Environment Archives - Page 60 of 106

New McNary Dam Passage Gives High Hopes for Pacific Lamprey

U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceThe Pacific lamprey — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The Pacific lamprey

Indian Country Today Media Network

The Pacific lamprey, culturally significant to the Umatilla and other tribes, now has a shot at making it past the McNary Dam to spawn.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supplementing the fish ladder of the dam’s Oregon shore with an additional structure that offers water velocities more conducive to lamprey migration, the Union-Bulletin reported on March 8.

The structure would allow lampreys, which tend to move along the river bottom in water that flows more slowly than the upper levels preferred by spawning salmon and steelhead, to access the fish ladder and make it upstream, the Union-Bulletin said.

“We plan to conduct video monitoring to observe which velocity is preferred by migrating lampreys,” said Mark Smith, who managed the project for the Corps, to the newspaper. “We anticipate this prototype structure will help us learn quite a bit about what’s best for lamprey passage.”

Lampreys have been around for at least 450 million years, the oldest fish in the Columbia River system, according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC). Though not in danger of extinction, they have declined from a former high of millions 30 years ago to just about 4,000 returning to the Snake, Clearwater and Salmon river drainages where they once teemed, said Aaron Jackson, lamprey project leader for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, to the Union-Bulletin.

Tribes in the Pacific Northwest use the lamprey for food and medicine, and the fish plays a key role in regulating inland aquatic systems. They spend their first four to seven years of life acting as filters in freshwater sand and silt, then move to the ocean where they become parasites, latching onto various saltwater prey, the Union-Bulletin said. After two to three years of that they return to their freshwater origins to spawn.

The Army Corps of Engineers work group that helped design and engineer the structure included tribal representatives, the newspaper said. Built by Marine Industrial Construction of Wilsonville, Oregon under a $336,542 contract, was completed in late February and is the first such installation in the mid-Columbia River, the Union-Bulletin said.

“We’re excited to see something like this put in the river,” Jackson said.

Klamath Tribes And Ranchers Seek Water Solutions In New Agreement

The Klamath Basin spans northern California and southern Oregon and has seen frequent water crises between the farming, ranching, tribal and environmental communities. | credit: Devan Schwartz

Devan Schwartz, March 5, 2014 OPB

An agreement announced Wednesday between ranchers and Native American tribes seeks to resolve contentious water rights issues in the Klamath Basin, a drought-ridden region spanning southern Oregon and northern California.

Amidst a deep drought last summer, the Klamath Tribes and the federal government called on their senior water rights –- meaning they received access to limited water supplies.

As a result, irrigation water was cut off to thousands of acres of Klamath Basin ranchland. This created millions of dollars in losses.

The new agreement seeks reduced water demand by ranchers, along with increased river restoration and economic development for the Klamath Tribes.

Tribal chairman Don Gentry said it wasn’t easy getting all the stakeholders in the Klamath Basin to reach common cause on such a contentious issue.

“It’s nothing short of remarkable that we’ve come to this point,” he said.

Last summer, Larry Nicholson saw irrigation water shut off to his family’s cattle ranch. He hopes that won’t happen again.

“Everybody can have water, where most people couldn’t before,” Nicholson said.

Proponents of the new agreement say it will bring stability to the region and represents an important step forward in a generations-long struggle.

But some conservation groups disagree.

Jim McCarthy of Oregon WaterWatch said the agreement doesn’t go far enough in limiting the amount of water that people will want to withdraw — water that others want to remain in streams to help fish and wildlife . “It’s just not enough water to solve those problems,” he said.

Drought conditions could be worse next summer and fall than they were in 2013. The Klamath Basin currently has a snowpack about 40 percent below what it was last year at this time, according to Natural Resources Conservation Services data.

The new agreement calls for an additional 30,000 acre-feet of water to help fill Upper Klamath Lake –- the source for both the Klamath River and the Klamath Project, one of the largest federal agricultural projects in the country.

