Watching Our Water Ways

J pod, one of the three groups of killer whales that frequent Puget Sound, returned to the San Juan Islands yesterday after an unusually long absence.

Photo courtesy of Capt. Jim Maya

J pod typically passes through the area throughout the winter months. It is K and L pods that spend more time in the open ocean along the West Coast. Until yesterday, J pod had been gone for more than 70 days, according to Capt. Jim Maya of Maya’s Westside Charters.

Orca Network received reports that J pod was off Victoria around noon. The pod moved east and then north along San Juan Island, shuffling along the west side between Lime Kiln State Park and Henry Island all afternoon. They were last seen heading north up Haro Strait.

Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research reported that all the members of J pod were accounted for and no animals had died through the winter, which is cause for celebration. (See Orca Network’s Facebook page.) It appeared no babies had been born either. The last J pod calf was J-49, first spotted in August of last year.

K and L pods should begin to make their appearances in the inland waters in the near future. Whether they stick around probably depends on how many salmon they encounter. Typically, these Southern Resident orcas begin to roam around the San Juans and lower Strait of Georgia in early to mid-June, as chinook salmon return to rivers in the region.

Photo courtesy of Capt. Jim Maya

Share on Facebook

Lolita, a killer whale taken from Puget Sound in 1970 and placed in a Miami aquarium, could be reclassified as an endangered species, along with other endangered Southern Resident orcas. At the moment, Lolita is not listed at all.

Lolita lives alone in a tank at Miami’s Seaquarium. Photo courtesy of Orca Network

NOAA Fisheries announced today that PETA — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — has provided adequate documentation to consider whether captive orcas (specifically Lolita) should be listed along with their counterparts still roaming free.

One must not presume, however, that because NOAA has accepted PETA’s petition that a listing will follow, agency officials stressed.

I was under the impression, from talking to NOAA officials last year, that we would soon know whether or not the entire Southern Resident population would be taken off the Endangered Species List, as proposed by Pacific Legal Foundation. But that decision appears to be delayed for consideration of the Lolita petition.

“The agency said to make sure that its review is complete and based on the best available science it would now solicit any new information about Lolita’s genetic heritage and status to include in the ongoing status review,” NOAA said in a news release. “A finding on the delisting petition is due next January.”

PETA filed its petition on behalf of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Orca Network and four individuals. The 33-page petition, filed in January, applies only to Lolita, since the 35 other killer whales captured in Puget Sound have died, the petition notes. Documents — including the Lolita petition — can be found on NOAA Fisheries’ website. I discussed PLF’s delisting petition and provided links to related documents in Water Ways last Oct. 24.

The PETA petition strongly challenges the reasons for ever leaving Lolita out of the endangered population:

“No explanation was offered for Lolita’s exclusion from the listing because no legitimate explanation exists. Lolita’s biological heritage is undisputed. The Endangered Species Act unquestionably applies to captive members of a species, and the wholesale exclusion of captive members of a listed species is in excess of the agency’s authority.

“Lolita’s exclusion serves only one purpose: It protects the commercial interests of the Miami Seaquarium. The Endangered Species Act specifically precludes agency consideration of whether listing a species would cause the holder of any member of the species any economic harm. Thus Lolita’s exclusion violates the act.

“This petition urges the National Marine Fisheries Service to rectify this unjustified and illegal exclusion, thereby extending Endangered Species Act protections to all members of the Southern Resident killer whale population.

“Although as a legal matter Lolita’s genetic heritage is sufficient to merit her listing, this petition provides additional support in four sections. The first section provides the factual background regarding the Southern Resident killer whales’ listing and Lolita’s exclusion. The second section explains the application of the act to captive members of listed species. The third section applies the five factors that govern listing decisions under the act to the Southern Resident killer whales generally and also to Lolita. The fourth section considers policy reasons that support Lolita’s protection, given her significant scientific value to the wild population.”

Share on Facebook

If you missed Orca Network’s “Ways of Whales Workshop” on Jan. 26, you can still learn a lot from the videos recorded at the workshop on Whidbey Island.

Toxic chemicals in the environment constitute one of the great threats to killer whales, which are among the most polluted animals in the world. Toxicologist Peter Ross of Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans always does a great job in explaining the problem in simple terms and putting the issue into its full context.

