The Atlantic Whitefish Whitewash

Part 1: Proposed logging operations on crown land threaten the last remaining wild population of Atlantic whitefish. The question is, what happened to the science that says so?

“Careful not to step on that dung moss,” instructs Frances Anderson, who is walking up ahead at an impressive clip. We are bushwhacking in an area of forest within the Petite Riviere watershed, which also happens to be within the designated watershed for the town of Bridgewater’s drinking water supply. Anderson has been in this forest before and she remembers the exact location of a rare moss called Tetraplodon. Dung mosses have evolved a fascinating association with insects to secure their survival. Flies, for instance, are attracted to the moss because it’s able to mimic the scent of dung and carrion. When the fly lands on the moss, its sticky spores bind to the fly so that when the fly lands on real dung, these spores are then deposited and a new colony of moss can be propagated. 

Anderson is a lichen specialist and author, and lately she’s been volunteering her time looking for rare lichen species in proposed harvest blocks on crown land. On this day she spies the wrinkled shingle lichen. Big, leafy, and brownish, it can colonize a large portion of a tree trunk. She found it on a previous reconnaissance into one of the proposed harvest blocks and reported its location to the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables (DNRR). It should get a 100 m buffer if the logging here gets approved.[1]

But on this day, I didn’t really come for the lichens, or the moss. I came for the fish. This forest is part of an ecosystem that feeds and protects the blackwater of Minamkeak Lake, one in an interconnected system of three lakes that are home to the last surviving wild population of endangered Atlantic Whitefish.

To the astonishment of many, the DNRR recently posted on the Harvest Plans Map Viewer that 103 hectares of this protective watershed is slated to be logged.

Atlantic Whitefish, like salmon and some species of sturgeon, is an anadromous fish, which means it has a homing instinct to spend most of its life in salt water and to return to fresh water to spawn, or deposit its eggs. But for the last remaining members of the species in the Petite Riviere Watershed, this deep-seated migratory urge has been suppressed for more than 100 years, trapped behind a dam and forced to live an entirely freshwater existence in the Minamkeak, Millipsigate, and Hebb Lakes.

When it comes to maintaining water quality, the science has always been clear: logging in the watershed could harm the already beleaguered species and push the Atlantic whitefish—teetering on the brink of extinction—over the edge.

But something happened to that science. It seems to have gone missing.

Atlantic Whitefish, Courtesy Ian Manning (Wikimedia)

In only one watershed

It was nearly 40 years ago, in 1983 to be exact, when the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) first designated Atlantic whitefish endangered. COSEWIC re-examined and confirmed this status in 2000 and again in 2010.

In 2003 the species was listed as endangered under the Canada Species at Risk Act (SARA), which affords it legal protection. Once a species is officially listed, it automatically results in a recovery strategy. The first recovery strategy for Atlantic whitefish was published in December of 2006. This plan was later “amended” and a new version was published in 2018, and finally “adopted” in February of 2021.

There are two things that are crucial for the successful recovery of a species: one is coming up with a recovery strategy that is based on all the best available science. The second is the political will to actually implement it.

But there is also something else that’s crucial to the integrity of the process: transparency.

In the 2006 version of the Recovery Strategy there was a section titled, “Threats and Limiting Factors,” and under that heading a number of detrimental activities were listed: construction and operation of hydroelectric dams (impeding fish passage), acidification, land use practices including agriculture and forestry, historical fishing activities, and the introduction and spread of non-native fish species that pose competitive or predation risks.

The 2006 plan also made particular note of how the species was extirpated from the Tusket River system where the “most significant threats” included “over-harvesting.”[2]

The 2006 Recovery Strategy also included a detailed section on “land use practices” and referenced logging and said it can “cause accelerated soil erosion and siltation that can lead to a reduction in the productivity of the aquatic ecosystem and affect the rate and quality of water runoff.” It also referenced what appears to be an important, unpublished study, one I intend to locate.

“Llewellyn, N., C. Mosher and N. Joseph. 2000. Historical and current land use study of the Petite Rivière watershed above Hebb Lake dam. Unpublished manuscript prepared for the Bridgewater Public Service Commission. October 2000. 45p.”

