A federal order to protect marbled murrelet nests — along with 24 other migratory bird species — failed to protect wider habitat they need to survive, hears justice.
Canada’s federal government failed to properly protect more than two dozen threatened or endangered migratory bird species across the country — including the marbled murrelet, a seabird that nests in the coastal old-growth forests of British Columbia — lawyers argued at a Vancouver, B.C, federal court Wednesday.
Marbled murrelet nests rise 15 to 50 metres above the ground, often tucked into the thick, mossy branches of old-growth trees. Andhra Azevedo, a lawyer representing Sierra Club BC and the Wilderness Committee, told the court that makes their nests “practically impossible to find.” The seabird breeds multiple times throughout its life, and low reproductive rates mean keeping paired birds alive for a long time is key to the health of the species.
The declines continue — in the decade leading to 2011, the province is thought to have lost 5.4 per cent of the bird’s suitable nesting habitat. The federal government aims to limit the decline in the species to 30 per cent of its 2002 population by 2032. Unlike some species at risk, which fall more heavily under provincial jurisdiction, the lawyers are partly leaning on Canada's responsibilities under “empire treaty provisions” — old laws on the books before Canada gained its full independence from the British Empire, according to Nixon.
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