Peter’s talk, shown in the video on this page, includes current topics, such as oil transport into the Salish Sea and other potential toxic threats. He provides a good history and background on the topic up until 30 minutes into his talk, when he begins to focus strongly on the issue of toxic chemicals and ways to address the problem.

The video cuts off at about 52 minutes, but Peter’s talk continues in a second video. Here’s the YouTube link to Part 2.

The other presentations at the “Ways of Whales Workshop” contain a ton of interesting information. Orca Network has been generous to post links to each of the talks on a single page on the Orca Network website.

Share on Facebook

UPDATE, Jan. 27, 2013

K pod has reached the mouth of the Columbia River for the second time since K-25 was darted with a satellite tag a month ago. To preserve the life of the transmitter battery, the data is now being sent less frequently. See Robin Baird’s update on Orca Network’s Facebook page.

UPDATE, Jan. 25, 2013

After dipping their dorsal fins into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, K pod turned back to the ocean, as we reported yesterday. This morning, they were still heading down the Washington Coast, approaching the Columbia River. See Robin Baird’s post for Brad Hanson.

UPDATE, Jan. 24, 2013

The orcas took another alternate route again. Instead of heading on into the Salish Sea, K pod turned around in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, not far from where we last reported them yesterday. As of this posting, they are back in the ocean, near the mouth of the strait, according to the latest satellite data posted by Robin Baird of Cascadia Research for Brad Hanson, NOAA’s principal researcher.
—–

UPDATE, Jan. 23, 2013

Answering yesterday’s question about where K pod will go next, the orcas made a turn to the east and headed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, back toward the familiar waters of Puget Sound. Take a look at the latest map of the whales’ travels that Robin Baird posted on Orca Network’s Facebook page.

As of this morning, K pod was nearing Port Angeles. From there, they could turn north toward Victoria and the San Juan Islands or head into Admiralty Inlet on their way to Central Puget Sound.
—–

K pod has made two interesting detours since Saturday, when the orcas returned to Washington state waters from the south, according to tracks generated by the K-25, who has been carrying a satellite transmitter for more than three weeks.

As the whales approached the Columbia River on Saturday, they took a sharp turn to the left and headed out to sea, reaching the edge of the continental shelf. Their failure to delay their travels at the mouth of the Columbia has been a surprise to those of us who assumed they would find salmon in the vicinity. See map on Orca Network’s Facebook page.

The whales then followed the edge of the shelf until they were offshore of Queets, where they began to move toward shore again.

The next question, as the whales approached the Strait of Juan de Fuca, was whether they would enter the strait and return to Puget Sound, continue past the strait along Vancouver Island or turn around and head south again. Their answer was a fourth course, veering sharply offshore into the open Pacific Ocean.

Robin Baird of Cascadia Research, who has been mapping the satellite data, reported that as of 7 a.m. today K pod was about 30 miles southwest of Cape Beale on the southwest side of Vancouver Island. That would put the pod about an equal distance from Cape Flattery at the northwest corner of Washington state.

Anyone wish to guess where these orcas will go from here?

K pod has been tracked to an area offshore of Washington State and Vancouver Island.
Tracking data from NOAA

Share on Facebook

Orca Network’s annual “Ways of Whales Workshop” on Whidbey Island Saturday has lined up some great speakers this year.

The cost of the daylong workshop is $30, or $25 for students and seniors. If you register right away, you can buy lunch for an extra $10. Visit the website for registration and additional information.

Peter Ross, a researcher with Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, will discuss toxic pollution and whales in a talk titled, “Of Whales and Men: Ocean Pollution in the 21st Century.” Peter is a leading researcher in the effort to determine why killer whales in the Northwest are among the most contaminated mammals in the world.

Other speakers include Don Noviello of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, who will discuss plans to protect marine mammals from the threat of an oil spill; John Gussman and Jessica Plumb, who are documenting in film and photos the restoration of the Elwha River; Steve Mashuda, an attorney for Earthjustice who will review legal attempts to remove the Southern Resident killer whales from the Endangered Species Act; and Howard Garrett of Orca Network, who will present a theory about why male orcas stay with their mothers for life.

Sustainable Cinema Series

Another event worth noting is the film “The Pacific Rim: Americas” about the dynamic geology of the West Coast.

The film will be shown Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Dragonfly Cinema in Port Orchard. Jim Bolger of the Puget Sound Partnership will lead a discussion during the event. A $5 donation is suggested. See Kitsap County’s news release for details.

