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The government previously announced $167.4 million would be spent to improve prey availability and reduce disturbances for whales. Southern resident killer whales were listed as endangered in 2003 and only 74 of them remain in the wild.

Wilkinson said the government will take a closer look at enhancing food sources for whales by putting money into a new hatchery to increase the stock of chinook salmon.

While there have been calls for a ban on chinook salmon fishing, he said the government “hasn’t gone there yet.”

“We’ll certainly be looking at the needs of the southern resident killer whales and trying to ensure balancing economic issues with environmental issues,” he said.

Earlier this year the federal government closed about 35 per cent of recreational and commercial chinook fisheries in the Juan de Fuca Strait and around portions of the Gulf Islands.

Misty MacDuffee, a conservation biologist at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation in B.C, said she was encouraged by the move to identify sanctuaries where the animals can be protected from fishing and whale-watching.

She said the government has to increase the number of salmon in the sanctuaries and a hatchery “is not a promising way to do that.”

“The best way to increase the abundance of chinook is by closing fisheries.”

The Fisheries Department proposal to enhance the availability of chinook in the fall in the Fraser River will not help southern resident killer whales when they need the salmon in the early spring and the summer, MacDuffee said.