Orcasphere

Today Tacoma’s News Tribune offers a story about the imminent issuing of new rules for watching southern resident killer whales.  This story confirms Donna Darm’s recent mention of the regulations being currently under review at OMB.  It remains to be seen whether the rules will be issued in time for the whale watching industry and [...]

I love this quote from a spokeswoman from the Marine Sanctuary outside of San Francisco Bay where L pod was observed foraging last week: “It’s nice they’re showing up, but it’s too bad there’s not enough food for them up north,” Schramm said. That’s pretty funny since L pod is almost surely pursuing salmon of [...]

During the last few weeks as portions of J and K pod (strangely split up into unusual associations) have traveled around Puget Sound, I’ve been wondering where L pod (not the L12s) has been since they were last sighted with a newborn on December 6.  An sfgate.com article on Sacramento chinook salmon returns offers a [...]

On January 31, 2011, Michel Cousteau was a guest on Steve Scher’s Weekday show on KUOW. Though he was talking generally about how our actions (even far inland) affect the oceans, he ended up talking extensively about killer whales. He proved himself quite knowledgeable about resident killer whales (especially 5:00-8:00 and 25:30- 27:30). As an [...]

Yesterday’s news release from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has at least four items of interest to SRKW conservation scheduled for discussion in their Feb 4-5 meeting.  A moratorium on fishing in the Elwha River system to facilitate recovery of its salmon populations, especially the historically large chinook, could mean more food faster [...]

Mark Yuasa’s NW Fishing blog in the Seattle Times is a great way to keep tabs on where salmon are being caught in Washington.  Yesterday he pointed out that 2011 returns are expected to be moderate and that the spring chinook runs peak in March/April for the Lower Columbia.  Is L pod working these schools [...]

What great news for southern residents that President Obama clarifies in his 2011 State of the Union Address (at 43:59) that he understands that there is a deep flaw in how salmon are managed in the United States: The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department [...]

This Jan 16 story from Q13 Fox News has some valuable quotes, including this one from Brian Gorman of NOAA/NMFS: “I expect it’s something that will have to go through a lot of hoops.  It could take as long as 90 days but by this spring we should have regulations in place,” says Gorman.….Gorman says [...]

A January 3 Seattle Times story entitled “EPA unveils options for Duwamish cleanup” makes me wonder whether southern residents would enter Elliott Bay more often if the salmon runs were restored to the Duwamish and Green Rivers.  In a few years of listening, we’ve not yet detected Southern Residents Killer Whales entering Elliott Bay enough [...]

Live-blogged notes from a UW Water Seminar talk by Rick Keil’s student Brittany Kimball Spicing Up the Sound: Cooking Spices and Aberrant Chemicals in Puget Sound and How They Get There Sound Citizen collects water samples from around the region to understand the transport of common household chemicals from human sources into the marine environment.  [...]