Tag: orcas

October 28, 2021

Salmon study sparks controversy

Occasionally, this space includes reports and essays from guest writers on the subject of Puget Sound ecosystem recovery. Biologist and author Eric Wagner has this look at the controversy surrounding a recent study of salmon numbers in the Salish Sea.
By Eric Wagner
A couple of weeks ago, the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences published a research article from the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The article, first-authored by a hydroacoustician named Mei Sato, looked at the abundance of Chinook salmon during two summers at two straits in the Salish Sea region that populations of resident killer whales frequent. In short summary, the researchers found that the Strait of Juan de Fuca (seasonal home to the southern residents) had four to six times as many Chinook salmon as Johnstone Strait (home to the northern residents).
As is now the convention when a university lab publishes a paper, the UBC news office put out a press release to tout it. “No apparent shortage of prey for southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea during summer,” the release’s headline read.
On the surface, this whole process had been fairly straightforward and routine: conduct a study, publish the study, announce the study to the world, maybe talk about it to a local media outlet or two. But that would turn out not to be the case where Sato’s article was concerned, because when it comes to the southern resident killer whales, it’s what is going on under the surface that counts. Now, to the critical questions of how Chinook salmon abundance affects the southern residents and what to do about it, Sato and her co-authors have added a couple of more: What is more important—what an article says, or what an article about an article says?
An unexpected result
As of September 20, 2021, the southern resident population sits at 73 individuals, a number that has stayed stubbornly low despite the whales being listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in the United States. (In Canada, the southern residents have been protected under Species At Risk Act since 2003.)
Why the southern residents are doing so poorly is thought to be due to a suite of causes, among them pollution, vessel noise, and so on. But the main cause researchers have focused on for years is a shortage of food, especially in the late spring and summer months, when the southern residents historically come to the Salish Sea. Obligate eaters of fishes, the southern residents are known to prefer Chinook salmon, hunting them almost exclusively at times. As Chinook runs have declined throughout the region, many scientists believe the southern residents have declined with them, to the point that they are spending less and less time in the area.

Dr. Mei Sato and a summer undergraduate student, Taryn Scarff during a study of killer whale foraging habits. Credit: A.W. Trites/University of British Columbia

It was with that view in mind that Sato, Andrew Trites, the director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit, and Stéphane Gauthier, a research scientist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, undertook their work. “In Canada,” says Sato, now an assistant scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, “you always hear of the relationship between the drop of the southern residents and their prey shortage. But nobody had tested this hypothesis before.”
Chinook salmon returns are usually determined when they enter rivers on their way to spawning streams; less is known about their abundance and distribution in the larger, more open waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Sato wanted to see the prey densities the southern residents face in the strait. To measure them she used multifrequency echosounders, which are akin to the fish-finders fishers mount on their vessel bottoms. Timing her surveys to when Chinook migration was at its predicted peak, she sailed out in July and August in 2018 and 2019, surveying pinch points where the salmon were likely to be funneled. So she could compare whatever she found in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with other orca waters, Sato also did surveys in the Johnstone Strait.
The northern resident killer whales that spend the summers in Johnstone Strait number about three hundred animals. The population is generally understood to be much healthier than the southern residents. Sato thus thought she would see a bounty of salmon in Johnstone Strait and peanuts in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Instead, she saw the opposite: while Chinook salmon were patchily distributed and of similar size in both straits, the patches in the Strait of Juan de Fuca had four to six times as many Chinook as those in Johnstone Strait.
“We didn’t expect this result at all,” Sato says. “We came in believing the food hypothesis too.” But the numbers were the numbers. As she and her co-authors wrote at the close of their paper, “This suggests that other factors such as spatial and temporal mismatches between killer whales and prey presence, shortages of prey outside of the Salish Sea, reduced energy content of individual Chinook salmon, and reduced prey accessibility due to vessel traffic may be more consequential to southern resident killer whales than previously considered.”
To say that the results were controversial is an understatement. Two days after the paper’s release, a consortium of scientists who study the southern residents, headed by Monika Wieland Shields of the Orca Behavior Institute, released a strong critique. “The new paper by Sato et al. describes a new methodology for surveying for Chinook salmon in the oceanic environment,” the scientists wrote, “but includes too many unknowns and is too small of a data set to come to such a broad-sweeping conclusion.”

Photograph of a group of Southern Resident killer whales chasing a salmon. Photo courtesy of NOAA. Research authorized by NMFS permit #19091.