The film is being shown as part of the Sustainable Cinema Series, sponsored by Kitsap County Commissioner Charlotte Garrido, who hopes the films will stimulate discussion about environmental issues.

Share on Facebook

NOAA has agreed to conduct a status review to determine if Puget Sound’s killer whales should remain on the Endangered Species List.

The agency received a petition from the Pacific Legal Foundation, which claims that the three Southern Resident pods should be considered just a part of a larger population of orcas. According to the PLF, the Southern Residents do not meet the legal definition of “species” that qualifies them for listing:

“The term ‘species’ includes any subspecies of fish or wildlife or plants, and any distinct population segment of any species of vertebrate fish or wildlife which interbreeds when mature.”

The 62-page PLF petition (PDF 384 kb) — filed on behalf of three parties, including California farmers — argues from a carefully constructed legal analysis that says NOAA should never have listed the Southern Residents in the first place.

When I first read the petition in August, I believed it was just an effort to rehash the legal arguments that NOAA went through during the listing process, following a federal court order in 2003. But NOAA apparently sees things differently, according to a news release issued yesterday:

“NOAA said the petition presents new information from scientific journal articles about killer whale genetics, addressing issues such as how closely related this small population is to other populations, and meets the agency’s standard for accepting a petition to review.”

NOAA apparently is taking a close look at a 2010 study led by Malgorzata Pilot, which was used by the petitioners to argue that the Southern Residents are not genetically isolated. From the petition:

“The significance of the findings of Pilot et al. (2010) is threefold.

“First, they demonstrate with data that social interactions among killer whale pods do occur in the wild and they occur more frequently than has been reported (i.e., many interactions are simply ‘missed’ by human observers who cannot watch a vast area of ocean to take note of killer whale pod interactions, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, year round)….

“Second, Pilot et al. (2010) explain why inbreeding is not a problem even though killer whales rarely disperse outside of natal pods….

“Third, Pilot et al. (2010) explain why mtDNA haplotypes (groups of genes that are inherited together by an organism from a single parent) can be highly divergent among ecotypes but not nuclear DNA markers….Therefore, if only mtDNA is considered in an analysis, the loss of mtDNA variation in populations (also referred to as lineage sorting) can give an erroneous appearance of populations (and putative species) being genetically isolated because they are trying to maintain taxonomic differences while at the same time ecotypes and populations are not isolated for nuclear genetic variation.”

Sorry if that’s a little technical, but it shows why NOAA decided to take up to an additional nine months to decide if the petitioners have a case based on arguments about genetic isolation. Are the Southern Residents a distinct population segment of the overall species?

The petitioners argue that NOAA improperly declared the Northern Pacific killer whales (Northern and Southern Residents) as a subspecies, making the Southern Residents a DPS of a subspecies — which, they argue, is illegal under the Endangered Species Act.

In response to NOAA’s status review, the Center for Biological Diversity, which fought the first legal battle over the listing, issued a news release saying that nothing has changed in the realm of science. The population qualifies as a DPS, because it is one of only a few to feed extensively on salmon; it has a unique dialect; and it is genetically unique.

Stated Sarah Uhlemann, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity:

“It would be a tragedy to strip Washington’s most iconic species of protections. Only around 85 southern resident killer whales are left, and their Endangered Species Act listing is critical to the population’s recovery in Puget Sound.

“Nothing has changed in the science to show that orcas are faring any better or are somehow suddenly undeserving of endangered species protections. Although the agency’s decision to consider the delisting petition is unfortunate, the species’ status is unlikely to change as a result of the agency’s review, and these irreplaceable killer whales will almost certainly keep their protections.”

Other news stories on NOAA decision to review the listing:

Bill Sheets, The Herald, Everett: “Calif. farms challenge state orcas’ endangered status”

Linda Mapes, Seattle Times, “California farmers want orcas taken off endangered-species list”

Meanwhile, in terms of classifying orcas, there is an ongoing effort to include captive killer whales among the population listed as endangered. See Water Ways, Oct. 24, 2010.

And there’s a new story by Associated Press reporter Dan Joling, who writes about an effort to declare transient killer whales a new species and name them for the late Michael Bigg, a killer whale researcher who developed today’s common method for identifying individual orcas.

