By HOWARD GARRETT
Six new southern resident orca babies have been born in the past year, which is great news, but with only 82 members alive today, the new births do not yet turn the corner toward recovery of this unique orca clan. The bigger picture is that in the two and a half years before those births, none were born that survived, and 16 died.
On Dec. 4, 2014, a deceased orca was seen drifting off Comox, British Columbia, in northern Georgia Strait. The body was identified as 18-year old female J32, known as Rhapsody.
A necropsy was conducted to determine the cause of death. She was found to be carrying a near-full term female fetus that had died earlier. Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research attended the necropsy and found that J32’s blubber layer was thin and dry of oil, which indicates an inadequate diet for an extended period. Since southern resident orcas are known to depend almost entirely on chinook salmon for survival, the depleted blubber layer points to a lack of sufficient chinook in the months leading up to J32’s death. The official necropsy report has not yet been released.
Ten years after being listed under the Endangered Species Act and one year after the loss of this much-loved member of “J” Pod and her calf, independent orca scientists and advocates are still waiting for effective action from the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the federal agency charged with protecting and restoring the southern residents. The most effective action would be restoration of consistent abundant runs of wild chinook salmon throughout the Cascadia watershed, especially from the Snake River basin.
To honor and learn from Rhapsody’s death, it’s important to clarify a related issue that is widely misunderstood: Drastic depletion of chinook runs available to the southern resident orcas is largely due to dams, especially the four lower Snake River dams. The Snake River basin was once the most bountiful producer of chinook for the entire Pacific Ocean, providing vital sustenance for the entire ecosystem, and essential nutrition for southern resident orcas. Despite hundreds of millions spent on habitat restoration and high-tech mitigation projects, wild chinook salmon from the Columbia basin continue to decline, despite many misleading news reports about record numbers of chinook returning to the Columbia Basin.
This year has seen the second largest count of salmon returning to the Columbia River in 80 years, which regulators attribute to efforts at restoring fish habitat.
Contrary to these reports, habitat restoration is not the leading factor explaining these large runs. Unfortunately the stories make little or no mention of the fact that more than 80 percent of these record returns are due to a temporary influx of hatchery fish, and that hatchery fish can’t survive on their own or replace wild fish. Moreover, genetically deficient hatchery fish are interbreeding with, and consuming, wild salmon, to the detriment of wild fish, making their recovery even more problematic.
It’s a complicated story, but for the complete picture of diminishing Snake River wild chinook — so crucial for the survival of southern resident orcas — and the quickest way to bring back abundant runs, please see a new white paper on Columbia basin chinook, called The Case for Breaching the Four Lower Snake River Dams to Recover Wild Snake River Salmon, linked on the OrcaNetwork.org home page.
Editor’s note: Howard Garrett is president of Orca Network’s board of directors.
