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Killer whale recovery strategy
After nearly a year of unlawful delays, environmental groups in Canada have issued a warning to the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to release the Recovery Strategy for British Columbia’s resident killer whales, or face being taken to court. The government should have posted the final Recovery Strategy for the whales by June 1, 2006 and when the deadline passed, environmental groups were repeatedly told the document would be released soon.
 The Southern Resident Killer Whales are an endangered species under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA) and a team of marine scientists was tasked with creating a science-based plan that identifies habitat, conservation threats, and recovery recommendations. However according to a Canadian military document, the Department of National Defence (DND) is trying to downplay and re-write scientists’ concerns over military sonar threats to killer whales in BC waters. The DND wants to remove the scientists’ recommendation that new laws to reduce injury to killer whales from sonar testing be considered, arguing that Canadian and American naval vessels operating in Canadian waters should not be bound by sonar-specific regulations. The Canadian and U.S. military test torpedoes, sonar, and other military equipment at the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Range, near Nanoose Bay, just off the east coast of Vancouver Island.
If the Recovery Strategy is not released within two weeks, an application will be filed to force the document into the public realm. This will be the first time the Canadian government has been taken to court to make it live up to deadline requirements of the Species At Risk Act, which came into law in 2004.
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