It was a dark day for environmental research in Canada when the federal government axed marine-mammal toxicologist Peter Ross and his team from the Institute of Ocean Sciences in North Saanich.
The outlook brightened this week with the news that Ross has joined the Vancouver Aquarium to head a new initiative called the Ocean Pollution Science Program. Although the government was wrong to get rid of Ross’s ocean-pollution research, it’s reassuring to know that some of it will be able to continue under the auspices of the aquarium.
Our oceans are under increasing assault from the pollutants we are dumping into them. With oil pipelines under consideration and marine debris piling up in our waters, research on ocean health is more important than ever.
When he worked at the institute, Ross and his team studied killer whales and other marine mammals, which tend to concentrate pollutants in their bodies because they are at the top of the food chain. They found hundreds of domestic chemicals in killer whales, and the killer whales around Vancouver Island have more toxic PCBs in them than almost any other marine mammals in the world.
Ross, the only marine-mammal toxicologist in the country, also studied the effects of municipal sewage and the impact of pesticides on salmon.
In May 2012, Ross and eight colleagues got the news that their jobs would be eliminated on April 1, 2013. They were among 75 people across the country studying contaminants who got layoff notices.
When it was all over, the government had just five junior biologists looking after pollution for the country and its three oceans, Ross said. One of the five was stationed in B.C. In place of all the lost jobs, the government promised $1.4 million a year to fund research on priority issues through universities and private labs.
Fisheries and Oceans planned to refocus its resources on conservation and fisheries management. Those are important aspects of DFO’s responsibility, but so is monitoring the effects of pollution. There won’t be any fish to manage if we poison them all.
As with so many of the Harper government’s cuts to science, the Conservatives seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears and babbling gibberish so they won’t hear anything they don’t want to hear. And they don’t want to hear about things that might interfere with economic development.
Fortunately, the aquarium is willing to listen.
The list of topics for Ross’s new research group reads like a to-do list for the government: “Marine mammals as sentinels of ocean pollution, clean seafoods for coastal communities, marine debris and microplastics, hydrocarbons in the coastal environment and emerging pollutant concerns.”
“Threats to ocean health include urban and industrial effluents, runoff from forestry and agriculture, oil and gas shipping and exploration, plastics and debris, and climate change,” said Ross, whose program will operate out of a new lab at the aquarium.
All these are potential problems that we ignore at our peril. The dangers from plastic fragments are just beginning to be understood. Unlike many pollutants, they don’t break down, and they are small enough to be ingested by even tiny marine creatures.
It’s the kind of thing that we expect government to watch on our behalf. Indeed, the program’s goals refer to things such as measuring, monitoring and establishing baselines — all of which government should be doing.
Ross will be doing some of it at the aquarium, but with limited resources. And if he finds cause for concern, will the government listen?
While we applaud the aquarium’s initiative, the federal government should never have abandoned its responsibility for monitoring the health of our oceans.
