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Raincoast’s Misty MacDuffee speaks with CFAX

Three BC conservation groups are concerned that 1.37 million pounds of chum salmon have been discarded as by-catch in pink salmon fisheries.  High mortality caused from rushed handling on the decks of seiners means low survival, making the problem of depleted chum stocks even worse.

Dave Dickson interviews Raincoast biologist Misty MacDuffee

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Adam Stirling interview Watershed Watch biologist Aaron Hill

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Wolves in BC better watch their backs. The provincial government has put a new wolf management in place, which doesn’t give the animals any breaks. Under the new rules, there is no closed season and no bag limit on the wolves. Cattle ranchers say they need to keep the wolf population in check, while conservationists say these regulations are based on politics and not on science.

Dave Dickosn interviews Raincoast’s Dr. Paul Paquest and Kevin Boon of the BC Cattleman’s Association.

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A new study has estimated that the inshore waters of coastal BC are filled with approximately 36,000 pieces of garbage, most of which is plastic.  CFAX host Adam Stirling speaks with Raincoast’s Misty MacDufee about the study and what it means for marine animals.

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Raincoast wolf scientists have published a paper in the Cdn Journal of Veterinary Medicine on diseases in dogs and the potential transfer between dogs and wildlife.  CFAX’s Adam Stirling interviews Raincoast Sr. Scientist Dr. Paul Paquet about the study and it’s findings.

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A precedent setting legal victory that forces the Canadian federal government to protect the critical habitat of BC’s resident killer whales (salmon eaters) was won this week.  CFAX host Murray Langdon speaks with Raincoast’s Misty MacDufee about the case and what it means  for the whales.

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Download the judges decision Killer Whale Judgement Dec 2010

A group of 9 conservation groups represented by Ecojustice are taking the federal government to court over their failure to protect the critical habitat of BC’s resident killer whales. CFAX host Murray Langdon speaks with Raincoast’s Misty MacDufee about the case that begins next week in the Vancouver federal courthouse.

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As the 8th International Sea lice Conference get’s underway in Victoria, BC,  Dave Dickson at CFAX speaks with Raincoast biologist Micheal Price about his sea lice research and early findings on the presence of sea lice on juvenile Fraser River sockeye.

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Raincoast’s Chris Darimont speaks to CFAX

Adam Sterling of CFAX Radio interviews Raincoast’s Dr. Chris Darimont on coastal wolves and the affect that human interference has had on their breeding behaviours on Vancouver Isl

and.

Ira Flatow, host of NPR’s Science Friday, interviews Raincoast’s Dr. Chris Darimont on the impacts of human predation on the evolution of hunted species.

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Can humans angling for the prize-winning fish shift the course of evolution? Research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that predation by humans through hunting, fishing, and gathering has had significant influences on the rate of evolutionary change in a wide variety of species. Traits such as body size and first reproductive age shift significantly in species that are ‘harvested,’ the authors say.

“Fishing regulations often prescribe the taking of larger fish, and the same often applies to hunting regulations,” said Chris Darimont, one of the authors of the study. “Hunters are instructed not to take smaller animals or those with smaller horns. This is counter to patterns of natural predation, and now we’re seeing the consequences of this management.” Darimont and colleagues found that human predation accelerated the rate of observable trait changes in a species by 300 percent above the pace observed within purely natural systems, and 50 percent above that of systems subject to other human influences, such as pollution,. We’ll talk with Darimont about the team’s findings

CFAX  Radio’s Murray Langdon speaks with Raincoast’s marine mammal scientist, Kathy Heise about the lawsuit that Raincoast and several other NGOs, filed against the federal government to protect Canada’s two populations of resident killer whales.  The case was filed on the basis that Fisheries and Oceans Canada, under the Species At Risk Act, is obligated to protect the critical habitat of threatened and endangered species.

CBC’s Bob McDonald speaks with Chris Darimont about natural selection:  It’s perhaps not surprising that humans are having an impact on the evolution of other animals on the planet. What is surprising, according to Dr. Chris Darimont, an NSERC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the way we’re doing it. Dr. Darimont and his colleagues looked at several examples of species that humans prey on: fish, plants and animals.  What they found is that these species are forced to change far more quickly than happens with more “natural” selection. What’s more, since humans tend to choose the largest and healthiest animals, the kind of selection we do is very different from natural predators that ordinarily take the sick and the weak.

Examination of droppings reveal that timber wolves pooh-pooh venison, in favour of salmon.  Raincoast’s Dr. Chris Darimont is on CBC Radio’s As It Happens talking about BC’s salmon-eating wolves, Sept 2, 2008.