The Whale Sanctuary Project is working as part of a coalition of experts in the Pacific Northwest to assess the health condition of Southern Resident orcas.
Recent photos of 42-year old Princess Angeline (J-17) show she has “peanut head” – a loss of fat around the neck and a sign of severe starvation. She is the mother of Tahlequah (J-35), who captured the hearts of people all over the world last summer when she carried her dead calf up and down the Washington coast for 17 days.
And Scoter (K-25) is also showing signs of decline. Scoter is 28 years old and he lost his mother, Skagit (K-13), in 2017. Southern Resident orca males are considerably larger than the females and need more food, so they stay close to their mothers, who make sure that food is shared among the family group.
The coalition of groups in the region is working to gather baseline data on all individuals in the population and to be prepared to assist NOAA Fisheries if further medical analysis of potentially compromised animals is deemed to be warranted.
Video from King5 TV Seattle
Jeff Foster, who leads the Whale Sanctuary Project’s site selection effort on the West Coast, has decades of experience working with marine mammals and is a key member of the coalition to help the Southern Resident orcas.
“It’s a collaborative effort to collect biological samples (fecal, prey, and respiratory samples), from the overall population,” he explained.
Jeff Foster prepares to take a breath sample from one of the whales during the effort in the late summer of 2018 to help the ailing orca Scarlet (J-50).
Jeff was NOAA’s Environmental Hero of the Year in 2006 for his dolphin rescue work during Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Southeast Asia. And for his work as part of the coalition, he is listed on the federal permits needed to take fecal samples. He does this by closely following the whales and scooping up fecal matter in a net. The permits are for population-level health studies, not for specific individuals, but fecal samples from any of the whales in each of the pods will give a general idea of what most of them are eating at this time of year when salmon, their primary prey, are few.
And breath samples could reveal pathogens, such as bacteria or viruses that could be affecting one or more of the whales and causing their decline in health. (Breath samples are taken by driving a boat alongside one of the whales and reaching out over the whales’ blow holes with a long pole that has a collection device on the end.)
If the seaside sanctuary that the Whale Sanctuary Project is creating is going to be located in the vicinity of the Southern Residents and their neighbors, it will also support rescue and rehabilitation functions in the region. So, it makes sense for us to be engaged with these kinds of efforts at this early stage.
“Getting samples will help us learn if there’s more we can do to help this fragile population.”
“Getting samples from the Southern Resident population will teach us more about what they’re eating in the winter months and whether they’re dealing with disease or unusual parasite loads,” Jeff said. “Hopefully, we can learn if there’s anything more we can be doing to help this fragile population.”
Sightings of the Southern Residents in the inner waters of Puget Sound are infrequent during the winter because they tend to venture further out in search of food. That’s particularly the case for the K & L pods.
“Some of them even travel down to the waters off of Point Reyes in California,” said Deborah Giles, Science & Research Director of the conservation organization Wild Orca. “Their food supply (mainly salmon) is dwindling all up and down the coast.”
Two boats could be involved in the research effort. One, skippered by Dr. Giles, is a University of Washington vessel that conducts the Conservation Canines expeditions using expert sniffer dogs. The other is a NOAA vessel operated by Dr. Brad Hanson of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
The Lummi Nation is another key member of the coalition and has a relationship with the Southern Residents that goes back thousands of years. They have written to NOAA Fisheries urging action to try to save the lives of Princess Angeline and Scoter.
“We are faced with the loss of two more relatives [among the Southern Resident orcas] and know that the loss of K-25 and J-17 will likely lead to additional losses,” Tribal Secretary Lawrence Solomon wrote. “We all have a sacred obligation to take action, now, and we need your help and support to save our relatives.”
Indeed, the Lummi Nation is prepared to take action itself even if NOAA does not. “The Lummis have an inherent right to do that,” said Kurt Russo, senior policy analyst for the Lummi Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office.
Because the whales are an officially endangered population, any decision to intervene on behalf of specific Southern Resident orcas can only be made by NOAA Fisheries. If and when that time comes, the coalition will work closely with NOAA to develop the most appropriate plan of action.
5 Comments
What is NOAA waiting for. It is their job to save our endangered speies,and if they will not do that ,they need to step back and let the Lummi Nation do what they need to do to save our beloved killer whales. The Southern Resident Killer Whales are a gift to us all by God,and no government agency has the right to decide that we the people will lose this important gift,and the gift for many generations to come. The Government to supposed to work for the people ,and the people want everything possible done to save this endangered species. If they do not do the right thing,let the Lummi Nation and the people around the world ,fighting for them step in. NOAA ,you are the ones who are supposed to uphold the endangered species act and laws. You will be totally responsible if we lose our beloved Southern Resident Killer Whales. The world is watching.
Thank you for your comment, and please see the response to a comment below from “Louie.” We can’t speak for NOAA, but you can get an idea of the way private and non-profit organizations work with NOAA from our many blog posts last year (beginning here) when the Whale Sanctuary Project was part of a collaborative effort to try to save the life of the young orca Scarlet. If we become involved in a further effort in relation to Princess Angeline and Scoter, we’ll be posting regularly about the collaboration and how the work is proceeding.
Please do not hesitate to do everything jn our power to save these whales, up to and including tempoary quarantine. We know from the Springer Saga that the orca can and do reintegrate their family after human stewardship efforts. We have the ability to save these whales. It may be politically slippery to intervene at such a high level as quarantine, but it is preferrable to certain death.
Luna is not with us because politically, we, the stupid self absorbed humans, refusx to provide the necessary stewardship. We knew what to do but we argued instead. Luna died.
Now is a time for drastic intervention. Just do it. Dont let them die while we bicker.
why don’t you feed them something while you’re testing!!
It’s a good question, and it has to do with the fact that the Southern Resident Killer Whales are officially an endangered population, which puts them under the auspices of the federal agency NOAA. So, no one can go in and take any action in relation to the whales without a license from NOAA. And that’s why, for example, we include this sentence in our blog post: “And for his work as part of the coalition, he [Jeff] is listed on the federal permits needed to take fecal samples.”
At some future point, NOAA may determine that further action needs to be taken, at which point licenses would be issued to the relevant organizations (e.g. to medicate, feed and/or even bring one of the orcas to a sea pen for further treatment).
We also mention in the blog post that “If the seaside sanctuary that the Whale Sanctuary Project is creating is going to be located in the vicinity of the Southern Residents and their neighbors, it will also support rescue and rehabilitation functions in the region.” And if we do indeed take on that function for this endangered population, it will similarly require a federal license to conduct specific rescue and treatment activities.
You may now be asking: “So, what’s stopping NOAA deciding right now to feed these whales?” Again, it’s a good question, and the answer has to do with the fact that any such decision has to be made very carefully. Good intentions can sometimes lead to unplanned, unexpected, and unhelpful consequences. And while we humans bear great responsibility for the troubles of the Southern Resident orcas, we need to be very careful we don’t just go in there and make the situation worse for them.
The ins and outs of why feeding them might or might not be a good idea go beyond the scope of this reply, and we may explore them more fully in a future post.