Tahlequah, the southern resident killer whale who carried her dead calf for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles, is pregnant again. CBC News: The National / YouTube
Tahlequah, the southern resident killer whale who broke hearts around the world when she carried her dead calf for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles, is pregnant again.
<p>Tahlequah's grueling journey called attention to the plight of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered</a> orcas who roam the waters between Washington state and British Columbia. The animals are threatened by boat traffic, pollution and the decline in their food staple chinook <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a>.</p><p>"There are stressed whales out there, critically stressed," Holly Fearnbach, marine mammal research director for the nonprofit <a href="https://www.sealifer3.org/" target="_blank">SR3</a>, told <a href="https://apnews.com/7df464414f95c4ac58cb9940e87e9498" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a>.</p><p>Fearnbach discovered Tahlequah, or J-35's, pregnancy while recording drone images of the southern resident killer whales with <a href="https://sea-inc.net/about/" target="_blank">Southall Environmental Associates</a> senior scientist John Durban, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/tahlequah-the-orca-who-carried-her-dead-calf-for-17-days-is-pregnant-again/" target="_blank">The Seattle Times reported</a>.</p>
<p>The purpose of the drone photographs was to track the orcas' overall condition and nutrition over time in a non-invasive manner, <a href="https://www.sealifer3.org/news/pregnant-whales-identified-among-the-southern-resident-killer-whales" target="_blank">SR3 explained</a>. (The drone flies more than 100 feet above the whales, according to The Seattle Times.) But comparing the photographs revealed several pregnancies in J, K and L pods.</p><p>Orca pregnancies are common, but successful births are far less so. Two thirds of them are typically lost, <a href="https://www.washington.edu/research/research-centers/center-for-conservation-biology/" target="_blank">Center for Conservation Biology</a> at the University of Washington researcher Sam Wasser has found. This is mostly due to poor nutrition linked to a decline in salmon.</p><p>When Tahlequah gave birth two years ago, it was the first birth for southern residents in three years. Since then, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/southern-resident-orca-born-2638660853.html" target="_self">two other calves</a> have been born to the orcas, and both are still alive. However, the population as a whole is down to just 73 whales, according to a <a href="https://www.whaleresearch.com/orca-population" target="_blank">Center for Whale Research population census</a>.</p><p>"With such a small population ... every successful birth is hugely important for recovery," SR3 wrote.</p>
<p>Fearnbach and Durban told The Seattle Times that boaters could help the pregnant whales by giving them space and quiet to feed.</p><p>This is important for two reasons. First, orcas tend to return to the same hunting grounds, but many of their traditional spots are seeing a lot of traffic from boats, fishermen and commercial ships.</p><p>"Just like human [fishermen] that don't just go drop a hook in the ocean," Durban told The Seattle Times. "They have their favorite places. They are amazing societies that pass culture down from generation to generation. They are creatures of habit."</p><p>Second, whales hunt using sound, which is why boat noises are such a big threat.</p><p>"[W]e hope folks on the water can give the Southern Residents plenty of space to forage at this important time," SR3 wrote.</p><p>The pregnant whales aren't the only ones in need of support right now. Fearnbach told The Associated Press that several juvenile whales appeared skinny.</p>
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Trump Admin Reverses Obama-Era Restrictions on Pebble Mine Near Alaska's Largest Salmon Nursery
27 July
Politics
The Bristol Bay watershed supports the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery. World Wildlife Fund / YouTube
Officials from the Trump administration announced last week that a plan to open a copper and gold mine that threatens Alaska's largest salmon nursery would not pose a serious environmental threat.
<p>This is a sharp about-face for the U.S. government, after <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-alaska-mining-salmon-2646141959.html" target="_self">the Obama-administration cited environmental concerns</a> and the threat to the spawning ground of the region's prized sockeye salmon when it put the brakes on the project in 2012, and again when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa">EPA</a>) expressed concerns about the salmon in 2014.</p><p>This new move represents the latest salvo in the Trump administration's thorough and systematic dismantling of environmental efforts and regulations from the previous administration. When it comes to the Pebble Mine, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/07/24/pebble-mine-alaska-trump/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported, a <a href="https://pebbleprojecteis.com/documents/finaleis" target="_blank">final environmental analysis</a> issued Friday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that the mine — which targets a deposit of gold, copper and other minerals worth up to $500 billion — "would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers" in the Bristol Bay watershed, which supports the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery.</p><p>Opponents of Pebble Mine criticized the review process as rushed, flawed, and favorable to the mine developer, as the <a href="https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2020/07/23/as-a-major-federal-environmental-review-comes-to-a-close-six-things-to-know-about-the-pebble-mine-proposal/" target="_blank">Anchorage Daily News</a> reported.</p>
<p>In a joint statement, Alannah Hurley with United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Norm Van Vactor with Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., Ralph Andersen with Bristol Bay Native Association and Katherine Carscallen with Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay said the final review "completely fails to adequately assess the impacts of Pebble on Bristol Bay's waters, salmon, and people," according to the Anchorage Daily News.</p><p>The mine will be located in two watersheds that feed fish-spawning rivers. Opponents say traces of heavy metals and other contaminants left from the mining operation pose risks if they leach into groundwater or if dams holding back the tailings fail in an earthquake, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/climate/pebble-mine-alaska-environment.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reported.</p>
<p>Opposition to the mine has been widespread, both in the region and statewide, for nearly two decades, with concerns about environmental damage and the potential harm to the area's salmon, which are the main traditional subsistence food for many of the Native Alaskans in the region and the crux of both sport-fishing and commercial fishing in the area, according to The New York Times.</p><p>The open-pit mine calls for a large dammed area to trap the tailings from mining operations that would be toxic to the fish. It also calls for the 80 new miles of road to carry the concentrated tailings away to Cook Inlet. Additionally, the mining company wants to build a 165-mile natural gas pipeline for a generating plant to power the operation.</p>
<p>According to the Corps, the operations would permanently destroy more than 2,200 acres of wetlands and waters, and 105 miles of streams. The EPA indicated earlier this year that it would not block the project at this point, as The Washington Post reported.</p><p>Opponents have argued that the environmental impact statement was not rigorous enough, as they highlighted hazardous risks, including the potential for a tailings dam failure that could contaminate waterways used by spawning fish and harm the Bristol Bay fishery, which employs about 15,000 people. They also note that Alaska is the most seismically active state in the nation, and critics said the Corps had not taken sufficient account of the risk of earthquakes or volcanic activity, and that its analysis of the dam designs was inadequate, particularly since a few of the dams would be hundreds of feet high, as The New York Times reported.</p>
<p>Taryn Kiekow Heimer, who leads the the Natural Resources Defense Council's effort to stop the project, told The Washington Post that the administration's push to greenlight a massive project that is opposed by neighboring <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples">Indigenous</a> communities amounts to environmental injustice.</p><p>"It's especially embarrassing for the government and appalling given the current social context we are in," she said of the accelerated approval process. "It's just another example of the entrenched and systemic racism that this government is showing to people of color and indigenous people in particular."</p><p>The Pebble Mine, like logging in Alaska' <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-wildfires-trump-alaska-exploitation-2640082295.html" target="_self">Tongass forest</a>, the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/keystone-xl" target="_self">Keystone XL</a> pipeline, and the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-pipeline-shut-down-2646355663.html" target="_self">Dakota Access</a> pipeline, is a gift to industry that the Trump administration has tried to fast track. All those projects could be reversed if a Democratic administration takes office in January, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/07/24/pebble-mine-alaska-trump/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>.</p>
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The survival tools northern fish have used for millennia could be a disadvantage as environmental conditions warm and more fast-paced species move in. Istvan Banyai / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 3.0
By Alyssa Murdoch, Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle and Sapna Sharma
Summer has finally arrived in the northern reaches of Canada and Alaska, liberating hundreds of thousands of northern stream fish from their wintering habitats.
