Category Archives: Recreation

Amusing Monday: Salish Sea photo contest shows diversity of local species

Nearly 900 photographs highlighting the diversity and biodiversity of our inland waterways were submitted to the “Salish Sea in Focus” photo contest, which just announced the winners yesterday.

“One Fish, Two Fish” by Nirupam Nigam of Hoquiam
First place in Fish category, “Salish Sea in Focus” photo contest

“We’re thrilled with the quality and diversity of the photos — not only the winners but throughout the whole contest,” said Justin Cox, communications director for The SeaDoc Society, which sponsored the contest. “They capture the Salish Sea beautifully, which is everything we hoped for when we envisioned ‘Salish Sea In Focus.’”

The Grand Prize in the contest was awarded to Bruce Kerwin of Bainbridge Island, whose photo shows the furled tentacles of a giant Pacific octopus at Sund Rock on Hood Canal. Other winners were named in five categories plus an additional award for photographers under age 18.

“Octopus tentacle in a spiral” by Bruce Kerwin of Bainbridge Island
Grand Prize winner, “Salish Sea in Focus” photo contest

The winners will be recognized during a reception and awards ceremony Oct. 4 at Pacific Science Center in Seattle. In addition, the top 130 images — taken by a total of 55 photographers — will be shown on the IMAX screen. In addition to photographers from Washington, entries were received from 10 other states in the U.S., along with Canada and two other countries.

The winning photos can be seen on SeaDoc’s photo contest website, while the 130 top photos are available on a separate webpage.

“T73A1” by Ken Rea of Friday Harbor
First place, Birds and Mammals category, “Salish Sea in Focus” photo contest

The winners in each of the categories follows below. Click on the photo for a larger image. The Grand Prize winner will receive $1,000, with $500 for first place, $250 for second place and $100 for third place.

Birds and mammals
First place, “T73A1” by Ken Rea of Friday Harbor, showing a transient killer whale breaching; second place, “Look out, landing” by Eric Carr of Port Townsend, showing a pair of pigeon guillemots somewhat awkwardly dropping down toward the water for a landing; and third place, “Cleat Pillow” by Bruce Carpenter of Tacoma, showing a sleeping sea lion resting its head on a cleat used for docking boats in Westport.

Fish
First place, “One Fish, Two Fish” by Nirupam Nigam of Hoquiam, showing “two lazy rockfish” at Sund Rock on Hood Canal; second place, “Lingcod eats octopus” by Jan Kocian of Freeland, showing the tentacles of an octopus hanging out of the mouth of a lingcod; and third place, “Painted greenling eats sculpin,” also by Jan Kocian, showing a battle between a potential predator and its prey.

“Caspian Tern Catch” by Faith Halko of Bainbridge Island // First place, Under 18 category, “Salish Sea in Focus” photo contest

Invertebrates, plants, kelp
First place, “Nudibranch eating fish eggs” by Jeffrey Martel of Bainbridge Island, showing a colorful mollusk amidst transparent fish eggs; second place, “Purple world” by Gino Symus, showing an orange sea star among a cluster of purple ones; third place, “Red Curtain” by Nirupam Nigam of Hoquiam, showing a white-spotted rose anemone at Eagle Cove on San Juan Island.

People
First place, “Fisherman” by Pat O’Hara of Port Angeles, showing a person with a fishing net at the mouth of the Dungeness River as the sun goes down; second place, “The Young Ones” by Robert Dash of Deer Harbor, showing a child looking up into a holding tank of small fish at Seattle Aquarium; third place, “Whose beach is it?” by Joan Miller of Seattle, showing crows and surfers sharing the beach at Tofino on Vancouver Island.

“Fisherman” by Pat O’Hara of Port Angeles
First place, People category, “Salish Sea in Focus” photo contest

Scapes
First place, “Sunset” by Robert Dash of Deer Harbor, showing the yellow and orange swirls of clouds at Yellow Island in the San Juans; second place, “Tree of Life in Mud” by Christopher Teren of Friday Harbor, showing tide channels that look like a tree in the Skagit Bay mudflats; third place, “Northern Lights Over the Salish Sea,” also by Christopher Teren, showing aurora borealis as seen from the shoreline of Stuart Island in the San Juans.

