WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:04.880 - All right. 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:09.280 Good afternoon for everybody. Good evening on the East Coast 00:00:09.280 --> 00:00:13.140 and whatever other time zones we might have. 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:20.100 I want to welcome all of you to our National Marine Sanctuary Webinar series. 00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:25.279 This is a series that we've offered for the last four and a half years 00:00:25.279 --> 00:00:30.920 and it's hosted by the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:35.500 And we have found over the years that it is a great way for us to connect with 00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:40.140 formal and informal educators during these times of shelter at place. 00:00:40.140 --> 00:00:44.320 We're connecting with middle and high school students, college students, 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:49.580 as well as even families and anyone that's interested in the topic that we're presenting. 00:00:49.580 --> 00:00:51.480 So welcome to all of you. 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:57.080 We have over 900 registrants for today's webinar, which is really exciting. 00:00:57.080 --> 00:01:02.020 We're inching up towards our capacity of I guess it's a thousand attendees. 00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:05.920 So we can even have more than a thousand people register because not everyone can join us 00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:07.760 during the live broadcast. 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:10.800 But we're so excited that you're all here. 00:01:11.320 --> 00:01:18.500 I wanted to let everyone know that as an attendee you have joined today's webinar in listen only mode, 00:01:18.500 --> 00:01:21.420 but there will be an opportunity for questions 00:01:21.420 --> 00:01:26.440 and a little Q & A period at the end of our presentation, today. 00:01:26.900 --> 00:01:29.800 So, let's see. 00:01:29.800 --> 00:01:32.480 We're recording today's session, as we always do. 00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:35.700 So for those of you that aren't-- that end up watching the recording, 00:01:35.700 --> 00:01:39.160 it'll be made available on our archive page. You can share it broadly. 00:01:39.160 --> 00:01:43.560 We have other resources that go on that webinar archive page, as well. 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:49.700 So with that, I wanted to welcome all of you and introduce you 00:01:49.700 --> 00:01:53.320 to our National Marine Sanctuary system. 00:01:53.320 --> 00:01:59.540 This webinar series is a great way for us to connect you to your underwater treasures, 00:01:59.540 --> 00:02:04.380 your National Marine Sanctuaries and the Marine National Monuments that NOAA manages. 00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:11.760 So this is a network of underwater parks that encompass more than 600,000 square miles 00:02:11.760 --> 00:02:14.580 of ocean and Great Lakes treasures. 00:02:14.580 --> 00:02:20.280 So from Lake Huron Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, down the Atlantic coast 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:25.320 into the Gulf of Mexico, to the Pacific islands in the south Pacific in American Samoa, 00:02:25.320 --> 00:02:30.920 working our way all the way up to the California coast and to where we're going to be focused, today, 00:02:30.920 --> 00:02:34.180 the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. 00:02:34.860 --> 00:02:39.380 So it's important to note that National Marine Sanctuaries and Marine National Monuments 00:02:39.380 --> 00:02:43.680 protect the ocean and the Great Lakes for now and for future generations. 00:02:44.220 --> 00:02:48.840 And so these special ocean areas are set aside for a wide variety of reasons, 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:54.300 In some cases, it's the biodiversity conservation value of a site, 00:02:54.300 --> 00:02:58.780 it could be that we're protecting historic shipwrecks 00:02:58.780 --> 00:03:03.860 and other cultural and maritime heritage elements of an underwater treasure. 00:03:04.460 --> 00:03:09.480 These places provide shelter and safe haven for lots of endangered species, 00:03:09.480 --> 00:03:13.000 like this Hawaiian green sea turtle and Hawaiian monk seal. 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:20.840 Through our mandate, we are required to do education, we do outreach, 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:24.760 we do research 00:03:25.700 --> 00:03:27.120 and monitoring. 00:03:28.020 --> 00:03:32.800 And all of this with the expectation to help protect the resource. 00:03:33.820 --> 00:03:37.360 And so these are just special marine places. These are your treasures. 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:42.000 They're like underwater National Parks, but National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:48.240 And these are places that you can also enjoy, like you can the National Forest or National Park. 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:53.200 You can kayak or paddle there, in many cases, you can even fish there, 00:03:53.200 --> 00:03:57.800 lots of opportunities to snorkel and scuba dive 00:03:58.840 --> 00:03:59.840 and surf 00:04:00.620 --> 00:04:04.440 and of course getting out on a boat and doing some wildlife viewing. 00:04:04.440 --> 00:04:06.800 So lots of great ways to get involved 00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:11.900 and you can even, if this excites you, you can become a volunteer for the National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:16.100 So I hope that gives you a nice visual tour of these special underwater treasures 00:04:16.100 --> 00:04:18.020 that protect the ocean and Great Lakes. 00:04:18.020 --> 00:04:20.220 Let's get into today's presentation. 00:04:20.700 --> 00:04:21.280 So, 00:04:21.940 --> 00:04:26.020 for some of you that are new you may not be familiar, but my name is Claire Fackler. 00:04:26.020 --> 00:04:30.500 And I'm today's host for the National Marine Sanctuaries webinar series. 00:04:30.500 --> 00:04:33.640 I'm sitting here in Santa Barbara, California. 00:04:33.640 --> 00:04:37.080 I work for the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:04:37.080 --> 00:04:40.160 My co-host today is Jacqueline Laverdure. 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:45.160 She's the education coordinator at the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary 00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:47.500 and she is in Port Angeles, Washington. 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:52.000 We are also joined by Chris Butler-Minor, also in Port Angeles, 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.260 who's the community engagement specialist. 00:04:54.260 --> 00:04:58.460 And Chris is going to introduce our special guest speaker, today, to talk about orcas. 00:04:58.460 --> 00:04:59.560 So Chris, take it away. 00:05:00.780 --> 00:05:01.600 - Thank you, Claire. 00:05:02.180 --> 00:05:06.620 So I'm very happy that all of you have taken the time to join us, today, 00:05:06.620 --> 00:05:11.620 and I'm very pleased to be able to present on behalf of 00:05:11.620 --> 00:05:16.420 not only the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, but Faro Marine Life Center 00:05:16.420 --> 00:05:19.860 and the Peninsula College Associated Student Council. 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:23.540 Our special guest speaker Lynda Mapes. 00:05:23.540 --> 00:05:28.200 She is an award-winning journalist with the Seattle Times. 00:05:29.880 --> 00:05:34.960 She specializes in coverage of the environment, natural history, 00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:40.080 Native American tribes. She's written several books. 00:05:40.080 --> 00:05:45.740 I've read a couple of them and have enjoyed them tremendously, and would recommend them. 00:05:46.420 --> 00:05:54.100 And today, she is going to talk to us about a study that she and others at the times 00:05:54.100 --> 00:06:02.820 did over an 18-month period looking at orcas in the Puget Sound and on the coast. 00:06:02.820 --> 00:06:07.800 And I could go on and on talking about how much i admire her, but instead, 00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:12.600 I'm going to let her start talking to you about what orcas teach us. Thank you. 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:20.040 - All right, Lynda, we'll get you set up and off you'll go. 00:06:27.520 --> 00:06:31.300 Let's see hold on let me work on your-- I'll unmute you, here. 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:33.080 All right, go ahead, Lynda. 00:06:34.440 --> 00:06:38.120 - Hi everyone. i'm delighted to talk with you, today, albeit remotely. 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:44.760 I think one of the very first things Iwant to know is how many of you are from Washington state? 00:06:44.760 --> 00:06:48.540 One of the things we're going to do in our talk, today, is I'm going to ask you a couple questions 00:06:48.540 --> 00:06:49.860 and you're going to take a poll. 00:06:50.140 --> 00:06:53.300 So go ahead and tell me; do you live in Washington state? 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.220 - Okay. we have launched the poll 00:07:02.220 --> 00:07:09.360 and it looks like we have 63 percent of the participants have voted. 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:10.940 We'll give it another five seconds. 00:07:12.960 --> 00:07:19.660 And we're going to go ahead and then close out the poll. 00:07:21.200 --> 00:07:24.820 And sharing the results, right now. 00:07:25.900 --> 00:07:30.240 We have 62 percent do not live in Washington state, but 38 do. 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:33.880 So if you do not live in Washington state and you want to write in the question box 00:07:33.880 --> 00:07:36.040 where you do live, that would be great. 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:40.380 I'm going to go ahead and hide the poll and put it back to you, Lynda. 00:07:42.400 --> 00:07:45.880 Okay so i'm a little surprised by that, actually. 00:07:45.880 --> 00:07:48.920 I thought it would be the other way around. I thought we'd have a lot more people 00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:50.300 from Washington state. 