Dare To Be Deep at the Scott Islands

This post is part of our Dare to be Deep series, a partnership with MEC and CPAWS aimed at creating 12 new federally-protected marine areas by the end of 2012. Today, we highlight the Scott Islands.

It’s personal.

Some years back, Stania (a fellow MEC staffer) and I kayaked around Cape Scott. The fourth day of the trip found us just west of Christensen Point. Cox and Lanz Islands loomed in the distance to our right. We sat in our kayaks, moored in a kelp bed as a pod of great grey shapes scythed through the water toward us. Fear wrestled with fascination. With each of their explosive exhalations, the breeze brought us the fishy scent of their breath.

Often, a paddler’s view of a whale is partial or fleeting. A glimpse of back and tail as they roil and dive. The flashbulb moment of a full breach as a van-sized body shoots vertically out of the sea.

But these whales swam at the surface. With their bodies parallel to the incoming swells, every passing trough exposed them head to tail for leisurely inspection. And thoughtful comparison with our boats. We came up short. By many yards and many tons.

Whales really inspire awe. That’s why they’re the poster animals on the Dare To Be Deep banner. But they are simply the most visible threads of this area’s complex ecosystem, an ecosystem that’s endangered.

It’s for the birds

Cox, Lanz islands and three other islands, make up the Scott group. This archipelago includes nesting grounds for endangered seabirds, which migrate from as far away as Japan, South America, Hawaii, and Australia. It’s where blackfooted albatrosses, marbled murrelets, cassin’s auklets, thick-billed murres, and tufted puffins come to breed.

The islands are protected with a combination of ecological reserve and provincial parkland status. But it’s not enough to ensure the birds’ survival.

Breeding needs feeding

Seabirds are highly specialized species. Many, including murrelets, auklets, and puffins, “fly” underwater in pursuit of fish. They spend 90% of their time at sea, and roam as far as 60 miles from their nests to forage for themselves and their young.

Climate change is causing many prey fish to move further off shore, so the birds must range ever further from home to feed. Oil pollution and fishing reduce their food supply. Commercial fishing is also a direct threat: seabirds can be caught and killed by longlines.

Add your voice

For all those reasons, CPAWS is seeking the creation of a 100km buffer zone around the Scott Islands. The Federal Governments currently proposed Nation Wildlife Area falls far short of this need, both in size and in management measures. Without protection of critical feeding habitat, the archipelago will not be a true refuge. Instead, it could easily become a prison, whose feathered inmates are marooned, forced to choose between starving or abandoning their nests.

You can help by adding your name to the Dare to be Deep Campaign. (Signing the petition automatically enters you in a draw to win prizes like a stand-up paddleboard or a $200 MEC Gift Card.) You can help even more by writing directly to the Environment Minister about the Scott Islands in particular. The birds thank you.