Mega-farms would exterminate Puget Sound whales' main food: salmon
Something special is swimming in Puget Sound—84 unique whales found
nowhere else on earth, who might have disappeared altogether if not for
Earthjustice’s work to protect them from a far-distant threat.
Early this month, the government
rejected a misguided proposal
to strip protections from this dwindling species: Southern Resident
orca whales. Visitors to the Pacific Northwest likely know these orcas
well; they attract wildlife enthusiasts from around the world with their
intelligence and playful displays of agility. They also attract curious
scientists—this pod of fish-eating coastal orcas is genetically
distinct and isolated from its mammal-eating and offshore cousins,
diverging more than 700,000 years ago.
The ill-conceived attempt to push these few animals closer to
extinction was made on behalf of California industrial-scale farms by
the Pacific Legal Foundation—a big-industry bosom buddy that receives
funds from the infamous Koch Brothers.
PLF and its clients refuse to accept that the orcas deserve the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Fortunately, science indicates otherwise.
California agribusiness has it out for these orcas because of
salmon,
their primary food source. In the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers,
the main salmon-producing river system in California, endangered salmon
are killed by a maze of dams, water diversions and massive pumps that
export river water to industrial farms in the state. Sucking huge
amounts of water out of rivers to irrigate mega-farms kills salmon, and
therefore harms orcas as well. This was the government’s conclusion in
2009, following an Earthjustice lawsuit, and growers and their political
allies didn’t like it.
Earthjustice litigation secured Endangered Species Act protections
for the Southern Resident orcas in 2005, which has provided a powerful
set of legal tools to work towards ending the various threats that
plague them: decimation of salmon populations, toxic pollution and
disturbance from big ships. The orca population remains in serious
jeopardy. With ESA protections still in place, Earthjustice and our
allies can
continue the work to help this species recover, but our work has to continue to defend the protections that the orcas now enjoy.
The plight of orcas illustrates the vital importance of the ESA
itself, which turns 40 later this year. The Act, and Earthjustice’s
litigation under it, have saved innumerable species and the habitats
they depend upon, preventing many species from going extinct altogether.
Orcas and sea lions: enemies in the wild, allies in the court. (Lance Barrett-Lennard, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA)
The endangered
Steller sea lion
is another prime example. The western population of Steller sea lions
in the North Pacific Ocean in Alaska has declined by 80 percent because
of industrial fishing, which nets huge, unsustainable amounts of
mackerel, cod and other prey that the sea lions depend on. The
government instituted protections in 2010 to reduce competition between
industrial fishing boats and sea lions, which industry challenged.
Earthjustice, on behalf of Oceana and Greenpeace, joined the government
and successfully defended the protections.
These kinds of protections, afforded by the ESA, are vital to the
long-term survival of species that have been pushed towards extinction
by human activity. Too many in industry and in Congress would have us
believe that the ESA is no longer needed and should be gutted. We and
the orcas disagree.
