Does Climate Change Mean the End of Killer Whales? [SLSalon)

January 4, 2015 11:13 AM

Wild Orcas May Not Survive Climate Change
posted by angrycat (38 comments total)

Um, no surprise at all. Megafauna are especially sensitive to climate change, because they sit either at the pinnacle of the food chain, or rely on massive food supplies.

Add elephants, giraffes, lions, polar bears, grizzly bears, hippos, whales, dolphins, panthers, apes, and wildebeest to that list.

But not rhinos. Man will kill them directly, first.
posted by IAmBroom at 12:16 PM on January 4, 2015 [7 favorites]

Wild Orcas Pretty Much Everything May Not Survive Climate Change
posted by threeants at 12:25 PM on January 4, 2015 [13 favorites]

They were going to run with "Certain Bacteria MAY Survive Climate Change", but focus groups responded poorly.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 12:44 PM on January 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

Just last week another newborn Southern Resident calf (J50) was seen with its mother. There are some reports now that calf is missing. This is devastating if true.

In the '60's my mother and other local divers 'helped' 'walk' whales in their pens to prevent them from drowning after capture by the notorious Ted Griffin. My young self was seriously proud of her noble effort- they were helping the whales live!

Right now I wish I could kick Ted Griffin's ass. What a fucking fucker.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 12:48 PM on January 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is an interesting article about this week's newborn orca. Doesn't change the overall point, but at least it's a bit of good news. (On preview: Mei's lost sandal -- where are you seeing reports that the newborn is missing? Googling for news about J50 isn't showing me that. I hope it's not true.)
posted by litlnemo at 12:55 PM on January 4, 2015

Here is a petition you can sign to lobby for Snake River dam removal, which will improve Chinook Salmon numbers.

Southern Resident Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 1:01 PM on January 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Read it and weep: Baby Orca not Traveling with Mother
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 1:07 PM on January 4, 2015

Humans are good at petty bullshit and awful at big-picture stuff. I think with sentience and dominance comes responsibility and stewardship. Or should...instead we choose willful ignorance and exploitation.
posted by maxwelton at 1:20 PM on January 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

I did mis-read the Seattle Times article. It says the newborn J50 is traveling with another whale that may be its grandmother, not that J50 is missing.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 1:23 PM on January 4, 2015

Orcas are capable of horizontal information exchange. Hopefully one of then will learn to eat something else and teach the others.
posted by ZaneJ. at 1:52 PM on January 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Like jellyfish :|
posted by aydeejones at 2:39 PM on January 4, 2015

Unfortunately, maxwelton, it seems to me we've already made our choice.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:43 PM on January 4, 2015

This is not about climate change. It is about the destruction of habitat and foods sources, particularly salmon. Climate change is being used to divert attention away from the real causes of environmental destruction.
posted by No Robots at 2:47 PM on January 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yes, the NW orcas are struggling because we've destroyed the salmon runs they rely on to survive. Climate change will certainly kill off many of the cetaceans, but it's going to first hit the ones who travel huge distances expecting food supplies to be there, like the humpbacks. Resident orcas are smart enough to follow the fish north from warming waters... if there are any fish to follow.
posted by tavella at 3:02 PM on January 4, 2015

Climate change is being used to divert attention away from the real causes of environmental destruction.

Sure, just drop that with no elaboration whatsoever. Sounds good.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 3:24 PM on January 4, 2015

I shouldn't have to elaborate. How many times are salmon mentioned in the article?

