Feds could restrict Pacific Ocean fishing over endangered orcas, NOAA letter says

[wildmanyeah]

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...shing-over-endangered-orcas-noaa-letter-says/


Feds could restrict Pacific Ocean fishing over endangered orcas, NOAA letter says

 

[wildmanyeah]

interesting...

NOAA letter

https://www.pcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/D1a_Supp_NMFS_Rpt4_SRKW-Guid_MAR2019BB.pdf

WDWF Letter

https://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/02039/

 

[SpringVelocity]

What garbage go after the real problem. You have to wonder when you see that chart. Probably spoon fed from the whale watching association, and the environmental groups.

 

[SpringVelocity]

interesting...

NOAA letter

https://www.pcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/D1a_Supp_NMFS_Rpt4_SRKW-Guid_MAR2019BB.pdf

WDWF Letter

https://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/02039/

LOL. Yep

 

[Powerset]

There’s always at least 2 motives with every government initiative, the one they profess to be dealing with and then the real one. The SRKW are in trouble. Ever since we scooped 47 of them , (likely more than that), their survival was tepid at best. Our government ok’d this scoop. Now they’re sitting on their high horse telling anglers you can’t have any more of their food. Saying our activities have put them in danger. Our activity has never threatened Orca, we recreational anglers have posed zero risk to ORCA. Can all the user groups make that claim? Can all industries make that claim? Yet who is in the crosshairs once again, recreational anglers. Sad. We need a countrywide, or at least Province wide anglers assoc.!A powerful, political juggernaut with 50,000 members, 50,000 votes. Enough muscle to swing elections. That unified voice has never been more necessary than right now. I know there’s good organizations in place but they aren’t unified, they don’t always speak with one voice. We need this years Federal election to be a single issue election for all of us, our right to keep fishing. Folks, almost every single initiative this and every government before them spends money on comes from us. Then they tell us thanks for the cash now go bowling or play golf but you aren’t fishing.

 

[SpringVelocity]

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.4 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

For Immediate Release, April 12, 2019

Contact: Miyoko Sakashita, (510) 844-7108, miyoko@biologicaldiversity.org

Lawsuit Forces Federal Protection for Endangered Orcas' West Coast Habitat

SEATTLE— The Center for Biological Diversity has won a victory in the legal battle to force the Trump administration to protect the West Coast habitat of the last remaining Southern Resident killer whales.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has committed to proposing a rule acting on the Center’s 2014 petition for orca habitat protection off Washington, Oregon and California. An expanded designation of critical habitat has to be proposed by early October to help the critically endangered orcas, which are starving for lack of salmon and being hurt by boat traffic and water pollution.

The Center sued the administration last year for delays in protecting orcas in their full habitat range, a violation of the Endangered Species Act. The Southern Resident population dropped to just 75, the lowest number in more than 30 years, as the federal government delayed decisions on expanding protections for the orcas.

“The Trump administration has to move forward with giving these critically endangered orcas the protections they need and deserve,” said Miyoko Sakashita, the director of the Center’s oceans program. “These magnificent killer whales are in real trouble. Protecting their feeding grounds is more important than ever, especially with the birth of a new baby.”

In January 2019 scientists confirmed the birth of a baby orca named Lucky after it was spotted with its pod in Monterey Bay, Calif. The first calf to survive past birth since 2015, Lucky underscores the urgent need to improve feeding opportunities for Southern Resident killer whales along their whole West Coast habitat. Currently only their summer feeding grounds in Washington’s Puget Sound are designated as critical habitat.

The Center petitioned in 2014 to better protect areas off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California (see map). The Endangered Species Act prohibits federal agencies from authorizing activities that will destroy or harm a listed species' critical habitat. Animals with federally protected critical habitat are more than twice as likely to be recovering as species without it, a Center study found.

“This legal victory might save the day for these endangered orcas,” Sakashita said. “Keeping the oceans healthy for orcas isn’t only a legal mandate, but a moral one. We owe that to our children and the next generation of orcas.”

