Another Reason to Defend the Salish Sea from these Petro-Pimps

 

Mother and Calf

There's terrific news out of the Salish Sea.  It's the waterway between southern Vancouver Island and the mainland, Washington State's Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia. It's the waterway that Trudeau wants to turn into a highway for the armada of supertankers that will ply these waters once he gets his damned pipeline up and running.

It turns out the Salish Sea is getting crowded. Warming seas to the south have sent marine life on a poleward migration. Sea birds, marine mammals and fish stocks, the lot, are moving into cooler waters including the Salish Sea.  

There's good news. We're witnessing the return of the humpback whale. They were hunted to extinction in decades past. 25 years ago they weren't seen in the area.  Today there is a population of 500 humpbacks and, even better, researchers have counted a record 21 humpback calves born this past year.

This can't be good news for our eco-prime minister. As we've seen in the St. Lawrence and off the east coast, shipping and whales don't mix very well. When it comes to heavily laden, sluggish tankers plying teacherous waters with cargoes of toxic bitumen, well, that ups the ante.



Comments

  1. TrailblazerOctober 23, 2021 at 1:38 PM

    There would seem to be a link between he success of Humpback and Orca whales and the reduction of tanker traffic in the area due to the economic downturn caused by covid.

    TB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibOctober 23, 2021 at 5:47 PM

      It could be hard to prove convincingly, TB. Officialdom still shies away from explaining the return of the humpbacks to our waters beyond a vague reference to our stocks of herring and anchovies. This may not be a politically auspicious moment to have such conversations, not when we're building pipelines.

      Delete
  2. TrailblazerOctober 23, 2021 at 6:48 PM

    Mound,
    Officialdom shies away from obvious truths here and around the world.

    If it wishes to survive then capitalism needs to re invent itself or die; for capitalism rules the democratic process.

    As for explaining the whales recovery , we need an advocate such as Alexander Morton to give an enlightened opinion.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Morton

    TB


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibOctober 26, 2021 at 8:29 AM

      Morton is a good pick but I think this mystery extends into numerous disciplines. The appearance of humpbacks in these numbers is probably related to the arrival of other species in our waters - everything from Humboldt squid to deep ocean Orca (off the west coast), giant sunfish and more numbers of feed stock, anchovies and herring, that anchor the marine food chains. The oceans are changing - warming, growing more acidic. Currents are being affected. Marine life - fish, marine mammals, even seabirds are migrating.

      This spring I had to deal with the pre-dawn barking of a gaggle of sea lions in the French Creek port. Then the outlaw bikers - transient Orca - entered the harbour and laid into them. Haven't heard a peep since. Fishing boat crews said they had never seen the like of it in that harbour.

      Delete

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