What’s Killing These Critically Endangered Whales?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/12/05/whats-killing-critically-endangered-whale?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2014-12-05

The death this week of a Southern Resident killer whale is the fourth this year, leaving only 77 of the orcas in the wild.

Rhapsody, an 18-year-old Southern Resident killer whale, was found dead on Thursday. (Photo: Katie Jones)

December 05, 2014 By David Kirby

David Kirby has been a professional journalist for 25 years. His third book, Death at Seaworld, was published in 2012.


It has been another calamitous year for the critically endangered Southern Resident killer whales of the Pacific Northwest.

On Thursday, the carcass of an 18-year-old female orca was discovered near Courtenay, British Columbia, in Georgia Strait. The whale, which was believed to be pregnant, was identified as J32, also known as Rhapsody.

It was the fourth death of a Southern Resident orca in 2014, leaving only 77 of the marine mammals in the wild. Making matters worse, there have been no successful births among the population for more than two years.

Rhapsody—whose mother, J20, died in 1998, when Rhapsody was only two—was raised by her aunt, J22, known as Oreo.

FULL story at link.

[reddread]

1. people get worked up over Orcas in captivity

dont give one single goddamn about what we are doing to them in the wild.

[Baclava]

2. Why would anyone want to kill an Orca?

ohhhhh


Petition to delist Southern resident killer whales rejected

One year to the day after the Pacific Legal Foundation petitioned the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on behalf of a group of California farmers to remove Endangered Species Act protection from local resident killer whales, NOAA rejected the delisting petition.

“Our determination that the southern resident killer whale population constitutes a distinct population segment under the Endangered Species Act and previous conclusion that the DPS is in danger of extinction and should retain endangered status all support our finding that the petitioned action to delist the southern resident killer whale DPS is not warranted,” the fisheries service said in its announcement.

The NOAA decision may not end the dispute, which pits The Empress Del Bosque and Coburn Ranch farms in the San Joaquin Valley south of Sacramento, represented by the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, against the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, which decided in 2005 that the Southern resident killer whales, which consists of three closely related pods, deserved protection under the Endangered Species Act.

In 2008, the Fisheries Service issued a recovery plan for the Puget Sound whales. As part of that plan, Fisheries extended what had been a 100-yard buffer between boats and whale to a 200-yard barrier.

The farm group argued that the Puget Sound pods should be considered part of the entire North Pacific killer whale population, which is not considered endangered.


http://www.sanjuanjournal.com/news/218184042.html?mobile=true

[Bigmack]

3. I'm no scientist....

(Lots of people are saying that kind of shit these days, so...)

I fish for salmon, so I've seen them many times.
I've had the experience of being overtaken by J pod while I was stopped... jigging for bottomfish. I shut everything down...depth sounder, engine, radio... the whole works. I thought my heart would explode. They were a few feet from the boat... at least 20 of them... spyhopping to look at me, blowing, even a couple of breaches. I could see them under the water investigating the boat (34 ft).

Anyhow.... I have several hypotheses.
First, the Puget Sound orcas are salmon eaters, and the salmon population of PS is down. (Not so on the Columbia this year, but the orcas don't know that). Both the King run and the Silver runs were down this year in PS.
Second, the population of seals and sea lions is booming... taking more salmon. The northern population eats seals, and we love to have them come down every few years to thin them out a taste.
Third, this one death isn't unusual... especially the young and the pregnant. Birthing difficulties happen. But. When the population is down, one loss is magnified by that small population.
Fourth... and this is the weakest of the hypotheses... the damn whale-watchers hound them relentlessly. I have no evidence that having 15 boats within a couple of hundred yards of them during the entire day causes problems, but all those sonars pinging, and all those diesels throbbing can't make their lives easier, or their echolocation of salmon any easier, either.
Part of me wants to teach them..somehow.. that the seals taste like chicken... err...salmon. That would solve everything, but Mom Nature doesn't play that.