This would be accomplished through a combination of reduced ranching through a land retirement program and increased management of streamside areas along Upper Klamath Lake tributaries.

As far as economic development, an additional $40 million would be appropriated for the Klamath Tribes.

Tribal Chairman Don Gentry said this agreement is historic and paves the way for a better economic situation for the Klamath Tribes, in addition to better protecting the natural resources of historic tribal lands.

The new agreement still faces votes by the ranching and tribal communities, and would be folded into federal legislation that is likely to reach opposition in a divided congress.

The legislation would combine the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, which stipulates the removal of four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River.

But Gov. Kitzhaber’s natural resources advisor Richard Whitman expressed confidence that the continued leadership of Sen. Ron Wyden could get the bill approved in Congress by the end of the year -– and help solve the water crises in the Klamath Basin.

An Undammed River’s Sediment Brings New Life Downstream

Katie Campbell, KCTS9

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — Anne Shaffer sits on the sandy shoreline of the Elwha River and looks around in amazement. Just two years ago, this area would have been under about 20 feet of water.

So far about 3 million cubic yards of sediment — enough to fill about 300,000 dump trucks — has been released from the giant bathtubs of sediment that formed behind the two hydroelectric dams upstream. And that’s only 16 percent of what’s expected to be delivered downstream in the next five years.

All of that sediment is already reshaping the mouth of the Elwha, which empties into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the northern shore of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

The depth at the mouth of the river has changed by about 50 feet. Long, charcoal-colored sandy beaches have formed where there once only smooth, platter-sized cobblestones.

Watch video report:

“This place is like Christmas,” says Shaffer, a marine biologist and the executive director of the Coastal Watershed Institute. “Everyday you come out here and its something new.”

Shaffer is leading a team of researchers who are studying the Elwha’s nearshore area, where the river’s freshwater meets the saltwater tides. Shaffer explains that until recently this area was starved of sediment, and now a whole new ecosystem is forming. Her team is trying to find out what tiny creatures are moving in.

They’re searching for evidence that species like sand lance and surf smelt are using this area as spawning grounds. These tiny fish are a common food sources for juvenile salmon.

Sand lance (top) and surf smelt (bottom) by David Ayers/USGS.

Sand lance, she explained, require a very fine grain sediment in order to lay their eggs.

“We now are surrounded by the exact grain size that sand lance need to spawn,” she says.

The team scoops up bags of sand to test in the lab. So far they haven’t found evidence of sand lance spawning in this new habitat, Shaffer says. But they have found that surf smelt are spawning in areas where sandy substrate has built up.

During recent fish census surveys of the Elwha’s estuary, Shaffer’s team counted baby chum salmon in numbers they haven’t seen in years, if ever, Shaffer said. And they’ve also found a number of eulachon, a type of smelt that was once an abundant food source for coastal tribes. The eulachon is now listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

“As soon as this habitat is available, these fish are using it,” Shaffer says. “None of us anticipated how quickly it would occur. I’d never seen a eulachon in the estuary before, but in the last three months, every time we survey, we see them.”

The drone of a single-engine plane causes Shaffer to look up and shield her eyes.

“I bet that’s Tom,” she says with a smile.

A Bird’s Eye View

Port Angeles pilot and photographer Tom Roorda has had one of the most unique perspectives during the last two and a half years while the dams have been slowly dismantled. He started taking land-survey photos of the Elwha eight years ago. Back then his photos were used to help the federal Bureau of Reclamation prepare for dam removal.

Today his jaw-dropping aerial photos capture the giant plume of sediment flowing out of the mouth of the Elwha.

“Until I started taking these pictures, no one had any idea how much sediment was coming down or how far it extended out into the strait,” Roorda said.

The flush of sediment has moved the mouth of the Elwha north by about 300 feet, creating a long skinny spit that extends into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The area that used to serve as the Elwha’s estuary has been inundated with freshwater and a new estuary is forming downstream.

