The 65-foot Sea Wolf II and its dozen or so passengers were making their way through the rough waters of the Monterey Bay when something caught their attention.
"We were trying to figure out what was attracting gulls to the area when suddenly we saw splashing off in the distance," says naturalist Roger Wolfe of Soquel, who was among the small crew trying to catch sight of the annual gray whale migration late last month.
But the commotion was not gray whales. The boat had come across an uncommon pod of killer whales. About 40 giant black-and-white predators were 4 miles off Pacific Grove; the crew's resident biologist Nancy Black quickly identified them as "resident" killer whales from Washington and British Colombia.
Less than a week later, the crew would see another 40 resident killer whales, this time a mile off Monterey. Black's still unsure if they were the same individuals, but she is sure the community of killer whales that once remained primarily in the Pacific Northwest is no longer a stranger to points south.
This is the fifth year since 2000, Black says, that these resident killer whales have been spotted in the Monterey Bay, and the sixth year they've been seen in California, a migratory behavior some researchers think the whales have adopted because they're not finding enough salmon, their food of choice, in their native waters.
"They've always been thought to move around in the winter but not as far as California," says Black, one of the state's leading killer whale experts. "If they had been here before, we would have seen them."
The presence of the killer whale this far south has left Black and other researchers wondering what it means for the massive ocean creature, which like many marine creatures is being forced to confront changing conditions to meet its basic needs.
The killer whale, or orca as it's also known, is the largest species of the dolphin family. It can grow up to 30 feet long and weigh as much as 10 tons.
"They're curious creatures, and sometimes come right up to the boat," says Black, who has been observing the animals first-hand for more than 20 years, working at whale-watching outfits like Monterey Bay Whale Watch at Fishermen's Wharf in Monterey and in her free time piloting her own small craft to view them. "But they'd never do anything" to endanger her, she says.
There are several communities of killer whales across the globe, each biologically distinct with its own diet, range and social behavior, and some are regular visitors to the Central Coast. "Transient" killer whales, for example, distinguished by their long ocean passages in small groups and by a diet of exclusively other marine mammals, are known to hunt in the Monterey Canyon.
The resident killer whale, however, brings a different and more dire story line to local waters, researchers say.
The Puget Sound natives, which are believed to feed solely on fish, are an endangered variety, numbering less than 100.
"The question now is are they getting enough to eat," says Howard Garrett, who runs Orca Network, a Greenbank, Wash., non-profit that tracks the killer whales and seeks to raise awareness of their plight. "There are signs that they're not."
Recent sightings reveal what Garrett calls a "peanut head," a depression behind the orca's skull that indicates a lack of blubber - and a possible food shortage.
"They're getting skinny," he says.
Which explains why the resident whales, or at least some of them, have traveled more than 600 miles from the Puget Sound to the Monterey Bay, where they've been spotted at least twice this year, on Jan. 27 and Feb. 2. Their presence in California has been confirmed through photographs sent to Garrett's brother Ken Balcomb, who runs the Center for Whale Research and has been watching the killer whales in Washington for 30 years.
Balcomb's work points to the dwindling population of chinook salmon in the Pacific Northwest as the reason for the killer whale's expanding range.
"If California's proactive effort to recover salmon stocks by setting aside large parcels of ocean as marine reserves prohibiting fishing is successful, the killer whale might just stay there," Balcomb wrote on his Web site recently.
But the chinook population is suffering in California, too. Salmon runs in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, which fuel the population in the Monterey Bay and as far south as Santa Barbara and hundreds of miles north, hit a record low this fall.
"These big sea creatures as they go south will find fewer and fewer salmon," says California Fish and Game spokesman Harry Morse.
Researchers are watching closely where the search for food takes the resident killer whales. How a recovery plan for the resident killer whale, finalized last month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is implemented will, of course, hinge on where the animals travel.
"We can probably do a better job and reach out to California as we learn more about where the whales are going and what is critical habitat," says Lynne Barre, a NOAA marine mammal specialist and one of the architects of the federal recovery plan.
Although there are thousands of killer whales worldwide, Washington's resident whales, which aren't known to interact or breed with other groups, are unique. The whales live in one of three highly social groups centered around older females, who live an average of 50 years but sometimes survive beyond 90, according to the Center for Whale Research. The members communicate through an underwater dialect in which the sounds can travel 10 miles or more, according to the center.