Whale researchers responding in the press were even more critical. “They are making a lot of assumptions and my concern is that once you stitch all those assumptions together, you can end up with an answer that is incorrect,” Brad Hanson, a biologist at NOAA, told the Seattle Times. Others were even less inclined to be polite. Ken Balcolm of the Center for Whale Research called the paper “a nice little fish thing,” while Deborah Giles, a biologist at the University of Washington and research director for Wild Orca, told the Times, “To say the southern residents are getting four to six times as much salmon as the northern residents is just silly. And here we are, trying to find a nice way to say that.”
Parsing the reactions
Here, though, it becomes necessary to parse whether the killer whale research community was reacting to the paper or to the press release about the paper. The release says the UBC researchers “debunked” the hypothesis that southern residents are facing a food shortage. Sato and Trites say they make no such claim; they don’t dispute that the southern residents are showing up thin, or that Chinook populations are in general decreasing. “Just because we found that there are more salmon in the Strait of Juan de Fuca doesn’t mean the killer whales necessarily have access to those salmon,” Trites says. “We didn’t look at interference from vessels, or underwater noise, or things like that.”
When asked about the science the paper itself describes, Shields, the author of the critique, is more measured. “It was a novel application of technology for how we survey salmon in the ocean,” she says. “I thought that was fascinating and super cool.” Her concern was more with the way the science became embellished during promotion. “As advocacy groups and marine educators we work very hard to get correct information to the public. One of the messages the research community has supported is that this is a prey-limited species. For the headline to be Prey’s not a problem here anymore! deflects from a really big issue that we need to focus on.”
Hanson echoed this when he told the Times he was worried the findings could be “weaponized” by parties with an interest in promoting more fishing, or aquaculture practices blamed for playing a part in declining salmon returns. At least one online publication has used the findings to attack other research on Chinook declines. “Anti-salmon farm activists have long been trying to link the apparent lack of Chinook salmon prey for British Columbia’s resident killer whales to the region’s marine aquaculture operations,” pronounced SeaWest News, a publication run by a self-described media agency with clients from British Columbia’s seafood industry. “But that theory, like many others trotted out by the activists, has been debunked by a new study led by scientists at the University of British Columbia,” the article said.
Trites approved the press release before it went out, “but in retrospect I shouldn’t have, given how muddled things have gotten.” Some of the vitriol and derision in the responses took him aback. “People should focus on the science,” he says, “rather than try to infer motive.” Although he expected the paper to make waves because it questions an orthodoxy, he shares the concern that the results could be misinterpreted or, worse, misapplied. “I can tell you one thing,” he says. “When we get a result we don’t expect, we dig really hard, we look under every little rock.” He feels the paper’s message is getting lost a little in the fuss over the press release, which has become a sort of object-lesson in how, in trying to amplify a scientific result, the result is instead obscured, and commenting on it becomes a professional game of Telephone.
“To me, the take-home isn’t about whether or not there’s a food shortage, it’s about where the food shortage is occurring,” Trites says. “Everyone is focused on the Salish Sea, but the southern residents are only here part of the time, and they need food every day of the year. What we want this paper to do is get people to ask whether there are sufficient prey to support southern resident killer whales during winter and spring when they are south of here. The conversation needs to go beyond the Salish Sea if we are going to save the southern resident killer whales from extinction.”
Eric Wagner writes about science and the environment from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his wife and daughter. His writing has appeared in Smithsonian, Orion, The Atlantic and High Country News, among other places. He is the author of “Penguins in the Desert” and co-author of “Once and Future River: Reclaiming the Duwamish.” His most recent book is “After the Blast: The Ecological recovery of Mount St. Helens,” published in 2020 by University of Washington Press. He holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Washington.

September 21, 2021

Orca census shows some improvement, but many whales still die before their time

The annual census of the endangered Southern Resident killer whales, submitted yesterday to the federal government, shows three births and one death from mid-2020 to mid-2021.
Along with the new census report, Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research sadly confirmed the death of L47, a 47-year-old female named Marina, who has been apparently missing since early summer.

In 2011, Marina’s son Mystic (L115) stayed close to his mother.
Photo: Center for Whale Research

Marina was last seen by CWR biologists on Feb. 27 in Swanson Channel, north of the San Juan Islands, Ken told me. She was later missing from observations by Canadian biologists who encountered her family members in the western Strait of Juan de Fuca.
As in recent years — as opposed to historically — the L pod whales have not been spending much time in Puget Sound during the summer. It was not until this month that Ken’s staff was able to get a good look at the whales during six separate encounters that identified Marina’s three offspring along with their two offspring — but no Marina. Check out Encounter 74.
The official census of Southern Residents reports the population as of July 1 each year, although Ken and his associates must complete their report under a federal contract by Oct. 1. That gives them time to draw on all observations up until then. This year’s census will show 74 whales — two more than last year, thanks to three births along with the one death. But the actual number of Southern Residents today stands at 73, because another orca — 35-year-old K21 (named Cappuccino) — is believed to have died in late July or early August — after the census cutoff date.
The newest whales added to the population are J57, a male named Phoenix born last September to Tahlequah ( J35); J58, a female named Crescent born last September to Eclipse (J41); and L125, a calf (gender unknown) born in February of this year to Surprise! (L86). The two one-year-old calves were discussed in last year’s blog post about the census (Our Water Ways, Sept. 15, Oct. 6, 2020.)
The number of whales in L pod now totals 33, J pod has 24, and K pod has 16. This does not include Lolita/Tokitae, an orca from L pod that was captured in Puget Sound and is held at the Miami Seaquarium in Florida.
L47, Marina
Marina (L47), who showed no health problems before her death, had given birth to seven calves that survived long enough to be designated with “L” for their pod and the next number in sequence. That’s more orca babies than any other Southern Resident in the record books, although four of Marina’s offspring died at a young age, according to CWR.

In 2017, Marina spent time with her daughters and son. // Photo: Center for Whale Research

“L47 experienced more than her fair share of loss, with four calves not surviving past their first year,” according to a commentary on the CWR website. “Her three surviving offspring are L115, a young male, and L83 and L91, two adult daughters. L83 and L91 are raising sons of their own, L110 and L122.
“As a mother and grandmother,” the statement continues, “L47’s death may have severe consequences. Center for Whale Research data shows that older, post-reproductive females hold key leadership roles in this society, particularly when food is scarce. L47’s matriline members now face an increased risk of death in the coming years. Her son, L115, is at an approximately three times greater risk of death in the next two years than a male of the same age would be with a surviving mother.”
Marina’s son, L115 named Mystic, is only 11 years old. His sisters are 31-year-old L83, named Moonlight, and 26-year-old L91, named Muncher. Moonlight’s 14-year-old son is L110 named Midnight, and Muncher’s 6-year-old son is L122 named Magic.
Marina and her two daughters, Moonlight and Muncher, are fondly remembered among the so-called Dyes Inlet whales, a group of 19 orcas that spent a month between Bremerton and Silverdale in 1997. Their presence helped to educate and fascinate thousands of people around Puget Sound about the ways of the whales. (See the anniversary story package in the Kitsap Sun, November 2007.)
By my count, the loss of Marina leaves only five whales, all females, from the 19 that visited Dyes Inlet 24 years ago. Other than Marina’s two daughters, there was L90 named Ballena, who was 4 years old at the time; L55 named Nugget, who was 20; and Nugget’s daughter, L82 named Kasatka, who was 7. Nugget has four offspring alive today, and she became a grandmother for the first time in 2010 when Kasatka had a male calf, L116 named Finn. (The original 19 Dyes Inlet whales.)
K21, Cappuccino
Cappuccino’s death came after the census cutoff date, but that makes no difference to the outpouring of sympathy for a whale that was last seen on July 28 in distress, emaciated and in his final days, as confirmed in videos provided to the Center for Whale Research.

