Frustrated with the lack of action, Eric Pittman and Gregg McElroy founded CORS to help create positive change. They protested the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. They understood the devastating impact it would have on Orcas and other wildlife off the BC coast. They organize clean-ups of local beaches with students and volunteers and advocate for more environmentally-friendly containers and packaging in our society. They campaign tirelessly on behalf of Orcas.

Of the 9000 different populations of salmon on the BC coastline, many need help to thrive. The Canadian Orca Rescue Society (CORS) aims to restore natural spawning grounds and hatcheries that foster indigenous salmon populations. Restoration hatcheries preserve the wild genetic stock of each individual river population in its natural waters.

Restoration of salmon grounds begins at the watershed. Old-growth forests provide the best conditions for salmon streams to thrive. Many streams need restoration to create the conditions needed for salmon fry to survive. A moratorium of old-growth logging in BC would help salmon stocks recover.

Meantime, CORS is helping foster Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA) for ancient ecosystems. Old-growth forests are the sort of preservation challenge the IPCA was designed for, an elegant solution to a thorny problem. Pacheedaht elder, Bill Jones believes it is “likely the most fair and effective solution to the current impasse.”

Education and Public Awareness are pillars of CORS work. As part of CORS’s outreach program, volunteers bring the Orca Education Program to schools to present to students. This engages young people to find solutions and take action to tackle the threats to the Salish Sea.

CORS’s inflatable Orcas can be seen at events promoting environmental awareness. Each inflatable Orca is modelled on an individual of the southern resident pods. Life sized inflatable Orcas are a crowd-pleaser at any event CORS attends, and an opportunity for volunteers to share information about Orcas.

CORS is committed to finding solutions to the threats to Orca survival. To save the Orcas in the Salish Sea we must halt climate change. The task may seem impossible, but it can be done — one salmon hatchery at a time, one old-growth forest at a time, one Orca Club at a time.