2/27 Swinomish, moving coho, building ferries, BC treaties, Shell drill, BP spill, BC LNG, mussel power, sea turtles, pirates, 'robosparrow,' big ling

"Pirates!"

New blog:  “When I lived in Portland, Oregon, in the ‘60s, I bought horse meat at what I am trying to recall was called “The Horse Meat Market” downtown near the “The Buttermilk Corner.” I hadn’t thought about that all these years— until last week’s breaking news that horsemeat was found in European countries in what was had been thought to be mixtures of beef and pork. And —is nothing sacred?-- found in Ikea meatballs...” They Eat Horses, Don’t They?

If you like to watch: The Swinomish tribe could lose up to 15 percent of their land on low-lying Fidalgo Island to climate-change related sea level rise. They’re working with planners to make sure they can survive—and thrive—in the region’s changing climate. Benjamin Drummond and Sara Steele report. Puget Sound Tribe Plans for Rising Seas

About 220,000 coho smolts traveled Tuesday from Gorst Creek to Puget Sound, with a little help from their human friends. The Suquamish Tribe, Washington State Fish and Wildlife and Naval Undersea Warfare Center-Keyport teamed to transport the salmon overland to their next life stage. The eggs were fertilized and incubated at the state’s Minter Creek hatchery near Purdy and transferred to the tribe’s and city of Bremerton’s Gorst hatchery. Once they reach 1 1/2 years old, they’re ready to move from freshwater to saltwater before heading out to sea. They’ll hang out in a Suquamish net pen for three months acclimating and imprinting before being turned loose.  Coho salmon hitch ride to new saltwater home

Under a proposal receiving a hearing in the Washington state Senate Transportation Committee, state-owned ferries plying the Puget Sound would no longer have to be built in Washington state, fewer apprentice workers would be involved in building them and the state would limit the money it pays for cost overruns. The measure, Senate Bill 5858, was introduced by Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, who is co-chair of the Senate Transportation Committee. There are no co-sponsors. Proposal to allow ferries to be built outside WA

Five Vancouver Island First Nations have signed pre-treaty agreements with the B.C. government that include land deals in advance of final treaties. The five First Nations are all based on mid- and southern Vancouver Island, and include land transfers to the urban Victoria Songhees First Nation, the Scia'new of Beecher Bay, the T'Sou-ke of Sooke, the Malahat First Nation and the Snaw-naw-as of Nanoose, which is north of Nanaimo. In a written statement, Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation Minister Ida Chong said the land agreements are part of the province's Incremental Treaty Agreements (ITA) program, which aims to assist in the treaty negotiation process with offers of partial settlements.  Land deals signed ahead of 5 Vancouver Island treaties  

A Royal Dutch Shell PLC drilling barge that ran aground New Year's Eve is on the move from near Kodiak Island in Alaska to Dutch Harbor. Shell spokesman Curtis Smith says in an email to The Associated Press that the Kulluk left the bay Tuesday afternoon. Three tugs are towing the barge in a journey expected to take about 10 days. Tugs towing Shell drill vessel to Dutch Harbor  

A ranking BP executive testified Tuesday that the London-based oil giant and its contractors share the responsibility for preventing blowouts like the one that killed 11 workers and spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill in 2010. Lamar McKay, who was president of BP America at the time of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, became the first BP executive to testify at a federal trial intended to identify the causes of BP's Macondo well blowout and assign percentages of blame to the companies involved. A plaintiffs' attorney pressed McKay to agree with him that BP bore ultimate responsibility for the blowout, but McKay insisted that managing the hazards of deepwater drilling are a "team effort." BP executive testifies at Gulf oil spill trial

The British Columbia government is promising its fledgling natural gas export industry that an estimated $30-billion in new taxes will not drive companies out of a business they have yet to build. But an analysis by a U.S. economic firm suggests that liquefied natural gas shipments from Canada will be among the most expensive in the world, leaving the industry “vulnerable” long before it has loaded it first ship. B.C. sees $30-billion LNG windfall – but hurdles are high

Waves slam the shore with the force of a jetliner screaming at 600 mph. Yet mussels — small but mighty denizens of the intertidal zone — still manage to cling tenaciously to their rocks. Just how they do it has fascinated researchers for decades. Now new science just emerging from the lab is pointing the way to a better understanding of mussels’ remarkable stick-to-it-ness, and what their abilities might mean for people. UW researchers offer clues to how mussels work

Downer. What to do? An international team led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has documented a 78 percent decline in the number of nests of the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) at the turtle's last stronghold in the Pacific Ocean. The study, published online Feb. 26 in the Ecological Society of America's scientific online journal Ecosphere, reveals leatherback nests at Jamursba Medi Beach in Papua Barat, Indonesia -- which accounts for 75 percent of the total leatherback nesting in the western Pacific -- have fallen from a peak of 14,455 in 1984 to a low of 1,532 in 2011. Less than 500 leatherbacks now nest at this site annually. Leatherback Sea Turtle Could Be Extinct Within 20 Years at Last Stronghold in the Pacific Ocean

Their supporters call them heroes. The Japanese government calls them terrorists. Late Monday, the United States’ largest federal court labeled them pirates. In doing so, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals castigated Paul Watson and members of the Friday Harbor-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society he founded for the tactics used in their relentless campaign to disrupt the annual whale hunt off the dangerous waters of Antarctica. Court: Sea Shepherd anti-whaling protesters are pirates

Not BirdNote: Scientists at Duke University in North Carolina worked with engineering students and a taxidermist to operate the wings of a deceased swamp sparrow. They programmed simple Picaxe computer chips, and built a tiny linear motor to fit inside the cavity of the bird they named Robosparrow. They were studying male aggressive behaviour among the species. The experiment, carried out over a period of two months, confirmed to the researchers that wing-flapping is a sign of male aggression, said Dr Rindy Anderson who led the study. 'Robosparrow' created from dead bird  

Fish story: A Shetland fisherman is celebrating after reeling in a giant fish weighing more than 67lbs (30kg). James Isbister caught the 6ft-long ling while fishing off Muckle Flugga on Saturday. Mr Isbister is awaiting confirmation from the relevant authorities of its possible record-breaking status. The fish is currently being kept in his mother's freezer. "It was a very big fight," he said. Giant fish weighing more than 67lbs reeled in off Shetland  

Now, your thank-goodness-for-tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 900 AM PST WED FEB 27 2013
SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY FOR HAZARDOUS SEAS IN EFFECT THROUGH LATE TONIGHT
 GALE WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY AFTERNOON
TODAY
SE WIND TO 10 KT. WIND WAVES 1 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 10 FT AT 14 SECONDS BUILDING TO 13 FT AT 17 SECONDS. CHANCE OF SHOWERS THIS
 MORNING.
TONIGHT
E WIND 10 TO 20 KT RISING TO 15 TO 25 KT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 4 FT. W SWELL 12 FT AT 16 SECONDS SUBSIDING TO 9 FT AT 15 SECONDS. A
 CHANCE OF RAIN.
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