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:54.940 But all the better to share the news about orcas and what we can learn from orcas. 00:07:54.940 --> 00:07:57.800 So, that leads me to my next poll question for you 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:00.360 and then we'll get into the substance of our presentation, 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:02.340 which is how many of you have seen this? 00:08:02.340 --> 00:08:08.560 Which is the series called hostile waters, which ran as a five-part series in the Seattle Times. 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:11.220 How many of you read it or aware of it? 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:17.180 - All right, Lynda, we're launching that poll now 00:08:17.180 --> 00:08:20.640 and just as we're getting in the answers there, I'll tell you where some of these folks are from 00:08:20.640 --> 00:08:24.840 because they're from everywhere. We have Minnesota, Savannah, Florida, 00:08:24.840 --> 00:08:30.720 Florida Keys, Alaska, Maine, California, Vancouver, Hawaii, Utah, California, 00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:37.360 D.C., Massachusetts, San Antonio, Oregon, New Jersey, so everywhere. Portugal, Kauai, 00:08:38.400 --> 00:08:42.160 someone in Sequim, Washington, which is just down the road from where I am. 00:08:42.160 --> 00:08:45.760 Florida, San Diego, lots of places in Hawaii 00:08:46.420 --> 00:08:52.320 So all over the place. North Carolina, Monterey, wow all over, Wyoming 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:54.760 - Great great great. So now that we've got that, 00:08:54.760 --> 00:08:58.100 We're getting most of our answers in for this current poll. 00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:03.440 And we have seven let's see 71 percent have voted. We'll give another five seconds. 00:09:07.040 --> 00:09:09.940 And I'm going to go ahead and close this poll. 00:09:11.680 --> 00:09:15.240 And i'll share the results. 00:09:17.520 --> 00:09:20.460 It looks like 74 percent are going to be new to your materials! 00:09:20.460 --> 00:09:25.000 So this is great 23 percent we're able to read them and four percent are not sure. 00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:28.080 I'll hide this and i'll go back to your screen. 00:09:29.140 --> 00:09:30.420 - Okay. Great. 00:09:30.420 --> 00:09:32.280 So good to know. 00:09:32.280 --> 00:09:37.720 Given that, let me just back up a step and and tell you who we are at the Seattle Times. 00:09:37.720 --> 00:09:41.900 The Seattle times is a locally owned, a family-owned paper, 00:09:41.900 --> 00:09:45.300 and it's been owned by the same family and published by the same family 00:09:45.300 --> 00:09:48.500 for more than a hundred years. That's very unusual in the United States. 00:09:48.500 --> 00:09:52.080 And I'm very proud as a reporter to work at the Seattle Times. 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:57.040 Everything I'm going to show you today these are all photographs and graphics 00:09:57.040 --> 00:10:01.460 that exist online at seattletimes.com. 00:10:01.460 --> 00:10:08.260 The entire series is online and free for you to browse and enjoy at seattletimes.com. 00:10:08.260 --> 00:10:12.900 You will eventually hit a paywall but you can at least look through and see if you want to subscribe. 00:10:12.900 --> 00:10:14.820 And I certainly urge you to do so. 00:10:14.820 --> 00:10:18.820 Journalism is one of the corners of our democracy 00:10:18.820 --> 00:10:22.640 and here at the Seattle Times, we have taken that very seriously. 00:10:22.640 --> 00:10:24.500 When in our coverage of the environment, 00:10:24.500 --> 00:10:31.640 we launched a very in-depth investigation about this top predator in every one of the world's oceans. 00:10:31.640 --> 00:10:35.280 And no matter where you live, no matter where you're watching this from, 00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:37.960 there are orcas in the ocean, somewhere near you. 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:42.040 And this is a magnificent predator, top predator, and yet 00:10:42.040 --> 00:10:48.320 it's struggling to survive in our waters here in the Pacific Northwest, in the northeastern Pacific. 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:53.140 So at the Seattle Times, we decided to really dig into that and find out why. 00:10:53.140 --> 00:10:56.280 What were the roots of this ecological crisis? 00:10:56.280 --> 00:10:59.340 So what started it for us? Why did we decide to do that? 00:10:59.340 --> 00:11:02.080 Well it all started with this one whale. 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:07.380 This beautiful mother whale, who has a nickname here locally, Tahlequah. 00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:12.700 This beautiful mother whale gave birth in the summer of 2018 00:11:12.700 --> 00:11:17.980 to the first calf, to the southern resident population of orcas in three years. 00:11:17.980 --> 00:11:21.080 They hadn't had a baby in three years. 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:26.980 So there was great hope, enormous joy, at the birth of this calf, which was also a female. 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:34.280 But then there was a terrible tragic outcome. That little baby whale lived only for one half hour. 00:11:34.280 --> 00:11:40.500 And you see ,right here on my screen, I'm circling a shape that you see at her head. 00:11:40.500 --> 00:11:42.460 That is actually her calf. 00:11:42.460 --> 00:11:46.740 Mother orca, Tahlequah, did something that biologists know 00:11:46.740 --> 00:11:53.400 very high functioning intelligent social animals, such as elephants, do if they lose a baby: 00:11:53.400 --> 00:11:56.640 they grieve. Just like you and me. 00:11:57.260 --> 00:12:04.400 Mother orca, Tahlequah, carried that calf for 17 days, for 1 000 miles. 00:12:04.400 --> 00:12:09.680 She swam in the waters of the Pacific Northwest just refusing to let her baby go. 00:12:10.440 --> 00:12:15.080 Well at the Seattle Times, I became aware of that very on in her tour of grief 00:12:15.080 --> 00:12:19.400 and we decided at the newspaper we were going to follow her. We were going to stick with her. 00:12:19.400 --> 00:12:24.680 We were going to write about her every single day until she let go of that calf. 00:12:24.680 --> 00:12:30.080 And do you know that, by the end of 17 days, millions of people were following that story 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:30.920 around the world. 00:12:30.920 --> 00:12:37.160 I'll bet many of you listening right now followed the journey of grief of mother orca, Tahlequah. 00:12:37.160 --> 00:12:43.100 She was a mother who just happened to be a whale, a boundary crashing species, 00:12:43.100 --> 00:12:47.900 who suddenly connected everyone around the world with the plight of the orca whale. 00:12:47.900 --> 00:12:54.500 Why was the Southern Resident population of orcas down to only, at that time, 74 animals? 00:12:54.500 --> 00:12:58.680 And, today, I'm sorry to tell you, it's even fewer, only 72. 00:12:58.680 --> 00:13:01.760 Well, that's what we're going to talk about, today, in this webinar. 00:13:01.760 --> 00:13:05.420 What does the orca teach us about the state of our watersheds 00:13:05.420 --> 00:13:07.980 and even the state of our world. 00:13:07.980 --> 00:13:11.620 She's the whale who started it all. Mother orca, Tahlequah. 00:13:12.060 --> 00:13:17.180 So what did we do at the paper? We decided to go everywhere the Southern Residents go. 00:13:17.180 --> 00:13:19.740 Throughout their vast migratory range. 00:13:19.740 --> 00:13:27.200 This whale swims and forages and eats and lives in family groups all the way from the northern waters 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:29.940 of B.C. to California. 00:13:29.940 --> 00:13:33.320 That's why they're called the Southern Residents; they go very far south. 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:38.780 So what did we do first? We went up north where their relatives, the Northern Residents, 00:13:38.780 --> 00:13:43.300 also a resident population of orcas, is doing very well! 00:13:43.300 --> 00:13:47.920 These orcas are thriving up there. They're having babies every single year. 00:13:47.920 --> 00:13:51.920 Playing and frolicking, their families are getting bigger and bigger. 00:13:52.680 --> 00:13:56.220 And why is that? Well take a look at this picture. What do you see? 00:13:56.220 --> 00:14:01.740 You see an intact coastline, you see a forest, you see clean quiet water. 00:14:02.380 --> 00:14:09.680 We went to go see Paul Spong at Orcalab, a very remote outpost up in the waters of B.C. 00:14:09.680 --> 00:14:12.520 and we talked to him about the Northern Resident whales. 00:14:12.520 --> 00:14:17.000 From orca lab, looking out into the waters of the Johnstone Strait 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:22.300 and listening to the sounds of these whales that he records on speakers under water! 00:14:22.300 --> 00:14:27.900 This is what the forest looks like out behind Orcalab. Look at that giant, giant tree. 00:14:27.900 --> 00:14:35.000 So these waters of northern B.C. are very different than the waters that the Southern Residents live in. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:38.960 The waters that the Northern Residents live in, such as Johnstone Strait, 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:42.740 here where you see these scientists working, are much cleaner, 00:14:42.740 --> 00:14:47.800 the prey within those waters, including salmon, is much cleaner, 00:14:47.800 --> 00:14:53.100 it has far fewer pollutants in the flesh of the salmon, such as PCBs. 00:14:53.100 --> 00:14:58.440 Not only that, but there are many more salmon for these Northern Resident orcas to choose from. 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:02.400 More varieties of salmon and just plain more salmon. 00:15:02.400 --> 00:15:08.060 In fact, some of the very same Chinook salmon that the Southern Resident orcas want to try to eat 00:15:08.060 --> 00:15:10.480 down here in Washington water. 00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:15.279 So those Northern Residents are getting up there before those salmon head south. 00:15:15.279 --> 00:15:18.460 So they've got a real advantage over the Southern Residents. 00:15:18.460 --> 00:15:22.080 What's the real difference between the Northern Residents and the Southerns? 