Orcasphere

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 [...]

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 [...]

Today’s Weekender Report from WDFW suggests SRKWs could have some good eating off the mouth of the Columbia this fall.  Does anyone have a read on how the Fraser chinook runs are faring this summer?  Why don’t killer whale conservationists have an easy way of monitoring the abundance of northwest salmon? Anglers are reeling in [...]

In our on-going efforts to monitor Pacific salmon dynamics and interpret them from the perspective of southern resident killer whales, today brings news of a 6-hour commercial net fishery opening on the lower Columbia River.  It’s amazing that it’s even worth going out in a boat when the catch is limited to the first six [...]

The new Patagonia catalog (out yesterday) has a full page spread by Steven Hawley entitled “The Idaho Tide.”  It eloquently connects the wolves of Idaho’s Frank Church Wilderness with Snake River salmon and the southern residents, and it includes a great paragraph (below) with a quote-worthy line by Ken Balcomb: “I think any reasonable biologist [...]

Save the salmon — and us Above is a link a nice Op-Ed piece by Carl Safina.  Below is my response, submitted today to the L.A. Times. In his 1/24/10 opinion “Save the salmon — and us,” Safina points out that new research says orcas prefer salmon.  But the in-press analysis of prey scraps by [...]

Good news for Elwha salmon from the March NPS newsletter. Might dam removal begin in 2011, instead of 2012? I’m trying to keep track of the timeline (and be sure it doesn’t slip backwards) here. clipped from www.nps.gov Work Progressing on Elwha Construction Projects; Ever Closer to Dam Removal The Elwha Water Facilities (EWF) and [...]

Sandra O’Neill, Contaminants in salmon We’ve heard that S and N residents are both eating mostly Chinook.  Why are the southern residents more contaminated than the northern residents? Contaminants in fish are determined by: where they live what they eat how long they are exposed how fat they are Chinook and Coho have elevated [PBDE] [...]

Here we are in mid-February, a couple weeks into the blackmouth opening in the Salish Sea, and WDFW is opening up recreational fishing for spring (winter?) Chinook running in the Columbia [see today's email announcement below].  This makes me wonder where the southern residents are at the moment and what the run timing looks like [...]