Category: News

Sea Star Wasting Syndrome Perplexes Scientists

George Stearns, shellfish biologist for the Puyallup Tribe, inspects a sick sea star caught during the tribe’s crab monitoring study.
George Stearns, shellfish biologist for the Puyallup Tribe, inspects a sick sea star caught during the tribe’s crab monitoring study.

 

Puyallup Tribe Observes Disease Affecting Sea Stars

E. O’Connell, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

As part of its regular crab population monitoring, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians is tracking the impact of a myste-rious ailment that is killing sea stars.

An outbreak of sea star wasting syndrome was first noticed last fall in British Columbia. The syndrome starts as small lesions and eventually the infected sea stars disintegrate. Since symptoms were first noticed, the syndrome has quickly spread throughout the Salish Sea and along the Pacific coast.

While there have been previously documented outbreaks, nothing on this scale has ever been recorded. There is no known cause.

“After we started conducting crab surveys in April last year, we started seeing a lot of sea star by catch,” said George Stearns, the tribe’s shellfish bi-ologist. “One pot near the north

point of Vashon Island was full of sea stars.”

The tribe regularly monitors eight stations between the north end of Vashon Island and the Tacoma Narrows. Each station includes nine crab pots.

During the tribe’s early surveys, the sea star population seemed healthy. But Puyallup tribal scientists recorded a sharp die-off in October.

“We saw one monitoring site go from four sea stars per pot in April to 12 in September to zero in October,” Stearns said.

When a diseased sea star catches a ride on a tribal crab pot, it deflates quickly. Within a few minutes, a normally rigid sea star will be hanging on the pot like a wet rag.

“Some of the sea stars we are finding are literally melting in front of us,” Stearns said.

 

Tribe Narrowing Locations Where Crabs Molt

The Puyallup Tribe monitors crab to pinpoint exactly when the shellfish in the tribe’s harvest area molt, or shed their shells.

“Crabbing during the middle of molting, which makes them soft and vulnerable, can increase the handling mortality,” said George Stearns, the tribe’s shellfish biologist. “It’s a common practice to shut down harvest during the molt. But we’ve

only had a general idea of when that occurs down here.” The data collected will also

help the fisheries managers put together a more complete picture of crab populations in South Sound.

“We GPS the locations so we’re at the same spots and put the pots in for the same length of time,” Stearns said. “So we know we’re comparing apples to apples each month.”

 

 

Kingdom of Hawaii may still exist, challenges US over sovereignty

May 22, 2014

Australia Network News

 

Photo: Bluejackets of the USS Boston occupying Arlington Hotel grounds during overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, January 1893. (Hawaii State Archives: PP-36-3-002)
Photo: Bluejackets of the USS Boston occupying Arlington Hotel grounds during overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, January 1893. (Hawaii State Archives: PP-36-3-002)

The CEO of the Hawaiian Affairs Office (OHA) has retained his job and gained public support to challenge the US on whether the Kingdom of Hawaii still exists as a sovereign country.

Kamanaopono Crabbe sparked an internal crisis when he sent a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, asking for a ruling on whether the Kingdom of Hawaii still legally exists.

The letter, which was quickly rescinded by the OHA’s trustees, was prompted by the US Government’s acknowledgment that the overthrow of the kingdom in 1893 was illegal.

Political scientist Dr Keanu Sai, from Windward Communtiy College in Honolulu, told Pacific Beat the OHA board thought Dr Crabbe had violated their policy by sending the letter without approval, but later realised they were mistaken.

“[Dr Crabbe] was not in violation of any policy of the board but rather was operating on his diligence and risk management,” Dr Sai said.

Mr Crabbe has now won the support of the OHA trustees, who have moved to send the letter again and retain him in his role as CEO.

“They’re in full support and they say that his questions definitely do have merit.”

Public support for Mr Crabbe’s campaign is also growing, with 2,500 people signing an online petition.

Dr Sai said Hawaiians need clarification on the issue.

“What was overthrown was the government, not the country,” he said.

Dr Sai blames revisionist history education for misconstruing local understanding of Hawaii’s true status.

“A revisionist history has been taught here in Hawaii since the early 1900s that presented Hawaii as if it was a part of the United States when in fact there is clear evidence that it’s not,” he said.

“We need to address this because it will affect our people but it also affects everyone.”

Dr Sai says if the Kingdom of Hawaii does indeed still exist, many historical treaties with nations including the UK and Australia would still be in effect.

International law

The US may be in violation of international law if Hawaii is still technically its own country.

The US would be guilty of appropriating funds by taxation and other related crimes, by not complying with occupation laws.

Dr Sai says within the framework of international law, there is presumed of continuity of a country when it is established.

