L112, a three-year old female killer whale from the endangered L-pod that resides in the waters of Georgia and Juan de Fuca straits, washed ashore on Feb. 11 near Long Beach, Wash.
The massive blunt trauma to the whale’s head and body were evident. She had a patch of skin torn from her, and a profuse amount of blood gushed from inside her head. A necropsy found the marine mammal died from extremely unusual injuries, and experts believe L112 was killed by the pressure wave of an underwater detonation, likely from a military exercise that was taking place in the waters south of Victoria. American and Canadian navies were undergoing exercises in the area at the time, though not together.
Canada’s HMCS Ottawa was believed to be performing mid-frequency active sonar in the area despite the presence of killer whales in the area, but our navy denies any interference with killer whales. The American angle is more sinister. One expert believes the explosion derived from one of 96 explosive devices the U.S. navy deployed in 2011, similar underwater detonations that are known to have killed 38 seals in 2011. Those animals suffered similar injuries.
The needless death of the whale would be saddening in any situation, but the L-pod, which summers in Georgia Strait, is already in dire straits.
With only about 80 whales left in the pod, it is listed as endangered under Canada’s Species at Risk Act as well as the U.S.’s Endangered Species Act.
Under both of those acts, the government is required to not only protect the whales themselves, but to ensure their critical habitat and food stocks are protected as well.
That means ensuring they have enough food, that water quality is healthy, noise pollution is minimized and that human activity does not interfere with the ability of the whales to survive.
Detonating underwater explosives and testing mid-frequency sonar in the exact place where the whales are known to be undermines protections put in place by both countries’ protection acts, but military protocols don’t apply, and those in themselves are woefully inadequate.
What makes this tragedy worse is that L112 was one of the key females expected to help bolster the pod’s population. Experts are also worried that she wasn’t the explosion’s only victim, and that the pod sustained further casualties that have yet to be discovered. We won’t know until July when they return to local waters.
If that’s the case, the outlook for L-pod is very bleak indeed. With increased shipping in the area, partly due to an increase in oil tankers, and other pressures that threaten the whales and their habitat, existence will be an uphill battle for these southern resident orcas.
While environmental groups are working hard to keep government’s feet to the fire when it comes to following its own laws, it’s getting harder under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
Recently, Ecojustice lawyers, working on behalf of several environmental groups, won a Federal Court of Appeal ruling that the federal government is legally obligated to protect killer whales and their habitat under SARA, instead of leaving it to political discretion under the Fisheries Act.
But rumours were swirling that the federal budget would include amendments to the Fisheries Act and SARA that will let the government off the hook for protecting killer whales and their habitat.
If you can’t win in court, change the laws.
L112’s death is a sad reminder that instead of arguing in courtrooms or avoiding responsibility, that our government needs to get on with the business of protecting these animals, their food sources and their habitat before L-pod disappears altogether.
reporter2@nanaimobulletin.com