The recovery plan for the killer whales aims to better protect the salmon populations the whales feed on, clean up contaminants in the Puget Sound and perhaps regulate ships whose noises can interfere with communication among whales.
"I'm optimistic," Barre says. "Many of these actions are already being implemented."
Source: Mercurynews.com
dinsdag 26 februari 2008
dinsdag 19 februari 2008
Fisheries Department scientist studies killer whales as way to assist humans
VANCOUVER - Toxic chemicals in killer whales and other marine wildlife are a crucial area of scientific study because they provide an important signal about the types of chemicals humans may be exposed to, says a marine scientist.
Peter Ross, a toxicology research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, B.C., has studied the majestic creatures and other wildlife to determine the level of chemicals in their bodies - and the eventual exposure to humans.
"The killer whales are telling us that we have a pollution problem on a global scale," said Ross, who published a scientific paper called Fireproof Killer Whales.
That's primarily because the study, in part, examined the effects of polybrominated didphenyl ethers, a fire retardant chemical (PBDEs) found high up in the food chain.
"Killer whales can give us an amplified signal of the kinds of chemicals that humans might be exposed to," he said. "They can give us an early warning sign."
The problem, Ross has found, is global and comes from two sources: regional, from Canada and the U.S.; and global, from air pollution that emanates in Asia and drifts across to North America.
"We can paint a picture whereby global pollutants are the concern for a long-lived whale at the top of the food chain."
It's also a concern for humans.
"Since we as humans share food webs with killer whales and harbour seals, if the killer whales and seals are telling us something about contamination of those food webs then we as humans can hopefully learn from that," Ross said.
There has been progress in reducing toxic chemicals, said Ross, citing the 2001 Stockholm Convention on "persistent organic pollutants that banned 12 pollutants including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT, dioxins and others.
Despite the ban, they still turn up in killer whales and other marine mammals, Ross said, adding killer whales won't be free of PCBs in their bodies until the 22nd century.
"Essentially, persistent chemicals, whether PCBs, DDT, dioxins or PBDEs, will amplify in aquatic food webs and end up at high levels at the top of the food chain."
And PBDEs, used in fire retardant chemicals, are a concern because they have been doubling in the environment every 3 1/2 years in fish and harbour seals, said Ross.
"That is troubling because the lesson we learned from PCBs is that they do not go away quickly."
PBDES are used in electronics, automobiles, textiles and many other consumer products.
They give off a gas or deteriorate over time and eventually end up in streams, rivers and the ocean.
Ross cites several reasons why humans should care about pollutants in killer whales and other marine mammals.
Besides having a legal obligation under the Species At Risk Act, he said by acquiring more knowledge, humans can work to reduce or eliminate those chemicals that end up being a problem in killer whales and other wildlife.
Ross remains optimistic that PBDEs and other chemicals can be checked as PCBS were.
"We have seen PCB levels drop by three-fold in killer whales since 1970," he said
Source: The Canadian Press
Peter Ross, a toxicology research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, B.C., has studied the majestic creatures and other wildlife to determine the level of chemicals in their bodies - and the eventual exposure to humans.
"The killer whales are telling us that we have a pollution problem on a global scale," said Ross, who published a scientific paper called Fireproof Killer Whales.
That's primarily because the study, in part, examined the effects of polybrominated didphenyl ethers, a fire retardant chemical (PBDEs) found high up in the food chain.
"Killer whales can give us an amplified signal of the kinds of chemicals that humans might be exposed to," he said. "They can give us an early warning sign."
The problem, Ross has found, is global and comes from two sources: regional, from Canada and the U.S.; and global, from air pollution that emanates in Asia and drifts across to North America.
"We can paint a picture whereby global pollutants are the concern for a long-lived whale at the top of the food chain."
It's also a concern for humans.
"Since we as humans share food webs with killer whales and harbour seals, if the killer whales and seals are telling us something about contamination of those food webs then we as humans can hopefully learn from that," Ross said.
There has been progress in reducing toxic chemicals, said Ross, citing the 2001 Stockholm Convention on "persistent organic pollutants that banned 12 pollutants including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT, dioxins and others.
Despite the ban, they still turn up in killer whales and other marine mammals, Ross said, adding killer whales won't be free of PCBs in their bodies until the 22nd century.
"Essentially, persistent chemicals, whether PCBs, DDT, dioxins or PBDEs, will amplify in aquatic food webs and end up at high levels at the top of the food chain."