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:23.520 It's us! 00:15:23.520 --> 00:15:30.080 All of the millions of people living in Vancouver, B.C., in Seattle and the surrounding area 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:34.320 that are competing with the Southern Residents for the things they need to survive. 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.500 And so that was the launch of the series. 00:15:36.500 --> 00:15:40.480 We looked north to where the Northern Residents are living and discovered 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:46.600 That you know these animals, these orca whales, when they have what they need to survive, they do great. 00:15:46.600 --> 00:15:50.100 This isn't some crybaby species that just can't get it done. 00:15:50.100 --> 00:15:53.780 No, it's a top predator, but they need the things they need. 00:15:53.780 --> 00:15:59.460 They need clean water, they need adequate food and they also need quiet water, 00:15:59.460 --> 00:16:02.240 so that they can actually hunt with success. 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:07.760 They need water, in other words, that looks like this. A lot more like the waters of Puget Sound 00:16:07.760 --> 00:16:10.900 where I live, in Seattle, used to. 00:16:11.920 --> 00:16:15.000 So one of the things we thought would be so important in this story, 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:17.980 especially for readers new to the subject, like a lot of you, 00:16:17.980 --> 00:16:23.520 was some beautiful graphics. And we're very fortunate with Emily Eng, who was a member of our team, 00:16:23.520 --> 00:16:28.420 who did these absolutely beautiful graphics, explaining a lot about the ecology 00:16:28.420 --> 00:16:30.320 of the orca whale. 00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:35.200 So i'll just quickly orient you to some of this. Again, it's all online and i encourage you to look at it. 00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:42.020 Emily beautifully explained here that there are many different types of orca in the northeastern Pacific. 00:16:42.020 --> 00:16:45.140 It's one species, orca, but different types. 00:16:45.140 --> 00:16:49.240 You've got the Northern Residents, here, you've got the Southern Residents, 00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:53.580 Both a resident species of whale which eats salmon. 00:16:53.580 --> 00:16:59.000 They eat different kinds of salmon, but preferentially, Chinook, the very biggest salmon. 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:01.660 But salmon is the main thing they eat. 00:17:01.660 --> 00:17:04.720 Then you have transient or Biggs killer whales. 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:10.680 Now this looks just or very similar to the Resident whale, but it has a very different diet. 00:17:10.680 --> 00:17:16.080 That is the biggest difference. The transients eat marine mammals, seals, porpoises, 00:17:16.080 --> 00:17:21.620 even, believe it or not, baby gray whale calves, minke whales, thousand pounds sea lions, 00:17:21.620 --> 00:17:23.640 it's incredible what they can do. 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:27.080 So it's an orca, but it eats a very different diet. 00:17:27.080 --> 00:17:32.700 Finally, the Offshores. These whales live out on the outer continental shore shelf 00:17:32.700 --> 00:17:36.600 and we know the least about them just because they're so far out there. They're rarely seen. 00:17:36.600 --> 00:17:38.780 We think they mainly eat sharks! 00:17:38.780 --> 00:17:42.580 How do we know that? Because their teeth. They're quite sanded down. 00:17:42.580 --> 00:17:48.200 And as you can see here in Emily's map, these animals share space. They overlap, 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:50.640 but they have different primary home ranges. 00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:55.940 For the Southern Residents, they come all the way down here from B.C., as we discussed. 00:17:55.940 --> 00:18:01.020 Here's Vancouver island, down to California. The Northern Residents they're mainly up here 00:18:01.020 --> 00:18:05.320 And the Offshores are out here, whereas the Bigg's, they're just all over the place, 00:18:05.320 --> 00:18:06.900 chasing those seals. 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:10.680 Just a little bit about some of the fun we had making this series. 00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:14.920 Emily made that beautiful orca that you saw on the graphic out of clay 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:18.240 and baked it in our toaster oven in the newsroom. 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:22.520 And we even gave this sculpture a name. We called him Hank 00:18:22.520 --> 00:18:26.740 and Hank had a big job to do, which was explained in these different graphics. 00:18:26.740 --> 00:18:32.420 The very complicated biology and internal workings of an orca whale. 00:18:32.420 --> 00:18:37.480 So orcas have a very, very special ability called echolocation. 00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:40.400 It is how they actually see with sound. 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:44.260 You and I, we are completely sight oriented as mammals. 00:18:44.260 --> 00:18:49.580 Orcas live in a very different world, below water, where mostly it's dark all the time. 00:18:49.580 --> 00:18:52.340 So how do they hunt their prey, salmon? 00:18:52.340 --> 00:18:53.720 Well they do it with sound. 00:18:53.720 --> 00:18:58.720 And they have these very specialized structures, within their head, that enable them to do that. 00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:03.780 This here is called a melon and it's actually filled with a kind of oil 00:19:03.780 --> 00:19:07.500 and the orca sends out this beam of sound through the water 00:19:07.500 --> 00:19:12.780 that strikes anything that has pointed that beam at. And it can flex its head and move that beam, 00:19:12.780 --> 00:19:17.200 the way you or I would point a flashlight, to identify its prey. 00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:23.180 It not only sees, as it were, through this sound echo that comes back to it, 00:19:23.180 --> 00:19:26.680 the presence of a fish it sees inside it. 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:30.840 It can tell by the swim bladder in the fish what species it is. 00:19:30.840 --> 00:19:37.320 Is it a Chinook, is it a Coho, is it a Pink or maybe something it doesn't even want to eat. 00:19:37.320 --> 00:19:44.060 And so this miraculous ability enables the orca whale to actually see with sound. 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:50.040 Furthermore, the orca makes all kinds of sounds that are very important for communication 00:19:50.040 --> 00:19:51.960 with its family and other whales. 00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:57.120 These sounds come right out of its blowhole. They don't have vocal cords the way we do. 00:19:57.120 --> 00:20:01.540 They don't speak through their mouth the way we do. No, they talk through their head! 00:20:01.540 --> 00:20:06.560 Through nasal sacs and a phonic lip that push these sounds through the blowhole, 00:20:06.560 --> 00:20:10.700 so that they can be heard even a mile away, in quiet water. 00:20:10.700 --> 00:20:12.960 I'll come back to how important that is. 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:18.559 So let's talk about a little bit about this amazing ability to hunt underwater 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:20.840 What does a hunt really look like for an orca whale? 00:20:20.840 --> 00:20:25.320 Well they start off at the surface, take a big breath and start a dive, 00:20:25.320 --> 00:20:30.380 and then they start making a slow steady click click click click click as they're looking. 00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:33.740 Scanning the water for the presence of prey down below, 00:20:33.740 --> 00:20:37.800 then suddenly a different kind of sound. Really a rapid buzzing sound. 00:20:37.800 --> 00:20:42.380 It almost sounds mechanical. That's coaxing this fish out of sight, out of hiding, 00:20:42.380 --> 00:20:48.440 and then the chase is really on and an orca will chase that fish. It'll twist, it'll turn, it'll dive, 00:20:48.440 --> 00:20:52.280 it'll pull through that fish, chase it out of a hole, whatever it has to do, 00:20:52.280 --> 00:20:57.840 to finally get it up to the surface, where, very likely, it will share that fish with its family. 00:20:57.840 --> 00:21:02.400 With a single shake of its head, it can shake that fish in half and into pieces 00:21:02.400 --> 00:21:04.360 and feed the rest of the family. 00:21:04.360 --> 00:21:10.500 And so the orca has used sound the entire time to find its prey. 00:21:10.500 --> 00:21:15.600 So now, I am going to pause for a moment and we're going to have another poll question 00:21:15.600 --> 00:21:18.460 for you to answer. And here's your question: 00:21:18.460 --> 00:21:22.840 I want to find out if you know your ecological address. 00:21:22.840 --> 00:21:28.180 Not your street address, your ecological address. What watershed do you live in? 00:21:28.180 --> 00:21:32.120 And go ahead and type the name of that watershed in the chat box. 00:21:32.120 --> 00:21:35.820 This is going to be really fun for people chiming in from foreign nations. 00:21:39.040 --> 00:21:43.440 - So Lynda, I launched the poll. Do you know what watershed you live in? 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:48.660 And so the answers are yes, no, I'm not sure. And as we're doing that, 00:21:48.660 --> 00:21:57.919 we're getting we're getting Rio Grande, gosh, He's going so fast.Western Colorado, St John's watershed, 00:21:57.920 --> 00:22:03.620 Peabody Creek, Chesapeake Bay, Los Angeles Watershed, Elwha River, 00:22:03.940 --> 00:22:07.400 Chesapeake Bay, Mississippi River, 00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:12.300 Russian River, Wild Rivers, Puyallup River, 00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:17.700 Elkhorn Slough, Everglades, 00:22:17.700 --> 00:22:20.559 Strait of Georgia, Chesapeake Bay again, 00:22:20.560 --> 00:22:23.880 Great Lakes, Potomac, 00:22:25.460 --> 00:22:32.559 Frazier River, Cedar River, some I believe from Hawaii that I don't want to mispronounce (laughing). 00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:37.620 So lots of different answers and we are getting most of the answers in here on the poll. 00:22:37.620 --> 00:22:40.980 And i'm going to go ahead and close that in just a moment. 