Puget Sound Orcas Listed as Endangered
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) proposed the "endangerd species" listing for Puget Sound�s Southern Resident killer whales under the federal Endangered Species Act. The orcas popluation declined by 20% over five years during the 1990s. The Endangered Species Act ensures that NMFS will have the best conservation tools as work begins to recover the whales from the brink of extinction. An "endangered" listing provides stronger, more immediate protections to the killer whales than a "threatened" listing. The protections of the Endangered Species Act ensures that these whales will be able to survive. The state designates as "endangered" those animal and plant species native to Washington that are seriously threatened with extinction throughout all or a significant portion of their range. The Puget Sound resident orca population consists of three main social groups, identified as the J, K and L pods. The L pod, which makes up half of the southern resident population, has seen both higher mortality and lower birth rates, particularly within the past decade. Southern resident orcas primarily feed on salmon and other fish. They are seen most often during late spring to fall.
Transient orcas also inhabit state waters intermittently throughout the year They differ greatly from the resident pods in their smaller social groups, less tnedancy to vocalize and preference for marine mammals as prey. Two additional orca populations, offshore and northern residents, rarely venture in state waters.
The three killer whale pods which make up the resident whale population in Puget Sound have dropped from a population high of 99 in 1995 to 78 individuals in the year 2001.
Americas Orcas Now Endangered
A family of killer whales that summers off the US Pacific Coast city of Seattle is in danger of extinction and will be protected as an endangered species. The Southern Resident killer whale population suffered a 20 percent decline in the 1990s, with many of the whales captured for entertainmentuse in commercial aquariums, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There are 89 of the whales left, one of them a lone male that has taken refuge in a small inlet in British Columbia. Among the major threats to the whales are shipping traffic, toxic chemicals, and scarcity of food such as salmon.
The whales were already protected by the US Marine Mammal Protection Act, which listed the animals as "depleted stock" more than two years ago.
Kasatka Attacks Sea World Trainer
Dec. 1, 2006. Kasatka, a 30-year-old orca that is about 17 feet long and weighs well over 5,000 pounds, twice held Peters underwater for less than a minute each time during the finale of a show at Shamu Stadium.
The act called for the orca to leap out of the water so Peters could dive off her nose. Instead, as several hundred spectators watched, Kasatka grabbed Peters' foot in her mouth and dragged him toward the bottom of the 36-foot-deep tank.
When they came up, Peters tried to calm the animal by stroking its back, but it grabbed him and plunged down again. The whale finally released him and Peters was able to surface and swim away. He emerged from the tank with one leg of his wet suit torn.
Kasatka and Peters were involved in a scrape in 1999, when the whale tried to bite the trainer during a show, Scarpuzzi said. Peters hopped out of the tank and was not injured. The whale also tried to bite a different trainer in 1993, Scarpuzzi said.
Peters has 16 years of experience as a trainer, including 12 years in Shamu Stadium.
Scarpuzzi pointed out that the animals perform as many as eight times a day, 365 days a year, "so this, even though it can be expected because they are killer whales, it is definitely abnormal."
Killer whales are predators that were originally called whale-killers because they occasionally eat other whales and dolphins.
"In the wild they're not dangerous to humans and there's no incidences of them attacking humans unprovoked," Balcomb said. But in captivity, "they're dangerous because they're big and sometimes they're not happy with their situation."