BY STEVEN GARDNER

Journalists received what might be deserved suspicion of being haters of George W. Bush. If it’s true, I don’t think it’s for the reason most people surmise, that we’re all socialists at heart intent on killing every American Amendment that isn’t the first one.

If we disliked Bush the younger, it had more to do with his reported statement to Joe Biden that he doesn’t “do nuance.”

Reporters dance in nuance. We eat it. For the purposes of this blog, let’s say we swim in it. When we retire, the hardest thing to unload is all the “other hands” we’ve considered. Dunagan has a file cabinet full of them. When Bush said he didn’t do nuance, it was like he was insulting all our mothers.

Dabbling in nuance gives us room to partake in things we might not otherwise do were we among those who take stands. In late 2007 I took my family to SeaWorld in San Diego. In my heart I’m really troubled by the idea of watching animals that can travel entire oceans confined to pools a little bigger than the one I had in my backyard as a kid. But it was when I was a kid that my affection for orcas began, because of a splashing I got from Shamu.

Growing up in Southern California, it was the only way I was going to see orcas in person. As the years went on, I managed to see probably a dozen dolphin shows. I don’t think I grew to have any angst about it until I was working construction during a summer off from college and was sent to a house in an exclusive neighborhood in Laguna Beach. There, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I could see a school of dolphins (Maybe they were porpoises. I couldn’t swear under oath that they weren’t two-liter soda bottles with fins.) swimming by beyond the waves.

It sounds cliche, but something can happen to a guy like me who suddenly sees something in a different context, particularly a natural context. Not only did it make me feel good about them, it made me feel good about myself, that I live in a world where animals can be in a place they’ve been for thousands or millions of years, that we haven’t institutionalized all of them. It’s not a thought that comes naturally when you spend most of your days winding your way through asphalt and concrete.

That elation came again when I moved here and the Orcas visited Silverdale. Then on Christmas Day in 2004 I was on a ferry to Seattle and saw an orca off in the distance. That chance sighting was better than the sure thing you get in San Diego.

Still, I thought maybe my kids would appreciate the SeaWorld show. They did.

I, on the other hand, had much the same reaction Steve Lopez from the Los Angeles Times did when he went.. I wouldn’t say I was creeped out, but I was uneasy.

I expected a fun, maybe funny presentation. What you get is a full-on, well-orchestrated production that clearly had been crafted following the pressure that must have come once Free Willy was released in theaters.

And yet months later, when another friend shared pictures of her daughter being one of those who got to go out and touch the whale, I was genuinely happy for her.

Of course the idea that she could have been yanked by her pony tail into the water — something that has apparently never happened in the wild — changes all that.

I’d rather see all those Shamus out in the wild. I would have felt so relieved if SeaWorld officials would have said, “We get it now.” On the other hand, maybe the Tacoma Pocket Gopher wouldn’t have vanished in 1970 if someone had made money by teaching a few of them to jump through hoops. On the other other hand, maybe these animals should matter to me even if I never get to see them.

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Pat Pattillo, salmon policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, deserves recognition for his patience with me and the numerous sport and commercial fishers who ask him questions. He and WDFW Director Phil Anderson are two of the most mild-mannered guys you will ever know, and yet they manage to work through tough salmon negotiations year after year.

Let me recount some of the issues expected to come up over the next few weeks, with a focus on things not covered in my story.

— Ocean chinook fishing should be up this year, with run size up higher by 234,000 fish. If selective fishing is adopted, recreational fishers should have plenty of time on the water this summer, and the charter boats should do well.

— Ocean coho fishing could be down this year. About 390,000 returns are forecast, compared to about 1 million last year. It is not yet clear how reduced quotas will translate to time on the water. (If the catch is down, fewer people usually go out, which can extend the seasons.)

