Sitting on the sloping sandstone rocks of Saturna Island, the southernmost of B.C.’s Gulf Islands, marine biologist Lauren McWhinnie stares out at Boundary Pass and waits for the southern resident killer whales to surface.

It’s just before noon on July 6 — the first day the southern residents have been back in the Salish Sea since May. 

This area off the east coast of Saturna Island is one of three temporary sanctuaries for the southern residents, an endangered ecotype of killer whale. 

The zones, the first of their kind in Canada, came into effect on June 1 and are supposed to be completely closed off to all vessels — including recreational boats, fishing vessels and even kayaks and paddle boards. 

These no-go zones are an experiment, and their effectiveness this summer will help determine what measures will look like for the 2020 season — and beyond.

With a puff of air, a tall black dorsal fin emerges in the distance. “I’ve got whales!” McWhinnie shouts excitedly.

Lauren McWhinnie is a marine biologist and researcher at the University of Victoria. Photo: Lauren McWhinnie

Soon other orcas follow, dipping in and out of the water. A line of whale-watching boats jostle for position close by. Behind them loom bulk cargo ships passing through the international shipping lane.

The southern residents’ range extends from northern B.C. to central California, but they usually spend their summers in the Salish Sea, sometimes passing by Saturna twice in one day. 

But this season, islanders can count the number of times they’ve seen the southern residents on one hand. 

A new sanctuary

McWhinnie is a researcher at the University of Victoria who also works with the Saturna Island Marine Research and Education Society. She’s focused on qualifying and quantifying the number of small vessels going through Boundary Pass and how they affect the whales in the area.

The southern resident population, made up of what are known as the J, K and L pods, has just 73 surviving members; three members have gone missing this summer and are presumed dead. 

They’re up against tough odds. 

Scientists say they face a lack of prey (specifically Chinook salmon), acoustic and physical disturbance from vessels in their habitat, as well as bioaccumulation of contaminants, like pharmaceuticals, in their blubber. 

The plight of the southern residents has become a poster child for those protesting the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project, which will increase the amount of oil tankers in their critical habitat seven-fold.

Last year, the Canadian government committed to implementing new measures to protect the southern residents starting this summer, along with $61.5 million in funding. The map of these measures is a Kandinsky-esque canvas of overlapping colours representing different zones and closures. 

One of these new measures is the creation of three interim sanctuary zones: one off Saturna, one along the Pender bluffs and one beside Swiftsure bank.

A map from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans outlining management areas for Southern Resident Killer Whales. Temporary sanctuary zones appear in yellow. Map: DFO

Detail of management areas near B.C.’s Gulf Islands. Map: DFO

Detail of management areas in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Map: DFO

The zone off Saturna is a long rectangle, intersecting the east tip of the island. At some points, the zone runs just a few hundred metres from shore. In other spots, it extends out to almost 700 metres. 

On the shoreline, McWhinnie’s colleague Sandra Frey, also a researcher at the University of Victoria, points a rangefinder at boats that seem to be on the verge of the sanctuary zone and calls out their distance from the shore to McWhinnie, who records it in her book.

A few houses down the road, Tricia DeJoseph sits on her deck watching the southern residents swim by, just like she has for the 12 years she’s owned this property, which overlooks the sanctuary zone. 

DeJoseph has gotten a reputation around the island as a “sanctuary cop” for her attempts to enforce the zone herself.

She has spent much of the summer sitting on her deck, watching power boats, sailboats and kayaks passing through the sanctuary — typically five to 10 every day.

With her camera, she tries to get pictures of their registration numbers to send to Transport Canada. She uses a microphone and amplifier to yell down at people in the zone and tell them about the sanctuary, letting them know they should stay at least 400 metres from shore. 

“Am I a sanctuary cop? You bet,” DeJoseph says. ”Because I care about these orcas, all of them, not just the residents, but the humpbacks, and the people that are in the water with them.”

But her patrolling of the sanctuary has become a point of contention with neighbours who don’t agree with her about the zone. Many islanders are frustrated they are no longer allowed to use the zone for recreation, especially when they see the measure as ineffective. But DeJoseph has pushed back against that idea.

“Most people immediately move off and go out a bit,” she says. “And then some people flip me off. And some people just ignore me.”

Lack of enforcement ‘disappointing’

When she first heard a sanctuary would be created around Saturna, DeJoseph says she was “elated.” Like many islanders, she and her husband, Al, have been reporting boats getting too close to the whales for a long time.

“I was absolutely thrilled because we’ve spent many many years phoning the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) for what we’ve viewed as harassment and encroachment on all sorts of marine wildlife,” she says. “So we felt like, ‘oh finally, they’re going to have breathing room around here.’ ”

But DeJoseph says she has yet to see a fisheries officer patrolling the area. Many of her reports have gone unanswered, and in a way she feels the sanctuary zone has made things worse. 

“There are times where it’s just so pointless, you just feel like ‘I don’t even know why I’m bothering.’ No one else is,” she adds. 

“If I saw [the Department of Fisheries and Oceans] on the water I would just feel so much better. If I could just see them every once in a blue moon to acknowledge that they’re trying to educate people, but they’re not.”

Michelle Sanders, director of clean water policy for Transport Canada, says the department has heard concerns about the number of boats in the zones, and has sent out over 1,000 communications to boaters through marinas, boating associations, clubs and docks.

With the San Juan Islands in Washington State so close, she says, they’ve also been working to get the word out to U.S. boaters.

Sanders admits that with the diversity of boaters on the water, outreach is challenging. She says the focus this summer is on education and data collection, rather than strict enforcement of the zones.

This is part of the message Sanders and Transport Canada have been trying to get out to locals. But questions — and vehement criticism — remain.

Southern resident killer whales viewed from East Point, Saturna Island. Photo: Miles Ritter / Flickr

Frustrations aired at town hall

On August 15, these frustrations and questions came to a head at Saturna’s community hall when representatives from Transport Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans came to talk about the 2019 measures for the protection of the southern residents.

Saturna has only 300 full-time residents, yet more than 60 people filled the chairs.

At a table at the front of the room, Sanders tapped on an echoey microphone and thanked everyone for coming. Over the next hour, she tried to explain the new regulations, and what outreach Transport Canada has been doing. 

But it became clear that the audience was more interested in hearing what is being done to enforce the zone — and particularly whether anyone had been penalized for violating the sanctuary.

Although the zones were created by a Transport Canada interim order, Sanders says they’ve taken a “collaborative” approach to their enforcement. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Parks Canada, the Coast Guard and the RCMP have been tasked with monitoring and enforcing the zones. 

Transport Canada also has planes doing aerial surveillance of boats in the zones, which they can later use to identify violators, and are monitoring the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which tracks most vessel locations in real time.

At the meeting, Sanders told the crowd that from June 1 to August 1, there have been 106 reports of vessels allegedly entering the Saturna sanctuary, 963 at Pender and 149 at Swiftsure.

