Basking Sharks in the Salish Sea and Greater Northeast Pacific

For around thirty million years, basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) have filter-fed on plankton across Earth’s ocean. They once gathered in aggregations of hundreds (some estimate thousands) on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and individuals were common throughout the Salish Sea until an eradication program sponsored by the Canadian government in the 1950s-60s drove the species to near extinction. This paper provides an overview of the historical population data and changing cultural attitudes toward basking sharks in the Salish Sea and greater Northeast Pacific and lays out the possibilities for conservation and recovery.