The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration is considering implementing salmon fishing restrictions in an effort to aid the endangered southern resident orcas of Puget Sound, according to a Seattle Times report.
NOAA has sent a letter to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which stated the agency is researching whether restrictions on salmon fisheries, especially in the lower Columbia, Sacramento, and Klamath rivers, could help save the killer whales from extinction.
A decade ago, the NOAA concluded that fisheries did not threaten killer whales with extinction, but according to NOAA West Coast Regional Administrator Barry Thom, “a substantial amount of new information is available on [southern resident killer whales] and their prey.”
The restrictions may target times and places when fishermen and whales are competing for the same salmon, and could result in season closures.
The number of southern resident killer whales in Puget Sound, which eat primarily chinook salmon, have been dwindling in past decades. In the last ten years, the southern resident population has gone from 87 to a historical low of 74. A lack of abundant prey is one of the contributing factors to their falling numbers. Only 29,800 wild chinook salmon are predicted to return to the Puget Sound this year, which is a fraction of historical averages. At the same time, pollution and vessel noise are also factors affecting killer whale survival.
However, some Pacific Fishery Management Council members have been skeptical that limiting fishing would effect the southern resident killer whales.
“The fisheries that have occurred… are not the cause of the ultimate decline in these [orca] stocks, in all likelihood,” Brett Kormos, a member of the council, said. “Oftentimes the fisheries become the first knob to turn, and they often are the easiest knob to turn.”
