A chinook salmon photographed in the Snake River in 2013. That year’s run set records. Biologist aren’t sure exactly why fall chinook runs have been so high in recent years. | credit: Aaron Kunz
Thousands of fall chinook salmon are swimming up the Columbia River every day right now. This year’s migration is expected to be one of the largest in recent years. Researchers aren’t sure exactly why fall chinook have made such a big comeback.
Salmon and steelhead restoration has been a big push throughout the Northwest — from Puget Sound to coastal streams to the Columbia-Snake River Basin — where fall chinook were nearly extinct by the 1960s.
Billy Connor is a fish biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service based near the Clearwater River in Idaho, where many of these fish end up.
“There’s been an incredible amount of effort spent trying to restore salmon and steelhead populations throughout the Northwest. And the Snake River Basin fall chinook population is a pretty unusual case because it’s rebounded so dramatically,” Connor said.
He’s been researching fall chinook for 27 years, his entire career. For years, fall chinook weren’t the salmon people wanted to study. They weren’t as economically important or as tasty as the spring salmon runs.
But fall chinook have made a big comeback recently. Last year, a record 1.3 million fall chinook made the migration. This year’s run won’t break that record, but biologists say the numbers are still high.
And no one really knows why.
“We can’t point to any one action and say that’s it. That’s what did it,” Connor said.
There are good ocean conditions, habitat restoration, changes in dam operations, reductions in salmon predators and harvests. The list goes on.
Rich Zabel is the director of the fish ecology division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Science Center. He understanding which factors help and which hurt fall chinook populations will help recovery efforts.
Zabel said one factor that’s overlooked is the fish’s adaptability. Historically, fall chinook spawned in sections of the river now blocked by the Hell’s Canyon Dam. Now, the salmon spawn on the Clearwater River and migrate at slightly different times of year.
“It’s taken the population a while to adapt. We’ve seen, over the last 20 years, some pretty major differences,” Zabel said.
Connor said teasing out the causes of these large numbers will be the study of his career.
He’s creating a computer model to narrow down the lengthy list of things that might be helping out the fall chinook runs. He says some pieces of the puzzle will affect salmon runs more than others.
To make the models, Connor and his team have been collecting data for 20 years. He says that’s why it’s taken so long to get to this point.
“These models are incredibly data hungry. There are thousands and thousands of bits of information that go into them,” Connor said.
Zabel said modeling like this, and other models that NOAA biologists are working on, shows how research and monitoring feed into management practices.
“As we’ve learned more and more about fall chinook through field research, we can understand through modeling and the collecting of data what the factors are that are harming the populations and can develop plans based on that information,” Zabel said.
Connor said biologists can apply what they learn with his model to help other salmon populations in the Northwest. He hopes to finish up this research by 2017.
A mussel is opened for analysis at the WDFW lab. Volunteers and WDFW used mussels to test for contaminants at more than 100 sites up and down Puget Sound. | credit: WDFW
SEATTLE — Scientists used shellfish to conduct the broadest study to date of pollution levels along the shore of Puget Sound.
And in some places, it’s pretty contaminated.
This past winter the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife put mussels at more than 100 sites up and down Puget Sound.
After a few months, volunteers and WDFW employees gathered the shellfish and analyzed them for metals, fossil fuel pollution, flame-retardants and other chemicals. The WDFW just released the results.
“The biggest concentrations of those contaminants were found in the highly urbanized bays – Elliott Bay, Salmon Bay, in the Sinclair Inlet, Commencement Bay we found much higher contaminations than we did in the rest of Puget Sound,” said Jennifer Lanksbury, a biologist who led the study for the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
PAHs – or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – were found in mussels at every single test site. PAHs come from fossil fuels – spilled oil, wood stove smoke and engine exhaust, mainly. The particles can be deposited through the air or get washed into Puget Sound when it rains. Some PAHs are carcinogenic.
