Concerns about the endangered southern resident killer whales
seems to be spurring legislative support for new enforcement tools
that could be used to protect shoreline habitat.
Bills in both the state House and Senate would allow stop-work
orders to be issued by the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife when shoreline construction is done without permits or
exceeds permit conditions. If passed, the law would require that
Fish and Wildlife officials first work with contractors and
property owners to achieve “voluntary compliance.”
Working with property owners is the key, stressed Jeff Davis,
deputy director of Fish and Wildlife in charge of habitat
protection. Under current law, property owners who commit serious
permit violations are charged with criminal misdemeanors. That’s
neither good for the agency nor for the property owner, who may end
up battling each other in court, said Davis, who once worked as a
Fish and Wildlife habitat biologist in Kitsap County.
The criminal approach may work well with “egregious violations
of the law,” Davis told the House Committee on Rural Development,
Agriculture and Natural Resources, “but it’s not an appropriate
tool for the vast majority of noncompliance we see out there. We
would rather work with people so they are in compliance and there
aren’t impacts to fish.”
Nearly a decade in the planning phase, it appears that the
International Year of the Salmon couldn’t come at a better time for
Northwest residents.
More and more people are beginning to recognize the importance
of chinook salmon to the long-term survival of our Southern
Resident killer whales. Legislation designed to improve the
populations of salmon and orcas has gained increased urgency as
these iconic creatures continue to decline.
Many countries throughout the Northern Hemisphere have joined
together in a campaign to raise public awareness about salmon this
year and to increase the support for scientific research and
restoration projects that might save endangered salmon from
extinction.
One exciting aspect of the International Year of the Salmon, or
IYS, is a scientific expedition involving 21 researchers from five
countries. This international dream team will depart Sunday from
Vancouver, British Columbia, to engage in a month of research into
the secrets of salmon survival. I described this long-anticipated
endeavor in an article published today in the
Encyclopedia of Puget Sound.
The ongoing shutdown of the federal government has kept federal
marine mammal biologists and administrators from paying close
attention to the critically endangered Southern Resident killer
whales. The folks I know at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science
Center must be going crazy over their inability to do their jobs,
which have always been central to the survival of our beloved
orcas.
To take a breath sample, mist
from an orca’s blow is collected at the end of a long pole then
tested for pathogens. // Photo: Pete
Schroeder
But now a coalition of non-government orca experts plans to step
in to at least conduct an initial health assessment of two orcas
showing signs of “peanut head,” an indicator of malnutrition that
frequently leads to death. Initial plans for taking minimally
invasive fecal and breath samples were developed during a meeting
of the minds on a conference call yesterday. Further efforts, such
as medical treatment, would need special authorization from federal
officials.
I won’t go into further details here, since you can read the
story published this morning by the
Puget Sound Institute.
Treaty rights related to orcas
After all my years of covering killer whale issues, it is
interesting to see the emergence of the Lummi Nation as a major
participant in the orca discussions. Kurt Russo, senior policy
analyst for the Lummi Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office,
told me that tribal members have a spiritual connection with the
orcas that goes back thousands of years. The inherent right to
commune with the “blackfish” or “qwe i/to! Mechtcn” was never
superseded by treaties signed between the tribe and the U.S.
government, so these rights still stand, he said.
Allowable fishing for chinook salmon in the waters of Canada and
Southeast Alaska will be cut back significantly this year as a
result of a revised 10-year Pacific Salmon Treaty between the
United States and Canada.
Chinook salmon // Photo:
NOAA Fisheries
The goal of the updated treaty is to increase the number of
adult chinook returning to Washington and Oregon waters, where they
will be available to feed a declining population of endangered
orcas while increasing the number of fish spawning in the streams,
according to Phil Anderson, a U.S. negotiator on the Pacific Salmon
Commission.
Most chinook hatched in Washington and Oregon travel north
through Canada and into Alaska, making them vulnerable to fishing
when they return. Changes to the treaty should reduce Canadian
harvests on those stocks by about 12.5 percent and Alaskan harvests
by about 7.5 percent, Phil told me. Those numbers are cutbacks from
actual harvests in recent years, he said, so they don’t tell the
complete story.
Last week, a new animation was posted online describing the
matriarchal social structure of our beloved killer whales, in which
elder females serve as guides for generations of their living
descendants. (See first video.)
The new video, part of the TED Ed collection of animations,
focuses on the 74 Southern Resident orcas and how they stay with
their mothers for life. The video’s creator, animal behaviorist
Darren Croft, credits the Center for Whale Research with
studies that have successfully identified every filial relationship
among the Puget Sound orcas for more than 40 years.