<p>Through the long winter, many have endured cramped, icy quarters with perilously low oxygen levels. Others have recently journeyed incredible distances from large rivers and lakes to small summer habitats upstream.</p><p>Northern stream fish come from a long line of hardy adapters. Their ancestors were well equipped to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1352-8_2" target="_blank">survive multiple ice ages and then go on to colonize some of the coldest newly accessible northern habitats</a>. They thrive in some of the most dynamic conditions on the planet, from short intense summers, with up to 24 hours of sunlight, to long cold winters with limited light and food.</p><p>But the survival tools these fish have used for millennia — exceptional tolerance to cold, slow growth rates and long lifespans — could be a disadvantage as environmental conditions in the north warm and more fast-paced species move in.</p><p>Our research team set out to see how stream fishes were responding to unprecedented environmental changes across their northern ranges. Ultimately, we wanted to know how these changes might affect the hundreds of thousands of people in Alaska and northern Canada that rely on local fisheries for food, culture and economic security.</p>
A Good News Story?
<p>On the surface, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/fwb.13569" target="_blank">results from our study</a> appear to provide a "good news" story. Warming temperatures were linked to higher numbers of fish, more species overall and, therefore, potentially more fishing opportunities for northerners.</p><p>Initially, we were surprised to learn that warming was increasing the distribution of cold-adapted fish. We reasoned that modest amounts of warming could lead to benefits such as increased food and winter habitat availability without reaching stressful levels for many species.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ1MzA0Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzk5MDY3NX0.IjplojcI7x34IWnPz7YlA72ZVLhHBb1AjpXt7GiudvU/img.jpg?width=980" id="e1628" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="128684685dc318c8600631cba0d7aee1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Photo of Arctic grayling (left) and Dolly Varden trout (right). Alyssa Murdoch / Lilian Tran / Nunavik Research Centre and Tracey Loewen / Fisheries and Oceans Canada
<p>Yet, not all fish species fared equally well. Ecologically unique northern species — those that have evolved in colder, more nutrient-poor environments, such as Arctic grayling and Dolly Varden trout — were showing declines with warming.</p>Fish Strandings and Buried Eggs
<p>Recent news headlines run the gamut for Pacific salmon — from their increased escapades <a href="https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/more-pacific-salmon-showing-up-in-western-arctic-waters/" target="_blank">into the Arctic</a> to <a href="https://www.juneauempire.com/news/warm-waters-across-alaska-cause-salmon-die-offs/" target="_blank">massive pre-spawning die-offs</a> in central Alaska. Similarly, results from our study revealed different outcomes for fish depending on local climatic conditions, including Pacific salmon.</p><p>We found that warmer spring and fall temperatures may be helping juvenile salmon by providing a longer and more plentiful growing season, and by supporting early egg development in northern regions that were previously too cold for survival.</p><p>In contrast, salmon declined in regions that were experiencing wetter fall conditions, pointing to an increased risk of flooding and sedimentation that could bury or dislodge incubating eggs.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ1MzAzMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTU1Nzk3OX0.cEBVXfCGyyk0dvV6j9caHJlnS1qfbyBIjv8IukxDrDY/img.jpg?width=980" id="7dfe7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="446709f805ed143541f429131803df26" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Headwaters of the Wind River within the largely intact Peel River watershed in northern Canada. Don Reid / Wildlife Conservation Society Canada / Author provided
<p>Interestingly, we found that certain climatic combinations, such as warmer summer water temperatures with decreased summer rainfall, were important in determining where Pacific salmon could survive. Summer warming in drier watersheds led to declines, suggesting that lowered streamflows may have increased the risk of fish becoming stranded in subpar habitats that were too warm and crowded.</p>The Fate of Northern Fisheries
<p>The promise of a warmer and more accessible Arctic has attracted mounting interest in new economic opportunities, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103637" target="_blank">including fisheries</a>. As warming rates at higher latitudes are already <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/" target="_blank">two to three times global levels</a>, it seems probable that northern biodiversity will experience dramatic shifts in the coming decades.</p><p>Despite the many unknowns surrounding the future of Pacific salmon, many fisheries are currently <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03632415.2017.1374251" target="_blank">thriving following warmer and more productive northern oceans</a>, and some <a href="https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic68876" target="_blank">Arctic Indigenous communities are developing new salmon fisheries</a>.</p><p>As warming continues, the commercial salmon fishing industry is poised to expand northwards, but its success will largely depend on extenuating factors such as <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060023067" target="_blank">changes to marine habitat and food sources</a> and <a href="https://www.yukon-news.com/news/promising-chinook-salmon-run-failed-to-materialize-in-the-yukon-river-panel-hears/" target="_blank">how many fish are caught during the freshwater stages of their journey</a>.</p><p>Even with the potential for increased northern biodiversity, it is important to recognize that some northern communities may be unable to adapt or may <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/searching-for-the-yukon-rivers-missing-chinook/" target="_blank">lose individual species that are associated with important cultural values</a>.</p><p>For example, many Yukon First Nations, including Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/trondek-hwechin-first-nation-aims-revitalize-critical-salmon-stocks-yukon" target="_blank">have voluntarily refrained from fishing their main traditional food of chinook salmon</a> to help stocks recover. Other communities that rely on increasingly vulnerable <a href="http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/techpap/TP373.pdf" target="_blank">northern-adapted species such as Arctic grayling and Dolly Varden trout</a> may also be at risk to future changes.</p><p>Although climate change action is urgently required at the global level, there are still tools that environmental managers can employ locally to reduce some of the effects. For example, watersheds with an elevated risk of flooding during the salmon incubation period could have more stringent streamside habitat protections, such as preserving larger areas of streamside vegetation from development, actively revegetating disturbed areas and conducting site-specific erosion and sediment control studies. In dangerously warm and dry years, fishing quotas could be reduced to limit salmon die-offs.</p><p>Ultimately, we advise that getting ahead of these impending changes by preserving the integrity of large intact watersheds will be key for protecting these evolutionary superstars from new human-driven pressures.</p>
<p class="">
<em></em>
</p><p>
<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alyssa-murdoch-866709" target="_blank">Alyssa Murdoch</a> is a </em><em>PhD candidate and Wildlife Conservation Society Canada Weston Fellow, York University, Canada.</em>
</p><p>
<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/chrystal-mantyka-pringle-187054" target="_blank">Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle</a> is a </em><em>Wildlife Conservation Society Canada Conservation Planning Biologist and Adjunct Professor of Conservation Biology, University of Saskatchewan.</em>
</p><p>
<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/sapna-sharma-416603" target="_blank">Sapna Sharma</a> is an </em><em>Associate Professor and York University Research Chair in Global Change Biology, York University, Canada.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Disclosure statement: </em><em>Alyssa Murdoch received funding from a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Canada Graduate Scholarship and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship. </em><em>Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle receives funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Chrystal is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a Conservation Planning Biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. </em><em>Sapna Sharma receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grant, Ontario Ministry of Innovation Early Researcher Award, Genome Canada, and the York University Research Chair Program. Sapna is a York Research Chair in Global Change Biology and Associate Professor at York University and a Trustee at the Royal Canadian Institute for Science.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/northern-fish-are-tough-but-climate-change-is-causing-some-to-dwindle-138676" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
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A diver swims with sharpfin barracuda, one of the many ocean species under threat from global warming, in Australia, Queensland, Great Barrier Reef. Pete Atkinson / The Image Bank / Getty Images Plus
The oceans could look much emptier by 2100, according to a new study that found that most fish species would not be able to survive in their current habitat if average global temperatures rise 4.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, as The Guardian reported.
