Orcas of the Pacific Northwest Are Starving and Disappearing.
By Jim Robbins
July 9, 2018
SEATTLE — For the last three years, not one calf has been born to the dwindling pods of black-and-white killer whales spouting geysers of mist off the coast in the Pacific Northwest.
Normally four or five calves would be born each year among this fairly unique urban population of whales — pods named J, K and L. But most recently, the number of orcas here has dwindled to just 75, a 30-year-low in what seems to be an inexorable, perplexing decline.
Listed as endangered since 2005, the orcas are essentially starving, as their primary prey, the Chinook, or king salmon, are dying off. Just last month, another one of the Southern Resident killer whales — one nicknamed “Crewser” that hadn’t been seen since last November — was presumed dead by the Center for Whale Research.
In March, Gov. Jay Inslee issued an executive order directing state agencies to do more to protect the whales, and in May he convened the Southern Resident Orca Task Force, a group of state, tribal, provincial and federal officials, to devise ways to stem the loss of the beloved regional creature. “I believe we have orcas in our soul in this state,” he said. At another point, he wrote of the whales and Chinook salmon that “the impacts of letting these two species disappear would be felt for generations.”
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It is as if none of that is happening at all.
I was born and raised in Washington state, and had a glorious childhood of watching the whales and orcas, of eating fresh trout and salmon until we kids used to complain of it, same for crab and clams. No fishing licenses required, so we could drop a hook anytime we were near a stream or lake or a dock. Fishing poles were always in the car, "just in case".
Breaks my heart to see what is happening on the West Coast now.
For some reason nobody ever talks about all the non-radioactive toxins that were swept out to sea by the tsunami, or all the people who were smashed up by debris and drowned.
If I was emperor of Earth I'd ban fossil fuels and commercial fishing. I'd certainly ban whaling too.
Those are very serious dangers to cetacean populations.
Fukushima is so far down the list it's negligible.
Commercial hunting was banned in the U.S.A. for the same reason commercial fishing ought to be banned.
It used to be you could buy a a few passenger pigeons at your local butcher shop to cook up for dinner. Passenger pigeons are now extinct.
Wasteful practices and lack of concern by the billions. Trawling, big nets, and production quotas. Garbage and more garbage. We treat our waterways and oceans like sewers and dumps and have this weird expectation that they will provide us food indefinitely. But as problems mount, we lay the blame on anything but our appetites. If there were but two fish in the ocean left, you can bet somebody would be salivating over them as they cast their net.
"Isn't it terrible what's happening to all the fish in the ocean? We are over-fishing them and populations are way down. Something has got to be done about it. Pass me the tarter sauce, will you."