People found to be violating the interim order can be given an administrative monetary penalty of up to $250,000, fined up to $1 million or sentenced to 18 months in prison. 

But when Sanders told the crowd that no penalties have been handed out, only verbal and written warnings, the room broke out in exasperated laughter.

Willi Jansen, one of the three fisheries officers tasked with protecting whales in the area, took the mic to talk about what her team is doing in terms of enforcement. She explained that islanders won’t always be able to see them in a marked boat — they may be undercover, or watching from land or a plane.

“You may not be seeing us, but that doesn’t mean we’re not there and that doesn’t mean Transport Canada isn’t there,” she told the crowd.

But mostly, she says they are wherever the whales are. And where the whales are isn’t the Saturna sanctuary zone.

McWhinnie speaks to residents of Saturna Island about killer whales at East Point. Photo: Sarah Berry

‘Yet to be convinced’

When the floor at the town hall was opened up to questions, the list of speakers quickly filled up.

Priscilla Ewbank, who owns the island’s general store, stood with a page of notes in her hands. She’s frustrated with how much time is spent on education, consultation and research, when the situation with the southern residents is so dire. 

“You guys are going to study this to death until anything happens,” she says. “We want you to do something, we want action.”

Susie Washington Smyth, who has a beachfront property on the zone, told Sanders that the interim sanctuary zones mean she can’t play with her kids and grandkids in front of her house. 

“I’m willing to do that … if I think that you guys are doing the right thing,” she says. “I’ve yet to be convinced of that.” 

One by one, islanders shared their ideas for closing down the herring industry or regulating whale-watching or creating larger protected areas. Kayakers vented their frustration with not being allowed in the zone; people like DeJoseph asked why their reports to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans go unanswered. 

Mostly, they were met with explanations that there is a backlog of calls and that the regulations are complicated, just like the threats to the southern residents.

The next day, on Saturna’s Facebook forum, islanders complained that the town hall was the “same old same old from the feds.”

Effectiveness of zone called into question

The goal of the zones is to give the southern residents space as they forage, but McWhinnie says there’s no real evidence yet that the zone off Saturna is a key foraging area. 

From her observations, they mainly pass by the island, occasionally foraging on their way to more fruitful feeding grounds at the mouth of the Fraser River or off of San Juan Island. 

The Narwhal asked Transport Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for research indicating why the specific zones were chosen as critical areas, but neither was able to provide any sources before press time.

Peter Stolting is an islander who did a five-year stint as a driver in the whale-watching industry. From his observations, he says this is not an important foraging area, just a transiting one, and says the no-go zones are ineffective.

“It’s making the public happy. It’s not doing anything for the whales,” he says. “If it did even a tiny bit for the whales I would support this. ‘Cause I’m a big supporter of keeping these guys alive.” 

Slick, also known as J16, from the southern resident killer whale’s J pod creating a rainbow. J16 is the mother of J50, also known as Scarlet, the four-year old killer whale that died, likely as a result of starvation, in 2018. This photo was taken from East Point on Saturna Island in 2012. Photo: Miles Ritter / Flickr

Stolting says the blame needs to be shared, but he sees the government picking on the easy guys: sports fishermen and recreational boaters, rather than larger industries like commercial fishing and fish farms.

“If the government is serious, let’s do it!” he says. “Let’s do it and let’s do it right. It can be done.”

Boaters frustrated

Bordering much of the zone is an internationally recognized shipping lane, where huge oil tankers and cargo ships move through, blocking out the San Juan Islands behind them. 

As a boater, Stolting thinks the zone is forcing people out into the path of the large ships.

“It’s causing harm. And nothing the government does should cause harm. That’s how I see it,” he says. “So if this is what you’re going to do, make sure nobody gets hurt.”

The area is also a route for kayakers, as it runs between two popular campsites. A strong current wraps around East Point, and for less-experienced kayakers, sticking closer to shore can be safer.

Transport Canada has tried to address these concerns by including exemptions from the zone if someone is directly accessing their property or is in immediate danger. And Sanders says a buffer zone was intentionally left between the zone and the shipping lane to allow vessels to get around the zone safely.

For whale-watching boats, the sanctuaries are an inconvenience. Cedric Towers, owner of Vancouver Whale Watch and an executive of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, says whale-watchers are being forced out of areas rich in wildlife, not just the southern residents.

Transient killer whales, humpbacks, sea lions and harbour seals are also found in the sanctuary zones, and Towers says that excluding whale-watching boats from the zones will just put more pressure on other areas they are allowed to enter.

“We’re keeping stats on how many times we were excluded [from the Saturna zone], where we wanted to go look at the transients or humpbacks but couldn’t go in there because of the stupid zone!” he says. “It makes no sense.” 

Too little, too late?

The east point of the island has long been revered as a land-based whale-watching spot, but the large pods of southern residents that used to come by almost daily in the summer, were absent for the height of the season.

“If you look at the stats, for the last three years, it’s just a graph going downhill,” Towers says.

Paul Cottrell, who coordinates the marine mammal response network at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, says it’s hard to determine exactly why the southern residents haven’t been using the area as much as they used to. 

It could be due to the passing of Granny, J-pod’s leader; prey availability or disturbance from vessels, like whale-watching boats, power boats and commercial shipping.

Southern resident killer whale population since 1960. Source: Centre for Whale Research, DFO, B.C. Marine Mammal Commission. Graph: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

“But so far, the animals haven’t been here,” Cottrell says. “And even when they are here, they may not use the sanctuaries. There are lots of different foraging areas; they’re going to be where the chinook are.”

“Those are all things that are pieces of the puzzle, but we don’t know exactly what’s going on,” he says.

For islanders, who often refer to the southern residents as ‘our whales,’ not seeing them is demoralizing.

“I feel like we’ve failed them,” DeJoseph says. “It breaks my heart.”

What’s next?

If Saturna Islanders can agree on one thing, it’s that they’re not happy with the zone. And as the interim order comes to an end on October 31, the government will have to decide whether to give up on the zones, make changes or continue with them as is.

For now, Sanders says the effectiveness of the zones is being measured as they’re implemented and that after analyzing that data, Transport Canada will come back with measures for 2020 that may look the same or different from this summer.

Cottrell, from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, says he thinks the focus needs to be on the whales themselves, rather than a static zone. With real-time information from underwater microphones, the whales’ locations can be identified so that boats can avoid them.

As the southern residents face extinction, DeJoseph sees the sanctuary as a memorial to what has happened to that population, and a reminder that more needs to be done for the overall environment.

“This empty three kilometres of water, we should all look out at it and say, ‘we have screwed this up so bad,’ ” she says.

Space for hope

On August 19, four days after the town hall, J pod came through the Saturna sanctuary for the second time this summer. 

There is something, people say, about the southern residents that sets them apart — a certain joie de vivre.

Amidst all the news of dead calves and the debate over the zones it’s easy to forget what it’s like to see them in their element; how much joy they bring.