<p>The researchers of the new paper said that 60 percent of fish species face a grave threat from global heating if temperatures approach that worst-case scenario level. The species under threat include many <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/seafood" target="_self">common fish found in grocery stores</a>, including staples like Atlantic cod, Alaska pollock and sockeye <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a>, and sport fishing favorites like swordfish, barracuda and brown trout, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/weather/fish-vulnerable-ocean-warming-climate-change-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>The new study, published in the journal <em><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6499/65" target="_blank">Science</a></em>, looked at how nearly 700 fresh and saltwater fish species respond to warming ocean temperatures. The problem for most fish is that as ocean temperatures rise, the oxygen level goes down, which makes it extremely challenging for embryos to survive.</p>
<p>"A 1.5C increase is already a challenge to some, and if we let global warming persist, it can get much worse," said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a co-author on the paper and a climatologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/fish-species-survival-climate-warming-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>That 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold would result in 10 percent of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life" target="_self">marine species</a> suffering over the next 80 years, including the aforementioned grocery staples.</p><p>However, even a 10 percent decline in fish species has a large ripple effect on ecosystems as one species being pushed out effects the food supply and the habits of many other species that have evolved to be interdependent.</p>
<p>Since we are already 1 degree warmer than the pre-industrial level and emissions are starting to rise around the world as countries reopen, it seems highly unlikely that the world will not blow past that lowest benchmark. In fact, we are currently on pace for a 3 degree increase over the pre-industrial level, as The Guardian noted.</p><p>"More than half of the species potentially at risk is quite astonishing, so we really emphasize that it's important to take action and follow the political commitments to reduce climate change and protect marine habitats," said Dr. Flemming Dahlke, a marine biologist at Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute and one of the authors of the study, as CNN reported.</p>
<p>The declining oxygen levels threaten fish because adult fish preparing to mate fill up their bodies with either eggs or sperm, which strains their hearts as they pump more blood to supply their reproductive organs with enough oxygen, according to the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8484103/Rising-water-temperatures-endanger-matings-fish.html" target="_blank">Daily Mail</a>.</p><p>Also, fish embryos inside eggs could also die since they don't have gills — meaning they will be unable to get enough oxygen to survive.</p><p>"There's a difference in the tolerable temperature range of almost 20 degrees on average between embryos and adults," Dahlke said, as CNN reported. "This of course makes a big difference when you want to look at the sensitivity of species to global warming."</p>
<p>The rapid increase in temperatures could force fish to adapt in an unprecedented way or to move toward cooler water closer to the poles. Freshwater fish living in lakes and ponds have a bleak outlook since they cannot move towards cooler waters.</p><p>"Some species might successfully manage this change," said Dahlke, as the Daily Mail reported. "But if you consider the fact that fish have adapted their mating patterns to specific habitats over extremely long time frames, and have tailored their mating cycles to specific ocean currents and available food sources, it has to be assumed that being forced to abandon their normal spawning areas will mean major problems for them."</p><p>A lot of this is a conservative estimate since the study did not take into account pollution or the increased acidity of the ocean, which could present additional challenges to sensitive species, as The Guardian noted.</p><p>"Some tropical fish are already living in zones at their uppermost tolerance, their areas are already 40C," Pörtner said. "Humankind is pushing the planet outside of a comfortable temperature range and we are starting to lose suitable habitat. It's worth investing in the 1.5C goal."</p>
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The Pile River flows into the northern end of Lake Iliamna. The lake and its tributaries are the headwaters of the Bristol Bay region, one of the richest salmon fisheries in the world. Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wrote a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers last week to say that it would not oppose or put a stop to a huge copper and gold mine near the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery, as The Washington Post reported.
<p>The Pebble Mine, a vast copper and gold deposit, is worth an estimated $500 billion in natural resources. However, it is in the Bristol Bay region of southwest <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/alaska">Alaska</a>, a resource that brings in $1.5 billion annually and provides a vital food source for thousands of Alaska Native residents who live there, according to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/alaska-pebble-mine-bristol-bay/" target="_blank">PBS</a>. An effort to build the mine at the heart of the Bristol Bay watershed has been an ongoing fight in Alaska.</p><p>The project was seemingly dead in 2012, but it got a new lease on life with the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration when the Pebble Partnership filed for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in late 2017. The EPA has raised many concerns about the project, saying that it may result in substantial and unacceptable impacts to "aquatic resources of national importance," as <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/05/28/in-showdown-over-pebble-mine-epa-blinks/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a> reported.</p>
<p>In response, the Army Corps of Engineers announced what that the least damaging way to bring the ore out of the mine would be to take it out around the north side of Lake Iliamna, according to <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/05/28/in-showdown-over-pebble-mine-epa-blinks/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a>.</p><p>Christopher Hladick, the EPA's regional administrator for Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, wrote to the Alaska district engineer, Col. David Hibner, that the agency's serious concerns about the plan continued. He noted that the concerns include the fact that dredging for the open pit mine "may well contribute to the permanent loss of 2,292 acres of wetlands and ... 105.4 miles of streams," as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/05/29/epa-opts-not-delay-controversial-alaska-mine-now/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported.</p><p>The EPA will still have the authority to veto the project, but the latest letter makes it unlikely to do so.</p>
<p>Mark Ryan, a lawyer in private practice who served as regional counsel in EPA Region 10 between 1990 and 2014, told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/05/29/epa-opts-not-delay-controversial-alaska-mine-now/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> that the EPA's letter appears contradictory.</p><p>"It's a very odd letter," Ryan said. "It points out the mine's very serious environmental damage but then does not invoke EPA's powers to elevate the issue for further discussion."</p><p>"Today's decision ... gives us more reason to believe that there will be no veto," Pebble CEO Tom Collier said in a written statement, as <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/05/28/in-showdown-over-pebble-mine-epa-blinks/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a> reported. "This is consistent with our observation that (the Corps) and EPA, and the other cooperating agencies, have been working well together to resolve all outstanding issues."</p>
<p>Opponents of the project argue that the mine will damage the salmon, which are critical for the economy, for sustenance and for the region's cultural heritage.</p><p>"There are still many substantive issues with the project proposal that have yet to be resolved," said Daniel Cheyette, the vice president of Bristol Bay Native Corp., whose Alaska Native corporation opposes the mine, which would be the largest in North America, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/05/29/epa-opts-not-delay-controversial-alaska-mine-now/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported.</p>
<p>While the Army Corps of Engineers has said the mine will have minimal impact on the salmon, environmental groups strongly disagree.</p><p>"It's about four times larger than the largest mine the EPA said that it was willing to consider for permitting," said Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defense Council, to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/alaska-pebble-mine-bristol-bay/" target="_blank">PBS</a>. "The notion that the contaminants can be contained in any reliable fashion in that kind of environment has never been proven, never been tested, and in the judgment of virtually any independent scientist, simply can't be done."</p>
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The oldest living male in the southern resident killer whale community, L41, seen above in the Strait of Juan de Fuca is missing and feared dead. MarkMalleson / iStock / Getty Images
Yet another endangered southern resident orca is missing, and researchers fear he is dead.