Map of PAH levels in Puget Sound. Credit: WDFW
The mussel samples all contained PCBs as well. Flame retardants and DDT were found at more than 90 percent of the sites – with the highest levels in more urban bays.
“This is showing that these contaminants are entering the nearshore food web and they’re likely being passed up to other higher organisms and people eat mussels too,” Lanksbury added.
The state Department of Health does rigorous testing for toxic algae and bacteria in shellfish – the kind of stuff that makes you sick immediately. But it doesn’t regularly test shellfish for metals and other contaminants that can harm human health over longer periods of exposure.
“PAH is a difficult issue,” said Dave McBride with the Department of Health. “They are widespread in the environment. We probably get a lot greater exposure to PAHs from the food we eat on the grill, hamburgers or smoked salmon. It’s all relative. Some of the PAHs are considered carcinogens so it’s definitely on our radar.”
Shellfish harvest, in general, is limited in dense urban areas – where the DFW’s mussel study showed the highest levels of contaminants. However, this past winter China banned all imports of shellfish from much of the west coast after finding elevated levels of arsenic in some shellfish harvested near Tacoma.
Volunteers Jonathan Frodge, Chris Wilke and Paul
Fredrickson gather mussel samples at Discovery
Park in Seattle. Credit: Tom Foley
Lanksbury says that she still feels safe eating mussels and other shellfish from Puget Sound. And, she adds, there are things people can do to lower pollution levels.
“When they say, don’t let your car drip oil, support low-impact development where they’re having rain gardens, don’t wash your car on the side of the road – all of those kinds of things spare Puget Sound from contaminants that we produce on a daily basis by burning fossil fuels,” Lanksbury said.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife hopes to keep the mussel monitoring program going, with the continued help of more than 100 volunteers and citizen scientists from around Puget Sound.
WASHINGTON—A bill to provide continued funding to improve estuaries in the Puget Sound region that Rep. Rick Larsen, WA-02, introduced passed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee today. Larsen introduced the bipartisan bill with Rep. Frank LoBiondo, NJ-02 earlier this summer. H.R. 5266 would reauthorize the National Estuary Program through 2018, funding local efforts to restore and protect sensitive estuaries and their wildlife.
“Estuaries are a critical habitat for salmon, birds and many other species in the Pacific Northwest, where we know that protecting our natural resources is good for both the environment and the economy. In addition to improving salmon habitat, restoring estuaries can have important carbon sequestration effects, as a recent report on the Snohomish Estuary found. Healthy estuaries support our strong fishing industry and are one of the many draws for tourists who visit Northwest Washington because of recreational opportunities. This bill will continue federal support for local efforts to keep these sensitive habitats vital today and for future generations.
“I have long supported estuary restoration in the Puget Sound region, like the Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration Project, which will be one of the largest tidal marsh restoration projects ever completed in our state when it is finished.
“I am pleased to work with Rep. LoBiondo on this bipartisan bill that will ensure local organizations across the country can continue their work to protect and restore estuaries,” Larsen said.
Funding from the National Estuary Program, which is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, helps build the comprehensive plan for Puget Sound recovery through the Puget Sound Partnership.
The proud mother is 23-year-old L86, and this is her second calf. The newborn has been designated L120.
The birth is sorely needed in the Southern Resident Community population, Michael Harris, Executive Director of the PWWA, said in a press release. Their numbers had just dipped to 78, the lowest count in over a decade.
Meanwhile, the Northern Resident Community of British Columbia have steadily increased in numbers, and transient or marine mammal-eating orcas seem to be thriving in the Sound and Straits.
Yet the Southerns continue to struggle to recover, Harris said. Researchers attribute the problem to lack of prey, primarily their preferred diet of wild Chinook salmon.
“We wouldn’t have known about it, but heard from David Elifritt out on the water that L86 had a new calf, and then ran into them,” said Capt. Jim Maya of Maya’s Westside Whale Charters on San Juan Island. “What a thrill to be there at the right time in the right place. Everyone on board was so excited. I’ve never seen a calf born, but it’s always a thrill to be there the day a new calf was discovered.”