Cappuccino (K21) swims along the north side of Stewart Island near the Canadian border in 2015. // Photo: Center for Whale Research

The male orca with a broad dorsal fin was well-known and easily identified, even from a great distance, according to whale observers. When last seen, his dorsal fin had collapsed, a clear sign of a grave health condition.
At 35 years old, Cappuccino was the oldest male among the southern residents. Another iconic male, 43-year-old Mega, or L41, was last seen in August 2019 and was hailed as the father of 20 known offspring (Our Water Ways, Jan. 30, 2020). Genetic studies have not found any offspring from Cappuccino.
“While K21’s condition is heartbreaking, we celebrate his life as a story of flourishing under adversity,” says a statement from the Center for Whale Research. “Males born in the Southern Resident population have an estimated average lifespan between 20 and 30 years, and few Southern Resident males reach K21’s age of 35.
“In the years after his mother died (2004), K21 was at even greater risk, but he endured and maintained a close social relationship with his sister and, later, his adopted family, the K16s,” the statement continues. “K21 is one of the most well-known and iconic members of the Southern Resident community. His broad dorsal fin and bright, open saddle patch make him distinct even from great distances. We grieve for his pain and the loss his death would represent for the Southern Residents.”
As Seattle Times reporter Lynda Mapes put it when the news was first reported: “The grief felt by many right now is not only for a beloved whale, but for the passing of a way of life in the San Juan Islands, where the Southern Residents hardly visit any more. And when they do, they are too often struck by tragedy, carrying their dead calf or breathing their last breaths.”
Lynda’s story quoted my old friend Kelley Balcomb-Bartok, who grew up around the whales and assisted his father with the research.
“It’s a lost era, a lost place, those long summer days even before the sun rose you could hear the blows of them resting and relaxing; their tummies are full, they are just enjoying life,” Kelley was quoted as saying. “There was a joyfulness to the time and the place and the animals. That is what everyone pines to return to.”
Cappuccino was the oldest male, but now Southern Resident orcas — especially males — don’t survive as long. Based on the charts, three 30-year-olds are now the oldest males. They are Mike, J26; Blackberry, J27; and Mystery, L85. For details, visit The Whale Museum’s “Meet the Whales” and Orca Network’s “Births and deaths since 1998.”
Orca pregnancies
The organization SR3 (Sealife Response + Rehab + Research) recently reported that three female orcas in J pod appear to be pregnant, based on body measurements conducted from a remotely controlled octocopter (drone). The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife responded to the report by issuing an emergency order (PDF 182 kb) to keep commercial whale-watch boats back at least one-half nautical mile (0.58 mile) from the three whales.
Declaring the whales “vulnerable” under state rules, department officials also are asking recreational boaters to give the whales extra space and be careful to abide by the Be Whale Wise regulations, which include keeping boats back from the whales at least 300 yards to the sides and 400 yards in front and behind.
The three whales that appear to be pregnant are J36, a 22-year-old named Alki; J37, a 20-year-old named Hy’Shqa; and J19, a 42-year-old named Shachi.
“We’ve got many people looking at the science to understand where we can continue to improve the odds for this population,” Kelly Susewind, WDFW director said in a news release. “Now that we’ve learned of multiple pregnancies among the Southern Residents and the impact that boats can have on new mothers, we really need everyone to follow Be Whale Wise regulations in support of these endangered whales’ survival.”
Studies have shown that food is critical to killer whales in their final month of pregnancy and that vessels approaching the whales can disrupt their feeding behavior, especially for females, according to the news release. Southern Resident orcas, like their cousins the Northern Residents, eat salmon, primarily Chinook salmon. Transient or Biggs killer whales consume marine mammals, including seals and sea lions, and the transients are being seen more frequently within Puget Sound.
While the SR3 researchers hope for successful pregnancies among the three orcas they have observed, the number of failed pregnancies remains high among Southern Residents.
“Last year, we documented a number of other pregnant females, who were not successful in rearing calves,” said researcher John Durban, who worked with the SR3 team to gather aerial photos. “Unfortunately, this is not unusual, and we have documented a high rate of reproductive failure over the last decade. The survival of every calf is crucial to the endurance of this small and endangered population. Every calf matters.”
See also SR3’s blog post on the subject of adaptive conservation measures in response to the drone findings.

October 1, 2020

Do we know enough to do anything about all the seals and sea lions in Puget Sound?

Scientists have known for years that Chinook salmon are important to southern resident orcas, but Chinook are not the only fish the whales eat. At the moment, chum salmon are returning to Puget Sound, and recent orca sightings suggest that the whales may now be feeding on chum.
Harbor seals also eat Chinook salmon, but also chum, coho and other fish. They seem fond of smaller fish like herring and juvenile salmon. Oh, what a tangled food web we weave… Can we really say that seals are stealing the lunch from killer whales?
Southern resident orcas are considered endangered. Puget Sound Chinook and steelhead are threatened. Harbor seals seem to be everywhere, hardly struggling to find food, at least as far as anyone can tell. So is it time to bring the powerful influence of humans into the equation by forcefully reducing the harbor seal population in Puget Sound?