And PBDEs, used in fire retardant chemicals, are a concern because they have been doubling in the environment every 3 1/2 years in fish and harbour seals, said Ross.
"That is troubling because the lesson we learned from PCBs is that they do not go away quickly."
PBDES are used in electronics, automobiles, textiles and many other consumer products.
They give off a gas or deteriorate over time and eventually end up in streams, rivers and the ocean.
Ross cites several reasons why humans should care about pollutants in killer whales and other marine mammals.
Besides having a legal obligation under the Species At Risk Act, he said by acquiring more knowledge, humans can work to reduce or eliminate those chemicals that end up being a problem in killer whales and other wildlife.
Ross remains optimistic that PBDEs and other chemicals can be checked as PCBS were.
"We have seen PCB levels drop by three-fold in killer whales since 1970," he said
Source: The Canadian Press
vrijdag 15 februari 2008
Orca recovery effort: more of the same
A plan to save Puget Sound orcas calls for $50 million spent over 28 years but amounts to doing no more than we're already doing. Meanwhile, no one knows why the orca population is declining, and the only clear culprit is a lack of their favorite food: chinook salmon. A moratorium on chinook fishing may be the only solution.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has come up with a "plan" for the recovery of southern resident killer whales — a.k.a. Puget Sound orcas — but the agency doesn’t really know what the problems are, and it doesn’t really know how to solve them. Is there a kids’ joke that begins, "When is a plan not a plan?"
Yes, it’s "killer" whales. The feds use the K word, even though "killer whales" as a term has been largely abandoned out of political correctness. You rarely hear that phrase these days. We know that people started thinking differently about the animals when they got acquainted with captive Namus and Shamus and their relatives in the 1960s and 70s, and that the whole species got a big public relations boost from the "Free Willy" films in the 1990s. We know that the animals aren’t really whales; they’re big dolphins. But when did everyone start saying "orca"?
The plan released last month calls for spending nearly $50 million over the next 28 years, largely for research, and for improving a variety of the orcas’ living conditions, largely by doing what is already being done. No one seems very enthusiastic about it, but no one seems very upset, either. Presumably, people’s expectations were low.
The fact is, no one really knows exactly why the southern resident killer whale population has declined to its current level of 87 animals — although it seems safe to say that when your favorite food — in this case, Puget Sound chinook salmon — makes the endangered species list, you yourself won’t be far behind.
Beyond declining food stocks, pinpointing a cause for orcas' decline is difficult. Orcas have high levels of PCBs, PBDEs and other toxic chemicals in their bodies. In laboratory tests of rats, very high levels of toxic chemicals have suppressed the animals’ immune systems. Chronic exposure to toxic chemicals at lower levels may suppress the killer whales’ immune systems, making them vulnerable to disease. However, transient killer whales, which eat seals rather than salmon, show higher levels of chemicals but no population decline. Toxic chemicals in body fat can’t be good for the southern resident killer whales, but no one knows what the actual effect has been. Ditto underwater noises from sonar, boat engines, etc., which may interfere with communication and echolocation, and increase the level of stress. The same goes for harassment by whale watching boats.
The 2005 endangered species listing suggested — plausibly — that the population might still be feeling the effects of the pursuit, capture and incidental killing of orcas in the 1960s and 70s — before it was illegal — by people acquiring them for aquariums. The whale catchers took half the population. And it’s not just a question of raw numbers. Long-lived animals with lives shaped by what many people consider a culture might in fact have felt the effects of the captures and incidental killings for a long time. But the whales have probably gotten over it by now, suggests Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research, much as Japan’s society and our own have largely recovered from World War II.
The numbers certainly suggest that whatever the role of chemicals and noise, the food supply is crucial. Puget Sound’s orca population was very low when people started counting in the mid-1970s, rebounded considerably over the next 20 years, but then plummeted 20 percent between 1996 and 2001, which prompted Canada, the state of Washington, and — reluctantly — the United States to list it as endangered. The population drop in the late 1990s coincided with a bad time for chinook salmon.
In Puget Sound, samples taken of fish scales that stick to the orcas after feeding and scat they leave behind suggest that 80 percent of their diet is chinook. Some report seeing them go after chinook further south, but there’s no real scientific evidence. No one really knows what else they eat, or whether their diet varies seasonally. Balcomb notes that if you capture a killer whale and put it in SeaWorld, it will learn to eat ground-up squid, mackerel, and whatever else it’s given. So they are adaptable. On the other hand, whale survival rates do seem to track coastwise rises and falls of chinook populations. In bad salmon years, young killer whales are the members of the population that don’t survive. Balcomb explains that it takes a lot more energy to raise a young whale than to give birth, and if the food supply isn’t there, parents just won’t have that much energy to spare.
