Submitted by The Whale Museum
Frances C. Robertson, San Juan County Marine Program coordinator, and Jason Wood, lead scientist with SMRU Consulting, will discuss “Protecting priority Southern Resident Killer Whale foraging areas in the San Juan Island.” This lecture will be held at the Whale Museum at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 27, as part of The Whale Museum’s lecture series.
The westside of San Juan Island lies within the summer and fall critical habitat of the endangered Southern resident killer whale and it’s here that high-value foraging habitat for the whales is located. This area is also a high use recreational area for fishing, boating, kayaking, and whale watching. Providing a refugia could help to mitigate this impact and allow these endangered whales a quieter environment in which to find and capture their prey. Robertson and Wood, will introduce the current efforts of the county’s Environmental Resources Division, in partnership with the Marine Resources Committee, to create a model engagement strategy to empower the local community, interested stakeholders and local Coast Salish Tribes to craft sustainable and defensible options to provide SRKW optimal foraging refugia in the San Juan Islands. The talk will introduce the four-step process that will be used to inform the marine spatial planning process, and in particular, will focus on the acoustic monitoring component of the study.
The Lecture Series is dedicated to providing our local community and visiting public with knowledge and wonder of the natural world. The lectures are given by local or visiting experts in their field and they share their recent research projects, stories, and experiences. Each lecture is free and held at The Whale Museum. Donations are greatly appreciated. For more information, call 360-378-4710 ext.30. The Whale Museum is located in Friday Harbor at 62 First St. N. Founded in 1976, The Whale Museum’s mission is to promote stewardship of whales through education and research. The Whale Museum can be found online at www.whalemuseum.org.