00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:46.240 - [Claire] I jumped the gun. Sorry, Jacqueline, I closed it. 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:48.720 Yeah we have a pretty educated audience here. 00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:52.840 72 percent of them know what watershed they live in their ecological address. 00:22:52.840 --> 00:22:54.620 So well done, attendees. 00:22:54.620 --> 00:22:58.600 There are 15 percent that said no and 14 percent that are not sure, 00:22:58.600 --> 00:23:00.940 that maybe aren't entirely sure what a watershed is. 00:23:01.280 --> 00:23:05.820 But yeah it was fun seeing where everyone's coming from and what your watershed's name is. 00:23:05.820 --> 00:23:07.740 So, back to you guys. 00:23:08.540 --> 00:23:11.280 -Well, just hit it and it's back to you. 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:18.760 So I'm super impressed. Big shout out to you all. That's a big that's a big percentage of people 00:23:18.760 --> 00:23:21.560 who know their ecological address. And here's why that matters. 00:23:21.560 --> 00:23:27.780 I'm showing you this slide now about Chinook abundance from Alaska all the way to California. 00:23:27.780 --> 00:23:33.120 Remember we talked about the Resident orcas, both the Northerns and the Southerners, 00:23:33.120 --> 00:23:37.160 they eat mainly salmon, but mostly what they really want is Chinook. 00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:41.820 And the reason for that is these are the biggest, fattiest, oiliest salmon in the sea. 00:23:41.820 --> 00:23:47.180 And if you're a big animal, like these orca whales are, you need to eat a big fish 00:23:47.180 --> 00:23:50.720 that's going to give you the most calories for the hunting effort . Well that's Chinook. 00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:52.640 but as you can see from this slide uh 00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:57.120 Chinook are in trouble pretty much throughout the range of the orca whales. 00:23:57.120 --> 00:24:03.039 Look, salmon. Look at the colors on this map. All of these gold colored rivers those are threatened. 00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:06.720 All of these red color rivers like the Sacramento, down there in California, 00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:10.480 this upper Columbia stretch in Washington state in danger. 00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:13.960 They're very few where the salmon runs, particularly Chinook, are in good shape. 00:24:13.960 --> 00:24:17.240 That's a real problem for orca whales. 00:24:17.240 --> 00:24:20.980 So, you know, when we talk about what are the roots of this crisis, 00:24:20.980 --> 00:24:24.600 why are the southern residents having so much trouble surviving, 00:24:24.600 --> 00:24:30.940 it's because, for one thing, they're having trouble getting enough to eat, reliably, throughout their range. 00:24:32.380 --> 00:24:36.360 So let's talk about that. Why is that? What does it take to have healthy salmon run, 00:24:36.360 --> 00:24:42.420 so the entire food web, including an orca whale, can be thriving. 00:24:42.420 --> 00:24:46.720 Well, it takes a little bit of everything, That's what makes this a tough problem. 00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:50.960 It isn't enough to just address one issue, you've got to look at the whole situation. 00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:55.920 Let's look at this beautiful picture this is taken on Hood canal, in Washington state, 00:24:55.920 --> 00:25:00.960 during the herring spawn. That's what's creating that incredible, beautiful color in the water. 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:06.940 Spawning herring, right offshore. Notice the natural beach, Notice the lush forest. 00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:09.420 Notice the clean clear water. 00:25:09.980 --> 00:25:17.200 So these little fish are herring. They're also called forage fish. Forage f-o-r-a-g-e 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:22.540 and there are several species of forage fish. They're all very, very important not only to salmon, 00:25:22.540 --> 00:25:29.840 which eat forage fish, but also sea birds and whales of all kinds. The point is it's a food chain. 00:25:29.840 --> 00:25:36.280 The orcas eat salmon, the salmon eat forage fish, and these forage fish need natural beaches 00:25:36.280 --> 00:25:43.520 on which to spawn. They lay their eggs on kelp beds. They also lay their eggs on sea grass. 00:25:43.520 --> 00:25:48.720 These are herring eggs and, you know, these little protein packets are an incredible meal 00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:50.200 for a whole suite of life. 00:25:50.200 --> 00:25:55.800 Once that herring spawn is hits the water, then everything comes, like ringing a dinner bell. 00:25:55.800 --> 00:26:00.420 You get sea lions and sea birds and salmon. It's a feast! 00:26:00.420 --> 00:26:04.480 And this feeds that food chain all the way up to the orca whale. 00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:11.060 So, you know, no little fish, no blackfish is a coast Salish native expression 00:26:11.060 --> 00:26:16.400 and it's there for a reason because it's true, you don't get orcas without salmon, 00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:22.060 you don't get salmon without forage fish, you don't get forage fish without natural beaches. 00:26:22.060 --> 00:26:23.460 So it's all connected. 00:26:25.480 --> 00:26:30.700 So, you know, I want to just take a step back and talk a little bit more about our team and our process 00:26:30.700 --> 00:26:35.460 in creating this series of-- I was very fortunate to work with some incredible photographers. 00:26:35.460 --> 00:26:41.440 Steven Ringman at the Seattle Times and Ramon Donpour was our videographer 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:45.340 and Lauren Froney was our producer back in the newsroom. 00:26:45.340 --> 00:26:48.580 And we created some mini documentaries that are online with this series, 00:26:48.580 --> 00:26:53.100 which I really hope you'll watch, and Steve and Ramon took incredible pictures. 00:26:54.100 --> 00:26:57.020 You know, we-- I can't tell you how hard these were to get. 00:26:57.020 --> 00:27:01.180 We were only able to do it because of the help of scientists at NOAA and elsewhere, 00:27:01.180 --> 00:27:04.460 who allowed us to work with them, while they were out doing their research. 00:27:04.460 --> 00:27:10.380 It was very important to us that readers everywhere could feel the majesty of these animals, 00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:13.300 experience them as they swim and they breathe. 00:27:13.300 --> 00:27:19.320 Remember they're mammals, like us, and to hear that deep lung, purging exhalation, 00:27:19.320 --> 00:27:23.520 it connected me every time with the majesty of these animals 00:27:23.520 --> 00:27:26.260 and the fact that we all share these waters. 00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:32.580 As I said, this was only possible because of the help of the researchers who worked with us. 00:27:32.580 --> 00:27:37.100 This included NGOs like the center for whale research, here in washington state. 00:27:37.100 --> 00:27:44.420 Here you see us at work. That's Steve up there on the crow's nest, along with Ramon 00:27:44.420 --> 00:27:47.920 working the video camera. We make it look easy in this picture, 00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:52.420 but honestly, there are lots of bloopers, just like this, where you know you think you've got that shot, 00:27:52.420 --> 00:27:54.320 but instead what you've got is splash. 00:27:54.320 --> 00:27:59.340 So if this happens to you and your wildlife photography, rest assured it happens to us, too. 00:27:59.340 --> 00:28:03.880 We used a drone a lot because it was really important to see the whole landscape 00:28:03.880 --> 00:28:06.760 in a lot of the work that we were trying to get done, 00:28:06.760 --> 00:28:11.120 to show people everything these animals cope with and their struggle to survive. 00:28:11.520 --> 00:28:17.720 We wanted to show things such as these shipping containers stacked on these giant ships, 00:28:17.720 --> 00:28:23.000 Plying the very same waters that these animals are trying to find a single salmon in. 00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:29.680 Imagine the noise that industrial shipping lanes create for the Southern Resident orca whales. 00:28:29.680 --> 00:28:34.280 It didn't always go well. This is how it looked for Steve after that drone came back 00:28:34.280 --> 00:28:36.840 and chopped his finger. But he kept right on working. 00:28:37.280 --> 00:28:42.740 Again, the drone enables us to show the urban environment and how much it's been altered. 00:28:42.740 --> 00:28:48.460 This is right here in Seattle. This is the Green river which is a very important salmon river, still today, 00:28:48.460 --> 00:28:51.660 for the Southern Residents. It's one of the top producers of Chinook. 00:28:51.660 --> 00:28:58.320 But take a look. I mean this used to be some of the finest farm soil in the Green River Valley, in Seattle, 00:28:58.320 --> 00:28:59.760 anywhere in the state. 00:28:59.760 --> 00:29:04.440 But today, it's the second largest warehousing district anywhere on the West Coast. 00:29:04.440 --> 00:29:09.060 This is because people love convenience. They want that you know package delivered in an hour. 00:29:09.060 --> 00:29:10.295 Well how does that happen? 00:29:10.295 --> 00:29:13.640 It happens because it comes on a ship from somewhere else in the world, 00:29:13.640 --> 00:29:17.800 it gets offloaded to a truck into a warehouse like these and it goes on a highway 00:29:17.800 --> 00:29:19.260 and it comes to your porch. 00:29:19.260 --> 00:29:23.120 But along the way, what got lost? The transport for the salmon. 00:29:23.120 --> 00:29:27.180 The river that they need to get in and out of the marine environment. 00:29:27.180 --> 00:29:30.900 This river today, 80 percent of it is behind levee walls, 00:29:30.900 --> 00:29:36.100 most of the vegetation has been cut, the water temperature is too hot, 00:29:36.100 --> 00:29:41.100 and the salmon that those orcas need to survive are very much in decline. 00:29:41.100 --> 00:29:44.060 Puget Sound Chinook are listed as a threatened species. 00:29:44.060 --> 00:29:46.160 So you have the poignant situation 00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:52.360 of the species, orcas, that are endangered relying on a threatened species for their survival. 