Atlantic whitefish recovery team members 'were just documentarians of another extinction event,’ says source close to the process

As previously reported, more than 1,200 pages of documents obtained through an Access to Information request (ATIP) revealed that the first version of the Recovery Strategy for Atlantic whitefish, published in 2006, was cleansed of references to logging, soil erosion, siltation, and the productivity and quality of aquatic ecosystems before it was circulated in a consultation process, calling the transparency of the process into question.

In a follow up email to ATIP analyst, Caitlin de Savigny, The Quaking Swamp Journal asked for all the records for the time period leading up to the “2012 draft.” Specifically, what happened to the water quality references, in addition to two unpublished studies specific to the Petite Riviere watershed that both point to the damage logging can have on fish.

Atlantic whitefish

Ultimately, I wanted to know if the removal of the references had anything to do with interest, on the part of industry or government, in minimizing the effects of logging on water quality and fish viability, or the industry’s interest in eventually logging parts of the watershed.

De Savigny recently replied with the following:

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide a response to your questions regarding the removal of certain information in the drafts. I reached out to our subject matter experts regarding your questions and was informed the staff conducted a thorough search and provided our office with all records they had in email and on shared drives. The SME [subject matter experts] confirmed all of those records were submitted in response to this request. Older documents would no longer have been kept after 10 years as per their Information Management disposition and retention guide.

With the loss of these older documents, it’s not really possible to ascertain why the forestry-related references were removed from the Atlantic whitefish recovery strategy.

However, I have since spoken to someone close to the endangered species files in Nova Scotia, who is also very close to the recovery strategy process. This person asked not to be identified. The person’s insights—reproduced here as a partial transcript—point to jurisdictional jostling, politics, and a lack of cooperation across agencies. The following also points to how the lead agency in charge of the recovery strategy— namely Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)—was willing to abandon the 15 million-year-old species when it closed the hatchery in Milton and relocated the fish to a random lake in Dartmouth, nowhere near the Petite Riviere watershed. But perhaps most alarming is that the transcript points to the fragility of hard-won environmental and species’ protections and a heightened need for vigilant public oversight.

Here is some of what this insider told me, for the record.

[The following has been edited for length and clarity]

“The forestry piece was never really out on the front end. From the beginning, it was mostly about the issue of alien invasive species (AIS). It was pretty clear by about 2003 that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) was taking the mandate. They had declared at that point that this was their species and it was going to be top down. Recovery team members were there just as observers and ultimately documentarians of another extinction event.

There’s no question forestry poses a threat to the whitefish, but the apex threat to the species always was the alien invasive species, and it actually goes right back to the Tusket River. Scant data available suggested that the actual causation of loss for the Tusket River population always was predicated on over harvest [of fish]. But the real demise happened in concert with the introduction of smallmouth bass, which happened sometime in the 1940s. It’s very clear, it doesn’t matter what fish it is—whether it's trout or salmon or whitefish—once they are in the presence of either chain pickerel or smallmouth bass, it's not just overt predation that causes their decline, it's an inversion of the ecosystems: the whole trophic structure of systems is changed by the presence of those two new predators. That ecological shift has exacerbated the actual rates of loss for not only native fishes but for many, many other native species, including amphibians, reptiles, and insects, including dragonflies, in these systems. If you put chain pickerel in a system, the juvenile turtles, snakes, little juvenile snakes, they're all just history.

This fish was consumed whole by a chain pickerel. Screen shot from the video Land and Sea: Saving Atlantic whitefish from extinction.

In what way did DFO and provincial fisheries abandon Atlantic whitefish?

“After the discovery of the first confirmed spawning site of Atlantic whitefish in the Petite Riviere watershed in 1998, it was agreed that the DFO was going to collect brood stock and put them in the Mersey Biodiversity Facility in Milton. In 2001, because the Species at Risk Act (SARA) was impending, the DFO had, on an emergency basis, allocated a significant amount of money—a couple hundred thousand dollars—towards reintroduction of the brood stock into the Petite system and for other research on the species. Then in 2012, DFO said it was closing the hatchery, and it wasn’t just closing efforts to recover whitefish, it was going to tear it down. So, the question was, ‘What about the in situ brood stock, which is the number one priority of the recovery plan: to restore the population in the wild?’ 

