![]() Ship noise can mask the whale calls, effectively blinding the mammals, whose ears in a lot of ways act as their eyes.Ĭanadian and American government agencies have identified physical and acoustic disturbance as one of the key threats to survival of the fish-eating killer whales, along with lack of prey and water pollution. ![]() Orcas primarily use sound - including echolocation - to hunt for food, orient and communicate. ![]() Pacific Northwest and southwestern British Columbia has dwindled to 73 individuals. The population of resident killer whales in the transboundary waters of the U.S. J pod returned to inland Puget Sound to forage on October 7 and then departed after three days for points unknown. The pod stuck around for a couple days and then swam back out of Admiralty Inlet to scout the west side of San Juan Island. The sleek black-and-white visitors were members of J pod, according to trained observers from Orca Network. "They kind of snuck in under the cover of the poor air quality and fog and showed up just off of Seattle. "They came in a little bit earlier than the window" on October 4 this season, said Aronson with a smile, before noting the dates of the state's trial slowdown were firmly fixed. She estimated that participating when it is safe to do so might add between 10 minutes to an hour of ships' travel time, depending on their usual speed. "When large vessels slow their speed they reduce the amount of underwater noise they create and less underwater noise means better habitat for the endangered Southern Resident killer whales," said Rachel Aronson, the program director of Quiet Sound, which is the relatively new, government-funded outfit that organized the slowdown trial.Īronson said the requested speed reduction varies by vessel type, but for most it would be a 30% to 50% slowdown over a distance of 20 nautical miles. The slowdown area covers the shipping lanes from Admiralty Inlet by Port Townsend south to Kingston and Mukilteo. The voluntary slowdown for container ships, tankers, freighters, cruise ships and car carriers is scheduled to run from October 24 to December 22. Washington state is importing this strategy from British Columbia on a trial basis in hopes of helping the Pacific Northwest's critically endangered killer whales. Big ships entering and leaving Puget Sound will be asked to temporarily slow down to reduce underwater noise this fall.
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