Orca advocates are begging federal leaders to help keep the Puget Sound’s Southern Residents alive.
Advocates say the Federal government is keeping a fish supply behind dams during a major salmon shortage. The salmon need to be able to swim upstream to reproduce, but can’t naturally due to the dams.
Experts say if drastic measures aren’t taken soon, the Southern Resident Orcas may go extinct from starvation.
The Orca Network, founded by Howard Garrett, is at the forefront of this mission. Garrett tells us he has been trying to fight for the whales since 1976 and will continue to do so.
The Orca Network is a tracking and research group based on Whidbey Island.
“It’s the longest continuous study of any population of whales anywhere in the world,” Howard said.
They have studied the impacts of the 1970 Penn Cove Captures, the loss of Chinook Salmon, and environmental effects for decades.
He tells us the captures wiped out an entire generation of Puget Sound Orcas. It took decades for the population to increase their numbers.
Now, the salmon shortage is at the forefront of the decreasing Orca population.
“Those Chinook have become incredibly scarce due to many factors,” Garrett said. “Overfishing, habitat destruction, we’ve hardened the shorelines and hurt the estuaries, even dammed the rivers.”
The dams are operated by the federal government, meaning the orca’s fate is in the hands of Washington D.C.
To increase the population, NOAA studies show the remaining Chinook Salmon need to swim upstream to lay eggs and reproduce, but the dams operated by the Army Corps of Engineers prevent that from happening naturally.
“The only way to restore those salmon is to remove those dams, it’s universal in the scientific community, that needs to be done,” Garrett said.
If that doesn’t happen, Garrett tells us the Southern Residents will eventually starve to death, going from endangered to extinct.
“It’s absolutely the lack of nutrition that’s often killing the calves before they are even born,” Garrett said.
The Orca Network is trying to convince lawmakers to take up their cause. They tell us the group has sent over many petitions and studies along with Orca Network representatives to state offices.
They say they never got a response about removing the dams.
Advocates say they spend each day fighting for the 73 remaining residents so that future generations can experience the orca’s magic, too.
“It’s completely universal, it’s non-denominational, nonpartisan, every person has that response to whales when they see them,” Garrett said.
We reached out to Washington lawmakers to see if they are considering options to save the Southern Resident Orca population, but we have not received a reply.
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