Issues Affecting The Southern Resident Orcas Reading Passage
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Issues Affecting The Southern Resident Orcas Reading Passage
Paragraph A:
Orcas, also called killer whales, are aggressive feeders, which means they will take a multiplicity of various prey species. J, K, and L pods (specific groups of orcas found in the region) are nearly solely fish eaters. Some analyses show that up to 90 per cent of their diet is salmon, with Chinook salmon being by far their favourite. During the last 50 years, hundreds of wild runs of salmon have vanished due to environmental loss and overfishing of wild stocks. Many of the vanished salmon stocks are the winter runs of Chinook and coho. While the live stocks have probably been enough to comfort the resident pods, numerous runs that have been lost were doubtless traditional resources favoured by the resident orcas. This may be affecting the whales’ nourishment in the winter and they may need them to swap their motif of movement in order to search for food.
Paragraph B:
Other analyses with tagged whales have shown that they usually dive up to 800 feet in this area. Analysts are inclined to think that the whales may be feeding on bottom fish during bottomless dives. Bottomfish species in this area would cover flatfish, bullfish, Ophiodon, and greenling. Researchers assess that today’s Ophiodon population in northern Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia is only 2 per cent of what it was in 1950. The normal size of bull fish in the recreational catch has also decreased by some inches since the 1970s, which is symptomatic of overfishing. In a few locations, certain bullfish species have vanished completely. So even if bottom fish are not a main food resource for the whales, the present low numbers of obtainable fish increase the pressure on orcas and all oceanic animals to find food. (for more details on bottom fish, see the San Juan Country Bottomfish Recovery Program).
Paragraph C:
Poisonous stuff gathers in lofty concentrations as they move up the food chain. Due to orcas are the top vampires in the ocean and are at the top of various food chains in the habitat, they are conducive to being more affected by pollutants than other sea animals. Scrutiny of helpless killer whales has shown some exceedingly high levels of lead, mercury and PCBs. Deserted oceanic poisonous waste dumps and present levels of firm and human waste pollution of the inland waters probably present the most serious threat to the continuous survival of this orca population. Adversely, the total treatment of this huge issue would be broad societal changes on numerous fronts. However, because of the fact that orcas are so famous, they may be the best type to use as a centre in bringing about the numerous swaps that are required to be made in order to keep the oceanic habitat as a whole from further noxious poisoning’.
Paragraph D:
The water around San Juan Island is exceedingly busy because of international trading, shipping, fishing, whale watching, and cruisers. On a busy weekend day in the summer, it is not unusual to see many vessels in the neighbourhood of the whales as they travel through the area. The possible collision from all this boat traffic with consideration to the whales and other oceanic animals in the area could be huge. The surfacing and breathing space of oceanic birds and mammals is a censorious aspect of their environment, which the animals must deliberately deal with on a moment-to-moment basis all over their lifespan. With all the sailing activity in the neighbourhood, there are three ways in which surface collisions are most likely to affect oceanic animals:(a) impact, (b) impact avoidance, and (c) exhaust emission in breathing pockets.
Paragraph E:
The first two collisions are very clear and don’t just apply to boats with motors. Canoes even present an issue here due to they’re so quiet, oceanic animals, busy hunting and feeding under the surface of the water, may not be conscious of the fact that there is a canoe above them and literally hit the bottom of it as they surface to breathe.
Paragraph F:
The third collision is one most people don’t even think of. When there are many boats in the area, particularly loafing boats, there is ample carbon monoxide gas being erected out on the surface of the water. When the whale comes up to a nice huge breath of “pure” air, it alternatively gets a nice big breath of carbon monoxide gas. It’s difficult to tell how highly this affects the animals, but think about how breathing polluted air affects us (i.e., smoke in large cities like Los Angeles, breathing disgusting air while sitting in traffic jams, etc).
Paragraph G:
Alike to surface collisions, a prime origin of acoustic pollution for this population of orcas would also be obtained from the accumulating underwater noise of vessel traffic. For beluga, the sub-aquatic sound habitat may be the most censorious part of their sensory and observable lives. Orcas liaise with each other over short and long gaps with a diversity of clicks, tweets, creaks, and whoosh, along with using biosonar to locate prey and navigate. They may also rely on submissive listening as a prime sensory source. The incessant collisions from noise pollution would not likely show perceptible behavioural changes in environmental use but rather as sensorial damage or decreasing in population health. A new analyst at The Whale Museum called the SeaSound Remote Sensing Network has begun studying sub-aquatic acoustics and its relationship to orca communication.
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