“All that needs to be provided is evidence that Hawaii was a country (and it was, fully recognised by the United States and Great Britain and everyone else),” he said.

“It places the burden upon the United States to provide overwhelming evidence that it in fact extinguished Hawaii as an independent state under international law.

“In the absence of that evidence, the Hawaiian kingdom continues to exist.”

Tribes expand efforts to monitor Nooksack elk

cow-at-perrigo0440-300x168

Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Point Elliott Treaty tribes are expanding efforts to monitor the Nooksack elk herd in hopes of resolving ongoing damage and safety problems in Skagit and Whatcom counties.

The Upper Skagit, Sauk-Suiattle, Swinomish, Stillaguamish, Suquamish, and Tulalip tribes are trapping elk using collapsible traps baited with apples and monitored with wildlife cameras. Since 2012, tribal and state wildlife co-managers have collared at least 10 cow elk with very high frequency (VHF) collars. These collars help estimate the population during annual aerial surveys of the North Cascade elk herd.

To get more precise information about the herd’s movements, the Stillaguamish Tribe’s Natural Resources Department acquired global positioning system (GPS) collars that transmit point location data every 85 minutes. This is a cost-shared project with the Tulalip Tribes. So far, with support from Suquamish, Sauk-Suiattle and Upper Skagit, they have collared five animals and plan to collar four more.

“The main focus of the project is tracking the movement and seasonal habitat use of the lowland elk that frequent the Skagit River Valley and Acme areas,” said Jennifer Sevigny, wildlife biologist for the Stillaguamish Tribe. “These data are important for our future elk management decisions.”

Because of an increasing number of collisions between elk and vehicles, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) is partnering with the tribes to deploy three GPS collars to determine where and when elk are crossing Highway 20. These GPS collars will be programmed differently so they can record location points at closer time intervals to detect more precise crossing locations along Highway 20.

“The GPS collars are more expensive, but they give exact information on where the elk have been,” said Chris Madsen, wildlife biologist for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

“Up to 50 elk a year may get hit by vehicles along Highway 20,” said Scott Schuyler, natural resources director for the Upper Skagit Tribe. “We’ve suggested creating wildlife underpasses and increasing lighting around the highway to reduce these impacts.”

DOT recently set up flashing elk crossing signs along Highway 20 in response to the increased elk mortality.

The Nooksack elk herd had dwindled to about 300 animals by 2003, prompting state and tribal co-managers to boost the herd by relocating animals from the Mount St. Helens area, and improve forage habitat through restoration projects. The herd has now rebounded to approximately 1,400 elk.

Some property owners and farmers complain that elk from the recovering Nooksack herd destroy fences and devour crops, and have called for removing the lowland population

“All of this work will help give us a better picture of the population dynamics while helping to address the damage issue,” Madsen said. “If we’re going to consider removing elk, we need to put some science behind it.”

Tribes Recovering from Geoduck Ban

Suquamish Seafoods employee James Banda packs geoduck for international shipping. T Royal
Suquamish Seafoods employee James Banda packs geoduck for international shipping.
T Royal

T. Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Western Washington tribes are quickly recovering from a sudden ban in December 2013 on selling geoduck to China.

The Asian country claimed it received a shipment of geoduck from Ketchikan, Alaska, that had high levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning, and a shipment from Poverty Bay in Puyallup, Wash., that had high levels of arsenic.

As a result, China announced it was ban- ning all imports of bivalve shellfish from Washington, Oregon, Alaska and North- ern California. This was just before the Chinese New Year, a lucrative time for harvesters and buyers, when geoducks are traditionally served.

“It was bad at the beginning because we didn’t know what was going on,” said Tony Forsman, general manager of the Suqua- mish Tribe’s Suquamish Seafoods, which regularly ships shellfish internationally. “China didn’t tell us for two weeks they were doing this.”

Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been working with Chinese officials to deter- mine how they came to their conclusions and have been in close communication with Washington Department of Health and western Washington tribal officials about the progress.

The shellfish in question from Poverty Bay passed all the rigorous tests needed to be exported to China, said David Fyfe, shellfish biologist for Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

“We’re working with China to figure out why we suddenly don’t meet their stan- dards,” he said.

In the meantime, harvesters and buyers are continuing to send their catches to oth- er Asian countries, including Vietnam. U.S. officials are asking China to reduce the ban area from the West Coast to just the two original areas of concern.

Inmate under medical watch dies in Snohomish County Jail

Source: The Herald

EVERETT — A 42-year-old Tulalip woman died suddenly in the Snohomish County Jail on Thursday, the sheriff’s office said.

The woman had been booked on Wednesday for investigation of fourth-degree domestic violence assault and was found unresponsive at about 2 p.m. Thursday in the jail’s medical unit, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Shari Ireton said in a news release. Efforts to revive the woman failed.