At that point the DFO said, ‘Well, we're trying to figure out other places where we could put the fish.’ But there was no other place to put the fish. That's the whole goal of the recovery plan, it's to repatriate them to the anadromous run; to restore the Petite population in the last and only known habitat remaining in the world. The next thing the recovery team heard was that the hatchery brood stock were going to Anderson Lake in Dartmouth and there was no discussion with the recovery team.¹ 

 Atlantic whitefish is a globally imperilled species found nowhere else in the world outside the Petite Riviere watershed. Of all the species in Canada, global endemics like the Atlantic whitefish constitute less than 1-2% percent of all endangered species listed by COSEWIC and recognized as critically endangered global status by IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). The only thing being supported by any conservation recovery actions by governments is an ex-situ conservation approach. Failure by governments to control fishing with live bait in the Petite watershed was inevitably followed by the arrival of smallmouth bass and chain pickerel, after which they walked away from in-situ recovery of the habitat and repatriation of the species. As soon as they moved out of Mersey and into Anderson Lake, they just threw the death knell. Provincial fisheries’ refused to acknowledge that there was any heightened probability of introducing bass or chain pickerel posed by live bait fisheries, or to afford effective regulations as identified as necessary precaution by the recovery team.

To maintain the population of Atlantic whitefish on the Petite was going to require that the alien invasive species situation was proactively and effectively dealt with, but when the lakes got their first smallmouth bass, around 2001-2002, it was the beginning of the end. The agencies – provincial fisheries and DFO -- failed to react to the live bait fisheries, and instead endorsed them.

I really believe that no matter what is done now, there is nothing that can be done to stop an inevitable extinction of whitefish in the wild.”

Source: NS Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture

Between the first and second iteration of the recovery strategy, why were the forestry sections taken out?

“In the first iteration, the author included a discussion on every threat the recovery team had identified, including forestry and the slate quarry. All of that was in that original document.

But after it came back, in the second iteration, it was very clear that DFO regarded consultation as just that – the recovery team was just a token contributor to the process and DFO science/ management would always prevail. I have no [recollection] of why the sections were taken out, other than to say, DFO is who would have taken them out. They had the sole authority to do with the document as they chose. It was their recovery strategy.

This is really about the failures of DFO and provincial fisheries. To me the story is telling about how we subdivide jurisdictional authorities and how it's very easy for one agency to just dismiss any jurisdictional responsibility for an issue that is highly relevant, but outside of their authority.

There was also an evolving understanding between governments and between agencies, about where the roles and responsibilities fall under the endangered species laws (federal and provincial) but also within their own respective legislation that they oversaw, be it mining or forestry or fisheries, water quality and quantity, or whatever. That lack of clarity about how authority would be delegated in recovery of species that had complex environments, complex threats, was never really satisfactorily remediated before 2010. There was no guaranteed expectation or process or whatever for most agencies to be involved unless they had authority. It was really on the basis of will.

I would be very, very surprised if DFO took out the forestry [references] mentioned on the basis of an agenda any more than they had just said, ‘Well, we have no authority over forestry.’”

Minamkeak Lake shoreline. Photo courtesy: Paul Newton

Why do you think the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Renewables posted the harvest blocks within the Petite watershed? It has since put them on hold, but why post them at all?

“In the US, industry spends billions of dollars annually through the courts and through lobbyists in Washington to undo what’s been protected. We are in a similar situation here, but nobody really wants to talk about that. But, the province is creating a crown corporation to basically command and control, through the actual ministers, whole financial portfolios on behalf of Nova Scotians. This is how the conservatives brought us Northern Pulp decades ago-- it was through that sort of power and authority, and it took us decades to undo, with prejudice to First Nations, with definitive prejudice to the physical environment, both in the inland waters as well as the oceans, and nobody stepped in. It’s still going on. You probably saw just the other day, Northern Pulp got another six months deferral. We're under siege here. It's so clear now that the actions that we are taking are really just band aids on gushers, when behind the scenes there are people working both inside and outside governments to undo it all.

 So, all of these permanencies that people affix to protections – everything is on the table.

So that’s what I would say about the forestry on the Minamkeak Lake: what is protected is what you are prepared to fight for. That's really what it boils down to.

If you're not prepared to fight, it's gone.”

1. As was reported in Part 3 of this series, the DFO justified the hatchery closure on the grounds the facility was not needed because it had stocked Anderson Lake in Burnside with fish reared in the breeding program. But Anderson Lake did not produce a self-sustaining population. According to one news report, “some grew to reach sexual maturity, but did not reproduce — or if they did, the eggs did not make it. The fish starved, were eaten or died of old age.”