<p>The whale, known as L41 or Mega, was the largest and oldest of all southern resident orca males. He was a significant member of the embattled group of killer whales who swim between the waters of Washington and Canada. He and another whale fathered most of the orcas born to the group after 1990, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/another-southern-resident-orca-feared-dead/" target="_blank">The Seattle Times reported</a>. But when researchers encountered his family last Friday, he was not with them.<br></p><p>"He was just a really big personality, and a big whale, and of course he was an important member of his family," Deborah Giles, a research scientist at the University of Washington's <a href="http://conservationbiology.uw.edu/" target="_blank">Center for Conservation Biology</a> and the research director of the nonprofit <a href="http://www.wildorca.org/" target="_blank">Wild Orca</a>, told The Seattle Times. "I am going to miss seeing him."</p><p>The news of L41's disappearance came when the <a href="https://www.whaleresearch.com/" target="_blank">Center for Whale Research</a> (CWR) <a href="https://www.whaleresearch.com/2020-2" target="_blank">reported</a> its second orca encounter of 2020 on Jan. 24.</p><p>"Unfortunately, L41 was not present for the entire encounter. Given his age and that he looked a little thin in our January 2019 encounter, we fear he may be gone and will consider him missing unless he shows up unexpectedly in an upcoming encounter," CWR staff member Dave Ellifrit wrote.</p>
<div id="2dd2f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="22YWWF1580409039"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1222228218142326784" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This was CWR’s first encounter with the L12s in inshore waters in over a year. Last year’s calf, L124, looked good… https://t.co/eTkVZEmcrz</div> — Whale Research (@Whale Research)<a href="https://twitter.com/CWROrcas/statuses/1222228218142326784">1580236889.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Mega was last seen in August 2019 when he was photographed by Mark Malleson.</p><p>Mega was born in 1977 and fathered 21 calves. He was also a physically iconic whale, as The Seattle Times described:</p><blockquote>He was a classically beautiful orca bull, with a towering dorsal fin, rising straight without a waver from his back. Big and powerful, he was easy to spot and the only adult male left in his immediate family. A nick on the trailing edge of his dorsal made him easily identifiable, along with his massive size, from a long distance.</blockquote><p>If he is truly gone, it will bring the number of southern resident killer whales down to 72, the second-lowest since counting began 45 years ago. There were 71 recorded in 1976 during a time when a third of the whales were captured and sent to aquariums.</p><p>While killer whales around the world are doing well, the southern resident whales are threatened with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/species-extinction" target="_self">extinction</a>, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/30/us/endangered-orca-missing-dead-scn-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN explained</a>. This is due to a combination of factors including noise and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/shipping-industry" target="_self">shipping</a> traffic, but the biggest threat faced by the species is the disappearance of chinook <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a>, its chief food.</p><p>When the orcas have less salmon to eat, they rely on their stores of fat, which are filled with accumulated toxins that make the whales sick, <a href="https://www.orcaconservancy.org/" target="_blank">Orca Conservancy</a> President Shari Tarantino told CNN.</p>
<p>To address this problem, environmental advocates argue that the Snake River dams should be breached. One study found that if only four of 15 were removed, the population of salmon would double or triple. </p>
<p>"(Killer whales) are at the top of the food chain," Tarantino told CNN. "So when they're failing, everything beneath in the ecosystem is failing. That is a huge warning. It would be an absolute mess."</p>
<p>However, there was a silver lining to Friday's orca encounter. L124, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/new-calf-southern-resident-orcas-2625954104.html" target="_self">a calf born last year and named Lucky</a>, was present and looked healthy. It is a big deal for an orca calf to live a full year, The Seattle Times said.</p>
<p>And not everyone is convinced Mega is truly gone.</p>
<p>"I'm not buying it," former whale-watch boat captain Hobbes Buchanan told The Seattle Times. "He may have wandered off to do his own thing, and will come back. I am totally just not giving up."</p>
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The common murre population in Alaska has been decimated by an ocean heatwave. Linda Burek / iStock / Getty Images Plus
An expanse of uncommonly warm seawater in the Pacific Ocean created by a marine heatwave led to a mass die-off of one million seabirds, scientists have found.
<p>According to a study <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226087#sec012" target="_blank">published in PLOS One</a> by the University of Washington, the marine heatwave began in 2013, and grew stronger between 2015-2016 due to irregular conditions from the weather phenomenon El Niño.</p><p>The heatwave created a patch of much warmer seawater in the northeastern Pacific that stretched for 1,000 miles — parts of which reached temperatures 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit higher than usual, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/16/world/blob-seabird-study-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>.</p><p>Researchers termed it "the blob."</p>
<p>As the blob reached its peak between mid-2015 and 2016, more than 62,000 common murres — a species of seabird that feeds on small fish and is common up and down the west coast of North America — washed up dead on the shores of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/16/hot-blob-ocean-seabirds-killed-new-zealand-north-america" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p><p>The researchers believe that the murres likely died of starvation after the blob increased competition for the small fish they feed on, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51140869" target="_blank">The BBC reported</a>. And because most birds that die over the ocean never wash ashore, the researchers believe the die-off reached closer to an unprecedented one million common murres.</p>
<p>Larger fish such as <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a>, cod and halibut rely on the same prey as the murres. But since fish are cold-blooded and can't self-regulate their body temperature, the warmer waters <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/toxic-seafood-climate-change-overfishing-2639740959.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" target="_self">boosted their metabolic rate</a> and the amount of energy they <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fish-size-climate-2479149123.html" target="_self">needed</a> for survival. These conditions required the larger fish to eat more than normal, reducing the availability of prey for the murres, which typically need to eat the equivalent of half their body weight per day.</p><p>The resulting die-off was among the largest on record, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226087#sec012" target="_blank">the researchers said</a>. Most of the birds washed ashore in Alaska, where they were found in densities reaching 4,600 carcasses per kilometer along part of the state's southern coast.</p>
<p>The murre population was so affected that by 2016, 12 breeding colonies had failed to produce any chicks and the population still hasn't replenished, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/16/hot-blob-ocean-seabirds-killed-new-zealand-north-america" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p><p>"It remains to be seen when (or whether) murre populations in Alaska will recover from the heatwave in light of predicted global warming trends and the associated likelihood of more frequent heatwaves," the researchers said. According to <a href="https://report.ipcc.ch/srocc/pdf/SROCC_SPM_Approved.pdf" target="_blank">the United Nations</a>, climate change is projected to make marine heatwaves more frequent.</p><p>The University of Washington team has already <a href="http://king5.com/article/weather/the-blob-is-back/281-f7fdf9b2-c565-47ca-86f3-342bd2a8a365" target="_blank">found another marine heatwave</a> developing off the coast of Washington, while another closer to New Zealand has reached 4,000 square miles and can be detected from space, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/27/world/new-zealand-hot-ocean-water-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>.</p>
<p>The blob caused die-offs in several other animal populations as well, including sea lions, baleen whales and tufted puffins. These die-offs were likely due in part to a drop in the populations of plankton that feed many organisms in the food chain, as the warmer water has less oxygen and essential nutrients to support life, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/16/blob-hot-water-killed-million-seabirds-pacific-2015-and-2016/4491618002/" target="_blank">USA Today reported</a>.</p><p>The warmer temperatures also spawned the largest harmful algal bloom in recorded history, which contributed to the die-offs and led to significant financial losses for fisheries in the affected area — though none of the losses reached the severity of the murre die-off.</p><p>"The magnitude and scale of this failure has no precedent," lead author John Piatt, a research biologist and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, said in a <a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/01/15/the-blob-food-supply-squeeze-to-blame-for-largest-seabird-die-off/" target="_blank">press release</a>. "It was astonishing and alarming, and a red-flag warning about the tremendous impact sustained ocean warming can have on the marine ecosystem."</p>
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The Little Goose Dam on the Snake River near Starbuck, Washington. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
By Jodi Helmer
Each year, millions of tons of grain make their way along what was once one of our wildest river systems, the Columbia-Snake River. Four dams — the Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor — erected between 1955 and 1975, ease the way for massive barges bound for ports on the West Coast, and ultimately, markets in Asia. Soybeans, wood products, mineral bulks, and automobiles also travel the river by barge. But outnumbering all other cargo is the soft white wheat grown by farmers from 11 states.
