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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Companies in Alberta’s oilsands are scrambling to find a way to reclaim tens of thousands of kilometres of seismic lines cut into the boreal forest before regulations that mandate the recovery of endangered caribou habitat are implemented in late 2017.

But while crews experiment with planting black spruce in piles of dirt during minus-25 degree weather in a bid to repair the forest, the Alberta government continues to lease massive segments of the region for further exploration and still hasn’t mandated reclamation of seismic lines.  

The controversy over caribou habitat and wolf culls in Alberta has stewed for years, but the issue of seismic lines has been largely overlooked. It’s these linear corridors cut through the forest (used to set off explosive charges to locate oil and gas deposits) that encourage predators like wolves to infiltrate what remains of fragmented caribou habitat.

“I don’t think a lot of people thought these seismic lines were a big deal,” said Scott Nielsen, an Alberta Biodiversity Conservation Chair and University of Alberta professor. “But … there are these cascading effects that you can’t anticipate.”

In a century of oil and gas development, hundreds of thousands of kilometres of these wolf freeways have been cut through Alberta’s forest. In one section of the Lower Athabasca region alone, south of Fort McMurray and extending out to Cold Lake, there are 53,000 kilometres of seismic lines.

“We still face the legacy of a tremendous amount of linear disturbances from the initial phases of exploration in the oilsands,” Nielsen said. “So it’s become a major conservation concern — or crisis — really.”

In 2012, the federal government released a recovery strategy for endangered caribou that demands that 65 per cent of their ranges be “undisturbed.” Right now, some Alberta caribou herds have as little as five per cent of their ranges left undisturbed.

“Trying to recover things after they’ve happened is a heck of a lot harder than preventing habitat disturbance in the first place,” Nielsen said.

Restoration Costs Estimated $10,000 Per Kilometre

Some industry players are already voluntarily putting their minds to finding a way to piece the fragmented forest back together — even though restoration costs roughly $10,000 per kilometre.

“With caribou being listed [as endangered] and these areas being defined as critical habitat — that’s why there’s a bit of a mad rush to deal with the legacy of disturbances that we have,” Nielsen said.

Companies Push Ahead with Restoration Despite Lack of Government Requirement

Devon Energy, an oilsands company involved in seismic line restoration since 2011, is trying to make it harder for wolves to move around in caribou ranges.

“Seismic lines, not just seismic lines but roads and trails out in northern Alberta, make it easier for wolves to travel and hunt more efficiently,” Amit Saxena, senior lands and biodiversity manger with Devon, told DeSmog Canada. “They are increasing the spatial overlap between wolves and caribou, more than pre-disturbance levels.”

Saxena said while most companies are doing what they can to ensure new seismic lines come with a lighter footprint — by reducing their width and straightness — there is still a lot of work to do to inhibit wolf movement on the thousands of kilometres of legacy lines crisscrossing the province.

“Sometimes we actually put up wooden or snow fences at 500 metre intervals along the line, and sometimes we’ll do log rollback and brush clearing, making big piles,” he said. “That not only impacts wolf movement on the line but also human movement on the line so that limits the amount of ATVs and quads that go down those lines that will ultimately negatively impact the recovery of the line.”

Devon is working toward the federal government’s target of 65 per cent undisturbed habitat in caribou ranges and prioritizes line recovery based on their habitat value for caribou. The company is also working to offset disturbance in new ranges with conservation in others.

But Saxena pointed out that since there is “no carte blanche requirement” from the province for seismic line restoration, companies are trying to find ways to balance the restoration with other priorities.

“We have to be realistic about it also,” Saxena said. “Industry priorities do play a role in there.”

Tree planting along seismic lines in the ALGAR historic restoration project area. Image from COSIA.

COSIA Pilot Project Tests Caribou Habitat Reclamation Techniques

Kris Geekie, director of community consultation and regulatory affairs for Nexen, said his company is exploring new seismic line restoration techniques in caribou habitat through the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) as part of the Algar Historic Restoration Project.

“We’re looking at an area nobody is currently active in. There are no oilsands leases within that area and what we’re testing is how can we restore [seismic lines] faster, what are the appropriate treatments, and what are the tactical plans specifically for managing forest fragmentation from seismic lines,” Geekie said.  

Geekie said Nexen, along with other oilsands companies like Statoil, Shell and ConocoPhillips, are working on 390 kilometres of seismic lines throughout the Algar region.

“The pilot is specifically designed to find out if we can improve the sustainability [of caribou] in that area. Basically, the less linear disturbance in the area, and the less access for wolves, is one way we can improve the sustainability of caribou herds.”

Caribou Recovery Plan Still to Come: Province

Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) is currently formulating the province’s caribou recovery plan, according to public affairs officer Duncan MacDonnell — although it’s too early to tell what role seismic line restoration will play in the plan.

“We must have caribou recovery plans ready to go by the end of 2017,” MacDonnell said. “It’s our responsibility to meet those plans according to the [federal] criteria.”

