Orcas' Song Fading?
FRIDAY HARBOR - The job begins just after daybreak for David Bain, a University of Washington animal behavior expert.
Storm clouds and fog veil the sky as Bain, who has studied killer whales for more than 20 years, lifts his binoculars and scans the marine passage between the United States and Canada for black, upright fins that slice the surface.
Bain is among an international group of government-backed whale experts studying why some of the world's best-loved cetaceans appear to be dying out.
Washington's killer whales, or orcas, typically spend summers in and around Haro Strait, the six-mile-wide passage between Vancouver and the San Juan Islands. They devour migrating salmon headed for British Columbia's Fraser River system.
But orcas also lure tourists to this part of the north Puget Sound. Flotillas of commercial whale-watch boat operators from as far away as Vancouver, B.C., often surround the whales.
Bain and his research partner, Jodi Smith, are on a quest to determine whether all the attention is hurting the orcas. Bain, Smith and other scientists suspect that boat noise bothers orcas because it might interfere with echolocation, the sound-bouncing ability the whales use to find prey. Recent increases in the number of whale watchers, both on pleasure craft and commercial tours, have heightened concerns because of the watchers' numbers and closeness to the orcas.
Orca whales inhabit every ocean.
But the orca population that Bain, Smith and other whale advocates worry most about is the 83 or so whales so often seen in Haro Strait. Scientists call them southern residents and have tracked each member of the group since 1974. The total peaked at 98 in 1995, according to the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island. Most of the missing whales have disappeared and are presumed dead.
A coalition of conservation groups and individuals sued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to force the agency to protect southern resident orcas under the Endangered Species Act. Initially, the agency refused to do so, but last year, a federal court judge in Seattle ordered NOAA to reconsider. A decision is expected in December.
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Orcas' Song Fading?