Days after the NMFS recovery plan came out, southern resident orcas got some good Seattle press when L pod was photographed in California, off Monterrey Bay. Given that their known range extends from the Queen Charlottes to Monterrey Bay, their presence off the Golden State shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Balcomb says that pods from the southern resident population have turned up off Monterrey Bay for the past eight years. But taking California vacations may be a new habit. In the 1970s and 80s, researchers found at least some of the whales around the San Juans in all twelve months of the year. The whales may have been taking winter trips to California all that time. Moving at 75 miles a day, they could make the round trip in a little over two weeks, so they could conceivably spend part of each month in California and still get back in time to be counted in the San Juans, however unlikely that seems.
At any rate, the appearance of L pod off California should have made clear that saving Puget Sound’s "resident" orcas is not just a Puget Sound problem. It’s all well and good to talk about preserving the entire ecosystem, but what, exactly, is that? How do you define it? For the orcas, it includes roughly 1,000 miles of coast. Fish that spawn in and pollution that flows from not only the Sound and its tributaries, but the rivers of British Columbia’s Inside Passage, the Columbia, the Rogue, the Klamath, and the Sacramento may all have impact on orcas' survival.
The wide scope of the problem is not encouraging. Right around the time L pod arrived off California, Pacific Fishery Management Council Director Donald Mc Isaac announced that California’s Central Valley fall chinook, which spawn primarily in the Sacramento River system, had hit a new population low. The number of returning fish plunged to 90,000 last year, only about one-ninth of the figure five years ago. The federal government already considers them a species of concern — which at least means they’ve been doing better than the Central Valley spring run chinook (threatened) or the Sacramento River winter run chinook (endangered), which were the very first salmon populations on the federal endangered species list.
Chinook from the Klamath River haven’t been doing so well, either. Coastal chinook fishing was curtailed two years ago because of low Klamath River returns. Six years ago, in the fall of 2002, as salmon waited until water in the Klamath River got high enough for them to swim upstream, more than 30,000 chinook salmon died — an unprecedented event on the Klamath — along with more than 300 federally protected coho. The state of California blamed the fish kill on crowding and high temperatures that would not have occurred if the feds had not withdrawn so much water from the river for irrigation.
A National Research Council committee subsequently found no evidence that low water levels had caused the salmon kill. The committee hadn’t seen a NMFS study concluding that it had; the federal government had avoided releasing the NMFS study for half a year. For coho salmon, the committee suggested that water diversions on the tributaries where coho spawn caused most of the problems. For chinook, it recommended getting rid of the Iron Gate Dam, one of seven reclamation project dams on the Klamath. That hasn’t happened yet.
On January 16, Felicity Barringer reported in The New York Times:
Opponents over the future of the Klamath River unveiled a formal agreement on Tuesday to pave the way for removal of four aging hydroelectric dams that re-engineered the watershed and sharply decreased fish stocks. The decades-old disputes between advocates for fish and the farmers who are their historic adversaries appeared to dissolve as almost all of 26 user groups, tribes and governments involved backed a plan to allocate the waters of a dam-free river. But the agreement lacks one vital link: a decision by the dams’ owner, PacifiCorp Power, to agree to their removal.
When the whales turned up off California, Ken Balcomb wrote that the orcas might have gone south because they couldn’t find enough salmon closer to home. Critics have pointed out that the current harvest plan for Puget Sound salmon reflects too much pressure from user groups — non-tribal commercial and sport-fishing interests plus the treaty tribes — to let human beings catch too many fish. Wild Fish Conservancy executive director Kurt Beardslee notes that the plan enshrines "adaptive management" but contains no trigger and no direction for changing course in the middle of a fishing season. And he says that lip service aside, it doesn’t leave enough salmon for the killer whales. Killer moniker aside, even an orca isn’t a perfectly efficient eating machine — salmon hide in the kelp or among the rocks, or make it safely into the mouths of rivers instead of predators. In order for orcas to catch x number of fish, there must be two or three times that number available at the feeding grounds.
