If the forecasts are close to accurate, this year’s Bristol Bay sockeye run won’t be a record for long. Biology teams with University of Washington and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game both expect more than 70 million sockeye to return to Bristol Bay for the first time in recorded history.
VICTORIA Southern resident killer whales have not been seen in the waters of the Salish Sea for more than 100 days, marking a highly unusual absence from their historic summer hunting ground, according to researchers. Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behaviour Institute in Washington state, says the absence is unprecedented, and likely does not bode well for the state of the salmon ecosystem near B.C. s Fraser River. April through September is typically the peak season for the southern residents here in the Salish Sea, said Shields. J-pod is sort of the most resident of the three pods, but K-pod and L-pod we would expect to see on a near daily basis in and around the San Juan islands, off Victoria, off Vancouver all summer long.