11
votes
In California, orcas and salmon have become so scarce people have forgotten what once was. Will the Northwest be next?
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- Authors
- Lynda V. Mapes
- Published
- Sep 29 2019
- Word count
- 4419 words
As a PNW semi-native (wasn't born here, but we moved to the Seattle metro when I was 4), this sucks so hard. I remember the first time I got to see the orcas, up in the San Juan Islands. We happened to be near the J Pod and we got to see J-2. She's deceased now, but was thought to be anywhere from 80 to over 100 years old. It's pretty moving to see this animal that's almost the size of a bus leading her pod, as she had done for decades. These animals are not just majestic; when you get close to one you have a chance to see them interact with each other and the environment in a way that you don't normally see. They're not like us per se, nor are they like great apes, but you can feel something special there. You get this feeling that there's a mind in there, something more akin to us than a cat or dog or parrot. It really makes you think about animal intelligence and just how myopic and destructive we are.
The destruction of salmon runs is a big deal for the orca and for us. I remember as a child only 30 years ago seeing silvers and humpies, with some chinooks and a few kings in there too, moving through the sound and Commencement Bay. It's not like that these days. People out fishing and the tribes still get quite a few, but it's not like I remember. My great uncles used to say how the fish were "so thick that you could walk across the river on them". Overfishing and industrilization are a big part, but so are the dams on the Columbia and other rivers. I love hydro power, but it has a serious, serious cost at the expense of wildlife.
But even if we tore down the dams yesterday, there's so much pollution. There's 1 refinery on the water in Tacoma, 2 in Anacortes, 1 in Bellingham and 1 up past Mt Vernon. Those are just refineries, not including tank farms, shipping, and tons of other manufacturing. That's not including sormwater runoff. Where do you think the drips of oil, lawn fertilizers and treated sewage end up? Puget Sound. Let's not forget the big ships. The ports of Tacoma and Seattle together are one of the biggest container destinations in the country, moving millions of TEUs a year. The engine noise from those is known to interfere with whale's echolocation and communication.
There's over 4,000,000 people living within an hour of the Puget Sound, and a good portion of them are ignorant or ambivalent to the needs of the whales and wildlife. I hate being pessimistic, but I don't see our dams, industry and population changing in any way that will make a meaningful improvement. I really hope that my nibblings aren't the last generation to get to see our resident pods, but I'm not hopeful.
Shortsightedness, greed, apathy and speciesism: the hallmarks of our kind.
There are orcas along the coast of Norway, but they're rare to see. Porpoises, though, are common, and I've had this experience during close encounters. Once when I was a kid, my father, little sister and I took a rowboat out late in the evening and a small group of porpoises showed up. They would surface 5-10 meters away from the boat, duck under and surface again 5-10 meters on the other side. My little sister was terrified (she was afraid they were going to tip the boat over); I was delighted. It seemed they were as curious and excited to see us as we were to see them. It is, perhaps, the closest we get to an encounter with alien intelligence. Domesticated animals are so used to us, they don't react with the same awe and curiosity to the mere presence of humans, nor we to them; here, we had an encounter where both sides got to experience the giddy excitement of being both observer and observed, known and mysterious at the same time.
It's easy to fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing intelligent animals too much, of course, but I've had several experiences where I felt like, somehow, we were sharing the same feeling. One time I was taking photographs on the beach at midnight, and a lone porpoise showed up, repeatedly surfacing just off shore; and it struck me that we were probably both wondering the same thing: What are you doing here, alone, at this moment in time?
Oh, absolutely. We're doing that with our tech too, and it'll really become a thing when our machines are interactive enough to get into the uncanny valley.
Now, on the flipside, we have the other risk of being so human-centric that we completely disregard animal intelligence and sentience. We've been really good at doing that one, at least here in Western Culture, and that's a huge factor in why we are here with these environmental problems. Our economic system has been contingent on extracting value from everything it possibly can, including animals themselves and the natural world.
I feel confident that the "animals are automotons for us to profit from" is absolutely the wrong way to go. I think that blanket anthropomorphizing animals is also foolish and that we need science to back up our claims. That said, we need a sane, middle ground here. It's ok to recognize that there is a spectrum: some animals are just like biological robots, that some are very close to us in cognitive ability, and most fall somewhere in between. But regardless of where they fall on this spectrum, every living thing is entitled to live their lives as they see fit and not just exist to be exploited for profit or our vulgar amusement.
Agree 100% with what you are saying, I too grew up in Seattle (still here!).
The salmon population has and will be decreasing more steadily in the coming years. There are just too many people that have no idea/don't care about the health of the fish/wildlife in the area.
I am also not very optimistic about this. I hope I'm wrong!
I used to work with a bunch of "live to fish, fish to live" types. They'd complain about the Tribes are "ruining the runs by catching too many". Meanwhile, their big ol' diesel F-350s on 33" tires are all parked along the Nisqually's banks, as they're out in fishing 10 feet offshore with their outboards idling.
Talk about cognitive dissonance.