“I remember someone saw a shot of L86 breaching back in June and word got out that she had a little ‘baby bump,'” explains Michael Harris, Executive Director of the PWWA. “This is great news. But every time a baby’s born, we’re careful not to pass out the cigars too soon. Infant mortality is really high among wild orcas, especially these Southern Residents. This little whale has a tough road ahead. Every birth is exciting, but we’ll be especially thrilled and relieved to see L120 rolling back into the Sound and Straits next summer.”
Steelhead out-migrating from North Sound rivers appear to have better marine survival than steelhead smolts from South Sound, and researchers are studying salmon poisoning disease as a potential cause.
Salmon poisoning disease, or Nanophyetus salmincola, is best known as the parasite that can make dogs sick when they eat raw salmon. It also has been found to affect the swimming performance of infected salmonids, potentially reducing their marine survival.
Fish pathologist Martin Chen is studying steelhead smolts for the NWIFC as part of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project. Chen is sampling steelhead from the Tahuya, Skagit, Snohomish, Green and Nisqually rivers.
“We thought Skagit and Snohomish would be negative for the parasite based on historical records, and that was true,” Chen said. “We found lots of heavily infected fish in the Green and Nisqually rivers. I can see the parasite even as I’m dissecting them. Parasite numbers are as high as 18,000 per gram of kidney tissue.”
Both of those results were expected, but Chen was surprised not to find the parasite in any of the 24 steelhead sampled from the Tahuya River in Hood Canal. The Tahuya is across the canal from the Skokomish River, which has Nanophyetus in at least three tributaries.
South Sound fish also have their marine survival challenged by swimming through the Tacoma Narrows and Point Defiance, and facing more predation from seals. To make a more even comparison, researchers placed infected South Sound fish and uninfected North Sound fish in the same saltwater environment to compare survival. After 90 days in saltwater tanks at the USGS Marrowstone Island Laboratory, both groups had the same high survival rate.
“The fish from the Green River are still heavily infected,” Chen said. “It’s possible that infected fish have some disadvantage and they’re less able to escape predators. They don’t just hit the salt water and roll over and die.”
Chen also is testing drugs that could eliminate the parasite from infected fish. Two drugs are being tested on small numbers of coho at the Nisqually Tribe’s Clear Creek Hatchery, with some coho getting a 24-hour bath of each drug, and other fish having a drug mixed in their food. None of the fish from this initial test will be released or eaten.
“If the drugs were effective and you were rearing fish in a parasite-positive environment, you could clean up a group of fish before releasing them,” Chen said. “You would no longer have to compare survival of fish between two river systems, making our studies more valid. In addition, being able to eliminate Nanophyetus before release could have a practical application for Northwest hatcheries.”
This summer, the Nisqually Tribe, the Nisqually Land Trust and the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group are tacking on another 1.5 miles of restored habitat to Ohop Creek.
“In this stretch of creek, salmon aren’t really given much space to feed or hide,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe. “We’ll be restoring the creek back to a natural shape and giving the salmon the habitat they need to survive.”
Over a century ago farmers turned the creek into a straight-flowing ditch in an attempt to dry out the valley floor and create cattle pasture. However, deep clay deposits in the soil continued to hold water year round, and despite the failed effort to completely dry the valley the stream remained channelized.
“It went from a shallow, meandering stream that was very good for salmon to a straight ditch,” Troutt said.
The Ohop Creek restoration will include digging an entirely new channel as well as adding other features, such as logjams and deep pools, that will provide habitat for salmon.
Salmon habitat restoration on the creek began in 2009 with a repaired one-mile channel just upstream of the new site. That channel was constructed to restore a sinuous stream that connected to its floodplain. The floodplain, now replanted with native vegetation, re-creates 80 acres of healthy riparian habitat that controls water temperatures and stabilizes the stream banks.
