Vancouver, BC, 2 June 2018 (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) – On 23 June 2018, an orca born into the critically endangered Southern Resident orca population died within hours of birth. [And another died the same way on Tuesday, 24 July 2018. –Des] Despite the decline of Orcas due to the loss of Chinook salmon, their […]
By Lynda V. Mapes 25 July 2018 (The Seattle Times) – For two days she has grieved, carrying her dead calf on her head, unwilling to let it go.J35, a member of the critically endangered southern resident family of orcas, gave birth to her calf Tuesday only to watch it die within half an hour. […]
By Jim Robbins 9 July 2018 SEATTLE (The New York Times) – For the last three years, not one calf has been born to the dwindling pods of black-and-white killer whales spouting geysers of mist off the coast in the Pacific Northwest. Normally four or five calves would be born each year among this fairly […]
By Umair Irfan 23 June 2018 (Vox) – Trump’s executive order voids an Obama policy that aimed to prevent oil spills. The Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig exploded on 20 April 2010, killing 11 workers. Gas erupted into a massive fireball, and then the rig gushed 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf […]
23 May 2018 (SFU) – British Columbia’s premier shellfish farming region is heavily contaminated with microplastics, according to a new SFU study.New research from SFU’s Ecotoxicology Research Group shows Lambert Channel and Baynes Sound off Denman Island are awash with microbeads and other microplastics including fragments and fibres.The area is also home to approximately 130 […]
By Lynda V. Mapes 27 October 2017 (The Seattle Times) – Orca whales are on a path to extinction within a century unless they get a big increase of chinook salmon to eat, and significantly quieter seas in which to find their food, a new study has found.The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, […]
By Lynda V. Mapes 9 October 2017 (The Seattle Times) – Scientists have been hauling survey nets through the ocean off the coasts of Washington and Oregon for 20 years. But this is the first time some have come up empty.“We were really worrying if there was something wrong with our equipment,” said David Huff, […]
By Brandon Keim Email AuthorMarch 11, 2010 A one-of-a-kind killer whale population appears to be threatened by human appetites for Antarctic toothfish, better known to restaurant-goers as Chilean Sea Bass. As fishing fleets patrol their waters, catching what was their primary source of food, the whales are vanishing. It’s not certain whether they’ve only moved […]
By KYLE HOPKINS – McClatchy Newspapers An already-fragile population of killer whales that hunts Prince William Sound never recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill and is doomed to die off, biologists said last week. … One of the most striking surprises to emerge from the annual Alaska Forum on the Environment was the tale […]