Canadian oil spill threatens killer whales

Aug 22, 2007, 23:32 GMT

Montreal - As cleanup crews frantically tried to contain a massive oil spill off Vancouver Island, environmentalists were concerned that several killer whale pods may be at risk, reports said Wednesday.

Witnesses reported seeing up to 50 orca killer whales swimming through the 14-kilometre-wide slick in the Pacific Ocean, caused after a tugboat capsized two days ago and dumped its cargo.

The cargo included several large industrial logging vehicles and a tanker truck containing 10,000 litres of diesel fuel, and was dropped several hundred metres outside the the Robson Bight ecological reserve, a restricted and protected marine region.

Bill Mackay, owner of a whale watching business in nearby Port McNeil, described to the Toronto Star how whales crossed through the 50-metre-wide slick.

'We went out there last night and we encountered 60 individual orcas all pretty much eastbound,' Mackay told the newspaper. 'One group swam through it. We were in the slick and they went through it. They had no choice. It's like being trapped in a closet and someone spraying you with diesel fuel.'

On Wednesday, several environmental groups called for increased restrictions on the commercial shipping industry and charged that the damage would have been more easily controlled had the machinery been properly lashed to the barge.

Clean-up crews faced the challenge of hauling the machinery from 350 metres beneath the ocean's surface.

Although there have been no reports of dead animals, maritime experts expressed concern about lasting damage to whales' lungs when they inhale the noxious fumes and to their skin.

Peter Ross, a marine mammal toxicology expert with the Institute of Ocean Sciences based on Vancouver Island, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that whales and other marine life face the added damage from toxicity passed up through the food chain.

Birds were also seen diving into the waters around the slick.

Killer whales use the area off Vancouver to mate, rest and scratch themselves against the rough barnacles on the coastal rocks. Endangered Chinook salmon also pass through the area during their annual migration.

Much of the fuel is still trapped in the tanker, Canadian marine officials reported Wednesday.