00:29:53.600 --> 00:29:58.440 We also went to see, for this story, we went we were fortunate enough to be invited aboard 00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:02.040 the Bell Shimada, which is one of the nation's premier research ship. 00:30:02.040 --> 00:30:05.260 It's one of the pride of NOAA, pride of NOAA''s fleet. 00:30:05.260 --> 00:30:10.620 The Shimada was our ticket to a week at sea to understand the work that scientists were doing 00:30:10.620 --> 00:30:13.720 to find out why was it that salmon are in decline. 00:30:13.720 --> 00:30:17.900 Well let's take a look at what happens to the juveniles as soon as they head out to sea 00:30:17.900 --> 00:30:20.440 in the Columbia River Plume. 00:30:20.440 --> 00:30:24.360 The Columbia is the mightiest river of the lower 48, 00:30:24.360 --> 00:30:27.900 once one of the mightiest salmon producers in the world. 00:30:27.900 --> 00:30:31.880 But today, many of the runs of salmon to the Columbia River are in decline. 00:30:31.880 --> 00:30:36.940 So we went out on the Shimada to be with scientists and take a look at the marine food web. 00:30:36.940 --> 00:30:43.140 Everything from the little tiny beasties on the kelp, to the various kinds of species coming up in a survey. 00:30:43.140 --> 00:30:44.760 And you know as we did that, 00:30:44.760 --> 00:30:49.220 what we understood was that climate change is affecting the food web out at sea 00:30:49.220 --> 00:30:54.040 and that in turn is affecting the salmon and that too is affecting the whales. 00:30:54.040 --> 00:30:58.180 So then we came back to Puget Sound when we went out again with researchers 00:30:58.180 --> 00:31:01.600 and you know what we did then? We scooped up a lot of orca poo. 00:31:01.600 --> 00:31:03.420 That's what this is. Orca poop. 00:31:03.420 --> 00:31:08.740 I've smelled and seen more orca poop than you can imagine and i can tell you it smells like fish. 00:31:10.640 --> 00:31:14.640 So why in the world would would scientists be so interested in orca scat? 00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:16.740 Well because it's full of information. 00:31:16.740 --> 00:31:21.260 When scientists can collect and analyze back in the lab these samples, 00:31:21.260 --> 00:31:23.940 they can learn so much about the health of a whale. 00:31:23.940 --> 00:31:25.680 They can find out if it's pregnant. 00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:31.780 A researcher, like Brad Hansen here from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, 00:31:31.780 --> 00:31:37.100 can find out even which species of salmon that orca has eaten, 00:31:37.100 --> 00:31:40.760 even by DNA testing, where that salmon came from. 00:31:40.760 --> 00:31:45.960 That's incredibly valuable information to scientists trying to understand the diet of these animals, 00:31:45.960 --> 00:31:50.420 what are they eating, where are the salmon coming from, and what in turn does that mean 00:31:50.420 --> 00:31:51.780 for management actions. 00:31:51.780 --> 00:31:56.500 Where do we need to really direct our efforts to bring back those salmon 00:31:56.500 --> 00:31:58.880 because they're so important to the whales. 00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:06.180 So this kind of front line basic field research is some of the most important information 00:32:06.180 --> 00:32:10.340 that we can possibly have in this effort to save these whales. 00:32:10.340 --> 00:32:16.080 And this kind of frontline field research is always always competing for funding 00:32:16.080 --> 00:32:20.760 and multi-year funding and, you know, it's it's always a struggle to have enough. 00:32:20.760 --> 00:32:24.880 And this is the kind of science that really needs to be supported 00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:27.820 if we're going to save these animals. 00:32:29.140 --> 00:32:34.540 We also went underwater to take a look at the success of restoration efforts. 00:32:34.540 --> 00:32:39.380 You know, one of the things that we can feel good about is the incredible resilience of nature 00:32:39.380 --> 00:32:42.520 and the ability of nature to respond when given the chance. 00:32:42.520 --> 00:32:46.820 These are salmon in the Elwha river, out there on the Olympic peninsula. 00:32:46.820 --> 00:32:52.200 And, you know, when we took down two dams on the Elwha river in the biggest restoration ever, 00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:55.620 anywhere in the world, those salmons started coming back. 00:32:55.620 --> 00:33:01.780 And it wasn't long, thereafter, that people from the center for whale research were seeing orca whales 00:33:01.780 --> 00:33:04.380 feeding off the mouth of the Elwha river. 00:33:04.380 --> 00:33:07.760 They were very quick to find those King salmon coming back, 00:33:07.760 --> 00:33:12.280 just because those dams have come down and the river has begun a recovery. 00:33:13.600 --> 00:33:15.320 We also looked at predators. 00:33:15.320 --> 00:33:20.080 You know, what what is the impact of other salmon eaters out there in the environment, 00:33:20.080 --> 00:33:26.080 including this sea lion having a nice big juicy Chum salmon in the Nisqually River. 00:33:26.900 --> 00:33:31.760 You know, but ultimately it comes back to these animals the orca whales 00:33:31.760 --> 00:33:37.220 and their ability in their family groups to get enough to eat and take care of one another. 00:33:37.220 --> 00:33:43.060 I think that we in our coverage really wanted to keep our focus intimately on these animals. 00:33:43.060 --> 00:33:46.240 It was always about the orcas, even though we talked about salmon 00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:49.519 and we talked about forage fish and we talked about development. 00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:53.640 We never wanted to lose sight through these incredible photographs of these intimate moments 00:33:53.640 --> 00:33:56.480 that we were lucky enough to share with the whales. Like this moment, 00:33:56.480 --> 00:34:00.740 when this whale is just breaking the surface tension of the water with its flipper. 00:34:00.740 --> 00:34:07.340 That's not pollution, it's just the surface tension of the water breaking as this whale rolls. 00:34:07.340 --> 00:34:10.560 And I'm so grateful to Steve and Ramon for their photography, 00:34:10.560 --> 00:34:15.580 which really helps share the majesty of these animals with the whole world, including you, today. 00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:21.900 We didn't sugarcoat it. We also wanted to show that these are indeed the most urban orcas in the world. 00:34:21.900 --> 00:34:27.599 They deal with everything. Here, they are in the superfund site of Commencement Bay. 00:34:27.599 --> 00:34:30.700 You know the pollutants that are still in these environments, 00:34:30.700 --> 00:34:36.360 including in the fish that they're eating, are very important stressors for these animals, 00:34:36.360 --> 00:34:38.680 especially, by the way, if they don't get enough to eat. 00:34:38.680 --> 00:34:41.820 And that's one of the ways in which these threats combine. 00:34:41.820 --> 00:34:46.500 If it's too noisy in the water to find enough fish, if the fish are scarce, 00:34:46.500 --> 00:34:50.240 if these whales then don't get enough to eat and they're burning their fat, 00:34:50.240 --> 00:34:53.320 that's where pollutants are lodged. In that fat. 00:34:53.320 --> 00:34:59.100 And so the pollutants already in their bloodstream are increased in the amount of pollutants in their body 00:34:59.100 --> 00:35:05.420 and sadly, it's worst of all for the little baby orcas, who get a big hit when they take their mother's milk 00:35:05.420 --> 00:35:09.360 because that milk is very fatty and that's where the pollutants are. 00:35:10.860 --> 00:35:16.640 I think that one of the big questions for scientists also has to do with this very low birth rate. 00:35:16.640 --> 00:35:22.520 It's a small population, they don't give birth very often, there's even a little bit of inbreeding 00:35:22.520 --> 00:35:26.540 and so there are multiple threats that scientists are looking at, with regard to these whales. 00:35:26.540 --> 00:35:29.180 It isn't only food, it's also disease. 00:35:29.180 --> 00:35:33.540 Is there some problem where they just don't really feel like eating? 00:35:33.540 --> 00:35:38.160 Sometimes these whales are so skinny, scientists can't even believe it. 00:35:38.160 --> 00:35:43.160 But they're not all starving to death. That's an oversimplification. There's more to the picture. 00:35:45.220 --> 00:35:49.240 However, there's no doubt that all of the Southern Residents are food limited 00:35:49.240 --> 00:35:53.940 and we can see that in some of these time series photographs that are taken by drone. 00:35:54.680 --> 00:35:59.620 You know, in this situation, you have a little whale named J50, who just got skinnier 00:35:59.620 --> 00:36:03.200 and skinnier and skinnier. There was something wrong with her. 00:36:03.200 --> 00:36:09.740 So wrong with her, that NOAA launched a first ever international effort to try to intervene and save her life. 00:36:09.740 --> 00:36:14.260 Even by trying to feed her medicated fish. this was a trial run, at that. 00:36:15.160 --> 00:36:19.360 Even in injecting her with antibiotics, shot from a moving boat. 00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.380 You know but very sadly she just kept wasting away. 00:36:22.380 --> 00:36:26.620 Here you see this grotesque condition where you can actually see the bones of her cranium. 00:36:26.620 --> 00:36:30.660 this is the skinniest whale any whale anyone had ever seen still alive and 00:36:30.660 --> 00:36:35.599 just a few days after this picture was taken, she sank under the waves and never was seen again. 00:36:35.599 --> 00:36:41.680 So why was she so thin? We don't know. We don't know why she was so terribly thin. 00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:45.760 But we do know that all of the Southern Residents are struggling to get enough to eat. 00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:51.080 They're not all starving but food is definitely an issue and a very key issue in their survival. 00:36:52.380 --> 00:36:53.940 And that takes us back to sound. 00:36:53.940 --> 00:36:59.860 Again, if you're making a racket, it's harder for these animals to find the food they need to find. 00:36:59.860 --> 00:37:04.280 It creates almost a kind of fog of noise, if you will. They hunt with sound. 