 

[fish4all]

And what if anything is our governemnt doing to increase the numbers of Chinook. How much of the $142 million will be used to restore habitat, reduce problem pinnipeds in the river, or increase hatcheries vs pissing it away on more studies.
$400 mill for the east coast to look at aquaculture and $142 mill for here to save the whales. Shows where the government priorities lie.

 

[wildmanyeah]

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.4 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

For Immediate Release, April 12, 2019

Contact: Miyoko Sakashita, (510) 844-7108, miyoko@biologicaldiversity.org

Lawsuit Forces Federal Protection for Endangered Orcas' West Coast Habitat

SEATTLE— The Center for Biological Diversity has won a victory in the legal battle to force the Trump administration to protect the West Coast habitat of the last remaining Southern Resident killer whales.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has committed to proposing a rule acting on the Center’s 2014 petition for orca habitat protection off Washington, Oregon and California. An expanded designation of critical habitat has to be proposed by early October to help the critically endangered orcas, which are starving for lack of salmon and being hurt by boat traffic and water pollution.

The Center sued the administration last year for delays in protecting orcas in their full habitat range, a violation of the Endangered Species Act. The Southern Resident population dropped to just 75, the lowest number in more than 30 years, as the federal government delayed decisions on expanding protections for the orcas.

“The Trump administration has to move forward with giving these critically endangered orcas the protections they need and deserve,” said Miyoko Sakashita, the director of the Center’s oceans program. “These magnificent killer whales are in real trouble. Protecting their feeding grounds is more important than ever, especially with the birth of a new baby.”

In January 2019 scientists confirmed the birth of a baby orca named Lucky after it was spotted with its pod in Monterey Bay, Calif. The first calf to survive past birth since 2015, Lucky underscores the urgent need to improve feeding opportunities for Southern Resident killer whales along their whole West Coast habitat. Currently only their summer feeding grounds in Washington’s Puget Sound are designated as critical habitat.

The Center petitioned in 2014 to better protect areas off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California (see map). The Endangered Species Act prohibits federal agencies from authorizing activities that will destroy or harm a listed species' critical habitat. Animals with federally protected critical habitat are more than twice as likely to be recovering as species without it, a Center study found.

“This legal victory might save the day for these endangered orcas,” Sakashita said. “Keeping the oceans healthy for orcas isn’t only a legal mandate, but a moral one. We owe that to our children and the next generation of orcas.”

 

[DC Reid]

Here is my take on what DFO is planning in BC, including fishing closures, to try and save extinction level SRKWs with extinction level Fraser chinook. There is a better plan, including netpens with sterilized that I go into: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/04/dfo-srkw-measures-2019.html. At least DFO is now talking freshwater habitat restoration, an option that should have been item 1 right from the beginning.

 

[fish4all]

Here is my take on what DFO is planning in BC, including fishing closures, to try and save extinction level SRKWs with extinction level Fraser chinook. There is a better plan, including netpens with sterilized that I go into: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/04/dfo-srkw-measures-2019.html. At least DFO is now talking freshwater habitat restoration, an option that should have been item 1 right from the beginning.

Why sterilized Chinook?
And as for the last biomass of herring. Maybe look and see what kind of spawns were in central, Haida gwaii and North Coast.

 

[DC Reid]

Why sterilized Chinook?
And as for the last biomass of herring. Maybe look and see what kind of spawns were in central, Haida gwaii and North Coast.

It allows for fisheries, particularly terminal fisheries, to mop up non-spawners, that would also be fin-cliped, and let the wild fish through to spawn. As well, any netpen fish typically return to the site of the netpen, and don't go up rivers. Also allows for a mop up fishery. Also, any new enhancement should be sterile or epigenetically raised, so they are as close to wild as can be made.

 

[wildmanyeah]

It allows for fisheries, particularly terminal fisheries, to mop up non-spawners, that would also be fin-cliped, and let the wild fish through to spawn. As well, any netpen fish typically return to the site of the netpen, and don't go up rivers. Also allows for a mop up fishery. Also, any new enhancement should be sterile or epigenetically raised, so they are as close to wild as can be made.