Share on Facebook

The Southern Resident killer whales have begun their annual travels into Central and South Puget Sound in search of chum salmon.

Southern Resident killer whales passed by Bainbridge Island on Monday.
Photo by Tad Sooter

The shift occurs when chinook salmon have completed their migration and chum are just beginning to come home to their natal streams, as I describe in a story in yesterday’s Kitsap Sun. It is widely assumed that the length of their stay depends on their success in finding the later salmon.

This year was predicted to be a low year for fall chum. But Jay Zischke, marine fisheries manager for the Suquamish Tribe, told me that early commercial and test fisheries suggest that the run is either earlier than usual or larger than the preseason forecast. Even so, it may still be a relatively low year for fall chum.

This is the 15th anniversary of another low chum year, 1997, when 19 members of L pod came all the way into Dyes Inlet to find adequate numbers of chum schooled up in front of Chico and Barker creeks. The whales stayed in the inlet for a month and left just before Thanksgiving. There is still debate about whether they wanted to stay that long.

On the 10th anniversary of the event, I wrote about the story of two young researchers, Kelley Balcomb-Bartok and Jodi Smith, who spent most of that month studying the whales and trying to protect them from a massive number of boaters who wanted a front-boat view of the action. Stories, maps and other information about that event can be found on a website called “The Dyes Inlet Whales — Ten Years Later.”
(more…)

Share on Facebook

The votes are in, and three young killer whales born into the Southern Resident community in 2010 and 2011 have officially been given names by The Whale Museum.

The newly named babies are: Ripple (K-44), Keta (L-117), and Jade (L-118).

Ripple (K-44)

Getting a name means an orca calf has survived through its first year, a period of high mortality among killer whales.

Naming involves nominations for likely monikers followed by voting, which this year generated about 5,000 votes.

Here’s some info behind the names and the animals themselves. Thanks go to Jeanne Hyde and The Whale Museum for the photos and comments about the youngsters:

Ripple: The definition of ripple means “to form or display little undulations or waves on the surface.” It is also the name of an island located in the San Juan Islands. Though a ripple and Ripple Island may both be small, young Ripple will hopefully grow to leave large ripples on the surface of the water.

Ripple, born in 2011, is the first offspring of Deadhead (K-27). He was first seen early in the morning, along the west side of San Juan Island, traveling in his mother’s slipstream. Ripple’s grandmother is Skagit (K-13). He has one cousin Comet (K-38), one aunt, Spock (K-20), and two uncles, Scoter (K-25) and Cali (K-34). Kitsap Sun, July 7, 2011.

Keta (L-117)

Keta: Keta is another word for chum salmon, a fish the Southern Residents feed on in the fall. One of Keta’s brothers is named Coho (L-108), another type of salmon the whales occasionally eat. Another brother is named Indigo (L-100).

Keta was born in December 2010 to Ino (L-54), who was born in 1977. Keta’s sex has not yet been determined. Kitsap Sun, Dec. 8, 2010.

Jade: Jade is a gem stone. Jade’s mother, Nugget (L-55), and one sister, Lapis (L-103), have gem stone names. Jade was first seen on May 29, 2011, as several L Pod family groups traveled south through Trincomali Channel, B.C. They had arrived from the north, which is not common for them. In addition to Lapis, Jade has two living siblings, Kasatka (L-82) Takoda (L-109). Jade’s sex is still unknown.

Jade (L-118)

These three orcas are now ready for “adoption,” a fund-raising promotion by The Whale Museum, as explained in a news release issued yesterday:

“The Orca Adoption Program was started in the spring of 1984. The rationale behind the creation of the adoption program was that if each orca were given a name and history, people would understand its unique personality and complex social relationships, and form a connection to the whales.

“At the time the Orca Adoption program was created, a congressional bill to ban live captures of killer whales was pending; it subsequently passed. Today, thousands of people know Granny (J-2), Oreo (J-22) and other Southern Resident orcas through the Orca Adoption Program.

“An Orca Adoption is a wonderful way to connect with these magnificent orcas. Symbolically adopting a whale in the Southern Resident Community also supports the mission of The Whale Museum which, since 1979, has been promoting stewardship of whales and the Salish Sea eco-system through education and research. In addition to providing exhibits and the Orca Adoption Program, the Museum provides programs including: the Soundwatch Boater Education, Marine Naturalist Training, San Juan Islands Marine Mammal Stranding Network and the Whale Hotline. For information, visit The Whale Museum website.”