Under age 18
First place, “Caspian Tern Catch” by Faith Halko of Bainbridge Island, showing a Caspian tern with a fish in its mouth over Hawley Cove Park on Bainbridge Island; second place, “Barnacle on a log” by Krystal Luchterhand of Orcas Island, showing a barnacle on a log near West Sound, Orcas Island; third place, “Heron at Sunset” by Nathan Bawaan of Seattle, showing a great blue heron before an orange sunset at Union Bay Natural Area near Lake Washington.

Three award-winning photographers who live in the Salish Sea region were placed in charge of judging the photographs. As described on the “Our Judges” page, they are:

  • Amy Gulick, a founding fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers and columnist for “Outdoor Photographer” magazine whose images and stories have been featured in “Sierra,” “Audubon,” and “National Wildlife” magazines.
  • Cristina Mittermeier, a marine biologist who turned National Geographic photographer and was named by Outdoor Magazine as one of the world’s 40 most influential outdoor photographers.
  • Kevin Schafer, a natural history photographer who has written more than 10 books and was awarded the 2000 National Outdoor Book Award and was named the 2007 Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year by the North American Nature Photography Association.

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Amusing Monday: Vancouver, B.C., youth takes three photo awards

Liron Gertsman, 17, of Vancouver, British Columbia, surprised even the judges in Audubon’s annual photo contest. Liron submitted the best photo among youth entries, according to the judges. But beyond that, he was awarded the only two honorable mentions given in his division. The judges themselves were unaware of the trifecta until the winners were tallied.

Grand prize winner: Great gray owl by Steve Mattheis, 2018 Audubon Photography Awards

“Judging is anonymous, so we had no idea that Liron swept the entire youth category, not only the winning image but also two honorable mentions,” Sabine Meyer, one of six judges in the contest, said in an email. “His photos exhibit quite a sophisticated and mature eye, and he is very deliberate in his image making – blurs, extreme close up, monochromatic palette with a backlit bird.

“He is not afraid to push the conventions of classical bird photography aside and invent his own visual vocabulary,” she said. “It’s rare, at any age! I look forward to seeing what he produces in the years to come and hope that other young photographers get inspired and pick up an interest in birds and bird conservation.”

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New state parks guide, picnic suggestions, and ‘beach-friendly’ Fourth

Photos and descriptions of more than 120 Washington state parks are part of the first-ever “Washington State Parks Guide” now on sale now at many state parks as well as online.

The 364-page guide, which costs $6 (online $13.80), describes which parks offer popular activities, such as hiking, biking and boating, and also activities that fewer people relish, such as paragliding, geocaching and metal detecting, according to a news release about the guide.

The guide is published by the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission.

Special sections highlight:

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Amusing Monday: Duck paintings help support wetland conservation

Artists possess the creative power to portray a simple bird — say a male mallard duck — in a multitude of ways, something I never really appreciated until I reviewed hundreds of duck portraits in the Federal Duck Stamp Contest.

The acrylic painting of mallard ducks by Bob Hautman of Delano, Minn., took first place in the Federal Duck Stamp Contest. // Photo: USFWS

Judges in the annual contest seem to prefer a super-realistic style. Each year, the winning entry is used to create a federal duck stamp, which are the stamps that waterfowl hunters must carry while hunting. They are also purchased by many people who care about conservation.

Details in the duck portraits are important, but it is also interesting to observe the landscapes that the artists place in the backgrounds and foregrounds of their pictures. Take a look at the Flickr page where 215 entries are shown in the latest contest sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Eligible species for this year’s contest were the mallard, gadwall, cinnamon teal, blue-winged teal and harlequin duck.

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Amusing Monday: Wildlife cameras keep advancing in technology

There’s nothing like spending some relaxing time in a natural environment. It does a body good — mentally and physically — to go into new or familiar surroundings while basking in the full-bodied sights and sounds of a forest, a stream or a marine shoreline.

We are fortunate in the Puget Sound region to have easy and free (or low-cost) access to all sorts of natural places. If we are lucky, we may catch a glimpse of wildlife and incorporate the sighting into our memory of that place.

What we don’t normally see, however, are the natural behaviors of wildlife away from people, because the presence of humans often changes what they are doing — nor would we want to impose on their lives any more than we already do.

