Bowie Seamount joins Eastport Peninsula, Gilbert Bay, Basin Head, The Gully, Musquash Estuary and Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents as Canada’s seventh marine protected area.
Seamounts
Seamounts are usually extinct volcanoes which have been covered by the sea, and Bowie was once a volcanic island (during the last Ice Age) that now lies beneath the waves. Like all seamounts Bowie is home to large numbers of marine creatures.
Bowie Seamount
It took a long time for the Bowie Seamount to be designated as a ‘Protected Marine Area', since many groups (including governmental bodies, environmental groups, fishing interests and the Haida Nation) had to come to a consensus. This enormous seamount, which stands higher above the ocean floor than Whistler Mountain does above the land, is home to over 150 of the larger marine species.
Seals, Steller sea lions, whales and dolphins visit regularly, and over 50 species of fish live there permanently. The clockwise circular current which flows around the mount brings up nutrient-rich water from the deep to sustain the plankton which ultimately feeds this enormous community.
Too Far Offshore for Recreational Divers
Bowie Seamount is over 100 miles west of the Queen Charlotte Islands (remote enough in themselves!), and this location protects the area from man’s influence. Very few recreational divers have ever reached this spot, but one them (Brian Fuhr) described it as ‘very cool – just full of life. It’s the dive of a lifetime’. What he first assumed to be the seabed turned out to be an enormous shoal of rockfish.
Other Canadian Marine Protected Areas
- Eastport Peninsula in Newfoundland is protected in order to conserve the local lobster fishery.
- Gilbert Bay, in Labrador Coastal water, has a distinct population of Atlantic Cod.
- Basin Head, Prince Edward Island, houses a unique type of Irish moss (Chondrus crispus).
- The Gully, in the Bay of Fundy, has salt marshes which have never been damaged by mankind.
- Musquash Estuary, off Sable Island (Nova Scotia), is a submarine canyon with dolphins and Northern Bottlenose Whales.
- Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents, southwest of Vancouver Island, have vast numbers of specialist microbial organisms.
Unfortunately, when people began to trawl around seamounts (in the 1960’s) they discovered large populations of fish such as the Orange Roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus). The life-cycle of these fish was poorly understood (the roughy lives a long time and reproduces slowly), and stocks were heavily overfished. The ecology of many seamounts has been severely damaged, so the step Canada has made (in protecting Bowie Seamount) is a very important one.
Main ref: ‘An 'oasis' of 20,000 intrigues under the sea’ – Globe British Columbia 22 April 2008 – by Mark Hume.
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