Quinault Ocean Management - Climate and Critters Joe Schumacker Quinault Dept. of Fisheries Taholah, Washington
The Olympic Peninsula – Home of Four Coastal Treaty Tribes that Depend Upon the Ocean
Ocean Temperature and Shrinking Glaciers in the STUCK IN THE Carbon Increases Olympic Mountains MIDDLE! SALMON CRAB CLAMS MARINE FISH PEOPLE CULTURE ECONOMIES
THREATS AND CHALLENGES FROM A CHANGING OCEAN THREATS CHALLENGES Rising Sea Levels Village Relocations Warming Ocean Salmon Survival at Sea Seasonal Hypoxia Events Dead Fish and Shellfish Ocean Acidification Shellfish and Zooplankton Harmful Algal Blooms Closed Harvests ALL OF THE AB OVE QUINAULT WAY OF LIFE
Quinault Blueback (Sockeye) Salmon • Iconic part of Quinault culture and identity. • Harvested for millennia on the Quinault River. • Highly prized and traded widely. NO harvest allowed – SECOND year in a • row.
Quinault Mitigation for Habitat Destruction and Ocean Survival Quinault River above Lake Quinault Quinault River and the Ocean
Whale Entanglements – Crab Gear • U.S. West Coast averaged 10 entanglements per year 2000 through 2014 • Incidents and mortalities spiked in years 2015-2018 • NOAA reported over 50 in 2015 & 2016. 31 in 2017 and more than 45 in 2018 • Quinault taking proactive measures to avoid entanglements including derelict gear removal and area and seasonal closures.
Preliminary 2018 Data 8
Confirmed whale entanglement reports by month; 1982-2017 8/5/2019 9
Timing of Commercial and Recreational Dungeness Crab Whale Entanglement Reports
Charismatic Megafauna – Continued… • Cute, voracious, vicious, animals need enormous amounts of food to survive. • From Jessica Hale (UW Grad Student) 2015 – “ A sea otter can definitely eat 10 Dungeness crab a day - I observed a female sea otter at Giants Graveyard who ate 9 crabs in addition to some other prey items in the time I was watching (37 minutes). I also observed a male sea otter eat 211 razor clams in one hour at Beach 4 near Kalaloch last weekend. But the overall population diet is varied depending on the location- I don't think all 1600 otters are eating 10 crabs/day, but maybe the ones in your area. Will be looking into that!”
Charismatic Megafauna – Continued… Chinook SRKW Salmon
THANK YOU! QUESTIONS?
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