Watching Our Water Ways

Killer whale researchers and advocates are beginning to stir a little bit in response to a proposal by federal researchers who want to attach satellite transmitters to the dorsal fins of up to six Puget Sound killer whales. I reported on the plan in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun.

The benefits of these satellite tags would be to track the Southern Residents during winter months when they head out into the ocean and disappear for periods of time. Knowing where the whales go is important if people are going to protect their habitat, according to Brad Hanson, chief investigator with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, a research arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

It is conceivable that the whales are visiting some favored spots for hunting salmon. Finding and protecting important forage areas from human intrusion could increase the whales’ chances of long-term survival, officials say.

On the other hand, some observers are raising concerns about this research project as well as the cumulative effects of all research on the endangered killer whales. To attach a satellite transmitter, a boat must get close enough to an orca for an operator to fire a dart from an air gun. The dart penetrates the skin on the dorsal fin of the animal.
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I’m willing to stand corrected, but I cannot recall a time when there has been so much activity related to the use and abuse of pesticides around water.

In a story written for Monday’s Kitsap Sun, I reported about the permitting activity to comply with the Clean Water Act at both the state and federal levels. I did not, however, get into some significant and surprising activities related to the Endangered Species Act, which I will discuss here in a moment.

I think it’s becoming fairly well recognized that chemicals successful at killing target plants and animals may have unwanted and uncertain effects on plants and animals that we would like to protect. Unfortunately, state and federal regulations have not always kept pace with scientific findings.
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The U.S. Navy is collaborating with private and governmental researchers in an effort to determine how sonar affects marine mammals.

Tracey Moriarty, chief of the Naval Operations Environmental Readiness Division, describes three recent field studies in a piece published Monday on the Navy News Web site.

One project, based in the Bahamas, involved tracking marine mammals — notably beaked whales — during battle group exercises. Before the exercises started, researchers were able to attach radio and acoustic “tags” to three Blaineville’s beaked whales, a Cuvier’s beaked whale and five sperm whales.

Beaked whales are believed to be especially sensitive to sonar. It was in the Bahamas that six beaked whales were found dead on the beach within 24 hours of a Navy exercise.

“The mere presence of these species on a Navy range is counterintuitive to the perception of beaked whale reactions to sonar,” the Navy’s David Moretti was quoted as saying. “Given that this is an active Navy range where sonar is used, you wouldn’t anticipate this species to be present in this particular location if you believed the popular press.”

Moretti is the principal investigator for the Marine Mammal Monitoring Program at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Rhode Island.

“The animals are moving in and out of here,” said Diane Claridge, director of the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organization, “and one of the things I’m interested in is whether or not that movement is related to the activities taking place such as the SCC (the Navy exercise).”

The working hypothesis is that the animals move off the training range during sonar exercises and then come back when the exercises are over, but researchers can’t be sure the returning animals are the same.

“I think the most important thing is that it’s still very early,” John Durban of the National Marine Fisheries Service said in Moriarty’s report. “Like any study, it’s tempting to want results straight away, but often the key results are only obtained from continued long-term monitoring of abundance and movement patterns.”

A similar experiment in California was conducted with the assistance of Greg Schorr and Erin Falcone of Cascadia Research Collective, based in Olympia. By the way, Cascadia’s Robin Baird collaborated on a study published in June (PDF 832 kb) about the likelihood of beaked whales getting “the bends” when startled by sonar.

The third experiment, in the Mediterranean Sea, looked at the responses of whales to sound in an area where whales were unlikely to have been exposed to sonar in the past.

I’m looking forward to conclusions from all three studies, which are expected to be described in upcoming reports.

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The Navy has decided not to conduct training exercises involving sonar within Puget Sound. That information was revealed in a proposed incidental take permit for the Northwest Training Range Complex, now subject to public review under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

While this decision no doubt will be a good thing for area marine mammal populations, I’m still a bit confused about the extent to which sonar may be used in non-training conditions.

Use of sonar in the testing of equipment and new technologies will come under a separate take permit for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, based at Keyport.

But, according to a statement I received from the Navy, that still leaves open the use of sonar for “safety and navigation,” “testing,” and “maintenance.”

