Orcasphere

I’ve been wondering who herds the cats during the North of Falcon process. We orca advocates should start understanding and interacting with the process, ultimately so that the southern residents have a place at the table! clipped from wdfw.wa.gov December 01, 2008 Fish and Wildlife Commission appoints interim WDFW director OLYMPIA—In a special meeting today, [...]

While the new Treaty will almost surely be good for the southern residents, I remain uncertain about whether releasing wild salmon really works when they’re caught during openings that target hatchery fish. “Under Koenings’ leadership, WDFW established many new sustainable fisheries that allow harvest of hatchery-produced fish while sparing wild salmon listed for protection under [...]

This article has a nice synopsis of the lost animals, their ages, names, and demographic significance… clipped from www.canada.com Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun Published: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 A total of seven killer whales are thought to have died since last fall, reducing the population of endangered southern residents to just 83 in three pods. That’s [...]

Dave’s doing a good job of getting the Draft Action Agenda out in the public eye. I’ll have to give it a read before the 20th when comments are due, but it’s distressing that he mentions neither the profound risk of an oil spill decimating the southern residents, nor the potential impact of underwater noise [...]

This is an hour-long conversation about southern resident killer whales involving Dave Dix, Brad Hanson, and Robin Baird on KUOW’s weekday with Steve Sher.  With luck there will be similar conversations about the state of Puget Sound as we all digest the Puget Sound Partnship’s Draft Action Agenda – 06Nov2008. clipped from www.kuow.org Orcas Dying [...]

Notes on a talk by Sue Moore entitled “Marine Mammals: Insight to climate change through surveys and song” at UW (16:00-16:45) Overarching question: are grey whales a sentinel species to climate change in the Arctic and North Pacific? Polar bears now expected to be down 30% by 2050. Arctic ice down 3Mkm^2 from 7M.  10x [...]

It’s said that the Elwha River once sustained impressive runs of Spring Chinook salmon: “Elwha chinook are one of the Puget Sound chinook stocks listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act and are also legendary in that they typically reached over 100 pounds at maturity…. Prior to the dams, the Elwha River was [...]