7/21 Sculpin, orcas, quiet seas, BC haz waste, Haida Gwaiii tensions, polar bears, climate threat, salmon recovery, sense of place

Roughback sculpin [DiverKevin]

Roughback sculpin
Roughback sculpin are found from northern British Columbia to Baja California. They are common from the intertidal to deep water. They bury themselves during the day and  are active at night, feeding on shrimp and other crustaceans worms and snails. (Marine Wildlife of Puget Sound, the San Juans and the Strait of Georgia)    See also: Sculpins of Puget Sound (Seattle Aquarium)

Orcas without borders
There’s an imaginary line that sweeps along the length of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and zigzags north through Haro Strait and between the San Juan and Gulf Islands. The line represents an international border, demarcating the frontier between the United States and Canada. It’s also a major shipping lane, connecting Vancouver, Seattle, and other Salish Sea ports to the web of global commerce. For the southern resident orcas, it’s simply a part of home – a vector traveling through some of their most important habitat. The Salish Sea’s endangered southern resident orcas travel freely across the U.S.-Canada border, unconstrained by political boundaries. But while they don’t require passports, they can still face differing policies and conditions as they go back and forth between nations. We look at some of the ways that the United States and Canada compare in their efforts to protect the whales. Sarah DeWeerdt reports. (Puget Sound Institute)

Whales Get A Break As Pandemic Creates Quieter Oceans
When humpback whales migrated to Glacier Bay in Alaska this year to spend the long summer days feeding, they arrived to something unusual: quieter waters. As the global pandemic slows international shipping and keeps cruise ships docked, scientists are finding measurably less noise in the ocean. That could provide momentary relief for whales and other marine mammals that are highly sensitive to noise. Through networks of underwater hydrophones, scientists are hoping to learn how the mammals' communication changes when the drone of ships is turned down, potentially informing new policies to protect them. Lauren Sommer reports. (NPR)

B.C. rarely inspects hazardous waste handlers despite companies frequently breaking rules
Provincial investigators found companies weren’t fully compliant with regulations 70 per cent of the time in the five years since a digital database of shipments was replaced with paper files shoved in cardboard boxes.  Ben Parfitt reports. (The Narwhal)

Tensions between B.C. fishing lodges, Haida Nation escalate over COVID-19
RCMP in northwest B.C. say they will review video of a confrontation on the water near Haida Gwaii between members of the Haida Nation and staff of a local fishing lodge. The video appears to show some five vessels from the Queen Charlotte Lodge passing too close to a pair of smaller Haida boats, leading to a tense verbal exchange.Tensions have been rising on Haida Gwaii since the luxury fishing lodge, which is on the northernmost island of the archipelago, reopened despite a state of emergency in the Haida Nation because of COVID-19. Nicole Oud reports. (CBC)

Global Warming Is Driving Polar Bears Toward Extinction, Researchers Say
By century’s end, polar bears worldwide could become nearly extinct as a result of shrinking sea ice in the Arctic if climate change continues unabated, scientists said. Henry Fountain reports. (NY Times)

Climate Change Poses ‘Systemic Threat’ to the Economy, Big Investors Warn
Climate change threatens to create turmoil in the financial markets, and the Federal Reserve and other regulators must act to avoid an economic disaster, according to a letter sent on Tuesday by a group of large investors. Christopher Flavelle reports. (NY Times)

Issues 2020: Orca and Salmon Recovery
After more than two decades of effort, salmon recovery in Puget Sound continues to fall far short of promised targets. The result is that Chinook salmon are not close to being removed from the Endangered Species List and the population of Southern Resident Killer Whales continues to decline due, in part, to lack of food. Despite the high-profile creation of the governor’s Orca Task Force, state policies have not yielded improvement and are unlikely to do so in the near future. Todd Myers writes. (Washington Policy Center)

Research Article: Whose Puget Sound?: Examining Place Attachment, Residency, and Stewardship in the Puget Sound Region
Based on data from over 2,000 responses to a general population survey, the authors highlight the current status of place attachment among Puget Sound residents and the extent to which residency matters to their stated attachment to place and environmental stewardship behaviors. This examination challenges often touted negative perceptions of the region’s newcomers and concludes that residents, new and old, share a strong positive place attachment and sense of pro-environmental stewardship. David J. Trimbach, Whitney Fleming & Kelly Biedenweg. (Geographical Review)



Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  254 AM PDT Tue Jul 21 2020   
TODAY  W wind to 10 kt becoming 5 to 15 kt in the afternoon.  Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell 6 ft at 9 seconds. 
TONIGHT  W wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell  5 ft at 10 seconds.




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