Canadian Pacific Fishermen Catch No Sardines in 2013
Commercial fishermen off the coast of British Columbia came home this fall without having caught a single sardine, an outcome that suggests a $32 million fishery has collapsed.
Commercial fishermen off the coast of British Columbia came home this fall without having caught a single sardine, an outcome that suggests a $32 million fishery has collapsed.
Half of the 50 commercial sardine licenses issued in British Columbia belong to First Nation natives. The fishery normally operates from July to November, but not this year.
“They’ve given up looking, pulled the plug,” confirmed Lorne Clayton, executive director of the Canadian Pacific Sardine Association. “It certainly was disappointing. It’s cost them time, fuel, and crew to go out and look, with no compensation.”
Aside from the apparent displacement of humpback whales, a report in The Vancouver Sun said nothing about the effects of the disappearance on the ecosystem. Clayton said ocean temperatures, tides, plankton and light all could be influencing the population.
— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...The Vancouver Sun:
The commercial disappearance of the small schooling fish is having repercussions all the way up the food chain to threatened humpback whales.
Jim Darling, a Tofino-based whale biologist with the Pacific Wildlife Foundation, said in an interview Monday that humpbacks typically number in the hundreds near the west coast of Vancouver Island in summer. They were observed only sporadically this year, including by the commercial whalewatching industry.
“Humpbacks are telling us that something has changed,” he said. “Ocean systems are so complex, it’s really hard to know what it means. For one year, I don’t think there’s any reason to be alarmed, but there is certainly reason to be curious.”
Humpbacks instead were observed farther offshore, possibly feeding on alternative food sources such as herring, sandlance, anchovies, or krill, but not in the numbers observed near shore in recent years.
This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.
At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.
Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.
Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.
Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.
Donate now.
A yearbook photo surfaces of the Canadian prime minister in brownface at a 2001 costume party as two similar incidents come to light.
Disasters in British Columbia, where many Canadian mines are located, can have devastating effects downstream.
Politics
President Polk, and generations of sympathetic historians, told the American people the conflict was justified. But what if it was just blatant imperialism?
A teacher was not allowed to testify at a hearing, and many other Canadians share her bitter disappointment in the way crimes against indigenous women and girls are being investigated.
Scientists are making some headway in figuring out what is killing millions of sea stars in the waters off the Pacific Coast, from British Columbia to Mexico.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.