“As soon as it starts to rain that sediment gets washed down into the river and we get these big gulps of sediment coming down,” Roorda said.

This winter’s rains have continued to flush sediment downstream, so much so that the river’s flow is currently 10 times higher than normal. While all that sediment is ideal for building nearshore habitat, some worry the water will be too murky for salmon. Sediment can clog and irritate their gills and make it difficult to find food.

But Shaffer for one, isn’t concerned.

“Salmon are brilliant,” she said. “They have evolved over millenia. If they’re given a chance to acclimate to it, they will.”

The First Leap?

Today the entire length of Elwha looks like a free-flowing river. That’s because recent storms have submerged the remaining 25 or so feet of the Glines Canyon Dam.

Glines Canyon Dam, March 10, 2014, Olympic National Park

From webcam images, it’s difficult to even identify the slope of what remains of the 210-foot spillway. This is causing some to wonder how much longer it will be before the first fish leap over the concrete barrier that remains.

It may take weeks or months, but when the first leap happens, it’s not likely to be a salmon.

“Steelhead are quite the athletes. A steelhead can leap up to 12 feet in a single jump,” said John McMillan, a NOAA biologist who is tracking fish recovery on the Elwha.

McMillan is betting on steelhead — trout that, like salmon, are born in freshwater streams before migrate to marine waters. He says he’s seen steelhead ascend a 35-foot cascading waterfall by taking a series of long leaps.

Researchers are using imaging sonar to track the different fish returning to the Elwha, and they’ve found that some steelhead have already returned to the lower Elwha, McMillan said. The bulk of the run, however, is expected to take place from April to early July, he said.

Dam deconstruction will pause May 1 to minimize disruption to the steelhead spawning season.

Removal of the Lower Elwha Dam finished in March 2012. The last of the rubble of the Glines Canyon dam is expected to be gone by September 2014.

CSKT to become first tribes to own a major hydroelectric facility

Brian Lipscomb, the CEO of Energy Keepers, announced this week that that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes would acquire Kerr Dam for $18.3 million – more than the $14.7 million the tribes wanted to pay, but more than $30 million less than what PPL Montana had sought (Photo by Tom Bauer/Missoulian).

Vince Devlin, Buffalo Post

Almost 40 years after starting the process to acquire Kerr Dam, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have almost reached the finish line.

And they’ll get there for a price that is tens of millions of dollars closer to what the tribes said it was worth than what PPL Montana wanted for it, the Missoulian reports.

The Flathead Indian Reservation tribes will become the first in the nation to own a major hydroelectric facility when they turn over $18.3 million. That’s the price set by the American Arbitration Association after weighing arguments from CSKT, which maintained the price should be $14.7 million, and PPL Montana, which said it should be nearly $50 million.

Extensive hearings on the price were held in January.

“This is a historic day for the Confederated Salish, Pend d’Oreille and Kootenai Tribes,” CSKT Chairman Ron Trahan said. “We’ve been working toward this for 40 years. It brings tears to my eyes, because it’s something we never quit on.”

The earliest the transfer of ownership can take place is Sept. 5, 2015.

New owners will mean a new name for the dam according to Brian Lipscomb, CEO of Energy Keepers, a federally chartered corporation wholly owned by the tribes. Completed in 1938, the dam was named after Frank Kerr, president of Montana Power Company at the time.

“We’ve been titled as visionary people, and it plays out,” council member Lloyd Irvine said at a press conference announcing the price. Acquisition of the dam “is one of the tools that ensures the future of our people.”

But another council member, Terry Pitts, urged caution.

“We should not be blinded by the bling,” Pitts said. “There will be a lot of issues that come with this. We need to be fully prepared.”

Tribes, BIA and BLM collaborate on oil, gas operations

By The Ranger staff reports

The Arapaho and Shoshone tribes and the Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management, signed a memorandum of understanding Feb. 25 in Fort Washakie.

