Please consider other ideas regarding the Southern Resident orcas, other than presented in The Herald’s March 17 editorial (“What look at Snake dams can mean for orcas, us,”). U.S. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse were right about Gov. Jay Inslee spending $750,000 on a whale study being wasteful; surely there have been many past studies.
The editorial blithely dismissed the loss of 4 percent of our electricity with the prediction it would be replaced by other generation and would only cost customers an extra $1 a week.
The Southern Resident orca task force that is pursuing 36 different actions (a shotgun approach) to halt the decline from about 100 whales 20 years ago to 74 today; at that rate the county 40 years from how would be down to 25 and with inbreeding the orcas would not be likely to survive. From earlier stories about efforts to treat diseased whales experts were neither able to diagnose the problem nor find treatment to save the creatures.
An old codger down the alley, an experienced salmon fisherman, suggested that if they were serious about restoring salmon they would suspend Columbia River fishing for four years. Both sport and commercial would have to go elsewhere. The way this could work would be to use hatchery money to buy Alaska salmon for tribes, based on average fishing quotas.
Bob McCoy
Everett
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