncertainties, that can add a lot of pressure and stress to a caribou population over time.”

Finding a Lifeline for Canada’s Threatened Arctic Caribou https://t.co/5UQJI5G9CA #Yukon #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 20, 2017

Seizing the Opportunity to Modernize Environmental Assessment

Ray recently presented to the panel, tasked with reviewing Canada’s environmental assessment process.

In her submission, Ray emphasized that, as it currently stands, the process has significant gaps when it comes to ensuring the veracity and independence of science used within the process.

For example, she said, as the legislation currently stands, there’s no procedure to guarantee the independence of science used by consultants hired by project proponents.

Ray’s concerns about the role of science in the assessment process have been echoed by numerous other academics, scientists and researchers who also made submissions to the panel.

“I think the whole process has been plagued by a lack of robust science. It’s actually a more interesting question to ask where science has been robustly assessed in a review process.”

“Even the recent federal Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline decision didn’t take into consideration what an oil spill would result in,” Ray added.

Still, if Canada gets it right, we could pave the way in the creation of a modernized assessment process, Ray said.

“We could potentially be a model for the rest of the world.”

Image: Caribou in Alaska. Photo: Paxon Woebler/Expedition Arguk via Flickr cc 2.0

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Over the last decade Canada has fallen from its position as a leader in ocean protection and become a laggard that has failed to keep up with international commitments, say some of Canada’s top marine scientists.

Lack of support for conservation has changed Canada from a country with innovative conservation policies to one where marine species on the brink of extinction are not afforded protection until too late because of delays and inappropriate legislation, said scholars and scientists who gathered in Victoria recently for the Royal Society of Canada annual general meeting.

But, with a new government, there is refreshed hope in the scientific community and a chance to reverse direction.

Some of the country’s top academic minds looked at challenges facing Canada’s three oceans and possible ways to mitigate warming oceans, acidification, disappearing species, microplastics and watered down environmental protection legislation.

“What can we do?” asked Isabelle Cote, marine ecology professor at Simon Fraser University.

Part of the answer came on October 19 — election day — she said.

“We know that red tides are usually very bad in the marine environment, but this one was very good.”

It was a theme echoed by several speakers who are encouraged by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mandate letter to Hunter Tootoo, his new Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard.

The mandate includes increasing marine and coastal protected areas to five per cent by 2017 and 10 per cent by 2020, acting on recommendations of the Cohen Commission on restoring sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser River, reviewing the previous government’s changes to the Fisheries and Navigable Waters Protection Acts and using scientific evidence, the precautionary principle and taking into account climate change when making decisions affecting fish stocks and ecosystem management.

“Our new government has set out a refreshing new ocean agenda, including areas many of us have been fighting for over the last decade,” said Julia Baum, assistant professor in the University of Victoria’s biology department.

One of the disturbing trends over the Harper years has been what is seen as political tampering in appointments to boards that make vital decisions on endangered species, such as Committee of the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), a group of experts that assesses which species are in need of protection, Baum said.

Marine species are almost always denied protection, often because of conflicts with commercial fishing, said several speakers.

“We sit and let the species wait and do nothing. We know this is a really dangerous strategy,” Baum said.

“Almost 60 per cent of marine fish that have been assessed by COSEWIC as being at risk are sitting with no decision for many years. Those that are at greatest risk wait longest and are typically denied listing,” she said.

Recovery strategies, under the Species At Risk Act, are often three years late and action plans are almost never completed, she added.

Jeffrey Hutchings of Dalhousie University, who chaired the Royal Society’s pivotal expert panel 2012 report “Sustaining Canadian Marine Biodiversity,” believes the change in government will mean a greater willingness to discuss the report’s recommendations.

Those include making ocean stewardship and biodiversity conservation a top government priority, resolving conflicts of interest in legislation, more research into sustaining marine biodiversity and reducing the discretionary power of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in fisheries management decisions.

As Trudeau decides on his priorities, Hutchings would like him to consider splitting the ministry into two parts — the department of fisheries and the department of oceans — to resolve the conflict where the ministry is seen as acting as an agent for fisheries, not for conservation.

If it was split, the fisheries department, under the Fisheries Act, could take care of the economic development side, such as fishing and aquaculture — preferably with much-needed national aquaculture legislation — and the department of oceans, under the Oceans Act, could look after conservation, protection and habitat protection, Hutchings suggested in an interview.

Government should also look at the huge discretionary powers of the Fisheries and Oceans Minister, which add to conservation uncertainties, Hutchings said.

In Canada when it is scientifically determined that a fish population is being overfished, there is no requirement for the minister to take action.

“What has inevitably happened is the minister continues (to allow) fishing on the stock and it declines further and further,” Hutchings said.

In contrast, in the U.S. when it is scientifically determined a stock is in trouble, the department must take specific actions to rebuild the stock, usually by dramatically cutting catches, he said.

David VanderZwaag, Ocean Law and Governance Canada Research Chair at Dalhousie University, believes modernizing the Fisheries Act should be high on the agenda.

“It’s a no brainer,” he said.

“I call it a ghost ship. You see the mast in the fog, but everything is underneath. It’s all at the minister’s discretion.”

The department has attempted to paper over the legislative vacuum with multiple policies, but clarity is needed, he said.

In a similar vein, the Environmental Assessment Act is a roulette system, VanderZwaag said.

“You throw the dice to see what may be covered.”

National aquaculture legislation must be developed and the new government should look at laws and policies around future ocean renewable energy projects, such as wave power, VanderZwaag said.

“The federal government is not really prepared to deal with offshore renewable energy,” he said.

Photo: Dan Cox via Flickr

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Official recognition that a Canadian species is in trouble is no guarantee that the slide towards extinction can be slowed or halted, a new study has found.

A paper by Raincoast Conservation Foundation scientist Caroline Fox and co-authors from the University of Victoria, published Monday by the scientific journal PLOS ONE, looks at species assessed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and concludes that, instead of recovering, many have become more endangered.

“Using the COSEWIC assessments, obviously we are not doing as well as we would like,” Fox said in an interview.

The study, Trends in Extinction Risk for Imperiled Species in Canada, aimed to assess the effectiveness of Canada’s biodiversity conservation and the report card is not good. 

Fox and her colleagues looked at 369 species and found that 115 had become more endangered, 202 were unchanged and 52 improved in status. Only 20, amounting to 5.4 per cent, improved to the extent that they were no longer at risk of extinction.

Species at risk of extinction or extirpation are initially reviewed by COSEWIC, an independent scientific panel that makes recommendations to government, and some species are then listed under the Species at Risk Act (SARA). Once a species is listed under the Species at Risk Act it has legal protection and, for most species, critical habitat is supposed to be identified and protected.

However, the study found that, in most cases, critical habitat was not fully identified. Of the 221 cases studied that required critical habitat protection, only 56 met the requirements.

“We suggest that the Canadian government should formally identify and protect critical habitat, as is required by existing legislation,” says the study.

“In addition, our finding that at-risk species in Canada rarely recover leads us to recommend that every effort be made to actively prevent species from becoming at-risk in the first place.”

Species at risk are protected by patchwork layers of legislation and the Species at Risk Act is the last resort, Fox said.

The study notes that recent weakening of federal laws that protect habitat, such as changes to the Fisheries Act, may result in more species heading for trouble.

“Future legislation should be underpinned by a strong mandate to conserve habitat and we recommend that any legislative changes that may reduce habitat protection (e.g. the Fisheries Act) should be reconsidered,” the report says.

Photo: Gregory Slobirdr Smith via Flickr

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