Milestone for underwater mountain

Marine protected area status for Bowie Seamount: one step closer

With salmon and song, the Haida First Nation hosted a traditional feast in Masset this summer, marking an important milestone in the protection of Bowie Seamount-known to the Haida as Sgaan Kinghlas-an underwater mountain like no other in British Columbia. The milestone: an historic memorandum of understanding between the Government of Canada and the Haida Nation to create a Marine Protected Area-or water park-in the deep sea around the unusual formation.

Bowie Seamount draws special attention for rising to very shallow waters, with its summit lingering just 25 metres below the waves. With this accessible peak and the sloping, everchanging habitats descending 3100 metres to the ocean floor, Bowie Seamount remains a largely unstudied phenomena, like most of the world's seamounts, due to the expensive, logistically-difficult research.

But seamounts still interest scientists. They are highly productive geological formations that attract increased numbers of fish and marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins and seabirds. In fact, scientists think a minimum of about 240 species occur around Bowie's top 300 metres alone. This seamount attracts at least 53 fish species, including sablefish, Pacific halibut, Albacore tuna, flying squid and 21 species of rockfish.

Bowie's peak also hosts a number of eyebrow-raising species typically found in coastal shallow waters, like the California mussel and the moss crab. Gorgonian corals, a colourful, deep cold water coral, also live on Bowie. (It's suspected they also exist deeper on its slope at remote depths.)

Very few seamounts are protected worldwide. The Bowie Seamount, likely the shallowest in Canada's Pacific waters, lies on the southern end of the Kodiak-Bowie seamount chain that stretches across the Gulf of Alaska from Kodiak Island almost to the Queen Charlotte Islands or "Haida Gwaii." With its mysterious, looming underwater presence, a full 180 kilometres east of Haida Gwaii, Bowie Seamount now finds itself a giant step closer to full protection with the historic agreement between Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Haida.

In addition to this memorandum of understanding between Canada and the Haida Nation, an agreement was reached among the Bowie Seamount Advisory Team regarding potential protection of the Seamount.

The agreement covers many areas:

1. A no-take zone would encompass the waters immediately around Bowie from 250 fathoms (475 metres) to the sea level of Bowie.
2. A no-take zone would also cover the neighbouring Hodgkins and Davidson Seamounts. These are both deeper seamounts, with Hodgkins rising to about 430 metres below sea level.
3. Fishing would be allowed in areas below 250 fathoms. However, CPAWS and World Wildlife Fund are recommending that only tuna troll and sablefish trap fisheries be allowed and that the total annual catch (TAC) for sablefish be capped at 100 tonnes per year which is currently the average total annual catch. It is still unclear whether this recommendation has been formally adopted.
4. CPAWS supports a number of other environmentally-conscious fishing practices and gear restrictions, as well as further zoning of the area, research, outreach and compliance monitoring.