— In addition to protecting threatened and endangered salmon species, new state regulations are designed to protect rockfish, three of which are likely to be listed under the Endangered Species Act before salmon season begins. See NOAA Fisheries. For most areas of Puget Sound, you must return any rockfish you catch and fishing for bottomfish is prohibited in waters deeper than 120 feet. In Hood Canal, no fishing for bottomfish is allowed.

— Fishing in the Skokomish River could go selective this year. The number of anglers has been growing in recent years. Human waste problems became acute last year, and everybody will be watching the health issues next time around. This fishery could be a hot topic, since managers for WDFW and the Skokomish Tribe must figure out a way to reduce the exploitation rate on wild salmon from 60 percent to below 50 percent, as proposed in the new management plan for chinook.

— Tribal managers are leery of the state’s ability to manage a selective fishery in the Skokomish River. In the Nisqually, selective fishing apparently has worked, but the Skokomish involves far more fishers and remains somewhat untamed. Both state and tribal managers would like to resolve ongoing conflicts on the river between state and tribal fishers.

— In Hood Canal, last year’s four-fish limit for coho will be reduced to two. Hood Canal might become be a driver stock — meaning low returns could limit fishing in other areas — but that will be determined through modeling. There is some talk about a selective fishery in Hood Canal.

— Director Anderson talked about budget problems, saying it will be difficult to add selective fisheries in most areas, because they take more staff for monitoring and enforcement. The Skokomish selective fishery could be funded through a special account set aside to improve coded-wire tag data in freshwater fisheries. (Coded wires, imbedded in the fish heads, provide info about the specific stocks of origin.)

— Concerns continue for coho in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but measures adopted the past few years to protect Thompson River coho in British Columbia may be adequate to protect those returning to rivers in the Strait without reducing fishing seasons.

— Coho numbers look pretty good for rivers in North Puget Sound, namely the Skagit, Stillaguamish and Snohomish.

— Conservation efforts negotiated under the Pacific Salmon Treaty with Canada will allow more fish to return to the United States, but those fish must be passed through to spawning grounds. Under the treaty, the U.S. fishery cannot be allowed to scoop up savings negotiated in the treaty, officials said.

— A plan to protect threatened Puget Sound chinook will expire this year. State officials hope NOAA Fisheries will approve an interim plan based on a draft that the state has submitted to the feds and is currently undergoing review.

— With less snowpack in the mountains, managers will need to keep an eye on what streamflows are doing to salmon stocks. Where salmon have not entered streams because of low flows, fishing may be restricted to protect fish waiting in front of rivers for higher flows.

— Anderson said he has heard the call from people who would like to discontinue fishing altogether for a number of years to allow threatened stocks to recover. While that would provide a temporary increase in returns to the rivers, it would do nothing to address habitat issues, which ultimately limit salmon production. Anderson said he does not want to give a “free pass” to those responsible for restoring habitat.

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If you haven’t heard, a veteran orca trainer at Seaworld Orlando, 40-year-old Dawn Brancheau, was apparently petting the whale, named Tillikum, when the incident occurred.

Witnesses told the Orlando Sentinel that the whale grabbed Brancheau by the arm, tossed her around in his mouth and pulled her under water during a scheduled program about 2 p.m. today at Shamu Stadium.

Reporter Jason Garcia of the Orlando Sentinel described how Tillikum, a 12,000- pound male known as “Tilly,” was considered a dangerous whale. Only select trainers were allowed to handle him, and nobody was allowed to swim with him.

Chuck Tompkins, in charge of animal behavior for SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, told Garcia that Tilikum worked well with Brancheau. “He knew her, and he liked working with her,” Tompkins was quoted as saying.

But many killer whale advocates were quick to argue that orcas don’t belong in captivity and that their confinement in close quarters can lead to psychological problems for the orcas.

The following are statements from OrcaNetwork of Washington state and Lifeforce of British Columbia, followed by a couple of opinion polls on this issue and links to the most informative news reports.