The project partners have already documented the progress of the upstream restoration. “We’ve seen a lot of changes, down to the types of birds that visit the site,” Troutt said. Early results include increased use by salmon and the return of wildlife species, such as elk, that had not been seen in the valley for decades.
Ohop Creek is one of two major tributaries to the Nisqually River that can support chinook salmon and steelhead, both of which are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. “Because there are only a few places other than the mainstem of the Nisqually River where they can spawn, increasing the quality of habitat in those places is important,” Troutt said. Ohop Creek also supports coho and pink salmon and cutthroat trout.
“Throughout Puget Sound, we’re seeing available salmon habitat continue to disappear, despite millions of dollars spent to restore and protect it,” Troutt said. “There is no larger threat to treaty rights than lost salmon habitat. Projects like this are a small step to reversing that trend.”
Unusually warm water off the Washington coast is sending the vast majority of the sockeye-salmon run to Canadian waters, leaving Puget Sound fishermen with nearly empty nets.
By: Associated Press
BELLINGHAM — Unusually warm water off the Washington coast is sending the vast majority of the sockeye-salmon run to Canadian waters, leaving Puget Sound fishermen with nearly empty nets.
According to data from the Pacific Salmon Commission, nearly 2.9 million sockeye have been caught in Canadian waters, while only about 98,000 have been netted in Washington through Aug. 19.
That means 99 percent of sockeye have gone through the Johnstone Strait around the northern part of Vancouver Island into Canadian waters.
During a typical sockeye-salmon run, about 50 percent of the run goes around the south end of Vancouver Island through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, putting them in U.S. waters, The Bellingham Herald reported.
This year’s diversion rate is unusual. If it stays around this level, it would be the highest diversion rate on record, dating from 1953, said Mike Lapointe, chief biologist for the Pacific Salmon Commission.
The sockeye run is expected to continue for several more weeks, so U.S. fishermen like Pete Granger hope to salvage what they can. Granger is a reefnet fisherman who is operating his boat near Lummi Island. He has been catching fish for the Lummi Island Wild Co-op for the past eight years.
“It could be one of the worst seasons we’ve had in a long time,” Granger said. The fishing numbers in U.S. waters started to improve at the end of last week, with several weeks left in the season.
Several factors could be behind why sockeye decided to head for the Johnstone Strait this summer, but researchers are looking closely at an area of ocean water off the coast that is about 3 degrees Celsius warmer than normal. Nick Bond, a research scientist for the University of Washington, refers to this area as a “warm blob” that developed last winter as the Pacific Northwest went through a period of unusually quiet weather. Last winter, the area had stretches of cool, windless and foggy days.
The calm weather meant the ocean didn’t do its usual churning of deeper, colder water up to the surface. With this pattern continuing into summer, the warm area has persisted. Sockeye prefer cooler water, which may be why most of the run went north around Vancouver Island.
Bond believes the development of the warm blob is not a direct result of global warming but more of a fluke. Looking back at past data, there has been the occasional season when a cold area has developed off the coast, sending the sockeye south of Vancouver Island into U.S. waters.
This season’s event is giving scientists a chance to learn what impact a warmer ocean would have on this area’s ecosystem, giving them more information to make better predictions.
Given the current weather models, Bond said, the warm blob could be around for a while, possibly well into 2015. There’s also the potential of El Niño developing later this year, bringing warm water to the area. If that’s the case, it could be disruptive for next year’s pink-salmon run as well.
Steve Ringman / The Seattle Times What’s left of the 210-foot-high Glines Canyon Dam, a section of about 30 feet, is awaiting a final blast in September. In the distance, the bottom of former Lake Mills today forms part of the new Elwha Valley.
Fish are storming back to the Elwha, there’s a sandy beach at the mouth of the river again, and native plants are growing where there used to be lakes.