Balcomb has suggested a moratorium on salmon fishing. His essay, quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, suggested that a moratorium might be the only way to save the chinook. He knows that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. The people at the table making fishery policy are, by and large, people who make money by catching fish. He believes that "the stakeholder concept hasn’t worked." Fisheries are managed for the benefit of human fishers. He thinks that if society is serious about saving killer whales, it will put them first in line. "If I succeed in anything," Balcomb says, "what I would like the public to do is become the advocate for wildlife being the first user on the list."
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has come up with a "plan" for the recovery of southern resident killer whales — a.k.a. Puget Sound orcas — but the agency doesn’t really know what the problems are, and it doesn’t really know how to solve them. Is there a kids’ joke that begins, "When is a plan not a plan?"
Yes, it’s "killer" whales. The feds use the K word, even though "killer whales" as a term has been largely abandoned out of political correctness. You rarely hear that phrase these days. We know that people started thinking differently about the animals when they got acquainted with captive Namus and Shamus and their relatives in the 1960s and 70s, and that the whole species got a big public relations boost from the "Free Willy" films in the 1990s. We know that the animals aren’t really whales; they’re big dolphins. But when did everyone start saying "orca"?
The plan released last month calls for spending nearly $50 million over the next 28 years, largely for research, and for improving a variety of the orcas’ living conditions, largely by doing what is already being done. No one seems very enthusiastic about it, but no one seems very upset, either. Presumably, people’s expectations were low.
The fact is, no one really knows exactly why the southern resident killer whale population has declined to its current level of 87 animals — although it seems safe to say that when your favorite food — in this case, Puget Sound chinook salmon — makes the endangered species list, you yourself won’t be far behind.
Beyond declining food stocks, pinpointing a cause for orcas' decline is difficult. Orcas have high levels of PCBs, PBDEs and other toxic chemicals in their bodies. In laboratory tests of rats, very high levels of toxic chemicals have suppressed the animals’ immune systems. Chronic exposure to toxic chemicals at lower levels may suppress the killer whales’ immune systems, making them vulnerable to disease. However, transient killer whales, which eat seals rather than salmon, show higher levels of chemicals but no population decline. Toxic chemicals in body fat can’t be good for the southern resident killer whales, but no one knows what the actual effect has been. Ditto underwater noises from sonar, boat engines, etc., which may interfere with communication and echolocation, and increase the level of stress. The same goes for harassment by whale watching boats.
The 2005 endangered species listing suggested — plausibly — that the population might still be feeling the effects of the pursuit, capture and incidental killing of orcas in the 1960s and 70s — before it was illegal — by people acquiring them for aquariums. The whale catchers took half the population. And it’s not just a question of raw numbers. Long-lived animals with lives shaped by what many people consider a culture might in fact have felt the effects of the captures and incidental killings for a long time. But the whales have probably gotten over it by now, suggests Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research, much as Japan’s society and our own have largely recovered from World War II.
The numbers certainly suggest that whatever the role of chemicals and noise, the food supply is crucial. Puget Sound’s orca population was very low when people started counting in the mid-1970s, rebounded considerably over the next 20 years, but then plummeted 20 percent between 1996 and 2001, which prompted Canada, the state of Washington, and — reluctantly — the United States to list it as endangered. The population drop in the late 1990s coincided with a bad time for chinook salmon.
In Puget Sound, samples taken of fish scales that stick to the orcas after feeding and scat they leave behind suggest that 80 percent of their diet is chinook. Some report seeing them go after chinook further south, but there’s no real scientific evidence. No one really knows what else they eat, or whether their diet varies seasonally. Balcomb notes that if you capture a killer whale and put it in SeaWorld, it will learn to eat ground-up squid, mackerel, and whatever else it’s given. So they are adaptable. On the other hand, whale survival rates do seem to track coastwise rises and falls of chinook populations. In bad salmon years, young killer whales are the members of the population that don’t survive. Balcomb explains that it takes a lot more energy to raise a young whale than to give birth, and if the food supply isn’t there, parents just won’t have that much energy to spare.
Days after the NMFS recovery plan came out, southern resident orcas got some good Seattle press when L pod was photographed in California, off Monterrey Bay. Given that their known range extends from the Queen Charlottes to Monterrey Bay, their presence off the Golden State shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Balcomb says that pods from the southern resident population have turned up off Monterrey Bay for the past eight years. But taking California vacations may be a new habit. In the 1970s and 80s, researchers found at least some of the whales around the San Juans in all twelve months of the year. The whales may have been taking winter trips to California all that time. Moving at 75 miles a day, they could make the round trip in a little over two weeks, so they could conceivably spend part of each month in California and still get back in time to be counted in the San Juans, however unlikely that seems.