<p>Fourth-generation farmer Bryan Jones is one of those who depends on the Snake River barges to transport wheat from his farm near Colfax, Washington, to a shipping port in Portland, Oregon. Transporting crops via rail or truck, which Jones relies on to get canola, mustard, and cattle to market, are more expensive and less efficient than barge, he argues. In fact, according to the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, it would require 35 train cars or 134 trucks to move the volume of wheat carried on a single barge.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4MjMzNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzI2MDQ2NH0.4Dw2x3UOQk4_bP8n4FPXSRvq3y3nhyuRnBBJAAdoDGM/img.jpg?width=980" id="c56fc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8c32151944e4ef9c15cb4f75f5272178" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Construction of the Ice Harbor Dam in 1959. US Army Corps of Engineers
<p>"When the dams went in, we closed down the rail lines, and, in doing so, barging was the only way to get our grain to market," Jones says. "We don't have the infrastructure to start using rail again, [and] we can't afford to pay another 50 cents a bushel to ship our grain."</p><p>Nevertheless, Jones acknowledges <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/columbia-snake-river-basin-salmon-are-losing-their-way" target="_blank">the steep toll the dams have taken on salmon</a> and is part of a bipartisan, multi-stakeholder coalition searching for fresh ideas to help save them — while supporting farmers, too. Its work is increasingly urgent: From populations numbering 130,000 fish in the 1950s, wild Snake River spring Chinook salmon <a href="https://www.wildsalmon.org/images/factsheets-and-reports/2017.Graphs.Snake.River.Adult.Returns.pdf" target="_blank">dropped to approximately 5,</a><a href="https://www.wildsalmon.org/images/factsheets-and-reports/2017.Graphs.Snake.River.Adult.Returns.pdf" target="_blank">800</a><a href="https://www.wildsalmon.org/images/factsheets-and-reports/2017.Graphs.Snake.River.Adult.Returns.pdf" target="_blank"> in 2017.</a> Thirteen populations are listed under the Endangered Species Act, and all four salmon and steelhead populations in the Snake River Basin are at risk of extinction, according to <a href="https://archive.fisheries.noaa.gov/wcr/publications/gis_maps/maps/salmon_steelhead/critical_habitat/wcr_salmonid_ch_esa_july2016.pdf" target="_blank">NOAA Fisheries</a>. The dwindling number of salmon is having ripple effects across the food chain. In Washington State, only 73 <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/tahlequahs-newborn-and-scarlet-gone-orca-advocates-race-save-their-kin" target="_blank">Southern Resident </a><a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/tahlequahs-newborn-and-scarlet-gone-orca-advocates-race-save-their-kin" target="_blank">orcas</a> remain, due in part to the lack of Chinook salmon, their main prey. </p><p>In response, wildlife advocates are renewing calls to <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/giulia-cs-good-stefani/orca-task-force-report-call-action" target="_blank">restore the lower Snake River</a> by breaching the four dams. A <a href="https://nwenergy.org/featured/lsrdstudy/" target="_blank">recent report released by the NW Energy Coalition,</a> with support from NRDC, found that a mixed portfolio of solar, wind, energy efficiency, demand-response, and storage can replace the power the four Snake River dams contribute to the Northwest. Such a change would increase the system's reliability and cost ratepayers little to nothing. A free-flowing Snake River would also safeguard salmon from increasingly hot, even deadly, water temperatures, according to <a href="https://www.columbiariverkeeper.org/our-work-saving-salmon/fighting-cold-water%20Show%20less" target="_blank">modeling done by Columbia </a><a href="https://www.columbiariverkeeper.org/our-work-saving-salmon/fighting-cold-water%20Show%20less" target="_blank">Riverkeeper</a>. "We must break the political logjam around this issue. If we don't, the fish are cooked," says <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/giulia-cs-good-stefani" target="_blank">Giulia C.S. Good Stefani</a>, a senior attorney in NRDC's Nature Program.</p><p>"After looking at the science and economics, our coalition endorsed removing the four dams," says Sam Mace, inland Northwest project director of the nonprofit <a href="https://www.wildsalmon.org/about/save-our-wild-salmon-coalition.html" target="_blank">Save Our Wild Salmo</a><a href="https://www.wildsalmon.org/about/save-our-wild-salmon-coalition.html" target="_blank">n</a>. "It's not the only thing that needs to be done to restore the [salmon] runs to healthy, harvestable numbers, but it has to be the cornerstone of any plan that is going to be successful."</p>Rethinking Infrastructure
<p>The push to restore the river by removing the earthen portion of the dams has been controversial. More than half of U.S. wheat exports are shipped on the Columbia–Snake River system, making it the <a href="https://www.pnwa.net/factsheets/CSRS.pdf" target="_blank">top wheat export gateway in the nation</a> and the third largest in the world. As a result, farmers have the most to lose, according to Sam White, chief operating officer for <a href="http://www.pnw.coop/" target="_blank">Pacific Northwest Farmers </a><a href="http://www.pnw.coop/" target="_blank">Cooperative</a>.</p><p>"You've got people who say, 'Remove the dams at all costs; we want them out, we want to save our salmon,' and then you've got people who are using the river to move products saying, 'No, [the dams] are important to my livelihood,'" White says. "The closer you are to the river, the more economical it is to use the barge."</p><p>But White also estimates that just 40 percent of the region's crops are shipped via barge, down from a high of 80 percent a decade ago. Local farmers have diversified their crops, planting canola, peas, lentils and garbanzo beans, which are shipped through alternate ports reached via trucks or rail. And if rail transportation were built out further, Jones says, farmers like him might be able to abandon barge shipping altogether.</p><p>Already, there is some progress on this front, and models to follow elsewhere in the Columbia Basin, as with the McCoy grain terminal shuttle train loading facility near Oakesdale, Washington, <a href="https://dnews.com/local/new-grain-terminal-breaks-ground-in-mccoy/article_873342c6-1c7c-55b0-9cef-9450c050cc41.html" target="_blank">completed in 2013 with investment from agricultural groups</a>, including the Pacific Northwest Farmers Cooperative. "More companies are trying to make loop rail systems where they can store 100 [railcars] until they're filled with grain and could be economically shipped down to Portland," Jones says. "But that's going to mean building new rail lines or updating older rail lines. A lot of that depends on what finances are put in to [help] companies build rail lines, build storage capacity, and all the things necessary to be able to hold and ship grain."</p><p>Jones believes that offering farmers subsidies to help them adapt to the additional expenses of shipping their grain if dams are removed would be much cheaper than maintaining aging dams. With these supports in place, more farmers would be willing to make the shift, he posits, adding, "I'm pro-dam removal but we have to keep farmers whole."</p>Spawning Solutions
<p>After decades of disagreement, there seems to be a growing awareness on both sides that finding a compromise is essential. At the annual Environmental Conference at the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University in April, participants came together to discuss the theme, "Energy, Salmon, Agriculture, and Community: Can We Come Together?"</p><p>In his <a href="https://vimeo.com/334511830" target="_blank">lunchtime address</a>, Republican congressman Mike Simpson from Idaho acknowledged that the $16 billion investment in salmon recovery from Bonneville Power Administration, the government agency responsible for delivering electricity from the dams, wasn't working. "I am going to stay alive long enough to see salmon return to healthy populations in Idaho," he went on to say. "You cannot address the salmon issue without addressing dams…they are interwoven."</p><p>Good Stefani, who was a panelist at the conference, met with Simpson this past summer. He's been working with partners around the region, meeting with leaders and decision makers to discuss ways to identify solutions that work for both farmers and fishermen, should the dams come out. "Idaho has had abysmal salmon runs, and that's a huge problem, not just for the ecosystem," she said. "It's also an economic hit to the state. Family and local businesses have paid the price — all the way up the river from Lewiston to Orofino to Riggins to Challis to Salmon."</p><p>One official from Idaho's Department of Labor estimated that salmon and steelhead fishing brings in about <a href="https://billingsgazette.com/outdoors/steelhead-fishing-closure-hammers-idaho-economy/article_481f7f8c-7a85-5a7e-bf5c-029b53b9144f.html" target="_blank">$8.61 million per month</a> to Clearwater and Nez Perce counties alone. But in September, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission had to close all steelhead fishing on the Clearwater River and severely limit fishing on the Snake and Salmon rivers on account of the struggling population. These developments have the local outdoors industry deeply concerned. Last month, a group of <a href="https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/dec/08/idaho-outfitters-discuss-grim-salmon-steelhead-out/" target="_blank">about 60 Idaho outfitters and guides met</a> in the Clearwater River Casino near Lewiston to talk about the toll of the closures on their communities.</p><p>Idaho tribes, too, have paid incalculable costs. McCoy Oatman, vice chair of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, spoke as one of the panelists at the Boise conference. He reminded participants of the importance of salmon as a food source, saying, "we're past the 11th hour" for these fish. "We as tribal people know that."</p><p>The Shoshone-Bannock tribes in eastern Idaho have long been active on the issue. They filed a federal petition in 1990 asking that the Snake River sockeye salmon be listed as endangered. Chad Colter, director of the fish and wildlife department for the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation, notes that tribes harvesting Chinook in the Salmon, Grande Ronde and Imnaha rivers recently faced catch limits of three salmon, total, for their entire communities.</p><p>"The subsistence path we once followed and our reliance upon the natural riverine ecosystem for that subsistence can no longer be followed or relied upon to provide for our most basic needs of food and water," Colter says. "As a hunting people, we have gone from relying on fish runs that provided yearlong subsistence resources for our communities to ingesting merely ceremonial amounts of salmon during a short window each hunting season."</p><p>The tribes, according to Colter, want the dams on the Lower Snake River removed to ensure tribal members can harvest salmon from populations that are sustainable, resilient, and abundant.</p>