None of the provinces have filed their caribou recovery plans yet, he said, adding the variety of caribou ranges in Alberta alone has contributed to the delays in the draft plan’s release.

“How far [ESRD goes] in terms of restoration schedules or plans, we have no idea yet,” MacDonnell said.

He added ESRD is carrying out a wolf cull in the Little Smoky and A La Peche caribou ranges as an interim measure while the province prepares its recovery plans. Those plans are expected to include some restriction on new development in caribou ranges. 

Nexen seismic line replanting. Photo from Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship via Youtube.

Alberta Government Continues to Sell Energy Leases in Caribou Range

Yet the Alberta government’s recent sale of energy leases in caribou range has onlookers concerned not enough is being done to protect caribou habitat despite government promises.

Carolyn Campbell from the Alberta Wilderness Association said the government is “sending mixed messages” when it comes to caribou recovery.

In early March, the province came under fire for putting 21,000 hectares of energy leases in caribou habitat up for auction. Campbell said the day after her organization issued a news release on the auction, the government quietly announced the sale would be delayed.

Since then, several new small lease sales in that range have been announced.

“Alberta is being highly inconsistent right now,” Campbell said.

“The problem with new leasing is it creates new rights holders — energy companies — who have a time limit to prove up those leases and under weak rules that enables them to put down new well-sites, new roads, new pipeline infrastructure.”

Campbell said new energy lease sales continue while the government is perpetually delaying the release of range-specific recovery plans. She said Alberta initially committed to releasing the first plan, for the Little Smoky and A La Peche herds, in 2014.

“Time is running out for these caribou. It would be pretty inappropriate to try to run the clock out to 2017,” she said.

She added the current rules for habitat disruption are “unacceptably weak for an endangered species” even when paired with recent efforts to restore disturbed land.

“Even though some companies are getting interested in reclamation, the net effect with all the new leases and activity is ongoing degradation,” Campbell said.

“New lease sales should be totally deferred until there are strong range plans in effect.”  

Image Credit: Alex MacLean

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Vessel noise is already hindering endangered southern resident killer whales from communicating and finding fish and the noise bombardment will get worse if proposals for coal terminals and pipelines in B.C and Washington State are approved, said scientists and environmentalists at a conference looking at the health of the Salish Sea.

"Ships dominate the soundscape of Puget Sound," said Scott Veirs, Beam Reach Marine Sciences and Sustainability School program coordinator and professor, speaking at the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference.

Veirs and his students take underwater sound recordings off Lime Kiln Park on San Juan Island, an area where the killer whales are known to spend time, and then model the echo-location and communication consequences for the resident killer whales. The resident killer whale population has dropped this year to 80 animals in three pods, the lowest number in more than a decade.

Sounds of swooshes, rattles and bangs echoed through the room as Veirs demonstrated noises surrounding the whales every day and audience members covered their ears as he played the screeching and metallic grindings made by a ship with a damaged propeller.

"At least one ship is present about 40 per cent of the time and when that ship is going through it reduces the range that whales can communicate by 68 per cent," Veirs said.

That means the whales miss about 37 per cent of calls and, if traffic doubles – as it could with increases in oil tankers from twinning the Kinder Morgan pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby and with 21 per cent more carriers and barges from proposed coal terminal expansions in B.C. and Washington – it is estimated the whales will miss 44 per cent of the calls, he said.

Current noise levels mean whales are already finding almost 50 per cent less fish than they would otherwise and a doubling of traffic would increase that to 58 per cent, Veirs said.

The noise is having a significant impact as chinook salmon is already scarce, Veirs said.

Canadian and U.S. government studies have pinpointed lack of salmon – and particularly the whales' preferred diet of chinook – noise and pollution as the major threats faced by the resident killer whales.

Juvenile chinook salmon. Photo by Roger Tabor, USFWS.

Ship owners should be offered incentives to properly maintain their vessels and the noise could be mitigated by ships slowing down or rerouting through Rosario instead of Haro Strait, Veirs suggested.

"Every knot you slow down, you come down about one noise level," he said.

However, that would mean more time in the vicinity of the whales, which would increase the possibility of oil spills, he said.

Concerns about shipping noise changing the whales' behaviour was echoed by Marla Holt, research wildlife biologist with the U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Vessel noise affects acoustic signals that are important for foraging, Holt said.

"The behavioural changes in response to vessels is quite concerning as one of them is decreased foraging," she said.

NOAA used digital acoustic recording tags, temporarily attached to whales with suction cups, to estimate noise levels.

The minimum noise level recorded, with two stationary and one slow boat in the vicinity, was 88 decibels and the maximum, with a large ferry less than 300 metres away, was 141 decibels, Holt said. Sound charts equate 140 decibels with the sounds of a jet engine at 100 feet.

Last year, the behaviour of the whales was different than in previous years, said Jenny Atkinson, executive director of The Whale Museum in Friday Harbour, Washington.

