SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
February, 25 2009, 11:03am EDT
Contact:
Lara Tessaro, Staff
Lawyer, Ecojustice Canada, cell (604) 313-3132
Lawsuit Forces Canada to Protect Endangered Killer Whales
Stunning policy reversal could mark turning point for 85 remaining whales
WASHINGTON
After
British Columbians celebrated the unexpected arrival of two newborn killer
whales last week, there is another new cause for hope for BC's imperilled killer
whale populations. This week, the federal government issued an Order that will
provide legal protection for the endangered species' habitat - a stunning policy
reversal after a lawsuit was launched by environmentalists last year.
The lawsuit was filed by
Ecojustice, formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund, on behalf of nine of Canada and
BC's leading environmental organizations. It alleged that the
Department of Fisheries
and Oceans had failed to require much-needed legal protection for the killer
whales' critical habitat. DFO had claimed instead that existing laws and
unenforceable guidelines were sufficient to protect the orcas' habitat from
serious threats like toxic contamination, acoustic degradation and declining
salmon stocks.
"To recover, killer
whales need more than the status quo from the federal government and so we're
thrilled our lawsuit forced it to issue this habitat protection Order,"
said
Ecojustice lawyer Lara
Tessaro. "Now we'll be pushing to ensure this Order leads to action."
The federal government's
complete turnaround marks a victory for BC's most iconic species and for the
environmental groups behind the lawsuit: Dogwood Initiative,
Environmental Defence,
David Suzuki Foundation, Raincoast Conservation Society, Sierra Club of BC,
International Fund for Animal Welfare, Greenpeace, Georgia Strait Alliance and
Wilderness Committee. It also marks the first time that Canada has ever issued
an Order under its Species at Risk Act to protect critical habitat.
However, the Order does
not reference threats to critical habitat documented by scientists in the
government's Resident Killer Whale Recovery Strategy.
"We know we need to
change the way we care for our marine environment to protect killer whales and
their habitat," said Kathy Heise, Marine Scientist with Raincoast Conservation.
"We hope to work with DFO to incorporate the needs of killer whales' into the
management of our salmon fisheries."
"To give this Order
teeth, DFO must keep killer whales' critical habitat free of tanker traffic and
the risk of catastrophic oil spills," said Will Horter of Dogwood
Initiative.
Killer whales face many
serious threats throughout their habitat on the west coast such as declining
salmon stocks, increased boat traffic, toxic contamination, and acoustic impacts
from dredging, seismic testing and military sonar. DFO is scheduled to release
an action plan within the next four years, but still has not created an action
planning team with independent killer whale scientists.
"Each time we think the
government has finally given these ailing populations greater legal protection,
they find a way to avoid meaningful change. Is this another hollow promise or
will the federal government do the right thing and prohibit harmful activities
in the orcas' critical habitat?" asked Sarah King of Greenpeace.
Kim Elmslie of the
International Fund for Animal Welfare stated, "We will continue to monitor DFO
to ensure that every effort is made to protect this critically endangered
species for future generations."
"This is one landmark
victory on the long road to killer whale recovery. We're relieved to see the
government using the Species At Risk Act and we look forward to seeing similar
habitat protection Orders for other endangered species," said Aaron Freeman of
Environmental Defence.
-30-
For more information,
please visit www.ecojustice.ca or contact:
Lara Tessaro, Staff
Lawyer, Ecojustice Canada, cell (604) 313-3132
Aaron Freeman, Policy
Director, Environmental Defence, (613) 564-0007, cell (613) 697-
7281
Chris Genovali,
Executive Director, Raincoast Conservation Society, (250) 655-1229,
cell (250)
888-3579
Christianne Wilhelmson,
Georgia Strait Alliance, (250) 539-2424
Colin R. Campbell,
Sierra Club BC, cell (250) 361-6476, office 250 386-5255 ext. 236
Gwen Barlee, Policy
Director, Wilderness Committee, (604)683-8220, cell (604) 202-
0322
Matt Takuch, Dogwood
Initiative, (250) 370 9930 ext. 21
Rob Rosenfeld,
Communications Manager, IFAW Canada, (613) 241-3982 ext. 221
Sarah King, Oceans
Campaigner, Greenpeace Canada, (778) 227-6458
Sutton Eaves, Marine
Communications Specialist, David Suzuki Foundation, (416) 854-
3265
For further scientific
information about Resident Killer Whales, please
contact:
Dr. Lance
Barrett-Lennard, Co-Chair of the Killer Whale Recovery Team, Vancouver Aquarium
at (604) 659-3752
To obtain video footage or
audio of the BC's killer whales, please contact Laura Hendrick, Ecojustice
Communications Coordinator at (604) 685-5618 ext. 242.
As Canada's only national environmental law charity, Ecojustice is building the case for a better earth.
