ESA Listing for SRs & the Farm&Builders' Assocs suit

[Luna SHALL Be Free@Sea!!]

From the Orca Network Sighting Report Apr 3, 2006

March 31, 2006
Howard Garrett, Orca Network www.orcanetwork.org

Washington building and farming industries
question orcas’ cultural uniqueness

Last week news echoed across the state and the nation that the Washington state Farm Bureau and the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) filed suit in federal court to overturn the recent listing of Washington's Southern Resident orca community under the Endangered Species Act.

The groups are concerned that the listing, announced by NOAA Fisheries last November, "will result in needless water and land-use restrictions on Washington farms, especially those located near rivers inhabited by salmon," the orcas' primary food source. The builders’ association also worries that the listing will result in restrictions on development around Puget Sound.

The groups base their complaint on a technical point: NOAA declared the Southern Residents a “distinct population” of a subspecies that includes other fish-eating orcas off British Columbia, Alaska and Russia. Under the ESA, the lawyers argue, only a distinct population of a species - not a subspecies - can be listed. The fisheries service could list all Northern Pacific resident orcas as endangered, but it can't list only the Southern Residents. The lawsuit argues the orcas do not deserve protection under the ESA because they are not genetically distinct enough from other orcas in the North Pacific. “You can almost say any individual school of fish can be listed,” said an attorney with the group.

As the case winds its way through the courts and the media, residents of Washington and beyond will hear about some rather astounding new discoveries that have led scientists to conclude that complex and stable orca cultures, found worldwide, appear to have no parallel outside humans and represent an independent evolution of cultural faculties.

By 1980 researchers were amazed to discover that unlike any other mammal known, both male and female Southern Resident orca offspring stay with their mother and her pod their entire lives. It soon became clear that the foundation of the social structure is the matriline, a matriarchal family unit comprised of up to dozens of members of an extended family that may span four or more generations. Matrilines in turn gather into larger groups known as pods. In the Southern Resident community three pods are recognized: J pod, K pod and L pod (the largest). Mating occurs between, but not within, pods.

The three pods occasionally get together for a ritualized greeting ceremony after they have been apart. This amazing but rarely observed phenomenon begins with each pod lining up abreast on the surface. Slowly, individuals approach one another until the lines dissolve. The whales then begin to greet, rub together and play in a seemingly festive celebration that can continue for several days. Researchers recently discovered that when resident orcas dive hundreds of feet to snatch large Chinook salmon, their preferred prey, they often bring them to the surface to rip apart and share with family members.

Overall, the evidence from over thirty years of field research establishes the Southern Resident orca community as a unique and ancient traditional culture. Cultural learning is indicated by their long life span (roughly equivalent to humans’), long childhood learning periods (lifelong, in fact), advanced central nervous system (with brains 4 to 5 times the size of our own), prescribed diet (Residents eat only fish, unlike mammal-eating “transient” orcas), decades-long female post-reproductive life spans, and complex communication system. Each pod uses its own distinct dialect: a unique variety of harmonious whistles, squeaks and honks. Even untrained individuals can distinguish between dialects. The three Southern Resident pods share some calls, but none of the pods share any dialect features with any other orcas.

The lawsuit states that Southern Residents are not genetically distinct enough from other North Pacific residents to warrant protection as a distinct population, but major differences in mitochondrial DNA and their distinct acoustic dialects show that the populations have been reproductively isolated for hundreds of generations. These orca communities are not geographically separated - some cross each others’ paths almost daily - and yet they do not interbreed and are in the process of becoming separate species, a feat previously unheard of in the biological sciences. We don’t find two populations of the same bear species inhabiting the same mountain that never mate with each other, for example.

NOAA originally decided in 2002 that the orcas did not merit ESA protection, but in 2003, U.S. District Court Judge Robert H. Lasnik reviewed the evidence and instructed the Fisheries Service to include it in their deliberations about listing the Southern Residents under the ESA, leading NOAA to conclude that the Southern Residents are indeed a distinct population.

It is understandable that anyone might question the validity of declaring the Southern Residents a distinct, cultural community. The scientific evidence has been coherently assembled only in the past decade and orca taxonomy is currently being revised to accommodate it. Moreover, the implications of cultural orca communities are seismic for the biological sciences. No land mammal except humans has ever demonstrated cultural abilities that approach this level of complexity.

The Farm Bureau and BIAW make clear that of course they like orcas, it’s just the regulatory scheme of the ESA they don’t like. But the Southern Residents are in fact severely endangered, mainly by salmon depletion and toxic pollution, and if we like orcas and want them to remain here for future generations, we’ll need to work out ways to avoid harming them. That’s a very complex task, and the ESA is designed to provide flexible and effective measures to avoid causing the orcas’ extinction.

This lawsuit is likely to help bolster the case for cultural orcas and the need to protect them, especially for farmers and builders who will now be watching closely and learning about the orcas in our midst.
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"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little"
~~Edmund Burke