Harbor seal skulls helped to reveal something about seal diets years ago.
Photo: Megan Feddern

It’s a question that people have been pondering for years, but I’m not sure we’re much closer to an answer. A new report, which I will discuss, offers some options for the Salish Sea.
Meanwhile, a recent permit will allow more than 700 salmon-eating sea lions to be killed on the Columbia River, but that has nothing to do with Puget Sound. Before addressing the problem of seals in the inland waterway, some key questions need to be answered, as discussed in a story I wrote last month for the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound.
Some of the most important questions surround how much salmon the seals are actually eating and how they fit into the complex food web that involves all kinds of fish and marine mammals. We can’t forget, for example, that transient killer whales eat a fair number of harbor seals, so it’s not a one-way street.
A recent study examined the bones from harbor seals that died years ago to determine if today’s seals are eating higher or lower on the food web. It’s a fascinating study involving stable isotopes from amino acids found in the bones. I believe I was able to explain simply enough the basic techniques. See Encyclopedia of Puget Sound, Sept. 8, 2020.
On the experimental front, a new acoustic device is being tested as a deterrence for harbor seals and California sea lions that have been feasting on threatened salmon and steelhead coming through the Ballard Locks on their way into Lake Washington.

Researcher Laura Bogaard of Oceans Initiative installs speakers used in a new experiment on harbor seals at the Ballard Locks. Photo: Laura Bogaard

The device mimics the sound of a killer whale slapping the water with its tail. The idea is to startle the fish-eating pinnipeds and move them away from the fish ladder, where they often pick off fish trying to make it over the dam. For details, listen to the story by KUOW reporter Eilis O’Neill, or check out the news release from Long Live the Kings, one of several organizations partnering in the project.
A new report released in September offers a list of actions that could be taken to reduce seal and sea lion predation in the Salish Sea. The technical report (PDF 4.4 mb) summarizes the discussions from a November workshop attended by 75 U.S. and Canadian experts.
Author M. Kurtis Trzcinski of the University of British Columbia divides the suggestions into four categories:
Vary hatchery production:
Salmon and steelhead hatcheries should experiment with releasing young fish all at once or over longer periods of time to see what is most effective at reducing seal predation. Larger releases might “flood the predator field” so that more of the fish get away. Fewer fish coming out of a hatchery at any one time might attract less attention and increase survival.
One could also change the release location to see if there are places where the hatchery fish have a better chance of surviving. One could also hold the fish for longer or shorter times in the hatchery to see whether larger fish survive better or worse than smaller ones.
Another idea related to hatcheries is to produce forage fish, such as herring, with the idea that an abundance of forage fish might provide an alternate prey for seals and sea lions, thus reducing predation on salmon.

A harbor seal catches a salmon at the Ballard Locks.
Photo: Laura Bogaard, Oceans Initiative

Enhance fish survival
Leaving aside seals and sea lions, these ideas relate to habitat efforts to increase survival of salmon and steelhead in the streams and estuaries. Improving stream flow and assuring proper temperatures could be critical factors, along with enhancing habitat for better food and protection for the growing fish.
Enhancing habitat to increase survival of other species, such as forage fish, could help with salmon and steelhead survival.
Non-lethal removal
Discouraging seals and sea lions from eating salmon and steelhead could take the form of harassment, removing or relocating haul-out areas, or requiring marinas to build structures to keep pinnipeds off docks and floats.
Harassment with noise or physical disruption could be scheduled at key times, such as during salmon out-migration or return to the streams. But workshop participants gave the idea a low chance of success.
Preventing seals from hauling out, especially near salmon migration routes, might work in one area, but it probably would move the animals to another location with uncertain effects.
Another idea was to inject the animals with a contraception to control the population, although a project involving the handling of thousands of seals and sea lions would be immense.
Lethal removal
Killing seals and sea lions could be accomplished through hunting, which would require the hunters to use the animal for food or other purposes, or culling, which means killing the animal for the sole purpose of reducing the population.
Some experts proposed running an experiment by reducing the population through culling and then measure the effects on fish populations. Others suggested removing all the seals in one area and comparing the effects to a similar area where seals were not removed.
Preliminary estimates say it would take the lethal removal of 50 percent of the harbor seals — or about 20,000 animals in the Salish Sea — to push Chinook and coho salmon toward recovery. In addition, about 3,000 animals would need to be killed every year to maintain a stable population.
Uncertainty of such actions is high. Some say that other predators might need to be removed as well to keep them from simply eating the fish saved by eliminating seals. Birds, otters, raccoons and large fish are among the predators that could become a concern.
Officials in both the U.S. and Canada are considering their next steps, including an action plan that would probably include research to improve our understanding of the food web.
Related articles from the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound:

September 15, 2020

Orca census: One death in January, but no births were reported until September

UPDATE, Oct. 6
The newest calf among the Southern Resident killer whales was officially designated J58 after being seen alive and healthy on Sunday. The calf is the offspring of J49, a 15-year-old female named Eclipse who has one surviving calf, J51 or Nova.
Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research had been withholding the official designation until CWR staffers could be sure the newborn had survived and was healthy.
In Sunday’s encounter off San Juan Island, CWR staffers Dave Ellifrit and and Katie Jones reported, “Both J41 and J51 were chasing the fish and J58 was right there in the middle of the action. After the chase, the threesome pointed down island and then inshore.”
—–
This year’s official census for the endangered killer whales that frequent Puget Sound will record one new orca death but no births from mid-2019 to mid-2020.
Because the census accounts for the southern resident orca population as of July 1 each year, this year’s report will not include the much-welcomed birth of J57, born on or around Sept. 4 to Tahlequah, or J35, according to Ken Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research who compiles the annual census documents.

