Fisheries Service Proposes New Rules to Safeguard Puget Sound’s Killer Whales

NOAA’s Fisheries Service is proposing new rules on vessel traffic aimed at further protecting Southern Resident killer whales in Washington’s Puget Sound. These large marine mammals, the subject of intense curiosity from kayakers to tourists crowding the decks of commercial whale-watching vessels, were added to the Endangered Species list in late 2005.

The proposed rules would prohibit vessels from approaching any killer whale closer than 200 yards and forbid vessels from intercepting or parking in the path of a whale. In addition, the proposed regulations would set up a half-mile-wide no-go zone along the west side of San Juan Island from May 1 through the end of September where generally no vessels would be allowed.

“The idea here is to give these remarkable animals even more real, meaningful protection,” said Barry Thom, acting head of the agency’s Northwest regional office. “Without it, we would undercut the hard work we are all doing to recover the species by improving the sound’s water quality and recovering salmon, the killer whale’s primary food.”

The fisheries agency said there would be exemptions to the rules for some vessels, including those actively fishing commercially, cargo vessels travelling in established shipping lanes, and government and research vessels. The no-go zone would also have limited exceptions for land owners accessing private property adjacent to it.

While Southern Resident whales are also threatened by degraded water quality in the sound and lack of prey, primarily salmon, biologists have known for years that vessel traffic may be tied to their low numbers.

The whales, which depend on their highly sophisticated sonar to navigate and find food, can be affected by underwater noise from boats and disturbed by vessels that approach too close or block their paths. The population peaked at 97 animals in the 1990s and then declined to 79 in 2001. It currently stands at 85 whales. The agency’s recovery plan, released in early

2008, calls for actions to reduce disturbance from vessels.

If adopted, the earliest the rule would take effect would be May 2010. The agency said it will hold public meetings Sept. 30 in Seattle and Oct. 5 in Friday Harbor for people to learn more about the proposed rules. The public comment period on them closes Oct. 27. You can view the proposal and make and make comments here.

UPDATE ON THE CURRENT STATE TO THE PROPOSAL:

Postcards From Friday Harbor: Porposed Vessel Impact Regulations: Let Your Voice Be Heard

Update on the Southern Resident Whales as of February 17, 2009

Two new orca calves, but one adult whale is missing
By RICHARD WALKER
Journal of the San Juans Editor
Today, 2:29 PM · UPDATED

Researchers have confirmed the birth of two Southern resident orca calves, bringing the population to 85.

However, the news comes as one 31-year-old male orca is believed missing, emphasizing the challenges the endangered whale pods face in their recovery.

The latest newborns were spotted swimming with J and L pods off Victoria on Feb. 6 and off Nanaimo Feb. 8. The parentage is not yet known.

"We like to have several encounters before know if (the calf) was hanging out with an auntie or grandma for a while," said Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center for Whale Research.

Both whales were photographed by Balcomb off Victoria, B.C., Feb. 6. L112 was photographed off Depoe Bay, Ore., by Morris Grover on Jan. 21 and by Carrie Newell on Jan. 24. J44 was photographed again on Feb. 8 near Nanaimo, B.C. by Dr. John Ford.

"We are analyzing all of the photographs taken in these encounters, and will analyze photographs taken later this spring to confirm the mothers' identifications and the calves' survival," Balcomb said.

Balcomb said it's unusual for the three whale pods to be in inland waters in winter. Balcomb believes their presence here is linked to the depressed runs of Central Valley stock chinook in California, the whales' usual winter hunting area.

"Our typical first sighting is about May," Balcomb said.

The center's records have the current Southern resident orca population at 25 in J pod, 19 in K, and 41 in L — if L57 shows up.

The historical average age for male Southern resident killer whales is 29, with a maximum in the 50s, Balcomb said. The historical average for females is 52; the oldest female, J-2, is in her 90s and may be 100.

The whales' population has seesawed over the past several years. Six orcas disappeared in 2008, dropping the population to 83, the lowest since 2003.

The Center for Whale Research and others are blaming marine pollution, depleted salmon runs, and acoustic impacts from dredging, seismic testing and military sonar for the decline in the population. The Southern resident orcas are listed as endangered in Canada and the U.S.

The orca pods are called "residents" because they spend a majority of the year here, chasing the salmon runs.

One of the whales believed to have died last year, L67, showed signs of malnourishment the last time she was seen; she had "peanut head," a term for a depressed area behind the blowhole that normally stores fat. L67's offspring also have not fared well either: L98, also known as Luna, separated from the pod in Nootka Sound in 2002 and was killed by a boat propeller in 2006. L101, a juvenile male, failed to return with the pod last year.

