Saving Seafood

The PNW is a leader on forage fish management — but it needs better data

May 18, 2021 — Endangered species like salmon and orca get lots of attention in Washington. We painstakingly track their numbers, and each new baby, individual death or a population crash has the potential to spur international reactions. But some species they rely on rarely achieve recognition.

These small, silvery creatures — herring, anchovies, euchalon and more — shuttle energy through the food web between primary producers, like microscopic plants and algae, and bigger aquatic predators.

“They’re small fish that most people don’t typically see but that really make the marine food web go round for larger organisms … that pay attention to where those things are and where they’re not,” says Dr. Jen Zamon, a research fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center who works on forage fish. “And if they’re moving around, that’s going to change the distribution of everything else that’s feeding upon them.”

“Pretty much anything in the water that has a mouth big enough to fit a forage fish in it eats forage fish,” says Phil Dionne, a research scientist with the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife who specializes in forage fish.

Read the full story at Crosscut

Feds start review of endangered Southern Resident orcas

April 27, 2021 — NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service says it’s starting a five-year status review of the Southern Resident orcas.

NOAA Fisheries published a notice in the Federal Register about the status review last week, The Skagit Valley Herald reported. The whales were listed as endangered in 2005 under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Since the 1990s, the number of orcas in the three family groups — called J, K and L pods — that make up the population has dropped from the high 90s into the 70s.

The orcas, also called killer whales, live along the West Coast and frequent the Salish Sea.

Since 2005, the orca population has decreased from 88 orcas to a recent low of 72, according to the Center for Whale Research and NOAA Fisheries. As of February, the population was estimated at 75 with some recently identified calves.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

NOAA Fisheries Fact-Checks Orca Bycatch Photo Circulating on Social Media

April 22, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries would like to clear up the disinformation surrounding a photo being circulated on social media of two orca whales taken as bycatch by a trawler in Alaskan waters. NOAA Office of Law Enforcement has confirmed that the photo is from an April 2020 incident. In that case, there were two independent fisheries observers aboard the vessel. The orca takes were reported promptly by the observers and vessel owner/operator to NOAA Fisheries, as required.

We do not have any recent reports of bycatch involving orcas off Alaska.

The United States’ science-based fishery management process is designed to provide optimum yield while preventing overfishing, minimizing bycatch, and protecting habitats where fish live. Section 118 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act allows for the incidental, but not intentional, takes of marine mammals in commercial fisheries. “Take” includes harassment, hunting, capturing, collecting, or killing of marine mammals. However, a marine mammal take is not legal unless it is reported by the vessel owners or operators through the Marine Mammal Authorization Program.

Bycatch of orcas in Alaska fisheries by any gear is very low. While incidental take of any individual marine mammal is concerning, NOAA Fisheries does not consider the low level of interactions between orcas and commercial fisheries in Alaska to have an adverse impact on any orca stock at a population level. No orca stocks in the Alaska region are listed as endangered, threatened, and/or candidate species under the Endangered Species Act.

Through the North Pacific Observer Program, our agency has rigorous methods for tracking catch and bycatch. At least two fisheries observers are required aboard all trawl catcher-processor vessels fishing off Alaska, so every haul is observed.

In addition to information collected by observers, vessel owners or operators must report to NOAA Fisheries all incidental mortalities and injuries of marine mammals that occur during commercial fishing operations. They must be reported within 48 hours of the end of the fishing trip under the law.

Read the full release here

Alaska Files to Defend Salmon Fisheries in Southeast Alaska

March 17, 2021 — The State of Alaska has moved to intervene in a federal case that threatens state management of Alaska’s salmon fisheries.

The Wild Fish Conservancy, a conservation organization based in Washington state, claims that Alaska’s management of fisheries under the Pacific Salmon Treaty threatens the survival of several salmon stocks in Washington and Oregon, and the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales that depend on them.

The lawsuit seeks to shut down all salmon fisheries in the federal waters off the coast of Southeast Alaska.

Read the full story at KINY

WASHINGTON: Seattle Harbor Expansion Would Push Out Endangered Whales, Conservation Group Says

March 5, 2021 — The Trump administration rushed through a project to expand Seattle Harbor for ultra-large container ships that would further threaten endangered Southern Resident killer whales, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.

Only 75 Southern Resident killer whales swim the Salish Sea — a number that has increased since three baby whales were born in the relatively quiet waters of the pandemic. Noise from whale watching boats and ships headed to and from ports across the Pacific will increase when pandemic restrictions are lifted.

Added to that is a new worry: the underwater cacophony of ultra-large container ships that would visit Seattle Harbor, in the heart of the whales’ home waters, and the release of hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of toxic material dredged during the harbor project.

The three pods, or family lines, of Southern Residents took a major hit in the late 1960s when aquariums stole 45 Southern Residents from their families, and killed another 14 in the process. Only one of the whales taken during that time survives today: a 53-year-old whale who lives at the Miami Seaquarium. The Seaquarium calls her Lolita, while supporters who want her returned to a protected cove of the Salish Sea call her Tokitae.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Study: Chinook salmon are key to Northwest orcas all year

March 4, 2021 — For more than a decade, Brad Hanson and other researchers have tailed the Pacific Northwest’s endangered killer whales in a hard-sided inflatable boat, leaning over the edge with a standard pool skimmer to collect clues to their diet: bits of orca poop floating on the water, or fish scales sparkling just below the surface.