The head of the new calf, J57, can be seen alongside its mother, Tahlequah, or J35.
Photo: Katie Jones, Center for Whale Research

Ken and his associates were able to complete the census and confirm the birth of the new orca calf after all three southern resident pods gathered together in widely dispersed groups on Sept. 5. After reviewing photos from that day, Ken has informed federal officials that this year’s census count will be 72 southern resident orcas. A formal report with photos and data about each whale is expected to be submitted by Oct. 1, as required by a federal contract for the census work.
In years past, all the whales were generally seen in and around the San Juan Islands by mid-June, so the census could be completed right after July 1. But in recent years, the whales have been coming back late and staying around for shorter visits — probably because of declines in Chinook salmon, their primary food source.
For the census, we have 22 orcas in J pod, 17 in K pod and 33 in L pod, for a total of 72. That does not count the new calf, born after this year’s census period, nor Lolita (Tokitae), the only southern resident whale still alive in captivity. For a list, see births and deaths by Orca Network or “Meet the Whales” by The Whale Museum. Last year’s census report listed four deaths and two births for the year (Water Ways, Aug. 6, 2019).
It is disappointing not to have any births to report for the annual census. The one death on the list is a male orca named Mega, or L41, said to be the prolific father of at least 20 offspring. Check out Water Ways, Jan. 30, or read the note of reflection that Ken wrote when confirming the death. Also of interest is an article from NOAA researchers discussing the breeding patterns of killer whales and what it means to lose a whale like Mega.
Even though the newest calf was not born soon enough to be counted with this year’s census, the news of the birth was happily received and widely reported. (See news release from CWR.) It was a great story, especially considering that Tahlequah is the same mom that mourned the loss of her previous calf in the summer of 2018, when she carried her dead offspring on her head for 17 days. During that time, Tahlequah, then 20 years old, traveled an estimated 1,000 miles throughout the Salish Sea in what was called the “Tour of Grief” by staffers at the Center for Whale Research.
The new calf is energetic and appears to be healthy, unlike some of the calves born in recent years, Ken told me. As many as 40 percent of young orcas in this group fail to survive their first year of life, and many more are believed to die in the womb.
[iframe align=”right” width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/oxf9k2P2po8″%5D
Two other females appear to be pregnant at this time, based on recent aerial photos taken from a drone. Those whales are J41, a 15-year-old female named Eclipse who has one surviving calf, and L72, a 34-year-old female named Racer, who also has one surviving offspring.
Sept. 5, the day the new calf was confirmed by orca researchers, was notable not just for the introduction of a young animal into the population but also for the fact that all three pods were essentially together for the first time this year.
Lodie Gilbert Budwill, community relations coordinator for CWR, posted a blog entry this morning about her personal experience on the water with Ken and the whales. She also posted a video, which I’ve shared on this page.
“Upon our arrival,” Lodie wrote, “the whales were spread across the border in social groups: some on the U.S. side, some still in Canadian waters. Ken spotted J35 and her calf from a distance and took photos with his telephoto lens. He commented while photographing, ‘Looks like a healthy and precocious baby.’ The calf was swimming next to J35’s side. It was a beautiful sight, mother and baby, both swimming…
“The female whale in the lead started vocalizing above water,” Lodie continued in her blog. “This made Ken giggle, and I couldn’t hold back an ‘Awwww!’ They stayed next to the boat positioned at the surface like this for several minutes. Ken photographed while I took video. I felt like I was witnessing a greeting ceremony between the whales and Ken!!!”
When it was time to go, the whales decided to follow Ken’s boat, according to Lodie’s vivid description. The whales were even porpoising through the water as they tried to keep up with the speeding boat.
“After several miles of breathtaking travel with escorts off both sides, Ken stopped the boat,” she said. “The whales stopped too. They moved in front of Chimo, just a short distance off the bow, and then engaged in a roly-poly, cuddle puddle.
“At this point, I was taking video with my jaw dropped to the floor! There are no words to fully describe this experience. It was like a love-fest of tactile behaviors at the surface of the water. We witnessed whales spy-hopping in unison, three and four at a time while cheek to cheek, rolling and twirling, pec-slapping, tail-lobbing. I felt like I was dreaming!”
Lodie ends her lively blog post with a very nice tribute to Ken, who is indeed a living legend.
A few final notes:
Smoke and killer whales: If the smoke from wildfires is not good for humans, then it’s not good for killer whales either. While one could hope that the whales would swim to an area with fresh air, the truth is that they are likely to stay in an area if they are finding fish to eat, Ken told me. In Alaska, a group of whales stayed in Prince William Sound after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, he said, despite the ongoing presence of irritating — and toxic — fumes coming off the oil.
Wildfire smoke can affect the human respiratory and cardiovascular systems in various ways, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and it is likely to do the same for air-breathing marine mammals, including killer whales.

Graphic: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

Traveling whales: The southern residents should be venturing farther south into Puget Sound anytime now, as chum salmon begin to head back to their spawning streams. That’s the typical pattern of the orcas when the earlier Chinook runs decline. How long the whales remain in Central and South Puget Sound often depends on the size of the chum run.
Based on preseason forecasts by state and tribal biologists, we can expect to see one of the lowest chum runs in years. (See graph on this page.) Whether it will be enough to sustain the orcas for a while is yet to be seen.
Listen to orcas: Even when people can’t see the whales for the smoke, they can hear their calls with the help of underwater hydrophones in various places in Puget Sound. Such was the case last week, when dozens of scientists and other interested folks tuned in to Orcasound, according to a blog post by Scott Veirs, who coordinates the network. Thanks to Scott, here is a 30-second sample of what was heard near the San Juan Islands last week.

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September 15, 2020

Orca census: One death in January, but no births were reported until September

The head of the new calf, J57, can be seen alongside its mother, Tahlequah, or J35.
Photo: Katie Jones, Center for Whale Research

Graphic: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

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July 2, 2020

Absent orcas: Most of the whales simply are not around to be counted at this time

UPDATE, JULY 3: Two new reports worth checking out:

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“So far, no new babies to report.”
That’s the latest word from Ken Balcomb regarding the southern resident orcas, the three pods of endangered whales that once frequented Puget Sound but lately seem hard to find.
July 1 marks the date of the annual killer whale census, a project carried out by Ken and his fellow researchers at the Center for Whale Research. Each year, Ken accounts for every orca in the population and reports the number to the U.S. government. This has been going on since the 1970s, when the capture of orcas for marine parks was brought to an end.