At any rate, the appearance of L pod off California should have made clear that saving Puget Sound’s "resident" orcas is not just a Puget Sound problem. It’s all well and good to talk about preserving the entire ecosystem, but what, exactly, is that? How do you define it? For the orcas, it includes roughly 1,000 miles of coast. Fish that spawn in and pollution that flows from not only the Sound and its tributaries, but the rivers of British Columbia’s Inside Passage, the Columbia, the Rogue, the Klamath, and the Sacramento may all have impact on orcas' survival.
The wide scope of the problem is not encouraging. Right around the time L pod arrived off California, Pacific Fishery Management Council Director Donald Mc Isaac announced that California’s Central Valley fall chinook, which spawn primarily in the Sacramento River system, had hit a new population low. The number of returning fish plunged to 90,000 last year, only about one-ninth of the figure five years ago. The federal government already considers them a species of concern — which at least means they’ve been doing better than the Central Valley spring run chinook (threatened) or the Sacramento River winter run chinook (endangered), which were the very first salmon populations on the federal endangered species list.
Chinook from the Klamath River haven’t been doing so well, either. Coastal chinook fishing was curtailed two years ago because of low Klamath River returns. Six years ago, in the fall of 2002, as salmon waited until water in the Klamath River got high enough for them to swim upstream, more than 30,000 chinook salmon died — an unprecedented event on the Klamath — along with more than 300 federally protected coho. The state of California blamed the fish kill on crowding and high temperatures that would not have occurred if the feds had not withdrawn so much water from the river for irrigation.
A National Research Council committee subsequently found no evidence that low water levels had caused the salmon kill. The committee hadn’t seen a NMFS study concluding that it had; the federal government had avoided releasing the NMFS study for half a year. For coho salmon, the committee suggested that water diversions on the tributaries where coho spawn caused most of the problems. For chinook, it recommended getting rid of the Iron Gate Dam, one of seven reclamation project dams on the Klamath. That hasn’t happened yet.
On January 16, Felicity Barringer reported in The New York Times:
Opponents over the future of the Klamath River unveiled a formal agreement on Tuesday to pave the way for removal of four aging hydroelectric dams that re-engineered the watershed and sharply decreased fish stocks. The decades-old disputes between advocates for fish and the farmers who are their historic adversaries appeared to dissolve as almost all of 26 user groups, tribes and governments involved backed a plan to allocate the waters of a dam-free river. But the agreement lacks one vital link: a decision by the dams’ owner, PacifiCorp Power, to agree to their removal.
When the whales turned up off California, Ken Balcomb wrote that the orcas might have gone south because they couldn’t find enough salmon closer to home. Critics have pointed out that the current harvest plan for Puget Sound salmon reflects too much pressure from user groups — non-tribal commercial and sport-fishing interests plus the treaty tribes — to let human beings catch too many fish. Wild Fish Conservancy executive director Kurt Beardslee notes that the plan enshrines "adaptive management" but contains no trigger and no direction for changing course in the middle of a fishing season. And he says that lip service aside, it doesn’t leave enough salmon for the killer whales. Killer moniker aside, even an orca isn’t a perfectly efficient eating machine — salmon hide in the kelp or among the rocks, or make it safely into the mouths of rivers instead of predators. In order for orcas to catch x number of fish, there must be two or three times that number available at the feeding grounds.
Balcomb has suggested a moratorium on salmon fishing. His essay, quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, suggested that a moratorium might be the only way to save the chinook. He knows that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. The people at the table making fishery policy are, by and large, people who make money by catching fish. He believes that "the stakeholder concept hasn’t worked." Fisheries are managed for the benefit of human fishers. He thinks that if society is serious about saving killer whales, it will put them first in line. "If I succeed in anything," Balcomb says, "what I would like the public to do is become the advocate for wildlife being the first user on the list."
maandag 11 februari 2008
Vehicles that fell into ocean at Robson Bight are intact, video shows
Fuel truck, ambulance, logging equipment went into water when barge tipped at Robson Bight ecological reserve
Judith Lavoie, Victoria Times Colonist
Published: Monday, February 11, 2008
Video footage from 350 metres below the ocean surface shows pieces of logging equipment, including a fuel truck, sitting on the bottom of Robson Bight almost intact.
