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Ottawa reduces threat level for humpback whales off B.C. coast

Ottawa reduces threat level for humpback whales off B.C. coast

Any boater would be thrilled to encounter a humpback whale and it's happening more often on the West Coast, suggesting numbers of the giant mammal might be on the rise off the B.C. coast.

That could be the reason the federal government took them off Canada's list of threatened species last week. But the move has some suspecting other motives.

Environment Canada announced Saturday that the humpback whale's status under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) had been downgraded from "threatened" to "species of special concern," the Canadian Press reports.

The Canada Gazette on Saturday published the Conservative government's order-in-council amending the act's application to the humpback.

The change was made in the wake of a 2011 report from the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, an independent scientific advisory body that found humpback numbers in the Northwest Pacific region have been increasing since the 1990s, now estimated at more than 18,000 adult whales, CP said.

Humpbacks were once hunted to near extinction on the West Coast until whaling was banned in the 1960s.

The order said the committee "has indicated that the Humpback Whale (North Pacific population) growth rates have increased, leading to an improved abundance of the species. [The committee] has determined that the Humpback Whale (North Pacific population) has reached a point where the species can be reclassified as a species of special concern."

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The change removes legal protection for humpback habitat, which includes the Johnstone Strait waterway off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island. The area could see added tanker traffic in the Northern Gateway project is approved. The government is expected to make that decision later this summer following conditional approval from a joint review panel last December.

The $7.9-billion project aims to pipe diluted bitumen crude from Alberta oil sands across British Columbia to a proposed export terminal at Kitimat on the northern B.C. coast. From there, supertankers would thread their way down a narrow inlet into the Pacific and then to customers in Asia.

Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the government demanding it abide by its own Species at Risk legislation, with the humpback a key piece of evidence, CP said.

The Northern Gateway joint review panel heard testimony from project opponents who said whales would be at risk from collisions with tankers, potential oil spills and added noise.

The humpback was originally listed as threatened in 2005, based on the committee's assessment two years earlier. Estimates from a decade ago put the whale species' population in the "low hundreds," the Vancouver Sun reported.

The committee reversed its position in 2011, finding no evidence of a population drop since the 1960s, the Sun said. The group said new data suggested numbers had climbed over the last few decades to reach more than 18,000 non-calf whales.

The committee recommended then that the humpback should be reclassified but the decision was delayed to provide further scientific analysis.

The government said it sent out 312 consultation letters and received 22 responses. Five respondents, including two from B.C. government ministries, one from the tourism industry and one from an environmental group, favoured downgrading the humpback's status under the act.

However, 13 respondents, including six environmental groups, three academic institutions, two from the tourism sector and one from a First Nations organization, opposed the reclassification, the government said.

"The general concern was that the prohibitions were a deterrent against industry harming the individuals. Without the prohibitions, it was argued, that deterrence would no longer be present. Some of the respondents indicated that the reclassification of the species could lead to increased activities in the waters along the British Columbia coast.

"These activities could result in increased tanker traffic, entanglements, and hazardous petroleum product spills."

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Nevertheless, the government reclassified the humpback, saying existing rules under the Fisheries Act and Marine Mammal Regulations would continue to apply. A management plan that includes conservation measures would also still need to be developed, the government said.

"As existing SARA prohibitions and critical habitat legal protection requirements would not be applicable, it is possible that costs for some businesses may be reduced as a result of the amendment. However, other applicable legislation and voluntary measures would continue to apply."

One environmental group is questioning the rationale used by the committee to recommend reclassifying the humpback.

“There are outstanding questions about the scientific reliability and sufficiency of the information [the committee] used to make the determination to down-list humpback whales,” Chris Genovali, executive director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation, told the Sun.

“The proposed change in status for humpback whales would place them in jeopardy, particularly given the impending threats” posed by Northern Gateway and the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion from Alberta into Metro Vancouver, which would increase the number of arriving tankers from eight to 28 per month, he said.