K20, a 34-year-old female named Spock, was among the southern resident orcas visiting the San Juan Islands the past two days. // Photo: Monika Wieland Shields, Orca Behavior Institute.

In the not-so-distant past, the whales would generally return to Puget Sound in late May or June, after hunting for fish along West Coast. In most years, Ken and associates were able to spot every living southern resident orca at least once before July 1. That allowed him to report which whales had died and which ones had given birth.
For the past few years, the orcas have returned late, and often they have stayed a brief time while searching for schools of Chinook salmon, their primary prey. This year, the whales barely showed up at all, so Ken cannot yet tell us the exact status of the population. Under his federal contract, he has until October to report to the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Experts say the whales are missing because the salmon are missing. Fraser River Chinook — the main reason that orcas frequent the San Juan Islands — have dwindled to low levels along with Chinook bound for rivers flowing into North Puget Sound.
One indication of the dire condition for Chinook is the Albion Test Fishery, which involves catching fish in nets off the Fraser River. In June this year, only four fish were caught during the entire month, compared to an average 322 fish caught during the same period from 2000 to 2009.
Roughly half the orcas in the southern resident population have been observed so far this year in one place or another, Ken told me. With some luck, the rest will be spotted this summer. So far, observers have seen no obvious signs of any whales missing from their family groups. We can hope that there will be no deaths to report. But the bad news is that no new baby orcas have been reported either.
More births are needed to maintain the population, let alone expand the number to avoid extinction. If no new births or deaths are reported, the population will stand at 72 animals — with 22 in J pod, 17 in K pod and 32 in L pod. See Orca Network for the full rundown.
Last year, the census showed 73 animals in the population, following four deaths and two births over the previous year. Since then, a 42-year-old male name Mega (L41) was declared missing and presumed dead in January. See Water Ways, Jan. 30, 2020.
Even J pod, known as the homebody group of Puget Sound, has been elsewhere most of the year and not observed in Puget Sound since mid-April. J pod was last seen in Barkley Sound on the west side of Vancouver Island two weeks ago (June 21), according to a Facebook post by Orca Behavior Institute with a video provided by CBC Vancouver.
A portion of L pod, known as the L18s, has been observed near Swiftsure Bank, a prime fishing spot just outside the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Ken noted that a baby born last year, L124 named Whistle, was seen with the group.

San Juan Islands // Map: Pfly via Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday, two groups from K pod — the K12s and K13s — were seen off the west side of San Juan Island after they entered U.S. waters from Canada. The whales were still in the San Juans today, doing the “westside shuffle,” according to multiple reports.
“The residents are here!” wrote Cindy Hansen, Orca Network’s education coordinator, after spotting the whales. “That phrase has such a different meaning now. What used to be an almost daily occurrence here in the summer is now a momentous occasion that makes you drop absolutely everything you are doing and run out the door to try to catch a glimpse of them, because you don’t know when you’ll get another chance.”
Cindy’s post on Facebook, which received 111 comments by this evening, goes on to express her sudden fears that one or more whales will be missing, her sadness about the whales that have died and her frustration that ongoing human efforts are not enough to create conditions to keep the whales safe at home.
She also describes the excitement of seeing the whales and running into fellow whale enthusiasts, all watching from the shore.
“Even though you chat with some of them almost daily, there is something so special about standing on the rocks and talking and laughing and feeling so grateful to be here with the whales we all love,” she said. “It makes you remember that you aren’t alone and makes the fear and sadness and frustration easier to bear.”

July 2, 2020

Absent orcas: Most of the whales simply are not around to be counted at this time

UPDATE, JULY 3: Two new reports worth checking out:

K20, a 34-year-old female named Spock, was among the southern resident orcas visiting the San Juan Islands the past two days. // Photo: Monika Wieland Shields, Orca Behavior Institute.

San Juan Islands // Map: Pfly via Wikimedia Commons

March 7, 2020

Harvest managers setting this year’s salmon seasons struggle to find ways to help orcas

As state, tribal and federal salmon managers work together to establish this year’s fishing seasons, they have not forgotten about the needs of Puget Sound’s endangered killer whales.
In fact, new documents related to the southern resident orcas describe an investigation looking to find ways to reduce fisheries at certain times and locations that might get the whales more food. And yet it appears that nobody has figured out a way to help the whales by reducing salmon fishing.

Photo: James Mead Maya, Maya’s Legacy Whale Watch / mayasimages.com

Annual negotiations to establish seasons and quotas for commercial, tribal and sport fishing are now underway in what is called North of Falcon process, so named because it involves fisheries north of Cape Falcon in Oregon.
The killer whales are on everyone’s mind “in every step throughout the North of Falcon process,” said Carrie McCausland, spokesperson for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The salmon managers are fully aware that NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service will scrutinize fishing proposals to protect threatened and endangered species, including the whales, she added.
This year, the managers have a new “risk assessment” report (PDF 3.4 mb) that analyzes how fisheries may be reducing the number of salmon available to the whales along the coast and in Puget Sound. The report, considered part of interagency “consultation” under the Endangered Species Act, focuses mostly on Chinook salmon — the primary prey of the southern residents.
The analysis, conducted by 20 experts (mostly fisheries biologists), examined statistical relationships between the abundance of salmon at certain times and in general locations and how that corresponds to the well-being of the whales, as measured by their survival, birth rates and body fitness.
The statistical analysis is complex, but the overall picture came out as expected: When salmon are more plentiful over all, survival and birth rates tended to increase, with some lag time factored in. But when salmon were less plentiful, fitness of the animals declined, as measured by the observation of “peanut head,” which is caused by a loss of blubber near the blowhole.