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Europe may soon launch wide-ranging solutions to plastic pollution

Taking on the enormous problem of plastic pollution in the ocean, the European Union is on track to ban single-use items made of plastic, while communities in Washington state slowly adopt bans on plastic bags.

Straws are listed as a problem plastic.
Photo: Horia Varlan, Wikimedia Commons

The European Commission is targeting specific plastic products that constitute 70 percent of the items found among marine debris lost in the sea and along the shoreline. Cotton swabs, plastic cutlery, plates, drinking cups and straws are among the items that would be banned outright, because non-plastic alternatives are available.

The proposal announced this week goes well beyond those items, however, calling for a 90-percent reduction in plastic drink-bottle waste, possibly through a deposit system. In addition, plans are underway for new waste-disposal programs, ongoing cleanups, and educational efforts designed to reduce the purchase of and encourage the proper disposal of food containers, plastic wrappers, cigarette butts, wet wipes, balloons and fishing gear. Manufacturers of plastic products would help fund those various programs, according to the proposal.

See news releases and related documents from the European Commission:

In 2015, the E.U. took action to ban most plastic bags with the E.U. Plastic Bags Directive (PDF 233 kb).

The new legislation, which must be approved by the E.U Parliament and Council, goes far beyond anything being proposed in the United States, but it seems that awareness of the marine debris problem has been growing among Americans.

The June issue of National Geographic magazine is devoted to the marine debris problem in a package of stories called “Planet or Plastic?”

“Nine million tons of plastic waste winds up in the ocean each year,” writes National Geographic reporter Laura Parker, who reports that ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every year. Among the losses are 700 different species, including endangered species.

“Some are harmed visibly — strangled by abandoned fishing nets or discarded six-pack rings,” Parker said. “Many more are probably harmed invisibly. Marine species of all sizes, from zooplankton to whales, now eat microplastics, the bits smaller than one-fifth of an inch across.

“On Hawaii’s Big Island, on a beach that seemingly should have been pristine — no paved road leads to it — I walked ankle-deep through microplastics,” she said. “They crunched like Rice Krispies under my feet. After that, I could understand why some people see ocean plastic as a looming catastrophe, worth mentioning in the same breath as climate change.”

Unlike climate change, there are no “ocean trash deniers” — at least not so far, Parker notes. “To do something about it, we don’t have to remake our planet’s entire energy system.”

I believe Parker’s story could be eye-opening for many people. National Geographic is certainly concerned about the plastics problem, as the magazine launches a multi-year campaign against plastics starting tomorrow. The magazine will take steps itself, first by eliminating its plastic mailing wrapper. The organization is encouraging everyone to take a pledge to reduce plastic waste. Other organizations leading the charge include the Plastic Pollution Coaliton, which even built a page around the NatGeo information.

While there is no legislation to impose a nationwide ban on plastics, California and Hawaii have statewide bans on plastic grocery bags and are looking at other items. (See Monday’s L.A. Times.) Many local communities across the country have taken various actions. In Washington state, King and Thurston counties have banned plastic bags, and the idea is under consideration throughout Kitsap County, where the city of Bainbridge Island has imposed such a ban.

Kitsap Sun reporter Chris Henry does a nice job outlining the situation in Kitsap, where county leaders would like to see the ban imposed by all city governments at the same time a new county ban goes into effect — perhaps with some action by the end of this year. Port Orchard officials held a town hall forum on Tuesday to discuss the issue.

To learn more about plastic pollution in Puget Sound, check out the slideshows and videos from last year’s Plastics Summit coordinated by Zero Waste Washington.

With regard to the European Union, the proposal is expected to reduce Europe’s littering by more than half for the 10 single-use items targeted by the proposal. The monetary savings in environmental damages is estimated at 22 billion Euros — or about $26 billion in U.S. dollars — by 2030. Consumer savings is estimated at $6.5 billion Euros — or $7.6 billion. Carbon emissions are expected to be reduced by an equivalent 3.4 million tonnes — or 3.7 million U.S. tons — in that time frame. (See news release from the E.U.)

Targeted items are cotton buds (swabs); cutlery, plates, straws and stirrers; sticks for balloons and reduction of balloon waste; food take-out containers; drink cups; beverage bottles; cigarette butts; bags; wrappers for candy, cookies, etc.; and wipes and sanitary products. Fishing gear is on a separate action list.

