Strategy for the Northern and Southern Resident Killer Whales
- Thread starter cohochinook
- Start date
searun
Well-Known Member
I think the Washington State Orca Task Force largely got it right. Very comprehensive strategy based on science. If only our Fisheries Minister directed DFO to follow the same. Of interest when we met the Minister, he did say back then (Oct 11) that he had just met with Governor Inslee who reminded our Minister that if DFO did not follow suit with similar measures there could be trade implications for Canada. Time will tell how we respond.
Here's the full report and recommendations (of note, no additional restrictions on the recreational fishery beyond those that are laid out now in the Pacific Salmon Treaty).
https://www.governor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/OrcaTaskForce_reportandrecommendations_11.16.18.pdf
Here's the full report and recommendations (of note, no additional restrictions on the recreational fishery beyond those that are laid out now in the Pacific Salmon Treaty).
https://www.governor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/OrcaTaskForce_reportandrecommendations_11.16.18.pdf
fish brain
Crew Member
Careful what you wish for.
fogged in
Well-Known Member
Why did two whales die? Necropsies to seek answers
Necropsies will be conducted to determine what caused the deaths of an orca calf found near Nootka Island and a humpback whale that washed up near the Tsawwassen ferry terminal this week.
http://digital.timescolonist.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
Necropsies will be conducted to determine what caused the deaths of an orca calf found near Nootka Island and a humpback whale that washed up near the Tsawwassen ferry terminal this week.
http://digital.timescolonist.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
Stizzla
Crew Member
Because they have a short fishing season?
I agree the short season would suck, but at least they are making changes to help the future. All I hear on these threads is:
“the the DFO is running every type of fishery into extinction” and
“enjoy fishing while you still can!”
It would suck to have a short season right now like our friends down to the south, but at least they will have a strong fishery for the future. Plus with the new proposed closures, those of us on the lower island might not be able to fish AT ALL!!!
So yeah, I still support the USA tactics of pinniped control, shitting down fish farms, habitat restoration and spending good money on hatcheries. They’ll be the ones laughing at our fishing season in 10 years!
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scott craven
Well-Known Member
Ha ha, that's funny !
Stizzla
Crew Member
Whoops. I’m also standing by that! Not going to edit it!
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
Island Voices: Resident orcas are on the precipice
This past summer, the world’s attention was focused on the critically endangered southern resident killer whales that inhabit the Salish Sea and its outside coastal waters.
Tahlequah (J35) carried her dead calf for more than two weeks in a visible display of grief. At the same time, another young, infirm female, Scarlet (J50), was the focus of unprecedented Canadian and U.S. efforts to administer medication and food. The death of these whales was on the heels of another loss, Cruiser (L92), a whale who should have had decades of life ahead of him.
article continues below
Just before these events, the federal government determined that southern residents face “imminent risk of extinction” under present conditions. Mothers cannot sustain pregnancies, and individuals in their reproductive prime are dying. There is a large and growing body of evidence that the current levels of chinook-salmon abundance, ocean noise and disturbance, and polluted waters, create conditions that make population recovery for the southern residents untenable.
That said, there is hope if concrete action is taken now to address these threats. An analysis of population viability conducted by an international team of scientists examining whether recovery is possible shows that a 50 per cent reduction in existing noise levels, combined with substantive efforts to increase chinook abundance, could halt the decline and move this population toward recovery.
After years of legal, scientific and public outreach efforts requesting concrete action from federal agencies, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, David Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council and World Wildlife Fund-Canada, represented by Ecojustice, filed a lawsuit in September 2018 to compel the government to issue an emergency order to reduce threats to the southern residents. An emergency order is a legal tool that allows the government to cut through regulatory red tape and introduce wide-ranging protections for species at risk.
The federal government recently announced its refusal to issue an emergency order, despite the minister of environment and climate change and the minister of fisheries and oceans’ recommendation to do so.
Although we commend the ministers for recommending an emergency order be used, we are deeply disappointed that cabinet rejected what we believe to be the best available tool to recover these whales. Instead, the government has promised to take wide-ranging, yet vaguely defined, actions by April that we presume are intended to halt the decline and begin the recovery of these iconic whales.
To achieve these goals, however, we continue to call for enforceable and specific protection measures that improve chinook abundance, reduce vessel noise and disturbance, and regulate pollutants. Aggressive measures that will support whales being able to successfully feed in the Salish Sea by next spring include the following:
1. Create feeding refuges where commercial and recreational salmon fishing and whale-watching on southern resident killer whales are prohibited.
2. Close marine commercial and recreational chinook fisheries that catch mixed populations of chinook from southern B.C. and other populations important to the diets of southern residents.
3) Restrict commercial and private whale-watching on southern resident killer whales in critical habitat.
4) Set mandatory targets to reduce noise and disturbance from commercial vessels travelling in critical habitat and take steps to quantifiably reduce the cumulative levels of noise and disturbance from all marine traffic.
If southern resident killer whales are to live on in the Salish Sea, decisive steps producing substantive reductions in known threats need to be taken now. Proposed cure-alls such as more hatchery salmon and killing seals have little scientific basis, even though some might see these as solutions.