The remarkably clear pictures, which show dents, but, no holes in the fuel truck and an octopus perched on top of an ambulance, were taken in December by Nuytco Research Ltd., the North Vancouver company contracted by the provincial and federal governments to look at the site where a barge tipped 11 pieces of equipment into the Robson Bight ecological reserve in August.
The equipment, belonging to Ted LeRoy Trucking of Chemainus, contained an estimated total of 19,000 litres of petroleum, some of which immediately started leaking into the famed killer whale habitat, where threatened northern resident killer whales rub themselves on pebble beaches.
Although immediately after the accident experts said the equipment had almost certainly imploded, the video shows only two pieces are badly damaged.
Environment Ministry spokesman Kate Thompson said the province and the Canadian Coast Guard will ask technical experts to provide a more detailed analysis of the equipment - especially the tanker which contained 10,000 litres of fuel - assess the risks and look at options.
Environment Canada will look at the potential effects if more fuel starts leaking, she said.
"We don't know how long that is going to take," Thompson said.
"It's very early days. We just wanted to make sure people know what we are dealing with," she said.
As it appears no fuel is currently leaking, it gives a window to do a thorough investigation, she said.
Jennifer Lash of the Living Oceans Society said it is good news that no fuel is currently coming to the surface, but, the bad news is that a fuel truck is sitting on the bottom of Robson Bight corroding and waiting to leak fuel.
"They can't spend weeks and months trying to work out a plan, they need to take action quite quickly," she said.
Lash believes it is possible to bring the equipment to the surface, but such an operation will be extremely expensive.
"Will they let the dollar value stand in the way of protecting critical whale habitat?" she asked.
"I remain optimistic that they will take the right step and remove that equipment. They can't leave it down there with the potential of destroying the habitat of killer whales."
A wrinkle is who will pay the cost of the clean up.
Although B.C. has legislation in place saying the polluter is responsible, Ted LeRoy Trucking has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Watch the video here
Source: Time Colonist
Judith Lavoie, Victoria Times Colonist
Published: Monday, February 11, 2008
Video footage from 350 metres below the ocean surface shows pieces of logging equipment, including a fuel truck, sitting on the bottom of Robson Bight almost intact.
The remarkably clear pictures, which show dents, but, no holes in the fuel truck and an octopus perched on top of an ambulance, were taken in December by Nuytco Research Ltd., the North Vancouver company contracted by the provincial and federal governments to look at the site where a barge tipped 11 pieces of equipment into the Robson Bight ecological reserve in August.
The equipment, belonging to Ted LeRoy Trucking of Chemainus, contained an estimated total of 19,000 litres of petroleum, some of which immediately started leaking into the famed killer whale habitat, where threatened northern resident killer whales rub themselves on pebble beaches.
Although immediately after the accident experts said the equipment had almost certainly imploded, the video shows only two pieces are badly damaged.
Environment Ministry spokesman Kate Thompson said the province and the Canadian Coast Guard will ask technical experts to provide a more detailed analysis of the equipment - especially the tanker which contained 10,000 litres of fuel - assess the risks and look at options.
Environment Canada will look at the potential effects if more fuel starts leaking, she said.
"We don't know how long that is going to take," Thompson said.
"It's very early days. We just wanted to make sure people know what we are dealing with," she said.
As it appears no fuel is currently leaking, it gives a window to do a thorough investigation, she said.
Jennifer Lash of the Living Oceans Society said it is good news that no fuel is currently coming to the surface, but, the bad news is that a fuel truck is sitting on the bottom of Robson Bight corroding and waiting to leak fuel.
"They can't spend weeks and months trying to work out a plan, they need to take action quite quickly," she said.
Lash believes it is possible to bring the equipment to the surface, but such an operation will be extremely expensive.
"Will they let the dollar value stand in the way of protecting critical whale habitat?" she asked.
"I remain optimistic that they will take the right step and remove that equipment. They can't leave it down there with the potential of destroying the habitat of killer whales."
A wrinkle is who will pay the cost of the clean up.
Although B.C. has legislation in place saying the polluter is responsible, Ted LeRoy Trucking has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Watch the video here
Source: Time Colonist
zondag 10 februari 2008
Killer whales loaded with fire retardant
PBDEs can disrupt reproductive and immune systems, researcher says
Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
Published: Sunday, February 10, 2008
They wow tourists and remind people of the mysteries and majesty of the ocean, but killer whales swimming around the waters of Vancouver Island are the most contaminated animals on Earth.
