JUNE 5, 2008
Orca Month website A Message From Ralph and Karen Munro For the 2nd year, Governor Christine Gregoire has signed a proclamation declaring June as "Orca Awareness Month," to focus attention on the plight of the fragile Southern Resident Community of orcas, to honor their presence in our waters, and to speed up efforts to recover the population. The Southern Resident orcas were listed as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act in November 2005. Major factors in the decline of the Southern Resident orca population include captures for marine parks in the 1960s and 70s, declining salmon runs, toxic pollution, loss of habitat, and increasing vessel traffic and noise levels in Puget Sound and the ocean. For the past two years, Orca Network has worked to encourage organizations, businesses and individuals to join in on creating this month-long focused effort of activities and events to raise awareness of the endangered and beloved Southern Resident Community of orcas, or J, K and L pods. Former Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro noted Washington's long history of appreciation and respect for orcas: "The State of Washington has led the nation and the world since the 1970's when it comes to defending the orcas. Seven governors, scores of legislative leaders and thousands of citizens have stepped forward to assist in the protection of this beautiful species. We are indeed fortunate to have them in our waters." "K and L pods typically return to join with J pod in Washington's inland waters in June, so we thought June would be a good time to focus attention on the problems these orcas face, such as declining salmon runs and toxic pollution. Orcas are highly efficient hunters, but Chinook salmon runs are in steep decline throughout the Southern Resident orcas' range, and they may not be finding enough food. Last winter they were seen off Central California about the time the west coast salmon fishery for California and Oregon was closed due to disastrously low runs. Orca Month is also an opportunity to let people know about some of the fascinating recent insights about the Southern Residents' family cohesion and unique cultures." said Howard Garrett, President of Orca Network. When the pods return to the San Juan Islands in early summer, the Center for Whale Research gets their first good look at who is present, including any new calves, as well as who may not have made it through the winter. Ken Balcomb, founder and director of the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, said "These orcas are icons and indicators of the quality of Puget Sound and coastal waters. How they fare in coming years will tell us a lot about our own fate." K and L pods returned to San Juan Island June 3, 2008, and though a complete census has not yet been completed, a new calf was observed with K pod, which is very welcome news. "We are very lucky to have these orcas as our neighbors, and to have so many miles of shoreline to watch them from." said Susan Berta of Orca Network. "It is rare to have whales living in urban areas. It's great for people, because we get to watch and enjoy them as they swim by our islands, towns and cities; but it's not so great for the orcas, who have to swim in water impacted by pollutants, noise, and habitat destruction as the result of an ever increasing population". Orca Awareness Month involves a wider audience to protect our orca population and make sure they have a healthy habitat and plentiful salmon to eat. Orca Network invites organizations and businesses around the state to sponsor special events, presentations, promotions or educational programs during June, to increase awareness about the Southern Resident orcas. Orca Network especially encourages participation by businesses who can reach out to the general public to raise awareness about our special but endangered whale neighbors. Most people love the whales, but don't realize the serious problems faced by our local orca population. "If we can get businesses involved in helping to educate their customers, and to set an example by supporting orca research, conservation and education, we will be able to reach out beyond the choir of organizations currently doing orca related education and advocacy." said Berta. Several businesses have already begun working on special promotions and events to raise awareness about the orcas, and to raise funds for orca research and conservation groups. Participating businesses and organizations include: Orca Network, Washington Wine and Beverage Company, with Hoodsport Orca Series Wines, Center for Whale Research, Save Our Wild Salmon, Whale Watch Operators Northwest, The Whale Museum, and Highland Inn Cottage. Individuals can help by taking a look at what their daily actions do to impact the waters of Puget Sound and make changes to improve or lessen their footprint on the planet. We also encourage citizens and businesses to contribute to or volunteer for nonprofit education, advocacy and research organizations that work to improve salmon and orcas, restore habitat, or help decrease toxic pollution.  NEWS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 31, 2007