Frans Timmermans, first vice president of the European Commission, stressed the importance of European nations working together for solutions, including banning some products, finding new alternatives for others and getting people to properly dispose of plastic to avoid pollution. He wants the E.U. to lead the way in cleaning up the world’s oceans, and he downplayed any inconvenience that people may experience.

“You can still organize a picnic, drink a cocktail and clean your ears, just like before,” he was quoted as saying in a New York Times article. “And you get the added bonus that when you do so, you can have a clear conscience about the environmental impact of your actions.”

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Whale watchers update guidelines; Canada to restrict salmon fishing

Commercial operators who take visitors on whale-watching cruises in the Salish Sea have vowed to follow new, more restrictive guidelines to reduce noise and disturbance around the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales.

The new guidelines, adopted by the Pacific Whale Watch Association, go beyond state and federal regulations and even beyond the voluntary “Be Whale Wise” guidelines promoted by state and federal agencies and many whale advocacy groups. For the first time, the commercial guidelines include time limits for watching any group of whales.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government has announced that it will restrict fishing for chinook salmon — the killer whales’ primary prey — to help save the whales from extinction. The goal is to reduce fishery removals of 25 to 35 percent, but details have yet to be released. More about that in a moment.

The new whale-watch guidelines are based largely on recent research into much how much noise reaches killer whales when multiple boats are in the vicinity, said Jeff Friedman, president of the PWWA.

Jeff noted that the guidelines have been endorsed by every commercial whale-watch operator who regularly takes people out to see whales. Every whale-watch boat captain must pass a test to certify personal knowledge of the guidelines, which were adopted in March, he added.

Jeff said his organization would like all boaters to understand and follow the guidelines. Going further, he hopes the “Be Whale Wise” guidelines and its website can be updated as well.

“One of the most important things in there — and we have been doing this for some time — is the slow speed around the whales,” he said. “That minimizes the sound coming from our vessels.”

He explained that new studies show that boats moving at high speed produce far more engine noise than boats moving slowly. Lower underwater sound levels might help the whales communicate better and improve their ability to locate fish through echolocation.

The new guidelines extend the go-slow zone around whales from 0.25 mile to 1 kilometer (0.62 mile). In this zone, boats should never go faster than 7 knots.

Time limits are a new provision. No vessel should ever be around a group of whales more than an hour, according to the guidelines, or 30 minutes when more than 10 commercial whale-watch boats are nearby.

Years ago, the Southern Resident orcas were the only show in town, Jeff said. Now there may be transient orcas, humpback whales and gray whales at various times, along with other wildlife. That offers a variety of viewing opportunities. Unfortunately, he added, it is now rare to see a Southern Resident, which means they are not finding food in their traditional areas.

In fact, he noted, so far this month the whales have not been seen in areas around the San Juan Islands. If we go through the month of May without a single Southern Resident sighting, it will be the first year ever that whales were not seen in May — going back to at least the 1970s, when researchers started keeping records.

Communication, coordination and respect for other whale-watch boats is emphasized in the new guidelines. For example, when approaching an area where whales are being watched, boat operators should move to the outside of vessels in the area and adopt a course of travel parallel to that of the whales.

The distance from all killer whales remains 200 yards on the U.S. side of the border, consistent with state and federal regulations. The distance is 100 yards from other whales. In Canada, the prescribed distance is 200 meters from the Southern Residents and 100 meters from other whales. In all cases, additional distances should be added if warranted by the whales’ behavior, according to the guidelines.

Special provisions are imposed near the Race Rocks Marine Protected Area and the west side of San Juan Island. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently asked all boaters — including sport fishers — to voluntarily stay at least one-fourth mile off the west side of San Juan Island and a half-mile from Lime Kiln Lighthouse. (See Water Ways, May 9.) That distance to shore has been in the guidelines, although the no-go area was extended south along the shoreline.

As always, sonar, depth sounders and fish finders should be shut off when a vessel is in the vicinity of whales, according to the guidelines, but new research suggests that this issue should be emphasized more than ever, Jeff said.