Taking the Long View
<p>In Washington State, tribes and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation">conservation</a> groups have ample experience in advocating for dam removal — and maintaining the patience to see their efforts through. Once the decision was made <a href="https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/elwha-ecosystem-restoration.htm" target="_blank">to </a><a href="https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/elwha-ecosystem-restoration.htm" target="_blank">remove</a><a href="https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/elwha-ecosystem-restoration.htm" target="_blank"> the Elwha Dam and Glines Canyon Dam</a>, it took two decades before the final section of the dams were removed in 2014, but the impacts to the river ecosystem were immediate. <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187742" target="_blank">Research</a> showed that habitats were restored; salmon, steelhead, and trout repopulated the river; and new species moved in.</p><p>Mace believes that sharing those success stories might lead more opponents of dam removal to reconsider their positions. "I have been trying to extend a hand and have conversations with some of the folks that have been traditionally opposed [to breaching the dams], to the communities who use the benefits of the dams, to see if we could come to some kind of understanding at least and see whether there would be a willingness to figure out some solutions," she says. "We are seeing people take more of a long view. They're realizing that the salmon crisis won't go away unless we take some bold actions."</p><p><span></span>In the meantime, Good Stefani takes heart in the dialogues being had at forums like the Boise conference. "When we talk face-to-face, we confront the uncomfortable fact that finding a solution is complicated and there is no villain here," she says. "We have to stop fighting about who has more to lose and start asking what everybody needs. We all want our kids to be able to float and fish these rivers, to know that increasingly rare kind of abundance."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Trump Admin Moves to End Protections for Endangered Fish Threatened by California’s Water Wars
23 October 2019
Politics
A young fingerling Chinook salmon leaps out of the water at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, California on May 16, 2018. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
The Trump administration is rolling back protections for endangered California fish species, a move long sought by a group of wealthy farmers that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt continued to lobby for months before he began working for the administration, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
<p>The new policy, released early this week by the Commerce and Interior Departments, would allow more water to be pumped from the San Francisco Bay Delta to irrigate farms. Scientists in the past have found this would harm the delta smelt and West Coast <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a> species that swim in the delta, as well as the killer whales that feed on them. But the new "biological opinion" ruled that the fish would not be harmed by diverting more water to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agriculture" target="_self">agriculture</a>.</p><p>"The servile Interior Department has hijacked and subverted the scientific process," Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said in a statement reported by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/22/772391421/trump-plan-weakens-protections-for-california-fish-diverts-water-to-farms?t=1571819836237" target="_blank">NPR</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Breaking News! Today, the USFWS & NMFS released new <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EndangeredSpeciesAct?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EndangeredSpeciesAct</a> biological opinions for gravely <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/endangered?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#endangered</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/salmon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#salmon</a> & other native fish species that are affected by massive water project operations in the San Francisco Bay-Delta. Learn more: <a href="https://t.co/pAnXCmXzXZ">https://t.co/pAnXCmXzXZ</a> <a href="https://t.co/QSRMKKFPEW">pic.twitter.com/QSRMKKFPEW</a></p>— Defenders of Wildlife (@Defenders) <a href="https://twitter.com/Defenders/status/1186702517662633984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Bernhardt lobbied on behalf of Westlands Water District, a group representing around 1,000 large farmers in Central California, from 2011 to 2016, including pressing Congress to weaken <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species-act" target="_self">Endangered Species Act</a> protections for the delta smelt, according to The New York Times. Four months after he was confirmed as Deputy Interior Secretary, he phoned the Interior official in charge of delta smelt protections and asked him to conduct a new biological opinion.</p><p>President Donald Trump also signed a memo in 2018 asking for protections to be rolled back, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-10-22/trump-weakens-endangered-species-protections-california-salmon-delta-smelt" target="_blank">The Los Angeles Times reported</a>. But in July of 2019, scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service found that pumping more water to farms would put endangered winter-run Chinook salmon, threatened spring-run Chinook salmon, threatened Central Valley Steelhead and endangered Southern Resident killer whales at risk for extinction.</p><p>Instead of heeding this warning, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Southwest regional director Paul Souza, who was coordinating the reviews of salmon and smelt protections, discarded the document and put a new team together to write a new report. Two documents released this week then found that the increased pumping would not harm the salmon or the delta smelt.</p><p>The administration's new plan would create hatcheries to breed fish and monitor fish populations in real time so as to slow pumping only when they are nearby, according to NPR.</p><p>"We've been able to create a much smarter approach that focuses on real-time management," Souza told NPR. "Our commitment is that we will be as, or more protective than we have been in the last 10 years."</p><p>But environmental groups say that monitoring the fish this way is difficult, especially since their populations have already plummeted. Chinook salmon have lost around 90 percent of their spawning grounds to dams.</p><p>"These new biological opinions weaken virtually every protection required by previous decisions, eliminating clear, science-based habitat protections," Kim Delfino, California program director for <a href="https://defenders.org/" target="_blank">Defenders of Wildlife</a>, told NPR.</p><p>The new pumping rules could go into effect by January, according to the Los Angeles Times. But environmental groups are likely to sue to block them.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Trump administration is at it again to empower special interests with the release of new biological opinions based on junk science, threatening California <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/endangered?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#endangered</a> species, local <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CAwater?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CAwater</a> supply, and thousands of jobs. <a href="https://t.co/9igJquNzhW">https://t.co/9igJquNzhW</a></p>— NRDC 🌎 (@NRDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/NRDC/status/1186756395141664768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>"Given the level of political interference and the junk science that has been used ... it would be very unsurprising if these were not challenged and eventually overturned in court," Doug Obegi, a <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a> attorney who beat back similar changes proposed by President George W. Bush, told the Los Angeles Times. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">"Literally before our eyes, we're seeing science suppressed by monied political interests" <a href="https://t.co/iFspHaivl6">https://t.co/iFspHaivl6</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DeSmogBlog?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DeSmogBlog</a></p>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1165005868871503872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 23, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Trump Admin Moves Closer to Slashing Protections for World’s Largest Temperate Rainforest
16 October 2019
Politics
Brown bear fishing for salmon in creek at Pavlof Harbor in Tongass National Forest, Alaska. Wolfgang Kaehler / LightRocket / Getty Images
The Trump administration has moved one step closer to opening Earth's largest intact temperate rainforest to logging.