The jail has been under scrutiny after a series of inmate deaths in recent years. Those cases led to a federal review of operations and claims against the county alleging poor medical care.

County officials have been working to improve medical care, increase staffing and reduce the inmate population. A full-time doctor was recently hired and Sheriff Ty Trenary has asked the Snohomish County Council for an additional 29 staff positions at the jail, most of them for registered nurses.

Several of the inmate deaths over the past few years involved drugs, alcohol and withdrawal symptoms as factors.

“The inmate had been medically screened at booking, placed on a drug and alcohol withdrawal watch and admitted into the medical unit,” Ireton said. “She was routinely checked every half hour by medical unit personnel.

“Her death is being investigated by detectives with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit. A review of the death from a clinical standpoint will also be conducted, independent of the death investigation,” the sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

The woman’s identity is to be released by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Meet me in New York, says Bill McKibben — it’s time to get arrested

climate_march

By Heather Smith, Grist

It’s not every day that Rolling Stone publishes a call for its readers to engage in a massive act of civil disobedience, but that’s exactly what happened Wednesday. “This is an invitation,” the call read. “An invitation to come to New York City. An invitation to anyone who’d like to prove to themselves, and to their children, that they give a damn about the biggest crisis our civilization has ever faced.”

The call’s author, Bill McKibben (who is –  full disclosure — on the board of this publication) and 350.org, the organization he co-founded, are planning a protest in New York this September 21 and 22, which is, not coincidentally, at the exact same time and place as the next UN Climate Summit. “You’ll tell your grandchildren, assuming we win,” writes McKibben — though some might argue that this discounts the very real possibility that, even in the event of a loss, enough marchers might survive through the floods, plagues, famines, and civil unrest of unchecked climate change to pass on the story, in post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy style.

Rolling Stone might seem like an atypical venue for this kind of thing. The call (or, as McKibben put it “invitation to demand action”) appears next to articles about hologram Michael Jackson, breaking news regarding the official title of the new Batman vs. Superman movie (Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice — which is, in this reporter’s opinion, a terrible title), and how the magazine has finally “penetrated the secret world” of Jack White.

But two years ago, McKibben published a very long article in Rolling Stone about the risk that carbon reserves pose to both the global economy and the globe, and it was one of the most read articles in the website’s history, even though it entirely failed to penetrate the secret life of Jack White. It went on to spark a student movement to divest college endowments from industries that are contributing to climate change.

The two-day event, as planned, will be a big, big one. Like, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom big. Among the groups name-checked: health care, transit, education, and construction unions, plus clergy, scientists, students, “plain old middle-class Americans” and executive types. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that, at an “upper-crust” meetup in a Seattle office tower, McKibben told attendees that it was time to start getting arrested, preferably in full business regalia.

“I hope college students are not the cannon fodder,” he told the crowd, adding that it would be particularly nice to see some older people get arrested for a change.

How gracefully this event will coexist with New York’s police force, which has become increasingly militarized in the wake of 9/11 and has a history of dubious behavior in public protest situations, remains to be seen. There’s a new mayor in town, but unless something major happens over the summer, this will be the first large protest under DeBlasio’s administration. That should be interesting.

Long, Warm Summer On Tap According To Weather Service Outlook

By Tom Banse, NW News Network

The supercomputers at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center have crunched long-term trends to produce an outlook for June, July and August. For most of the Northwest, the forecast gives a strong probability of above-normal temperatures.

National Weather Service is forecasting a strong probability of above-normal temperatures in June, July and August for most of the Northwest.
Credit National Weather Service

 

Seattle-based meteorologist Johnny Burg said the trend is strongest along the West Coast and becomes less pronounced as you go inland to Idaho.

“Usually our summers here are pretty warm and dry compared to the weather patterns throughout the year,” Burg said. “But what the CPC is saying is that we are looking at maybe having warmer than normal temperatures for this summer.”

The summer outlook for rainfall is neutral for the Pacific Northwest, but calls for above average rainfall chances in the central Rockies. There’s no drought relief in sight for parched rangelands in southern Oregon and southwest Idaho.

The Climate Prediction Center notes a transition to El Niño conditions is underway in the tropical Pacific, but that global weather phenomenon is not driving the forecast for a warmer than normal summer in the Northwest. Burg said that there is usually a lag before El Niño’s effects can be seen in the region’s local weather.

Yakama Nation Protests Coal Export Terminal

Yakama Nation fishers and tribal leaders hopped on boats to the fishing site. As a protest, they dropped a net right next to the proposed Morrow Pacific coal export facility. | credit: Courtney Flatt
Yakama Nation fishers and tribal leaders hopped on boats to the fishing site. As a protest, they dropped a net right next to the proposed Morrow Pacific coal export facility. | credit: Courtney Flatt

 

By Courtney Flatt, NPR

BOARDMAN, Ore. — Yakama Nation tribal members took to the Columbia River Tuesday to protest a proposed coal export facility in eastern Oregon. The tribe says the export facility would cut fishers off from treaty-protected fishing sites along the river.

