June 4, 2019 — Population growth is threatening efforts to save Southern Resident killer whales, whose decline is not being treated with the urgency the crisis demands, officials said in a task force meeting in Washington state Monday.
The Puget Sound area surrounding the Salish Sea is expected to be home to almost 6 million more people by 2050, which would add between 33 and 150 square miles of paved area, according to the Washington Department of Commerce.
“Population growth is the top challenge for conserving habitat,” Jeff Davis, assistant director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s habitat program, said Monday at the Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force meeting.
Governor Jay Inslee convened the task force last year, asking it to provide recommendations to prevent the endangered whales’ extinction.
Unlike most orca, Southern Residents exclusively eat fish – mostly Chinook salmon, which are also listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Dwindling food, an abundance of ship noise that interferes with the whales’ ability to hear and increasingly toxic waters are factors that have reduced their numbers from a high of 200 to the current low of 76 whales, which are divided into three extended families – also known as pods.