The Whale Museum documented sightings in the Salish Sea and found that, especially during the summer, when the whales typically spend their time around Juan de Fuca Strait, Haro Strait and the Strait of Georgia, the animals spent more time off the west coast of Vancouver Island and did not get together to socialize in their traditional areas.

It is not known whether the behaviour changes are connected to salmon runs or noise, but the result is that no one is observing the greeting ceremonies or the three pods coming together in a superpod, Atkinson said.

"They're not spending too much time socializing and making babies," she said.

The only calf born in 2013 washed up dead and no births have yet been reported this year.

An additional problem is that southern residents reproduce more slowly than northern residents, possibly because of lack of prey availability or contamination, said Dawn Noren of NOAA.

But other whale populations are doing well, with increases in the northern resident and transient killer whale populations and a resurgence of humpback populations, Atkinson said.

"So what is going on with the southern residents?" she asked.

Howard Garrett of Orca Network has watched the changing behaviour and believes prey availability is the most likely cause.

"It may be that it's not just lack of food on the inside, but an abundance on the outside," he said.

The whales appear to like the protection of inland waters as it allows them to congregate, but that will likely start happening again once they are well fed, Garrett said.

Superpods are important for mating as there are strict rules within the pods that do not permit mating with family members, Garrett said.

"Maybe they're having superpods off the west coast, but the chance of that seems slighter because of the rougher water," he said.

Image Credit: vijay_SRV via Flickr

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This week the federal government was legally obligated to establish protected habitat for threatened North Pacific humpback whales. Instead the Harper government suddenly moved to take the humpback off the “threatened species” list. That would eliminate the legal requirement under Canada’s Species At Risk Act for protecting habitat along the British Columbia coast.

The government based the downgrade on a recommendation made by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), the independent scientific body that designates which wildlife species are in trouble, in 2011.

Critics have noted the decision eliminates a major obstacle to both the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. After the conditional approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline by the National Energy Board's joint review panel, the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre launched a legal complaint on behalf of B.C. Nature requesting the government's recovery strategy for humpback whales be taken into consideration.

A federal recovery strategy for humpback whales on the B.C. coast released in October cited potential increased oil tanker traffic as a danger to dwindling populations. The recovery strategy, released after a five-year delay, also noted the danger toxic spills posed to critical habitat.

If built, the two pipeline projects would increase oil tanker traffic from eight to 28 per month, increasing the risks of collisions with whales, potential spills in vital habitat and excessive noise.

The good news is that the North Pacific humpbacks are recovering after nearly being wiped out by whale hunting, Marty Leonard, chair of COSEWIC, told DeSmog Canada.

The whales were listed as a species of “special concern” back in 2011, Leonard said. “Their numbers are increasing which is good to see. But they still face threats.”

Those threats include oil spills, collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing gear and overfishing of their food sources.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest feature on the planet — bigger than all land areas combined. After 250 years of whaling, an estimated 1,400 humpbacks remained in the North Pacific. They’re among the largest marine mammals reaching 14 metres in length and weighing up to 40 tonnes. Hunting was banned in 1965 and today there are about 20,000 in the entire region. Perhaps 3,000 are found seasonally in B.C. waters.

The Species At Risk Act took affect in 2003, prior to which Canada had little endangered species protection.

In 2005, COSEWIC listed North Pacific humpbacks as a “threatened” species. COSEWIC defines “threatened” as a species likely to become endangered if nothing is done. “Endangered” means about to go extinct. The government’s move will demote the status of humpbacks to “species of special concern.”

The federal government is required to produce an official “recovery strategy” for all species on the endangered and threatened lists, including legal protection of essential habitat.

Despite its legal obligation, the Harper government has persistently failed to do so for humpbacks and another 170 species.

In September 2012, Ecojustice lawyers filed a lawsuit in response to the Harper government’s delay on behalf of five environmental groups, the David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace Canada, Sierra Club BC, Wilderness Committee and Wildsight.

In February 2014, the Federal Court ruled the Harper government was breaking the law and was very critical of the government’s delay.

“We took the federal government to court and won,” said Caitlyn Vernon of the Sierra Club BC. 

“There is clearly an enormous systemic problem within the relevant Ministries,” Justice Anne L. Mactavish wrote in her judgment.

Justice Mactavish also noted that when it comes to protecting species, delay can lead to extinction.

The lawsuit prompted the Federal government to develop a recovery strategy for North Pacific humpbacks in September 2013, eight years after being listed as threatened.

The recovery strategy required legal protection of designated feeding grounds to be in place by this week, Vernon told DeSmog.

But rather than implement such protections, the government moved to downgrade the status of the whales to eliminate the need for legal protection of habitat.

“It’s good news humpback numbers are increasing, but their recovery is fragile. The science is clear that increased tanker traffic from the proposed pipelines will affect that recovery,” said Vernon.

“One oil spill and they’re back on the endangered species list.”

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