The Hidden Impact of Bycatch on Orcas
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- Опубліковано 17 чер 2024
- #orca #orcas #kpassionate
A shocking number of orcas were caught in the nets of fishing trawlers. Until now, it was pretty rare for an orca to be trapped in fishing gear. So what happened?
00:00 - Orca Bycatch
00:54 - 10 Orcas Were Caught by Fishing Trawlers
02:33 - Are Orcas Endangered?
03:03 - How Many Orcas Are Left in the World?
03:46 - How Many Types of Orca Are There?
04:49 - Orca Matrilines
06:24 - Orcas in Norway
06:59 - Seafood Watch
07:28 - KPassionate
Resources
Monterey Bay Seafood Watch
→ www.seafoodwatch.org/
NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center Contact Info
→ www.fisheries.noaa.gov/contac...
The incidents occurred in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands region of western Alaska. The orcas in this region fall under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which requires vessel owners or operators to report all interactions with these animals. The MMPA also requires trawl vessels to carry two federally contracted observers who collect information about bycatch. According to their observations, 10 orcas were caught in fishing gear so far this year. Only one was released alive. That's a dramatic spike, up from five orcas who were caught in the same region between 2016 and 2020.
A researcher with the non-profit North Gulf Oceanic Society spent a week on a trawler in May with a hydrophone, recording orcas that were making clicking sounds associated with foraging as the net was being towed. This indicates that the orcas were either pursuing fish in front of the net or, worse, following those fish into the net.
Cites Sources
[1] www.adn.com/alaska-news/wildl...
[2] www.adn.com/alaska-news/scien...
[3] pCxyJaRsRd...
[4] www.livescience.com/animals/o...
[5] www.fisheries.noaa.gov/specie...
[6] academic.oup.com/jhered/artic...
[7] onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/f...
So, is there anything we can do about this? And the answer is yes. There is a lot that we can do. Starting with changing the way we manage orca populations. The NOAA really needs to treat each orca population as an individual stock. Something it already does for the southern resident killer whales and the AT1 Biggs. From there we can strengthen our regulations. Because this behavior of preying in front of commercial fishing nets isn’t unique to the Alaskan orcas. From 2011 to 2020, Norwegian fishing vessels caught over 100 orcas in their nets. Almost all of these orcas were released alive and mortality from that Norwegian fishery is extremely low. That’s because Norway implemented laws that prioritize the lives of whales, even if it means opening fishing nets and releasing the fish.
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Learn more about the different orca ecotypes → ua-cam.com/video/TnJVE2oNJH0/v-deo.html
See my take on why Iberian orcas are attacking yachts → ua-cam.com/video/C0cGdd9lUgY/v-deo.html
Why are orcas called killer whales? ua-cam.com/video/FIwjehSYKJg/v-deo.html
You can even read, yet your telling others to come and be brainwashed by your stupidity!
Hey just wanted to say thank you for bringing more attention to this. I found your video on a Facebook page called STOP Alaskan trawler bycatch. We need to figure out a way to work together to stop the over fishing in our oceans. I also live in the PNW and the sport fishing community has been trying to bring attention to this for a long time. The resident Orcas in Washington state waters has been in danger for several years now because of returning salmon populations decrease. There’s a lot of factors that cause lower returns of our pacific coast salmon and steelhead but nothing impacts is more than commercial ocean harvest. The same industry that has killed the 10 Orcas this year. Our battle is mega corporations that have vested interests in harvest. Like McDonald’s for their fish sandwich for one example. The commercial fleet in Canada and US especially the fleet based in Seattle have lobbyists and combined with the mega corporations and their vested interests. They are all in close relationships with our federal legislators and they get to harvest.. wait for it.. 80-85% of Northern California,Oregon and Washington states returning salmon. They write it up and the Secretary of commerce approves it. That is robbing our natural resources. These ocean commercial fleets are allowed a margin of error and can..OOPS we over fished a little bit. On top of the allocation they are allowed they also get a margin of allotted bycatch of our salmon. The bycatch is 90 percent of the time over the allotted number..way over. The majority of the fish returning to the PNW is from hatchery production and we are having poor returns but if we can get the ocean harvest allowed from 85% to 60% the retuning salmon.. our natural resources will go from 15% to 40% !! That’s enough for the everyone.. the Orcas and the sport fishing community and the tribes of PNW. There’s no greater environmentalists than the tribes and sport hunting and fishing community. We have a vested interest in keeping a healthy population of our natural resources so our children can continue to enjoy our heritage of sustainable harvest here in the PNW. If we allow the commercial fishing industry and mega corporations and their lobbyists to continue to do what they are doing it’s all going to collapse. It’s already to late for some strains in some of our streams but if we can figure out how to get them to cut back there’s some hope. I don’t think they will ever stop but we have to figure it out.