The last dam will be blasted out of the Elwha River sometime next month, cementing the hopes of generations of advocates and tribal leaders who fought to make it happen.
With the concrete out, the long-term revival of a legendary wilderness valley in the Olympics can now unfold unfettered after 100 years dammed.
The watershed already is springing back to life from the mountains to the sea: Salmon are swimming and spawning miles above the former Elwha dam site. Alders stand more than head high as the native forest reclaims the former lake beds. There’s a soft, sandy beach at the river mouth, where before there was only bare cobble. And birds, bugs and mammals are feasting on salmon eggs and carcasses as fish once again nourish the watershed.
The Elwha is a rare chance to start over on a grand scale. The $325 million federal project, begun three years ago, has reopened 70 miles of habitat for steelhead and salmon, rebuilt wildlife populations and restored native plants. The river is hard at work with its restored natural flow, rebuilding its plunge pools, log jams and gravel bars.
While it will never be the Eden it was, the Elwha one day likely will be pretty darn close — and sooner than many expected.
“It goes against my deepest notions of how fast ecosystem recovery can possibly happen,” said Christopher Tonra, a research fellow with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington, D.C., who is tracking the response of dippers, a native, aquatic songbird, to dam removal in the Elwha. “We are all trained, as biologists, to think of things over the long run. I am not saying the Elwha is fully recovered. But it is so mind blowing to me, the numbers of fish, and seeing the birds respond immediately to the salmon being there. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”
Early hydropower
The dams were built beginning in 1910 for hydropower, but lacked fish passage. It took an act of Congress, passed in 1992, to finally take down Elwha Dam and then Glines Canyon Dam, about eight miles above it.
Unbuild it, and they will come: Salmon have been storming back ever since Elwha Dam was blasted out of the way in March 2012. Taking down Glines Canyon Dam has taken longer, in part because it holds back a larger load of sediment.
Managing the release of about 27 million cubic yards of sediment as the dams come down is why removal has taken so long. There was so much sediment stuck behind the former Glines Canyon Dam alone that, stacked up, the pile would tower more than twice the height of the Empire State Building, notes Jonathan Warrick, of the U.S. Geological Survey.
The dams were lowered notch by notch, allowing the river to naturally flush about half the total sediment load downriver and out to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
There have been bumps along the way. A water-treatment plant — the single most expensive part of the project — failed when a critical intake clogged with debris rinsed out by the river, delaying removal by a year while repairs were made.
The tribal hatchery and federal fish-restoration plan, which includes stocking of some hatchery fish, have been a magnet for lawsuits and controversy.
But nature, meanwhile, has carried right on.
Ian Miller, a coastal hazard specialist based in Port Angeles for Washington Sea Grant, has been monitoring the beach at the river mouth.
The surprise to him isn’t the big volume of sediment the Elwha is delivering downstream, but the fact that it is sticking around. “Basically, this is all new land,” Miller said, walking the beach east of the river mouth on a recent visit. “Everything here is less than two years old. You can walk to (sandy) spots on the beach that are 30 feet deep. It is just a dramatically different system.”
A beach that used to be too rocky to comfortably walk on is today used by kids to play soccer.
Meanwhile, fat chinook salmon are cruising up the river. Staff from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife started working the Elwha in July with a gill net to eventually capture 1,600 big Elwha fall chinook. The fish, of both wild and hatchery origin, are taken to stock the next generation of Elwha fall chinook raised in the state rearing channel, used since the 1970s to preserve the unique Elwha strain.
Stars of the river
Working the fast current was a fish rodeo to capture, then quickly take the powerful, thrashing fish from the net unharmed. Long and thick as a thigh, the chinook, the largest in the Puget Sound region, are the celebrities of Elwha River restoration, and a major reason for dam removal.
Elwha fish populations are projected to grow from about 4,000 to 400,000 over the next 20 to 30 years. Salmon already have hatched and migrated up- and downstream of the former Elwha dam site for the first time in a century.