He said some of the guidelines should be incorporated into regulations or state law, as proposed by Sen. Kevin Ranker’s Orca Protection Act,. The proposed legislation underwent multiple lives during the last legislative session but failed to make it into law, as I described in Water Ways, Feb. 23. Now, potential legal changes are under consideration by the governor’s Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force.

As for the Canada’s upcoming fishing restrictions, partial closures are being proposed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Gulf Islands and areas near the mouth of the Fraser River. Additional measures along the coast of British Columbia may include harvest limits, size limits and size restrictions as well as area closures, according to a news release issued by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

In announcing the restrictions, Minister of Fisheries Dominic LeBlanc, made this statement:

“Southern Resident Killer Whales need our help in order to survive and recover. Together with my colleague, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, we have determined that the species faces an imminent threat to its survival and recovery, and we need to keep taking concrete action.

“Today I am pleased to announce new fishery management measures to increase prey availability and reduce disturbances to these whales and we continue to work hard on additional actions to be put in place soon.”

In a separate announcement, the government said it would provide $9.5 million for eight projects to restore habitat for chinook salmon to help Southern Resident killer whales. The funding is part of a $1.5-billion effort to protect Canada’s coasts and waterways called the Oceans Protection Plan.

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Voluntary no-go area on San Juan Island stirs conflict over orcas

Fishermen in the San Juan Islands are being asked to make sacrifices this summer to help Puget Sound’s fish-eating killer whales. Whether the voluntary actions will make much difference is open to speculation.

A voluntary “no-go zone” for boats cruising the western shoreline of San Juan Island has been announced by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Boaters are asked to stay one-quarter mile offshore for most of the island’s west side. A half-mile protective zone around Lime Kiln Lighthouse is part of the voluntary no-go zone. (See map.)

“This voluntary no-go zone is a good step in helping to reduce human impacts in an important foraging area for Southern Resident killer whales,” Penny Becker, WDFW’s policy lead on killer whales, said in a news release.

Years ago, the western shoreline of San Juan Island was a primary hangout for whales, which eat mostly chinook salmon during the summer months. In recent years, however, declines in chinook runs have reduced the time spent by the whales in any one location, so the effects of the voluntary closure are likely to be muted.

The Southern Resident orcas are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Their declining numbers inspired Gov. Jay Inslee to consider emergency actions to save the species from extinction, and he appointed a task force to come up with recommendations later this year.

The idea of protecting the whales by reducing fishing seasons was considered all during negotiations between state and tribal salmon managers this spring in a discussion known as the North of Falcon process. Fishing seasons were reduced, in part to protect low numbers of chinook salmon returning to Hood Canal and critical streams in northern Puget Sound.

After the negotiations were complete, the National Marine Fisheries Service called for additional specific steps to protect the killer whales. The agency — part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — oversees efforts to recover endangered marine mammals and has the authority to approve or deny annual fishing plans.

“This step will help support killer whale recovery and prevents a potential delay in federal approval for our salmon fisheries throughout the entire Sound,” said Ron Warren, head of WDFW’s fish program.

Given the reduced chinook fishing scheduled this year, the voluntary no-go zone is a difficult request to make of anglers, Warren acknowledged.

It isn’t clear how much the quarter-mile closure zone will help the orcas, even if every boater complies with the voluntary measure. The goal is to offer the whales more fish to eat and to reduce the noise and interference of boats, which can affect their ability to hunt for salmon.

The measure could help some whales for brief periods, but it won’t affect the overall population, said Ken Balcomb, longtime orca researcher who knows the whales well.

“It is a feel-good maneuver, and that is fine,” said Ken, who is a member of the governor’s killer whale task force. “The whales aren’t even here most of the time. I’m glad that this issue has the government’s attention, but this is an insignificant step.”

Lately, Ken has been promoting the removal of dams on the Snake River to boost wild runs of chinook in the Columbia River, since the whales forage along the coast, especially in the winter.

Meanwhile, the Legislature has set aside money to boost chinook production in state hatcheries, but implementation of that program is still underway.

For commercial whale-watching boats, the newly announced no-go zone will have minimal effect, since most follow the guidelines of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, said Jeff Friedman, the association’s president for the U.S. The same goes for private whale-watch boats that follow those guidelines.