Death of Sea World Orlando Orca Trainer

The tragic death of a veteran trainer at Orlando Sea World from an apparent attack, according to witnesses, by Tillikum, a male killer whale captured from Iceland in 1983, demonstrates the hidden costs of captivity for these highly social mammals.

The 30-year-old male orca is likely the largest captive orca, weighing in at 12,300 pounds and 22.5 feet in length. In the wild, orcas travel 75 to 100 miles per day and live in close, socially-bonded pods. Providing a suitable, humane, captive “habitat” for a wild mammal such as an orca is virtually impossible given their size, intelligence, social needs, and the need to be constantly swimming and diving.

There have been previous cases of captive orcas becoming depressed to the point of being suicidal from the stress of living in captivity, often isolated from other orcas or forced to live with orcas from other communities. In the wild, orcas have never been known to attack or harm a human.

Tillikum has been involved in two other incidents resulting in human death. In February of 1991 at Sealand of the Pacific, Canada, Tillikum and two other orcas were involved in an attack on 20-year-old trainer Keltie Byrne after she slipped and fell into the whale pool. She was dragged across the pool and repeatedly submerged. After that incident, Tillikum was moved to Sea World Orlando in 1992, where he has been kept primarily as a breeding male, with little involvement in the whale shows.

In July 1999, a man entered Orlando Sea World and hid, then apparently removed his clothing and entered the tank with Tillikum during the night. A dead, naked body was discovered in the early morning, draped over Tillikum.

As the primary breeding male for all three Sea World parks, Tillikum is a very valuable asset to Sea World, as captures of orcas in the wild have virtually been stopped and the population of captive orcas has been going down in recent years. Tillikum should not be euthanized or punished for behaviors brought about from confinement by humans; and after 27 years of captivity he should be given the chance to retire to an ocean sea pen in his home waters of Iceland to live out the rest of his life.

This incident is a reminder that orcas should be left to live their lives in the wild, and not taken from their pods, forced to live in tanks and perform tricks to entertain and provide income for humans. The education provided about orcas by marine parks is presented in a setting that demonstrates human dominance over the animals, and masks the true beauty, intelligence, and power of orcas in the wild. Observing orcas in the wild, or learning about them from multi-media means such as IMAX movies, video, and websites provides a better education about the true nature of orcas and is better for both the orcas and humans involved.

Orca Network has worked for decades to return Lolita, or Tokitae, the only surviving Southern Resident orca in captivity, back to her home waters of Washington State to retire after spending nearly 40 years in a small tank at Miami Seaquarium.

Susan Berta & Howard Garrett
Orca Network
www.orcanetwork.org

It is time to stop petting and swimming with killer whales and other dolphins

In captivity orcas and other cetaceans are deprived of their behavioral and social freedoms. Confinement in aquarium prisons results in psychological harm resulting in neurotic, aggressive behaviors. Captivity can drive them insane.

“No one would put zoo keepers in a bear pit. Aquariums must stop putting trainers into whale tanks and stop all other public contact. “ stated Peter Hamilton, Lifeforce, who has studied orcas in the wild, “For the sake of both animals and people, the imprisonment of all dolphins must be phased out. It is also time to immediately stop petting and swimming with killer whales and other dolphins. Close contact with such wildlife for financial profit is a hazard to people. ”

There has been many attacks on humans by captive orcas. None by wild orcas. There’s been some serious employee injuries but hush up orders/settlements kept a lot of it quiet. This also applies to swim with dolphin programs in which there are numerous dolphin aggression problems. Petting/feeding programs, such as those at the Vancouver Aquarium, also present public safety risks.

Lifeforce is a Vancouver-based ecology organization that attended the inquest hearing into the death of Sealand employee Keltie Byrne in 1991. We made several recommendations such as stopping any further contact with Tillikum and the other two orcas. Lifeforce told them that is is likely that Tillikum would attack again. Now he has caused the death of a third human.

