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https://komonews.com/news/local/scientists-id-another-possible-threat-to-orcas-pink-salmon
Over the years, scientists have identified dams, pollution and vessel noise as causes of the troubling decline of the Pacific Northwest's resident killer whales. Now, they may have found a new and more surprising culprit: pink salmon.
Four salmon researchers were perusing data on the website of the Center for Whale Research, which studies the orcas, several months ago when they noticed a startling trend: that for the past two decades, significantly more of the whales have died in even-numbered years than in odd years.
In a newly published paper, they speculate that the pattern is related to pink salmon, which return to the Salish Sea between Washington state and Canada in enormous numbers every other year — though they're not sure how. They suspect that the huge runs of pink salmon, which have boomed under conservation efforts and changes in ocean conditions in the past two decades, might interfere with the whales' ability to hunt their preferred prey, Chinook salmon.
Given the dire plight of the orcas, which officials say are on the brink of extinction, the researchers decided to publicize their discovery without waiting to investigate its causes.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 20 2019, @01:15PM (8 children)
I understand that (and why) they prefer Chinook to Pink, but, really - starving to death rather than eating a non-preferred fish?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 20 2019, @01:58PM
Agreed, I'm not seeing what they seem to conclude from the data. Had they suggested that the pink salmon were somehow toxic to the whales, it would make more sense. Not a lot of sense, but more than this. And, what about all the rest of the orca's migratory habits? Is there some remote possibility that they are getting into some unrelated toxic area during that two year cycle? That infamous garbage patch?
Maybe they have some political motive to use the data to get those dams breached? Lots of possibilities here, but they need to make their hypothesis more believable and/or understandable.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday January 20 2019, @03:44PM
Pretty clear to conclude from the data that these alt-right Orca just can't handle how successful conservation is as saving the pink salmon. Ever other year the Orca see the large number of pinks and fly into a rage over this afront to their rightist anti-environment world view and they hunger strike instead of adapting.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 20 2019, @05:11PM (3 children)
versus
So even the smallest average Chinook (I gather they vary by river) is twice the weight of the average Pink.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 20 2019, @05:56PM (2 children)
Orcas also make meals of tiny fish like herring [youtube.com].
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 21 2019, @12:45AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 21 2019, @01:35AM
Some species are so sensitive that a change in ambient noise will interrupt their breeding cycle and drive them extinct - most of those species are already extinct.
Orcas are notoriously adaptable, I'm fairly sure that "too many pink salmon" isn't a problem that, by itself, would lead to mass starvations. Also, the starvations have been repeating long enough to see a biennial pattern - if it was just a few dumb/stubborn pod leaders, they died in the first few cycles.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @09:53PM (1 child)
That's not what's going on. There's a whole ecosystem and one of the drivers is pink salmon. That driver is influencing something else that eventually impacts orcas. Think of it more like a resonant system of antennas and emitters, than a hammer and a nail.
An example mechanism which would be plausible: other predator populations might ebb and surge with the pinks, and could be competing with or simply harassing the orcas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @09:59PM
Sounds like wild speculation to me. I think the facts are:
1) They found an apparent 2 year cycle in whale mortality/birth data since the late 1990s
2) Those salmon populations also follow a two year cycle
That is pretty much the entire connection.