Revegetation — the most visible piece of the Elwha renewal project — also is unfolding dramatically. Already, terraced banks of the former lakes are burgeoning with alder and cottonwood, the gift of seeds carried by the lakes as they gradually were lowered during the drawdown that started dam removal.
Most difficult to revegetate are the cobbly, gravel flats of the lake bed farther upstream, in the former Lake Mills, a land where many a planted Douglas fir and other seedlings have gone to die.
But in other spots, cottonwood seedlings have established so thickly they look like a lawn. Alder trees seeded in 2011 as lake levels dropped now have grown more than head tall. Where there used to be bald sand, goldenrod buzzes with bees, and a young, stocky Nootka rose bush conceals a bird’s nest full of eggs.
In all, more than 500 acres of former lake bed are being replanted, with nearly 60 varieties of native grasses, flowers, woody shrubs and trees from the Elwha Valley through 2018.
Dam removal also is kick-starting broader effects in the ecological systems of the watershed, from its food chain to the home ranges of animals.
Kim Sager-Fradkin, wildlife biologist for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, already has tracked fish-eating otters to parts of the Elwha that salmon have recolonized since dam removal, and documented an increase in the otters’ nutrient levels derived from fish.
John McMillan, a biologist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries walking the tributaries since dam removal began, said that in the first year he saw salmon carcasses on the riverbank. But now he doesn’t because the otters, bears, cougars, bobcats and mink have learned to take advantage of food where for so many years there was none.
“The ecological relationships between the animals are coming back,” McMillan said. To me, that is such a great feeling.”
Walk the river
Take a walking tour of the Elwha River with Park Service rangers on the former Lake Aldwell. Tours are on Tuesdays and Sundays at 1 p.m. through Sept. 2. The hourlong walks are free, and begin at the former boat launch at the end of Lake Aldwell Road, north off of Highway 101 just west of the Elwha River Bridge. For more information, call 360-565-3130.
A council of governments in the central Puget Sound region commissioned a study by an independent consultant. It concluded that economic benefits of a proposed coal export terminal would be concentrated in Whatcom County, where it would be built. | credit: Katie Campbell
If it’s built, the coal-exporting Gateway Pacific Terminal will create more than two thousand jobs in Whatcom County during construction and several hundred permanent jobs once it’s operational.
“It’s an economic model that creates very few jobs, certainly very, very few in the region … and has grave consequences for mobility here in Puget Sound,” King County Executive Dow Constantine said in response to the study.
Low income communities in Kent and Seattle will be disproportionately affected by the coal train traffic, according to the study. Residential and commercial properties along coal train routes could decline as much as $282.3 million and $133 million, respectively.
“Communities along the rail lines will face a host of negative impacts, most of those are bad for business, with very little positive economic development from this particular activity and there’s no assurance the costs of upgrades won’t fall to us as well,” Constantine said.
With a capacity to export roughly 54 million metric tons of coal per year, the terminal would be the largest facility of its kind on the west coast. It would also have implications for the state’s rail system unlike any of the region’s other coal export proposals.
If BNSF Railway is unable to increase capacity on its main north-south line through Puget Sound, according to the study, the added 18 coal trains per day to and from Cherry Point could cause delays that hurt export-related jobs, stunt port growth and squeeze out current commodities and passenger rail.
Anticipated delays caused by Gateway Pacific Terminal train traffic A new study commissioned by the Puget Sound Research Council anticipates the 18 additional coal trains per day to and from the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal would create delays at rail crossings.’
The Gateway Pacific project would increase delays at rail crossings between 38 and 85 minutes, according to the study. Those delays could be nearly three hours by 2035 without rail system updates. Rail traffic is expected to increase regardless of whether the terminal becomes operational, and the study did not account for the simultaneous increase in rail traffic of crude oil, which has also caused delays on the region’s rail lines.