The sun glittered off the waves and the orcas were as breathtaking as ever. They slapped the water with their tails. They heaved themselves above the horizon, framed against the dark blue islands in the distance. In the space of 20 minutes, I counted at least as many breaches. 

For once, there was no lineup of boats fencing them in. There was room to breathe. A sanctuary. 

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The Trans Mountain pipeline has become an ant under a magnifying glass: the project has so much energy focused on it from all sides, it seems that it should have spontaneously combusted years ago. That hasn’t happened, but just about everything else that can happen to a major project has.

It’s been approved by the federal government.

Its approval has been quashed by the Federal Court of Appeal.

It was bought by the federal government.

And now that the federal government — its owners — has approved the pipeline (again) things are looking sunny for Trans Mountain proponents once more.

But how did a pipeline that a decade ago was only known to a subset of the oil industry and B.C. activists become the focus of national attention, protests, lawsuits, arrests and even a few elections? And how does the approval square with the federal government’s declaration of a climate emergency, issued just yesterday?

Let’s break it down.

Not-so-humble beginnings

The Trans Mountain pipeline was an audacious undertaking even in its current form. Its 1,150 km length runs — as the name implies — across the Rocky Mountains, from Edmonton to Burnaby. It’s the only pipeline to do so in Canada.

But about 60 years after it was built, the oil industry began protesting publicly in the early 2010s that demand had outstripped pipeline capacity, and that it was suffering at the hands of American refineries. Having the U.S. as Canada’s sole export market, they argued, was resulting in billions of dollars in lost profits as well as a hobbled ability to expand. (That argument has been hotly contested by people like Robyn Allan, the former CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.)

Pleas from industry for new high-capacity pipelines have gone unanswered thus far. From Energy East to Keystone XL to Northern Gateway, the approval process has been a Sisyphean task, getting only so far before rolling back downhill for one reason or another.

Low worldwide oil prices, meanwhile, have cut the legs out from under oilsands production, which needs a much higher baseline price to remain viable compared to cheaper forms of oil. The industry sees the additional capacity from the Trans Mountain project as a way to reach what it views as more lucrative markets in Asia.

When times were still good in the oilpatch, in 2013, Trans Mountain’s then-owner, Kinder Morgan, proposed a second pipeline to run more or less parallel to the original that would more than double the capacity.

Environmentalists, communities and First Nations responded to the proposal with alarm. The reasons for the opposition vary, but the most commonly cited concerns include pipeline spills; additional oil tanker traffic on the coast and the associated ship noise and pollution; a lack of Indigenous consultation; and the climate risks of locking in increased oilsands production for at least a generation.

With such broad rationales for opposition, stopping the pipeline has become a rallying cry for progressives of all stripes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned in 2015 on a promise to fix the environmental review process that resulted in the National Energy Board ultimately approving the project in 2016.

So it came to the dismay of many when Trudeau’s government took such a shine to the pipeline that in 2018 the federal government bought it for $4.5 billion from Kinder Morgan.

But the champagne may have been premature: the same day as Kinder Morgan shareholders approved the deal, the Federal Court of Appeal* overturned the 2013 National Energy Board decision, saying the government had not meaningfully consulted with First Nations or considered its environmental impacts.

Both of those issues have been pinned on the Harper government’s changes to environmental assessment legislation in 2012. Those changes stripped many of the considerations from the approval process in the name of expediting projects like Trans Mountain.

One pipeline — four elections

On the provincial level, it’s another story: two elections have already been won on the back of Trans Mountain.

First there was B.C. NDP leader John Horgan, who said in 2016 that the project would put the coast and the jobs that depend on it at risk. He was elected the following year, and then-Alberta premier Rachel Notley’s Great Wine Boycott of February 2018 was just one of the skirmishes that ensued along the B.C.-Alberta border.

Horgan later asked the B.C. Court of Appeal whether he has the authority to block bitumen originating in another province from reaching the B.C. coast; it ruled in May that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over interprovincial pipelines.

Notley cheered the decision, but from the sidelines: United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney had already been elected in April on a platform of smiling whilst saying “pipelines,” and frowning whilst putting “Notley” and “Trudeau” in the same sentence.

Kenney has continued to voice his disapproval of Trudeau’s lack of wand-waving to magick the pipeline into existence. Kenney’s first trip as premier took him to Ottawa to meet with Trudeau and discuss Trans Mountain, after describing his congratulatory phone call from the prime minister as “a respectful conversation about a number of issues, including the need to get Canadian energy to foreign markets.”

Pipelines have already become an issue for 2019’s federal election, with Conservative leader Andrew Scheer proposing a new free-trade deal between provinces that would clarify the rules around tricky interprovincial issues — like pipelines — while accusing Trudeau of dragging his heels on Trans Mountain.

“I believe it is Justin Trudeau’s strategy to not have this pipeline even started to be built by the next election,” he said at a speech in Calgary in October. “He just can’t admit that it will be dead by the next election.”

Trudeau himself has already suffered a blow to his support from B.C. throughout the pipeline battle — while not gaining any ground in Alberta, where he remains a pariah despite having bought and voiced support for the pipeline.

Trans Mountain has even been the elephant in the room in municipal elections. Both the winner and runner-up in the last Burnaby election expressed furious opposition to the project, as did Kennedy Stewart in his winning mayoral campaign in Vancouver.

What’s next?

The federal approval likely won’t be the end of the story.

Both the Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish First Nations, in whose traditional territory the pipeline ends, celebrated the court’s decision against Trans Mountain and have urged the government to reject it (other First Nations along the route have signed their support for it).

More lawsuits will almost certainly be filed, and more activists will activate. In April, 71-year-old Terry Christenson climbed a tree at the Burnaby terminal and refused to come down for 34 hours. He was later arrested — but following an approval, protests like Christenson’s will likely rage on along the pipeline route.

Even Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been arrested, alongside Vancouver mayor-elect (then NDP MP) Kennedy Stewart, at Trans Mountain protests.

Some First Nations have promised Oka-like standoffs. If the approvals stage has seemed ugly, it is sure to get even uglier as construction proceeds.

Climate anxieties

The pipeline has also become a focal point for Canadians’ anxiety over climate change. Under the Paris agreement, Canada has committed to lowering its emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by midcentury. That commitment precludes locking in further expansion of oilsands without bringing all other economic sectors down to more or less neutral emissions.

Canada’s Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand has said Canada is not on track to meet its targets, calling out Canada’s slow progress as “disturbing.”

Environment and Climate Change Canada estimated the additional oil produced and processed by Trans Mountain would release 13 to 15 million more tonnes of carbon dioxide every year — and that’s just the upstream emissions, not counting the actual end use. But climate impacts were not considered by the National Energy Board’s review, which approved the pipeline.

“We have a decade to drastically reduce our fossil fuel consumption,” B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver said in a written statement on Monday. “Building a new pipeline for diluted bitumen with a lifespan of 40 to 50 years is utterly incompatible with our responsibility as elected leaders to respond to the biggest crisis we face.”

