June 23, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
There is an especially valuable environment in Puget Sound made up of the beaches, bluffs, inlets, and river deltas: the nearshore. Nearshore habitat matters to Southern Resident killer whales because their primary prey, Chinook salmon, need them to grow and find safety when they are young. Unfortunately, we have been losing these habitats in Puget Sound to industrial and residential development and agriculture.
Southern Resident Killer Whales eat salmon, primarily Chinook salmon. The whales search out and rely upon the ever-changing abundance of many different Chinook salmon runs up and down the Pacific Coast. Puget Sound Chinook salmon are one of the most important of these for the Southern Residents’ recovery. Puget Sound Chinook salmon, however, are themselves threatened with extinction.
Killer whales eat Chinook salmon when the fish have grown into adults three years old and weighing close to 30 pounds. The salmon are headed back from the ocean through Puget Sound to their home rivers to lay their eggs. To make it to adulthood, though, these fish need to survive their adolescence as “juveniles” or “fry.” That’s where the nearshore zone comes in.
Tiny young Chinook salmon emerge from the gravel where they hatched from eggs in the rivers of Puget Sound and the Salish Sea—the Skagit, Elwha, Nisqually, and others. Then the young fish follow one of several different strategies to grow as juveniles before heading out to the ocean. They can rear in the river and freshwater floodplains or head downstream to the great tidal river deltas. They can also head all the way out into Puget Sound looking for safety along the shore in pocket estuaries, kelp and eelgrass beds, coastal creeks, or lagoons.