Tag Archives: Southern Resident Orca Task Force

WA lawmakers pass on whale-watching ban aimed at helping orcas

Washington legislators came into their 2019 session brimming with proposals to help rescue Puget Sound’s imperiled orcas. But now they have dropped one of the most important — and controversial — ideas: a three-year moratorium on commercial whale watching. Lawmakers denied Gov. Jay Inslee’s attempt to force commercial whale-watching boats to keep extra distance from three pods of orcas that summer in the waters of Puget Sound and the Salish Sea between Washington and Canada. In doing so, they rejected a key recommendation supported by the majority of nearly 50 researchers, state and tribal officials and others who served on the Southern Resident Orca Task Force. >click to read<14:10

Orca task force gives recommendations to Gov. Inslee

The state’s Southern Resident orca task force on Friday released its final recommendations for protecting and restoring the region’s endangered whales. The task force submitted the recommendations in a report to Gov. Jay Inslee, who formed the 40-member committee by executive order earlier this year. The report focuses on 36 recommendations to help prevent the orcas from going extinct, according to a news release from the Puget Sound Partnership, the state agency that is coordinating the task force. >click to read<

The ‘Soul’ of the Pacific Northwest is dying of starvation

“I believe we have orcas in our soul in this state.” Those were the words of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee earlier this year after forming the Southern Resident Orca Task Force, an initiative meant to keep endangered killer whales alive in the region. Scientists point to a number of factors for the dwindling number of orcas in the region, including pollution, both old and new sources, that accumulate in their primary prey, Chinook salmon. This pollution gets stored in the orca’s fatty tissues, suppressing their immune system and making the whales more susceptible to disease… “It’s an ecosystem-wide problem,” Hanson said. “Things are out of whack and we have to get them back to where we can sustain killer whales. And the clock is ticking.” >click to read<18:00