LATEST NEWS
Trump Rebuked for Bypassing Congress With $8.6 Billion Weapons Sale to Israel and Gulf Allies
"The vaults are open and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," said one Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
May 03, 2026
As the US voting public continues to express its discontent over the disastrous war of choice against Iran that US President Donald Trump launched just over two months ago, fresh criticism followed after weekend reporting revealed the administration skirted congressional review to approve an $8.6 billion weapons deal with the United Arab Emirates and other allies in the Middle East.
Announced Friday night quietly by the US State Department, as the New York Times reports, the "sales would entail the transfer of rockets to Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and air-defense equipment to Qatar and Kuwait."
According to the Times:
Under the terms of the deal with Qatar, the Gulf country would pay more than $4 billion for American-made Patriot missile interceptors — global stockpiles of which have dwindled during the war with Iran.
Israel, the Emirates and Qatar would receive an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which fires laser-guided rockets. Kuwait also purchased an advanced aerial defense system for about $2.5 billion.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio expedited the deals under an emergency provision allowing the “immediate sale” of the weapons, the State Department said, bypassing standard congressional review and prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers. This is the third time the second Trump administration has invoked an emergency authorization during the Iran war to bypass Congress on arms sales.
"No comment," said Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an eye-rolling response to the news on social media.
After a commenter suggested that "America opened the door to war for [the countries taking part in the sale] so they would open their treasuries and the Israeli-American arms trade would boom after a slump," ElBaradei seemed to agree.
"The vaults are open, and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," he said.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton University, said: "Trump is bypassing Congress to fast-track arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, apparently without receiving any promise that the UAE would stop arming the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan."
The RSF has been accused of atrocities in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, and the backing it has received from the US, with the UAE as its closely allied proxy, has been the source of outrage and criticism.
Keep ReadingShow Less
After More Private Social Security Data Exposed by Team Trump, Where Will GOP 'Draw the Line'?
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said one watchdog group who called the leak of personal information "a goldmine for identity thieves" and other fraudsters.
May 03, 2026
A newly reported failure of the Trump administration's ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers' Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout.
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration last week, before publishing a story about it on Friday, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise.
According to the Post:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
But a publicly accessible database used to populate the directory contains some of the providers’ Social Security numbers, linked to their names and other identifying information. For at least several weeks, CMS made the database available for public use as part of its data transparency efforts.
While the reporting noted that the files were "not immediately visible to users who [visited] the provider directory," lawmakers and experts said the compromised information would be a treasure trove for fraudsters.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes."
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it "yet another mess-up by the Team Trump" and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation's most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation's social programs.
The compromised database, said the group, "is a goldmine for identity thieves, scammers, and foreign governments. And it is undermining the very foundation of our Social Security system."
"This is a failure by this administration," said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in response to the reporting. "Exposing Social Security numbers, whether patients or providers, is unacceptable."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Medicare program, put the onus on his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes,” Neal told the Post in a statement. “Do House Republicans need to see their own data exposed before they do right by their constituents and act?”
In March, as Common Dreams reported at the time, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration accusing a former staffer with Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run for a time by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.
Since the outset of Trump's second term, DOGE's meddling with Social Security and Trump's undermining of the program have been the source of deep anger and concerns among the program's defenders.
In a social media post on Saturday citing the whistleblower allegations from March, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said, "For more than a year, 'DOGE' has been combing through the American people's records. They want to use your data to overturn elections and profit in the private sector. Enough! This administration must be held accountable for this massive data breach!
On Friday, responding to the Post's new reporting about the compromised database of physicians' private information, Larsen condemned Republicans for their ongoing and pervasive failures in the face of Trump's malfeasance and incompetence.
DOGE, said Larsen, "has been in your data for more than a year. We just learned that physicians' Social Security numbers were publicly exposed in an online portal launched by ‘DOGE’ officials."
"If this isn't enough for Republicans to act," he asked, "where will they draw the line?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
'The World Is Proud of You, Guido': American Peace Activist Honored in Iranian Lego Video
"Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
May 02, 2026
Explosive Media, one of the independent outfits generating the viral videos about the war in Iran, created a short piece on Saturday to honor the American father of two who climbed atop a bridge in the Washington, DC this weekend to demand an end to the conflict.
"In honor of Guido Reichstadter, the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard," the group said in a post alongside the video short. "Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
As Common Dreams reported, Reichstadter climbed the bridge wearing a t-shirt that simply read "End War" beginning on Friday afternoon, remained in protest overnight, and told one reporter he intends to remain "for a few days at least."
In honor of Guido Reichstadter,
the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard.
Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood,
and it will live forever in our memory. 🫡🏔️ pic.twitter.com/WANYzS7kIh
— Explosive Media (@ExplosiveMediaa) May 2, 2026
Reichstadter said he climbed the 168-foot-tall bridge “because the government of the United States is engaged in acts of mass murder in my name. And I refuse to be complicit in that.”
"The world is proud of you, Guido," Explosive Media said in a separate post on social media. "Soon, side by side, we will celebrate peace and victory together."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular