Hanging by a thread
Highly intelligent, social, and sensitive, with sophisticated communication skills and strong family ties, these whales have an intrinsic right to live their lives.
In 2014, we had an opinion piece published in the Victoria Times Colonist stating that “Southern Resident killer whales are no better off now than when they were listed as endangered 15 years ago.” That endangered species listing by the government of Canada is now a quarter of a century old and the situation for the Southern Residents has not improved.
As we wrote ten years previously, federal fisheries managers still appear unwilling to adequately address the availability of Chinook salmon, an essential food for the Southern Residents. Similarly, substantive action on underwater noise, vessel disturbance, and contaminant pollution has not been forthcoming.
The term ‘dark extinction’ has been used to describe the loss of species where data are limited and threats poorly documented. The case of the Southern Residents is in stark contrast with this; they are, in fact, among the world’s best studied cetaceans. As such, Raincoast scientists and colleagues advanced a new term this year – bright extinction – that illustrates the conservation stalemate we find ourselves in today.
In our op-ed a decade ago, we warned that if future generations are to grow up with Resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, crucial decisions needed to be made immediately. But all these years later, those hard decisions have yet to be made. Instead, the status quo and political inertia largely prevail.
As a result, Southern Resident killer whales are experiencing more deaths than births; it could be argued they are hanging by a thread.
But as we posited, this predicament is not solely a mechanistic one. Highly intelligent, social, and sensitive, with sophisticated communication skills and strong family ties, these whales have an intrinsic right to live their lives.
While the debate regarding the fate of the Southern Residents primarily takes place in the realm of science, management, and policy, it also brings up issues around ethics, morality, and even spirituality. Will we allow the Southern Residents to recover and regain their rightful place in the coastal ecosystem we all share? And if not, what will that ultimately say about us?
We would maintain that what we choose, or do not choose, to do on behalf of this endangered population of killer whales is, for British Columbians and Canadians, one of the existential questions of our time.
This is an excerpt from our annual report, Tracking Raincoast into 2025.
You can help
Raincoast’s in-house scientists, collaborating graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors make us unique among conservation groups. We work with First Nations, academic institutions, government, and other NGOs to build support and inform decisions that protect aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and the wildlife that depend on them. We conduct ethically applied, process-oriented, and hypothesis-driven research that has immediate and relevant utility for conservation deliberations and the collective body of scientific knowledge.
We investigate to understand coastal species and processes. We inform by bringing science to decision-makers and communities. We inspire action to protect wildlife and wildlife habitats.
