If you’ve seen southern resident orcas in the wild, chances are you were not alone. Each summer, the orcas are mobbed like celebrities, with an average of 20 boats tracking them at any given …
If you’ve seen southern resident orcas in the wild, chances are you were not alone. Each summer, the orcas are mobbed like celebrities, with an average of 20 boats tracking them at any given moment. Unfortunately, all that attention is making it difficult for them to feed when they are literally starving.
We can address this problem by keeping boats farther from the whales, slowing them down and keeping them out of key foraging areas. Most importantly, we can temporarily ban whale-watching on the population for the next three years, when Fisheries and Oceans Canada expects poor salmon returns. Alongside other measures — including increasing the whales’ prey — a temporary suspension is a responsible step that was also recommended by a multi-stakeholder U.S. task force.
You would think that with the declining orca population, commercial operators would want to give them space. After all, they have other marine mammals to watch. Transient orcas and humpback whales are thriving. Indeed, the vast majority of commercial trips focus on them, not southern residents. In 2017, the resident orcas arrived so late in the season that the fleet had no choice but to follow other whales, and it made out fine.
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