Peter Hamilton, Lifeforce Founding Director

Online polls

Should the whale be put to death? (CBS News online poll)

Yes: 23 percent
No: 77 percent

What to do with the killer whale (Orlando Sentinel online poll)

The activists are wrong. Trainers and orcas have worked together countless times with very few incidents. We should not overreact to this case, no matter how tragic. 16 percent

The activists are right. These creatures should be free, not kept in tanks and trained to perform tricks. 53 percent

The activists have a point. But the animals at SeaWorld live in luxury compared with creatures in the wild, and they perform a valuable service by increasing our knowledge and appreciation of orcas. 31 percent

Do you think killer whales should be kept in captivity? (New York Daily News online poll)

Yes, they live a good life and they bring a lot of joy to people. 11 percent
No, it’s not fair to them. 79 percent
I’m not sure. 11 percent

Most informative reports

Orlando Sentinel: Stories, pictures, more

Miami Herald: Death reopens killer-whale debate

San Diego Union Tribune: SeaWorld San Diego suspends Shamu show

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A newborn calf, L-114, is seen swimming with its mother, L-77, named Matia. The photo was taken Sunday in Cordova Bay on the eastern side of Vancouver Island near Nanaimo, B.C. (Click to enlarge)
Photo courtesy of Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research

He’s a story I prepared this morning for the Kitsap Sun Web site:

A new calf has been born into L Pod, one of the three groups of orcas that frequent Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.

The young whale was spotted Sunday in Cordova Bay on the east coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, by Ken Balcomb and Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research. The center maintains an ongoing census of the Southern Resident killer whale population.

The two researchers later confirmed that the newborn, designated L-114, is the offspring of L-77, a 22-year-old named Matia. This is her first known calf, though it is possible she has had one or more offspring that did not survive.

The mother and calf were traveling with another mother-calf pair, L-94, Calypso, and her calf, L-113, born last fall. Calypso is Matia’s sister. The four whales are part of a portion of L pod that often travels together. They have become known as the L-12 subpod.

Balcomb and Ellifrit reported that they observed the newborn calf Sunday afternoon while the whales were headed south in Cordova Bay. At about 5 p.m., they reached the southern shore and headed east toward open water. They appeared to be hunting for fish, with “lots of taillobs, cartwheels and pec slaps,” according to a report on the center’s Web page.

This is the seventh orca calf born to the three Southern Resident pods in the past year. There have been no deaths during that time. This latest birth brings L Pod’s population to 42 animals and the overall population to 89.

“This continues the streak,” said Howard Garrett of Orca Network. “I am at a loss for an explanation. I am just celebrating.”

“It’s great news for the population,” Balcomb said. “So far all of them are doing well.”

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Jeanne Hyde, who was on the water yesterday with Capt. Jim Maya, captured several photos of J and K pods heading up Swanson Channel in the Canadian Gulf Islands.

Yesterday turned out to be a great day for whale research and whale watching, and I’m grateful to those willing to share their photographs.

The light was near perfect when Jeanne Hyde captured numerous images of J and K pods. She has since posted several on her blog, “Whale of a Purpose,” including the one above. She also shot some nice video of the whales.

Jeanne also spotted reported that a killer whale researcher, Mark Malleson, spied a group of L-pod whales, known as the L-12s. So, all in all, it was a big day for orcas in the Salish Sea.

Susan Berta of Orca Network tells me she was flooded with great photos, some of which went out last night in Orca Network’s regular update of whale sightings. The post also includes an update and photos on gray whales hanging around Whidbey Island, which is typical for this time of year. Susan says more pictures may be posted later on Orca Network’s Facebook page.

Susan has not received any reports of killer whale sightings this morning, but nobody will be surprised if one or more groups of orcas are spotted later in the day.

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Like it or not, political power is what gets things done in our city councils, Legislature and Congress. Voting by qualified citizens is certainly one form of political power.

