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Action needed to save orcas

(From canada.com)- It was a grisly time in Vancouver Island waters, as boats fitted with blades on their bows searched out basking sharks, gentle giants who lazed near the surface, and sliced them into pieces. Basking sharks are extraordinary creatures, the second largest fish on the planet at up to 12 metres. But they were a nuisance for fishing boats, so the federal government set out to eliminate them. The sharks are now considered endangered.

The slaughter is not some dark chapter from the distant past. The extermination program was launched in 1945 and continued to 1970. A population of thousands of the plankton-eating sharks in B.C. waters was effectively wiped out. There have been six confirmed sightings since 1996. The attempt — just 38 years ago — to wipe out these creatures appears incomprehensible to most of us today.

But we wonder if, three decades from now, another generation will be just as baffled by our failure to do everything possible to save the threatened resident orca population.

Researchers have just completed their latest count of the three resident pods of orcas that spend time around southern Vancouver Island and Puget Sound. Seven appear to have died in the last 12 months, reducing the population to 83. The losses include breeding age females that should be in the prime of life.

It’s not just the deaths. The whales that survive are showing signs of starvation and behaving in ways that suggest an increasingly desperate search for food.

If the trends continue, some research suggests, the population will vanish. Some 240 northern resident killer whales face many of the same pressures.

There is legitimate scientific debate about the relative significance of the various threats to the whales and the most appropriate responses. But the Canadian response to the declining populations has been remarkably sluggish, especially in comparison to the U.S. action to save the threatened orcas.

A principal problem is food. Orcas rely heavily on chinook salmon and stocks have plunged. Ocean warming might be a factor, but loss of habitat and overfishing have been more significant. Researchers are also concerned about threats to the killer whales’ habitat and the effects of military sonar on the mammals.

The northern resident population is listed as a threatened species under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, while the southern population is considered endangered.

But the listings have not translated into action. The federal government missed the deadline for preparing a recovery plan by a full year. Five environmental groups filed a lawsuit last month charging that the government had failed to live up to the law’s requirement that habitat be protected as part of the recovery plan.

In contrast, the U.S. designated the southern resident whales, which also spend time in Puget Sound, as endangered in 2005. The recovery plan includes sweeping measures to protect and enhance salmon populations and requires all actions — from farming to logging to power production — be assessed to determine if they are putting the whales at risk.

There is no guarantee that the resident killer whale populations can be saved. The southern pods are already small enough that populations will be slow in regenerating. It would take only a few more deaths to tip the balance. And the challenges are vast and complex.

But it would be shameful, and a betrayal of future generations, if we failed to take every possible step to protect these creatures and the ecosystems on which they depend.

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