The other day I received an email from Jen McGuinness. Jen is a friend and fellow kayak guide, as well as begin on the board of the North Coast Cetacean Society and the President of the Canadian Federation of Ocean Kayak Educators. While the subject of her email was the status of the southern resident Orca population she also voiced her concern for threatened species in general.
British Columbia has the highest diversity of native wildlife in Canada, including an estimated 1138 species of vertebrates, 60,000 species of invertebrates, 5250 species of plants, and 10,000 species of fungi. Through the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (1992), and under the National Accord for the Protection of Species at Risk (1996), British Columbia has pledged to conserve this diverse array of life. Yet, as Jen points out, British Columbia has no stand-alone endangered species act. This seems like a major oversight for a government purportedly dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity. If this concerns you as much as it does me, please read Jen’s email (below) and see how you can help.
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Dear Friends & Family,
As some of you may have heard recently on the news 7 Orcas from the Southern Residents have gone missing, which usually means they are dead as they spend their entire lives with their mother & pod. When they die they usually sink to the bottom of the Ocean, it’s very rare for a carcass to wash up on a beach. Observations have been made that Orcas are showing a “peanut-head” which means the fatty tissue on the top of their head is gone, a sign of malnutrition. Researchers fear that the greatest devastation to the Orcas is yet to come over the winter. The cause of the Orcas starving is lack of salmon, which results from Farm Salmon, Over Fishing (Commercial & Sport), Logging, and Pollutants. Pollutants in Orcas is also a significant reason for their declining numbers. [see Killer whales disappearing off southern B.C. for more details]
Although we are seeing the impacts of depleted salmon stocks on Orcas, we can assume Black Bears, Grizzly Bears, Eagles, Sea Lions, etc are also hungry and will be facing a difficult winter.
There are over 3600 species in BC, more than 1600 of them are Threatened or Endangered. There is no Law in BC to ensure we are making appropriate actions to save them. In 4 short years it is estimated by scientists that 90% of Pink Salmon (our hardiest and largest stock of salmon) will be gone (www.adopt-a-fry.org). Not only is this a dangerously low number, but it is dangerous because without diversity amongst a species they are much more susceptible to disease, which will decrease their numbers further.
There are a lot of great people doing a lot of great things to protect our wildlife that need your backing. Alexander Morton (www.adopt-a-fry.org) recently took the government to court to bring reason to the Salmon Farms devastating impacts on Pink Salmon in the Broughton Archipelago. The Wilderness Committee of BC and 5 other environmental groups have launched a lawsuit against DFO for not following its responsibilities under the Species at Risk Act to protect crucial habitat for Southern & Northern Resident Orcas.
Meanwhile BC doesn’t have an Endangered Species Law. There is a great campaign underway to have the BC government to create such a law, enforce, and fund it. You can sign the petition and check out details online: www.lastplaceonearth.ca
I have a really hard time accepting that these amazing creatures, which have given me so much joy, are starving and dying due to our irresponsibility as a province. At the very least we have the responsibility to voice our concerns to our government and not stop till positive change occurs. Please see www.lastplaceonearth.ca to sign the petition for BC to create and enforce a Species at Risk Act. BC has had over 4 dozen species already go extinct, lets see it end there! I don’t want to live in a place without wildlife, without Grizzly Bears and Orcas!
I would be happy to continue this dialogue with you and if you are looking for further resources and ways you can help, please contact me.
Sincerely,
Jen McGuinness
604 898-6608
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The southern resident population of Orca whales once numbered 200-300 individuals. In the 1960’s and early 70’s, however, there was unprecedented species predation by private aquarium owners in Seattle and San Diego, who made a business out of capturing Orca for sale to private Aquaria in New York, Texas, Canada, England, and to the US Navy in Hawaii (see “Orca Capitivity” for the shocking details).
The population was reduced to just 67 individuals before Ralph Munro, Gov. Dan Evans, and Slade Gorton, then attorney general, were successful in lobbing for legislation to protect the species. Puget Sound became a sanctuary for orca whales when their capture was banned in 1976. For a while it looked like the population was slowly but steadily recovering. By 1995, the southern resident population had grown to include 98 individuals, a nearly 30 percent increase in just two decades. This is dramatic evidence that governments can enact legislation to protect species and help retain species biodiversity.