Through the MOU, the parties said they will engage in a cooperative environmental program to promote compliance on oil and gas properties by lessees and operators on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

“This MOU is a good opportunity for all of us to start fresh, to be on the same page and to work toward the same goals,” said BIA acting Rocky Mountain regional director Darryl LaCounte.

Specifically, the MOU outlines a process and timelines for the parties to:

– review all ongoing oil and gas operations on the reservation with tribal ownership interest to identify actual or potential adverse environmental effects;

– identify prospective sources of federal funding to the tribes to support monitoring, inspection and enforcement;

– develop an environmental plan for oil and gas operations; and

– formalize a structure for future communications between the parties regarding environmental concerns arising from oil and gas operations.

“We look forward to working collaboratively with the Arapaho and Shoshone tribes, as well as with the BIA, to manage oil and gas activities on the Wind River Indian Reservation,” said BLM Wyoming state director Don Simpson.

For more information, call BIA realty officer Marietta Shortbull at 332-4639 or BLM resource adviser Stuart Cerovski at 332-8400.

Dead eagles found in Neb. used by Native Americans

By Associated Press

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) — The carcasses of dead bald and golden eagles found in Nebraska are collected and recycled for religious purposes.

The North Platte Telegraph reports (http://bit.ly/1nwRtQ2 ) the state is part of an unusual federal recycling program that provides parts of eagle carcasses to Native Americans who hold valid permits.

The feathers and other body parts of eagles are considered sacred by some Native Americans. But federal laws designed to protect the birds make it illegal for most people to possess any part of a golden or bald eagle.

Lauren Dinan with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission says the state recently sent 37 eagles to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colo.

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Information from: The North Platte Telegraph, http://www.nptelegraph.com

Controversial Olympic Peninsula Timber Sale Pits Environment Against Education

The marbled murrelet, a federally protected seabird that nests in the coastal forests of Washington, Oregon and Northern California. | credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

By Ashley Ahearn, KUOW

SEATTLE — The Washington Board of Natural Resources voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the sale of 200 acres of the Olympic Peninsula that are home to the threatened marbled murrelet. The money from the timber sale will go to the University of Washington.

200 acres might not seem like that big of a deal, but not if you ask Peter Goldman, director of the Washington Forest Law Center.

“These 200 acres are extremely important,” he said. “These lands around these timber sales are heavily used and officially mapped as occupied by the marbled murrelet.”

Goldman was referring to a rare seabird whose numbers have plummetted to the point that it’s listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. It nests in old-growth coastal forests of Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and California.

Goldman is working with several environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Seattle Audubon Society, and Olympic Forest Coalition, who oppose the timber sale because it will mean clearcutting in murrelet habitat. The tracts are known as the “Goodmint” and “Rainbow Rock” timber sales, and are located on the western part of the Olympic Peninsula.

There are roughly 2,000 murrelets left in Washington and the population has been declining by up to 8 percent each year over the past decade. The birds can fly upwards of 50 miles to forage the ocean for food. For timber cutters and marbled murrelet alike, coastal forests on the Olympic Peninsula are highly desirable, and harder to come by.

Last year the University of Washington received $1.35 million from timber sales on state lands, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

“So the question,” Goldman says, “is whether the University of Washington is really saying they want to log the last remaining habitat for the marbled murrelet for approximately $600,000.”

In an emailed statement, a spokesman for the University of Washington said: “This is the Department of Natural Resource’s decision. Some people may disagree but it is their call.”

Tom DeLuca, the director of the University of Washington’s school of Environmental and Forest Sciences, is the vice chairman of the state Board of Natural Resources, which makes decisions about timber sales. DeLuca did not vote on this particular sale and did not respond to requests for an interview.

Peter Goldmark (not Goldman) is the chairman of that board, and the commissioner of public lands for the state of Washington.

“The opponents make an emotional issue that these are the last acres available when in fact they’re not,” Commissioner Goldmark said.