Ralph and Karen continue to fight for the freedom of the only surviving Southern Resident orca in captivity, Lolita, who has been at the Miami Seaquarium since 1970. Ralph worked to involve several Washington State Governors and other political leaders in attempts to gain Lolita's freedom, and Karen led us in a Mother's Day protest at the Seaquarium when the more diplomatic tactics failed. Though this is a struggle we are still trying to win, other issues arose in the late 1990s with Lolita's family back home that also demanded attention. Her extended family, J, K and L pods, began to fail, and the population declined by 20% over a six year period. Lack of salmon, polluted waters, and effects of human population growth on shoreline and marine habitats all began to take their toll. Ralph and Karen have continued to work tirelessly with orca researchers, organizations, and advocates over the decades. Whale Watch Park at Lime Kiln State Park on San Juan Island was named in Ralph's honor, and the new Interpretive Center at the Park was dedicated in Karen's name last year. They continue to do all they can to promote orca awareness and help this population of orcas they have come to know and love, and the orcas seem to know it. When J6, the orca named "Ralph" in honor of Ralph Munro, was among those who died during the steep population decline. Ralph held a press conference and ceremony at Lime Kiln State Park to honor his friend, J6, and to bring attention to the fact that our beloved whales were dying. Exactly when the event began, J pod showed up at Lime Kiln, and as Ralph began to speak about how he met J6, one of the orcas began breaching. The orca leapt out of the water, over and over, and Ralph couldn't talk because everyone was screaming and watching this beautiful orca breaching right behind him. Then the researchers identified the breaching orca as none other than J6's sister - it's impossible to see this as merely a coincidence, and we were all stunned to realize even the whales know how much Ralph and Karen care about them. So what better way to begin a month-long celebration of Orca Awareness Month, than to join us for dinner and stories with Ralph and Karen, a presentation about the Southern Resident orcas by Howard Garrett of Orca Network, and an evening of sharing our love for and commitment to our amazing orca neighbors. Please join us Saturday, June 9th at the Flounder Bay Cafe at Skyline Marina in Anacortes for a 5:30 pm wine-tasting featuring Hoodsport Orca Wine from the Washington Wine and Beverage Company, a seafood dinner buffet, and an evening learning about these amazing whales and what we can do to protect them. Cost of the event is $50, with proceeds supporting Orca Network's Whale Sighting Network and education programs. For reservations, please contact Orca Network by June 7th, at 1-866-ORCANET or info@orcanetwork.org. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ June Proclaimed "Orca Awareness Month" by Governor Gregoire VIEW THE PROCLAMATION. Orca Awareness Month Main Page. Orca Network's Whale Sighting Network tracks the travels of Gray whales, orcas and other cetaceans in Washington and British Columbia waters. If you see a whale, please report it to Orca Network at 1-866-ORCANET or info@orcanetwork.org. If you would like to be on Orca Network's Whale Sighting Network to receive emails about the whereabouts of the whales of our regions, contact Susan Berta at info@orcanetwork.org or sign up on our website at www.orcanetwork.org. A map and descriptions of recent whale sightings can also be found HERE . Orca Network's Whale Sighting Network is funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Center for Whale Research, and the Whale Museum. NEWS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS: Orca Network Susan Berta/Howard Garrett 360-678-3451 360-661-3739 (cell) info@orcanetwork.org The best kept secret in all civilizations is that we are animals! We are medium-sized mammals, who just happen to have evolved the ability and the need to construct vast symbolic systems to define ourselves, and now we can't see our way out of our own systems, so we fight each other to the death to defend them. Hoisted on our own petards! Our daily lives are dominated by humans acting badly toward one another while ignoring and trampling the natural wonders that are the real foundations of our own lives. But there is at least one other species that has also evolved the capacity to construct symbolic systems of self-definition and live according to those rules within distinct cultures for thousands of generations: Orcinus orca. We can learn much from the orca. If you are skeptical, you should be. That's the scientific method, along with reliance on the accumulated evidence and the published work of other scientists. Below: the astounding natural history of Orcinus orca. First, a bit of history. When NOAA Fisheries listed the Southern