Saving Seafood

WASHINGTON: State legislators fund ‘stakeholder forum’ for orca recovery, dam removal

April 30, 2019 — Conservationists, industry officials and other Snake River “stakeholders” will bring dam breaching to the center of the orca recovery conversation with a $750,000 forum, which received funding in the state Legislature’s budget proposal last weekend.

Proposals to remove the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Lower Granite and Little Goose dams on the Lower Snake River are well-backed by conservationists, who say the move would help restore dwindling salmon and orca populations. However, regional commerce and power industries that rely on the dams have historically opposed the idea. Those opponents say removing the dams would make it impossible to move cargo along the Snake River, and it would reduce the amount of clean energy available in the region.

Inslee’s task force recommended the forum last fall as a way to “proactively identify and detail” a plan for several communities that use the river, should the federal government decide to remove those dams, according to a press release by several fish and orca advocacy groups.

“For decades, our elected officials have avoided the difficult conversations we need to have about the lower Snake River dams and their impact on salmon and orcas,” said Robb Krehbiel, Northwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife and member of the Southern Resident Orca Task Force. “Bringing people together to work collaboratively on solutions that help salmon, orca and our communities is the right next step.”

Read the full story at The Daily News

Should seals and sea lions be killed to help save the orcas?

April 26, 2019 — Seals and sea lions are competing with the Southern Resident killer whales for limited Chinook salmon stock. That has some people calling for a cull where the government would organize the hunting and killing of a certain percentage of sea lions and seals.

Sea lions and seals are often seen as adversaries of fishermen. Last year, more than a dozen sea lions were shot, many in the head, and washed up around Puget Sound; mostly in West Seattle.

A recent paper published by federal scientists shows pinnipeds eat twice as much salmon as Southern Resident killer whales in Puget Sound, and six times more salmon than recreational and commercial fishermen combined.

It’s created quite the debate over the recovery of Southern Resident killer whales who depend on salmon as their main food source.

Should seals and sea lions be killed to save orcas? The question is complex and scientists don’t all agree. Most aren’t sure if it would work. They’re also turning their attention to what they believe is the preferred prey of pinnipeds: forage fish.

At National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Manchester lab, scientists are studying steelhead migration through Puget Sound.

Read the full story at K5 News

SeaWorld Publishes Decades of Orca Data to Help Wild Whales

April 23, 2019 — The endangered killer whales of the Pacific Northwest live very different lives from orcas in captivity.

They swim up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) a day in pursuit of salmon, instead of being fed a steady diet of baitfish and multivitamins. Their playful splashing awes and entertains kayakers and passengers on Washington state ferries instead of paying theme park customers.

But the captive whales are nevertheless providing a boon to researchers urgently trying to save wild whales in the Northwest.

SeaWorld, which displays orcas at its parks in California, Texas and Florida, has recently published data from thousands of routine blood tests of its killer whales over two decades, revealing the most comprehensive picture yet of what a healthy whale looks like. The information could guide how and whether scientists intervene to help sick or stranded whales in the wild.

Read the full story at NBC Washington

WASHINGTON: Gov. Jay Inslee’s orca-recovery agenda advancing, but billion-dollar funding yet to be seen

April 22, 2019 — Gov. Jay Inslee’s orca agenda is advancing in the Washington state Legislature, but with the budget yet to be decided how much of the governor’s billion-dollar-bold ambition will be accomplished is yet to be seen.

Budgets passed by the House and Senate so far contain no funding to continue the governor’s task force on orca recovery. There’s no agreement yet on funding the governor’s proposed panel to consider the effects of breaching the Lower Snake River dams. And revenue measures to help pay for everything, from increasing hatchery production to enforcement of habitat protections, have yet to be decided.