00:37:04.280 --> 00:37:07.940 So if you make noise, it's harder for them to find what they need to eat. 00:37:07.940 --> 00:37:13.780 And that puts them in direct conflict with us. One of their very prime habitats is right in the Harrow Strait 00:37:13.780 --> 00:37:16.000 on the west side of San Juan Island, 00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:19.760 which is a primary shipping lane to the Port of Vancouver, 00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:22.240 the fastest growing port on the West Coast. 00:37:22.240 --> 00:37:26.440 And so, you know, you really have this clash of maritime cultures 00:37:26.440 --> 00:37:31.460 between these orcas, who have been in these waters since time immemorial, and us. 00:37:31.460 --> 00:37:35.580 We utilize these waters for recreation and also for commerce. 00:37:36.940 --> 00:37:40.988 We went out with some scientists just to put a hydrophone in the water an underwater microphone 00:37:40.988 --> 00:37:45.500 and listen to what these orcas experienced. We couldn't honestly believe how loud it was. 00:37:46.120 --> 00:37:49.360 Let's talk quickly about history because this is a piece of the problem, too. 00:37:49.360 --> 00:37:53.440 There was a time in our state and in our region where anyone could go out 00:37:53.440 --> 00:37:57.940 and actually catch themselves an orca whale and sell it for profit to an aquarium. 00:37:57.940 --> 00:38:03.840 This is Ted Griffin and he was the very first to start this with a whale named Namu. 00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:11.320 He captured Namu up in Northern B.C., big male orca, brought him down to the waterfront in Seattle 00:38:11.320 --> 00:38:16.160 and opened the world's first ever, live performing orca exhibit. 00:38:16.660 --> 00:38:18.820 Namu was an instant international hit 00:38:19.600 --> 00:38:26.040 and that's partly because, you know, ted was was such a ham, he taught himself how to ride Namu and 00:38:26.040 --> 00:38:33.380 and he was enthralled with Namu. He loved this animal. He was he was just fascinated with orcas. 00:38:33.380 --> 00:38:37.500 He couldn't learn enough about Namu and orca whales. 00:38:37.500 --> 00:38:42.980 And you know, I think he, even he, couldn't have known the power of what he unleashed 00:38:42.980 --> 00:38:47.120 in bringing Namu to the waterfront, because suddenly killer whales were big business. 00:38:47.120 --> 00:38:48.940 Everybody wanted to kill a whale. 00:38:48.940 --> 00:38:56.360 And these are orca whales that are being kept in a tank as their as their shipping orders are being filled. 00:38:56.360 --> 00:39:00.880 And if you were to walk down Western Avenue in Seattle, during the 1960s, 00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:06.960 you might have seen this. A whale actually being loaded up in a crane to go off in a plane 00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:11.740 and an iced down box and be sent across the world to an aquarium, someplace. 00:39:11.740 --> 00:39:17.900 And you know, tragically, all of those animals today, a third of the pods, are dead, but one 00:39:17.900 --> 00:39:22.640 from the Southern Resident population. And that's Lolita, also called Tokutai. 00:39:22.640 --> 00:39:25.800 This is her on the day she was captured looking out of the net. 00:39:25.800 --> 00:39:31.120 She's on a flat dead truck on her way to SeaTac airport to get a plane to Miami 00:39:31.120 --> 00:39:34.600 to be shipped to the Miami Seaquarium where she still lives, today. 00:39:34.600 --> 00:39:39.460 50 years later. All are dead, today, but one. Her. 00:39:39.900 --> 00:39:44.440 This will be one other resident workout that's been in captivity longer, that's Hugo. 00:39:44.440 --> 00:39:47.680 He's a Northern Resident and he's also still in captivity. 00:39:49.220 --> 00:39:55.300 I want to wrap up by taking you to California. This is the southernmost part of the orcas range 00:39:55.300 --> 00:39:59.160 and I it's still incredible to me that they go all the way down there to hunt, but they do. 00:39:59.160 --> 00:40:06.000 They're off the coast of California and off the coast of the Columbia River, right now getting their fish. 00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.320 Take a look at this. 00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:10.340 We went to California to tell the story of the Southern Residents 00:40:10.340 --> 00:40:13.500 because really, to us, California was a kind of time machine. 00:40:13.500 --> 00:40:17.960 It was a wake-up call for the residents of the Pacific Northwest to say to them, look, 00:40:17.960 --> 00:40:22.380 you know, keep it up. If you keep affecting the environment as much as we are, 00:40:22.380 --> 00:40:27.660 if you keep converting it to housing and shopping and everything else, as much as you are, 00:40:27.660 --> 00:40:29.980 we're going to look like california before long. 00:40:29.980 --> 00:40:34.700 And California is a place that, you know, the Sacramento River was once one of the greatest 00:40:34.700 --> 00:40:39.000 salmon producers in North America, second only to the Columbia. 00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:43.960 And today, a lot of people in California don't even think of California as a salmon state. 00:40:45.040 --> 00:40:49.040 And it's because of all this extensive development, including agriculture, 00:40:49.040 --> 00:40:53.040 which you know, typically, you think well that's not housing. How bad can that be? 00:40:53.040 --> 00:40:58.660 But there's been a conversion to very, very heavy water using crops that need year-round education 00:40:58.660 --> 00:41:04.580 year-round irrigation, including almonds, which need more than a gallon of water for a single nut. 00:41:05.060 --> 00:41:10.000 And so that you have a lot of pressure both of population and agricultural use 00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.940 on water in the Sacramento water Sacramento River, which is home to these animals. 00:41:14.940 --> 00:41:20.500 Winter Run Chinook. They're unique in the world and a very important food source for the Southern Residents. 00:41:20.500 --> 00:41:25.160 But they are at the absolute brink of extinction because of Shasta Dam, 00:41:25.160 --> 00:41:30.100 built with absolutely no fish passage, blocking all of their access to the cold mountain streams 00:41:30.100 --> 00:41:32.700 on Mount Shasta, that you see there in the distance. 00:41:33.220 --> 00:41:37.840 Well, today, they're kept alive with cold water releases from the Shasta Dam, 00:41:37.840 --> 00:41:40.460 of which there's really not enough water to sustain them. 00:41:40.460 --> 00:41:46.760 And so we now have what's called a captive brood and this is a very last-ditch survival step 00:41:46.760 --> 00:41:50.800 that's being taken for these fish, to try to just at least keep a gene bank of them, 00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:52.920 so they will not go extinct. 00:41:52.920 --> 00:41:57.140 And this big wild salmon has been collected from the Sacramento River 00:41:57.140 --> 00:41:59.920 and its eggs are going to be taken for the captive brood. 00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:04.560 This is what the captive brood looks like underwater. Steve put a webcam in there 00:42:04.560 --> 00:42:09.080 and you know, it's a sad sight. These fish are never going to live in the ocean, 00:42:09.080 --> 00:42:15.119 they're never going to see the sea, they're just going to be kept as a gene bank, basically, for the future. 00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:18.640 So then I've got my final poll question for you and here it is. 00:42:18.640 --> 00:42:21.800 I want to know do you want to help. Do you want to get involved 00:42:22.620 --> 00:42:25.940 in the battle to try to save salmon and orcas. 00:42:28.140 --> 00:42:31.380 - Okay. Thanks, Lynda. so i just launched the poll. 00:42:31.840 --> 00:42:35.880 And answers are starting to come in pretty quickly. 00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:41.520 All right. we'll give it another couple of seconds, here. 00:42:41.520 --> 00:42:46.940 So go ahead and you haven't already, put in your answer: yes, no, or not sure. 00:42:51.440 --> 00:42:53.940 All right. I'm going to go ahead and close the poll 00:42:54.960 --> 00:42:57.780 and share the results. 00:43:00.640 --> 00:43:01.360 All right. 00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:05.280 Looks like 90 percent say yes! That's great news! 00:43:08.480 --> 00:43:11.060 - Yeah! - Back to you Lynda. I'm going to hide those results. 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:17.580 - Yeah. That's great news i'm not really surprised. 00:43:17.580 --> 00:43:21.860 But I wanted to know because let's just take a look at another one of Emily's great maps. 00:43:21.860 --> 00:43:27.120 This is my watershed not far from where i'm sitting, talking to you. This is a Green-Duwamish Watershed 00:43:27.120 --> 00:43:31.700 And I want you to realize that, wherever you're sitting, your watershed might not look like this, 00:43:31.700 --> 00:43:35.460 but it's got some of these very same elements that Emily has called out. 00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:39.640 Do the rivers have a natural shoreline or are they armored? 00:43:40.120 --> 00:43:43.040 Is it a healthy riparian zone or an unhealthy one? 00:43:43.040 --> 00:43:46.900 What do I mean by that? Are there forests along the banks of the rivers? 00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:53.240 If there is a levee, is it set back so that the river can have access to at least some of the floodplain? 00:43:53.240 --> 00:43:58.400 Or is it just walled right in with a levee that takes away access of the river to its floodplain, 00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:04.540 which, furthermore, denies the river the ability to recharge the aquifer with fresh cold water. 00:44:04.540 --> 00:44:07.600 It means the salmon don't have anywhere to lay their eggs. 00:44:07.600 --> 00:44:17.359 It just greatly degrades the quality of the water. It's too hot and there's very little for the salmon to eat' because they don't have trees raining in this nutritious leaf litter 00:44:17.359 --> 00:44:22.500 They don't have insects dropping in to feed the fish. So these elements of a healthy forest, 00:44:22.500 --> 00:44:27.840 a natural shoreline, native plants along the shoreline that feed the insects, 00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:31.080 of river's ability to move around in its floodplain. 