Email from CPAWS BC (not your friend btw...):
Will you help defend BC's Reefs?
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BC's Glass Sponge Reefs remain at Risk
Dear Matt,
Once thought long extinct, glass sponge reefs were found living on the ocean bottom off of the BC coast. These “living dinosaurs” are critical to the ecosystem providing habitat for bottom dwelling fish and cleaning bacteria from the water. This spring, we celebrated the establishment of Howe Sound's glass sponge reefs. However, new research suggests that our work to protect these treasured reefs is not done.
BC’s delicate glass sponge reefs are in danger from sediment clouds kicked up by trawling and other bottom contact fishing activities.
When these storms of sediment roll over glass sponge reefs, they are triggered to stop filter feeding and absorbing oxygen. A
recent study discovered that sediment kicked up from trawl fishing as far away as 2.39 kilometres can cause glass sponges in the Hecate Strait to stop feeding. With the right tides and current, this disturbed sediment can travel as much as six kilometres and cause these sponges to choke, preventing them from feeding, and even starve to death.
New regulations are needed to increase the Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound Marine Glass Sponge Reefs Protected Area from the current one kilometre buffer zones to at least three kilometres and as much as six kilometres.
In a statement to
North Shore News last week,
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) expressed their commitment to meaningful conservation of Canada's marine environment including glass sponge reefs. Now, is the time to act.
We need your help to keep these treasures preserved for generations to come. We need immediate precautionary action to protect glass sponge reefs from looming threats while further assessments are conducted for the additional nine unprotected reefs in the area.
Will you take action now by telling Fisheries and Oceans Canada to expand the protective boundaries prohibiting bottom-contact fishing, industrial activity, and seabed mining around these precious glass sponge reefs?
Yours in conservation,
Carlo Acuña
Ocean Campaigner, CPAWS-BC
P.S.
New blog post! Read more about BC's threatened glass sponge reefs and add your voice to call for their protection.
Getting it yet???
Nog