Share on Facebook

The U.S. Navy has developed a policy against using active sonar during training exercises in Puget Sound, but the Canadian Navy has no such policy — as we learned this week when loud pings were heard around the San Juan Islands.

After Monday’s incident, whale advocates were in an uproar over concern for killer whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. Jeanne Hyde was the first to raise the alarm and later placed a sample of the sound on her blog, “Whale of a Porpose.”

Michael Jasny of the Natural Resources Defense Council railed against the Canadians’ use of sonar in his blog on “Switchboard”:

“The simple fact is that these waters should not be used for sonar training. Period. Even the U.S. Navy — which has thus far refused to protect marine mammal habitat anywhere else on the west coast — has effectively put the area off-limits to sonar use.

“NRDC will appeal to both the Canadian and U.S. governments to ensure that this patently dangerous activity does not happen in this place again.”

The U.S. Navy policy against sonar use during training was solidly confirmed in 2009, when the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a permit for the Navy to use sonar off Washington’s coast. The permit did not include inland waterways.

When I inquired about this, Navy officials confirmed that they never requested authorization for training in waters east of Cape Flattery. For details, check out the story I wrote for the Kitsap Sun, July 29, 2009.

Contrary to some beliefs, the Navy did not say it would never use sonar in inland waters under any circumstances. In fact, in April of 2009, the USS San Francisco, a fast-attack submarine, left Bremerton after a refit and conducted “required training dives,” including the use of sonar that was reported as unusually intense. See Kitsap Sun, April 10, 2009.

How did that happen? The federal permit, according to the Navy, makes an exception for sonar related to “safety and navigation; testing; maintenance; and research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E).”

The San Francisco incident fell under “safety and navigation,” according to Navy spokeswoman Sheila Murray.

I’m not sure whether the Navy has ever answered the question of how it intends to address potential harm to marine mammals when sonar is used outside approved testing ranges, for which environmental reviews have been conducted. Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups has sued NMFS for failing to protect marine mammals within testing ranges along the West Coast. Check out the news release by NRDC.

And so we return to this week’s incident with the Canadian Navy, which has no restrictions on where sonar can be used in training exercises, although the Navy follows a written procedure designed to protect marine mammals, according to Lt. Diane Larose of the Royal Canadian Navy. Download the procedure here.

That policy was followed early Monday morning when the Canadian frigate HMCS Ottawa deployed sonar in Haro Strait on the Canadian side of the border, Larose told me. The protection measures, said to be consistent with those of other NATO navies, include watching (with night-vision equipment if necessary), listening with passive sonar and other gear, and searching with airplanes, helicopters or submarines, if available.

It would be interesting to conduct a test to determine if these precautions really work. Can sentries aboard a ship find and identify a few killer whales in the dark across miles of water where islands may impede visual sightings? If not, then someone needs to rethink these procedures, because these are the conditions that were present on Monday when the Ottawa was using its sonar.

Scott Veirs, who helps maintain the Salish Sea Hydrophone Network, pieced together information from Monday’s incident with the help of Jason Wood, research associate with The Whale Museum. Here’s a summary of the analysis on his blog Orca Sound:

“Below are the compressed (mp3) recordings and coarse spectrograms of the sounds that were auto-detected this morning. They begin with a series of low frequency sounds and echoes that may have been from an impulsive source, like a detonation or explosion. Then the series of high-frequency pings occurs between 4:42:50 and 5:08:17 at three network locations: Lime Kiln (13 pings), Port Townsend (1), and Orcasound (1).

“While we are not yet sure if pings were detected at Neah Bay or on the NEPTUNE Canada hydrophones located near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, it appears that the sonar ensonified a good portion of the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca and southern Haro Strait.” (Emphasis added by me.)

Before the end of that same day, killer whales could be heard on hydrophones in the area and were later identified as our local K and L pods, according to reports made to Orca Network. The proximity of the whales to the exercise was disconcerting.

“It would have been more comforting if we had not seen them for a couple of weeks,” Scott noted.

The question on everyone’s mind relates to potential injury to killer whales and other marine mammals from the intense sound of sonar pings. During the 2003 incident with the USS Shoup, killer whale researchers in the area reported J pod fleeing the sound in a confused pattern, though Navy biologists reviewing the video denied that the orcas were acting unusual.

Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research reviews that incident on a video for Earthjustice. Equally revealing but with less commentary is the raw video of the incident.

Studies are ongoing to consider the effect of sonar on a variety of marine mammals, but Scott Veirs points out that Navy’s sonar is most powerful at a frequency of about 7 kilohertz, which is within the sensitive part of a killer whale’s hearing range — “not the most sensitive, but close to it,” he told me.

“Mid-frequency sonar is a bit of a red flag, because the frequency overlap is really quite complete,” he said.

I was wondering whether the sonar pings heard Monday in Puget Sound were of any concern to the Canadian Navy. I shouldn’t have expected any introspection. Lt. Larose pointed out that nobody has reported seeing any marine mammals in the area at the time.

Will the Canadian Navy reconsider its policy in light of the U.S. Navy’s policy against training with sonar in Puget Sound? I posed the question and got this response from Larose:

“The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) takes its role as environmental steward very seriously. The RCN’s Marine Mammal Mitigation Policy is reviewed annually to ensure that it reflects current scientific data, the capacities of Royal Canadian Navy equipment and environmental concerns. It is applicable to all Canadian military vessel wherever they may operate.

“Sonars found on board Canadian ships, submarines, and maritime aircraft, are different from that of our allies and therefore call for country specific mitigation policy.”

For years, more than a few marine mammal experts have been calling on the U.S. Navy to use its network of hydrophones to track endangered killer whales and other vulnerable species. It’s not enough, they say, for the Navy to post a lookout during training exercises when the Navy’s listening buoys have the potential of knowing with some precision where the whales are.

Fred Felleman, Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth, says the Navy spends plenty of money filtering out biological sounds to detect the sounds of enemy ships. Similar algorithms could inform us when marine mammals pass within hearing range of Navy hydrophones.

“We’ve met with at least three admirals through the years to present them with explicit proposals,” Fred said. “They never said ‘no,’ but they never gave us an answer.

“Now that they are asking for permits from NOAA, they should be willing to make an obligation to help advance our understanding of the whales. The Navy knows this domain better than anybody. They are the best listeners on the planet.”

The Navy has been requesting and receiving “take” permits from NMFS with not much more mitigation that putting someone up on deck to look for marine mammals, Fred said, expressing his ongoing frustration.

He added, “It’s about time that the Navy stop asking for ‘takes’ and start finding ways of giving.”

Share on Facebook

Killer whales are not people, so they cannot benefit from full protections provided to humans under the U.S. Constitution.

That was essence of a ruling handed down yesterday by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller. The case was brought in the name of five captive orcas by a group that includes People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

I had not planned to write about this case, because the outcome seemed rather obvious. But I must take note of how seriously Miller handled this constitutional claim. In a seven-page ruling, he reviewed the history of the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, and found that it applies only to humans. The following is the conclusion of the decision, the full text of which can be downloaded by clicking here:

“Even though Plaintiffs lack standing to bring a Thirteenth Amendment claim, that is not to say that animals have no legal rights; as there are many state and federal statutes affording redress to Plaintiffs, including, in some instances, criminal statutes that ‘punish those who violate statutory duties that protect animals.’ … While the goal of Next Friends in seeking to protect the welfare of orcas is laudable, the Thirteenth Amendment affords no relief to Plaintiffs.”

SeaWorld, which holds the five orcas, issued a statement noting that the judge took little time to issue his ruling, which “provides reassurance of the sanctity of the 13th Amendment and the absurdity of PETA’s baseless lawsuit,” according to the statement quoted by Huffington Post reporter Joanna Zelman.

A statement issued today by PETA shows no disappointment in the outcome of the case:

“There is no question that SeaWorld enslaves animals, even though the judge in this case didn’t see the 13th Amendment as the remedy to that. Women, children, and racial and ethnic minorities were once denied fundamental constitutional rights that are now self-evident, and that day will certainly come for the orcas and all the other animals enslaved for human amusement.

“This historic first case for the orcas’ right to be free under the 13th Amendment is one more step toward the inevitable day when all animals will be free from enslavement for human entertainment. Judge Miller’s opinion does not change the fact that the orcas who once lived naturally, wild and free, are today kept as slaves by SeaWorld. PETA will continue to pursue every available avenue to fight for these animals.”

Share on Facebook