When I turned to the “amended” Recovery Strategy, the one that was published in 2018 and “adopted” in 2021, I noticed something strange. Both the paragraph and the reference (above) were missing. In fact, there was little, if any, mention of forestry practices at all in the amended/ adopted version.

In another DFO report about the species from 2004, a whole section was devoted to forestry, and identified it as a “major potential threat to freshwater resources,” in the Petite Riviere watershed. It too cited Llewellyn et al., stating: “Forestry activities can impact riparian habitat leading to loss of shoreline habitat and increased siltation of fish habitat.” The report states:

“Clear cutting activity in the Minamkeak Lake watershed has occurred in recent years. Sayah (1999 cited by Llewellyn et al. 2000) noted an overlapping of cleared areas and waterbodies within the Petite Riviere watershed. Kendall and Llewellyn (2001) reported one instance where forest was cleared to the lake edge and machinery was driven through the outlet stream of Caribou Lake, a small lake that lies between Milipsigate and Minamkeak Lakes.”

Of course, these activities were in contravention of the regulations at the time, and the report points to best forest management practices as a way to minimize effects of forestry on fish habitat. But the point I’m trying to make here is that there was recognition, backed up by scientific studies, that forest operations have the potential to harm water quality and therefore fish habitat.

Sometime between 2006 and 2018, when the Recovery Strategy was amended, this recognition was cleansed from the document.

Proposed harvest blocks in the Petite Riviere watershed were posted to the Harvest Plans Map Viewer (HPMV) on March 14. They will remain open for public comment until April 23, 2022. According to the HPMV, 78.3 ha (purple), which includes the area adjacent to Minamkeak Lake, would be a “gap shelterwood with reserves” harvest. The remaining 25.04 ha (orange) block is a “partial overstory removal.”[3] Screenshot taken from Harvest Plans Map Viewer, DNRR.

And the crown forest goes to…

In 2011, the year before Resolute Forest Products shut down, the province purchased 25,000 ha of land from the company, which was intended to “help meet its goal to protect 12% of its land mass.” The province stated, “Most of the land, located in Annapolis, Hants, Lunenburg, Queens and Shelburne counties, was identified by the Colin Stewart Forest Forum as having high conservation values and will be included in the protected land process.” At the time,  91 ha above Minamkeak Lake was part of that land transfer and was considered worthy of protection.

But when the pulp giant folded in 2012, it sold all its assets to the Nova Scotia government—including nearly 600,000 ha (which 1.5 million acres) of land holdings in the western part of the province. Its woodland manager, Jonathan Porter, moved over to heading the government’s renewable resource division, and essentially continued to manage the newly acquired crown land in the interests of the forest industry. In 2014, WestFor, a consortium of roughly 12 mills and wood product companies was created. By the time the dust settled, the government had allocated half of the former Resolute/ Bowater land to the forestry consortium.

As for protecting the 91 ha block above Minimkeak Lake, it’s a commitment that appears to have fallen by the wayside as it now contains one of the parcels slated for logging by WestFor. 

The red line indicates the route we took exploring some of the crown land and proposed harvests. Photo and tracking courtesy Frances Anderson.

Frances Anderson looks for rare and interesting lichens in the Petite Riviere watershed. Photo: Linda Pannozzo

Logging the ‘Last, Best Place for Atlantic whitefish on the Planet’

According to Paul Bentzen, Atlantic whitefish is very possibly Canada’s most critically endangered fish species. Bentzen is a Dalhousie University geneticist who’s been involved in trying to save the species for many years. “It is also the sole surviving representative of an ancient lineage that may have split off from other living members of the family as much as 14 million years ago. It should be regarded as a Nova Scotia and national treasure,” he says.

“There should be no logging adjacent to Minamkeak Lake. I am not an expert on logging practices and the relative environmental risks posed by different procedures, but in this case, I feel strongly that any risk at all should be considered unacceptable. The total, global range of Atlantic Whitefish is currently reduced to three interconnected lakes (Minamkeak, Milipsigate and Hebb). Of the three lakes, Minamkeak is the largest, and the only one that has not (so far) been invaded by a voracious predatory, non-native invasive fish species, chain pickerel. Chain pickerel are currently eating Atlantic whitefish out of existence in Milipsigate and Hebb. There are ongoing efforts to reduce the abundance of pickerel in these two lakes, and these have had some success – but it is impossible to overstate the peril this predator continues to pose for the survival of Atlantic whitefish as a species.