Thank you for all of this information!
@@KPassionate your welcome.. here’s an illustration that’s helpful.
Imagine they used bulldozers to drag 1,000 lb cables back and forth across Yellowstone National Park 24/7/365 for the last 40 years, then told us they had no effect on habitat.
This is what is happening to our Ocean. The amount of biomass that is killed from draggers is astonishing but the bycatch alone is insane. They have to discard it. It’s thrown overboard and it’s all dead. But the bottom of the ocean.. the habitat for the fish is destroyed. It’s all upside down. We need to figure out how to give our state run hatcheries to the Tribes because they are a sovereign nation. The federal funding will still go to the hatcheries because they can’t let the ocean commercial fleets die but the Tribes can run a better program. It’s proven because of the ones they have are all successful. With the tribes and sport industry and environmental groups like you may have more familiar ties.. if we can all work together against big corporations to stop killing our natural resources..ie the indictment scorched earth approach to commercial fishing.. I really think it’s the only way. They want everyone to be disputing about this or that. If we are distracted they can get away with murder if you will of our Ocean. Please look into some of these things. We have some lawsuits going against the Oregon DFW commission. But the biggest problem we have is this industry backed by huge corporations that have lobbyists. We have to work together. We are to small as divided people but if we come together we can do it. We all want the same thing. We want a healthy thriving planet.
Ugh. Ten in less than a year. Very upsetting. But very grateful for the ferret cuddle-smooches at the end.
Samesies!
Thank you KP ! Losing 1 is sad, never mind 10, that's a disaster
Great video. This is alarming. I hope it leads to strengthened protection laws very quickly.
Agreed
The bottom trawl fishery that caught the orcas is Arrowtooth founder and sablefish. Arrowtooth is certified by the Monterey Bay Seafood watch as Best Choice. The underlying issue is that NOAA opened directed sablefish for factory bottom trawlers, when normally its only allowed as an incidental catch. Sablefish are a high value fish to Orcas so they engaged in the much riskier behavior. If you need links hit me up.
Great video. Wasn’t there supposed to be a link in the video description to contact NOAA about the orca bycatch issue? If so, I didn’t see it…
I didn't see it either
Thanks! It's on there now.
It's why I don't eat fish anymore. Forget about salmon. I have plenty of other to choose from.
Just want to give you props for doing right thing.
Very upsetting, but has to be heard… Thank you so much for including the resources for us! I will make use of them.
Sad, just sad.😔
Great information KP. Would really like to connect off line as my organization is actively working to take on the Trawl fleet and their lack of observance of the Observation Program, the killing of the 10 Orcas and the hundreds of thousands of pounds of bycatch, etc. Hope to hear from you.
The public needs to know what is happening. This is unacceptable.
I think updating regulations to the way Norway does it is the way to go. It's going to suck for fishing boats, but the alternative is eventually not doing it at all. I'd still be skeptical about what it might be teaching the orcas though. I don't see fish populations recovering a whole lot any time soon, so despite the danger and unpleasantness, they might develop a strategy of intentionally getting caught in order to force the fishing boats to release the catch, and then the orcas would have it all for themselves. Encouraging food dependency isn't great, but maybe if there was some way like "hey orcas, behave, let us do our thing, and at the end we'll give you a cut of the catch" that might be a good idea.
