The global population of the sleek, fast moving whale — dubbed the greyhound of the sea and named for the dorsal fin near its tail — was decimated by industrial whaling, which lasted until the 1980s. Canada’s Pacific fin whale population was listed as threatened in May 2005 and was legally protected under the Species at Risk Act in 2006.Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion delivered straight to your inbox at 7 a.m., Monday to Friday.
The combination of climate change, shipping noise and ship strikes poses an unprecedented threat to the whales, Keen said. Without their threatened status, the federal government’s obligation to identify and protect fin whales’ critical habitat disappears, Keen said. Fin whales continue to be listed as endangered in U.S. waters, with authorities prioritizing the reduction or elimination of deaths due to ship strikes or fishing-gear entanglement, and the protection of habitat essential to their survival and recovery.
There are significant data gaps cited in the committee on endangered wildlife report, Keen said, including population estimates for fin whales in the Pacific.Article content It is a Species at Risk Act requirement to identify critical habitat for species listed as threatened or endangered, but 16 years after making the threatened list, critical fin whale habitat has yet to be designated in Canada, Keen said.Article content
“They are usually thought of as an offshore oceanic species that never comes close to land,” Keen said.
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