AR-News: (US) Wash. State Adds Orcas to Endangered List

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

1 hour, 48 minutes agoAdd Science - AP to My Yahoo!


SEATTLE - The state Department of Fish and Wildlife has added Puget Sound's 
orcas to the state's endangered species list, The Seattle Times reported 
Monday. 
 
"This may be a step toward some significant changes," said David Bain, an 
affiliate assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington who 
has been researching local whales for 25 years. "One of the reasons killer 
whales have been troubled is that food supply has been depleted. The state has a 
major role to play in salmon." 
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, a nine-member citizens panel 
that sets policy for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, voted unanimously 
Saturday in Spokane to approve the listing. 
The agency made a recommendation for the listing last month based on a status 
report indicating the population of "southern residents" in Puget Sound and 
nearby waters has declined 18 percent since 1995. 
The "southern residents" in the inland marine waters off Washington state and 
British Columbia include 84 orcas — down from a historical high of more than 
120 in the 1960s. 
A state listing would trigger a recovery plan that would guide efforts to 
protect the killer whales. Southern resident orcas are listed as "depleted" under 
the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, which also requires a recovery plan 
for the species. 





full story:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=753&e=4&u=/ap/2004040
5/ap_on_sc/orca_status 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040405/96a8c32a/attachment.html