“We have guidelines that go beyond state and federal regulations,” Jeff said, noting that the association’s voluntary guidelines already keep whale-watching boats well offshore when orcas are present. The guidelines are identical to the voluntary no-go zone, except that the no-go zone extends the closure area by about three miles — to the southern tip of the island.

Those most likely to be affected by the voluntary closure are sport fishermen, who move in close to shore to catch salmon that come through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and follow the San Juan Island shoreline during their migration. The no-go zone could really hurt the fishing business, according to Brett Rosson, who operates charter boats out of Anacortes.

“In August and September, this is our primary fishery,” he said, noting that sport fishermen were forced to give up chinook fishing in the area during most of September this year to protect low runs elsewhere in Puget Sound. The no-go zone calls for giving up August as well, he asserted.

Brett argues that anglers’ effects on killer whales are minuscule, because the orcas are so rarely around San Juan Island and because the fishermen take so few fish. His boats, which carry from 14 to 20 people, might take four chinook on a good day, he said.

“Killer whales are traveling all over the place and feeding at night,” he said. “You are going to kill a prime fishing spot for a political, symbolic move.”

It would be one thing if the whales were being hurt by fishing, he said, or if the no-go zone were in effect only when whales are present. The real culprits are the salmon-eating seals and sea lions, which nobody wants to deal with, he added. Meanwhile, commercial fishermen have been declared exempt from the no-go zone and will go fishing as originally planned.

As long as the no-go zone is voluntary, Brett said he will go fishing in conformance with this year’s fishing rules. But he acknowledges that there could be a downside to his actions.

“I think we are being set up,” he said. “Next year, they will say that since you don’t respect the whales, we will make this a permanent closure.”

Norm Reinhardt of the Kitsap Poggie Club said many residents of Puget Sound who enjoy annual trips to the San Juan Islands won’t go this year because of confusion over the voluntary exclusion zones. And future years might be ruled out if formal regulations are approved to close the area for good.

Ron Warren of WDFW said anglers have more opportunity this year to fish for coho salmon than in recent years, and ongoing efforts to restore chinook will benefit both human fishers and killer whales. For information about this year’s salmon fisheries, go to the North of Falcon website.

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Amusing Monday: Do swimmers close their eyes in Houston pool?

If you haven’t seen the “feet video” demonstrating a new swimming pool in Houston’s Market Square Tower, then click on the video (below) right now and shift to full-screen mode.

This and similar videos of this pool have freaked out millions of viewers since the 40-story apartment complex opened more than a year ago. I still feel uneasy when the guy steps off what appears to be an edge, but now I want to know how long this illusion can be sustained. After all, both sides of the thick glass would need to be kept clean. I would like to watch as the pool-cleaner person works on the underneath side.

If you are wondering what the apartment complex is like, check out the promotional video of the interior and amenities. The 463 apartments range from small units that lease for about $2,000 per month to spacious units that go for up to $5,800 per month.

Another glass-bottom pool floating in the air is being built at a multi-family housing complex in London. The so-called Sky Pool, 10 stories in the air, will span two buildings now under construction in London’s Nine Elms District.

The design of the pool pushes the boundaries of engineering and construction, according to Sean Mulryan, CEO for the builder Ballymore Group, who was quoted in an article in Bored Panda magazine.

“I wanted to do something that had never been done before,” he said. “The Sky Pool’s transparent structure is the result of significant advancements in technologies over the last decade. The experience of the pool will be truly unique; it will feel like floating through the air in central London.”

The third video, made before the Houston project was done, features 10 amazing pools from around the world. In addition, you might want to check out an elevated pool in Bali and a glass-bottom bridge in China that causes some people to find new ways of walking — or crawling — to get across. The 980-foot-long bridge was built 600 feet above the valley floor in China’s Hunan Province.

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Lummi Nation joins effort to bring Lolita home to Puget Sound

The Lummi Nation, an Indian tribe near Bellingham, recently joined the 25-year-long struggle to bring the killer whale named Lolita back to her home waters of Puget Sound, where she was captured and removed 47 years ago.

The tribe’s involvement could change the nature of the ongoing battle entirely, according to Howard Garrett of Orca Network, who has been leading the effort.

Trailer to a movie in production about the Lummi Nation's effort to bring Lolita home.

