Orca News

News, updates and events about the Southern Resident orcas,
orcas worldwide, and their habitats

Search | News Archives | Coming Events
Births/Deaths | Salmon farms | Sonar and whales

Orca News is updated when there is news to report.

This page was last modified February 7, 2010

Tides rechanneling Nisqually River
February 7, 2010 (Tacoma News Tribune)
The tides are back and change is afoot at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.
No one knows that better than Jean Takekawa, who manages the 3,000-acre refuge southwest of Tacoma.
She is in charge of returning 762 acres of the refuge to a saltwater marsh or estuary after more than 100 years as farmland and freshwater wetlands.
“Water is really taking over,” she said this week as higher-than-normal tides flooded into the refuge. “Nature and tides are very effective at this – better than we are at restoring the estuary.”
With the return of salt water, invasive canary reed grass is dying. So is pasture grass. And trees and bushes.
Historic tidal channels are re-emerging, carving sinuous routes laden with salt water and even a chum salmon or two.
Opening those channels is important, he said, because they provide more habitat for juvenile salmon to acclimate to salt water before they travel into Puget Sound and out to the Pacific.
More here

Columbia River salmon runs plentiful now, but don't count on the trend continuing
February 7, 2010 (Oregonian)
In some Northwest streams, it seems like a return to the storied days when it was said salmon ran so thick you could walk across their backs.
Record numbers of coho have returned to the Columbia River in recent years, and this year forecasters predict the same for spring chinook. But it's not time to pop the champagne corks and declare victory in the nation's most expensive wildlife restoration venture.
The reason: Most scientists agree much of the thanks for the recent runs, in addition to improved river conditions and more hatchery fish, goes to favorable circumstances in the ocean where the salmon mature after being born in fresh water.
"It looks like the abundance of adult salmon that we see come back to the rivers appears to be set or at least strongly regulated by their early ocean experience," said Nate Mantua, a climate scientist and fisheries researcher at the University of Washington.
His latest maxim: "It all boils down to what kind of copepods are off the coast of Oregon right now."
Copepods are tiny crustaceans a few millimeters long, part of the complex food web that juvenile salmon join when they enter the ocean from the Columbia River.
The salmon that took advantage of good ocean conditions of late also benefited from recent increases in the amount of water flowing over those dams - an action ordered by a federal judge - as well as pumped-up production of hatchery salmon, aggressive reintroduction efforts and improved habitat in freshwater areas.
More here

UNCUT VIDEO: Orcas Seen Feeding In Sound
February 5, 2010 (KIRO TV)

“State of the Sound” report falls short of expectations
February 5, 2010 (BBC)
The first “State of the Sound” report issued by the Puget Sound Partnership was announced yesterday with practically no fanfare.
I recall that the Partnership’s predecessor group, the Puget Sound Action Team, used to make a big deal out of these ecosystem reports. Frankly, I had expected a major rollout, like that of the Puget Sound Action Agenda — until I read through the document and began to ask questions.
David Dicks, executive director of the Puget Sound Partnership, told me the report was a “hybrid version.” Before the next formal report is due in two years, he hopes to provide more meaningful ecosystem-condition reports through a Web site.
The Partnership’s Science Panel called the report a “transitional” document between descriptions of ecosystem conditions in past “State of the Sound” reports and a new “ecosystem-reporting framework” being developed for the Puget Sound Partnership.
Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound, said the document is not what the Legislature envisioned when it laid out reporting requirements for the Partnership. Without better indicators, benchmarks and long-term goals, nobody knows if the Partnership is on track to restore Puget Sound to a healthy condition by 2020, she said.
More here

Feds Propose Refilling Pot of Salmon Recovery Money
February 5, 2010 (BBC)
In its new budget request to Congress this week, the Obama administration has included some money for Oregon and four other Western states to restore salmon habitat. The $65 million for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund (PCSRF) is a lot more than zero, which is what the Bush administration had offered for 2009, but it's only half of what was originally budgeted when the fund was created in 2000.
Glen Spain, northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, says thousands of jobs in his industry have already been lost, because fish populations are not recovering quickly enough.
"The West Coast salmon fishing industry is facing potentially a third year of closures - complete closures in California and Oregon, that will also affect Washington. We really need these funds on the ground, right away."
More here