Determining the effect of fisheries on the whales is a more complex problem, especially considering that fishing has had less influence on the survival of salmon in recent years, as fishing seasons have been reduced to protect Chinook, listed as a threatened species.
“The whales are declining even in recent years when total salmon abundance has been at or above medium term average … and similar to abundances during periods when southern resident killer whales were increasing or stable over the 1992-2016 period examined,” the report says.
One reason could be that factors beyond salmon abundance may be playing a greater role in orca survival, birth rate and fitness than in the past, states the report. Such factors could include contaminants in the food web, noise around vessels, ship strikes, disease, competition from other marine mammals, inbreeding, more males being born, and behavioral changes.
While it would be reasonable to assume that a higher abundance of salmon in specific areas at specific times could improve the outlook for the whales, the statistical analysis found no specific areas or seasons associated with improved survival, birth rate or body condition, according to the report.
The analysis, presented to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, is expected to be followed up by a new round of discussions and specific recommendations from the experts.

In responding to the report, some environmental groups argued that, given the acknowledged uncertainties, it is not enough to maintain current fisheries management based on an inability to find a statistical relationship between fishing and orca well-being.
“In light of declining southern resident killer whale population and concerns about SRKW genetic diversity, a precautionary approach would require evidence that the status quo is not harming SRKWs, rather than requiring a high degree of confidence in the precise assessment of harvest’s effect on SRKW demographics,” states a letter signed by Nick Gayeski and Josh Rosenau of Wild Fish Conservancy (PDF 694 kb).
Gayeski and Rosenau call for more analysis on the abundance, size and age structure of Chinook salmon wherever the fish go — including areas beyond those managed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, including Canada and Alaska.
“As the authors observe, SRKW are not only Chinook specialists, they are specialists on large Chinook…,” they wrote. “SRKW evolved in a context where Chinook weighing over 100 pounds were commonplace in the Columbia River, Elwha River and other major Chinook rivers of origin.
“It is not hard to see that it would take many times more energy and time to catch 100 pounds of 10- to 20-pound salmon than it would have taken to feed on a single 100-pound salmon then,” their letter continues. “Nor is it hard to envision the effects on SRKWs complex social structure when so much time must be taken away from social interaction simply to maintain caloric intake.

“It would hardly be surprising to find that this decrease in social interaction makes it harder to maintain pregnancies and sustain newborn orcas. The status quo of harvest management has driven this decline in Chinook sizes, and harvest management will be key to restoring SRKW prey quality, as well as quantity.”
They call for salmon management plans to include a threshold for Chinook abundance below which fishing for Chinook would cease.
Wild Fish Conservancy is preparing to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for allegedly allowing the overharvesting of Chinook in the Southeast Alaska troll fishery, which catches Chinook that originate in areas to the south where the orcas feed. See WFC news release.
Meanwhile, it isn’t clear how the fisheries managers will use the report as they set salmon seasons, but the annual “guidance letter” (PDF 1.3 mb) from the National Marine Fisheries Service calls on them to take extra steps to reduce fishery impacts when Chinook runs are low.
“We reiterate our concern about the severely depressed status of the SRKW population,” states the letter from Barry Thom, regional administrator for NMFS. “We are particularly concerned about years with critically low Chinook salmon abundance throughout the whales’ geographic range because of the potential effects to the whales’ energetics, health, reproduction, and survival.
“Intuitively,” he added, “at some low Chinook abundance level, the prey available to the whales will not be sufficient to forage successfully leading to adverse effects (such as reduced body condition and poor reproductive success).”
The guidance letter calls for increased conservation measures, such as time and area restrictions, to reduce fishing pressure on the Chinook when the North of Falcon abundance is equal to or less than the average of the seven lowest years of abundance. Those years are 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2007.
NMFS officials must approve any fishing plans adopted by state and tribal managers through the North of Falcon process.
At the annual North of Falcon kickoff meeting last week, officials with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that their forecasts of this year’s Chinook returns will be slightly lower than last year’s forecasts for Puget Sound stocks and somewhat higher for the Columbia River. A video of the presentation is available on the WDFW North of Falcon website.
This week, fisheries managers are meeting with the Pacific Fishery Management Council in Sonoma County, Calif. A major agenda item is to discuss numerical targets for salmon fishing, with three options scheduled for approval on Monday.
While fishing certainly can affect the abundance of salmon throughout the range of the southern resident killer whales, it is important to keep in mind the entire salmon life cycle, which can be affected by habitat in streams, Puget Sound and the ocean; weather and climate conditions; competition from other species; and the effects of disease on the entire food web.

January 30, 2020

Missing orca named ‘Mega’ lived a long, productive life, says Ken Balcomb

A 43-year-old male orca named Mega, now missing and presumed dead, was one of the first new calves that researcher Ken Balcomb spotted when he began his extensive census of Southern Resident killer whales back in 1976.
Ken didn’t know it at the time, but the baby orca — one of nine born in 1977 — would grow to become a large, powerful whale, living up to his name by fathering at least 20 offspring of his own.
Designated L41, Mega was around throughout Ken’s career at the Center for Whale Research. Ken watched other baby orcas grow up and eventually die, with many perishing before adulthood. The average lifespan of a male resident orca was once calculated at 29 years old, Ken told me, though it may be less now.
Several years ago, Mega seemed near death, Ken said. “He was lethargic and breathing hard and was away from the other whales by a couple miles. We thought that was it for him.” But the next time his group of whales came around, he was doing much better.