Resident orca community, native to Washington State and British Columbia waters, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) earlier this year, a new definition of the orca emerged from the process that officially revised our basic understanding of the species. Before NOAA could list J, K and L pods as endangered, they first had to establish that this community of orcas is a “distinct population segment” (DPS), as defined by the ESA. In 1978, in response to the need to protect particular runs (not just species) of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, the ESA was amended so they could list a subspecies, and if necessary, a loosely defined “distinct population segment.” Congress instructed the Secretary to exercise this authority “...sparingly and only when the biological evidence indicates that such action is warranted.” To be considered a distinct population segment, a population must be reproductively isolated from other conspecific (same species) populations, and it must be important for the evolutionary legacy of the species. Until the Southern resident orcas were listed, only geographic separation, at least during breeding, could cause a population to be reproductively isolated from other populations of the same species. For example, Sacramento River Spring run Chinook salmon are geographically, and therefore reproductively, separated from Upper Columbia River Spring run Chinook, and so are listed separately. (Southern Resident orcas have historically depended on both Chinook runs to survive, and both are engandered.) Trouble is, Southern Resident orcas cross paths every day with Transient orcas, and in fact are in no way separated from Northern resident orcas, or Offshore orcas for that matter. The various populations could easily interbreed, but they don’t. The field of biology doesn’t account for this kind of willful reproductive separation. It tells us something is at work here determining behavior that has never before been found in any animal other than humans. That factor is culture. NOAA has never before had to deal with an animal that demonstrated culture, so in June, 2002, NOAA partially dodged the issue by designating the Residents as “depleted” under the less stringent Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), thus avoiding the troublesome ESA language. NOAA stated that although the Southern Residents “compose a distinct population,” and “face a relatively high risk of extinction,” they were not significant to the species worldwide. If they went extinct, NOAA said, another orca community could simply move in and occupy their habitat. The MMPA listing triggered a lawsuit in which the judge was presented with a wealth of evidence that Southern residents are a unique and irreplaceable cultural community, which prompted the judge to instruct NOAA to review it all and reconsider their decision not to list the orcas under the ESA. NOAA did reconsider, and concluded that the Southern residents are indeed a cultural community, and needed protection under the ESA. Here’s the evidence, and what it all adds up to. The strongest evidence for culture lies in the vocal dialects of resident pods; each pod has a distinctive set of 7-17 ‘discrete’ calls (Ford 1991a; Strager 1995). These dialects are maintained despite extensive associations between pods. Some pods share up to 10 calls and pods which share calls can be grouped together in acoustic ‘clans,’ suggesting another level of population structure. Ford found four distinct clans within two resident communities (Northern and Southern), and suggested that these call variations are a result of dialects being passed down through vocal learning, and being modified over time. Thus, given the lack of dispersal, acoustic clans may reflect common matrilineal ancestry, and the number of calls any two pods share may reflect their relatedness. In addition to these pod-specific calls, orcas make a wide variety of “variable” calls, especially during intense socializing, that defy description. No similarities have been found in the calls made by different communities. Other evidence for culture includes:
All of the above leaves little doubt that for Southern Resident orcas, cultural traditions transcend instinct, genetics, environment, or individual learning, and to some extent actually determines evolutionary development. In years to come scientists may be describing not just physical attributes and interesting behaviors in our friendly neighborhood orcas, but their cultural identities as well. NEWS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 31, 2006
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by Governor Gregoire
The groups are concerned that the listing, announced by NOAA Fisheries last November, "will result in needless water and land-use restrictions on Washington farms, especially those located near rivers inhabited by salmon," the orcas' primary food source. The builders’ association also worries that the listing will result in restrictions on development around Puget Sound.