<p>On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2019/10/15/usda-forest-service-seeks-public-comment-draft-environmental-impact" target="_blank">announced</a> it would draft an environmental impact statement exempting Alaska's Tongass National Forest from the <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/roadmain/roadless/2001roadlessrule" target="_blank">2001 Roadless Rule</a>, which prohibits road construction and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of National Forest land. The administration's proposal would open more than half of the Tongass National Forest's 16.7 million acres to logging, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/trump-administration-proposes-expanding-logging-in-alaskas-tongass-national-forest/2019/10/15/92e47db8-ef77-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post reported</a>.</p>
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Trending
Before and after shots of Fat Bear Week winner Holly. L: NPS Photo / N. Boak R: NPS Photo / L. Carter
Every fall for the past five years, Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska has celebrated Fat Bear Week: a chance, as NPR explained, for people around the world to vote March-Madness style on which coastal brown bear has gotten the chonkiest while gorging themselves in preparation for winter hibernation.
<p>This year's event was the biggest yet, with fans casting a record 187,000 votes, more than three times the number cast last year. And the winner of this massive contest is ... No. 435, or Holly, who decimated the competition by nearly 14,000 votes.</p><p>"All hail Holly whose healthy heft will help her hibernate until the spring," the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/national-parks" target="_self">national park</a> wrote when it announced the winner Tuesday. "Long live the Queen of Corpulence!"</p>
<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FKatmaiNPP%2Fposts%2F2750830801608367&width=500" width="500" height="688" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe>
<p>Holly was beloved even before she took home this year's heavyweight title, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alaska-fatbears/alaskas-fat-bear-contest-crowns-holly-queen-of-corpulence-idUSKBN1WO0TM" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>. She is a regular on the park's "<a href="https://www.nps.gov/katm/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm" target="_blank">bear cam</a>" and earned the nickname "Supermom" for adopting a yearling cub, an extremely unusual act for a brown bear.</p><p>This year, however, she had no cubs to care for, and so could focus entirely on fattening up. She spent so much time fishing for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a> that it was hard to get a picture of her out of the water, rangers said.</p><p>"She's just a great bear. When she doesn't have cubs, she looks like the Michelin Man," Katmai Conservancy media ranger Naomi Boak told Reuters.</p><p>While Fat Bear Week is fun, it's also deadly serious. Bears can lose up to a third of their body mass during their up to six months of hibernation, the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/katm/learn/news/river-river-in-the-fall-who-s-the-fattest-bear-of-all.htm" target="_blank">park explained</a>. If they don't have enough fat stored to see them through, they can die, Boak told NPR.<br></p><p>The 12 bears that made up the Fat Bear Week competition are lucky enough to feed along Alaska's Brooks River, which has one of the highest concentrations of sockeye salmon in the world.</p><p>"Not all bears have this same kind of access to these salmon resources," Katmai Conservancy media ranger Brooklyn White told NPR, "and to an ecosystem that has such clean water."</p><p>This was especially true this year, as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/8/20903654/fat-bear-week-alaska-heat-salmon" target="_blank">The Verge</a> pointed out, since a record-hot July in Alaska stressed the salmon, some of whom were found dead before they could get far enough upstream to spawn.</p>
<div id="35ca1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="93XZW11576661336"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1155879200152096768" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">200 miles of river. Dead chum consistently along entire stretch. None had spawned. 850 counted, many more missed. L… https://t.co/Fgp1OwtGs4</div> — Steph Quinn-Davidson (@Steph Quinn-Davidson)<a href="https://twitter.com/SalmonStephAK/statuses/1155879200152096768">1564418051.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>In Canada's British Columbia, meanwhile, a wildlife photographer <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/canadas-starving-grizzlies-mean-low-salmon-stock-2640831765.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">snapped a picture</a> of emaciated bears this fall struggling to find food amidst one of the area's lowest-ever salmon runs.</p><p>While the Katmai bears are lucky in comparison, the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> has still affected them. That's because the salmon were delayed this fall due to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought" target="_self">drought</a>, which meant that bears and fish didn't arrive along the Brooks River until mid-September, two weeks later than normal, Boak told NPR.</p><p>"I've been out there before, when a [salmon] run was delayed by a week, and the bears start getting anxious," Joy Erlenbach, a Ph.D. candidate at Washington State University's Bear Center, told The Verge. "It's scary for the bears because they don't know what's happening. They just know the food they expect isn't there, and it can affect their behavior."</p><p>And the impacts of this year's hot weather could linger. It is still too soon to tell if the pre-spawning death of salmon this year will lead to fewer fish for the bears to gorge on during Fat Bear Weeks to come.</p><p>But it is possible the bears will be able to adapt to the climate crisis. That's because they are omnivores, The Verge explained. This year at Katmai, for example, cranberries were a popular snack.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">"A little grizzly looked up at us and the mother bear came out to get the fish." <a href="https://t.co/jXwv4cLQBE">https://t.co/jXwv4cLQBE</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ConservationOrg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ConservationOrg</a></p>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1180618809654296576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Canada's natural resources ministry told CNN they will meet with First Nations later today to discuss the salmon and the bears. Education Images / Universal Images Group / Getty Images
The effect the climate crisis will have on the food chain are already playing out in British Columbia. Low fish stocks this summer have caused southern resident killer whales to starve. And now, with winter fast approaching, a photographer captured images of an emaciated family of grizzly bears desperately searching for salmon where there are none, as CNN reported.
