SRKW Protection Measures: Low-hanging fruit plucked

The federal government has recently announced an increase in the approach distance for Southern Resident Killer Whales: now, increased from 400 to 1000 metres. This is a positive development, aligning our approach distance with Washington State and providing, if observed, a little more comfort for the whales. 

The announcement was not accompanied by any increased monitoring and enforcement or public education programs. The approach distance for Biggs or transient killer whales remains 200 metres. You can see the problem immediately: only those who can tell the difference are going to be able to obey the law. The Center for Whale Research offers a helpful guide to members. 

The announcement in April also included some speed restriction zones, both mandatory and voluntary; and two mandatory vessel restricted zones off Pender and Saturna Islands, all effective June 1 to November 30, 2026. You can find all these zones mapped on the DFO website. 

While these measures are appreciated, they do represent the easiest-to-implement and least intrusive measures in a long list of SRKW’s needs for survival and rebuilding. 

Discharge of scrubber waste into SRKW critical habitat needs to be prohibited. These waters are already degraded by both urban and marine pollution sources; the addition of highly corrosive scrubber waste containing heavy metals needs to end. Scrubbers convert what would have been air pollution from ships burning heavy oil into ocean pollution—they were never an answer to the shipping industry’s carbon problem. 

Underwater noise is an even thornier issue that must be addressed, particularly in light of all of the port development underway, to service yet more marine traffic. DFO has yet to develop a target for noise reduction that has any scientific grounding—i.e., that will actually allow the whales to locate their food and socialize normally. 

And finally—most contentious of all—we need closures of sport and commercial fisheries that would intercept the large, 5-year-old Chinook salmon that SRKW need to begin to rebuild the health and numbers of the population. 

We continue to meet with government staff tasked with the recovery of SRKW to urge more—and faster—efforts to deal with the well-documented threats to the whales’ survival.

Photo credit Sandy Buckley.