More than 70 people held signs and waved flags on the banks of the Columbia River, just downstream from the proposed Morrow Pacific coal export terminal.

Fishers and tribal leaders rode boats to the treaty fishing site, dropping a fishing net right next to the proposed coal export facility to assert their treaty fishing rights.

Yakama Nation Chairman JoDe Goudy has fished the Columbia River since he was 6 years old. He said the proposed coal export terminal would threaten the river, fish, and the tribes’ treaty-protected fishing rights.

“We believe that an attack on these things is an attack on our very essence and our way of life,” Goudy said.

Ambre Energy, the company backing this export terminal, has said the project will not interfere with treaty fishing rights.

Goudy said the tribe isn’t concerned about whether any company chooses to acknowledge treaty fishing rights.

“[Our fishing rights] exist, regardless of what they wish to say on black and white, or on anything that they can document. We live it. We see it. We know it. We practice it on an annual basis. We practice it when the fish come. We go where the fish are,” Goudy said.

Yakama Nation fishers and tribal leaders hopped on boats to the fishing site. As a protest, they dropped a net right next to the proposed Morrow Pacific coal export facility. | credit: Courtney Flatt
Yakama Nation fishers and tribal leaders hopped on boats to the fishing site. As a protest, they dropped a net right next to the proposed Morrow Pacific coal export facility. | credit: Courtney Flatt

 

Members from the Lummi Nation also traveled to the protest. The tribe is fighting another proposed coal export terminal near Bellingham, Washington.

Just before Lummi Nation council member Jay Julius hopped on a fishing boat, he said it’s tribal members’ responsibility to protect future generations and their fishing rights.

“The coal company said they don’t fish here anymore, and we’re going to prove them wrong. The treaty doesn’t say, ‘if they fish here sometimes.’ It’s pretty clear. It says all usual and accustomed areas,” Julius said.

Julius said a larger proposed coal export terminal at Cherry Point would directly impact fishing areas there.

The Morrow Pacific Project would transport about 9 million tons of coal per year from the Powder River Basin to Boardman in eastern Oregon. Coal would then be barged down the Columbia River to Clatskanie, Oregon. From there, it would then be transported to Asia.

Senators Introduce Bill To Authorize Upper Klamath Basin Agreement

Klamath Lake. New legislation in the U.S. Senate would enact a water-sharing agreement and authorize the Interior Department to carry out the terms of a new agreement signed by tribes, ranchers and other stakeholder groups in the Upper Klamath Basin. | credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Klamath Lake. New legislation in the U.S. Senate would enact a water-sharing agreement and authorize the Interior Department to carry out the terms of a new agreement signed by tribes, ranchers and other stakeholder groups in the Upper Klamath Basin. | credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

 

By Devan Schwartz, OPB

U.S. senators from Oregon and California introduced legislation Wednesday that’s aimed at restoring the Klamath Basin ecosystem and enacting a water-sharing agreement in this arid region that straddles the two states.

The legislation puts into law the Upper Klamath Basin Comprehensive Agreement, an accord that was negotiated and signed last month by ranchers, tribes, and federal and state officials, according to a statement issued by Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

“The people of the basin have set aside their differences for the benefit of the region,” Wyden said in the joint statement from the four senators. “Congress should follow their example, pass this legislation and put the Klamath Basin on the road to recovery.”

The Senate bill gives congressional authorization to the U.S. Interior Department to act and achieve the agreement’s benefits. That includes a water-sharing agreement for ranchers and farmers, tribes, native fish runs and bird refuges. It also puts into law a plan to improve and protect streamside areas and provides economic aid for the Klamath Tribes and their members.

In all, the Klamath Basin restoration is expected to cost about $495 million in federal spending. The bill also clears the way for the removal of four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River, with the Secretary of the Interior making the final decision. Experts say that would be the largest dam removal in history.

Last summer, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden brought stakeholders together to rework the restoration agreements. They had been previously drawn up but never passed in Congress.

Several of those stakeholders signed onto a statement praising the new legislation. They included Trout Unlimited, the Karuk Tribe, the Klamath Water Users Association, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, PacifiCorp and the Upper Klamath Water Users Association.

Other conservation groups such as Oregon Wild and WaterWatch of Oregon say the Klamath Agreements don’t provide adequate water for the Klamath Basin’s wildlife refuges, or go far enough to reduce overall water demand.

The legislation will be referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where Wyden is a member and the former chairman.