Watching Our Water Ways

National Marine Fisheries Service today issued the recovery plan for the Puget Sound (Southern Resident) killer whale population. (See the Associated Press story in the Kitsap Sun.)

The plan provides a foundation to build on with the federal government setting goals for reducing the risks of extinction. The final plan does not seem to be altered in any major way from the draft version, which was criticized by environmental groups for lacking enough immediate actions.

This was contained in a press release issued by National Marine Fisheries Service.

The fisheries agency said availability of prey, pollution and effects
from vessels and sound are major threats to the whales’ health. In
addition, it said, the whales’ inherently small population size and
vulnerability to oil spills were important factors considered in the
recovery plan.

The agency said, however, that there is considerable uncertainty
regarding which threats were responsible for the decline in the
population or which may be most important to address for recovery. The
plan identifies ongoing conservation programs and calls for action in a
variety of areas, including improving availability of prey by supporting
salmon restoration in the region, reducing pollution and contamination
in the Sound, and monitoring the effects of vessel traffic and
underwater noise.

Ongoing research programs, conducted by NOAA Fisheries and others, are
providing important information that will help implement and update the
plan.

Heather Trimm of People for Puget Sound responded this way:

“We know that toxic pollutants are in the fats of Southern residents and that the levels of these pollutants in their prey — salmon — need to be reduced. However, where are the actions to match these known threats? Current regulations are not protecting orcas. We would have like to have seen specific regulations proposed by NOAA in this recovery plan.”

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Marine mammals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.