00:44:31.080 --> 00:44:36.420 No matter where you live, these are some of the very same elements that you need to get educated about 00:44:36.420 --> 00:44:41.120 in your watershed. So find out who is your local watershed group. 00:44:41.120 --> 00:44:44.440 Get to know those people, go to their meetings, start volunteering. 00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:50.920 In-- I guarantee you in your watershed, you're going to have issues just like in mine 00:44:50.920 --> 00:44:55.880 and I might start up in the very top of the watershed, like here in the Green River, 00:44:55.880 --> 00:45:01.260 where fully half of the watershed, all the good stuff up here, is walled off by the Howard Hanson Dam. 00:45:01.260 --> 00:45:05.880 It's a flood control structure, but it was built without any fish passage. 00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:10.160 So far, despite spending more than a hundred million dollars on this, 00:45:10.160 --> 00:45:14.280 this is as far as we've gotten with providing fish passage at the Howard Hanson Dam. 00:45:14.280 --> 00:45:18.900 So you know, while it's critical Chinook and Steelhead habits, they can't get there. 00:45:18.900 --> 00:45:21.660 Here's the lower river. You saw this picture, before. 00:45:21.660 --> 00:45:26.680 Very, very heavily built lower river for the Green River Valley. 00:45:26.680 --> 00:45:30.400 There's a real question before the local officials in King County. 00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:33.680 This is the King County council and the King County Flood District. 00:45:33.680 --> 00:45:39.240 What's going to happen to the rest of this river, the 20 percent of it that is still natural on its banks? 00:45:39.240 --> 00:45:43.660 Are we going to build more walls? If we build walls will they be set back 00:45:43.660 --> 00:45:47.580 so that the river has more room to move? Those are the kinds of local questions. 00:45:47.580 --> 00:45:52.420 Local land use questions that you can get involved in in your community. 00:45:53.140 --> 00:45:55.440 We all need a place to live, too. 00:45:55.440 --> 00:45:58.740 And as populations grow, how can we do that? 00:45:58.740 --> 00:46:04.040 Can we do that in a way that makes room also for the animals that were here first? 00:46:04.040 --> 00:46:06.200 Such as the orca and the salmon and, 00:46:06.200 --> 00:46:11.200 by the way, the treaty tribes that have a treaty right to harvest those fish. 00:46:11.200 --> 00:46:13.020 We're all here together. 00:46:13.020 --> 00:46:19.020 Can we make space for these animals-- the orcas and the salmon-- as well as for one another. 00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:24.380 We need industry. Everybody needs industry jobs. 00:46:24.380 --> 00:46:27.120 We're seeing this more than ever right now during the shutdown. 00:46:27.120 --> 00:46:31.200 We're really feeling what happens to all of us if we don't have thriving industry. 00:46:31.200 --> 00:46:34.840 But how do we do that? Does it have to look like this? 00:46:34.840 --> 00:46:37.119 We did this starting a hundred years ago. 00:46:37.119 --> 00:46:41.400 That's this is the 100th anniversary, this year, of the complete conversion 00:46:41.400 --> 00:46:44.860 of the lower Duwamish River to an industrial shipping channel, 00:46:44.860 --> 00:46:48.240 leaving no habitat at all for salmon. 00:46:49.680 --> 00:46:56.580 This is another shot of the lower Duwamish River where we're using its banks for piling up scrap. 00:46:58.080 --> 00:47:03.560 So here's my question for you, and it's the question we asked in the Seattle Times in our series. 00:47:03.560 --> 00:47:06.060 What about the future? What about the orcas? 00:47:06.060 --> 00:47:12.840 As our population grows, what can we do so that we can all continue to live here in this beautiful landscape 00:47:12.840 --> 00:47:15.400 and these waters that we share. 00:47:15.400 --> 00:47:18.660 And no matter where you live, no matter where you're watching this, 00:47:18.660 --> 00:47:24.520 the animals that you share this planet with, you know, they're depending on your care. 00:47:24.520 --> 00:47:30.620 And these waters that that we all rely on and that we love, they, too, are depending on your care. 00:47:30.620 --> 00:47:31.920 Thank you very much. 00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:39.760 - Oh, Lynda, that was such an engaging presentation. The photos were fantastic. 00:47:39.760 --> 00:47:45.880 So, thanks to your Seattle Times photographers and the researchers and nonprofits that helped you. 00:47:46.560 --> 00:47:49.920 So Jacqueline and I are going to go through a Q&A. 00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:54.660 We have about seven or eight minutes 00:47:54.660 --> 00:47:58.820 and we have lots of great questions, so Jacqueline, I'll let you kick it off and we'll just bat back and forth. 00:48:01.680 --> 00:48:03.640 Let's see. Let's get you unmuted here. 00:48:04.720 --> 00:48:05.640 Hold on, Jacqueline. 00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:09.780 - I got it, sorry for that, thank you. - No problem 00:48:10.240 --> 00:48:16.140 - Somebody pointed out that June is orca acknowledge-- recognition month, 00:48:16.140 --> 00:48:19.660 So that's good to know, there for everybody who wants to celebrate. 00:48:19.660 --> 00:48:24.480 And then we have Craig Wilson asked will there be a book or pamphlet on the work that you've done? 00:48:25.600 --> 00:48:28.080 Thank you for that question. I swear I didn't plant that. 00:48:28.080 --> 00:48:35.080 Yes, (laughing) I've just finished the edit and will next week do the copy edit on a book that's being published. 00:48:35.080 --> 00:48:38.580 It will be out in the spring of 2021 from mountaineers books. 00:48:38.580 --> 00:48:41.360 And it was it's been co-published with the Seattle Times 00:48:41.360 --> 00:48:44.640 and it will include the beautiful photographs you've seen today. 00:48:44.640 --> 00:48:49.880 These fabulous graphics and an even longer deeper telling of this very same story. 00:48:49.880 --> 00:48:51.820 So yes, it's coming out soon. 00:48:51.820 --> 00:48:56.400 It's called Work Up: Shared Waters, Shared Home from the mountaineers books 00:48:56.400 --> 00:48:57.960 in spring of 2021. 00:48:59.040 --> 00:49:00.440 - Great. Wonderful. 00:49:00.440 --> 00:49:02.560 So this kind of ties into that. 00:49:02.560 --> 00:49:06.680 So some of those infographics that you shared from the graphic designer at the Seattle Times, 00:49:06.680 --> 00:49:13.280 are those-- I imagine they're in the Hostile Waters publication and the online platform for that. 00:49:13.280 --> 00:49:17.820 They were just saying are they accessible to be used for educational purposes? 00:49:18.540 --> 00:49:20.160 - Yes is the answer to your question. 00:49:20.160 --> 00:49:23.220 So take a look at seattletimes.com 00:49:23.220 --> 00:49:26.240 Everything you've seen in this presentation and a whole lot more, 00:49:26.240 --> 00:49:31.160 including Ramon's and Lauren's incredible videos, are there for you to see and enjoy. 00:49:31.160 --> 00:49:33.880 And you know, just get in touch with us at the Seattle Times. 00:49:33.880 --> 00:49:39.960 We're we love working with educators in schools and you know how to reach me. 00:49:39.960 --> 00:49:46.020 It's Lmapes@seattletimes.com and could field those requests and we would love to help. 00:49:46.020 --> 00:49:51.920 We built this material for you. It's for the public to use and learn about these incredible animals. 00:49:51.920 --> 00:49:55.480 So we'd love to hear from you. If you find this useful, please be in touch. 00:50:01.200 --> 00:50:05.300 - Okay, I have a question here, as well. This is from Cindy. 00:50:05.300 --> 00:50:07.820 And i'm not sure if you're gonna answer this, 00:50:07.820 --> 00:50:14.440 but due to corona virus, Haro Straight and Puget Sound cargo ship traffic has decreased. 00:50:14.440 --> 00:50:16.900 Has this helped the orcas as a result? 00:50:17.840 --> 00:50:20.460 - Right. It's true, the water is a lot quieter out there. 00:50:20.460 --> 00:50:23.580 Not only that, but the whale watch fleet is still tied up at the docks. 00:50:23.580 --> 00:50:27.640 So it's quiet in a way it hasn't been, you know, probably in 50 years. 00:50:27.640 --> 00:50:30.860 and it can only help. I mean this is this is good for marine life. 00:50:30.860 --> 00:50:33.540 You know, there's just no question and it's good for the orcas. 00:50:33.540 --> 00:50:36.740 Now as it happens, right now the orcas aren't really here much. 00:50:36.740 --> 00:50:39.140 They're they're sort of visiting at this time of year, 00:50:39.140 --> 00:50:43.580 but it's pretty soon that the Southern Residents returned to their primary summer range 00:50:43.580 --> 00:50:44.760 in San Juan Islands. 00:50:45.660 --> 00:50:49.660 It used to be that they returned pretty much by the end of May 00:50:49.660 --> 00:50:52.060 and stayed all the way through summer. That's really been shifting 00:50:52.060 --> 00:50:55.360 because their their food source, the Chinook salmon, have been declining. 00:50:55.780 --> 00:50:59.580 But you know, once they come back to their summer home-- if this continues-- 00:50:59.580 --> 00:51:02.980 that is the shutdown of shipping and recreational boat traffic, 00:51:02.980 --> 00:51:06.180 they're going to find a very different environment than they've encountered in the past. 00:51:06.180 --> 00:51:11.160 And you know, the various scientists who've looked at this including the orca task force, 00:51:11.160 --> 00:51:17.340 they even called for a moratorium on a recreational whale watching of the Southern Residents. 00:51:17.340 --> 00:51:20.520 In the end, that isn't what the government decided to do, 00:51:20.520 --> 00:51:26.600 but right now, new regulations are being discussed to regulate whale watching for the first time 00:51:26.600 --> 00:51:30.760 in terms of number of boats that could be watching the whales at any time. 00:51:30.760 --> 00:51:34.580 And some additional restrictions have already been placed by the legislature. 00:51:34.580 --> 00:51:39.980 But you know, right now, it's quieter than it has ever been or probably ever will be, again. 00:51:42.480 --> 00:51:48.640 - All right. We have a question from Amanda. How often are offshore orcas sited in the Salish Sea? 00:51:49.240 --> 00:51:55.120 - Oh golly. In the Salish Sea, never, because the Salish Sea, right, that's Puget Sound 00:51:55.120 --> 00:52:00.880 and the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the waters around B.C. and the offshores are on the outer continental shelves. 