[ad_1]
A British Columbia wildlife safety group says tens of hundreds of chinook salmon are being dumped overboard or changed into compost by a industrial fishery that’s threatening a major meals supply of threatened southern resident killer whales.
Pacific Wild says it has obtained a latest Fisheries and Oceans Canada report on the groundfish trawl fishery that reveals greater than 26,000 chinook had been netted as bycatch throughout the 2022-2023 industrial fishery.
The group says the report estimates greater than 20,000 chinook caught within the nets had been lifeless and thrown overboard whereas one other 3,700 had been both discarded as offal, waste or compost.
Pacific Wild marine specialist Sydney Dixon says the bycatch of the trawl fishery recorded by the Division of Fisheries was sufficient to feed three or 4 southern resident killer whales for a 12 months, out of a complete inhabitants of 75.
The Fisheries Division says in an announcement that it could’t touch upon its bycatch report till it’s launched publicly, possible inside days.
Dixon says the bycatch is an “appalling waste,” not only for a salmon species that’s listed as threatened or endangered in B.C. and American waters, but additionally when the survival of southern resident killer whales is at stake.
SEE ALSO: Wild salmon conservation group raises concerns about herring kills at B.C. fish farms
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 19, 2024.
[ad_2]
Source link