Oil by land and sea

Not all of the oil passing through Trans Mountain will make it to its destination to be burned. Trans Mountain has reported 84 spills in its decades of operation to the National Energy Board. Some have been worse than others. In one case, 11 Burnaby houses were coated in oil after the pipeline ruptured in the city.

Opponents are worried about the potential spills from tankers, as well; the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation commissioned a study from Simon Fraser University that found the likelihood of a “worst-case” spill of over 100,000 barrels to be 29 per cent over 50 years.

Twinning the pipeline would increase tanker traffic in and out of Burrard Inlet sevenfold, and on their way to the ocean tankers have to pass through the Juan de Fuca Strait, home to a critically endangered population of 76 southern resident killer whales. Ship noise has been blamed for some of their decline because it impedes their ability to use sound for hunting.

Today’s approval, scientists say, could seal the fate of the whales. But it has already shaped municipal, provincial and federal politics, pitted two of Canada’s most populous provinces against one another and stretched the seams of federalism for a decade.

Whether it’s built or not, Trans Mountain has already permanently left its mark on Canada.

*Correction made at 11 p.m. on June 19, 2019: The article originally stated the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the National Energy Board’s original approval of the Trans Mountain expansion project. In fact, that decision was made by the Federal Court of Appeal.

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The idea of an international emergency rescue operation to save a sick young orca sounds like the perfect premise for a Free Willy sequel. Officially, Canada and the U.S. are working together to save Scarlet (J-50), a three-and-a-half-year-old killer whale  whose condition has been described as “critical.”

In reality…

The unprecedented attempt to save one of the remaining 75 members of the endangered southern resident orca population by providing food and medicine seems less like a team effort that Canada is part of and more like an American plan Canadians are monitoring, if not blocking.

An examination of scat (feces) from Scarlet and two other members of her family revealed the presence of worms that aren’t fatal for healthy orcas, but might be to the undersized, underweight endangered southern resident.

While it’s not clear if any of the scat was Scarlet’s, the vet team “updated treatment priorities to include dewormer, in addition to an antibiotic.” That was the news from America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries West Coast Region (NOAA) (@NOAAFish_WCRO), which released this on their special orca update page and in a five-part tweet.

#J50 Update (8/20) Part 5 of 5: To ensure that J50 receives the medication, veterinarians may switch to a collared needle w/ a ridge to hold it in place long enough to deliver the full dose. This type of dart is commonly used to treat wildlife & will fall out in time. pic.twitter.com/cqg3P0jAia

— NOAAFish_WCRO (@NOAAFish_WCRO) August 20, 2018

At the same time, Canada’s Department of Fisheries And Oceans (DFO) (@DFO_Pacific) was tweeting about parrotfeather plants and sperm whales.

While the DFO is part of the mission (which also includes the Lummi Nation in western Washington, the Vancouver Aquarium, SeaWorld and several other organizations), so far they’ve decided to wait and see what NOAA does when it comes to treatment. After American officials signed off on administering medicine, the DFO waited for approval to do the same because … dunno.

So, at the beginning of a five-alarm emergency rescue attempt, during which NOAA warned that the orca might only have “days to live,” Scarlet could only receive antibiotics in U.S. waters.

J50 and other members of J Pod. Photo: Candace Emmons / NOAA Fisheries

On August 8, I sent a polite query to two communications advisors at the DFO asking for an explanation.

No response.

Two days later, on August 10, I asked about the difference in U.S. and Canadian approaches during the press conference NOAA hosted and found the answer I received was … let’s go with vague.

I e-mailed another query to two DFO communications advisors on August 10 asking to clarify how and why treatment would be handled differently on our side of the 49th parallel. My questions were what are known in the journalism biz as softballs.

Cue crickets chirping.

While I waited for any response at all, one of the partners in the rescue (The Whale Sanctuary Project) reported on its website and Facebook page that Scarlet had entered Canadian waters and the operation to feed her was “aborted.”

I asked about this in a call-in press briefing about the operation hosted by NOAA and was told by the DFO that it didn’t happen.

After reassuring me there was nothing to see here, the DFO later acknowledged it didn’t have approval to feed the orca in Canadian waters.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that plans to feed Scarlet “would have to wait” because the orca had crossed into Canada. And The Seattle Times reported “NOAA has no permit to work in Canadian waters.”

So the feeding wasn’t “aborted” it just “had to wait” if the whale was unlucky enough to swim into Canada because… DFO? Anyone? Bueller?

Dr. Martin Haulena, Dr. Brad Hanson, and Trevor Foster prepare to administer an injection of antibiotics to J50 on Aug. 9, 2018. Photo: Katy Foster / NOAA Fisheries

Andrew Thomson, regional director of the fisheries management branch, told me in the press call that he was waiting for either NOAA or the Lummi to formally request permission to feed the whale. I was unable to follow-up and ask why DFO wouldn’t just go ahead and grant that permission, given the high-stakes operation underway.

On August 13, I re-sent my query with some new and admittedly blunter questions, now looping in three DFO communications advisors.

Cue those freaking crickets.

Meanwhile, NOAA sent me 11 e-mails answering questions about the rescue operation — often within minutes of my queries.

The next day I tried the DFO again and mentioned I was about to go on the radio to talk about Scarlet and was writing a story about her treatment for The Narwhal.       

Six days after my initial query I finally received my “answers.”

This was the full response to my five questions and my request to interview someone:

“We are continuing to work alongside NOAA Fisheries West Coast and other partners to investigate why J50 is in poor health, and are keeping a close eye on her, hoping to see her health improve. If further actions are needed, our decisions will be evidence-based. We are ready to respond quickly should the intervention need to occur in Canadian waters. We’ll take the best course of action for this whale and her pod without delay.”

Phew. Good thing our government agencies are no longer muzzled and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ushered in a new golden age of transparency.

In my examination of the DFO’s scat it appears their definitions of “quickly” and “without delay” include asking an unidentified overseer for approval to treat a critically ill patient known to vanish from our waters for months at a time.

I found the non-response shocking.

My editor at The Narwhal, Emma Gilchrist, was not so surprised. “In my experience, this treatment by Canadian officials is pretty par for the course,” she said.

Today, if I thought anyone would answer me, it’d be time for hardball questions like: “If Scarlet starves to death because no one signed off on feeding her in Canada, which Canadian official or organization would be responsible?”

If you’d like to know why Canada isn’t onboard with feeding this starving young orca as soon as humanly possible — and why the DFO wasn’t prepared to allow the orca to receive medical help the moment the Americans were — you’ll have to ask them. They’re not answering me.

In the meantime, when Scarlet returns to the Salish Sea, let’s hope — like DFO officials seem to be doing — that she stays in the U.S.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Remember that picture of a baby orca flying through the air like she was auditioning for the Broadway musical adaptation of Free Willy?

