Orcasphere

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 [...]

Interesting that the WA sea otters (a transient orca food source?) may be expanding their range from the NW coast of the Olympic Peninsula. Though the Salish Sea habitat is certainly appropriate for them, they apparently are rarely seen east of a line between Port Angeles and Race Rocks. Reference http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/whc/seadoc/pdfs/VanBlaricom01.pdf

clipped [...]

The most prominent appeal in this discussion was whether we can move away from litigation and towards more collaborative processes to restore the wild populations of Columbia salmon and steelhead. The agreement between 3 tribes and federal agencies (the “Columbia Basin Accords”) may be a step in the right direction. However, many feel [...]

Here is an excerpt from yesterday’s WDFW announcement that describes the forecasts for many Columbia and Salish Sea salmon runs.  To Pat’s credit, there was a quick correction to a painful error (suggesting that adipose-clipped fish weren’t hatchery fish).  In conjunction with the process-map in the previous post, these dates should help us orca-advocates be [...]

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 [...]

The clipping below is from a Daily Astorian article on an EPA report regarding global warming’s potential influence on Northwest salmon.  Of most import for killer whale conservationists are the implications of what James Martin calls a “perfect storm” for salmon: low snow pack with low, warm flows in the summer.
Martin provides a nice quote [...]