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The Best Weekly Media Round-up of Stories about Salmon and their Habitats
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Top 10
Federal government measures failed to protect endangered Chinook salmon in 2019. Protection under Canada's Species at Risk Act is needed for Fraser River salmon.
Youth are already worried about extreme weather that threatens their homes, polluted air and water that endanger their health, and changing patterns for agriculture and fishing that will affect how they live.

A report released by a Tofino-based conservation organization Wednesday highlights the large number of farmed B.C. salmon infected with a contagious virus.

The Tsleil-Waututh Nation says it is appealing a Federal Court of Appeal decision to allow for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to proceed.

Environment Canada is releasing scientific evidence today to back up the government's bid to ban most single-use plastics next year.

Engineers at Google have been teaching a machine to recognize orca sounds to help scientists locate where the whales are in the Salish Sea.

With the goal of protecting wild salmon in Clayoquot Sound, Tofino Resort + Marina has established the Fish for the Future Fund in partnership with the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust.
An inspiring collaboration on the Pacific Coast blew fishery conservation goals out of the water.
DFO has concluded a study of alternative technologies to open-net salmon farms in B.C., and concludes only two are commercially "ready": land-based RAS (recirculating aquaculture systems) and hybrid systems.

The conservation legend, and newest fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, never went too far from home.
Code
Opinion
Watershed Watch's Stan Proboszcz sets the record straight on the certification of salmon farms by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

Essential viewing for anyone who wants to remain well-informed on the many aspects of climate change.
The latter has been so controversial in B.C. waters that the federal government has pledged to work with the province to phase it out by 2025. Why should Nova Scotia increase its use of this environmentally damaging industry when our sister province is phasing it out?  

Let’s all do our part as stewards of our beautiful state and urge our legislators to pass motorized suction dredge mining reform. 
British Columbia
A SFU-led research team has found that human activity in estuaries is impacting juvenile Pacific and Atlantic salmon.

Researchers project a sevenfold increase in ship strikes and a cacophony of noise pollution in British Columbia’s Douglas Channel.
Returns of chum salmon in West Vancouver’s Brothers Creek watershed have hit a record low say the West Vancouver Streamkeepers society.
Premier John Horgan said earlier this month that the fracked gas pipeline had obtained all necessary permits — but it turns out the project is missing a key authorization from B.C.’s environmental assessment office, which is likely to delay construction even as RCMP stand by to enforce an injunction.
Citing the lowest return of sockeye last year in recorded history, Gord Johns has vowed to do everything in his power to ensure Pacific wild salmon don’t go the way of Atlantic cod.
The Columbia Shuswap Invasive Species Society says invasive Asian clams have been found on a beach in the Shuswap.
Coastal communities and conservation groups say that DFO has bowed to industry by opening the herring fishery in the Salish Sea. The harvest rate has been set at 20 per cent.
An environmental group is asking the province to take stronger measures after thousands of plastic pellets washed up on the shores of the Fraser River in Delta.
Skeena-Bulkley Valley Member of Parliament, Taylor Bachrach, brought the topic of BC’s wild salmon crisis to attention in Parliament.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada stated in an email that in 2019, as in previous years, the department received numerous complaints of people in boats fishing for and keeping chinook salmon in Shuswap Lake near Sicamous.
Canada

An environmental scientist is saying Miramichi Lake must be restocked after its fish are poisoned in a plan to eradicate smallmouth bass, an invasive species viewed as a serious threat to endangered Atlantic Salmon.
Human rights organisation Amnesty International has called for the Canadian government to halt construction of its Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion, the Site C dam and the Coastal GasLink pipeline, over land owned by First Nation peoples.
Some lakes in the Arctic are expanding while others are disappearing altogether due to climate change, which threatens to have devastating effects on the peoples of the Arctic who have used these freshwater systems for generations.
United States

According to a University of Oregon database, at least 50 tribes across the U.S. have assessed climate risks and developed plans to tackle them.
In the two decades that Snake River salmon and steelhead have been under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, much of the recovery effort has concentrated on improving survival of juvenile fish during their downstream passage through the dams and the reservoirs they create.
Washington Department of Ecology is accepting applications for its streamflow restoration competitive grant program. Projects applicable correlate with water storage projects, fish habitat improvements, water rights acquisitions or water management and infrastructure improvements.
Forecasts for the 2020 fishing season show a robust run of pink and chum salmon into Price William Sound, along with a healthy run of kings and below average return of wild and hatchery salmon to the Copper River.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration failed to properly analyze the impacts that a genetically engineered salmon operation could have on the environment and endangered species before approving it, green groups and a Native American tribe have told a California federal judge.
A total run of 1.4 million sockeye salmon, along with 60,000 Chinooks, are expected to return to the Copper River in 2020, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
California’s governor has proposed a plan that would keep more water in the fragile San Joaquin River Delta.
Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers claim a new fixed blade hydroelectric turbine increases energy efficiency and improves fish passage.
City commissioners agreed to send a letter that condemns a controversial precedent-setting fish farm planned for waters off the coast of Sarasota to the federal regulators.
Alaska officials have forecast poor returns for Kenai River king salmon in the upcoming spring and summer fishing season.
International
By utilizing the majestic birds to monitor huge swaths of the sea, law enforcement and conservationists could keep better tabs on illicit activities.
If you visit the Falls of Feugh in the coming weeks, you may well come across an enthusiastic crowd peering into the water.
Wild salmon have been put under increased pressure by more than 20 incidents of mass escapes of fish from Scottish farms since the start of 2019, experts have warned.

A new study from the NOAA found out that the Pacific Ocean is so acidic that it is dissolving the shells of crab larvae and its happening early.
Dutch and Chinese researchers have independently unearthed more bad news about nano- and microplastics, focusing on their infiltration of freshwater and seawater sediment.
Weekly Podcast Recommendations
Topics are wide ranging with a backbone centered on conservation, including hunting, fishing, expeditions, environmental and wildlife management. This UK podcast is for everyone who enjoys the great outdoors and care about safeguarding the planet and wildlife we share this land with.
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