“I feel like we are at a whole new level of synergy and mutual support as we bring out our passions and abilities and professional skills,” Howie told me during a phone call from Miami, where he and Lummi leaders were visiting the 52-year-old whale.

Lolita, also known by her Native American name Tokitae, has lived all these years in a relatively small tank at Miami Seaquarium, performing twice each day for visitors to the marine park.

Members of the Lummi Nation contend that what happened to Tokitae was a kidnapping, and her aquatic prison violates native traditions that hold orcas in high esteem. An estimated 40-50 orcas were captured or killed during roundups during the late 1960s and early ‘70s, officials say, and Tokitae is the last living orca taken from Puget Sound.

“There is no way they should be getting away with putting these mammals in captivity for a show,” Steve Solomon, Lummi Natural Resources Commissioner, said in video segment for WPLG Channel-10 News in Miami. “Those are our brothers and sisters that were taken.”

Some have compared Lolita’s capture and removal with actions surrounding Indian boarding schools, where Native American children were taken after being forced to leave their families and give up their native culture.

Orca Network and other groups have proposed bringing Lolita back to Puget Sound and caring for her in a blocked-off cove on Orcas Island until she is ready to head out into open waters, possibly joining her own family. Orca experts believe that her mother is Ocean Sun, or L-25, and that Lolita would be able to recognize the voice of her mom and other L-pod whales.

The cost of the proposed sea pen on Orcas Island and moving the whale by airplane is estimated to cost about $3 million. Howie said he has no doubt that the money can be raised, especially with the help of the Lummi Tribe. Orcas Island is just across Rosario Strait from the Lummi Reservation west of Bellingham.

There is some talk that the Lummi Nation could use its treaty rights to force action if the Miami Seaquarium continues to resist. The Lummi are signatories to the Point Elliott Treaty, which guarantees the right of native people to hunt, fish and gather shellfish. Courts have ruled that tribes also have a vested right in protecting the habitat, but their moral argument to bring Lolita home might be stronger than their legal one.

Eric Eimstad, general manager of Miami Seaquarium, said the killer whales in Puget Sound are listed as endangered, and there are clear concerns about their lack of food, boat noise and chemical runoff.

“The focus should not be on a whale that is thriving in her environment in Miami,” Eimstad said in a statement.

“After more than 47 years, moving Lolita from her pool, which she shares with Pacific white-sided dolphins, to a sea pen in Puget Sound or anywhere else would be very stressful to her and potentially fatal,” he continued. “it would be reckless and cruel to treat her life as an experiment and jeopardize her health to consider such a move.”

Experts can be found on both sides of the issue, and nobody denies that Lolita’s tank is smaller than any captive orca habitat in the U.S.

While in Miami today, Howie was able to watch Lolita in action. He told me that he wore a floppy hat and sunglasses to escape notice, since he has been kicked out of Miami Seaquarium several times for being an “activist.”

“She is looking good,” Howie said of Lolita. “It was encouraging to see that she is not weak. In fact, she is strong. She made four breaches up and out of the water.”

That’s a good indication that this whale could not only survive a flight across the country, but she could thrive, he said. Any treatments she gets, such as antibiotics, would be continued as long as necessary.

Meanwhile, the Lummi contingent is planning a 30-day journey throughout the country to raise awareness about the plight of Lolita. They will take along a large totem pole of an orca, which is now being carved.

Former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, who is hoping to be Florida’s next governor, has signed onto the campaign to bring Lolita home. He opened a press conference yesterday in which he was joined by numerous supporters, including Lummi leaders.

“The time is right to do the right thing and finally free this captured endangered whale,” Levine said. “It was my honor to host the Lummi Nation on this historic day, as we continue the fight to bring Tokitae home to her native waters.”

The first video on this page is a trailer for a movie in production. Producers Geoff Schaaf and Dennie Gordon of Los Angeles are following the Lummi involvement in the tale of Tokitae, which they say is emblematic of the larger story about saving the salmon and all the creatures that live in the Salish Sea.

The second and third videos make up an excellent two-part series by reporter Louis Aguirre of Miami’s WPLG-Channel 10 News. He digs into the controversy over Lolita, including a visit to Puget Sound and what could be Lolita’s temporary home near Orca Island.

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