What is holding up Canada's killer whale recovery strategy?

• DFO failed to issue an Order under SARA protecting resident killer whale habitat from destruction. 

• The Resident Killer Whale Recovery Team is a team of independent and government scientific and conservation experts tasked with creating a Recovery Strategy for the Resident Killer Whales.  The Co-Chair of the Recovery Team is Dr. Lance Barrett Lennard, one of Canada’s leading scientific experts on killer whales.

• The Recovery Team finished its Draft Recovery Strategy in May 2006 – a science-based plan that identifies an endangered species’ needs, critical habitat, threats, and a broad conservation strategy to address those threats

• SARA legally required  that a Proposed Recovery Strategy for the Southern Resident Killer Whales be published by June 2006,  

• However, the Proposed Recovery Strategy was delayed by senior DFO bureaucrats, in 2006, who attempted remove the scientists’ references to critical habitat from the document. In June 2006, a DFO senior official directed that critical habitat be removed from all recovery strategies being prepared at that time – which included the Resident Killer Whales.

• The Proposed Recovery Strategy was further delayed by consultations with the Department of National Defence (DND).  In May 2007, DND asked DFO to revise the recovery strategy to better accommodate the use of military active sonar

• The Proposed Recovery Strategy was posted to the SARA Registry in June 2007, a year past its legal deadline.

• Under SARA, DFO was legally required to release the Final Recovery Strategy for the Resident Killer Whales in September 2007.

• However, DFO did not release the Final Recovery Strategy on time.  Delay was caused by DFO senior bureaucrats’ efforts to again remove the Recovery Team’s scientific conclusions from the recovery strategy.  DFO bureaucrats attempted to cut out information about threats to critical habitat, specifically about acoustic disturbance from military testing, and about declining abundance of salmon, the principal prey species of resident killer whales.  

• On March 14, 2008, the Final Recovery Strategy was posted, with scientific information about threats to critical habitat largely intact. 

• On September 10, 2008, without consulting the Recovery Team, DFO issued a Statement purporting to claim that Resident Killer Whale Critical Habitat is protected by existing laws and policies.  DFO failed to issue an Order under SARA protecting resident killer whale habitat from destruction. 

For more information on the legal battle to protect Canada's endangered killer whales, follow the links below.

Resident killer whale case page