Federal promises made for endangered whales during TMX approval are unfulfilled

Six conservation groups are urging the federal government to implement an Emergency Order — a mechanism that allows Ottawa to intervene when there are imminent threats to species at risk — to protect endangered Southern Resident killer whales from threats to their survival and recovery.

Ecojustice, on behalf of their clients, sent a petition to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister of Environment and Climate Change, requesting that Cabinet issue an Emergency Order under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) to protect the critically endangered population of only 74 whales. 

The groups behind the petition are the David Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance, Living Oceans Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, World Wildlife Fund Canada, and Raincoast Conservation Foundation. 

The emergency measures proposed by the groups include: 

• Implement a series of measures to reduce noise and disturbance from vessels traveling in or near Southern Resident foraging areas. Key actions include:
  • expand the current 200-metre minimum vessel distance to 1,000 metres to harmonize with Washington State legislation, 
  • require quiet vessel notations for tankers serving the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) terminal, and 
  • adopt and implement meaningful underwater noise reduction targets.
     
• Implement prey management strategies to ensure that Southern Residents have access to sufficient food and to rebuild Chinook salmon populations. Key actions include:
  • establish an emergency management plan for Chinook fisheries that contains minimum thresholds for Chinook abundance, 
  • limit the total fishing-related mortality of at-risk early Fraser River Chinook salmon to less than five per cent, 
  • transition marine mixed stock fisheries to river based terminal areas, and 
  • establish an emergency drought management plan for their freshwater rivers. 

• Implement additional measures to increase wild Chinook salmon accessibility for Southern Residents, including extending the period of existing fishing closures in their key foraging areas. 

• Prohibit further increases of shipping from new, federally-approved, industrial projects in the Salish Sea until a cumulative effects management plan that addresses underwater noise, as promised by the government when it approved TMX, is in place.  

• Prohibit discharge of scrubber wastewater, bilge and greywater from any vessel in or near the habitat of theSouthern Residents.
   

The groups contend that the requested emergency measures are urgently required given that the conditions Southern Residents need to recover have not been attained, and time is running out. 

The seasonal measures for Southern Resident killer whales announced by the government in May 2024 are largely a continuation of measures from previous years. These measures have not sufficiently reduced threats to a level conducive to recovery. In addition, the Southern Residents are now facing additional underwater noise, ship strikes and spill risk from TMX tanker traffic. Actions promised to mitigate these new threats remain unfulfilled.

When the federal government approved TMX in 2019, it promised to implement 16 recommendations from the Canada Energy Regulator to help address the additional underwater vessel noise and oil spill risk caused by TMX.  It committed to “more than mitigate” the impacts before shipping began. So far, the government has failed to do so, even as oil tankers began loading in May. 

Of note, in June 2024, the SeaLife Response Rehabilitation and Research (SR3) team that monitors SRKW body condition identified several members of J and L Pods as having very poor body condition. This body state is associated with 2-3 times the likelihood of mortality. As a result, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife implemented an immediate emergency regulation on June 28, 2024, requiring commercial whale watching operators to maintain a minimum distance of 0.5 nautical miles from the whales. Canada should legislate a 1,000-meter vessel buffer for recreational and commercial whale-watching vessels to match the protections provided by Washington State.

An emergency order is the most urgent lever available to ensure that government acts quickly to address the pre-existing threats of underwater noise and disturbance to Southern Residents, which are now being exacerbated by the 7-fold increase in tankers in their critical habitat. 

The groups say that the federal government must use an emergency order to give this iconic group of whales protection from imminent threats to their survival and create the conditions that will support their recovery.

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