<\/a>Cowichan Tribes is participating in a study to tag chinook salmon and monitor their survival while migrating up the Cowichan River to spawn. Photo by Danny Swainson<\/p><\/div>\n
If WFP moved its log booms into deeper water, along with the boom boats whose propellers stir up the surrounding seafloor, it would also open new opportunities to restore the estuary by transplanting eelgrass into damaged sites.<\/p>\n
Transplants are already showing success at other former boom sites in Genoa Bay, off Cowichan Bay. Adding yet more eelgrass \u201cwould really benefit the salmon migration in and out of the river system,\u201d says Nikki Wright, former executive director of the SeaChange Marine Conservation Society.<\/p>\n
Much of the local community is aligning in support of the marine ecology and how it stands to benefit from a change. The Municipality of North Cowichan adopted an Official Community Plan in 2022 that urges \u201cphasing out of intertidal log boom storage in the Cowichan estuary in favor of deepwater storage or dry land log sorts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conservation groups are also showing strong support. \u201cThe ecological benefits by far outweigh the additional cost for deepwater storage,\u201d says Goetz Schuerholz, chair of the Cowichan Estuary Restoration and Conservation Association. Estuary advocates plan to marshal as much research as possible for WFP\u2019s license renewal process in 2027. \u201cWe\u2019re gearing up for a battle,\u201d Atkinson says.<\/p>\n
\nTwo days after I find the crying seal pup trapped inside the log boom in Cowichan Bay, I return to the place in a sea kayak on an afternoon flood tide. Mount Tzouhalem shadows the boat and waves splash the gunwale.<\/p>\n
About 100 meters from the boom, I once again hear a baby seal\u2019s voice, hurried to me on a brisk, southeasterly wind. I squint against the sun and spot an adult seal hauled out on a perimeter log at the corner of the boom, which is now fully afloat. Then I spot the young seal just beyond the mother\u2019s bulk.<\/p>\n
Pups typically cry when trying to locate their mothers or when stressed or hungry, according to Trites. Perhaps the adult seal in this case is not its mother after all, or maybe the pup is just saying, \u201cMore milk, please.\u201d<\/p>\n
I linger a few minutes more, then start my way back. There is no way of knowing whether it\u2019s the same pup I found stuck in the boom. But the absence of vultures suggests that for this day\u2014or this tidal change, at least\u2014death lingers elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is almost low tide on a sunny late-July morning in Cowichan Bay, at the mouth of the Cowichan River, on southeastern Vancouver Island. I walk alone across the exposed tidal flats of the estuary, wading through brackish streams, skidding <\/p>\n
…<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":46497,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[221,81],"tags":[],"acf":{"hero_video_url":"","hero_video_caption":"","deck":"For decades, scientists have known that allowing the timber industry to store logs in estuaries kills marine life. So why does British Columbia still permit it?","authors_group":[{"by_group":"by","contributors_group":[15619]}],"word_count_override":"2,500 words, about 13 minutes","podbean1":"gvb7pjx262aecwyy\/The-Estuary-Smothered-by-a-Thousand-Logs.mp3","podbean2":"c9ujc-164e7a3","redirect":"","geolocation":{"address":"P9X5+9W Cowichan Bay, BC, Canada","lat":48.748384503141885,"lng":-123.64013743544142,"zoom":15,"place_id":"GhIJqio0EMtfSEARknzbAvjoXsA","city":"Cowichan Bay","state":"British Columbia","state_short":"BC","country":"Canada","country_short":"CA"},"related":[22726,40597],"twitterimage":46499,"facebookimage":46498,"twitterdescription":"","edited":[15695],"factchecked":[33512],"code":"","no_old_story_flag":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/46495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/custom_features"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/46495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46555,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/46495\/revisions\/46555"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/33512"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/15695"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/40597"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/22726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}