However, an end to the hunt is not an end to the threat. If only it were that simple. During the late 90s, the population declined precipitously and it has still not fully recovered from this recent drop. Because the orcas live next door to 6 million people and a global shipping infrastructure, they are exposed to a variety of disturbances, including severe toxic contamination. One dead orca found in 2002 contained the highest concentration of the toxic PCBs ever recorded in a marine mammal — dozens of times higher than levels that affect growth, reproduction and immune responses in other mammals. Add to this the recent evidence of nutritional stress due to dwindling salmon stocks, their primary food source, and the picture is starting to look more bleak than it did in the the 60’s and 70’s. Both Washington State the US federal governments have officially recognized that Puget Sound’s orcas are at grave risk of extinction.
Here is an associated press article discussing the recent disappearance of another seven orca from the southern resident population.
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Phuong Lee
Associated Press
Oct. 27, 2008 — Seven Puget Sound killer whales are missing and presumed dead in what could be the biggest decline among the sound’s orcas in nearly a decade, say scientists who carefully track the endangered animals.
“This is a disaster,” Ken Balcomb, a senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, said Friday. “The population drop is worse than the stock market.”
While the official census won’t be completed until December, the total number of live “southern resident” orcas now stands at 83.
Among those missing since last year’s count are the nearly century-old leader of one of the three southern resident pods, and two young females who recently bore calves. The loss of the seven whales, Balcomb said, would be the biggest decline among the Puget Sound orcas since 1999, when the center also tracked a decline of seven whales.
Low numbers of chinook salmon, a prime food for these whales, may be a factor in the unusual number of deaths this year, Balcomb said.
“It was a bad salmon year and that’s not good for the whales,” he said. “Everybody considers these wonderful creatures, but we really have to pay attention to the food supply.”
The three pods, or families, that frequent western Washington’s inland marine waters — the J, K, and L pods — are genetically and behaviorally distinct from other killer whales. The sounds they make are considered a unique dialect, they mate only among themselves, eat salmon rather than marine mammals and show a unique attachment to the region.
The population reached 140 or more in the last century, but their numbers have fluctuated in recent decades. They were listed as endangered in 2005.
“We may be in the beginning of another decline in the population,” said Howard Garrett, director of the Orca Network, a nonprofit education and advocacy group.
He said the whales seem to be having a harder time finding chinook salmon.
The whales recently have been traveling over greater distances than usual, suggesting they may be ranging farther for food, said Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Lack of food may be a concern, but it’s too early to know the reason for the unusual number of presumed deaths, he said.
Pollution and a decline in prey are believed to be the whales’ biggest threats, although stress from whale-watching tour boats and underwater sonar tests by the Navy also have been concerns. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, the population fell as dozens were captured for marine parks.
The whales were making an apparentg comeback in recent years, reaching 90 in number in 2005, “but it’s been a downhill trend now for three years,” Balcomb said.
Among those missing are two female whales of reproductive age, both of which recently produced calves. One of those calves, L-111, is missing, while the other, J-39, is not.
It’s not unusual to lose older or younger whales, but losing two females in reproductive prime is “a bit of a concern” since they typically have a high survival rate, Hanson said.
One female whale, known to scientists as L-67, had the potential for two or three more calves, Hanson said.
She was the mother of “Luna,” a juvenile killer whale from Washington waters that made headlines in 2001 when he became separated from his pod and turned up in Nootka Sound, off the west coast of Canada’s Vancouver Island. A killer whale believed to be Luna died in Nootka Sound in 2006 when it was hit by the propeller of a large tugboat.
L-67 showed clear signs of emaciation — a depression behind her blow hole — before she disappeared in September, Hanson said.
“It definitely shows that she was not eating,” he said, but it’s unclear why. Researchers are performing tests on samples they collected from her weeks before she disappeared.
Others missing, according to the center, include K-7, the 98-year-old matriarch of K-pod, and L-101, a 6-year-old male who is a brother of “Luna.”
The count also includes a calf, J-43, that was born in November but is believed to have not survived the winter.
The whale census may increase if baby orcas are born this fall. And there’s a slim chance the whales may reappear elsewhere, as “Luna” did, Hanson said.
But Balcomb said: “We’ve been monitoring. They’re just gone.”
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