In 2015 you couldn’t open a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feed without seeing the image and smiling. This baby orca, initially nicknamed Wiggles, is J-50 — the 50th member to join J-Pod since humans started counting and cataloguing southern resident orcas.

I talked to the photographer, Clint Rivers, just after he took that astonishing shot and he glowed as he shared the day, like he’d witnessed a miracle. This baby had just learned she could fly and she kept leaping — or, to use the boring scientific term for whales defying gravity and our imaginations, “breaching” over and over and over again.

She was Joy. She was Hope. Her photo became the symbol of West Coast whales — especially since this was the famous orca breach birth baby. Elder orcas helped deliver her, using their teeth to assist her mother, Slick (J-16), with the delivery. Slick was 42 at the time — believed to be beyond her reproductive years — so Scarlet truly was a miracle baby.   

The iconic image of infant Scarlet leaping through the air raised awareness of the animals. Photo: Clint Rivers

This whale was the magic that people travel to the West Coast of B.C. and Washington to experience. She was named Scarlet — because of the scars from her delivery. Also, I suspect, because The Avengers were a thing and I’m sure Black Widow seemed like a terrible name for a cute baby whale. Although, in hindsight, that was probably the way to go.

Scarlet was born in Dec. 2014 and kicked off the great baby boom of 2015 — which was (no coincidence) about two years after a banner year for Chinook salmon — the primary diet of the endangered southern residents. That year their numbers climbed to 83.

Now there are new pictures of Scarlet going viral. If you’re not familiar with orca anatomy, she still looks adorable — a perfect baby orca. The problem is she’s not a baby and the three-year-old is the size of a one-year-old. And there’s a depression at the back of her neck.

Scientists call that indentation “peanut head” — which is more proof scientists should never be allowed to name anything that might be shared with civilians. Peanut head sounds adorable, which is not the effect you want for a term that means she’s lost so much weight we can see her skeleton.

One of Scarlet’s pod mates, 20-year-old Tahlequah (J-35) just delivered the first live baby in the southern resident population in three years. Her daughter survived about half-an-hour before dying. She never flew through the air. She was never named by humans, though I know someone suggested calling her “Extinction” and I’ve suggested “Pandora” — since she’s even got government agencies thinking outside the box.

Early deaths for orcas aren’t uncommon, but three years without adding another live member to this population is catastrophic.

While the rest of the world watched Tahlequah grieve, orca experts on the West Coast have also been haunted by Scarlet. In most stories about Tahlequah carrying her daughter’s body there’s a brief mention that another whale is in trouble.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been following Scarlet around taking breath samples. Her breath and feces contain pathogens — another science word not meant for civilian consumption. It means germs.

Scarlet is starving and she’s sick and she’s sick because she’s starving. She’s lost 20 percent of her mass and as orcas get thinner, they live off their blubber. But the ketogenic diet isn’t a great idea for orcas since their blubber is where they store the generations of toxins we’ve dumped into the water. Orcas burning blubber are feeding off DDT, dioxins and all the other charming poisonous chemicals and plastics that are now primary links in our food chain.

NOAA and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada are looking to “intervene” to save Scarlet by feeding her live salmon and administering antibiotics. The Lummi Nation has live salmon in tanks ready to feed her. Of course, that requires finding J-Pod, who were just spotted again on Tuesday night outside Port Renfrew.      

NOAA has permission from the U.S. government to administer antibiotics and try to feed her. Canada’s department of Fisheries and Oceans announced Thursday morning that they are also cleared to assist Scarlet. But fog and choppy waters may make it difficult to spot Scarlet’s pod — nevermind get close enough to help her. Weather conditions aren’t expected to improve until Sunday.

Scarlet and her mother, J-16, swim together early in her life. Photo: John Durban (NOAA Fisheries), Holly Fearnbach (SR3) and Lance Barrett-Lennard (Vancouver Aquarium) via Flickr

Orca-advocacy organizations that might normally battle anyone looking to interfere with the whales’ lives are offering to help because, even if our governments are turning a blind eye to their environmental commitments, they’re at least finally following the Pottery Barn rule: “You Break It, You Bought It.”

Lynda Mapes, the orca reporter from the Seattle Times, wrote that she’s received private calls from politicians who can’t sleep because Tahlequah’s story is shattering them. Chances are their children and grandchildren are asking what they’re doing to help the whales. So let’s make sure every kid out there knows the flying baby whale they fell in love with is the “other orca” who’s dying.

Let’s make sure Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knows this as he decides whether it’s worth trampling the last of these black and white whales with the white elephant known as Trans Mountain — and as his government decides where to focus the funds being put into assisting the recovery of these iconic orcas.

Let’s take the moment to ask the B.C. government to look at licences for fish farms that have put wild salmon at risk.

Washington Governor, Jay Inslee, just asked his task force to consider breaching the Snake River dam. Here’s his number (360-902-4111). Here’s Senator Patty Murray’s number (206-553-5545). You can also share your thoughts with the task force online. It is accepting comments from Canadians and Ken Balcomb, founder of the Center for Whale Research, is urging us to weigh in.

Yes, there are plenty of things that need to happen to help the orcas, the Chinoook and the ocean that keeps us all alive.

But these whales are almost out of time.  If you think this world is better with the world’s most iconic orcas in it, this is the moment to demand action.

It’s up to us.

What’s the symbol you want for the future of the southern resident orcas — Tahlequah grieving or Scarlet defying gravity?

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For more than a week, the West Coast — and the world — have watched as a Southern Resident killer whale mother carries her dead calf in what experts describe as a display of grief.

The calf was born on July 24 and lived for only half an hour — not long enough to be named under the system researchers use to identify each individual member of this endangered population.

Since then, its mother, J35, has carried it — usually on her head, sometimes carefully in her mouth and with a deep dive to recover it every time she takes a moment’s break. She has been doing this without interruption for so long that researchers are concerned about the consequences for her own health.

Scientists say orcas aren’t the only animals that mourn their dead. Other whales and dolphins have also been known to “keep vigils” for deceased podmates.

But the depth of J35’s display of grief has been particularly striking.

“What is beyond grief?” Deborah Giles, a research scientist for the University of Washington Center for Conservation Biologist is quoted as saying in the Seattle Times. “I don’t know what the word for that is, but that is where (the mother) is.”

The loss also highlights the critical circumstances the Southern Residents face.

As of today, the endangered Southern Resident killer whale population numbers only 75. In addition to watching J35, researchers are anxiously monitoring a four-year-old female, J50, who is dangerously emaciated and may not survive.

These salmon-eating resident killer whales, whose critical habitat is located in the transboundary waters of the Salish Sea off British Columbia and Washington State, have not produced a surviving calf since 2015. Recent research shows that 69 per cent of pregnancies are failing, likely due to poor nutrition.

The federal government acknowledged in May that this killer whale population faces “imminent threats to its survival.” The main threats are the lack of availability of Chinook salmon prey, underwater noise that interferes with basic life functions and communication, and environmental contamination.

