Lives in the Balance: Our Southern Resident Killer Whales' Future Depend Upon Us

This past summer, the SRKWs have been in the spotlight, not only in our local news, but also in our national news.   For the past three years our population has been without any new surviving babies in five of the past seven years, while several iconic orcas have passed away.  Today, the population is teetering at only 75, it is at its lowest since 1985!With J35’s 18-day “Tour of Grief” and the plight of young J50 and her declining health, the thought of us losing another orca is truly devastating. We have seen the community come together truly like never before, and Orca Conservancy has been at the pulse at what is happening as these crises are playing out.We believe and hope that there is a silver lining in what we have learned this summer.  For Orca Conservancy, we have not seen this much interest and concern for our killer whales since we helped to reunite Springer, back in 2002.  That turned out great, but how this this will turn out depends on many factors.  Positive changes need to happen to help our population.  Yes, our orcas are starving, and they need salmon to eat, and if it were so easy as putting salmon into the water, it wouldn’t be as difficult to solve.  Overall however, it is a much more complex challenge that needs three areas of focus:

1. Prey — Increasing Chinook Salmon runs
2. Contaminants — Reducing and eliminating harmful chemicals that are poisoning our Salish Sea
3. Vessel Noise — Reduction of ship and boat traffic noise that inhibits echolocation

This year, Governor Jay Inslee assembled a task force made up of four dozen marine scientists, government officials and NGO participants to seek out “bold solutions” to save this population.  It is a step in the right direction, but real solutions from this task force have been truly lacking so far, and long-term solutions are looming.  Gov. Inslee has given numerous interviews to the media and has shared that he has been trying for the past 1.5 years to put forward legislative measures to reduce toxicities in our waters, but it has been met with obstruction in our State Legislature.We as citizens have also been given promises that this task force will take “bold action” to save this species, but our local news media reports real concern about whether the task force actually will.  The task force has until October 1 to come together and draft up a report on recommendations to save this population.Orca Conservancy’s Dr. David Bain, PhD of cetacean studies, has attended most of the Task Force meetings, and we have sensed a lot of frustration coming from him about these meetings.   “My sense is that they have the right people in the room with good intentions”, he said, “but they are not discussing the right questions.”As we pressed Dr. Dave on this issue, he explained that “They (the Task Force) should be working on overcoming barriers to the implementation of recovery plans that have been sitting on the shelf for the past ten years.  Instead they are wasting time trying to come up with their own that is no more likely to be implemented.”Clearly, we need some immediate solutions, and also long-term ones.  Orca Conservancy is in favor of breaching the Snake River Dams, but Dave shared with us that the task force should be also discussing ways to mitigate and reduce impact of dam removal to the people of Eastern Washington to make that a realistic solution.  “We need to be responsible and mindful to keep their ways of life intact.”, he said.  There are various things that need to be addressed if the dams go down.This includes:

• As dams are removed, to reduce truck traffic, rail service to move agricultural products across Washington must be improved.
• Revising irrigation piping to allow farmers to irrigate their crops from the Snake River directly
• Losing power from the dam, means making up with energy production in the area like adding windmills or providing incentives to home-owners to move to solar power options

Overall however, there are several items that should be front and center with the Task Force Committee, including:

1. For Manufacturers: They should be testing chemicals and their environmental impact before they are put into the marketplace.  Failure to follow this practice allowed products that contain PCBs, DDT and other pesticides, flame retardants, new drugs people are taking, cleaning supplies, etc. to be sold and then, later banned.  Currently with the new administration, these regulations have been loosened rather than tightened, and we are seeing previously forbidden chemicals given new life again.
2. Reduce boat noise and disturbance. This means creating ‘slow-go zones’ and tighter regulations for pleasure boats.
3. Creating legislation to move pleasure craft fishing boats to river mouths, rather than competing with the orcas for their food sources
4. Habitat Restoration: Communities should work toward restoring streams, watersheds, clean up beaches, remove old bulkheads and unnecessary docks, etc.  This is the real permanent solution to Southern Resident recovery.
5. Sustainable Practices: Citizens should be more mindful of their own individual carbon footprint.  That means acting mindfully over our own use of electricity, trash, recycling, and consuming of products.

The next Orca Task Force meeting will be held in Anacortes, from 10AM-5PM on August 28, 2018 at the Swinomish Casino and Lodge at 12885 Casino Drive, Anacortes, WA 98221. The event is open to the public.