Comment on DFO’s SRKW discussion document re: closures by March 15

DFO has proposed measures intended to provide food (chinook salmon) and perhaps less interaction with sport fishing vessels for SRKW. These measures include shutting down salmon fishing in specific areas from May 1 to September 30 of this year.

You can read their SRKW Discussion Paper Final Feb 15 2018.

As an example of proposed measures, for the Strait of Juan de Fuca west of Sooke, they showed this map as captioned:

SRKW forage areas in JDF west of Sooke
Juan De Fuca Map showing SRKW Foraging areas and Rockfish Conservation Areas (RCAs).

and followed it with this information:

Proposed Management Measures: For this area, an experimental approach is proposed with salmon fishing or fin fish closures proposed for Subareas 20-3 and 20-4 from May 1 to September 30. Monitoring is planned to compare SRKW foraging behaviour in these areas with the adjacent Subareas 20-1 and 20-5, which will remain open to fin fish.

Other areas discussed are named as Pender Island, Saturna Island and Mouth of the Fraser.

You have an opportunity to submit your remarks on this topic to the DFO by March 15 using the form Southern Resident Killer Whale Discussion Paper Feedback Form, which is formatted by DFO as a Microsoft Word document.