Posted by bigx01 at 1/28/08 2:05 p.m.

Time to limit salmon fishing. would you intentionally starve your own kids? that is what we are do to these whales with the over fishing of their food.

Posted by allyoop at 1/28/08 2:41 p.m.

Maybe the whales were originally from California and migrated up here. Noone knows if these pods are "native" to here. Just because these pods have resided predominately in the Puget Sound locale during modern times does not mean they have always lived here. Perhaps the species has ranged far and wide over the centuries. Noone knows. But I'm sure some "expert" will surface and proclaim to have all the knowledge. That seems to be the trend for this area.

Hey, the sea lions come up from there, why not the orcas? Its amazing how humans so quickly assign our own qualities onto other species.

Posted by ajMM at 1/28/08 2:43 p.m.

I find it hard to imagine that there were half a million salmon in Puget Sound and a million in Georgia Strait until just ten years ago, when some of the orcas shifted their winter pattern, so that doesn't seem to explain the shift.
Unfortunately, the other reported reason for the move seems to be contradicted by Balcomb's posting at the Center for Whale Research's website (http://www.whaleresearch.com/thecenter/News_2008_0127_Lpod_Monterey_report.html), there Balcomb does *not* "...ties the change in part to California's establishment of marine protected areas..."; rather, Balcomb *speculates about the future*: "If California's pro-active effort to recover salmon stocks by setting aside large parcels of ocean as marine reserves prohibiting to fishing is successful, the SRKW's might just stay there."
So the question remains: why did some of the orcas shift to a different winter pattern ten years ago? If nobody really knows (as seems likely to be the case), why not report that?

Posted by Whulj at 1/28/08 5:42 p.m.

Marine reserves, over the longer term, would be helpful to both fishermen and orcas. But as long as we have Doug Sutherland heading DNR, we can bet the short-term desires of industry will continue to be the priority. Witness his sorry behavior thus far in defending the timber industry against any culpability in our recent floods. Let's send Sutherland packing in November.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/28/08 6:05 p.m.

"Time to limit salmon fishing. would you intentionally starve your own kids? that is what we are do to these whales with the over fishing of their food."

That's amusingly ironic. We are salmon fishing to feed people. Our own kids are people, not whales. (Unless you are an orca with an internet account, I guess....)

Posted by unregistered user at 1/29/08 8:50 a.m.

We are experiencing a collapse in salmon up north, likely due to sea lice epidemics caused by the many salmon farms in BC. The commercial fisheries have already been drastically reduced, and in some cases eliminated. It is no surprise that the orcas are forced to head south.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 4:57 p.m.

hmmmm... so someone out there thinks we will starve if we don't eat salmon? or you will starve if you can't sell salmon to make a living? we are much more flexible than either the orcas or the salmon and we need to use that flexibility for the good of all.