10/20 Monarch butterfly, Puget Sound nitrogen, salmon and trees, salmon and orcas

Monarch Butterfly [National Geographic]

 

Monarch Butterfly Danaus plexippus
Monarchs are large, beautifully colored butterflies that are easy to recognize by their striking orange, black, and white markings. The wingspan of a full-grown monarch can reach nearly five inches (13 centimeters), although the average is closer to four inches (10 centimeters). The most amazing thing about monarch butterflies is the enormous migration that North American monarchs undertake each year. Every fall, as cold weather approaches, millions of these delicate insects leave their home range in Canada and the United States and begin flying south. They continue until they reach Southern California or central Mexico, more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away! (National Geographic)

Urine trouble: High nitrogen levels in Puget Sound cause ecological worry
Among its many environmental challenges, Puget Sound has a water quality problem caused in part from too much pee from the 4.5 million people living in the region. This problem, known euphemistically as “nutrient waste,” has caused Puget Sound to run afoul of the federal Clean Water Act. Now the Washington Department of Ecology is poised to finalize new regulations for wastewater treatment plants that seek to cut down how much they concentrate and dump nutrient waste into the sound. Most of the sewage plants in the region don’t filter out nutrients before discharging their treated water. The new “nutrient general permit” that the Ecology Department is proposing would apply to 58 wastewater treatment plants around the sound. Ashley Braun reports. (Crosscut)

Salmon Need Trees
A new study stands as a striking reminder that logging watersheds has an outsized impact on salmon and trout. Led by Kyle Wilson at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, the study looked at the successes and failures of five species of salmonids in the Keogh River (called Giyuxw by the local Kwakiutl First Nation) on northern Vancouver Island. For steelhead trout, the salmonid Wilson and his colleagues had the most data for, the problems the fish faced in the BC river hit the population just as hard as the challenges they faced out at sea. Wilson suspects the same holds true for other species with similar life cycles. Nicola Jones reports. (Hakai Magazine)

Letter: Joint response to “no apparent shortage of prey for Southern Resident killer whales” in the Salish Sea
On Oct. 12, the University of British Columbia issued a press release claiming that a newly published study has “debunked” the idea that there are fewer Chinook salmon available during the summer for the endangered Southern resident killer whales compared to the abundance of fish available to the Northern resident killer whales. The press release grossly overstates the findings of the referenced study. The UBC study describes a new methodology for surveying for Chinook salmon in the oceanic environment, but includes too many unknowns and is too small of a data set to come to such a broad-sweeping conclusion. A coalition of partner organizations has responded with an in-depth statement which can be found at https://orcabehaviorinstitute.org/news/joint-response/. Letter signed by: Orca Behavior Institute, Orca Network, Center for Whale Research, Whale Scout, Salish Sea Ecosystem Advocates, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Wild Orca, Orca Conservancy, University of Exeter, Salish Sea School, Pacific Northwest Protectors, Salish Sea Orca Squad.

Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  301 AM PDT Wed Oct 20 2021   
TODAY  SE wind 10 to 20 kt becoming SW in the afternoon. Wind  waves 1 to 3 ft. SW swell 8 ft at 13 seconds. Rain in the morning  then a chance of showers and a slight chance of tstms in the  afternoon. 
TONIGHT  SE wind 10 to 20 kt rising to 15 to 25 kt after  midnight. Wind waves 2 to 4 ft. W swell 6 ft at 13 seconds. A  chance of showers and a slight chance of tstms in the evening  then a chance of rain after midnight.

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