Whether Congress spends our money to fight wars or to restore the environment is a result of political power. Some would say we have no choice but to fight wars at key times in history. Others would argue that we have no choice but to save the Earth. But, of course, there are choices in how Congress spends our money.

I got to thinking about this after I wrote a story for today’s Kitsap Sun about U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks and his change in chairmanships in the House Appropriations Committee. Dicks will soon move from a position where he has a major say about environmental spending to a position where he will have a major say about Defense spending.

His predecessor on the Defense Appropriations Committee, Rep. John Murtha, held a reputation for wielding political power to bring federal projects to his home state of Pennsylvania.

Dicks enjoys a favorable reputation among environmentalists nationwide for his work on restoring national forests and national parks as well as his support for regulations to protect the environment. But Dicks is celebrated in his home state of Washington for his intense focus on our local forests and waterways.

That makes this Bremerton native a target for those who think our money is better spent on other things or not at all. I wonder how that perception will change when he becomes more focused on Defense issues, which attracts a more conservative constituency. That’s not to say that Dicks has not already wielded political power on defense issues, given the large number of military bases and defense-oriented companies in Washington.

For some reason, this very notion of political power seems a little distasteful, but it is how government gets things done — or not done. It is political power, after all, that the brings Republicans together in a solid block —without a single vote out of line — to block some of President Obama’s prize initiatives.

What actions would you like your government to take? As they say, political power is a little like sausage. We may not want to see the process that gets it done, but we can enjoy the result nonetheless.

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I outlined the major legal issues in a story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

You may wish to return to this blog tomorrow, when I will give “live blogging” a try for the first time. At that time, you will be able to watch as I write from the courtroom, providing blow-by-blow arguments as they unfold before the judge.

Here’s the key question: If you buy a piece of property on a lake, do you have the right to open it up for public access?

When this issue first came up, I thought the outcome could set a precedent for other lakes where anglers would like to build a boat launch. But there are many aspects of this issue that are relatively unique. Here are a few:

— The question of whether Lake Tahuyeh was a natural lake or a bog.
— The point that Lake Tahuyeh was not a navigable waterway, which means the state does not own the lake bottom.
— The idea that the lake was changed substantially when it was dammed up.
— The fact that the state has never contributed to the cost of maintaining the dam or other operations on the lake.

Of course, attorneys for the state will argue that the public gained access to the lake in 1939 before most homes were built and that public rights to use the lake cannot be extinguished by any of these issues.

It will be interesting to see how these various points are argued in court.

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First, before getting to the serious stuff, I’d like to start with an animated short film, “Oktapodi.” The film started out as a graduate school project by a team of French animators from Gobelins L’Ecole de L’Image. The production was nominated for an Academy Award during last year’s presentation and won numerous honors at film festivals.

The YouTube version here is OK, but if you want to see the film in full quality and can wait for the video to download, visit the official Oktapodi Web site and view the QuickTime version.

Back to the real world, check out this BBC video showing a diver up close with a giant Pacific octopus.

Elsewhere, the so-called mimic octopus is a fascinating creature, as shown in this video shot in Indonesia.

Finally, completing the tour, here’s a video from the Seattle Aquarium Web, which includes this sea creature as well as others.

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Some people laugh; others stare in disbelief at the unique creature that reminds some people of the male anatomy.

After you’ve lived in Washington state, you learn that this massive mollusk is not only funny, it is big money on the international market. Geoducks are believed to play an important role in the ecosystem, where they filter water and can live for 100 years or more.

Geoducks grow naturally in deep water and are harvested by divers who dislodge them from the seabed with jets of water. Revenues go for managing the resource and to local governments willing to make recreational improvements to the shoreline. Some people contend that the state is over-harvesting, at least in certain locations.

Geoducks are also at the center of political battles involving the management of state and private tidelands. Artificial propagation of geoducks and its effects on beaches is still hotly debated.

