The runs for Chinook salmon when they go up-river to breed have been declining for years and this has a direct consequence on orcas (i.e. killer whales) which prefer them for the plump and delicious meals they provide. Damming the Snake River has limited the range in which the salmon can breed and their numbers have suffered. Therefore, people are calling for four dams to come down. (AP via ABC: Scientists Call for Breaching Dams to Save Puget Sound Orcas)
The number of southern resident killer whales has fluctuated in recent decades, from more than 100 in 1995 to about 80 in recent years, as they have faced threats from pollution, lack of prey and disturbance from boats. They were listed as endangered in 2005.
The whales have a strong preference for chinook salmon, which are typically larger and fatter fish, but those runs have been declining.
"There's no reason these dams couldn't be breached," said Jim Waddell, a retired engineer with the group DamSense who spoke at the news conference.
The judge ordered the government to come up with a new plan by March 2018. He said he would not dictate what options the government must consider in the new plan, but he noted that a proper analysis under federal law "may well require consideration of the reasonable alternative of breaching, bypassing, or removing one or more of the four Lower Snake River Dams."
The number of southern resident killer whales has fluctuated in recent decades, from more than 100 in 1995 to about 80 in recent years, as they have faced threats from pollution, lack of prey and disturbance from boats. They were listed as endangered in 2005.
The whales have a strong preference for chinook salmon, which are typically larger and fatter fish, but those runs have been declining.
"There's no reason these dams couldn't be breached," said Jim Waddell, a retired engineer with the group DamSense who spoke at the news conference.
- AP
You know immediately the state will not take this well because those dams make electricity and it costs almost nothing once the damns are built. The state won't give them up easily.
And they didn't.
The Federal government has tried to dance away from breaching the dams by suggesting alternatives which maybe are supposed to 'fool' the salmon into taking a bypass or some other such flimsy solution which work only for salmon possessed of GPS devices, etc.
But Washington state responded.
In May, in a long-running lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon in Portland rejected the federal government's latest plan for offsetting the damage that dams in the Columbia River Basin pose to salmon.
The judge ordered the government to come up with a new plan by March 2018. He said he would not dictate what options the government must consider in the new plan, but he noted that a proper analysis under federal law "may well require consideration of the reasonable alternative of breaching, bypassing, or removing one or more of the four Lower Snake River Dams."
- AP
Now the battle lines are drawn for the Puget Sound Orca Wars and it appears the Defenders of the Orca have made a strong move. Whether the position will stand and the dams won't remains to be seen but at least it wasn't dismissed altogether by the government.
4 comments:
Didnt you write an articke recently that all species poulation are down by 56% worldwide
So simple math says these orcas are doing better than most.
And to call ocras a seperate species just because they like to hang out in the Puget Sound is a little bit of a stretch
Salmon poulation are also declining because of vast overfishing
Soylent Green if thet make it taste like fresh salmon problwm solved
Yep, might even be more than fifty percent. I doubt these orcas are a separate species but they know them from their markings so they probably are seeing the same ones over time.
I've got no major case to defend since I've heard for some while about the salmon runs but don't have any clear evidence on whether this or that is worst for them. The combat is live in Washington state and who knows how it plays out.
Washington is so far left They make you look like the GOP
For me, bleeding heart moves aren't so much far left as lost in the weeds. Sometimes the movements are valid and sometimes they're rubbish so that looks a lot more like all over the place.
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