The groups base their complaint on a technical point: NOAA declared the Southern Residents a “distinct population” of a subspecies that includes other fish-eating orcas off British Columbia, Alaska and Russia. Under the ESA, the lawyers argue, only a distinct population of a species - not a subspecies - can be listed. The fisheries service could list all Northern Pacific resident orcas as endangered, but it can't list only the Southern Residents. The lawsuit argues the orcas do not deserve protection under the ESA because they are not genetically distinct enough from other orcas in the North Pacific. “You can almost say any individual school of fish can be listed,” said an attorney with the group.
As the case winds its way through the courts and the media, residents of Washington and beyond will hear about some rather astounding new discoveries that have led scientists to conclude that complex and stable orca cultures, found worldwide, appear to have no parallel outside humans and represent an independent evolution of cultural faculties.
By 1980 researchers were amazed to discover that unlike any other mammal known, both male and female Southern Resident orca offspring stay with their mother and her pod their entire lives. It soon became clear that the foundation of the social structure is the matriline, a matriarchal family unit comprised of up to dozens of members of an extended family that may span four or more generations. Matrilines in turn gather into larger groups known as pods. In the Southern Resident community three pods are recognized: J pod, K pod and L pod (the largest). Mating occurs between, but not within, pods.
The three pods occasionally get together for a ritualized greeting ceremony after they have been apart. This amazing but rarely observed phenomenon begins with each pod lining up abreast on the surface. Slowly, individuals approach one another until the lines dissolve. The whales then begin to greet, rub together and play in a seemingly festive celebration that can continue for several days. Researchers recently discovered that when resident orcas dive hundreds of feet to snatch large Chinook salmon, their preferred prey, they often bring them to the surface to rip apart and share with family members.
Overall, the evidence from over thirty years of field research establishes the Southern Resident orca community as a unique and ancient traditional culture. Cultural learning is indicated by their long life span (roughly equivalent to humans’), long childhood learning periods (lifelong, in fact), advanced central nervous system (with brains 4 to 5 times the size of our own), prescribed diet (Residents eat only fish, unlike mammal-eating “transient” orcas), decades-long female post-reproductive life spans, and complex communication system. Each pod uses its own distinct dialect: a unique variety of harmonious whistles, squeaks and honks. Even untrained individuals can distinguish between dialects. The three Southern Resident pods share some calls, but none of the pods share any dialect features with any other orcas.
The lawsuit states that Southern Residents are not genetically distinct enough from other North Pacific residents to warrant protection as a distinct population, but major differences in mitochondrial DNA and their distinct acoustic dialects show that the populations have been reproductively isolated for hundreds of generations. These orca communities are not geographically separated - some cross each others’ paths almost daily - and yet they do not interbreed and are in the process of becoming separate species, a feat previously unheard of in the biological sciences. We don’t find two populations of the same bear species inhabiting the same mountain that never mate with each other, for example.
NOAA originally decided in 2002 that the orcas did not merit ESA protection, but in 2003, U.S. District Court Judge Robert H. Lasnik reviewed the evidence and instructed the Fisheries Service to include it in their deliberations about listing the Southern Residents under the ESA, leading NOAA to conclude that the Southern Residents are indeed a distinct population.
It is understandable that anyone might question the validity of declaring the Southern Residents a distinct, cultural community. The scientific evidence has been coherently assembled only in the past decade and orca taxonomy is currently being revised to accommodate it. Moreover, the implications of cultural orca communities are seismic for the biological sciences. No land mammal except humans has ever demonstrated cultural abilities that approach this level of complexity.
The Farm Bureau and BIAW make clear that of course they like orcas, it’s just the regulatory scheme of the ESA they don’t like. But the Southern Residents are in fact severely endangered, mainly by salmon depletion and toxic pollution, and if we like orcas and want them to remain here for future generations, we’ll need to work out ways to avoid harming them. That’s a very complex task, and the ESA is designed to provide flexible and effective measures to avoid causing the orcas’ extinction.
This lawsuit is likely to help bolster the case for cultural orcas and the need to protect them, especially for farmers and builders who will now be watching closely and learning about the orcas in our midst.
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