Their work established years ago that the whales depend heavily on depleted runs of Chinook, the largest and fattiest of Pacific salmon species, when they forage in the summer in the inland waters between Washington state and British Columbia.

But a new paper from Hanson and others at the NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center provides the first real look at what the whales eat the rest of the year, when they cruise the outer Pacific Coast — data that reaffirms the central importance of Chinook to the whales and the importance of recovering Chinook populations to save the beloved mammals.

By analyzing the DNA of orca feces as well as salmon scales and other remains after the whales have devoured the fish, the researchers demonstrated that the while the whales sometimes eat other species, including halibut, lingcod and steelhead, they depend most on Chinook. And they consumed the big salmon from a wide range of sources — from those that spawn in California’s Sacramento River all the way to the Taku River in northern British Columbia.

Read the full story at OPB

Nearby Vessels Interrupt Feeding of Southern Resident Killer Whales, Especially Females

January 13, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Boat traffic within 400 yards of endangered Southern Resident killer whales interrupts their foraging, often leading female whales to cease feeding altogether. That is a key finding from a new analysis of data from suction-cup tags that track the whales’ movement underwater.

Previous research observed surface behavior of the killer whales in response to vessels, while the tags allow researchers to discern their behavior during extended dives underwater. This data shows that nearby vessel traffic inhibits their underwater foraging as much or more than what scientists previously documented at the surface. These new results were published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

“We found a bigger effect in females, and that effect was more often that they gave up foraging if vessels encroached on them,” said research scientist Marla Holt at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center. The analysis examined whale behavior over 3 years. It included years before and after the 2011 enactment of federal regulations limiting how close vessels can approach killer whales in Washington’s inland waters.

The outsize effect of vessel traffic on female whales “could have cascading effects on the ability to meet energetic requirements to support reproductive efforts,” the scientists reported. “This is particularly concerning in an endangered population that is in decline.”

Read the full release here

Directly and Indirectly, Humans Contributing to Most Orca Deaths

December 3, 2020 — New research shows that humans are taking a greater toll on killer whale populations than previously believed. Between pollution, overfishing and impacts with vessels — it doesn’t look good for the majestic, endangered creatures.

The most common human-related causes of death include infectious disease, malnutrition, congenital defects induced by chemical pollution, blunt force trauma from boat strikes and ingested fish hooks. These cases represent otherwise preventable deaths that can likely be reduced through further research and effort.

Researchers looked at blubber thickness and body length to determine an orca’s overall body condition. Not surprisingly, mature orcas tended to be healthiest prior to death and most often died from bacterial infections, emaciation and injuries caused by boat strikes, whereas calves were more likely to die from infectious disease, malnutrition or congenital defects and were typically healthy before their deaths. Understanding these interactions with humans is critical to ongoing management and conservation efforts for over 55,000 orcas worldwide.

Lead author Dr. Stephen Raverty from Canada’s Ministry of Agriculture and his team looked at pathology reports for 53 individuals stranded between 2001 and 2017, which revealed human activity to be a significant cause of death for orcas across every age group. The researchers published their findings Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

PFMC Adopts Salmon Measures to Help Southern Resident Killer Whales

November 25, 2020 — The Pacific Fishery Management Council unanimously adopted new ocean salmon fishing regulations last week to help save critically endangered Southern Resident killer whales from extinction. While the birth of two calves this year was welcome news, Southern Residents face an uncertain future with only 74 individuals left and a diet almost entirely comprised of declining salmon populations, especially Chinook salmon, Oceana said in a press release.

Pacific salmon, primarily Chinook salmon, are 99 percent of the diet of Southern Resident killer whales. A single adult Southern Resident typically needs to eat 12 to 20 Chinook salmon every day, and as many as 30 depending on the size and nutrition levels of the fish. Wild salmon populations have been in decline due to a combination of issues, including dams, habitat loss and fishing pressure, Oceana said.

Read the full story at Seafood News

WASHINGTON: Navy, state clash over increased testing that could harm whales, marine life

September 2, 2020 — Navy and state leaders are at odds over a proposed rule for military testing in Puget Sound and coastal waters of Washington that allows the increased potential to harass and harm marine life, including the endangered and fragile Southern Resident orca population.

The Navy, in seeking approval from the National Marine Fisheries Service, is seeking to conduct testing and training involving a number of activities — firing torpedoes and projectiles, detonating bombs up to 1,000 pounds, using underwater sonar, piloting undersea drones and more. A proposed new rule would allow for the potential “take” — a term meaning “to harass, hunt, capture, or kill, or attempt to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine mammal” — of Southern Resident orcas from twice a year to up to 51 times, though federal officials say no conditions that could injure one of the 73 known remaining southern residents would be allowed.

On Friday, the state’s Department of Ecology pushed back with demands to constrict the Navy’s testing, including increasing the whale buffer zones to at least 1,000 yards and ceasing sonar exercises when orcas are spotted. The agency also asked for the Navy to use real-time whale alert systems like those used by the Washington State Ferries.

Read the full story at the Kitsap Sun