Of Whales and Off-Shore Drilling

August 29, 2008
A Whale of a Time...One Way or Another
By CHRIS GENOVALI

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently released its 2008 list of threatened species of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). While this news was reasonably encouraging for the global recovery of populations of humpback whales, these assessments have far-reaching impacts on their conservation management. Populations in the Atlantic may now be approaching pre-whaling levels, and while the situation may also be trending in a positive direction on this side of the world's oceans, in the North Pacific researchers still consider the humpback-whale population threatened, and the western North Pacific population endangered.

Until a few decades ago, commercial whaling severely depleted many of the blue, fin, sei and humpback whale populations that inhabited British Columbia's waters. Today, our image of whales has changed, and the global moratorium on whaling has given these species an opportunity to recover. For reasons not fully understood, in the North Pacific, however, populations have yet to rebound to historic levels of abundance, and indeed, fin, sei and blue whales remain endangered ...

Collecting distribution and abundance data on marine animals is critical to making informed decisions about oil and gas development on the B.C. coast. The habitat of these species and other marine life is under threat from coastal oil and gas exploration and drilling, as well as a potential increase in tanker traffic linked with the proposed liquid natural gas and oil pipeline terminals intended for the north coast.

... every stage of the B.C. government's looming "energy corridor" scheme poses a threat to cetacean populations on the coast, starting with harmful noise impacts generated by seismic activity all the way through to the prospective spills, underwater noise and ship strikes associated with the transport of the recovered oil and gas. Specific to the IUCN report, the good-news story regarding humpbacks could be put in jeopardy if this array of hydrocarbon-based projects is allowed to proceed ...

http://www.counterpunch.org/genovali08292008.html