These 200 acres may not be the last remaining marbled murrelet habitat but they’re part of it.

In a report released in 2008, the Department of Natural Resources identified key habitat that should be protected for marbled murrelet throughout the state. The 200 acres that are now up for sale were included in that report.

When asked about the report, Goldmark downplayed the findings.

“This is a science team report only,” he said. “It’s not proposed as a plan because, first and foremost, our major responsibility is a fiduciary interest to supply revenue for the trust beneficiaries.”

Goldmark added that the DNR has refrained from logging on thousands of acres elsewhere in the area, at a significant cost to those “trust beneficiaries” — like the University of Washington, Washington State University and public schools throughout the state, which received almost $175 millionfrom timber sales last year.

The 200 acres will be put up for sale in April. Environmental groups have indicated they will to file a lawsuit in the next 30 days.

Where the land and water meet: new study pinpoints the essential role of wetlands

Estuary_photo — Quilceda marsh, currently owned by The Tulalip Tribes, looking southwest down Steamboat Slough of the Snohomish River toward Port Gardner, Wa.
Photo by K. O’Connell 2013

By Monica Brown Tulalip News Writer

TULALIP, WA-Wetlands are widely agreed to be some of the most beautiful places on Earth, with an array of wild and plant life that spark joy in the hearts of many.

“For many of us, water simply flows from a faucet, and we think little about it beyond this point of contact. We have lost a sense of respect for the wild river, for the complex workings of a wetland, for the intricate web of life that water supports.” -Sandra Postel, founder and director of Global Water and Policy Project, author of “Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity”, 2003.

Wetlands can be considered the hub of life, where land and water meet you will find an overabundance of life flourishing. Currently most wetlands are threatened with rising sea levels, pollutants and development.

A recent study conducted by Restore America’s Estuary, on the Snohomish estuary, begins to pinpoint the essential need for healthy estuaries and their link to global health. For the study, soil samples (from Smith Island, Spencer Island and Qwuloolt to name a few) were taken in order to establish a count of CO2 emissions that are captured and stored within estuaries that vary in health condition.

Photo Source: Big Sky Carbon — Image Source: Big Sky Carbon

There are numerous ways to remove carbon emissions, most are natural and work through plant life such as forests while others are less natural and work through power plants that capture CO2 and bury it back into the earth or ocean. Coastal wetlands have been labeled as Blue Carbon sequesters and have been found to greatly reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions. Throughout the USA, tidal marshes, tidal forests, saltmarsh grasses, seagrasses, and the mangroves along the Gulf Coast are more effective at sequestering carbon (up to a 100 times faster) and are able to store it for longer periods of time as compared to forests.

“This report is a call to action. We need to invest more substantially in coastal restoration nationwide and in science to increase our understanding of the climate benefits which accrue from coastal restoration and protection efforts,” said Emmett-Mattox, Senior Director for Restore America’s Estuaries and co-author on the study. “Sea-level rise will only make restoration more difficult and costly in the future. The time for progress is now.”

Through this study a blue carbon working group can be established which will focus, for years to come, on restoring and monitoring Pacific Northwest region coastal wetlands in order to continue collecting and analyzing data which will help to influence better-quality land management, update policies that could one day apply to wetlands nationally.

Due to human impact, coastal wetlands are disappearing at a rapid rate, “at current conversion rates, 30–40% of tidal marshes and seagrasses and nearly 100% of mangroves could be lost in the next 100 years.” (Estimating Global “Blue Carbon” Emissions from Conversion and Degradation of Vegetated Coastal Ecosystems.Pendleton et al., 2012). Although, both are time consuming, maintenance of estuaries is more cost effective than restoring and with rising sea levels (estuary health and life depend on average sea levels), estuaries are losing ground and time has become an issue as well. This national loss of wetlands has branded the Snohomish Estuary as an excellent case study for restoration and estimates of carbon storage.

