02 — Threats

4 records

What Is Killing Them

Four pressures, all documented, all human. Three of them we know how to reduce right now.

Assessed 2026-09-07

Severity 5 / 5 · Critical · Worsening

What would move thisChinook escapement above the ten-year mean for three consecutive returns.

Severity 3 / 5 · Moderate · Improving

What would move thisA mandatory seasonal slowdown in the Haro Strait corridor, not a voluntary one.

Severity 4 / 5 · High · Flat

What would move thisStormwater treatment retrofits on the twelve largest urban outfalls.

Severity 2 / 5 · Low · Flat

What would move thisDerelict gear recovery funded every season instead of every third season.

**Figure 3.** Threat severity, scored 1–5 against mechanism confidence and measured effect size. The meters above encode the same values; every rating is also written out here as a number and a word.
Pressure	Severity	Band	Trend	Lag to effect
Prey Decline	5	Critical	Worsening	5–20 yr
Vessel Noise	3	Moderate	Improving	Immediate
Contaminants	4	High	Flat	20–50 yr
Entanglement & Ship Strikes	2	Low	Flat	1–3 yr

Severity 5/5 · Critical
Prey Decline
The Southern Residents are starving, and the reason is Chinook salmon.
Severity 3/5 · Moderate
Vessel Noise
Orcas hunt with sound. A noisy ocean is a dark one.
Severity 4/5 · High
Contaminants
PCBs were banned decades ago. They are still in the whales.
Severity 2/5 · Low
Entanglement & Ship Strikes
Less common than the other three, and lethal when it happens.