Skepticism over plan to protect killer whales in the Pacific
Posted March 24, 2014 8:10 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A new action plan from the Canadian government looks at how to protect killer whales in the Pacific Ocean. But environmental groups are skeptical.
According to Christianne Wilhelmson with the Georgia Strait Alliance, the plan is good on the broad strokes, but very short on details.
“It’s really hard to see on first glance any of that kind of really hard action ‘We’re going to do this today’ kind of wording. A lot of it is planning for the future [but] we don’t have a lot of time to save this species.”
“What we need today is action on the ground to reduce pollution in our waters, to reduce disturbance, and to improve the state of the salmon that our resident orcas rely upon,” she adds.
Wilhelmson says one of the glaring omissions from the plan is any kind of reference to increased tanker traffic and shipping off the coast, which she says will definitely be a threat to the whales.
