OTTAWA — The Harper government is downgrading the protection of the North Pacific humpback whale despite objections from a clear majority of groups that were consulted.

Critics say the whales could face greater danger if two major oilsands pipeline projects get the go-ahead, since both would result in a sharp increase in movement of large vessels on the West Coast that occasionally collide with, and kill, whales like the humpback.

The decision was made under the Species At Risk Act (SARA), and declares the humpback a “species of special concern” rather than “threatened.”

The reclassification means the humpback will no longer be “subject to the general prohibitions set out in SARA, nor would its critical habitat be required to be legally protected under SARA,” states the federal government notice published this month in the Canada Gazette.

The decision removes a major legal hurdle that the environmental group Ecojustice said stood in the way of the $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline project that would bring 550,000 barrels of diluted bitumen crude from Alberta to Kitimat.

Ecojustice said in December that a federal review panel’s conditional approval of the project flies in the face of the humpback’s protections under the federal legislation.

The fate of the humpback was a major issue during the Northern Gateway public hearings that concluded last year, with many groups fearing that collisions, potential spills, and excessive noise would be a serious threat to the whales.

The endangered species legislation declares that “no person shall destroy any part of the critical habitat of any … listed threatened species.”

The federal review panel, in its December report that is expected to lead to a government decision by June, noted that Fisheries and Oceans Canada had testified that “any project activity that could interfere with a species’ foraging efficiency, or cause displacement from important feeding sites as a result of disturbance, would be considered as affecting designated critical habitat in a harmful manner.”

The humpback was listed as threatened in 2005, based on a 2003 assessment by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, an independent scientific advisory body for the federal government, which concluded its population was in the “low hundreds,” according to the Canada Gazette notice.

But that committee reversed its position in 2011, concluding that there had been no evidence of a population decline since the 1960s, when commercial whaling on the West Coast ended. It cited newer data that suggested the population had grown over several decades and totalled more than 18,000 non-calf whales.

The committee recommended a reclassification at that time, but a decision was delayed due to further scientific analysis prior to this month’s decision.

While no longer threatened, the species remained one of “special concern” due to a variety of potential and actual threats, including collisions with vessels that average about three incidents a year, according to research cited in the government notice.

The government sent out 312 consultation letters and got 22 responses back.

Only five were in favour of the new designation — a total made up of two unidentified B.C. government ministries, one tourism organization, one environmental non-government organization, and one “unknown source.”