Now that they’ve found that there are imminent threats to survival, the Ministers of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment and Climate Change are legally obligated to recommend that Cabinet issue an emergency order to protect the Southern Residents, unless there are already equivalent legal measures in place.

Ecojustice petitioned the ministers to do this in January, on behalf of the David Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, Raincoast Conservation Foundation and World Wildlife Fund. The petition identified specific measures that an emergency order should include, including the creation of feeding refuges closed to fishing and whale-watching, and measures to address underwater noise from shipping.

Rather than recommend an emergency order to ensure urgent the suite of protections needed, the ministers have taken limited steps on some issues by implementing fishery closures in some of the whales’ foraging areas and by clarifying, in long-overdue amendments to federal regulations, that commercial and recreational whale watchers must stay 200 metres away from killer whales. The other actions announced are voluntary, research-oriented, yet to begin,and/or lacking timelines. More is needed, and urgently.

Meanwhile, the federal government is contradicting its partial measures to protect the whales by pushing forward with the Trans Mountain pipeline, which would add 816 oil tanker trips per year — a sevenfold increase — through the whales’ critical habitat.

The National Energy Board found that the marine shipping aspect of the project would have “significant adverse effects” on the species and that an oil spill would be “potentially catastrophic.” The lack of any measures to address those effects in the board’s report and in the government’s approval of the project is the subject of ongoing litigation by Ecojustice on behalf of Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Living Oceans Society.

J35 is unwittingly putting on a prolonged, public display of the devastating consequences of inaction on these issues. We will see this sad scene repeated again and again unless meaningful action is taken.

If this week’s heart-wrenching images don’t inspire action, what will?

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The federal government has announced over $12 million to enhance protections for endangered whales on the West Coast, especially the endangered Southern resident killer whale.

That population, at 76 animals, is at its lowest point since live capture for aquariums was banned in 1975, prompting urgent calls for federal intervention.

As part of the $1.5 billion federal Oceans Protection Plan, $9 million of the newly announced funds will go towards reducing collisions between ships and whales.

Another $3.1 million is set aside for research into threats to whales, underwater listening stations and research into the health of chinook salmon populations, the prefered food source for Southern resident killer whales.

David Hannay, chief science officer of JASCO Applied Sciences, which operates a listening station in the Strait of Georgia, welcomed the news.

“I think it’s a very good thing. I believe that noise has been overlooked,” he told DeSmog Canada. “These animals use sound the way humans use vision.”

Hannay says traffic noise has been steady over the two-and-a-half years the company has been monitoring the area.

Andrew Trites, director of the UBC Marine Mammal Research Unit which will receive $1.1 of the new funding, said he welcomes a federal government friendly to research and science.

“We only have to think back to the previous federal government when so many scientific programs were cut. I’m quite excited for what lies ahead.”

“The population is small and declining, and the decline is expected to continue.” https://t.co/QTdLKFvctr

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 16, 2018

More action to protect killer whales urgently needed

While some are celebrating government’s commitment to further research, some scientists say what’s urgently needed is action, not more study.

“We could study them literally to death at this point,” says Paul Paquet, adjunct professor at the University of Victoria and senior scientist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.* 

“What we’re really looking for from the federal government right now is threat reductions,” says Misty MacDuffee, a biologist at Raincoast.

In February, Raincoast, along with a number of other prominent NGOs including Ecojustice, David Suzuki Foundation, and the World Wildlife Fund, asked the government to immediately issue an emergency order under the Species At Risk Act to protect salmon stocks and habitat for the whales by the beginning of March.

The groups pointed out killer whales’ feeding grounds and the salmon populations they depend on have been deteriorating at the hands of noisy and dangerous ship traffic, chemical pollutants, commercial and recreational fisheries, warmer water temperatures and other industrial activity for decades.

The federal government did not impose emergency orders to protect the whales by March 1, as the groups requested, but fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc told the Canadian Press Thursday that there could be action coming soon.

“We’re going to be making a series of decisions in the coming weeks that may necessarily represent some disruption for certain sectors but will be guided by scientific advice and our solemn responsibility to ensure the protection and recovery of southern resident killer whales,” LeBlanc told the news service.

According to the scientists, some follow-through is long overdue.

“Our major concern is that most of this has been well known since the early 2000s,” Paquet said.

In 2008, the federal government released a recovery strategy for Southern resident killer whales, which at times took on a gloomy tone.

“The population is small and declining, and the decline is expected to continue,” it read.

“Southern residents are limited by the availability of their principal prey, Chinook salmon. There are forecasts of continued low abundance of Chinook salmon. Southern residents are also threatened by increasing physical and acoustical disturbance, oil spills and contaminants.”

“It was clearly acknowledged by our federal government in 2008,” Paquet said. “We’ve been waiting and waiting for the government to take some sort of action that would at least contribute to the protection of killer whales, but none has been taken to date.”

But Trites welcomed the opportunity to do more research, saying the vast majority of studies done on B.C.’s killer whales is focused on the Northern resident population.

“The Southern resident population — they’re the outlier. Other killer whales are doing extremely well. On top of that other marine mammals off the coast of B.C. are doing well,” Tites told DeSmog Canada.

The Southern resident population resides in waters near Vancouver Island and travel as far south as California, some of the busiest waterways for the species, Tites said. He added there are other species putting pressure on the whales, like an increasing population of sea lions that compete for chinook.

“There are lots of things at play here. I think we know enough to take some initial steps to lesson stressors on these whales. But we need more research to be effective.”

“I can tell you I’ve spent my entire career studying ecosystems and changes and usually what you think is the most obvious cause it not the cause at all,” Tites said.

Trans Mountain pipeline clashes with species at risk

MacDuffee said announcements like today’s obscure the federal government’s lack of concrete steps like habitat restoration, creation of protected areas, noise restrictions, fisheries closures and quota reductions — actions she says are less politically palatable than research funding.

Southern resident killer whales were listed as endangered in 2003, the same year Northern resident killer whales were listed as threatened. It look the federal government five years to release a recovery plan.

Despite the listing, the federal government has failed to introduce key measures to protect critical habitat.

In 2012 the environmental legal firm Ecojustice took Canada to court for failing to protect critical habitat for Northern and Southern resident orcas within the 180-day window mandated by the Species At Risk Act.

“The government has produced a recovery strategy and it’s produced an action plan, but so far these documents are just plans to make plans,” Dyna Tuytel, a lawyer for Ecojustice told DeSmog in February.

“What’s needed is to actually implement what we’ve learned about the species and what needs to be done.”

In October 2017 Raincoast and the Living Oceans Society took the federal government to court for approving the Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline without assessing how the project’s seven-fold increase in oil tanker traffic would affect Southern Resident killer whales.

According to the two groups, the Trans Mountain project represents an existential threat to the population.

The project’s approval has led some experts to criticize Canada’s soft approach to species at risk legislation.