Harbour seals are believed to be competitors with humans for commercially valuable fish, but there is little evidence that decreasing the seal population increases the available fish catch. Ocean Wise marine mammal experts Drs. Peter Ross and Lance Barrett-Leonard have responded to the notion of a seal population “explosion” by pointing out “there has been virtually no change in seal numbers in B.C. in more than 20 years.” They also state “a seal cull could actually destabilize the coastal food web” and that declining chinook salmon abundance “is the result of a complex variety of factors and cannot be solely attributed to harbour seals.”
Through a suite of interactions, hatcheries are part of the reason that wild-salmon populations have failed to recover. Increased hatchery production would drive down the fitness of wild populations, further delaying or even preventing chinook recovery. Such proposals are symptomatic of the failure to address past mismanagement of chinook populations coast-wide and the hope that an industrial-technological solution will somehow solve a complex ecological problem.
Conversely, analysis by scientists has shown that letting migrating chinook salmon pass the hooks and nets of fisheries can improve survival rates of these whales.
The probability of killer-whale persistence declines with ongoing environmental degradation, loss of habitat, reduction of prey and decreasing population size. We believe it is essential for the federal government to take the bold measures necessary to restore southern resident critical habitat, halt the declining population, give the calves of the currently pregnant females in J and K pods their best chance at survival, and serve as the first steps toward killer-whale recovery.
Misty MacDuffee is a biologist and director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s wild-salmon program. Chris Genovali is executive director for Raincoast.
© Copyright
This past summer, the world’s attention was focused on the critically endangered southern resident killer whales that inhabit the Salish Sea and its outside coastal waters.
Tahlequah (J35) carried her dead calf for more than two weeks in a visible display of grief. At the same time, another young, infirm female, Scarlet (J50), was the focus of unprecedented Canadian and U.S. efforts to administer medication and food. The death of these whales was on the heels of another loss, Cruiser (L92), a whale who should have had decades of life ahead of him.
article continues below
Just before these events, the federal government determined that southern residents face “imminent risk of extinction” under present conditions. Mothers cannot sustain pregnancies, and individuals in their reproductive prime are dying. There is a large and growing body of evidence that the current levels of chinook-salmon abundance, ocean noise and disturbance, and polluted waters, create conditions that make population recovery for the southern residents untenable.
That said, there is hope if concrete action is taken now to address these threats. An analysis of population viability conducted by an international team of scientists examining whether recovery is possible shows that a 50 per cent reduction in existing noise levels, combined with substantive efforts to increase chinook abundance, could halt the decline and move this population toward recovery.
After years of legal, scientific and public outreach efforts requesting concrete action from federal agencies, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, David Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council and World Wildlife Fund-Canada, represented by Ecojustice, filed a lawsuit in September 2018 to compel the government to issue an emergency order to reduce threats to the southern residents. An emergency order is a legal tool that allows the government to cut through regulatory red tape and introduce wide-ranging protections for species at risk.
The federal government recently announced its refusal to issue an emergency order, despite the minister of environment and climate change and the minister of fisheries and oceans’ recommendation to do so.
Although we commend the ministers for recommending an emergency order be used, we are deeply disappointed that cabinet rejected what we believe to be the best available tool to recover these whales. Instead, the government has promised to take wide-ranging, yet vaguely defined, actions by April that we presume are intended to halt the decline and begin the recovery of these iconic whales.
To achieve these goals, however, we continue to call for enforceable and specific protection measures that improve chinook abundance, reduce vessel noise and disturbance, and regulate pollutants. Aggressive measures that will support whales being able to successfully feed in the Salish Sea by next spring include the following:
1. Create feeding refuges where commercial and recreational salmon fishing and whale-watching on southern resident killer whales are prohibited.
2. Close marine commercial and recreational chinook fisheries that catch mixed populations of chinook from southern B.C. and other populations important to the diets of southern residents.
3) Restrict commercial and private whale-watching on southern resident killer whales in critical habitat.
4) Set mandatory targets to reduce noise and disturbance from commercial vessels travelling in critical habitat and take steps to quantifiably reduce the cumulative levels of noise and disturbance from all marine traffic.
If southern resident killer whales are to live on in the Salish Sea, decisive steps producing substantive reductions in known threats need to be taken now. Proposed cure-alls such as more hatchery salmon and killing seals have little scientific basis, even though some might see these as solutions.
Harbour seals are believed to be competitors with humans for commercially valuable fish, but there is little evidence that decreasing the seal population increases the available fish catch. Ocean Wise marine mammal experts Drs. Peter Ross and Lance Barrett-Leonard have responded to the notion of a seal population “explosion” by pointing out “there has been virtually no change in seal numbers in B.C. in more than 20 years.” They also state “a seal cull could actually destabilize the coastal food web” and that declining chinook salmon abundance “is the result of a complex variety of factors and cannot be solely attributed to harbour seals.”
Through a suite of interactions, hatcheries are part of the reason that wild-salmon populations have failed to recover. Increased hatchery production would drive down the fitness of wild populations, further delaying or even preventing chinook recovery. Such proposals are symptomatic of the failure to address past mismanagement of chinook populations coast-wide and the hope that an industrial-technological solution will somehow solve a complex ecological problem.
