The EarthX Film Festival in Dallas Texas will be showing both in Cinema and virtually “Coextinction” a Canadian documentary focusing on the impending extinction of Southern Resident Killer Whales and then veers off to examine why many of these whales appear to be suffering from starvation and disease. There remain 74 of them in the Pacific Northwest of British Columbia and Washington State.
Part of the problem is the amount of recreational boats and whale watching vessels creating noise that disrupts the whale’s sonar crucial to locate the salmon that comprise 80% of its diet and add a degree of stress. An even greater source of noise are commercial vessels such as tankers and freighters and with the completion of Canada’s Transmountain Pipeline marine traffic is expected to increase by 700%.
But control the noise which will be impossible once the pipeline is completed the problem may be the rapidly declining Pacific salmon population which is threatened with extinction with some 109 fish farms in British Columbia that leak viruses and sea lice into the open ocean. The Canadian government has promised to close all these fish farms by 2025 but has not released any transition plan. In a documentary “Smell of Money” pig shit lagoons in North Carolina leak out feces into the environment with disastrous consequences. Same for salmon fish farms
The problem for salmon health is the presence of 4 money losing dams in Washington’s Snake River that have virtually wiped-out access to Pacific Salmon’s spawning ground. Despite public consultations and public support to breach these dams the United States Government announced in 2020 it would not breach these dams.
The declining Pacific salmon stock threatens the health of the indigenous population in British Columbia that relies on salmon consumption and has done so for thousands of years. Also the bear, eagle, seal, wolve and forests are suffering.
So the end result is extinction of an ecosystem that relies on salmon and when that ecosystem is destroyed where will we be as humans…close to extinction. Think again before you buy farmed salmon!
The film was directed by the two environmentalists Gloria Pancrazi and Elena Jean that take us on this emotionally depleting journey. Aside from refusing to buy and consume farm raised salmon which humanity has an unlimited capacity to consume it will be political action that saves the ecosystem of which by the way we humans are part of.
RKS Film Rating 90/100.
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 