Interview: Southern Resident killer whales, fisheries, whale watching and the need for enforcement

Adam Stirling, CFAX 1070, and Raincoast’s Misty MacDuffee, Biologist and Wild Salmon Program Director, discuss the new recommendations for an emergency order to protect the Southern Resident killer whales.

Last week, Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the David Suzuki Foundation made a joint call for action to save the Southern Resident killer whales. This call for action was made to the new Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Jonathan Wilkinson to immediately close recreational and commercial marine Chinook fisheries, to suspend all commercial and recreational whale watching targeting the Southern Residents, and to actively enforce these measures.

Adam Stirling, from CFAX 1070, had Raincoast’s Misty MacDuffee on to speak about this revised call for an emergency order, and the crisis that the Southern Resident killer whales are in due to depleted wild Chinook salmon populations, vessel noise and disturbance in the Salish Sea, and other contributing factors.

Take a listen.

 

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Coastal wolf with a salmon in its month.
Photo by Dene Rossouw.