There also were policy disappointments for the governor, who got no takers for his request for legislation to put a temporary stop on whale watching of southern resident killer whales; no lawmaker would introduce the bill. A vessel noise-reduction package will take years to implement with rule making yet to be done, and because U.S. Coast Guard regulations include important exemptions, including for commercial shipping that makes most of the noise that can disrupt orcas as they hunt.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

First Bill to Help Save Orcas Passed in Washington State

April 12, 2019 — The first in a series of bills intended to help prevent the extinction of Southern Resident killer whales is headed to the desk of Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee. The measure, which Inslee requested, would protect habitat for the Chinook salmon the whales eat.

Southern Resident killer whales live in the inland coastal waters near Seattle. Suffering from a lack of their main source of food – threatened Chinook salmon – as well as toxic home waters and a cacophony of ship noise that dampens their ability to hunt and communicate, their population has reached a 30-year low of 74 whales.

Inslee convened a task force in March 2018 to guide state action to prevent the whales’ extinction. The task force issued its first-year recommendations this past November. The following month, Inslee proposed over $1 billion in state funding to implement the recommendations and asked the Legislature to introduce bills where necessary to accomplish task force recommendations.

House Bill 1579 is the first of a suite of such bills to pass the Legislature, clearing the state Senate on Wednesday night and now awaiting Inslee’s signature. The bill encourages the catch of non-native fish that eat young Chinook salmon as they swim toward the ocean and compete for habitat in Washington’s rivers and estuaries, and increases catch limits for bass, channel catfish and walleye. Fishermen will now be required to get a license to catch freshwater smelt, which Chinook eat.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Groups sue to restrict salmon fishing, help Northwest orcas

April 4, 2019 — Federal officials say they may restrict salmon fishing off the West Coast to help the Pacific Northwest’s critically endangered killer whales, but two environmental groups are suing anyway to ensure it happens.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit nearly two decades ago to force the U.S. government to list the orcas as endangered, and the Wild Fish Conservancy asked the U.S. District Court in Seattle on Wednesday to order officials to reconsider a 2009 finding that commercial and recreational fisheries did not jeopardize the orcas’ survival.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a letter early last month indicating that it intends to do so. Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the point of the lawsuit is to ensure they finish the job with urgency, given the plight of the whales, and to take short-term steps in the meantime to help provide more of the orcas’ favored prey, Chinook salmon.

“We have got to figure out how to get them more salmon,” she said. “Since 2009 it’s become much more crystallized just how critical prey availability is to their reproductive success and survival.”

The Endangered Species Act requires the government to certify that any actions it approves won’t jeopardize the survival of a listed species. In the 2009 review, experts found that it wasn’t clear how a lack of prey affected orcas, but that the fisheries were not likely to contribute to their extinction.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Feds could restrict Pacific Ocean fishing over endangered orcas, NOAA letter says

March 8, 2019 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is taking a fresh look at whether new fishing restrictions are needed to help prevent the extinction of endangered southern resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound.

New evidence about the fish the whales depend on and the risk posed to orcas by depleted prey has caused the agency to write a letter of guidance to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, indicating the agency is examining whether new restrictions are needed — particularly on fisheries in the Lower Columbia and Sacramento River and on fall-run chinook salmon in the Klamath River.

NOAA in 2009 concluded fisheries did not jeopardize the survival and recovery of killer whales.

But since then, “a substantial amount of new information is available on SRKW (southern resident killer whale) and their prey,” and has the agency wanting to take another look at fishing, Barry Thom, regional administrator for NOAA’s West Coast region, wrote to Phil Anderson, chairman of the council, on Wednesday.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Decline of salmon adds to the struggle of Puget Sound’s orcas

February 26, 2019 — The crew of the Bell M. Shimada hauled in the net, long as a football field and teeming with life. Scientists, off the coast of Washington for a week on this June research trip, crowded in for a look.

Each tow of the net revealed a changing world for chinook salmon, the Pacific Northwest’s most famous fish — and the most important prey for the southern-resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound.

There were salmon the scientists expected, although fewer of them. But weirdly also pompano, tropical fish with pretty pink highlights, iridescent as a soap bubble, that were not supposed to be there at all.

What the scientists see each year on this survey underway since 1998 has taken on new importance as oceans warm in the era of climate change.

