The Seattle Times, November 26, 2012
California farmers want orcas taken off endangered-species list
California farmers have filed a petition to take Puget
Sound's killer whales off the endangered-species list, arguing they are
not a separate population.
By Lynda V. Mapes
California farmers want to take Puget Sound's killer whales off the
endangered-species list, arguing they are not a separate population and
that protecting the fish they eat is hurting business.
The listing of the animals as endangered under the federal Endangered
Species Act in 2005 caused cutbacks in irrigation to protect fish,
and that's made it harder to get loans from banks, pay help and expand
their operations, argues a petition filed by Empresa de Bosque and
Coburn Ranch. The two farms raise a variety of crops, from cherries to
almonds, melons and tomatoes, using irrigation water from several
California water districts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The listing of Puget Sound's orcas has affected farmers in California
because the southern resident orcas travel the outer West Coast in
winter, and are known to feed on salmon as far south as the Sacramento
River.
The petition to delist was filed on the farmers' behalf by the
Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit based in Sacramento that has built
a $25 million business fighting endangered-species listings,
environmental restrictions, Title IX funding for high-school sports,
affirmative action in public-sector contracting and more.
The foundation, with its motto "Rescuing liberty from coast to
coast," operates regional offices in Bellevue, Hawaii and Florida. It is
funded with individual contributions and awards of attorneys' fees.
NOAA Fisheries announced Monday it had accepted the petition and
would finish by August a status review of the southern resident
population of killer whales to determine if listing is still warranted.
Donna Darm, assistant administrator for protected resources at NOAA,
said new science, including findings published in peer-reviewed
journals since the orca was listed, warrants a new look at the
listing. The decision to consider the petition does not indicate what
the outcome of the review will be, she noted.
If the animals were taken off the endangered-species list,
designation of critical habitat for them would disappear, but other
protections under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, including a
requirement the animals not be harassed or harmed, and that whale-watch
vessels keep 200 yards away, would remain in effect.
NOAA Fisheries' listing of orcas as endangered came a year after it
listed the animals as threatened in 2004. It had decided in 2002 not to
list them at all. The agency initially determined the southern
resident killer whales of Puget Sound, in J, K and L pods, were not a
distinct population segment.
That finding was set aside by a U.S. District Court judge in 2003,
who ruled there was enough uncertainty in the science to give the matter
more study. The agency convened a science task force that eventually
found the southern resident killer-whale population to be a distinct
population, resulting in the 2005 listing.
Since then, the agency has designated 2,560 square miles of Puget
Sound critical habitat for killer whales; required whale-watch vessels
to keep a longer distance from the animals; and produced a recovery
plan. But the southern resident population remains quite small, with
only about 86 animals.
Fred Felleman, of Seattle, who in 2001 advocated for the original
petition for listing, said the petition now to delist the orcas is a
distraction from the necessary work of rebuilding orca populations.
"Oh great, here is a chance to biopsy them and tag them and chase
them all over town until we don't have to worry about them any more,"
Felleman said.
To him, the distinct behavior of the southern residents sets them
clearly apart from other orcas. They eat only fish, while other orcas
eat seals and other mammals. They have distinct family groups, dialects,
greeting ceremonies and migratory patterns.
"If there was ever a poster child for this type of subspecies, it's
the killer whales," he said. "It's not just their genetics, it's
culture. These clearly are the tribes of the sea, and if you extirpate
that population not only do you lose the genetic code, you lose a
unique brain trust."
In its petition, Pacific Legal Foundation stated there are about
50,000 killer whales roaming all the oceans of the world. Puget Sound's
J, K and L pods comprise less than 0.2 percent of the species and,
being such a small part of a larger population from which they are not
distinct, protection is not warranted, the firm argued.
Miyoko Sakashita of the Center for Biological Diversity, which sued
to get the animals listed, said the petition to delist is just a rehash
of old arguments. NOAA's decision to list was right, she said. "I am
sure when they take another look at the science they will affirm
protection."
Seattle Times news researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report. Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com.
Copyright ©2012 The Seattle Times Company.
Given
the history of military spending and engagement on the part of the
United States, it may seem naïve to think that Americans are ready to
change course—or begin again—on issues of peace and disarmament. But as
I write this, there is promising political support to put military
spending on the table in order to move toward balancing the federal
budget. Even more important, the public is realizing that nine years of
war in Iraq and eleven years of war in Afghanistan have accomplished
very little for the cost of the lives lost and destroyed and the
trillions of dollars spent. We’ve tried controlling the world through
military means and it has failed. 