00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:05.420 So they're in a different place. They're way out there in the ocean and rarely seen, actually, 00:52:05.420 --> 00:52:06.600 because of where they are. 00:52:07.580 --> 00:52:08.420 - Great, thank you. 00:52:10.340 --> 00:52:14.100 - So I've seen a lot of questions about the names of the orcas. 00:52:14.100 --> 00:52:18.720 So a lot of them asked how to spell them and we could probably put that out in a follow-up email, 00:52:18.720 --> 00:52:24.220 but can you speak to if the names are of any significance? Are they native origin? 00:52:24.220 --> 00:52:30.940 - Oh right. So these are the nicknames and they are done by the Orca Whale Museum at Friday Harbor. 00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:35.740 And it's a fundraiser that they do. You can adopt a whale. You can 00:52:35.740 --> 00:52:38.220 You know, you can go to their website and you'll see all the different names 00:52:38.220 --> 00:52:42.780 and you know, they range, right, some of them are just kind of whimsical and silly like Oreo 00:52:42.780 --> 00:52:44.940 and stuff like that. 00:52:44.940 --> 00:52:46.680 This one, mother orca Tahlequah, 00:52:46.680 --> 00:52:50.400 her name, Telequah, is a Native American name, but that's an exception. 00:52:50.400 --> 00:52:55.020 A lot of them are not like that at all. they're Ripples and Rainbow and Double Stuff 00:52:55.620 --> 00:52:56.780 and they've got all kinds of Daves. 00:52:57.040 --> 00:53:00.920 And I think they just come from, you know, people who have watched the whales on the water 00:53:00.920 --> 00:53:04.600 and know them and there's some significant thing about the way they look that charms them 00:53:04.600 --> 00:53:05.839 and they get that nickname. 00:53:06.720 --> 00:53:07.760 So it's a mix. 00:53:08.620 --> 00:53:09.860 - Great. Thank you. 00:53:14.080 --> 00:53:19.420 There's a question here. Do Southern orca go to the Hawaiian Islands? 00:53:19.420 --> 00:53:21.920 We have quite a few people joining us from Hawaii. 00:53:22.800 --> 00:53:28.920 - That's a fun question. No. Their range is from basically around Victoria, B.C. 00:53:28.920 --> 00:53:35.900 and the outer western end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound 00:53:35.900 --> 00:53:40.520 and then all the way down the outer coast of Washington, Oregon and California. 00:53:40.520 --> 00:53:44.160 There are orcas, though, in every ocean of the world, 00:53:44.160 --> 00:53:48.080 just different types of orcas. And they all have a specialized diet. 00:53:48.080 --> 00:53:49.220 They eat what they eat. 00:53:49.220 --> 00:53:55.040 I mean it's very interesting to see how these orcas manage to maintain a peaceful coexistence 00:53:55.040 --> 00:53:56.960 with one another. They eat different things. 00:53:56.960 --> 00:54:00.260 So they're not in competition with one another, overtly, over food. 00:54:01.520 --> 00:54:05.840 - Yeah, great. I know there was a sighting of orcas just a couple of weeks ago off the Big Island of Hawaii 00:54:05.840 --> 00:54:09.119 and Kona. So i can see why there's a lot of interest. 00:54:09.119 --> 00:54:12.360 - Just a different population. - Just yep different population. 00:54:12.360 --> 00:54:15.220 So it looks like, Jacqueline, we can probably ask one more question 00:54:15.220 --> 00:54:17.780 and then we'll move on to the closing slides. 00:54:18.220 --> 00:54:21.040 And for all those questions, there's so many questions that have come in, 00:54:21.040 --> 00:54:26.000 we really appreciate the high interest in this topic and Lynda's great presentation. 00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:31.400 So, Lynda, if it's okay with you, we're hoping to send you many of these unanswered questions 00:54:31.400 --> 00:54:33.860 and give you a few days or a week to respond back. 00:54:33.860 --> 00:54:39.760 And we'll make sure to blast it out to all the attendees and registrants of today's webinar, if that works? 00:54:39.760 --> 00:54:41.880 - I'd love to. That'd be fun. Great. 00:54:43.340 --> 00:54:48.140 - Okay, well with the last question, just to reach other audiences around, 00:54:48.140 --> 00:54:52.520 Some folks were asking if there's any of this research being done in the Atlantic? 00:54:53.440 --> 00:54:55.280 - Ah. On Orca whales. 00:54:56.360 --> 00:54:59.960 You know, if I said no, I'd probably be wrong, because there's a scientist, somewhere, 00:54:59.960 --> 00:55:01.820 doing something on everything, right? 00:55:01.820 --> 00:55:05.920 But most of the research on-- I'm aware of-- is about the Southern Resident orcas 00:55:05.920 --> 00:55:09.839 because they are the endangered population and that's all going on, right here. 00:55:09.839 --> 00:55:13.560 Remember, the other populations are healthy. They're doing fine. 00:55:13.560 --> 00:55:18.060 Which really points it back to what is that's going on, here, that needs to be fixed. 00:55:20.540 --> 00:55:24.700 - Thank you. Great. - Excellent. Okay, well with that, 00:55:24.700 --> 00:55:28.880 I will go ahead and work my way back to being the presenter. 00:55:28.880 --> 00:55:33.460 and we can wrap things up. We do appreciate that 00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:41.220 we have lots of great questions and look forward to getting the responses from them. 00:55:41.220 --> 00:55:45.040 So with that, let me get back into my presentation, here. 00:55:45.040 --> 00:55:48.040 We do have a webinar archive. 00:55:48.580 --> 00:55:51.240 And here we go. 00:55:51.900 --> 00:55:57.640 Typical government URL super long and cumbersome. Don't worry, you will get a follow-up email, immediately, 00:55:57.640 --> 00:56:00.640 that has a link to the webinar archive. 00:56:00.640 --> 00:56:05.440 And you'll get also a certificate of a attendance, excuse me. 00:56:05.440 --> 00:56:09.040 So this is just an example of one that we've given in January. 00:56:09.040 --> 00:56:12.620 So all of you that attended today's webinar will receive one of these 00:56:12.620 --> 00:56:15.480 in an email just shortly after we conclude. 00:56:15.480 --> 00:56:18.740 And for those of you that end up watching the recording if you get to this point 00:56:18.740 --> 00:56:25.360 and you would like a certificate of attendance, please go ahead and email sanctuary.education.noaa.gov 00:56:25.640 --> 00:56:28.900 I'll put it back. It's on that slide, right there. 00:56:28.900 --> 00:56:34.160 And we're doing a lot of cross promotion because there's so many great distance learning programs 00:56:34.160 --> 00:56:38.900 and live interactions happening all over the country with NOAA and partners. 00:56:39.460 --> 00:56:44.980 My co-worker, Hannah MacDonald, hosts these live interactions with Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants. 00:56:45.480 --> 00:56:52.000 They're two or three a week until early June. The next one is on May 20th at 4 pm Eastern. 00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:57.180 You would have an opportunity to explore the deep sea communities in an underwater volcano 00:56:57.180 --> 00:57:01.720 in our National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa. 00:57:01.720 --> 00:57:07.700 And note, I've already pre-loaded into your question box the links to these upcoming presentations. 00:57:07.700 --> 00:57:09.960 They will also be in the follow-up email, 00:57:09.960 --> 00:57:13.280 but if you want to click on them, now, and bookmark those pages, you can. 00:57:13.280 --> 00:57:18.220 In our very own webinar series, we have two this week, which is exciting for us, 00:57:18.220 --> 00:57:23.180 On May 21st, we have award-winning marine life photographer, Doug Perrine joining us. 00:57:23.180 --> 00:57:26.820 He's going to deconstruct the media bias concerning sharks 00:57:26.820 --> 00:57:31.920 to showcase how different holly how sharks are like hollywood sharks versus real sharks. 00:57:31.920 --> 00:57:33.840 So that should be an exciting one. 00:57:34.460 --> 00:57:41.160 And then our partners at Woods Hole Cceanographic Institution and the Sea Grant, there, 00:57:41.160 --> 00:57:46.900 they're hosting a NOAA live series that's typically targeting grades second through sixth 00:57:47.040 --> 00:57:49.500 or second through eighth. And they have hands-on activities. 00:57:49.500 --> 00:57:56.420 The one later this week is about nature's warning signs for tsunamis. How minutes matter. 00:57:56.420 --> 00:58:00.680 So lots of great opportunities. Again, those links are already in your question box 00:58:00.680 --> 00:58:03.000 in the go to webinar control panel. 00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:09.520 My last little plug here is we greatly appreciate evaluation of our program, 00:58:09.520 --> 00:58:15.040 so when you leave today's webinar, there are four short questions that we ask you to complete. 00:58:15.040 --> 00:58:19.760 It will take you less than a minute. It pops up instantly as you leave the webinar 00:58:19.760 --> 00:58:21.660 or as we end today's presentation. 00:58:21.660 --> 00:58:22.800 Please do that. 00:58:22.800 --> 00:58:26.620 For those of you that are formal and informal educators, there's an additional link 00:58:26.620 --> 00:58:34.160 in a fifth comment question, which takes you to a more robust, multimedia and distance learning survey. 00:58:34.160 --> 00:58:38.340 So NOAA has OMB clearance to do this broader survey, 00:58:38.340 --> 00:58:41.080 but we want to hear from you. Like what length videos do you want? 00:58:41.080 --> 00:58:46.559 what types of distance learning programs work for you, your future classrooms, your students, etc. 00:58:46.560 --> 00:58:51.200 So please take, in that case, probably five to eight minutes to complete the survey. 00:58:51.560 --> 00:58:58.400 And we greatly appreciate getting that feedback from those of you that want these resources from NOAA. 00:58:58.400 --> 00:59:02.360 So with that, we will conclude today's presentation. 00:59:02.360 --> 00:59:07.420 It was so wonderful to hear from award-winning journalist Lynda Mapes 00:59:07.420 --> 00:59:14.400 from the Seattle Times. Thank you so much for your just visually stimulating presentation and storytelling. 00:59:14.400 --> 00:59:17.800 And we hope that a lot of those people that want suggested that 00:59:17.800 --> 00:59:21.220 they were interested in being volunteers, will find a way to get involved. 00:59:21.600 --> 00:59:25.940 So thanks, Jacqueline and Chris, for also co-hosting with me. 00:59:25.940 --> 00:59:28.880 And we appreciate everyone's participation today. 00:59:28.880 --> 00:59:32.260 With that, it concludes today's webinar. Thank you 00:59:32.880 --> 00:59:33.540 - Thank you. 00:59:40.560 --> 00:59:47.840 - [Chris] Thanks, Lynda.