Tag Archives: Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat
Scientists Level New Critiques of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Scientific Rigor
Twenty-five years ago, after the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery, Jeffrey Hutchings, a preeminent fisheries scientist and professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, sounded the alarm that Canada’s federal fisheries department was allowing “nonscience influences” in critical decision-making. Writing at the time, he said, “There is a clear and immediate need for Canadians to examine very seriously the role of bureaucrats and politicians in the management of Canada’s natural resources.” Today, a new crop of researchers is once again imploring Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to change its ways. At the core of their concerns is a number of systemic and structural ways in which DFO gathers, parses, and handles scientific information, and how that advice is passed on to decision-makers. >click to read< 09:20
DFO Accused of Coverup. DFO suppressing research on steelhead
Thompson River and Chilcotin steelhead populations are teetering on the brink of extinction, according to the BC Wildlife Federation (BCWF), while the Department of Fisheries and Oceans continues to supress research that the BCWF believes would confirm that seals and bycatch are a big part of the problem. The BCWF has been hounding DFO since 2019 to release peer reviewed research upon which a special assessment by the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) in 2018 was based. That assessment, Recovery potential assessment for Chilcotin and Thompson River Steelhead trout, is publicly available. The peer-reviewed research upon which it based is not, according to the BCWF. >click to read< 18:41
Claim that Annapolis tidal turbine violates Fisheries Act puts science under review
Is the Annapolis Tidal Generating Station killing a lot of fish? The protesters waving placards on the causeway crossing the Annapolis River on Wednesday and Thursday claim that it does. Scientists and stakeholders meeting over the same period at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography were attempting to answer the same question. But even as The Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat was performing its review of available data, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Nova Scotia Power may already know whether the turbine is in violation of the Fisheries Act. According to correspondence obtained via a freedom of information request between high level staff at both the federal regulator and the turbine’s owner, both already know it kills fish. >click to read<
Another dead sturgeon found as review of turbines threat remains in planning process
Another dead sturgeon has been found downstream of the Annapolis Tidal Turbine. Meanwhile a promised review of whether the 20 megawatt turbine kills fish at population levels by the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat remains in the planning process. “The terms of reference for the review have been drafted,” said Debbie Buott-Matheson, spokeswoman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in a written response. “We have not yet set a date for a CSAS peer review meeting, but it is considered a priority going forward.” That review was announced in January after a series of stories in the Chronicle Herald detailing how the turbine, which opened in a causeway crossing the Annapolis River in 1982, was never granted an exemption under the Fisheries Act to kill fish. >click to read<18:58
Report suggests snow crab in decline
Jamie Rose hopes the numbers are as wrong as he thinks they are. That was the St. Anthony fisherman’s reaction to a snow crab report that was recently released by the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat. The annual report examined fishing areas 2HJ3KLNOP4R and it paints a bleak future for the upcoming season. The index-based report suggests exploitable biomass – large male crab – has declined to its lowest observed level in the last two decades of study, dropping from a highpoint of nearly 70 in the mid-‘90s to a all time low of around 10. Recruitment appears to have bottomed out. The index level is sitting around three points, which dropped from around 15 over the last five years. Read the rest here 11:26
Canada Plan to cull 70,000 grey seals gets Senate panel’s approval.
The Senate’s fisheries committee has endorsed a contentious cull of 70,000 grey seals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence over a four-year period, in a bid to conserve cod stocks. But critics say that plans for a cull have been driven by politics, not science.
A group of marine biologists at Dalhousie University in Halifax issued an open letter last fall that said a cull could produce unintended consequences, including further depletion of the cod. (now THAT makes alotta sense!!!) One cannot credibly predict from a science perspective whether a cull of grey seals would have a positive impact on cod or negative impact on cod … or no impact whatsoever,” he said. (I’m thinkin’ outside the box. It’ll help the cod!)