Conversely, analysis by scientists has shown that letting migrating chinook salmon pass the hooks and nets of fisheries can improve survival rates of these whales.
The probability of killer-whale persistence declines with ongoing environmental degradation, loss of habitat, reduction of prey and decreasing population size. We believe it is essential for the federal government to take the bold measures necessary to restore southern resident critical habitat, halt the declining population, give the calves of the currently pregnant females in J and K pods their best chance at survival, and serve as the first steps toward killer-whale recovery.
Misty MacDuffee is a biologist and director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s wild-salmon program. Chris Genovali is executive director for Raincoast.
© Copyright
SpringVelocity
Crew Member
hatcheries are part of the reason that wild-salmon populations have failed to recover
********.
Yet again typical responses yet again where a groups have shown they don't want to work with others to reach a common goal.
********.
Yet again typical responses yet again where a groups have shown they don't want to work with others to reach a common goal.
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Clint r
Well-Known Member
california
Well-Known Member
While I don't agree with this NGO organization nor its goals, this is a well documented truth, and why hatcheries now try to limit the proportion of the run taken for broodstock and the number of smolts released. There is a lot of demand on this forum for science based decision making when it comes to SRKW critical habitat designations, and rightly so, but when it comes to hatcheries the consensus is the extensive science should be ignored and production should be ramped up.
SpringVelocity
Crew Member
STRONGLY DISAGREE. Wow you still don't get it much like Misty from Rainforest. What consensus environmental groups, or theory papers?
No. I am not saying pumping in a hatchery is good thing like the do in US. Hatcheries with combined projects going at same time have proven to work. Once the goals get achieved you back off production slightly, and adjust as needed.
A few examples just on Vancouver island alone:
- Cowichan River- Hatchery Program, water management, stream rehabilitation, estuary improvements. - Strong chinook run this year.
- Shawnigan Creek- Transplanted hatchery fish ( they didn't exist there), started with hatchery fish and now the genetic offspring most our wild (unmarked coming back) - Strong coho returns
- Sooke River- Hatchery program, stream enhancement, various projects. Almost down to zero in the 80's now has a very healthy chinook run.
- Puntledge River - Hatchery program, stream enhancement etc. - strong chinook run this year
California you keep comparing our projects in BC to the US. Hatcheries are a tool to revitalize a damage stream/river. We believe it is a tool that should be used at same time with other projects.
Argentina- Hatchery fish introduced and flourishing. They aren't originally wild? Mmm. Go online and look at the sizes they catch down there.
http://www.salmonfishingnow.com/salmon-fishing-chile-argentina/
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california
Well-Known Member
Why do you think some BC rivers have reduced output. The Cowichan has gone from egg takes of 3 Million fish down to 800,00 because of a realization that overproduction leads to genetic regression and reduction in wild (defined as naturally spawned fish). Those effects are well known, and while the Cowichan is the best example of a hatchery being used in conjunction with habitat enhancement, many other BC hatcheries are still overproducing relative to the wild returns. Besides, you missed the point, it was not that some BC hatcheries are not being used effectively, it was that in general on this forum (not necessarily you) there are constant calls for higher hatchery production to increase Chinook stocks, which is not what the science supports, and not what is supported by the model hatchery program on the Cowichan.
I am happy to see the returns that the Cowichan is achieving, and that it has been done while decreasing the smolt output by more than 2/3.
How an invasive species doing well is proof that hatchery stocks are good I'm not sure of. They have replaced native fishes, its more a cautionary tale for of what can happen when non native species are introduced via farming.
SpringVelocity
Crew Member
Yeah I am not talking about not just going to a river and flooding it with hatchery fish. I was more talking about starting up a lot of the ones that were closed down and have damage to the river systems. Start the hatchery same as Cowichan with a conjunction of a core user groups like the Cowichan round-table, and work on a conjunction of things at same time.
When river starts to rebound your curtail production. If it starts to drop you ramp it up slightly. Really the thing is here is that all these things like water management, estuary rebuilding etc. All have to happen at same time.
It is very interesting about Argentina, and South America. I am not sure why those salmon are doing so well. The habitat and conditions must be perfect for them.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
I am all for hatcherys pumping out fish
If the results of the hatchery production tho results in a a non selective gilnet commercial fishery then count me out.
If the results of the hatchery production tho results in a a non selective gilnet commercial fishery then count me out.
You nailed it wmy ... as soon as we rebuild stocks via hatcheries or habitat restoration, as soon as those stocks appear to be larger, we want to kill them.
I like the idea of limited hatchery enhancement on many rivers that have perilously low numbers, but we need to curtail harvest until stocks are rebuilt. Sadly, we don't seem to have the patience for that to happen.
Hope I'm wrong.
I like the idea of limited hatchery enhancement on many rivers that have perilously low numbers, but we need to curtail harvest until stocks are rebuilt. Sadly, we don't seem to have the patience for that to happen.
Hope I'm wrong.
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