(gentle music)
- [Chris] The Salish Sea,
this world-famous waterway,
a system of interconnected marine ecosystems,
and its web of upstream links to rivers, forests,
mountains and glaciers,
sustains a huge abundance of life.
Not only the creatures of the sea, air and land,
but us too, the people who live here.
(upbeat music)
My name is Chris Morgan.
As a wildlife ecologist, filmmaker
and host of the podcast "The Wild,"
I'm endlessly curious about life in our region
and the mysteries of how it all fits together.
(inspirational music)
(calm music)
For millions of years,
orcas have ruled the Salish Sea.
And for 10,000 years or more,
the Coast Salish people have lived alongside
these magnificent creatures.
But now, the southern resident orcas,
also called killer whales, are in deep trouble.
You probably remember news stories about Tahlequah, or J35,
pushing her dead calf for 17 days.
Our hearts broke 'cause the entire world took notice
of this grieving mother.
But Tahlequah, and the less than 80
remaining southern resident orcas have an unlikely ally.
A little dog named Eba
with a remarkable ability to sniff out orcas.
Orca poop to be more specific.
So how on earth did Eba land the job?
- Eba is a rescue dog.
She was found on the doorstep
of an animal shelter in Sacramento.
Ended up being fostered for a while,
escaped from that,
and then my sister found her wandering the streets.
And after that, I adopted her.
And shockingly, she has made a phenomenal whale scat dog.
- Oh, amazing.
Just, you couldn't make this up, right?
A pound dog that is out saving killer whales.
- Right. - It's just a beautiful story.
- It is.
They can smell a scat sample up to a mile away.
And so we literally just follow her nose.
Because, really, if you think about it,
a scat sample floating on the water
is like finding a needle in a haystack,
but the haystack is moving and so is the needle.
And so Eba's got to constantly be jockeying back and forth
from the front of the boat, to the side,
to the front of the boat, to the side.
And that's what we do.
We're moving the boat in relation
to what her nose is telling us.
- [Chris] Wow.
- [Deborah] So we don't want to be a boat
that's out there causing stress.
So using a scat detection dog,
it allows us to stay really far away
from the whales and collect that sample
and analyze it for so many different things.
So one scat sample allows us to look at stress levels,
nutrition levels, pregnancy hormones,
toxicants, things like microplastics,
and the health of the gut biome.
So just one sample is like a goldmine.
- [Chris] Now, thanks to Eba's nose,
and the work being done by Dr. Deborah Giles
and other researchers,
we know what is decimating the Southern resident orcas.
And, more importantly, how we can save them.
It all breaks down to what Dr. Giles calls
the three pillars of orca health.
First, their main source of food,
salmon, have dropped sharply in recent years.
Fewer salmon, fewer orcas.
Second, in that same time, boat traffic has grown
exponentially, which means more motors and more sonar,
both things that make it difficult,
sometimes impossible, for the whales to echolocate,
to find and catch their prey.
And third, the toxic runoff from our cities and vehicles
has infiltrated their food chain,
making them one of the most toxic animals in the ocean.
It's heartbreaking.
I want to know, what can we do?
So I'm going to meet with Nora Nickum.
Previously, project manager
for the governor's orca task force,
and now the ocean policy manager for the Seattle Aquarium.
You know, I think a lot of people,
even though we're talking about sea species here,
those of us that live on land,
the homo sapiens are always looking for ways to help.
And that seems to be something that Seattle Aquarium
has done quite a lot of, you know,
is the engaging people and getting people involved.
And how does that look from the Aquarium's perspective?
What are you guys doing, and what would you like to see
people get involved with? How does it work?
- Yeah, well, one of the reasons that we are
doing a lot of work on policy
is that policy is a way to make
bigger changes happen faster.
And with species like the endangered orcas,
really those changes are urgent.
You know, they don't have a lot of time
for us to increase salmon, reduce toxic pollution,
and reduce noise, and policy is a way
to make those things happen at scale,
in the way that they need to happen.
And so we are advocating for funding for salmon recovery,
funding for programs that will reduce ship noise.
The legislation from 2019 was really meaningful
in the way it gave the orcas more space
and more quiet on the water.
And so we're looking for those kinds of changes,
at both the state and federal level,
and individuals can really help by contacting
their elected officials and telling them
they care about salmon recovery,
that they care about orca recovery,
and that we need to put more energy
and more money towards those things right away.
- So all of these things are interconnected
with the whales and the salmon
and the kelp forest and everything else.
And yeah, it seems like
we can protect them all together.
- Yeah. You save the orcas, you save the Salish Sea.
- [Chris] I'm so thankful for the work
that Nora and others have done
to address the sound pollution with the
Be Whale Wise legislation.
Which enforces a standard distance
which all boaters must leave between them and the whales.
It's also encouraging to hear that the Washington state
ferry system is moving towards electrification
of the entire fleet, which will significantly reduce
the underwater noise their engines produce.
And that more and more people are choosing
to watch whales from land-based whale-watching trails
to minimize their impact.
- [Deborah] We have a responsibility
as humans on this planet and stewards on this planet
to take a step back and to undo some of the damage
that we've done.
And most importantly, to recognize
that we are part of the natural world as well.
Everything that's happening with these whales
is happening with us.
And with small contributions by a lot of people,
we really can turn the clock back.
These whales are incredibly resilient.
They've come back from a smaller population
than they are at now.
And if we give them just half a chance,
they can rebound. - That's hopeful.
- [Deborah] It is.
So get, get your feet wet, do a beach cleanup,
get your hands dirty, and do tree planting.
Right here in the Salish Sea,
there's tremendous opportunities to get plugged in to
groups that are doing this physical work.
And there's nothing better
than that feeling of being able to go back a year later
and see that the seedlings that you've planted
and that they're growing and that they're creating habitat,
that ultimately is going to help
recover the salmon that the whales need.
And again, we know what we need to do,
and it's actually not that huge.
It's baby steps that make a huge difference.
Nature is resilient and humans are resilient
and the whales are resilient.
And I really feel like if we just put our minds to it,
we can make a difference.
We can turn back the clock and we can see this population
recover and rebound and we have a responsibility to do it.
(inspiring music)