10/15 Arched hooktip, Columbia dam removal, octopus watch, Van sewage, fisheries management, people and clams

Arched hooktip [Michael Hodge]

Arched hooktip Drepana arcuata
The arched hooktip or masked birch caterpillar is a moth of the family Drepanidae. The species was first described by Francis Walker in 1855. It is found from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, south to at least North Carolina, South Carolina and California...The larvae feed on Betula papyrifera and Alnus species, which they may use as a medium to communicate. Sound is produced by shaking their bodies, drumming and scraping their mouthparts, or dragging specialised anal "oars" against the surface of a leaf. Larvae build communal silk shelters and the sounds may attract other larva to the shelter. (Wikipedia)

Yakama, Lummi tribal leaders call for removal of three lower Columbia River dams
In a historic stand, the Yakama and Lummi nations called Monday for taking down the Bonneville, The Dalles and John Day dams on the Columbia River to restore salmon runs once the mightiest in the world. The three big energy producers churn out enough electricity to power more than 2 million Pacific Northwest homes annually and also provide an important inland navigation route for commercial goods. Jay Julius, chairman of the Lummi Nation, and JoDe Goudy, chairman of the Yakama Nation, gathered — on Indigenous Peoples Day — at Celilo Village, all that is left of the fishing and cultural center at Celilo Falls, the most productive salmon fishery in the world for some 11,000 years. The falls were drowned beneath the reservoir of The Dalles Dam in 1957. Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)

Why's the octopus awake? Night at the Seattle Aquarium 
It’s almost midnight and Bailey is still awake, stretching and pushing against the glass in front of her. Bailey is an octopus at the Seattle Aquarium, and she’s not the only one at the Aquarium at this hour. Michelle Arnett is the night biologist at the Seattle Aquarium. Arnett works in semi-darkness, occasionally flipping on a flashlight with a red, muted glow ... because, despite the wakefulness of some residents, it’s night time for the animals, too. It’s the octopuses you want to keep an eye on, she said. The top of the exhibit has a ring with Astroturf on it, something the suckers can’t stick to. Kate Walters reports. (KUOW)

Metro Vancouver looks at turning sewage sludge into fuel, fertilizer
Metro Vancouver is moving ahead with planning for a facility that will dry the solid waste left over from sewage treatment so it can be burned as fuel or mixed into fertilizer. “It’s innovative for us, it’s new for us, it’s a proven technology,” said Lillian Zaremba, a program manager with Metro’s liquid waste services department. “This is exciting because it’s different uses than we’ve had in the past, so a diversity of options.” The regional district’s five wastewater treatment plants processed more than 450 billion litres of sewage in 2018 and generated 55,000 tonnes of treated sewage sludge, or biosolids. Over the past 20 years, Metro has used 98 per cent of its biosolids on land, including in Nutrifor topsoil for landscaping projects in the region, reclaiming mine sites and gravel pits, as a biocover for landfills to absorb methane, and for fertilizing range and agricultural land in the Interior. Jennifer Saltman reports. (Vancouver Sun)

Fishing for the triple bottom line: profit, planet — and people
Fisheries managers typically strive to strike a delicate balance between two, often competing, types of needs: the needs for fishermen’s profits and the needs for the planet. But in 1994, entrepreneur John Elkington posited that true sustainability requires consideration of a third “P” — the needs of the people. In making this argument, he coined the term “the triple bottom line.” In a new study, an interdisciplinary group of researchers used Pacific herring in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, as a case study for modeling the implicit tradeoffs within the triple bottom line that result from various fisheries management decisions. They found that considering spatial dynamics is a key component of this modeling process — for example, considering the geographic areas of the fish populations, the areas that are important to the various communities of people, and the areas that are impacted by management decisions. Samantha Larson reports. (UW News)

People and clams have a more complex history than you might think
The relationship between clams and humans is deeper than just chowder. We’ve been interacting with the bivalves for thousands of years, according to a new study, and the animals have actually thrived under human management. Researchers focused on clams in the Salish Sea in British Columbia in Canada. They started out looking at populations of butter clams—small, tasty marine mollusks—that lived about 11,500 years ago before the arrival of permanent human settlers. These early clams were relatively small—about 80% the size of today’s butter clams—but they got bigger and lived longer as sea levels stabilized and glaciers receded after the end of the last ice age, leaving rocky sea floors in their wake. By 10,900 to 9500 years ago, the clams were much larger, Eva Frederick reports. (Science Magazine)


Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  224 AM PDT Tue Oct 15 2019   
TODAY  SE wind 10 to 20 kt becoming E in the afternoon. Wind  waves 1 to 3 ft. W swell 3 ft at 14 seconds building to 7 ft at  12 seconds in the afternoon. A slight chance of rain in the  morning then rain in the afternoon. 
TONIGHT  SE wind 10 to 20 kt easing to 5 to 15 kt after  midnight. Wind waves 1 to 3 ft. W swell 9 ft at 11 seconds. Rain  in the evening then rain likely after midnight.



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