Whalewatchers attack starvation claim

[New York Mermaid]

I found this to be an interesting article and i wanted to share:

Noise from whale-watching boats is a major factor in the starvation of endangered resident killer whales and the feeding area off the west side of San Juan Island should be off-limits to the fleet, says the chairman of a whale protection group.
"Whale-watch boats are directly responsible for the death of our local whales," said Mark Anderson of the Orca Relief Citizens Alliance.However, spokesmen for the whale-watching fleet deny Anderson's claims and say his science is faulty.
Marine zoologist Anna Hall, who skippers a vessel for Prince of Whales Whale Watching, said the whales are not starving and studies do not conclude that whalewatching interferes with feeding."We are not seeing skinny whales, but I do think it is fundamentally important that we ensure there are enough salmon out there," Hall said.

Resident killer whale recovery strategies in Canada and the U.S pinpoint diminished numbers of chinook salmon, noise and pollution as major problems faced by the 88 whales. Anderson, who works in technology and economics predictions, but has a background in marine biology, agrees that most scientific studies show the base cause of the whales failing to thrive is a shortage of chinook salmon, but says the secondary cause is noise from whale-watching boats which "blinds" their sonar.
"An adult female, when boats are present, expends 17 per cent more energy," Anderson said. "When boats are present, the whales swim longer paths and dive more often and deeper and their breathing rate goes up. That has all been studied at length."
Fish are usually bunched up against San Juan Island, but the whales, which usually travel in tight pods for foraging, spread out when whale-watching boats are present, Anderson said. Anderson wants the area off-limits to motorized whale-watching boats, but open to other boats."It would remove the 100 per cent all-day, all-season harassment," he said. But whale-watch skippers say most of those breaking the rules around the orcas are private boaters.

"It raises the question that, if the boats are interfering with the whales' ability to predate, why only exclude the boats which have a small fraction of the interaction with the whales?" said Dan Kukat, of SpringTide Victoria Whale Watch Tours and president of the Pacific Whale Watch Association. If that happened, "you would see a lot of charter fishing boats advertising whale watching," he predicted. Making the area off-limits only to whalewatchers would have an economic effect, Hall said.
"It would be very difficult to explain to someone who has paid for a ticket that we're going to stop at half a mile and then they see other vessels in there," she said. The idea of a half mile (0.8 km) no-go zone on the west side of San Juan Island is similar to a no-vessel proposal put forward by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) during a revamp of whalewatching regulations. But the new rules, which came into effect this year, do not include the no-go zone. Instead, the whalewatching fleet is keeping to a decade-old voluntary quarter mile (half kilometre) no-go zone, which doubles around Lime Kilm Point, said NMFS marine biologist Lynne Barre.

"The no-go zone is still on the table, but we want to take some extra time," she said. "We realize the benefits of a protective area for the whales, but a lot of comments from the public suggested something a little bit different and we didn't have time to consider them all." The final decision will include a scientific analysis and look at the economic impact, she said. It is most likely all three threats to the whales - food shortages, noise and pollution - work in concert, Barre said. "If there aren't so many fish, noise can impact their ability to echo-locate and it also impacts their behaviour," she said. "And, if they don't get enough to eat, they use their blubber stores and that's where the contaminants are."

Source: http://www.timescolonist.com/travel/Whalewatchers+attack+starvation+claim/5253348/story.html

[Capt Nemo]

Chinook salmon tend to be spooky fish. Even in Lake Michigan they won't hang around divers unless they're getting ready to spawn. If you see one out in open water, you're lucky. So yes, the whale watching boats are part of the problem!

[Taz]

The idea that whale watching boats are responsible for the whales lack of food is very simple minded.
This is, of course, a very complex issue, with many factors in the marine environment taking a toll on our southern resident orcas. The most sinister of the issues that these whales face is the accumulation of Polychlorinated biphenyls (or PCBs) in their fat tissue (aka: blubber!). These chemicals are no longer manufactured in Canada or the United States, but they remain in the ecosystem, as they do not break down easily. PCBs attack the whales immune system, making them susceptible to even minor cuts or infections (www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/cbd/.../pcbpacifickw.pdf (http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/cbd/.../pcbpacifickw.pdf)). Male killer whales (of the transient, marine mammal eating ecotype) have the highest concentration of PCBs of any living thing on earth, due to their high trophic level feeding and large proportion of blubber (more places for the PCBs to be stored). Female orcas have the "luxury" of shedding off much of the PCB accumulation in their bodies once and awhile, by lactating. This means that calves are receiving gulp after gulp of PCB-laded milk, making this PCB trap a never-ending cycle. These are very tough chemicals that do not break down all that easily, are fat souliable, and can only be eliminated through the slow passage of time. The southern residents will be at the mercy of these PCBs until at least 2030 (http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=a1e01c61-1c53-42b4-9300-68941fdd7396).

To compound this horrifying problem, the preferred prey of a southern resident killer whale, chinook salmon, is a species at risk (http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/species-especes/species-especes/chinookSalmon-saumonquinnat-eng.htm), just like the killer whales. Chinook is less plentiful, which means the orcas are forced to spend more time foraging, and at the leanest of times, draw upon their blubber reserves, which in turn metabolizes the PCBs stored within their fat cells and wreaks havoc on their immune systems.
"No fish, no blackfish", goes the saying.

There is another complication, and that involves the aquarium industry. Between 1962 and 1973, 45 orcas from this fragile population were captured to be put on display at marine parks all over the continent (http://www.orcahome.de/impact.htm. 11 of these 45 died during the capture process, the rest were sent to parks like SeaWorld, and only 1 remains alive to this day (her name is Lolita, and she lives in deplorable conditions at the Miami Seaquarium, read more about her here: http://www.savelolita.com/ ... just as a side note, Lolita's family members are still swimming free in B.C. waters, i've seen them myself. I only wish Lolita could be there with them).
The 45 indivudals taken represented a specific age catgeory; the marine park industry prefers smaller, younger animals as they are easier to transport and train. Essentially, an entire generation of this community was wiped out, and this caught up with them in the early 90s when the southern resdient orcas failed to increase their population numbers, and the population count got smaller each year up until the early 2000s (likely because the older whales, past reproductive age, were dieing off, and with the young whales taken for aquariums, there was no new individuals to replace the ones dieing off .... basically it became a population of senior whales!). They went from a low of 77 individuals in 1977, to a high of 96 in 1996, then back down to 82 in 2008.

There is good news, however. The population has had a net growth the last few seasons, and "we" are now up to 88 whales.

Anyway, killer whale are my first love, and I have the privlage of getting to work on a whale watching vessel, showing these magestic animals to people. Its the best job in the whole world! I feel so fortunate that I get to know these whales ... there are only 88 of them after all, each with a name and unique personality to go along with it. They mean so much to me, so any threat against them I do consider very seriously.
Whale watching as it currently stands has very misunderstood impacts on the whales. For what its worth, the animals do not try to evade us, and will continue to forage and socialize in our presence. We do follow whale watch guidlines, and stay at least 100yards/meters away from them at all times, we don't get between them and the shore, and we never approach them from head on.
Its really easy to jump the gun and blame whale watching on the dwindling community of southern resdient killer whales, because the boats full of tourists are the most visual of all potential threats to the whales. I will argue to my dieing day that the number one threat is that their prey, chinook salmon, is the biggest reason they are now on the endangered species list; no fish, no blackfish.
The salmon are the blood of the coast out here, and touch every living organism in some way. The orcas need plentiful salmon.