Decadelong cycles of more and less productive ocean conditions for salmon and other sea life are breaking down. The cycles of change are quicker. Novel conditions in the Pacific are the new normal.

“It used to be up, or down. Now, it is sideways,” said physiological ecologist Brian Beckman, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

That’s bad news for endangered orcas that rely on salmon for food. When salmon decline, orcas suffer.

Read the full story from The Seattle Times at Anchorage Daily News

Groups: US must consider how salmon fishing hurts orcas

December 19, 2018 — The federal government is violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to consider how salmon fishing off the West Coast is affecting endangered killer whales, two conservation groups said Tuesday as they threatened a lawsuit.

The Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity and the Washington state-based Wild Fish Conservancy notified President Donald Trump’s administration they intend to file a lawsuit within 60 days unless officials reevaluate whether the fishing further jeopardizes orcas that frequent the inland waters of the Pacific Northwest.

“We can’t allow business as usual in the salmon fisheries while Southern Resident killer whales are starving to death,” Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a news release.

The orcas’ plight has received much attention this year as scientists warn that they’re on the brink of extinction. There are just 74 left, the lowest number since more than 50 were captured for aquarium display in the 1970s, and no calf born in the last three years has survived. One mother whale captured attention around the world this summer when she carried her dead calf on her head for 17 days in an apparent attempt to revive it.

Last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced what he called a “herculean” $1.1 billion plan to help the population recover. The Democrat said the money would go toward protecting and restoring habitat for salmon, especially chinook, the orcas’ favored prey; boosting production from salmon hatcheries; storm-water cleanup; and quieting vessel traffic, which can interfere with the whales’ hunting and communication.

But conservationists say more must be done. While a federal judge has ordered the government to consider boosting salmon runs by breaching four dams on the Lower Snake River, that prospect remains highly controversial and Republicans in Congress have vowed to oppose it.

Unlike other populations of orcas, which feed on marine mammals including seals, the southern residents eat salmon — primarily chinook. The conservation groups said Tuesday that one way to help them immediately would be to catch fewer salmon off the coast, where the whales spend their winters.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

Less whale tours, dams: Washington task force returns with guidance on Tuesday

November 13, 2018 — Gov. Jay Inslee first assembled the group in March, inviting representatives from tribal, federal, local and other state governments, as well the private and non-profit sectors, to come together and develop longer-term action recommendations for orca recovery and future sustainability.

The task force’s main goals were to reduce the harm of the three main challenges facing orcas: pollution; lack of access to their primary prey, the chinook salmon; and boat traffic noise.

And though it’s only been about six months since Gov. Jay Inslee created a task force to draw up some guidelines about how to help the local Southern Resident orca population, it feels like a different world for the whales.

The pods had a rocky summer, starting with the latest census data showing that their population had dipped to a 30-year low, having lost 25 percent of the local orcas since the 1990s. Shortly after that, Tahlequah made headlines around the world when she swam with the body of dead calf for a week, covering 1,000 miles.

Later in the summer, the youngest member of the J-pod fell ill. Despite many researchers attempting to help get her back up to fighting weight, her disappearance and assumed death marked another disheartening chapter to the summer of the Southern Residents.

It’s especially discouraging considering that the outlook is a lot sunnier up north — the Northern Resident orca population has doubled since 1974, to a total of 309.

But the end of the summer brings a few bright spots: Multiple Southern Residents appear to be pregnant, and the task force’s guidelines are finally being filed.

“I look at 2018, and I hope this is the low point,” Barry Thom, regional administrator for NOAA fisheries West Coast Region, said a hearing regarding the orcas in Friday Harbor earlier this year. “The clock is running out on killer whale recovery, and it is heart wrenching to see.”

Draft recommendations released for public comment include significantly increasing investment in restoration and acquisition of habitat in areas where chinook salmon stocks most benefit Southern Resident orcas, immediately funding acquisition and restoration of nearshore habitat to increase the abundance of forage fish for salmon, and determine whether the removal of some dams would provide benefits to the Southern Resident orca population.

Read the full story at SeattlePI