L41, a male orca named Mega // Photo: Dave Ellifrit, Center for Whale Research

Last Friday, Mega was missing from his social group, known as the L12 subpod. Orca researcher Dave Ellifrit got a good look at the group, which is rarely seen in inland waters. Mega’s large, distinct dorsal fin provided a first sign that observers could use to identify the group. The aging male was looking rather thin a year ago, Ken said, and now all signs point to his death. Read the Center for Whale Research encounter from last week.
“We are hopeful that L41 is alive somewhere and returns to the subgroup, but he did live to a ripe old age and fathered more baby whales than any other whale in the community,” Ken wrote in a note of reflection on the Center’s website.
“We watched the energetic young male baby as he grew up, and we had great hopes that he and his companions would fill in the youthful cohorts of the population that had been decimated by captures between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s,” Ken wrote.
“To me, he was not particularly noticeable for his behavior,” Ken told me on the phone. “Until the genetic work, we never realized that he was quite a loverboy.”
A genetic study led by Mike Ford of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center found that two whales — Mega and Ruffles (J1) — were responsible for 80 percent of all the paternities where a father was identified. Mega produced 20 known offspring, of which 14 are still alive. Ruffles produced 16 known offspring, of which 12 are still alive. A few other males added one or two offspring each to the population.
Ruffles died in 2010 at an estimated 59 years old.
Mega’s death would bring the Southern Resident population to 72 whales, just one higher than the 71 orcas counted during Ken’s first survey in 1976. It was a year of recovery following the halt of a massive capture of whales for aquariums around the world.
In the early months of that first survey, Balcomb, along with the late Mike Bigg and others, identified the Southern Resident killer whales for the first time, using their unique markings, including a “saddle patch” behind the dorsal fin. The researchers assigned them to one of their three major groupings, J, K and L pods. They also assigned numbers in the order they were first identified.
After the first year, the numbers were assigned in order that the whales were born. Thus L41, later named Mega, was among the first nine calves to receive their numbers along with a precise birth year. Of those nine whales, three are still alive: L54 or Ino, a female who has three living offspring; L55 or Nugget, who has four living offspring; and K14 or Lea, who has three living offspring.
Mega was unusual in that he lived many years after the death of his mother in 2000. Often, males survive only a year or two after their mothers are gone, presumably because older females share food with their more energetic male offspring.
As for Mega, he will be missed, but as Ken wrote, “He had a good life.”

May 17, 2019

Federal lawmakers optimistic about Puget Sound funding

By Christopher Dunagan
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Optimism, as related to a possible increase in funding for Puget Sound recovery, permeated discussions this week, when 80 officials from the region met with lawmakers in the nation’s capitol.
“It’s the first time in several years that we’ve actually been in a position to direct more money to Puget Sound programs,” said U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, during one of many “Puget Sound Day on the Hill” meetings.
With Democrats now in control of the House, they can draft a budget that fits their priorities for a host of projects — from civil rights legislation to funding for climate change. Of course, the challenge will be to get their issues through the Senate.
“It is really heartwarming to see the optimism that they are expressing, almost to a member,” said Stephanie Solien, vice chair of the Leadership Council, the oversight board for the Puget Sound Partnership. The Partnership coordinates the wide-ranging efforts to restore Puget Sound to ecological health.
Kilmer said he was sworn to secrecy about the actual numbers in the soon-to-be-released House appropriations bill, “but when it comes to fish funding and Puget Sound funding, we did very well.”
When Republicans controlled both the House and Senate, funding was substantially reduced for environmental programs, including money for the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operate specific funds for improving salmon habitat and restoring major estuaries throughout the country.
The Trump administration’s proposed budget the past two years “zeroed out” funding for the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund, which supports salmon-restoration efforts throughout the Northwest. But Republicans and Democrats worked together to restore the levels to $65 million, which is spread across five states.
Now, said Kilmer, “rather than working from a posture of trying to dig out of a hole, we are starting the conversation at a very good point.”
If the budget process works this year, Kilmer says funding for Puget Sound proposed in the House budget faces reasonably good prospects of getting through the Senate. Besides the support of Washington’s Democratic senators Patty Murray and Marie Cantwell, a number of Republican senators — including Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski — understand the importance of salmon to the Northwest.
The biggest obstacle will be to complete a budget, given the political divisions between House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, on many other issues. Not completing a budget might mean sequestration — automatic spending cuts — or another “continuing resolution” to keep the government operating under the status quo.
Nobody wants that, Kilmer said, and everybody says they are committed to a new budget before the end of the fiscal year in September. The key, he added, is to get House and Senate leaders to agree to a “cap” for the total budget, which would then allow final negotiations about where the available money would be spent.
For Puget Sound, national attention was drawn to the plight of the waterway and southern resident killer whales when Tahlequah, a mother orca, carried her dead baby on her head for 17 days. The orcas, considered to be on the verge of extinction, have helped people make a critical connection between those revered animals and the dwindling population of salmon — including chinook, their primary prey.
The governor’s task force on orcas came up with recommendations to help the Southern Residents. Those ideas were largely supported by the Legislature with new laws and funding. Now, Puget Sound officials are looking for financial assistance from the federal government.
The loss of salmon also affects the culture and traditions of Native American people, whose identity was formed around salmon over thousands of years. Through all the struggles, tribes maintain a right to fish, a right guaranteed by federal treaties and confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. That makes tribal officials a key part of the legislative discussions.
About 20 tribal leaders joined the annual “Puget Sound Day on the Hill,” which this year was combined with a separate effort called “Salmon Day on the Hill.”
“It’s not often that our treaty rights are in the vernacular of Congress,” said Ed Johnstone, an official with the Quinault Indian Nation and Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “We have a long history, going back through Congressman (Norm) Dicks and Senators (Warren) Magnuson and Scoop Jackson. We are here to help this process.”
Kilmer agreed with Johnstone that the personal connections between people and the natural world are priceless. He said some of the best moments of his life are those times he has spent outdoors with his children “enjoying nature in this incredible part of the world.”
“The main thing I want to say is thank you,” Kilmer told the group of 80 delegates gathered together Wednesday morning. “The impact that this group has had over the years is significant.”
In addition to Kilmer, the delegates from Puget Sound met as a large group with both Washington state senators as well as with Reps. Denny Heck, D-Olympia; Kim Schrier, D-Sammamish; Suzan DelBene, D-Medina; Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle; and Rick Larsen, D-Everett.
Some of the delegates met again in small groups with those lawmakers, while others joined up with other representatives from Washington state. Still others carried the message to senators and representatives from other parts of the country, talking about the importance of the Puget Sound ecosystem and how to go about restoring the waterway to a healthy condition.
— Christopher Dunagan is a senior writer at the Puget Sound Institute.