As I understand the process, if the Navy were to harm marine mammals in one of these procedures without obtaining a take permit in advance, the Navy would be in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The potential exists for such harm, given the experience earlier this year with the fast-attack submarine USS San Francisco. The submarine was found to be using sonar, which was picked up loudly on hydrophones miles away. The submarine was in the Strait of Juan de Fuca after it left Bremerton after undergoing repairs.

It appears there were no killer whales in the area. But nobody could be sure about other marine mammals, since it was dark during much of the time the sonar was being used.

To keep things in perspective, the Navy has made progress in its effort to come into compliance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act. While there may always be disagreement about the level of protection necessary, the Navy is explaining its operations more and working cooperatively with other agencies to reduce the harm to wildlife.

It turns out that the proposed incidental take permit for the Northwest Training Range (PDF 1.3 mb) serves as a nice primer to help us understand Navy exercises, sonar technology, types of sonar and their specific uses, potential effects on marine mammals and the history of Navy exercises where marine mammals have been killed.

Similarly, a proposed permit for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (PDF 1.1 mb) offers extensive information about the use of sonar in testing advanced equipment and related activities.

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The idea of regulating whale watching around killer whales, particularly in the San Juan Islands, has gotten a lot of attention the past few years.

First, San Juan County approved an ordinance in 2007 that required boaters to stay back 100 yards from the whales. That was followed by a state law in 2008. Now, the federal government proposes to turn their longstanding 100-yard “guidelines” into a 200-foot enforceable rule. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

I first wrote about the concerns of whale watching nine years ago — before the whales were listed under the Endangered Species Act. (See my story from July 2, 2000.) I think it is safe to say — and Kari Koski of Soundwatch confirms this — boaters have generally gotten more responsible, particularly commercial whale-watch operators based in the U.S.

This is a complex issue, in part because the killer whales themselves are complex creatures with a high level of intelligence. Trying to rebuild a population of killer whales is nothing like rebuilding a population of salmon. I could say a lot more about that, but instead I’ll make a few observations about the federal action.
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The Southern Resident killer whales, which frequent Puget Sound, are acting a little strangely of late and their actions are making a few people nervous.

I always look forward to hearing about their arrival to the San Juan Islands in early June. Ideally, someone will see all three pods of orcas getting together in one big reunion called a “superpod” with more than 80 whales splashing about together.

Last year, the superpod occurred on June 3, according to Howard Garrett of Orca Network. Sometimes the orcas show up earlier than that and sometimes they come in later, but generally by mid-June all three pods are hunting chinook in and around the San Juans.

Their “late” arrival this year is not the only thing that’s disconcerting, however. J pod, which is generally in and out of our inland waters frequently, was gone the entire month of April. Now the pod is gone again and has not been seen since May 25.

Also worrisome is how the whales have split into smaller family groups. Nine animals in L pod (known as the L-12s) have been around until possibly leaving today. Meanwhile, twice that many whales in L pod are somewhere unknown.

Two members of K pod have been in and around the islands, but another 16 or so whales are somewhere else.

“It is very worrisome,” said Susan Berta of Orca Network. “I know a lot of researchers who want to wait for the data, but things seem to be changing and we are getting these oddities. Also, they are absent more and more.

“All the naturalists that we have talked to are just really surprised at this,” Susan told me. “They think that it is not something good to have these bits and pieces of pods showing up and the larger groups not showing up.”

Nobody knows where most of the orcas are right now, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, said Brad Hanson, a researcher with the National Marine Fisheries Service. It’s pretty clear that there aren’t many salmon in the San Juan Islands at the moment.

We are either seeing a weak run of chinook salmon or a late run, Brad told me. Maybe the whales have found some fish somewhere else.

“It’s like when you go fishing, do you leave fish to find fish?” he asked. “If they are in a spot with adequate foraging opportunities, they may just stay there.”

There are rumors of more abundant salmon in the Queen Charlotte Islands in Canada — a vast area with lots of inlets where orcas could easily go unreported.

“These animals are mobile predators,” Brad noted. “They can move throughout their range in a very short period of time. Fish are either late or low, but they are not present right now. We hope they (the whales) are taking advantage of fish somewhere else.”