Whales use 'Killer' technique for hunting fish
February 4, 2010 (BBC)
Scientists on Shetland believe they may have discovered a previously-unobserved technique being used by killer whales to catch herring.
Researchers from Aberdeen and St Andrews Universities recorded the whales emitting a low-pitched noise which caused the fish to bunch up.
The mammals then stun the fish with their tails before eating them.
The scientists said this behaviour has not been seen anywhere else in the world.
The findings have come to light in the BBC2 series "Simon King's Shetland Diaries".
Whale researcher, Dr Volker Deecke, demonstrated how his team used underwater microphones to record unusual sounds made by killer whales.
More here

Conference charts restoration of Klamath Basin
February 2, 2010 (Business Week)
Scientists and policy makers gathering in Southern Oregon this week will look for ways to restore the ecology of the Klamath Basin so both salmon and farming can thrive.
More than 300 people were expected Tuesday for the start of the weeklong conference in Medford. It was organized by the U.S. Geological Survey and NOAA Fisheries Service to share the latest ecological science on the Klamath Basin and chart directions for new research that will help inform a $1 billion restoration plan that includes removing a series of hydroelectric dams that block salmon.
It was once the third most productive salmon river on the West Coast, but after a century of mining, logging, overfishing and agriculture, it is a shadow of itself.
The crisis reached a peak in 2001, when the federal government had to shut off water to farmers on a federal irrigation project straddling the Oregon-California border to protect threatened salmon during a drought. The next year, after irrigation was restored, tens of thousands of salmon died in low and warm water conditions.
More here

Puget Sound cleanup, state agriculture take hits in Obama's budget
February 2, 2010 (Bellingham Herald)
President Obama's $3.8 trillion budget proposal submitted Monday to Congress cuts funding for Puget Sound cleanup by $30 million over current levels and trims a popular program for farmers to promote U.S. agriculture products overseas.
Federal funding for the state's social safety net would remain pretty much intact.
The budget also includes $864 million for further research and development of a new Air Force refueling tanker. A $35 billion contract for 179 new tankers is expected to be awarded later this year. Boeing is competing for the contract.
The White House proposed $20 million in federal funding for Puget Sound cleanup, compared with the $50 million in the current fiscal year.
"I'm disappointed, but we will remedy that," Dicks said.
More here

Agribusiness Giant Westlands Moves to Kill Salmon
February 1, 2010 (IndyBay.org)
Westlands Water District, the "Darth Vader of California water politics, is requesting a federal judge to order lifting restrictions on the operation of huge delta water pumps and canals from February through May, according to a news release from the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and Water4Fish.
The move takes place as Westlands Water District, southern Calfornia water agencies, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature are pushing for the construction of a peripheral canal and new dams to export more water from the California Delta. If the peripheral canal is built, it is likely to result in pushing Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish into the abyss of extinction.
The group is requesting a court to order lifting restrictions on the operation of huge delta water pumps and canals from February through May. Pumping water from the delta south is restricted at this time to protect baby salmon that migrate from the Sacramento River to the ocean during this period. The pumps move massive volumes of fresh water from the Delta to farms and cities to the south. Past pumping during the spring salmon migration is known to have killed large numbers of salmon. The request is expected to be heard in U.S. District Court tomorrow.
The restrictions in question were put in place in 2009 as part of a federal salmon restoration plan, known as a Biological Opinion. Recent studies indicate that the salmon restoration plan may increase the baby salmon survival by at least fifty percent. The salmon restoration plan protects threatened species of salmon and other native fish. It also helps improve the survival of non- threatened, commercially valuable fall-run chinook salmon. Sacramento River fall-run chinook, commonly known as king salmon, form the backbone of Oregon and California’s salmon fishing industry.
Salmon, and the fishing families that depend on them, will have even more to lose if Westlands gets its way. According to the National Marine Fishery Service, when the Delta pumps are on, baby salmon are diverted from their natural route in the mainstem Sacramento River into the central and southern Delta waterways, where they suffer mortality rates of sixty five percent. The diverted salmon also fall victim to the Delta pumps. Only one baby salmon in six survives an encounter with state pumping facilities, while only one in three survives after being drawn into federal pumps.
More here

Orca News Archives