Friday March 31, 2023
CBC News —
Decades of logging activities near rivers in B.C.’s Interior are driving up the temperatures of coho salmon habitats and threatening the species’ survival, according to a new study.
The study by Simon Fraser University and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), published last month in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, looked into 28 tributaries of the North Thompson River watershed from Kamloops to Valemount.
It found the more extensive the logging activities near headwater streams, the higher the water temperature during the summer.
Among tributaries with upstream riverbank trees harvested between 1970 and 2019, those with 35 per cent of trees harvested had a summer water temperature 3.7 C higher than those with five per cent of trees harvested, data showed.