Lack of food in low-fish years has serious implications for the whales’ reproductive capabilities, as Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research recently documented. The abundance of fish could well determine whether the Southern Resident population rebuilds or goes extinct. That’s why so much attention is being paid to saving the salmon, for the sake of the entire ecosystem.

“If the whales were here now, we’d be concerned,” Hanson said, “because it would mean they’re not finding fish somewhere else.”

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Federal biologists are really stirring things up in Northern California. They have determined that the irrigation system in the vast Central Valley farm region jeopardizes the future of several species of fish as well as Puget Sound’s killer whales.

The killer whale angle is worth some discussion — but first the larger picture.

“What is at stake here is not just the survival of species but the health of entire ecosystems and the economies that depend on them,” Rod Mcinnis, southwest regional director for NOAA’s Fisheries Service said in a news release. “We are ready to work with our federal and state partners, farmers and residents to find solutions that benefit the economy, environment and Central Valley families.”

Changing the water system to meet the requirements of threatened and endangered species could reduce water supplies by 5 to 7 percent, significantly affecting farm production and drinking water supplies. Several proposed projects — valued at hundreds of millions of dollars — could help balance that out. To see the technical reports, go to NOAA’s Web site on the issue.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger objected to the findings in a written statement:

“This federal biological opinion puts fish above the needs of millions of Californians and the health and security of the world’s eighth largest economy. The piling on of one federal court decision after another in a species-by-species approach is killing our economy and undermining the integrity of the Endangered Species Act. I will be asking for a meeting with Secretary Salazar and Secretary Locke to discuss our concerns with these biological opinions, and my Administration will be pursuing every possible avenue to reconcile the harmful effects of these decisions.”

Court action is almost certain.

Reporters Kelly Zito of the San Francisco Chronicle and Colin Sullivan of the New York Times’ “Greenwire” do a good job in fleshing out this story from the California perspective.

It’s interesting to see the federal biologists address the plight of the Southern Resident killer whales with respect to water use in California. These orcas frequent Puget Sound, but they are spending a great deal of their time along the West Coast down to Monterey Bay. The bottom line in the biological opinion is that salmon availability along the coast could be a key factor in whether the population is able to avoid extinction.

Environmental groups were quick to argue that if water operations in Northern California can raise the risk of extinction to intolerable levels, then surely the dams on the Columbia River ought to be a concern.

“The recent National Marine Fisheries Service conclusion linking destruction of salmon habitat to harm to killer whales is a breath of fresh air,” said Kathy Fletcher, executive director for People for Puget Sound in a statement. “Our killer whales are at critically low numbers, and NMFS has recognized that what we do to salmon in freshwater impacts our orcas in the ocean. But it doesn’t make sense to protect salmon for whales to eat in California while at the same time ignoring the effect of dams on fish in the whales’ backyard.”

The issue of what to do about the dams remains before a federal judge. The Obama administration is considering whether to continue with the Bush approach to leave the dams in place or revisit the issue.

“The fiction that the dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers have no effect on the food supply for orcas is one of many failings in the Columbia and Snake River biological opinion,” said Steve Mashuda of Earthjustice, which represents the groups in the case. “Our killer whales shouldn’t have to travel all the way to Monterey Bay to find a decent meal.”

To understand why the federal biologists consider water activities in California critical to the survival of the Southern Resident killer whales, I’ve pulled some comments from the Biological Opinion and Conference Opinion on the Long-Term Operations of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project (PDF 12.7mb):

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Geoduck harvesting remains controversial. Some people are convinced that it creates long-lasting damage to the seabed and to the creatures that dwell on the bottom. Others are equally convinced that damage is minimal and does not last very long.

I have never determined for myself if one side or the other is absolutely right, or if it depends largely on bottom conditions at a specific site. As a reporter, I continue to listen to both sides and try to give them each fair treatment.

One thing is for sure, however: The money that goes into state coffers from the sale of geoducks is quite remarkable. In a story published in today’s Kitsap Sun, I quote state officials who say the market has remained strong, despite the downturn in the economy.

In a single area north of Blake Island in Kitsap County, the state will receive $1.4 million for geoducks harvested this year alone. Similar amounts can be expected from that area for the next few years.