Ship noise is already harming the whales, according to a recent study. It found noise from up to 1,600 ships over the two-year study period was blocking their ability to find their prey.

The Port of Vancouver’s ECHO program has received international recognition for its trial of a slowdown zone in Haro Strait, which concluded that slowing down had a measurable effect on ambient noise in nearby critical killer whale habitat.

The goal of the EcoAction Incentive Program, developed as a result of research conducted by ECHO, is eventually to develop a fee system for ships that would depend on the noise they generate, incentivizing companies to invest in quieter, but more expensive ships.*

MacDuffee and Paquet say that such reductions in speed and the associated noise are essential — but that they need to be implemented now, rather than waiting for the results of further study.

* Update: March 19, 11:38 am PST. This story was updated to note the fact that Paul Paquet is a senior scientists with the Raincoast Conservation Program and to clarify the goal of the EcoAction Incentive Program.

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Time is running out for the remaining 76 orcas that make up B.C.’s Southern Resident killer whale population and the federal government should take action to intervene, say a coalition of environmental groups petitioning Ottawa for an emergency order under the Species At Risk Act.

The groups say the petition is coming now because they believe the endangered population is at a critical juncture.

“There isn’t time to wait around,” said Dyna Tuytel, a lawyer for Ecojustice, which filed the petition on behalf of the David Suzuki Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Georgia Strait Alliance, Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Southern Resident population lives around southern Vancouver Island and down into Washington’s Puget Sound. The three pods comprising the population haven’t produced a calf that’s survived since 2015.

Overall, the population is at its lowest point since before a ban on live-capture for aquariums took effect in 1975.

According to Raincoast biologist Misty MacDuffee, the population is suffering from a lack of food, stress from disturbance and the cumulative effects of pollution in their environment.

“It’s gotten to the point where we’re losing healthy reproductive animals,” MacDuffee told DeSmog Canada. She says a loss like that can affect the health of the entire population.

The petition asks the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna, as well as the Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc, to intervene.

The groups want more protected habitat, measures to help Chinook salmon recover, protection from whale watching boats and speed limits and noise reduction for vessels in the area, among other measures.

The ministers have been asked to impose the emergency orders by March 1.

Pressure from ships, fisheries, pollution

Chinook salmon are the preferred meal of the Southern Resident orcas. But the fish in the whales’ range have been suffering in recent decades, with 11 of the 15 populations the Department of Fisheries and Oceans adequately studied (there are 35 total) found to be in the “red zone,” indicating an unhealthy population.

Fifty-five thousand recreational fishing trips take place in the Southern Residents’ range each year, both removing fish and disturbing the whales while they forage.

Meanwhile, hunting has become increasingly difficult for the whales as noise from passing ships and boats hampers their communication and scrambles their echolocation, the primary tool the whales use to find their prey.

Finally, accumulation of pollutants such as PCBs in the environment, which mimics hormones in mammals, could be affecting the whales’ ability to reproduce.

“These things act synergistically,” says MacDuffee.

But the groups say there’s an even bigger threat.

Government dragging heels on endangered species responsibilities

“The biggest problem this species faces is a lethargy on behalf of the government, and an inability to take decisive action,” says Christianne Wilhelmson, executive director of the Georgia Strait Alliance.

“I’m at a loss for saying why this government won’t act, except a lack of courage, and a lack of will .… Choosing not to decide is still making a choice.”

The Species At Risk Act fully took effect in 2004, and lays out the government’s responsibility to protect endangered species, such as the Southern Resident killer whales.

But so far, the groups say planning and bureaucracy have dominated while tangible action, such as protecting critical habitat, has been lacking. That criticism have also been levelled at the government with regard to other species, such as woodland caribou.

In 2012, the government lost a lawsuit to Ecojustice, which said Canada had failed to protect critical habitat for Northern and Southern Resident orcas within the 180-day window mandated by the Species At Risk Act.

“The government has produced a recovery strategy and it’s produced an action plan, but so far these documents are just plans to make plans,” says Tuytel of Ecojustice. “What’s needed is to actually implement what we’ve learned about the species and what needs to be done.”

Jeffery Young, senior science and policy analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation, agrees.

“It’s been over a decade that the government has known that these species are endangered,” says Young. “The process under the Species At Risk Act requires them to make certain steps toward recovery; however, they’ve found places within that process where they can delay. And they’ve constantly delayed.”

Since the courts found the federal government had failed to follow its own laws to protect critical habitat for the whales, the feds have approved the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain oil pipeline and tanker project, which will create a seven-fold increase in the number of oil tankers travelling through critical habitat for endangered orca.  

Fisheries and Oceans Minister Dominic LeBlanc declined to comment for this story. Catherine McKenna’s office did not respond to a request for comment from DeSmog Canada.

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Under the waves of Haro Strait, hydrophones record the noise made by passing vessels and, if you happen to be a whale, the din is already disorienting and disturbing, making it difficult to echo-locate food or communicate with other members of the pod.

“It’s a thunder. Thump, thump, thump, accompanied by squeals and engine noise. It’s like being under the hood of a hot-rod,” said Howard Garrett, president of Orca Network, the Washington State group that tracks the comings and goings of the 80 remaining members of the endangered southern resident killer whales.

All recent studies of the resident pods have identified marine noise around the Strait of Georgia and Juan de Fuca Strait as one of the stressors threatening their survival, in addition to lack of Chinook salmon — the whales’ favourite prey — contaminants accumulating in their blubber and degradation of their critical habitat.

Now, with federal approval of the Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, the situation for the whales is about to get much worse and experts are predicting that the fragile population, which spends about six months a year in the Salish Sea, will not be able to survive the onslaught of tankers.

The number of tankers travelling from the pipeline terminal in Burnaby through Burrard Inlet, around the Gulf Islands and into Juan de Fuca Strait will increase from about five a month to about 34 a month and, while the increased chance of an oil spill is stomach-churning for marine scientists, the damage from increased tanker noise is equally alarming.

“We don’t need to have an oil spill to have significant adverse effects — and no one is disputing that, not the National Energy Board, not Kinder Morgan and not federal scientists,” said Misty MacDuffee, Raincoast Conservation Foundation biologist.

To a whale, it does not matter whether a tanker is empty or laden, meaning the animals will have to deal with a 700 per cent increase, made up of more than 800 inbound and outbound tanker trips every year, MacDuffee said.

Two years ago Raincoast called together top scientists with specialities in endangered populations and acoustics to do an analysis of the viability of the three pods of whales and the conclusion was that the population was on a precipice and could go either way, MacDuffee said.

“They said they cannot endure any more of these stressors.”

The whales are already in the presence of some kind of vessel, ranging from small boats to ferries and tankers, for 85 per cent of the time and, with the additional tankers, they will be in the presence of a vessel 100 per cent of the time, MacDuffee said.

Sound travels four times faster in the water than in the air and it will diminish the ability of the whales to locate their food, which is already in short supply.

