NEW ACTION PLANS TO SAVE WEST COAST USA MARINE SPECIES

New action plans to save West coast USA marine species. NOAA Fisheries of the USA has released new action plans to promote the recovery of its high-priority ‘Species in the Spotlight.’ These nine species are in pressing need of attention to avoid extinction. Five of the species are native to the West Coast, tied together by biology, geography, and urgency.

The five endangered species, with links to their new action plans, include:

• Southern Resident killer whales
• Sacramento winter-run Chinook salmon
• Central California Coast coho salmon
• Pacific Leatherback sea turtles
• White abalone

Some of the species are connected as predator and prey, while all are connected by benefiting from highly productive West Coast waters. Endangered Southern Resident killer whales forage preferably on Chinook salmon, including those from California’s Central Valley. Of Central Valley salmon, Sacramento winter-run Chinook salmon are the most imperilled and are also a Species in the Spotlight.

Winter-run Chinook salmon once spawned in the cold mountain streams of Northern California. Today, they can no longer reach those streams because major barriers, including Shasta Dam, now stand in their way. They hang on by spawning in the warmer mainstem Sacramento River and some of its tributaries below Shasta Dam.

The action plan calls for reintroducing the salmon into their historical habitat that remains consistently cold due to high elevation snowmelt and cold water springs. In addition, improving fish habitat and passage should help them withstand a changing climate.

Southern Resident killer whales still hunt California Chinook salmon. As recently as last year, some Southern Residents travelled south along the West Coast as far as California’s Monterey Bay. They were likely searching for Chinook salmon that they once found along the California coast.

Climate change will challenge the entire West Coast array of marine species, affecting their movement and distribution. This goes beyond the prey of the Southern Residents. Recent research has suggested, for example, that Pacific sardines may move northward off the West Coast to follow their preferred temperatures.

In winter, when fewer Chinook are available, the Southern Residents diversify their diet, consuming coho salmon, and marine species such as halibut, lingcod, and skate. West Coast salmon all traverse rich coastal waters on their way to and from their home rivers. This gives killer whales access to many salmon stocks including Central California Coast coho salmon, another of the West Coast’s Species in the Spotlight.

While salmon spend most of their lives in the ocean, they reproduce in freshwater. For many salmon species, dwindling freshwater habitat is one of the most acute factors limiting their numbers, and, in turn, their recovery.

A key recovery strategy for both Chinook and coho salmon is to restore freshwater habitat. Floodplain habitat and wetlands in particular are important, because juvenile salmon find food and refuge there as they grow large enough to survive in the ocean. For Central California Coast coho salmon, the action plan calls for watershed-scale restoration to improve ecosystem productivity and connectivity, and freshwater rearing and survival rates.

Endangered leatherback sea turtles migrate across the Pacific Ocean from Indonesia to the West Coast. They take advantage of its productive waters, infused by chilled, nutrient-rich water welling up from the depths. The rich waters promote the growth of many fish, marine mammals, and even jellyfish, specifically sea nettles—a leatherback’s favourite food.

Leatherbacks consume jellyfish in great quantities to fuel their growth before migrating 7,000 miles back across the Pacific Ocean to nesting beaches in Indonesia. The action plan for Pacific leatherbacks includes:

• Working with international partners to monitor nesting beaches
• Protecting turtles and nests from threats such as poaching and predation
• Reducing impacts from climate change such as increasing sand temperatures and rising seas

But there is also the need to prevent further population decline by developing, testing, and implementing bycatch reduction strategies to prevent unintentional capture in fishing gear.

Finally, white abalone is the least mobile of all the West Coast Species in the Spotlight, travelling inches instead of miles per day. The aquatic snails dwell in coastal rocky reefs. That makes them especially vulnerable to changing ocean conditions—they cannot move to areas of more favourable temperatures as quickly or easily as other species can.

Yet the white abalone, perhaps more than the other Species in the Spotlight, help shape their ecosystem. They are a key architect of kelp ecosystems that benefit salmon and jellyfish in coastal waters, and in turn leatherback turtles and salmon-eating orcas. Abalone help diversify kelp forest habitat by grazing on the plants, clearing patches of rocky surfaces so that multiple kelp species can flourish.

To recover this keystone species NOAA will:

• Continue the captive propagation programme to boost production numbers
• Increase their genetic diversity and reproductive success
• Expand out planting programs to new sites that may offer refuge from increasing ocean temperatures and acidity

Source: NOAA Fisheries