Yes, meanwhile the ones smart enough to eat the exploding seal population, the transients are doing great!I thought the Southern Residents went after Chinook?
why?the transients are doing great.. remember any part of a plan to cull would have to take them in as a factor also...
well.. because there pop. is increasing.... ?
Increasing slowly - but not large - and not large enough to take care of the seal problem:well.. because there pop. is increasing.... ?
The transient Killer Whales are doing better no doubt due to the fact their diet is more varied and includes Sea Lions and Seals.
Remember a few years ago they came thru Dodd's Narrows and the water was red with blood from the Sea Lion kill!
AND the time they had a grey whales (or something like it) trapped in Fulford Harbor on Salt Spring and the school kids were coming down to the shoreline to watch the feeding frenzy which went on for a day to two.
I find it hard to understand why scientists believe the future of J pod lies exclusively with the health of Chinook in the Fraser River and other Southern rivers.
It should come as no surprise scat collected from these whales when they are in the southern Salish Sea indicates they are eating Chinook salmon, but what do they eat the other 8 to 10 months of the year when they are elsewhere?
Increasing slowly - but not large - and not large enough to take care of the seal problem:
Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Pacific Region Science Advisory Report 2017/011 2017_011-eng http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas-sccs/Publications/SAR-AS/2017/2017_011-eng.html
In 2001, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) listed Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs) as Endangered and Northern Resident Killer Whales (NRKWs) as Threatened due to their small population sizes, low reproductive rates, recent unexplained declines in numbers, and the existence of a variety of anthropogenic threats (COSEWIC 2001).
Science Advisory Report 2009/011 Population Assessment Pacific Harbour Seal (Phoca vitulina richardsi) http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas-sccs/publications/sar-as/2009/2009_011-eng.htm
Surveys in the Strait of Georgia and Index Areas in other parts of the province indicate seal populations grew exponentially at a rate of about 11.5% per year during the 1970s and 1980s, which probably represents the biological maximum rate of increase for this species. The rate of increase began to slow in the mid-1990s, and abundance now appears to have stabilized.
It is estimated that about 105,000 harbour seals currently inhabit coastal waters of British Columbia, compared with a population that had been reduced to perhaps 10,000 when the first surveys were conduced in the early 1970s.