Information, which is slowly and painstakingly being gathered about the whales that live along the coast of North America, reveals alarming trends and offers a graphic illustration of looming environmental problems.
Blubber studies on the two salmon-eating populations of resident killer whales -- the endangered southern residents with 88 members and the threatened northern residents with 230 members -- have found a significant buildup of toxins in their systems
Furthermore, the studies also discovered the chemicals remain in their systems long after the chemicals themselves, such as PCBs, have been removed from the environment.
A growing concern is the rapid buildup of PBDEs, the chemicals found in fire retardants, says Peter Ross, toxicology research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney.
"This is a major concern, a major emerging issue," he said.
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) can disrupt the endocrine system, affecting both the reproductive and immune systems.
Ross, who published a scientific paper entitled "Fireproof killer whales" believes there is overwhelming evidence to justify the ban of those chemicals in Canada.
Two varieties of the chemical have been withdrawn from North American and European markets, but a third variety, deca-PBDE, is still in use.
If nothing is done to curb it, PBDEs are poised to surpass PCBs as the predominant chemical in killer whales by 2025, according to research.
And the legacy of PCBs is still haunting the oceans.
PCBs were banned in 1977, but Ross and his fellow sci-entists predict they will not be expunged from the bodies of the southern resident whales until 2089.
Whale contamination illustrates how ignorant people are about effect of the thousands of chemicals being dumped in the ocean, Ross said.
"It's not very reassuring for humans to find high levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in animals at the top of the food chain. We would be unwise to ignore what we are seeing," he said.
Killer whales illustrate the shortcomings of traditional science and research, which is geared to small animals, living short lives within a limited area, Ross said.
Whale researcher Paul Spong, of OrcaLab on Hanson Island, has his toxic nightmares about oil.
Last year a barge spilled its load, including a fuel truck, into Robson Bight, smack in the middle of prime whale territory, but that is nothing compared to what could happen if the provincial and federal governments allow offshore oil and gas exploration, Spong said.
"It potentially poses huge problems for cetaceans and other marine life," he said.
Source: Time Colonist
Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
Published: Sunday, February 10, 2008
They wow tourists and remind people of the mysteries and majesty of the ocean, but killer whales swimming around the waters of Vancouver Island are the most contaminated animals on Earth.
Information, which is slowly and painstakingly being gathered about the whales that live along the coast of North America, reveals alarming trends and offers a graphic illustration of looming environmental problems.
Blubber studies on the two salmon-eating populations of resident killer whales -- the endangered southern residents with 88 members and the threatened northern residents with 230 members -- have found a significant buildup of toxins in their systems
Furthermore, the studies also discovered the chemicals remain in their systems long after the chemicals themselves, such as PCBs, have been removed from the environment.
A growing concern is the rapid buildup of PBDEs, the chemicals found in fire retardants, says Peter Ross, toxicology research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney.
"This is a major concern, a major emerging issue," he said.
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) can disrupt the endocrine system, affecting both the reproductive and immune systems.
Ross, who published a scientific paper entitled "Fireproof killer whales" believes there is overwhelming evidence to justify the ban of those chemicals in Canada.
Two varieties of the chemical have been withdrawn from North American and European markets, but a third variety, deca-PBDE, is still in use.
If nothing is done to curb it, PBDEs are poised to surpass PCBs as the predominant chemical in killer whales by 2025, according to research.
And the legacy of PCBs is still haunting the oceans.
PCBs were banned in 1977, but Ross and his fellow sci-entists predict they will not be expunged from the bodies of the southern resident whales until 2089.
Whale contamination illustrates how ignorant people are about effect of the thousands of chemicals being dumped in the ocean, Ross said.
"It's not very reassuring for humans to find high levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in animals at the top of the food chain. We would be unwise to ignore what we are seeing," he said.
Killer whales illustrate the shortcomings of traditional science and research, which is geared to small animals, living short lives within a limited area, Ross said.
Whale researcher Paul Spong, of OrcaLab on Hanson Island, has his toxic nightmares about oil.
Last year a barge spilled its load, including a fuel truck, into Robson Bight, smack in the middle of prime whale territory, but that is nothing compared to what could happen if the provincial and federal governments allow offshore oil and gas exploration, Spong said.
"It potentially poses huge problems for cetaceans and other marine life," he said.
Source: Time Colonist
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