Category: Endangered species

Warm ocean waters work their way into Puget Sound

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Unusually warm waters in the Pacific Ocean — now pushing up against the Washington coast — are keeping oceanographers on alert for changes that could reverberate through the food web, potentially affecting fish, birds and marine mammals in coastal waters and in Puget Sound. Rising ocean temperatures may be related to recent sightings of warm-water fish not usually seen in the Northwest, including a bluefin tuna that washed up on Orcas Island and large schools of mackeral observed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Worrisome levels of domoic acid, […]

Two new baby orcas with no deaths over the past year could make for a remarkable census

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This year’s census for the Southern Resident killer whales apparently will document two new calves but no deaths for the 12-month period ending July 1. According to my unconfirmed records, this will be the first time in nearly 30 years that no deaths will be reported in the annual census update. Consequently, the overall population for the three orca pods rises from 73 in 2022 to 75 in 2023. These numbers won’t be official until the Center for Whale Research submits its annual report to the federal government sometime before […]

Prey and predators create varying life-or-death conditions for salmon, as shown with Atlantis model

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This article is the latest in a series about computer models and their uses within the Puget Sound ecosystem. As scientists uncover more and more information about a particular ecosystem, computer modelers are often eager to put that raw data to good use in complex models tuned to local conditions. One highly acclaimed model, called Atlantis, has been applied to more than 40 ecosystems around the world. In Puget Sound, Atlantis has been used to study the food web to determine whether salmon are more threatened by predators or by […]

Southeast Alaska troll fishing restored for this year by court of appeals pending full legal review

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Fishing in Southeast Alaska by the commercial troll-fishing fleet will not be cancelled this year, as ordered by a Seattle judge, thanks to a last-minute ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Considerations for the economic damage that would be caused by shutting down the Alaskan fishery outweigh the “speculative environmental threats” that led the lower court to effectively close the fishery, according to the appeals court order. The heart of the legal battle — how fishing for Chinook salmon affects the endangered Southern Resident orcas — remains […]

Health of killer whales examined through Bayesian network modeling and informed predictions

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As part of a project exploring the technical uncertainties surrounding Puget Sound water quality, we are reviewing how computer models are used to advance our understanding of natural systems. This blog post is part of a series focused on different models and their uses within the Puget Sound ecosystem. The project is jointly sponsored by King County and the Puget Sound Institute. Qualitative network modeling, as shown in the previous post in Our Water Ways, is focused on actions that create either positive or negative results for actors in the model. […]

Shutdown looms for Alaska summer troll fishery; court order aims to provide more salmon for orcas

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Southern Resident killer whales, which frequent Puget Sound, are expected to benefit from more Chinook salmon later this year, as expressed in a court order calling for the suspension of a major troll fishery in Southeast Alaska. Alaska state officials are dismayed by the ruling, saying that closing this commercial fishery would have a devastating effect on fishing families in Alaska and on many small communities along the coast. The state has launched an appeal of the ruling. The court order, signed last week by U.S. District Judge Richard Jones […]

Inbreeding hinders population recovery among endangered Southern Resident killer whales

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While a scarcity of Chinook salmon and other environmental factors may be pushing the Southern Resident killer whales toward extinction, a new genetics study has revealed that inbreeding has been exerting a powerful, overriding influence upon the small, genetically isolated population. The weakened genetic condition of the Southern Resident orcas, which frequent Puget Sound, could help explain why their numbers have generally declined over the past 25 years, while other orca populations in Alaska and British Columbia have been growing at remarkable rates. Experts have long suspected that inbreeding could […]

Remembering Ken Balcomb and his extraordinary life with killer whales

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I’m still adjusting to the world of killer whales without Ken Balcomb. Ken, who died Dec. 15 at age 82, was a constant presence throughout my career as an environmental reporter. His presence inspired many others among the so-called “killer whale community,” made of experts, observers and those who simply love and follow the stories of our beloved orcas. Ken, who I called the dean of killer whale research, founded the Center for Whale Research and established an amazing 46-year record of every birth and death among the Southern Resident […]

As winter approaches, salmon and orcas are still a commanding presence

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With salmon and orcas still on the move and facing ever-changing weather conditions, I thought it might be time for a brief update to my blog post of Nov. 21. At the time of the last report, the Puget Sound region had gone through a 13-day dry spell, which followed a period of brief and limited precipitation. Low stream flows were making it tough for chum and coho salmon to go upstream when they should have been at their peak of spawning. Many unfortunate fish were dying before they could […]

Lawsuit seeks to block Southeast Alaska troll fishing to increase salmon for orcas

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How much should Alaskan fishing be curtailed to provide more food for the endangered Southern Resident killer whales? It is an important question, enmeshed in conflicting federal priorities and provoked by a lawsuit brought by Wild Fish Conservancy, a Seattle-based conservation group. A federal court ruled in August that the National Marine Fisheries Service had violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act in its approval of salmon harvests in the Southeast Alaska troll fishery. That fishery harvests Chinook salmon originating from streams as far south as […]

Killer whale census shows another down year, with three deaths and two births

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Three deaths and two births. Over the past year, the endangered Southern Resident killer whale population has declined by a total of one, according to the annual census report submitted yesterday by the Center for Whale Research. Now the number of whales in all three pods stands at 73, down from 74 last year and declining from 98 animals the past 25 years. The births of J59 last February and K45 in May have been widely reported, along with the death of the much-loved K21, a 35-year-old male named Cappuccino. […]

Add-on structure will begin to address steelhead crisis at the Hood Canal Bridge

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The Hood Canal Bridge, which connects the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas, has proven to be a dangerous impediment to juvenile steelhead trout. As many as half of the young migratory steelhead in Hood Canal may get picked off by seals, birds and other predators as the fish try to pass under the floating highway, according to studies. While a permanent solution may be years away, the first step at reducing predation at the bridge may be just around the corner, as construction crews prepare to fabricate a floating structure that […]