“It is very fitting that we are implementing some of the world’s leading Blue Carbon research here in Puget Sound,” said Steve Dubiel, Executive Director of EarthCorps. “We have always known that wetlands are a kind of breadbasket, thanks to the salmon and shellfish they support. Now we are learning that they are also a carbon sponge.”

“Coastal Blue Carbon Opportunity Assessment for Snohomish Estuary: The Climate Benefits of Estuary Restoration” finds that currently planned and in-construction restoration projects in the Snohomish estuary will result in at least 2.55 million tons of CO2 sequestered from the atmosphere over the next 100-years. This is equivalent to the 1-year emissions for 500,000 average passenger cars. If plans expanded to fully restore the Snohomish estuary, the sequestration potential jumps to 8.8 million tons of CO2 or, in other terms, equal to the 1-year emissions of about 1.7 million passenger cars.

In addition to the climate benefits outlined by the study, healthy and restored estuaries act as spawning grounds and nurseries for commercially and recreationally important fish and shellfish species, provide storm buffers for coastal communities, filter pollutants, and provide habitat for numerous species of fish and wildlife, as well as recreational opportunities for hundreds of millions of Americans annually.

Being Frank: New Hatchery is a Blessing

By Billy Frank, Jr., Chairman, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

OLYMPIA – I was excited to attend a groundbreaking ceremony recently for a new state salmon hatchery at Voights Creek near Orting. The new facility replaces a hatchery – nearly wiped out by floods in 2009 – that has been operating on the creek since the early 1900s. Close tribal and state cooperation made the new hatchery a reality. It will be the first new state salmon hatchery built in the past couple of decades.

I’m glad that the old hatchery is being replaced. We can’t afford to lose any more of them or the salmon they provide, despite what you might be hearing these days.

Closing the Voights Creek Hatchery would mean the annual loss of 1.6 million fall chinook salmon and 780,000 coho salmon. That’s in addition to 400,000 more fall chinook and 100,000 additional coho that are transferred from the facility to the Puyallup Tribe’s hatchery for release into the Puyallup River each year.

Hatcheries have been getting a bad rap lately. Tribal, state and federal hatcheries are under fire from lawsuits filed by a few extremist groups who think that all wild salmon and steelhead are good and all hatchery-produced fish are evil. I’m not sure what they’re trying to achieve. All fishermen – Indian and non-Indian – rely on hatcheries, because fisheries are supported by them. Some hatcheries produce fish for harvest. Others serve as nurseries to supplement weak wild stocks.

It’s really pretty simple. No hatcheries equals no fishing. For anyone. That’s unacceptable to the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington, because our constitutionally protected fishing right depends on salmon being available for harvest.

Hatchery opponents argue that when hatchery fish breed with wild fish, their offspring don’t survive as well. But research by the Nez Perce Tribe in Idaho has shown that’s not always the case.

The bottom line is that we will need salmon hatcheries for as long as lost and damaged habitat prevents salmon recovery. We would prefer not to rely so heavily on hatcheries, but today more than half of the chinook and coho harvested by Indian and non-Indian fishermen come from hatcheries.

We’ve become dependent on the fish produced in hatcheries because we are losing the battle to recover naturally spawning salmon and their habitat. I think we are going to rely on hatcheries for quite some time, because salmon habitat is being lost and damaged faster than it can be restored and protected, and the trend isn’t improving.

While we celebrate this year the 40^th anniversary of the Boldt decision in U.S. v. Washington, we’re also marking the 40^th anniversary of the federal Endangered Species Act. The ESA is supposed to help recover threatened wild salmon stocks, but that’s not happening because the law is not being used to protect salmon habitat and ensure that recovery plans are being implemented.

That’s why we are also marking the 15^th anniversary of the 1999 ESA listing of Puget Sound chinook, Hood Canal summer chum and Lake Ozette sockeye. Puget Sound steelhead were added to the list in 2007. While some stocks of Hood Canal summer chum are showing signs of recovery, Puget Sound coho are now a candidate species for listing.