This breaks my heart
Very upsetting.
Agreed!
Hey KP!😀 I'm wondering....did you ever make that 2nd part video regarding Alzheimer's & dolphins?
I am still waiting for the official study to come out! These things seem to take way longer than they should lol
@KPassionate Thanks for replying..and so quickly as well. Keep doing what you're doing. Though I've only "known" you since y'all introduced me (the world) to our goodest boi Prince Joey Clamchops, you have given me more amazing AND helpful/useful information about marine animals in these last few years than I've learned my entire life up to 2020. Thank you for all you've done & continue to do.
Another thing we can do is reconstitute SCOTUS, as current justices are likely to further lessen our government’s authority to regulate private industry.
Love your content! Any chance you're making a video about the current transfer of the orcas from Marineland Antibes in France to the new Kuma Seaworld in Kobe, Japan? The orcas were supposed to be transferred this month before the park in France reopens in February, but activists stopped it. The French government has forbidden public display and shows with cetaceans by 2026 I believe. Of course naive animal activists thought that means the orcas would be released or moved to a seapen or whatever, but obviously they're just gonna be moved to another park in a different country.
The tank at the park is a ticking time bomb, it's in bad condition and leaking from all sides. The orcas need to be moved asap before a disaster happens with that tank. But now they need to wait at least another 4 months because an independant investigation needs to be carried out to determine the state of the animals before they can be moved. The park has not been doing financially well for years, especially since the pandemic. I believe they can't keep up with the maintenance costs of that tank, which is the largest orca tank in the world. It's absolutely massive. I visited the park in 2020 and the tank is very impressive with its enormous glass walls, but was already leaking back than and didn't seem to be in great condition.
On the other hand, Kuma Seaworld will be a sisterpark of Kamogawa Seaworld in Japan. They currently have 4 orcas and are the only park in the world still doing waterworks. While their tank isn't the biggest by far, but the behaviour of these orcas seem very happy. I love watching videos of those orcas. They play by themselves on the slideout, they interact a lot with visitors on their own, they are constantly hogging their trainers for attention. The way their trainers interact with the orcas is incredible. Constant hugs and kisses and the orcas adore it. It's very different from anything I've seen at other marine parks with orcas, very unique.
Kuma Seaworld will probably want to open with orcas, so I'm wondering if they might acquire orcas from the Chinese parks instead if they can't make arrangements for the transfer of the French orcas soon. It'll be interesting to see how this situation will develop in the next few months.
Glad you enjoy the channel! I probably won’t be doing a video about that simply because I don’t know enough about the facilities in Japan that are slated to receive these animals and so I can’t make a proper opinion on them. And these facilities are very difficult to get objective information on. I do think it’s wild that activists would rather see the animals transferred to a place where these same activists will never be able to monitor them again…out of sight out of mind I suppose
I wasn't expecting to cry today, but oh well haha. Ugh... this is absolutely awful...
They will adapt and learn from their mistakes, evolution working in real time.
Question I live in Guam our waters are tropical and we barely see whales here of any kind . Last year some orcas were seen passing by and pretty close to the island. They passed and were never seen again but before that we never even heard of orcas visiting our island in the past . Why do you think they were in the area ?
This is a very good question. It's something that has been happening around the world. Orcas were recently sighted off the coast of India for the first time, for example. They've also been seen more frequently in Southern California and staying longer than usual. The honest answer is we don't really know why. There could be a lot of reasons. They could be following prey. Another theory is that climate change is changing water currents and oceanic temperatures.
[1] weather.com/en-IN/india/biodiversity/news/2023-12-15-killer-whales-spotted-by-maharashtra-karnataka-coasts
[2] fox5sandiego.com/news/california-news/orca-sightings-have-surged-in-socal-what-experts-believe-is-keeping-the-whales-here/
We've also seen it recently with other species. Walruses are a good example as individuals have been seen in Ireland and Norway.