The
TED Ed collection includes hundreds of animations created by
TED
Conferences LLC, the media organization responsible for nearly
3,000 online TED Talks. TED
combines the concepts Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED)
and operates under the slogan “ideas worth spreading.” An annual
conference is held in Vancouver, B.C., with smaller events held
throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
The Ted Ed series was started six years ago to inspire students
to discuss creative ideas, develop innovative concepts and become
young leaders. TED Ed has developed a flexible curriculum that can
be used by teachers or students themselves. Each video has a
“create a lesson” button
for teachers or students to adapt the video to their own situation
and branch out into other ideas.
Students can organize themselves as a club in an after-school
setting, work with a teacher in a classroom, become part of a
larger ongoing program. or develop an idea alone or with a partner.
The program is designed to teach students from ages 8 to 18 and
welcomes participants over age 13. See “Get involved” or review the
“frequently asked questions.”
The TED Ed videos cover a multitude of topics, including
science, technology, health, history, art, literature, health and
even riddles. Some are better than others, but the best ones
provide tidbits of information that can actually cause one to
change his or her way of thinking. YouTube has a large collection
of TED
Ed videos.
The new video about orca matrilines offers possible explanations
for why female whales have been known to live well beyond their
reproductive lifespan. Males and females tend to stay with their
mothers for life, although males will interact with other pods for
mating. As older females die off, their daughters become the new
leaders of the matrilines, which together make up larger pods.
The video, called “The Amazing Grandmothers of the Killer Whale
Pod,” has more than 142,000 views so far and more than 300
comments.
Other TED Ed videos I found worth watching include the second
video on this page, “When will the next ice age happen?” and the
third, “Jellyfish predate dinosaurs. How have they survived so
long?” Also check out the following or search for subjects from the
full list:
Most of us have heard that harbor seals eat Chinook salmon,
which are the preferred food for our beloved Southern Resident
killer whales, an endangered species whose long-term survival could
hinge on getting enough Chinook.
The number of harbor seals in the inland waters of Washington
state now totals somewhere around 10,000 or slightly higher,
according to the latest estimates by Steve Jeffries, a marine
mammal biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife.
But did you know that harbor porpoises, which eat many of the
same things as harbor seals, now number around 11,000 in the same
general area? That’s according to a
recent study for the Navy led by research consultant Tom
Jefferson.
I have to say that those numbers came as a major surprise to me,
and I began to ask questions about what all these porpoises in
Puget Sound might be doing to the food web, which involves complex
interactions between salmon, seals, porpoises, orcas and many other
species.
A tenacious young orca named Scarlet, gravely emaciated for
several weeks, has gone missing and is presumed dead.
Scarlet and her mother Slick
head toward San Juan Island on Aug. 18. Scarlet is now missing.
Photo: Katy Foster, NOAA Fisheries, under federal
permit
Scarlet, designated J-50, was last seen on Friday with her
mother and other family members. Since then, observers have
encountered her close relatives several times. Yet Scarlet, who was
nearly 4 years old, has been nowhere to be found.
Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research, who maintains the
official census of the Southern Resident killer whales, announced
her death late yesterday.
“J-50 is missing and now presumed dead,” Ken wrote in a
press release. “Her last known sighting was Friday, September
7, by our colleagues at NOAA, SeaDoc, and others. The Center for
Whale Research has had a vessel on the water looking for J-50 for
the past three days. We have seen all the other members of her
family (i.e., J-16s) during these outings.”
I’ve often wondered how well Puget Sound’s endangered orcas
would be doing today if these whales had not grown up within a
culture of eating chinook salmon.
Photo: NOAA
Fisheries
In Iceland, some killer whales apparently feed on both fish and
seals, depending on the time of year, according to researcher Sara
Tavares of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The same
animals have been seen among large groups of orcas as they pursue
schools of herring in the North Atlantic, she writes in her blog,
Icelandic Orcas.
The Icelandic whales have a different social structure than the
fish-eating Southern Resident killer whales that frequent the
Salish Sea. Both groups are also quite different from the
marine-mammal-eating transient killer whales that have been
visiting Puget Sound more frequently in recent years.
It is now widely accepted that groups of killer whales each have
their own culture, passed down from mothers to offspring, with
older relatives playing an integral role in the lessons. Culture is
simply learned behavior, and the message delivered from the elders
to the young is: “This is the way we do it.”
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 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.
