About a month ago I attended a meeting put on by the Department of Fish and Wildlife, concerning the Giant Pacific Octopus (GPO). I don’t know if you remember, but last October a fishermen killed a GPO here in Seattle (Alki Cove 2) and it created quite the controversy. If you aren’t familiar with this issue, please read the article posted on the Sea Shepherd’s website: click here.

After the killing of this GPO the community here started to protest. This issue even drew international attention, as the public was outraged. As a resident of Seattle, and diver, myself I was quite surprised to learn that the Giant Pacific Octopus (GPO) was allowed to be fished/hunted.

Right now, here in Puget Sound, a licensed fishermen can harvest up to 1 GPO per day, everyday, all year, every year. This gives one person the right (provided they are able to catch them and the octopus population would support this) to kill 365 Giant Pacific octopuses a year. Do the math and that is for just one person… 10 people could kill 3650 a year if they were able.

Responding to the public outcry the Washington State of Fish and Wildlife created a board/panel of citizen-nominated individuals to develop options for a vote to protect the GPO. The only area completely protected right now is Hood Canal

During this meeting I learned that there is very little known about the GPO. Rich Childers and Greg Berlin, shared a power-point presentation that talked about the known (basic) biology of the animal, the history of octopus fishing in Seattle, and the current laws now. As far as they can tell, the octopuses, are common and not threatened. This information comes from the annual divers octopus count here in Puget Sound.

However, I would argue otherwise.

We don’t know a lot about this species. The experts running the meeting even said as much. We do know that the life span of a GPO is 3-4 years. A Female GPO will lay 50,000 eggs that size of a grain of sand. Out of those 50,000 eggs only 2 (approximately) will develop to adult hood, reach sexual maturity, and reproduce. It takes the GPO about 3 years to reach sexual maturity.

Knowing all of this, how can we say this species is not threatened by a permit that allows a single person to kill 365 a year!? We haven’t even factored in environmental mutations.

It isn’t very well known how important to the local environment GPO’s are. However, every animal has a role. If you take out one, another will suffer… and so on.

I know personally that the GPO’s are important to the diving community, here in Seattle. I have seen the GPO dens, and take my word for it, they are cool! Crab and other animal remains are spread out at the opening, like a warning for all other creatures near by. If you shine a light inside of the den you can see a leg or an eye. It’s a really amazing experience.

The Great Pacific Octopus also brings in money from tourists. People come from all over the world to see the San Juan islands, the resident Orcas, and divers come to see the GPO.

While the cost in regulating a new law might be high, we are talking about preserving something much bigger. Here is a list of the options the board is considering:

Option A: Status Quo – no changes to current regulations

Option B: Marine Preserve – no recreational harvest of all species

Redondo Beach (map)
Seacrest Park Coves 1, 2 and 3 (excluding fishing pier) (map)

Option C: Marine Preserves – no recreational harvest of Giant Pacific Octopuses

Redondo Beach (map)
Three Tree Point North (map)
Seacrest Park Coves 1, 2 and 3 (excluding fishing pier) (map)
Les Davis (map)
Alki Beach Junk Yard (map)
Days Island Wall (map)
Deception Pass (map)

Option D: Puget Sound closure to recreational harvest of Giant Pacific Octopuses.

* The beaches listed under Option C were identified by the advisory group as some of the most popular diving beaches in the Puget Sound area. Not included on that list are beaches in Conservation Areas or Marine Preserves, where octopuses are already off-limits to harvest.

The advisory group is looking for public comment! I know from speaking to some of the members that they actually take these comments quite seriously! Please take a few minutes and send them a message explaining why you want to see these octopuses protected! THIS ENDS ON MAY 31

CLICK HERE TO MAKE A PRIVATE COMMENT/OPINION

Anyone from anywhere in the world can make comments!

Take ten minutes you’d spend on facebook and give these amazing animals a chance!

-Elora Malama

Hi all!

I so happy to say I was able to return to Melbourne Australia! I still had my return ticket that I bought last summer, so traveling out was a lot less expensive. I returned to visit friends, help set up the Sea Shepherd Australia’s office new location, and of course greet my fellow crew members when they docked!

I finished finals for Winter quarter, and I was on a plane 48 hours later! I had an 8 hour lay over in LA and then a 15 hour flight to Melbourne. I had this horrible passenger sitting next to me on the plane. Maybe this is just me, but I feel like there is a flying etiquette that some people just are blind to! For example… it is rude to move around all your friends sitting next to you and disrupt other people who have already settled into their flight. It is also rude for that same person to take up the empty chairs next to you and go to sleep over BOTH of them, and then proceed to put their feet on a part of your lap. Please don’t do that. It will piss off the person next to you. (In the case of this story a 19 year old environmentalist that really just wanted to travel in peace!)

When I arrived, I got right to work on painting these new showers, that were put in on the docks, for the ship crew. I also spent the evening with my dear friend Sarah and her lovely family! I was so tired by the end of the day, when I went to sit on the couch, I passed out. oooppps!