The invasive chain pickerel were illegally introduced in the 1950s in Yarmouth county and have been dubbed the “freshwater crocodile”—a voracious fish-eating fish that threatens native aquatic fauna. Basically, these ambush predators eat everything, including each other: trout, yellow perch, baby loon chicks, frogs, toads, Atlantic whitefish. Fishermen say that a lake with chain pickerel can transform in three years.

 Chain pickerel. Photo courtesy Government of Nova Scotia.

Bentzen says that Minamkeak Lake is “the last, best place remaining for Atlantic whitefish on the planet.” It is also the only one of the three lakes where mature Atlantic whitefish have been recently sighted.

While it’s known that Minamkeak Lake is critical habitat for Atlantic whitefish, little detail is known about how the species uses the lake, he says. The species spawn in late autumn (November-December), but no one knows exactly where in the lake spawning occurs.

“The eggs are likely deposited on rocky or cobbly bottoms, where they would be very vulnerable to siltation caused by human activities. Any disturbance of soil or vegetation cover could cause siltation in the late autumn when heavy rains occur, and that could kill the eggs. There is also the risk that runoff could cause adverse changes to water quality, or stimulate algal blooms that are bad for the fish.”

I ask Bentzen if he was aware that the references to logging effects on water quality, that were in the 2006 Recovery Strategy, are missing from the recent “amended” version.

“I was not aware of this change,” he says.

Paul Newton surveys the proposed cut block adjacent to Minamkeak Lake. Photo courtesy Simon Ryder-Burbidge.

[Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series… it gets even murkier]

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[1] But since forest operations aren’t surveyed for rare lichens ahead of a logging operation, they are often lost. The only lichen species that requires a pre-harvest survey is the endangered boreal felt lichen (BFL). The Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute (MTRI) uses a “geographic habitat model” that helps lead lichen experts to the BFL by locating the habitat it likes best. When a forest company is going to cut on crown land that overlaps with the habitat model, the company is required to contract a third party who will check the harvest block for the BFL before cutting can begin. Anderson explains that in the course of a survey for BFL, if any of the other listed lichen species are found, then they get a buffer too, “but the vast majority of crown blocks do not get surveyed [for these] ahead of harvest, because there is no mapped habitat [for them].”

[2] The role of over-harvesting in the extirpation of the Tusket River population was also cited by the IUCN.

[3] These are relatively new terms for harvest practices, or what the DNRR calls “treatments.” Definitions for these terms can be found in the new Nova Scotia Silvicultural Guide for the Ecological Matrix: gap shelterwood with reserves (p. 53) and partial overstory removal (p. 50). When it comes to species at risk, the DNRR (formerly known as the Department of Lands and Forestry, and previous to that, the Department of Natural Resources), has been on the receiving end of a spate of well-deserved censure. In 2016 the province’s auditor general found that the department had been derelict in its duty to protect species at risk. The 2018 Lahey Review also provided evidence of the systemic and longstanding nature of the department’s failures. In spring of 2020, a Supreme Court justice found the government failure to abide by its own endangered species law to be chronic and systemic. In 2019, in response to both Lahey, and to the attorney general, the government announced it was setting up “new and revitalized” recovery teams. But by 2021 the long-awaited effort seemed a feeble one at best. In its species at risk update, the ECELAW found that the NS government had only managed to meet the fundamental requirements set out in the Endangered Species Act for 24 of the 63 species that are listed under the Act. In November of 2021—3 years after his landmark report—Lahey penned an evaluation of the government’s progress in implementing his recommendations. “None of the work underway on [Forest Practices Report] recommendations resulted in much if any actual change on the ground in how forestry is being planned, managed, or conducted, and I have no indication of when any of it will. From the information at my disposal, I am not able to conclude that much or any change has happened in how forestry is practised based on the work the Department has done on implementing the FPR. This is the overriding and central conclusion of this evaluation.” Lahey also notes that “moving implementation of the Endangered Species Act past improving policies and procedures for its implementation on Crown to its actual implementation on the ground on Crown and private lands,” requires “urgent attention.”