Terry Finn, a retired BNSF Railway lobbyist who serves on one of the council’s advisory boards, said in a letter to the council that its study was the latest attempt by opponents to use scare tactics to stop the coal project.
The completed terminal could force an upgrade of existing rail lines, which would instead boost the region’s economy, according to the study.
A business coalition formed to advocate for coal exports called the Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports issued a statement in response to the report.
It said that the report’s overall conclusions are not supported by the facts and that “greatly exaggerated costs projected in the study just don’t add up.”
Kathryn Stenger, a spokeswoman for the alliance, said in an email that other studies have concluded that the Gateway Pacific Terminal would economically benefit the entire region. The Washington State Farm Bureau, Association of Washington Business, and Washington State Labor Council have all endorsed Gateway Pacific, she said.
A separate economic study done for the Washington Farm Bureau in 2013 concluded coal terminals would result in lower costs and new markets for other Washington businesses.
BNSF Railway says it is investing approximately $235 million in Washington state this year to expand rail capacity and to replace and maintain network infrastructure.
There are 77 crossings in cities and towns in the Puget Sound area. Kent Mayor Suzette Cook said they present a safety issue as train traffic increases.
“At grade crossings are also a major problem with deaths. We’ve had several deaths occur on our tracks within the last year,” Cook said. “Cities are not in a position to shoulder the cost because other than avoidance of tragedy, the benefits are not there.”
A young orca captured in Penn Cove in 1970, which is believed to be Lolita, an orca that whale activists have been fighting to have set free in Puget Sound after 44 years in captivity at the Seaquarium in Miami. | credit: Dr. Terrell Newby
The resident killer whales of Puget Sound are an endangered species. There are about 80 of them left.
But there was a time, not too long ago, when people were catching these whales and selling them into captivity.
In the 1960s and ‘70s an estimated 35 orcas were taken from Puget Sound. 13 were killed in the process.
Sandra Pollard has documented the history of orca capture in Puget Sound in a new book: Puget Sound Whales For Sale: The Fight To End Orca Hunting.
She spoke with EarthFix’s Ashley Ahearn about this dark period in orca history.
Ashley Ahearn: Let’s go back in time here a little bit, why did people start catching orcas?
Sandra Pollard: I think there was probably an element of the trophy hunter there but also they didn’t like whales very much in those days, particularly the orcas, because they thought they were taking the salmon. And in the ‘60s the Navy used them as target practice for strafing runs and many of the whales that eventually turned up in marine parks had bullet holes in them.
So they were not respected. They were disliked. The people who did revere and respect them were the Native American people and they’re on their tribal crests and they looked up to them and they still do.
Ahearn: So it’s been almost 50 years since the first captive orca arrived in Seattle. Can you tell me about that whale and what happened, what was his story?
Pollard: That’s correct. The first whale was called Namu and a man called Ted Griffin had an aquarium down in Seattle, the Seattle Marine Aquarium, and he’d always wanted to have a killer whale and two whales actually washed up in British Columbia at Warrior Cove. They got caught in nets when a couple of fishermen abandoned their nets to get away from a storm. So they had two whales up there. One a bull and one a calf. The calf escaped but unfortunately the bull did not.
So Ted Griffin flew up to Warrior Cove and secured the whale, but then of course, he had to get it back to Seattle. So, with the help of fishermen, he built a three-sided pen with a net on one side and steel bars on the other and they brought Namu, as he was then called, down to Seattle in that three-sided pen. That was a 400-mile journey which took 18 days, and made a glorious entrance into Seattle to go-go dancers and great jubilation. But at the same time there were people there who didn’t like what they were seeing and there were protesters waiting with “Save The Whales” signs even back then. But that was how it all started.
Ahearn: And there was a Canadian biologist who went along for the trip and he describes the separation of Namu from his family. Can you read that section?
Pollard: Yes. The biologist was called Gil Hewlett and this is what he had to say.
