Orcasphere

Thanks to Cathy Bacon for forwarding this notice regarding Canadian “action plans” for recovering the northern and southern resident killer whale populations. It will be interesting to see to what extent managing salmon (farmed or wild) for killer whales is mentioned in the plans… Discuss here and comment officially when you can! > From: “XPAC [...]

The science of monitoring west coast salmon populations for infectious salmon anemia is getting drowned out by spin and counterspin in Canadian and U.S. media. As an example of what Alexandra Morton calls a “cover-up”, compare the following pieces — both from Dec 6, 2011 — from the L.A. Times blog and Food Safety News. [...]

This is an excellent overview of the Condit Dam history with a focus on salmon recovery and preparations for the removal (from the dam owner PacifiCorp by Narrative Lab). One interesting point made in the video is that the reservoir was expected to drain in 6 hours (it drained in only 1 hour). And here [...]

Are the Fraser chinook that southern resident killer whales love to eat already infected by the Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISAV) just detected in 2 Fraser sockeye smolts?  Could this virus — not salmon leukemia — be what caused the the mortality-related genomic signature in Fraser sockeye reported earlier this year? Remember that DFO scientist [...]

Yesterday Sarah Morely of NOAA/NWFSC Watershed Program, Fish Ecology Division gave a 40-minute synopsis of the “Elwha River Dam Removal – Past, Present, Future.”  My notes are appended and the NOAA site has an abstract with recommended references (also appended in case the link breaks). The most interesting aspect of the talk from the perspective [...]

Indian Country Today has provided an excellent archive of words spoken at the Elwha dam removal ceremony (9/17/11) by Bill Bradley, former Senator from New Jersey and past Presidential candidate.  Part I provides insightful details into the decades of political machinations in D.C.  Part II captures the amazing precedent the process sets for how to [...]

Things are really looking up for the salmon-eating killer whales of the west coast.  For the third time this fall, progress in removing dams on west coast salmon rivers has been made.  First there was press regarding the beginning of the removal of the Elwha dams.  Then news came of preparations for dam removals on [...]

Kim Pokorny of the Oregonian reports progress on cleaning up the White Salmon River, a tributary on the lower Columbia, in preparation for an October 26 explosive removal.  This is good news for future foraging by southern resident killer whales who are known to target main stem Columbia fish when foraging on the Washington and [...]

Here’s a great letter sent out today by Save Our Wild Salmon: This Saturday, September 17th, marks a truly historic event for wild salmon and river communities: the largest river restoration project to date with the removal of the two Elwha River dams on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. Here are 3 great items to check [...]

Great news last week from Save our Wild Salmon et al.: Judge Redden has again ruled that the Biological Opinion for managing Columbia Basin salmon is illegal and scientifically inadequate. This KPLU story on the timeline for revising or renewing the BiOp suggests that the Locke/Lubchenko team will probably not have time to react before [...]