The resident orcas have long been beleaguered. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, fishermen saw them as competition and shot them. Later, orcas were captured for marine parks.

Their population, believed to have once been in the 120s, plummeted to 71 by 1973. It rebounded to 99 in 1995, then plummeted to 79 six years later.

The population rebounded to 80 in 2002, 83 in 2003, 85 in 2004 and 89 in 2005, then seesawed around 88 since then. The local pods were declared endangered by the U.S. and Canada by 2005 and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has been patrolling the area to enforce rules requiring boats to maintain a distance of 100 yards from the whales.

In an earlier interview, Balcomb said the ups and downs of the orca population over the last 30 years parallel the ups and downs of the chinook salmon population. "If the chinook population doesn't do well, the whale population doesn't do well," he said.

Balcomb suggested that a 10-year moratorium on salmon fishing would enable salmon populations to rebound. But even a suggestion of a moratorium by fisheries managers would be politically difficult, he said.

The whales have been designated J44 and L112.

New Baby Whales Confirmed in Both J and L pods!!!

HOT OFF THE PRESSES

Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Reserach confirmed "there are two new calves (one in J and one in L), but we are not officially specifying mums yet. We are conferring with Dr. John Ford and our Canadian colleagues before stating possible mothers. We would like to have several encounters with the babies and their mothers before assigning because grandma's may also confuse things."

This is really great news! If the calves survive, it would bring the So. Resident population up to about 85 - still way too low for this fragile, endangered population, but every new birth counts and moves this population in the right direction. It is especially good news after the loss of seven members of the So. Residents last year (which included 2 of the 3 calves born, and several reproductive age females). Let's hope the whales come back into inland waters again soon, so researchers can have more encounters and confirm who the new moms are.
Susan Berta & Howard Garrett, Orca Network

Sound's Future Still Murky

Sound's future still murky

Development, growth, runoff threaten gains

By TOM PAULSON
P-I REPORTER

Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, after digging up and studying some well-preserved muck tracking Puget Sound's water quality changes going back to the 19th century, report both good and bad news for the ongoing effort to clean up the region's ecologically wounded waterway.

The good news is that repeat sediment analyses performed by the researchers over the past quarter-century show that when major pollution regulations were passed decades ago, there were marked declines in contaminants such as arsenic, lead and copper from "point sources," such as the old Asarco Smelter in the Tacoma area.

"It demonstrates the positive impact these environmental regulations had on the overall water quality of Puget Sound," said Jill Brandenberger, a marine chemist at the national lab's marine sciences branch in Sequim who, with national lab colleague Eric Crecelius, conducted the study.

The bad news, Brandenberger said, is that the sediments indicate that these dramatic gains started to slow down in the late 1980s -- and, in some cases, appear to have even started to worsen -- the result of "nonpoint" pollution from the region's population growth, development and consequent increases in contaminated stormwater runoff.

"If we continue on with what we're doing now, it is likely Puget Sound will never recover," Brandenberger said.

Never is a lot farther off than 2020.

That's the target set by Gov. Chris Gregoire and a fairly new state agency called the Puget Sound Partnership for finally restoring the inland marine body to a healthier, near-natural ecological state. An official "action agenda" was released earlier this month, asking for an additional $199 million on top of the plan to spend $400 million over two years.

On the 197-page agenda for the Puget Sound cleanup are some 150 recommendations, including beefed-up enforcement of shoreline regulations, improved building requirements that reduce stormwater runoff, more protection of fish runs and natural shellfish beds, mitigation of wetland damage from development and other measures.

A draft of the agenda drew ire from some experts who felt it failed to suggest strong enough actions to reduce runoff.

"It's been a little bit of a confused situation," said David Dicks, executive director of the partnership. Dicks acknowledged that the draft plan neglected to emphasize the need to control runoff, but said most of the early critics have since agreed that the final version sufficiently addresses the problem.

"This study is consistent with our own findings and shows we've got to get after this now," Dicks said.

Regulating effluent from a smelter is a lot easier than controlling pollution that comes from homes, gardens, automobiles and innumerable other sources that the region's regular rainfall eventually carries into the Sound.

On three occasions over 23 years, national lab scientists collected 10-foot-long sediment cores from the seafloor in various locations deep beneath the surface of the Sound. These cores, collected in 1982, 1991 and 2005, contain within them the chemical history of the marine water going back more than 100 years. Every centimeter of sediment, the scientists said, is like a "rap sheet of toxins" going back in time.

