Orcasphere

Live blog from the Puget Sound Partnership Education, Communication, and Outreach Summit.  The stated purpose of the Summit is “to revitalize the ECO Net and its relationship with the Puget Sound Partnership’s goals and priorities.” 9:15 Bill Ruckelshaus discussed need for grassroots change despite the budgetary stresses in Washington State and D.C.  (Dave Dix was [...]

I usually say that 20 ships per day transit Haro Strait, but this is the first time I’ve seen a sound budget estimate from Jeff Nystuen’s data. This article quotes him as saying that ships dominate the sound budget, making noise about 60% of the time his PALs were deployed. That’s pretty consistent with 20 [...]

Long Live the Kings announced in Dec 2008 an effort to implement internal changes at WDFW to manage salmon in an “All-H” framework — one that integrates decisions about Hatcheries, Harvest, and Habitat. Perhaps this is a step towards the “Ecosystem Based Management” which no one can define for me, but is already a buzz [...]

This is a pretty general treatment of endangered species with a nice from-the-field synopsis of prey/fecal sampling by KUOW intern Irene Naguchi, but it didn’t deliver what I expected — new information derived from the fecal sampling. The main news I caught from Brad was that they, Ken, and Mark haven’t noted any new calves [...]

Some good news re offshore productivity in 2008, though the southern residents may not see the benefits for a couple years… clipped from www.oregonlive.com Oregon ocean conditions best for fish in 50 years After several years of poor ocean conditions that left birds starving and fish dwindling, this year brought a healthy influx of cold, [...]

Wonderful news that one of the pioneers of sustainability science will head NOAA in the Obama administration! This could really turn around the pitiful funding of the recovery plans for Northwest salmon and killer whales. Jane is an exceptional marine ecologist has long been working out practical solutions to saving our marine food supplies (and [...]

This editorial gives a glimpse into the uppercrust of the BPA and ponders whether President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu will alter the BPA leadership. Could this be an opportunity for a dramatic acceleration in the re-balancing of the Northwest’s priorities: renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, thriving salmon, and healthy killer whales? First and foremost, we [...]

This clipping from the NOAA/NWFSC Marine Mammal Program shows that southern residents are increasing the source level of their S1 calls by about 1dB for every decibel increase of the ambient noise level. Counts of vessels within 1km of the hydrophone correlate with the ambient noise levels. While the ecological consequences of this behavioral change [...]

J, K, and members of L pod have been down in central and south Puget Sound quite a bit thus far this November and December.  The nice sighting maps at Orca Network show they’ve been sighted as far south as Seattle and Vashon on 12/2 and 12/7.  In comparison, here are the days in past [...]

We’ll need to examine the actual publication, but at first glance this new study demolishes what trust I had that DFO was doing a reasonable job of measuring escapement and managing the catch of B.C. salmon. It seems we should radically adjust how we monitor and manage salmon… perhaps some combination of a coherent, timely [...]