I will entertain comments and links to documents from anyone who wants to discuss the damage issue. I must give some weight, however, to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which has approved a Geoduck Habitat Conservation Plan and incidental take permit under the Endangered Species Act. (See the NMFS Web site on geoducks.)

The reports, which are based largely on research by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, give the geoduck fishery a “low-effect” rating when it comes to threatened and endangered species.

“A low effect HCP is one that NOAA’s Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determine to have minor or negligible effects on federally listed, proposed, or candidate species and their habitats covered under the HCP,” according to the NMFS Web site.

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A research effort to restore “threatened” steelhead to several rivers draining into Hood Canal is beginning to yield some interesting and important results.

In a story I wrote for Friday’s edition of the Kitsap Sun, I described this multi-agency research effort led by Barry Berejikian of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The work keeps piling up critical data that offers hope for the recovery of steelhead in Hood Canal and maybe other areas as well. (See also the video of the latest release.)

One line of study points to the success of growing steelhead more slowly, so that they are ready to go out to sea in two years instead of just one, as in most steelhead hatcheries. Growing two-year-old smolts mimics natural conditions and seems to dramatically increase the chance of survival.

Other work involved in the Hood Canal Steelhead Project is focused on counting fish coming and going, tracking their movements with implanted acoustic tags and examining any shifts in genetics.

Last year, I wrote about the last of the propagated steelhead to be released into the Hamma Hamma River, where supplementation started a decade before. (See Kitsap Sun, March 16, 2008.) Thanks to this supplementation project, the number of steelhead returning to the Hamma Hamma have increased from an annual average of 17 to more than 100.

Barry Berejikian tells me that he won’t be alarmed if the numbers of returning adults to the Hamma Hamma drops somewhat, now that supplementation has stopped. We won’t really know the carrying capacity of the river for a few years, but it’s important to understand that the productive part of the river is relatively short because of an upstream fish barrier.

Available habitat is not so limited with other Hood Canal streams, such as the Dewatto, which is now gaining increasing attention.

So why did the steelhead decline to such feeble numbers in the first place if the habitat has always been there?

One theory is that fishing knocked the numbers of spawners down so low that the populations were just hanging on. If that’s true, then a supplementation program could be the trick to restoring healthy numbers to sustain the run. The Hamma Hamma could be the case that supports this idea.

For additional information about the Hood Canal Steelhead Project, go to the Long Live the Kings Web site.

For other information about Puget Sound steelhead, which are listed as threatened under the Endanagered Species Act, see two Web pages by the National Marine Fisheries Service:

Puget Sound steelhead distinct population segment
Petition to list Puget Sound Steelhead

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The National Marine Fisheries Service has been studying the effects of chemical pesticides on threatened and endangered salmon species, and I have to say that I’m impressed with the thorough approach to this scientific challenge.

Not everyone is so impressed, however, and pesticide manufacturers have filed a federal lawsuit to block implementation of protection measures proposed by NMFS, but more about that in a moment.

Risk analysis is always a tricky subject, but it appears that the NMFS researchers have taken a step-by-step approach, turning over every stone.

The latest “biological opinion” (PDF 11.7 mb) is a 600-page report covering pesticides containing carbaryl, carbofuran and methomyl. Like the previous biological opinion (PDF 11 mb) on diazinon, chlorpyrifos and malathion, the agency has determined that the pesticides pose a significant risk of extinction for listed salmon and outline further restrictions on their use.

Read my story in Wednesday’s Kitsap Sun and a well-written piece by Associated Press reporter Phuong Le.

NMFS scientists have been looking at how much of each pesticide can get into a stream under various kinds of applications. In the water, these neurotoxins can affect a fish directly — if not by killing them, by impairing their response to predators, their ability to get food, their ability to find their natal streams or their ability to connect with a mate.

Even if a fish is not harmed directly, these insecticides can affect fish simply by doing their job very well — killing off all or a significant portion of the insects that a fish needs to eat, grow and survive.

As if measuring all these effects are not enough, now we learn that chemicals may exhibit synergistic effects — making it necessary to look not just at the effects of a single chemical but how multiple chemicals in the water work together.

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