The first hazardous metals showed up in the sediments about 1890, the study found, when metal smelting began near Tacoma. Lead and arsenic (byproducts of the smelter) concentrations began rising, slowed during the Great Depression when work slowed and picked up again in amounts during World War II. With the onset of clean water regulations and with the closure of the smelter, Brandenberger and Crecelius found, marine arsenic levels have now returned to pre-industrial levels.

"This shows Puget Sound has the ability to recover," Brandenberger said. Lead levels have also declined, she said, but not as much likely because of lead still being dumped into the Sound by other sources of contaminated runoff.

But another class of chemicals associated with gasoline combustion known as PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), Brandenberger said, is increasingly showing up in the sedimentary record. These byproducts of automobile use and other kinds of fuel combustion are entering the sound through runoff, she said.

The scientists say their findings strongly suggest that "new approaches to regulating nonpoint sources are necessary" if the Puget Sound cleanup is to have any hope of success.

P-I reporter Tom Paulson can be reached at 206-448-8318 or tompaulson@seattlepi.com.

It's Really All About the Food Chain, Isn't it?

I will be attending a "gear Down" session for Marine Naturalists sponsored by the Whale Museum. The workshop is a continuing educational training for naturalists already working in the field and graduates of the Marine Naturalist Training Program. Since the news this year has been so focused on the decline of the Southern Resident Orca population, the program will include a discussion about salmon recovery efforts by Lead Entity Barbara Rosenkotter, and an update on the health of the Southern Resident orca population by David Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research. We'll also be covering Acceptable Risk (Contaminants in the marine environment) and Threats from Underwater Sound. I really expect this to be not only an interesting day but hope to come back with thoughtful ways to address the issues affecting the orcas. I will most certainly update the blog this weekend and share the highlights.

In the interim, another opinion piece about the bottom line- food.

JOURNAL OF THE SAN JUANS

We have to be salmon tough | Being Frank

By BILLY FRANK JR.

Journal of the San Juans Columnist

Oct 30 2008, 1:09 PM · UPDATED

We need to be as tough as the salmon themselves if we’re going to see their recovery.

South Fork Nooksack River native spring chinook are almost extinct and need our help. It wasn’t long ago when about 13,000 of these early-timed chinook came back to the river each year. They were the first salmon to arrive each spring, feeding Indian people after long winters, when no other salmon were in the river.

Spring chinook have a much tougher journey than other salmon because they spend more time in fresh water before spawning. They are especially sensitive to poor habitat conditions in the river.

Time has not been kind to salmon habitat in the South Fork Nooksack. The loss of trees and other plants along streams has removed important shade and reduced the source of wood needed for in-stream fish habitat. Spring chinook need deep, sheltered pools of cool water for their extended rest before they spawn. Water that is too warm can result in disease, reduced salmon egg survival and even death.

This summer, to give the river the building blocks it needs to restore degraded habitat, both the Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Tribe built specially engineered logjams in the South Fork. Over the next few years, these logjams will help create the deep pools that young and adult salmon prefer.

While we are fixing the habitat, we also have to make sure that we are protecting the unique genetic traits of these fish. The Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Tribe are working with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on an important program to raise juvenile South Fork Nooksack River chinook in captivity and spawn them. Their offspring will be released in the river to migrate naturally and return as adults a few years later.

Our goal for this stock is the same for all wild salmon stocks: to recover their populations to levels that can again support harvest. By taking these naturally spawned juvenile chinook into protective custody, the tribes are safeguarding their future.

The path to recovery takes a side-by-side approach of boosting numbers now while also fixing the habitat so the river can support a healthy, productive population. I’m proud that the tribes are taking a leadership role in both areas.

Salmon face great challenges during their life journey. With their numbers falling, we have to work harder to help them on their way. As long as they continue to swim upstream, so should we.

— Billy Frank Jr., Nisqually, is chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. Members with ties to the San Juan Islands include the Lummi Indian Nation, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the Tulalip Tribes.

Subscribe in a reader

More News About the Decline of the Southern Resident Orca Whale Population

For full story, please click this link:

Status of the Southern Resident Killer Whales Updated 10/29/08

Southern Resident Orcas Need Lolita's Return

An incredibly interesting and thought provoking article. Please click above to read and share your thoughts. Should Lolita be returned to the wild and reintroduced to L Pod, an endangered species of Orca Whales who, as part of the Southern Resident community of Orcas, have now lost 6 of their own this year?

Subscribe in a reader