<p>The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hickerphoto/posts/10218197182993959" target="_blank">images</a> captured by wildlife photographer, Rolf Hicker, which he shared on his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hickerphoto/posts/10218197182993959" target="_blank">Facebook page</a> depict a bear and two cubs, seemingly two thin to make it through hibernation.</p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9b85207ab2412d2d134ca91740e1207c"><div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/hickerphoto/posts/10218197182993959"></div></div><p>While the bears should be plump after gorging on salmon, the area around Knight Inlet, where the photographs were taken has suffered one of its worst salmon runs ever. </p>
<p>"We're really concerned about the bears," said Jake Smith, Guardian Watchman Manager for the Mamalilikulla First Nation, as <a href="https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/the-bears-have-been-starving-500-salmon-donated-to-feed-emaciated-grizzlies-1.4617424" target="_blank">CTV News</a> reported. "The bears have been starving because there's a lack of salmon return in Hoeya Sound and Lull Bay."</p>
<p>Smith knew the Mamalilikulla people had to help the bears so he arranged for a local fish hatchery, the <a href="http://www.a-tlegay.ca/home.html" target="_blank">A-Tlegay Fisheries Society</a> on Vancouver Island, to donate 500 fish carcasses, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/americas/emaciated-grizzly-bears-knights-inlet-canada-trnd-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported. </p>
<p>Smith and other volunteers from the First Nation took the fish to estuary areas where the bears are known to feed. The bears were there and hungry, said Smith. </p>
<p>"We were about 30 feet away from them," he said to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/americas/emaciated-grizzly-bears-knights-inlet-canada-trnd-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. "A little grizzly looked up at us and the mother bear came out to get the fish."</p>
<p>While it is unusual to help bears, Smith and others have started to notice that the bears are wandering away from their traditional feeding grounds to search for food. </p>
<p>Richard Sumner, chief councilor of the Mamalilikulla First Nation, said grizzlies are starting to venture to all the small islands in the area and are even making their way over to Vancouver Island in search of fish, something that rarely happened in the past, as the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mamalilikulla-first-nation-feeding-starving-grizzlies-1.5305820" target="_blank">CBC</a> reported. Hungry bears will often be aggressive.</p>
<p>Sumner added that he understands that people should not interfere with wild animals, but he argues that what is happening to the bears is not a byproduct of a natural occurrence.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just out. Have not even seen it myself. <a href="https://t.co/FM4wFkpzy0">https://t.co/FM4wFkpzy0</a> <a href="https://t.co/FM4wFkpzy0">https://t.co/FM4wFkpzy0</a></p>— Rolf Hicker Photo (@rolfhickerphoto) <a href="https://twitter.com/rolfhickerphoto/status/1179616828492075009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><p>"The lack of salmon is not a natural thing," he said to the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mamalilikulla-first-nation-feeding-starving-grizzlies-1.5305820" target="_blank">CBC</a>. "I'm hoping it's not too little too late."</p><p>He added that he and his tribe have a duty to the bears since the Mamalilikulla First Nation are the stewards of the land and it would be unethical to watch the grizzlies perish. </p><p>"We just hope we can get enough bulk on them to last the winter," said Sumner to the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mamalilikulla-first-nation-feeding-starving-grizzlies-1.5305820" target="_blank">CBC</a>.</p><p>It's not just the bears that do not have fish. Sumner pointed out that his tribe members, who rely on frozen and canned fish in the winter, have empty freezers this year.</p><p>A <a href="https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/40807071.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> released earlier this summer pointed out that the salmon's ecosystem was changing rapidly since Canada is experiencing warming twice as fast as the global average, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/americas/emaciated-grizzly-bears-knights-inlet-canada-trnd-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported. The report also noted other factors like marine heatwaves, flooding, and droughts that are stressing Canada's fish stocks.</p><p>The same is true in Alaska, where this summer's <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/16/us/alaska-salmon-hot-water-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">heat waves killed hundreds of salmon</a>. </p><p>And last month, the commercial fishing lobby asked the government for disaster relief to help the industry since the fishing had been so poor. </p><p>"The impacts of this climate change disaster has been coast wide," said Joy Thorkelson, president of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union, at <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/it-has-been-horrible-b-c-salmon-fishing-industry-ask-feds-to-provide-disaster-relief-1.4605202" target="_blank">a press conference</a> in September, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/americas/emaciated-grizzly-bears-knights-inlet-canada-trnd-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p>Canada's natural resources ministry told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/americas/emaciated-grizzly-bears-knights-inlet-canada-trnd-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> they will meet with First Nations later today to discuss the salmon and the bears.
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Hidden Trump Report Reveals Water Plan Will Harm Endangered Whales and Salmon
22 August 2019
Science
Chinook salmon make their way up Ship Creek in Anchorage, Alaska to spawn.
Ryan Hagerty / USFWS
It's become a familiar story with the Trump administration: Scientists write a report that shows the administration's policies will cause environmental damage, then the administration buries the report and fires the scientists.
<p><br/></p>
<p>The latest chapter in that book happened this summer in California when federal officials suppressed a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6311822-NMFS-Jeopardy-Biop-2019-OCR.html" target="_blank">scientific report</a> that warned that the administration's plans to deliver more water to farms in California's Central Valley will push critically endangered California <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon">salmon</a> even closer to extinction. It will also starve a threatened population of steelhead trout and West Coast killer whales that feed on the endangered Chinook, according to the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-20/trump-california-water-salmon-farms" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than cause the administration to rethink its policy, it treated science as something inconvenient. Two days after the scientists handed in the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6311822-NMFS-Jeopardy-Biop-2019-OCR.html" target="_blank">1,123 page report</a>, classified as a biological opinion, a fisheries official took it down. The Trump administration then replaced the scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service who had been drafting the biological opinion and brought in other staff to revise the biological opinion, as the <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article234220102.html" target="_blank">Sacramento Bee</a> reported. </p>
<p>In the initial report, released on July 1 and then suppressed, the National Marine Fisheries Service pulls no punches in forcefully concluding that the increased water deliveries will jeopardize the existence of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon. The agency wrote that the changes "will produce multiple stressors" on winter-run salmon "that are expected to reduce survival and the overall fitness of individuals," the agency wrote, as the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-20/trump-california-water-salmon-farms" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a> reported.</p>
<p>It went on to also highlight the hazards to threatened spring-run Chinook and threatened Central Valley steelhead, as well as endangered Southern Resident killer whales whose numbers are perilously low, according to the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-20/trump-california-water-salmon-farms" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a>. </p>
<p>Environmentalists and salmon fishing groups classified the maneuver as a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to manipulate science in order to ratchet up water deliveries to a group of wealthy farmers who used to have a top Trump administration official on their payroll — a charge the administration denies, as the <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article234220102.html" target="_blank">Sacramento Bee</a> reported</p>
<p>"Literally before our eyes, we're seeing science suppressed by monied political interests," said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, which represents commercial fishermen, to the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-20/trump-california-water-salmon-farms" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a>.</p>
<p>The biological opinion that the administration put the kibosh on said that harmful impacts will include warm river temperatures lethal to fish eggs and newly hatched salmon; low flows in the Sacramento River; and an increase in salmon deaths at the enormous government pumps that send water south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, according to the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-20/trump-california-water-salmon-farms" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a>.</p>
<p>The winter-run Chinook have been particularly vexing for conservationists. The fish is just one of nine species that are at most risk of extinction in the near future, the scientists wrote in their report, as the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-20/trump-california-water-salmon-farms" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a> reported. Their odds of extinction has increased over the last decade, partly because water releases from Shasta Lake during California's severe drought were too warm for salmon eggs and hatchlings. Four years ago, 96 percent of the eggs and new-hatched fish died.</p>
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