@@KPassionate interesting 🤔 thank you for your reply
The trawl fleet has been destroying Alaska for decades. If you hear something bad has happened, multiply it by 10 and that would be more realistic. Just about every fish species in Alaska is stunted because of overfished catch limits. Calling unwanted fish "bycatch" gives them the right to kill everything.
1:24 My first question is why? Why do the numbers of entangled orcas increase? New behavour? New fishing teqniques? Foodshortagw? If so, due to climatechange, overfishing or both?
Is it possibly a reporting bias as well? Are more fishermen reporting whale bycatch rather than just dumping them and keeps quiet?
I have wondered about this as well but there are two independent bycatch reporters on board so it seems less likely.
@KPassionate that's good; I know in the chicken keeping groups I was in when I raised heritage poultry, there was a common saying when a protected animal or roaming housepet was being a risk to the flock. "Follow the three S rule. Shoot, shovel, and shut up."
Not a policy I would follow, but not an uncommon mindset when people have the option.
@@KPassionateObservers are always looking the other way.
1:41 Sounds like Gladys needs to take a trip to Alaska to start teaching those guys how to attack fishing vessels…
Also? We humans just seem to be gang-raping the oceans the past 200 years, don't we?
Someone needs to get it into people's heads that the Earth is not flat extending infinitely in all directions. It's a sphere, and therefore finite.
The NPFMC set the catch limit for the industrial trawlers at 3 BILLION pounds.(pollock for fake crab and fillet o fish)Again. and we wonder why the whales and everything else out there might be starving. And NOAA calls it the "Model of sustainability" Great job NOAA. I want my taxpayer money back!
This video is missing some context. Orca population in Alaska has been growing and mainly due, IMO, to Orcas feeding off of fishing boats, most often Halibut and Sablefish longliners.
I've been a longliner for decades and have seen the size and number of Orca pods explode. When i first started fishing, we'd rarely see Orcas feeding from our longline. By about 10 years ago is was a major issue for longliners. We could go days without landing a single fish despite setting 1000s of hooks as Orcas would take everything off the lines. We'd travel hundreds of miles trying to find areas free of orcas only to be found by another pod.
One of the fishery biologist observers told me they're using the term "superpod" to describe some of the pods that have abnormally grown to numbers never before seen.
Recently fishery managers began allowing Sablefish to be caught using pots. I think pretty much every vessel is now using pots and the whales are no longer able to feed on tons of Sablefish fishermen pulled to the surface. If Orcas are starving, it's not from overfishing, it's because they're no longer being served free lunch and are being forced to look elsewhere.
What's happening to his killer whales I hope these fishermen get in trouble and sent to jail for there crimes in my eyes this is classified as killer whale poaching if you ask my honest opinion if u askme that should stop fishing in this area
What law do you think was broken?
From what I read on the internet about these fishing trawlers and they there will be reckless they weren't watching for the catching that killed over 10 killer whales but one got released from the nets that is good news but the other Whales had to suffer and they died a horrible painful death in thoses nets and then we're watching for what they're doing as a person who loves killer whales and then my number one favourite animal I feel bad for them and I feel very sad what for what happened to them as a marine biologist what do you call it killer whale poaching for what for what happened to the whale or not can you please reply to this please
@@scottwalker5379 you seem to forget that each fishing boat has two federal observers on board to monitor the fishing, the catch and methods
These fishermen have no reason to want to catch any whales
Hey don't you give me wrong I know these fisherman's probably didn't mean to put the killer whales in there nets is this was killer whale poaching what would happen to these guys even if it's not orca poaching then what would you cool it then you can tell I have a strong love for killer whales and I love killer whales and my favourite animal since I was a young boy and because of the movie free Willy but I if this isn't killer whale what will you call then
Poor orcas !!! Shame on people !!! When people will stop being stupid!!!
I’m a Human and I am more concerned with other humans then some whales.
I wonder what damage the whales do to the nets when caught…never mind having to lose your entire catch because of a whale
I always wonder if whales are so smart why do they do such stupid stuff? Swim up on shore, get hit by ships and get caught in nets
So sad that this is the way some people think.