“They use echolocation when they are feeding, so they are sending out little clicks and chirps to find individual fish and estimate the size of it and where it is in the water column and then communicate with the pod on how to catch it,” MacDuffee said.

“Our research shows a decrease in efficiency in the presence of vessels, so that translates into less food,” she said.

Insufficient food is believed to have been one of the elements in the latest death among the whales. J28 died in October and it is believed her 10-month-old calf has also died, unable to survive without his mother’s milk to supplement his catch.

“Poor, poor whales. They are just surrounded and bombarded on all sides,” said whale researcher Paul Spong of OrcaLab, a whale research station on Hanson Island, off northern Vancouver Island.

“It’s oil or orcas — take your pick…I think the risks are too great.”

The possibility of a spill is the biggest threat and, as seen in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill, that would be disastrous, but noise will also affect their survival, Spong said.

Already, regulations are needed to restrict whale watching vessels and the noise levels of ships, but the government has ignored recommended amendments to marine mammal regulations, Spong said, suggesting one of the first moves should be to severely restrict the speed of vessels travelling through the area.

“The whales are having a difficult time finding food to eat and now, if you shave a little bit more away from them, you are having a big impact on their ability to survive,” he said.

Spong shrugged off a claim by Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc that there would be only a one per cent increase in the noise level and said that was simply an acknowledgement that there would be an impact.

LeBlanc, in an interview with CBC Radio, said initially there might be a one per cent increase in noise, but a critical piece of getting the project right, is to ensure there is no increase in noise.

From Visually.

The whales are under pressure from lack of prey and coming into contact with ships of all sorts, so the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has put together an action plan under the Species at Risk Act, LeBlanc told CBC.

“We’re going to do a lot more to protect that whale population and, in fact, you’ll have a very comprehensive action plan in the new year based on 11,000 public suggestions,” he said.

The NEB found that there would be “significant adverse effects” on the southern resident killer whales from the additional tankers, but, as echoed by the Liberal government, suggested they could be mitigated.

In answer to questions from DeSmog Canada a spokesman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada said DFO recognizes the need to address the cumulative effect of all marine traffic in the area.

Before any shipping from the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project begins, the government will work to reduce impacts on southern resident killer whales in four areas, he said in an emailed statement.

Those include reducing cumulative noise from marine traffic with both voluntary and mandatory strategies, reducing chemical and biological pollutants, improving food supply by restoring coastal salmon habitat and new research to establish baselines.

“The objective is to more than mitigate for the impact of additional Trans Mountain marine traffic before the project begins operations,” the statement reads.

As part of the 157 binding conditions placed on the Kinder Morgan pipeline’s approval, the proponent will be required to develop a marine mammal protection program and support the measures identified in the Southern Resident Killer Whale Action Plan.

Also, the recently-announced $1.5-billion investment in the Oceans Protection Plan will help address the cumulative effects of shipping on marine mammals, according to the statement.

However, MacDuffee said, although ship noise can be reduced, there are currently no requirements to make engines and propellers quiet. She added it would take years to bring in legislation for new ships and to insist older ships are retrofitted.

The fight is likely to continue in the courts as Raincoast and the Living Oceans Society have already applied for a judicial review of the NEB’s report recommending approval of the pipeline expansion, saying the NEB failed to apply the Species At Risk Act.

The organization is now looking at the possibility of a second legal action.

Opponents on both sides of the border are vowing to battle the federal government’s decision and Garrett said there may be lessons from Washington State where the Cherry Point coal export terminal was stopped because of tribal and public opposition and litigation.

Image: NOAA

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Residents of the Salish Sea region spanning B.C. and Washington State were horrified recently at a photograph taken of a Southern Resident killer whale that appeared undernourished, with ribs visibly protruding from his side.

That idea that local killer whales might be starving is central to new research by the Raincoast Conservation Foundation that found killer whales in southern B.C. are severely affected by depleted salmon runs and shipping vessel disturbance.

“The lower Fraser River is one of the most important Chinook salmon runs and watersheds for Southern Resident killer whales,” Raincoast biologist Misty MacDuffee told DeSmog Canada.

“We are compromising those salmon at every stage whether it is their early life history or their marine survival or their route to spawning grounds.”

Raincoast’s research has found the number of resident killer whales is highly correlated with the number of Chinook salmon.

MacDuffee said Raincoast is concerned the cumulative impacts of increased tanker traffic, coal exports and noise disturbance in the watershed will keep the Chinook salmon population and — with it — the killer whale population dangerously low.

The federal government recently released an Action Plan for resident killer whales and Raincoast is asking the public to provide comment on the plan by August 14.

Decades of Human Activity on Killer Whales

MacDuffee said B.C.’s Southern Resident killer whales have been negatively affected by human activity since the aquarium’s live capture trade in the 1960s and 1970s removed more than 50 individuals from the population.

“It had a real impact both socially and biologically on the population,” she said, adding it never recovered.

In 2002 the Southern Residents were listed as a species of special concern under the federal Species at Risk Act but no steps have been taken to recover them. Over the last four decades the population has not grown and has in the last 14 years begun to decline.

Low Chinook rates can account for some of that decline, MacDuffee said, but “it’s more complicated than that.”

“Killer whales use sound to catch salmon and where there is a lot of noise disturbance it is much harder for whales to catch fish.”

Increased Oil Tankers, Coal Exports a Threat to B.C.’s Struggling Resident Killer Whale Populations https://t.co/FRis7AJcbs #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 15, 2016

Raincoast conducted a Population Viability Analysis that found Southern Resident killer whales will require more Chinook salmon and less noise and disturbance from vessels to survive.

That puts killer whale survival at odds with plans for increased tanker traffic and coal exports from Vancouver.

Raincoast is an intervenor in the review of the expansion of Delta Port, a major shipping expansion led by Port Metro Vancouver. The group also acted as intervenors in the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion review which would increase tanker traffic 574 per cent over 2010 levels to 408 tankers per year.

“They’re planning a huge increase in shipping and our analysis…shows killer whales can’t handle any more noise,” MacDuffee said. She added LNG shipping terminals could mean a significant rise in marine traffic on the B.C. coast.

Although a draft recovery strategy for resident killer whales was first released in 2008 the document lacked meaningful action, MacDuffee said. She added an improved draft recovery strategy was released in 2011 but nothing came of it.

MacDuffee added there is no shortage of information about this population. “This is probably one of the most studied whale populations in the world.”

“It doesn’t mean we know everything. But that can’t be a substitute for not taking action.”

The federal Action Plan, while an improvement on previous plans, doesn’t have enough specific, implementable action, MacDuffee said.

Raincoast is calling for restrictions on Chinook commercial and recreational fisheries and a moratorium on increased shipping in the Salish Sea until a cumulative impacts analysis is undertaken.

Public comment on the federal government’s Action Plan for resident killer whales is open until August 14.

Image: Killer whales with the Delta Port export terminal in the background. Natalie Tsang via Flickr

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