After you posted about sterilized Chinook I read a lot up on them. Originally in other parts where they tried this they thought they would get back monsters like they do with some stabilized fish in lake fisheries.

However, that did not happen instead they were getting back like tiny 2 pound ready to spawn 4 and 5 year old fish fish. I don't no If you have read these but they might be worth a read.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/84872280.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236119310_Welfare_Considerations_of_Triploid_Fish

https://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/index.php?threads/orca-food-security-program.73191/page-2

DFO has very recently conducted research on triploid Chinook and considered if and how they may fit into conservation or fishery-related hatchery programs. Triploid juveniles from Capilano hatchery were reared to smolts stage at West Vancouver Lab successfully, but the research wasn't pursued for several reasons.

There are several outstanding unknowns about triploid Chinook that make it an extremely difficult and expensive undertaking to pursue:
1) If the fish do not mature, are they likely to simply remain in the high seas for their entire life and not return to the coast and rivers?
2) Triploid males do mature, and are able to attempt to spawn although they are not fertile. If they return to rivers with wild salmon they are likely to compete with and displace diploid males and result in a lower productivity by spawning unsuccessfully with fertile females
3) In order to avoid this negative outcome, an all female broodline would need to be developed and used to create AF3n triploids (like the FFSBC does for rainbows). No facility currently exists that could do this, at least in the public realm.

 

[DC Reid]

After you posted about sterilized Chinook I read a lot up on them. Originally in other parts where they tried this they thought they would get back monsters like they do with some stabilized fish in lake fisheries.

However, that did not happen instead they were getting back like tiny 2 pound ready to spawn 4 and 5 year old fish fish. I don't no If you have read these but they might be worth a read.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/84872280.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236119310_Welfare_Considerations_of_Triploid_Fish

https://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/index.php?threads/orca-food-security-program.73191/page-2

I'm surprised as diploiding and triploiding is commonly done in trout stocks and is a pretty easy thing to do. As for hatchery males, the Nitinat tells me that they cannot spawn when they return, even if unsterilized. On the all female stock, that is not uncommon in fish farms; however, Volpe's work shows both males and females and spawning on Van Isle. I did several posts on this issue: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2017/12/atlantic-salmon-in-bc-rivers-bad-news.html.

 

[wildmanyeah]

I'm surprised as diploiding and triploiding is commonly done in trout stocks and is a pretty easy thing to do. As for hatchery males, the Nitinat tells me that they cannot spawn when they return, even if unsterilized. On the all female stock, that is not uncommon in fish farms; however, Volpe's work shows both males and females and spawning on Van Isle. I did several posts on this issue: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2017/12/atlantic-salmon-in-bc-rivers-bad-news.html.

I think the only way at this point would be to do it as an experiment, using a stock that stays close to home like, Harrison, Cowichan ect.. and see. Difference species seem to respond way differently to triploid then other.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1994-09-29-9409290061-story.html

"remember when we rubbed our palms a year ago, expecting the first rush of possibly 40-to-60-pound salmon in Lake Michigan?

Yes, dear beating heart, Michigan State University's multiyear experiment with "triploid" salmon-those genetically engineered fish designed to exceed the normal four-year life cycle and grow to unprecedented sizes-was about to bear fruit.

And then nothing happened.

No one caught any big ones. If anything, those triploid whoppers seemed to have disappeared in the greenish waters of Lakes Michigan and Huron.


Well, a few were collected by biologists at Michigan's weirs this year, and guess what? Instead of being monsters, they are midgets. One 5-year-old chinook salmon was no more than 18 inches long. In other words, the much-heralded triploid program has turned into a colossal bust.

"We must have raised $50,000 around here to help Michigan State fund the program," said WGN outdoors broadcaster Bill Cullerton Sr. "I'd really like to know what went wrong."

Apparently, the Michigan State process-heat-shocking fertilized eggs to the point where chromosomes are altered-had other effects upon the fish.

"We saw it right away at our hatchery," said Asa Wright, Great Lakes fisheries expert for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. "These fish just were not aggressive. For a hybrid to be successful, it has to be very aggressive in terms of seeking food. These fish just didn't seem to have it.""