“When they are within 300 yards of the pen, Namu lets out a terrifying squeal, almost like a throttled cat. He leaps out of the water and crashes against the left corner of the pen. There is terrific thrashing and he is making all kinds of sounds. Then they are there again, the same family of the cow and two calves. They came straight up behind the pen to about 10 feet away, tremendous squealing going on. Namu seemed to lose all coordination in the pen. He kept getting swept against the cargo net and swimming vigorously forward. The family unit circles around towards the end of the pen.”
Ahearn: Now the family unit follows him a certain distance but then they stop. What happens?
Pollard: Yes the female and the two calves follow him to an area called Seymour Narrows up in British Columbia near Campbell River and then they gradually fell back. And it has been found that the Seymour Narrows area is really the dividing line between the northern residents and the southern residents.
Ahearn: What was the public sentiment around orcas that were being captured and taken into captivity for entertainment? How were people responding at the time?
Pollard: For the most part I think they were thrilled to see this exotic creature up close and personal and impressed by the abilities it had because they are such intelligent creatures that they learn tricks for food. But I think the general consensus was more one of wonder. But there were still those creeping suspicions that this wasn’t right.
Ahearn: It seems that in terms of public sentiment changing about orca capture the most notorious, the most well known capture, occurred in Penn Cove on Whidbey Island in 1970. Can you tell me what happened on that day?
Pollard: That was on either August the 7th or 8th, 1970 and the three pods of Southern Resident orcas known as J,K and L were going north, probably back to the San Juan Islands, and Ted Griffen and Don Goldsbury and the capture team they went out in boats and started to turn them back towards Whidbey Island and the idea was to drive them into Holmes Harbor, which is a sheltered place on Whidbey Island. And they used seal bombs, which are loud explosive devices. And they also used buzzing aircraft.
But they didn’t get them into Holmes Harbor. The whales are very clever and they brought in their diversionary tactics. The mothers and the calves headed up for Deception Pass and the males did a decoy action by going in the opposite direction. But it was too late. The boats outstripped them and they turned the mothers and the calves back and drove about 100 whales into Penn Cove on Whidbey Island. And they were held there in nets until they went through the selection process, which would be to corral the mothers away from the calves and split them up, because it was the calves that they wanted. They were smaller. They easier to transport. And they were easier to train.
The capture net pens in Penn Cove on Whidbey Island 1970.
And the rest of the whales that were turned away that they didn’t want, they stayed around. They’re a family unit. They’re highly social and they stay together for life. There is no dispersal, other than by death or human interference. So those whales stayed with the whales in the capture pens and eventually seven whales were selected for marine parks, which were already waiting around the world. Four calves were drowned and there also had been a female who had died. She had charged the net to try to get to her calf, so she also died during the process, as well. And this caused an uproar and a lot of feeling against the captures. And that started to be the turning point.
And the last whale to be taken from Penn Cove was Lolita and she remains at the Miami Seaquarium where she has been for 44 years.
Ahearn: Sandra, when did we stop taking orcas out of Puget Sound to sell to marine parks around the world?
Pollard: We stopped doing that in March, 1976 when six orca were driven into Olympia and the seal bombs were used and it caused a great hue and cry. There were protesters on the water. There were protesters on land. And there was a lawsuit, as well. So after a couple of weeks there were only two whales left because three had escaped. One had been turned away because it was too big and the two whales were turned over to the University of Washington to be radio tagged and tracked for as long as possible. I don’t think they were tracked for very long, but there was a lawsuit which stopped the captures in Washington state and Seaworld were not able to come back into Washington state and capture orca again and that was the last capture in Washington state.
Ahearn: So really the end of a very dark era for the orca in Puget Sound.
Pollard: It certainly was. And one wonders if that hadn’t happened how much longer the captures would have continued and how many more whales we would have lost.
Sandra Pollard is the author of Puget Sound Whales for Sale: The Fight To End Orca Hunting. You can find out about upcoming stops on her Northwest book tour here.