Even closing all hatcheries and ending all fisheries would not bring back the salmon. That’s because fixing and protecting habitat are the most important components of salmon recovery. From the beginning to the end of the salmon’s life cycle, it is the overall quantity and quality of habitat that determine the strength of the resource.

It’s one thing to restore salmon habitat. It is another to protect it. If we want salmon in our world to thrive once again, we must do both.

Soundings: Sorting out the feeding habits of gray whales

By John Dodge, The Olympian

Marine mammal researchers have learned over the years that the gray whale spring migration from their breeding grounds in Baja, Calif., is not all black and white. It’s, pardon the expression, several shades of gray.

More than 20,000 of these marine giants start out each year in the late winter and early spring on a 5,000- to 6,800-mile journey to their feeding grounds in the Bering, Beaufort and Chukchi seas. It’s one of the longest mammal migrations worldwide by creatures that reach 50 feet long and can weigh 40 tons. They don’t all make it nonstop or in its entirety for a variety of reasons.

John Calambokidis, an Evergreen State College graduate and one of the founders of Cascadia Research, a well-respected, Olympia-based marine mammal research group, has more than 25 years of experience figuring out what the gray whale migration is all about. Generally, it breaks down into four categories of whales, he explained to me.

The vast majority of the grays do make it to the three seas that ring northwestern Alaska, spending the summer months opening their filter-feeding mouths to feast on a varied diet of crustaceans, crab larvae, small fish and marine worms. These are some of the same whales that draw the oohs and aahs of whale-watchers at land and at sea all along the ocean migration route.

But there’s another genetically distinct group of grays — they’re known in scientific circles as the Pacific Coast Feeding Group. As their name suggests, they spend the spring, summer and fall spread off the outer coast from Northern California to northern British Columbia, exhibiting feeding behavior apparently learned from the maternal side of their lineage.

A third and smaller group has become known as the Puget Sound Group. This group of about a dozen, primarily male gray whales veers off from the larger migratory return like clockwork each early spring to hang out in the shrimp-rich waters of Possession Sound between Whidbey Island and Everett.

The first of the Puget Sound visitors was seen this past weekend. This old bull whale is nicknamed “Little Patch.” He’s been the first to show up for the past two years. He’ll soon be joined by others, many of them individuals that Calambokidis and his colleagues first starting seeing nearly 25 years ago.

Marine mammal scientists rely on the unique and stable pattern of mottling on each whale’s body to tell the individuals apart.

The dozen or so whales in the Puget Sound Group complete the migration. They hightail it to Alaska in late May or early June.

The Puget Sound Group provides one of the best chances of seeing gray whales in the wild. Island Adventures has been offering gray-whale-watching tours out of Everett for the past decade. They’re currently scheduled to run through May 18. The company claims a 99.5 percent success rate at seeing a gray whale. It just goes to show that Little Patch and his companions are as reliable precursors to spring as the Lenten rose, daffodils and crocuses in the flower beds at Horsefeathers Farm.

Calambokidis said Island Adventures has been helpful with gray whale research over the years, helping researchers to identify individual whales.

The fourth group of migrating grays whales is known as the stragglers. Whales that fall into this group are often sick or injured and die without completing the migration. The southern end of Puget Sound is often their final stop before they wash ashore.

I’ve grown to dread news of a gray whale in South Sound waters. Invariably, the story of gray whales in our midst has a sad ending.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF MOVE

This just in from the Capitol Land Trust: Eric Erler, executive director of the Olympia-based nonprofit, is stepping down from the post after 13 years. Erler will remain with the land trust in a new capacity, working to build financial support and new partnerships for the land conservation group.

The land trust board is accepting applications through March 24 to fill the director role. For more information about the job description and how to apply, visit the land trust website at capitollandtrust.org.

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2014/03/06/3018911/sorting-out-the-feeding-habits.html#storylink=cpy