The problem is the headline, really. It should read "Wild orcas may not survive the disappearance of salmon, which is caused by overfishing and habitat destruction." It is terrible to see an environmental problem with clear solutions being attributed to climate change.
posted by No Robots at 3:31 PM on January 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

it seems to me we've already made our choice

But we're Man, right? We're the wisest, most educated, and handsomest critter on the planet, and there's basically an infinite number of us. How can we leverage our strengths into long-term thinking about how we can live sustainably on Planet A, considering that Planet B is unlikely to be accessible anytime soon?
posted by sneebler at 4:28 PM on January 4, 2015

which is caused by overfishing and habitat destruction

Look at climate change predictions for salmon habitat -- even middle-range projections show their viable range shrinking remarkably. It's not one thing or another; both are connected.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:34 PM on January 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Chemicals and pollutants contributing to whale deaths. High PCB concentrations. "Through this process, called maternal transfer, young whale calves, particularly first-born calves, take in a huge amount of the mother's PCB body burden. "
posted by stbalbach at 5:46 PM on January 4, 2015

The headline is definitely in the "No Duh" category, but people love them some charismatic megafauna. If this makes enough otherwise apathetic orca-lovers care enough to change their behavior enough, maybe the coming disaster will be a smidgen less all-encompassing. You gotta stay positive!
posted by No-sword at 8:49 PM on January 4, 2015

Climate change is being used to divert attention away from the real causes of environmental destruction.

Sure, just drop that with no elaboration whatsoever. Sounds good.

Hydroelectric dams and logging are far more responsible for the decline of salmon population in the Puget Sound region than climate change has been so far. Climate change is contributing to the damage being done to an already over-stressed salmon population, but No Robots is completely correct to say that habitat destruction is the number one problem.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:50 PM on January 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

How can we leverage our strengths into long-term thinking about how we can live sustainably on Planet A, considering that Planet B is unlikely to be accessible anytime soon?

This is Planet B
posted by stevis23 at 4:55 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

He's not correct in the idea that climate change is being USED to "divert attention" away from another cause. That's bizarre conspiracy theory language, and why the comment is getting some pushback.
posted by agregoli at 6:21 AM on January 5, 2015

Can anyone explain why farm raised salmon is a threat to wild populations of salmon and therefore a problem to the Orcas? That's kind of thrown out there without justification, and it doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't buying farm raised salmon help take pressure off wild populations?
posted by vibratory manner of working at 7:16 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Can anyone explain why farm raised salmon is a threat to wild populations of salmon and therefore a problem to the Orcas? That's kind of thrown out there without justification, and it doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't buying farm raised salmon help take pressure off wild populations?

Farm raised salmon are:

1. An invasive species in the Pacific Northwest. Fish farms in British Columbia and Washington raise Atlantic salmon, rather than any of the five species of Pacific salmon. Alaska bans fish farming for this reason, as our fisheries management experts are concerned about Atlantic salmon escaping from farm operations and competing with native species for breeding habitat.
2. Raised in small enclosures with a high density of fish. Keeping so many fish in proximity to each other means disease can spread rapidly through the enclosed fish, who are fed antibiotic-laced feed to combat this. They are capable, however, of passing those diseases to their wild counterparts, who are not fed antibiotics, which makes them a threat to nearby native salmon populations.
3. Confined to comparatively small areas and fed products designed to make them grow quickly. During the process they also produce a lot of waste which, due to the high density of fish, is much more geographically concentrated than poop from wild salmon (who have (metaphorically, at least) the whole ocean to go in.) A lot of this waste settles to the sea floor beneath the enclosure pens the salmon are raised in and biologists have been telling us for a while now that it is not doing good things to the sea floor underneath the farm operations.

posted by Nerd of the North at 10:13 AM on January 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

He's not correct in the idea that climate change is being USED to "divert attention" away from another cause. That's bizarre conspiracy theory language, and why the comment is getting some pushback.

I did not express an opinion as to why orca population problems are attributed to global warming rather than to depleted salmon stocks. If I were to guess, it would be because global warming is a much sexier headline than over-fishing and habitat destruction, which are yesterday's news. Also, panic stories are designed to make us feel bad and yet powerless. But, hey, that's just my inner conspiracy theorist talking.
posted by No Robots at 11:12 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Well... at least this is good news for the sea otters, who have become the resident snack food of the discriminating orca.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:47 AM on January 5, 2015

No. But your phrasing as if it was a diversion from "real" issues set off those conspiracy theory alarm bells for me, and I suspect other posters felt that as well. I don't see how all of those issues aren't contributing factors. Environmental destruction is hastening the decline of animals and plants, which contributes to global warming. It's 6 of one, half dozen the other.
posted by agregoli at 12:23 PM on January 5, 2015

Environmental destruction is hastening the decline of animals and plants, which contributes to global warming. It's 6 of one, half dozen the other.

