[CINC] (no subject)

[Ron Dreher]

7 Puget Sound Killer Whales Missing, Presumed Dead


Saturday, October 25, 2008

*	


*	

SEATTLE -  Seven Puget Sound killer whales are missing and presumed dead in
what could be the biggest decline among the sound's orcas in nearly a
decade, say scientists who carefully track the endangered animals.

"This is a disaster," Ken Balcomb, a senior scientist at the Center for
Whale Research on San Juan Island, said Friday. "The population drop is
worse than the stock market."

While the official census won't be completed until December, the total
number of live "southern resident" orcas now stands at 83.

Among those missing since last year's count are the nearly century-old
leader of one of the three southern resident pods, and two young females who
recently bore calves. The loss of the seven whales, Balcomb said, would be
the biggest decline among the Puget Sound orcas since 1999, when the center
also tracked a decline of seven whales.

Low numbers of chinook salmon, a prime food for these whales, may be a
factor in the unusual number of deaths this year, Balcomb said.

"It was a bad salmon year and that's not good for the whales," he said.
"Everybody considers these wonderful creatures, but we really have to pay
attention to the food supply."

The three pods, or families, that frequent western Washington's inland
marine waters - the J, K, and L pods - are genetically and behaviorally
distinct from other killer whales. The sounds they make are considered a
unique dialect, they mate only among themselves, eat salmon rather than
marine mammals and show a unique attachment to the region.

The population reached 140 or more in the last century, but their numbers
have fluctuated in recent decades. They were listed as endangered in 2005.

"We may be in the beginning of another decline in the population," said
Howard Garrett, director of the Orca Network, a nonprofit education and
advocacy group.

He said the whales seem to be having a harder time finding chinook salmon.

The whales recently have been traveling
<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444011,00.html#>  over greater
distances than usual, suggesting they may be ranging farther for food, said
Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries
Service.

Lack of food may be a concern, but it's too early to know the reason for the
unusual number of presumed deaths, he said.

Pollution and a decline in prey are believed to be the whales' biggest
threats, although stress from whale-watching tour boats and underwater sonar
tests by the Navy also have been concerns. In the late 1960s and early '70s,
the population fell as dozens were captured for marine parks.

The whales were making an apparentg comeback in recent years, reaching 90 in
number in 2005, "but it's been a downhill trend now for three years,"
Balcomb said.

Among those missing are two female whales of reproductive age, both of which
recently produced calves. One of those calves, L-111, is missing, while the
other, J-39, is not.

It's not unusual to lose older or younger whales, but losing two females in
reproductive prime is "a bit of a concern" since they typically have a high
survival rate, Hanson said.

One female whale, known to scientists as L-67, had the potential for two or
three more calves, Hanson said.

She was the mother of "Luna," a juvenile killer whale from Washington waters
that made headlines in 2001 when he became separated from his pod and turned
up in Nootka Sound, off the west coast of Canada's Vancouver Island. A
killer whale believed to be Luna died in Nootka Sound in 2006 when it was
hit by the propeller of a large tugboat.

L-67 showed clear signs of emaciation - a depression behind her blow hole -
before she disappeared in September, Hanson said.

"It definitely shows that she was not eating," he said, but it's unclear
why. Researchers are performing tests on samples they collected from her
weeks before she disappeared.

Others missing, according to the center, include K-7, the 98-year-old
matriarch of K-pod, and L-101, a 6-year-old male who is a brother of "Luna."

The count also includes a calf, J-43, that was born in November but is
believed to have not survived the winter.

The whale census may increase if baby orcas are born this fall. And there's
a slim chance the whales may reappear elsewhere, as "Luna" did, Hanson said.

But Balcomb said: "We've been monitoring. They're just gone."

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.rain.org/pipermail/channel_islands_naturalist_corps/attachments/20081025/de38ae85/attachment.html>