But I digress. Amusing Monday isn’t about the serious side of life, so I’d like to offer a couple of videos for your viewing. The first, an embedded video on this page, is a three-minute trailer for a documentary produced by Justin Bookey. The film, called “3 Feet Under,” won a first-place award for the Best Short Documentary at the Port Townsend Film Festival in 2004.

The second video is a featured segment of the Discovery Channel’s TV show “Dirty Jobs” with Mike Rowe. Beyond the jokes, I learned something about cooking the giant clams in a part of the show where Rowe heads into the kitchen to prepare the “duck” for eating.

So let me know what you think about geoducks, especially if you are one of the brave hunters who like to dig for geoducks, famous for their deep digging. If you have a geoduck joke suitable for mixed company, feel free to share.

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It is the best of streams. It is the worst of streams.

There’s been talk lately about Big Beef Creek in Central Kitsap, where a much-traveled bridge has been closed to heavy traffic because of a washed-out bridge abutment. It appears the bridge will be closed for a couple of weeks, beginning next week. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

There’s reason to believe we’ll be hearing a lot more about this stream in the future.

In my mind, Big Beef Creek is a beautiful salmon stream that has been much abused through the years. Despite a large population of people in the watershed, the creek has managed to hold onto its populations of salmon. Somehow, pollution has been mostly avoided.

For a reporting project, I once explored the entire reach of Big Beef Creek, talking to hobby farmers, backcountry residents and lakeside home owners. That story does not seem to be in the Kitsap Sun’s public archives, but I’ll see if I can track it down and post a link here later.

Big Beef Creek begins in an extensive wetland called Morgan Marsh and drains toward Hood Canal near Lone Rock, north of Seabeck. The creek’s origins in the marsh are just a short distance from the beginnings of the Tahuya River, which drains in the opposite direction into Southern Hood Canal outside of Belfair.

Big Beef Creek flows through a developed area, including Lake Symington. Migrating salmon are forced to navigate a fish ladder at the dam that impounds Lake Symington.

Development has been a problem for the stream, which has seen a decline in salmon. But the stream has been a problem for development, particularly for houses built too close to its meandering banks. During heavy storms, the stream has been known to take out private bridges. And in 1994 it wiped out a bridge on Holly Road. At least two homes have been abandoned below the dam, and others are threatened by its rushing waters.

Out of nearly 60 streams monitored by the Kitsap County Health District throughout Kitsap County, Big Beef Creek is the fifth cleanest in terms of bacterial pollution. Its waters sometimes show low oxygen levels — probably because the waters slow down as they pass through Lake Symington.

Near the mouth of the creek, the University of Washington operates the Big Beef Creek Research Station, where studies of salmon are taking place. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife manages a fish trap that catches adult salmon going upstream and juveniles going downstream. Those counts are used to help gauge the production of salmon for all of Hood Canal.

Big Beef Creek flows into an extensive estuary, where people often stop to watch bald eagles feeding in the spring before the salmon runs begin. The eagles often find midshipmen (bullheads) or else steal fish from the herons that congregate there. Some observers have counted up to 40 eagles at one time.

Seabeck Highway crosses the Big Beef estuary on a narrow strip of fill dumped there years ago when the road was built. The small bridge allows water to move between the upper and lower portions of the estuary. But high tides and rains can create a lot of flow through that tiny opening, which contributes to the risk of bridge failure.

The county’s chief road engineer, Jon Brand, told me that flows during the rains and high tides last week were the primary factors in undercutting the bridge abutment, and a log next to the bridge may have contributed to the problem.

There has been talk about removing some or all of the earthen causeway and building a much longer bridge. Biologists say that would dramatically improve estuarine habitat for juvenile salmon.

For now, a $79,000 study has been approved for the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group to develop a restoration strategy for the lower one mile or so of the stream. Stay tuned for further details and check out the study description on the Hood Canal Coordinating Council’s Web site.

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