Islands' Weekly, November 05, 2013

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The

INSIDE Natural history

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Barn raising project

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New business

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www.islandsweekly.com 360-468-4242 • 800-654-6142

Islands’ eekly W

VOLUME 36, NUMBER 45 • NOVEMBER 5, 2013

Whales off course on the way to recovery By Scott Rasmussen Journal editor

Community Shakespeare 12th Annual Fall Festival

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (appropriate for all ages)

Lopez Center for Community & the Arts

Nov. 6, 12 noon & 7:30 p.m. Nov. 7-8-9 at 7:30 p.m. Students $10, Adults $15 Tickets online at communityshakespeare.org, Also at Paper Scissors Rock

What only a few short years ago appeared to be an upswing in the population now seems like fleeting good fortune in the up-again, down-again saga of the southern resident killer whales. With four members missing and presumed dead, the population has fallen to 80 animals, according to the Center for Whale Research. The population totaled 88 in 2010. Center Director Ken Balcomb, citing this year’s dismal return of Chinook salmon to the Fraser River,

inter-island creative affair SJ, Orcas & Lopez

A great way share your message this holiday season!

Contributed photo /Center for Whale Research

(L-79 (missing) swims along side his mother, L-22). maintains a combination of dwindling food supply and toxic materials accumulated in the blubber of the whales is largely to blame for the latest disappearances and drop in numbers. Without enough prey to satisfy nutritional needs, Balcomb said whales draw on blubber for fuel and that toxins are then released into their circulatory system in highly concentrated levels. “All whales use blubber as sort of a freezer storage area,” he said. “The PCBs [polychlorinated biphenyls] go from parts per billion to parts per million when they start drawing on the bank account of blubber and just like in humans it affects the immune system, the nervous system, the reproductive system. It’s what happens when you have bad years for fish.” The center, which main-

Lopez Center

November 9 Woodman Hall info: 468-4497

*bring food for food drive for a raffle ticket prize from artists

A November 27th Publication of the Weekly, Sounder, and Journal Call 376- 4500 to book now!

Thanksgiving Meal Baskets The Lopez Island Family Resource Center is pleased to help assure all in our Lopez community have a bountiful Thanksgiving. If you would like to donate food or money to help buy the “fix-ins” for about 50 Thanksgiving baskets for local families, please call the LIFRC at 468-4117. If you and your family would like a meal basket provided, call the LIFRC for more details.

slowartlopez.com

Contra Dance & Concert

Wednesday Nov. 13th, 7pm

Perpetual e-Motion George Marshall With

calling

9:30 am - 2:30 pm

tains a census of the southern resident killer whales for the National Marine Fisheries Service, will list three whales missing in its 2013 survey, all from L-pod. The three are: L-2, a female, estimated age of 53, L-26 a female, estimated age of 57, and L-79 a male born in 1989. The census does not include J-8, a female whose age the center estimates at 80, and which appears to be the latest casualty. Also known as “Spieden,” J-8 was not among others members of J-pod when the

2014

Wellness Guide

COMING SOON! Wellness Guide is a Publication of the Weekly, Sounder and Journal

Call 376-4500 and book today!

Tickets at the door $10/adult • $/7 youth Ask about our youth ticket fund!

group showed up en masse about a week ago off the west side of San Juan Island. Center senior research assistant Erin Heydenreich said the 80-year-old female had shown telltale signs of declining health, shrinkage of tissues around head – commonly referred to as “peanut head” – over the past two years, according to the center’s Erin Heydenreich. The southern residents consist of three pods, J, K and L. Called “residents” because they spend a majority of the year in the waters of the Salish Sea, they are considered endangered by the U.S. and Canada. Their population, believed to have been historically in the high 100s, was decimated by captures for marine parks, which ended in the 1970s, followed by pollution and declining salmon populations. The whales’ population SEE WHALES, PAGE 8

Early Holiday Sales Deadlines NOVEMBER 26TH WEEKLY SALES DEADLINE: NOV 19

DECEMBER 3RD WEEKLY SALES DEADLINE: NOV 26

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SALES DEADLINE: DEC 23 CALL 376-4500 TO PLACE YOUR AD


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