The first things can be dealt with immediately. I wouldn't want to see global warming as an excuse for not doing anything.
posted by No Robots at 12:26 PM on January 5, 2015

Both can be dealt with immediately, but unfortunately won't be, due to human greed.
posted by agregoli at 1:00 PM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

If this is a war for the planet, then we should apply the first rule of war, namely, provide no comfort to your enemy. Passivity and defeatism are not just comfort to the enemy, they are the enemy itself.
posted by No Robots at 1:07 PM on January 5, 2015

Well, gotta disagree with you there. The enemy is the people polluting and spilling oil and not giving a fuck about alternate energy sources. My realistic view that its too late to reverse climate change isn't polluting or warming anything. But it is a poetic sentiment.
posted by agregoli at 1:20 PM on January 5, 2015

Environmental destruction is hastening the decline of animals and plants, which contributes to global warming. It's 6 of one, half dozen the other.

The phrase "six of one, half a dozen of the other," may not explicitly state an equivalence between the two factors but it certainly strongly suggests it.

But these are not equal factors in the decline of salmon populations. It's more like "1 of the first thing and 11 of the other." Dams, stream bank destruction, failure to protect buffer zones along salmon spawning streams -- these factors hugely dominate the damage (so far) from climate change. Nobody's saying climate change isn't an issue. But the framing "wild orcas may not survive climate change" is like saying "low blood pressure threatens man's life" without mentioning that the man is suffering from several bullet wounds.

Rising water temperature is bad for salmon reproduction in the lower 48 states, as a ton of literature on the subject will tell you. But the factors which are overwhelmingly responsible for the rise in stream temperature so far are logging and development that have eliminated shade protecting spawning areas, diversion of water for agriculture, and reduced flow due to dams, not rising global temperatures. And it's a lot easier to protect and restore forested buffer zones near salmon streams or to remediate the damage done by dams than it is to reverse global climate change. In the long run, both will need to occur, but the salmon will benefit more in the short run from habitat protection and not global climate initiatives.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:13 PM on January 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Cool, see, I'm down with a well reasoned and informed reply like that. I feel the framing is ridiculous beyond that too...cause nothing will survive eventual climate change. So the hint of speculation is odd. But I'm odd too.
posted by agregoli at 5:56 PM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

agregoli: nothing will survive eventual climate change.

I have hope for the red algae.

In fact, I have so much hope I've begun retraining myself to think of algal blooms as "cute and cuddly", while reframing plush fur as "dead spikes of fingernail-like growth".

It isn't working yet.
posted by IAmBroom at 7:44 AM on January 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

But we're Man, right? We're the wisest, most educated, and handsomest critter on the planet, and there's basically an infinite number of us. How can we leverage our strengths into long-term thinking about how we can live sustainably on Planet A, considering that Planet B is unlikely to be accessible anytime soon?

When we really want to do something, we find a way. We don't really want to take full responsibility for the power we have now over our world, to the point that we'd literally rather leave responsibility for stewardship of our resources to an imaginary invisible hand than start working honestly through all the difficult choices involved.

I guess in the end, we don't really have a choice though. We're stewards of these resources whether we like it or not, we're just choosing to be very bad at the job right now, and it may already be too late to act in time to prevent a lot of the worst long-term problems already in the queue.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:06 AM on January 6, 2015

J50 is still alive as of Jan 8.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 7:06 AM on January 9, 2015

Rare 'Type D' Orca Pod Caught in First-Ever Footage
posted by homunculus at 10:56 PM on January 12, 2015