Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 16 March 2018

Washington state moves to protect endangered killer whales

By PHUONG LE low supply of chinook salm-
SEATTLE (AP) — With the on, the whales' preferred
number of endangered food, a recent study said.
orcas that frequent the in- "We are not too late," said
land waters of Washington Barry Thom, West Coast
state at a 30-year low, Gov. regional administrator for
Jay Inslee on Wednesday NOAA Fisheries. "From a
directed state agencies to biology perspective, there
take immediate and lon- are still enough breeding
ger-term steps to protect animals, but we need to
the struggling killer whales. act soon."
The fish-eating mammals Whale advocates wel-
that spend time in Puget comed the statewide ini-
Sound have struggled for tiative, saying it creates ur-
years with a lack of food, gency and calls attention
pollution, noise and distur- to the issue. But some also
bances from boat traffic. said it was long overdue.
There are now just 76 of “I think that everybody
the orcas, down from 98 in would have loved to have
1995. In this Jan. 18, 2014, file photo, an endangered female orca leaps from the water while breaching seen this five years ago,”
in Puget Sound west of Seattle, Wash.
Inslee said the orcas are in Associated Press said Joe Gaydos, science
trouble and called on ev- director for the SeaDoc
eryone in the state to do nor said at a news confer- adding, "It's going to take fied them as among the Society. “It is a crisis. The
their part. His executive ence at the Daybreak Star some pain. We're going to most at risk of extinction in fact that we’re respond-
order aims to make more Cultural Center in Seattle. have to make some sac- the near future. ing is good.” Under the or-
salmon available to the "As the orca go, so go we." rifices." Many have been A baby orca has not been der, state agencies will find
whales, give them more An orca task force forming sounding the alarm for born in the past few years. ways to quiet state ferries
space and quieter waters, now will meet for the first years about the plight of Half of the calves born dur- around the whales, train
ensure they have clean time next month and will the closely tracked popu- ing a celebrated baby more commercial whale-
water to swim in and pro- come up with final recom- lation of southern resident boom several years ago watching boats to help re-
tect them from potential oil mendations by November. killer whales. The federal have died. Female orcas spond to oil spills and adjust
spills. "The destiny of salmon "This is a wake-up call," government listed the or- also are having pregnancy fishing regulations to pro-
and orca and we humans Suquamish Tribal Chairman cas as endangered in 2005, problems linked to nutrition- tect key areas and fish runs
are intertwined," the gover- Leonard Forsman said, and more recently identi- al stress brought on by a for orcas.q

New nickname for Pluto-explorer's

next target: Ultima Thule

of our solar system. "Our spacecraft is head- orbiting one another, each
Its official name is 2014 ing beyond the limits of the one might be 9 miles to 12
MU69. The mission team known worlds." miles long (15 kilometers to
wanted a less technical New Horizons will fly past 20 kilometers). There might
and more inspiring name Ultima Thule on Jan. 1, also be a small moon. No
and, late last year, sought making it humanity's most one will know for certain
This illustration provided by NASA shows the New Horizons public input . Announced distant encounter with an- until New Horizons draws
spacecraft. On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, NASA said the Tuesday, the nickname other world. Discovered closer.
spacecraft is headed toward a New Year’s Day 2019 encoun- Ultima Thule (THOO-lee) in 2014 and more than 4 The team will choose a
ter with a mysterious object nicknamed "Ultima Thule", 1 billion
miles beyond Pluto on the fringes of our solar system. comes from medieval lit- billion miles (6.4 billion kilo- more formal name follow-
Associated Press erature and refers to a dis- meters) from Earth, Ultima ing the flyby.
tant, unknown world. Thule is considerably small- For the nickname, more
By MARCIA DUNN NASA's New Horizons "MU69 is humanity's next Ul- er than Pluto, explored by than 34,000 suggestions
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) spacecraft is headed to- tima Thule," New Horizons' New Horizons in 2015. were whittled down to a list
— There's a new nickname ward a New Year's Day en- lead scientist, Alan Stern Scientists estimate it's no of 37 for public online vot-
for the icy world next up counter with this mysterious of the Southwest Research more than 20 miles (30 ki- ing.
for the spacecraft that ex- object or two, 1 billion miles Institute in Boulder, Colo- lometers) across if a single The top vote-getter actu-
plored Pluto: Ultima Thule. beyond Pluto on the fringes rado, said in a statement. object. If it is two objects ally was the name of Thor's
hammer — Mjolnir — of
Norse mythology, followed
by Z'ha'dum, a planet in
the 1990s TV series Babylon
5. Ultima Thule ranked sev-
enth. NASA and the New
Horizons team had the final
say. It came down to what
seemed most appropriate
to the mission and its ob-
jectives, said NASA spokes-
man Dwayne Brown.q