The fleet’s arrival was amazing! I am so proud of my crew and all that they accomplished this season! It hurt that I wasn’t returning with them, but it was nice to see the campaign come to a close and get that little bit of closure.
I spent the next few days working as a deckhand on the Steve!

I came home this last Tuesday night, and drove to the Bonneville Dam in WA/OR two days later. I joined the crew, here on the ground, for the Dam Guardian campaign.

The Dam staff is hazing, branding, and killing sea lions on the Bonneville Dam in WA/OR and in Astoria OR. The reason? According to some of the fishermen in Astoria Sea Lions are an invasive species that haven’t been present in the Columbia River for thousands of years.

We can only date the sea lions back as far as Lewis and Clark, who noted the presence of seals and marine mammals feeding on fish as far up as the Columbia River (which is the current site of the Bonneville Dam). The hydroelectric dams that block passages and create habitat loss are killing more Salmon than the sea lions ever have. The Columbia River never had a seal or salmon population decline until human interests got involved in the matter.
The argument the fisheries have is that the Sea lions are taking away salmon that could be going to consumers. Failing to admit that their Dam is the actual problem.

Sea Lions are eating between 1% and 4% of the spring salmon run. The government has permits to kill up to 17% of these same spawning salmon. Along with that, the government has concluded that 7% to 16% of the adult fish are killed by the dams that they must navigate. The native people of North Bonneville are allowed to take as much salmon as they wish.

The highest number of sea lions seen at the Bonneville Dam varied from 90 in 2004 and 54 in 2011. I can say personally, I’ve only seen 6 sea lions here at the Bonneville Dam, but I know there are at least 50+ in Astoria. Compared to the Dam’s destruction and the human consumption of the fish, we can safely say that 90 sea lions are deserving of their meals and are not the problem. Salmon and sea lions lived sustainably together for thousands of years… human fishing is the new addition to the equation here.

The hazing process is terrible! It’s loud! I cannot imagine how loud it is under the water, when it echos through the whole Dam complex on land. The sea lions swim away in complete terror, but do return to continue hunting. Hunger beats fear. Tax payer dollars are going into this. We are paying for this!

A boat maneuvers around the dam, like a chicken with no head, and shoots at the sea lions up close. The hazer stands on the shore with the “spotters” and shoots into the water from the Dam. The spotters have young college interns working with them, learning how to terrorize and torture.
And then there are the traps… When the dam raises the amount of water flowing out, the tide rises. The water covers all the safe spots that sea lions can lay on and they are forced to take rests in the traps, because it is the only solid ground available to them (that isn’t inhabited by fishermen).

I talked with three fishermen today, at the Dam. One said he wanted to see the sea lions stay because they were his “underwater eyes”, where they hunt he knows to hunt there too. The other two fishermen said: “too much money is going into this. It isn’t a problem. You eat what you catch and they should be able to eat as well”. They agreed that we have the options to eat other things, but this is all the sea lions have to survive.

We have to educate people, get people to think about where their fish is coming from, have people reach out to the government in protest, and honestly just be a pain in their butts!!!

I am traveling to Astoria tomorrow, where all of the branding has been happening these last few weeks. Hopefully it will be a peaceful day!

Until tomorrow,
Elora Malama

Hi Everyone,

This is extremely important and something I hope each and every one of you will take ten minutes to do. Honestly what is ten minutes when we are talking about the future of our planet and the welfare of the oceans???

Please sign these important Petitions!! (Below)

I seriously never post asking people to sign petitions! PLEASE take a few minutes and ask our government to take action against the Illegal Whaling that IS happening in the Antarctic ocean!

We need 150 votes for it to be searchable, and 100,000 before the President will review it.

Take ten minutes out of your day to add your name to that number and protect the Antarctic ocean and the whales.

More Info:
The website is set up to discourage people from continuing with their votes. PLEASE create an account, and wait the freaking TEN MINUTES. Once you receive the email, it will literally make you cut and paste the URL into your bar. Once you do that, you can enter the site and vote. I know this is annoying, but I think the state of our oceans are more important than the five or ten minutes you, I, or anyone would have spent browsing Facebook, Twitter, or Ifunny.

WE NEED THESE SIGNATURES BY FEBRUARY 28th! So please send the links to everyone you know and explain to them how important this is!

Take Strong Action Against the Illegal Whaling in Antarctica

Provide a Safe Haven for Captain Paul Watson

Thank you,
Elora Malama West

Life, reality, and change. These three matters are the unavoidable and the uncontrollable road blocks that are sometimes thrown into the center of our paths… and manage to completely shatter our plans, and our chances to achieve our goals.

Unfortunately I have had to return home from campaign (Operation Zero Tolerance). I guess you could say that I am one of those people who never grew out of motion sickness. I”m not sure why I thought I could live on a ship at sea, seeing how I get extremely car sick (always have) and have problems scuba diving because of my ears.

Let me start at the beginning…

We left port in Melbourne with a small, but sweet, sendoff. I remember there being a few kids running around with stuffed whale toys. I want whales to be around when they are my age and older. I don’t want cetaceans to be something that future generations read about in a history textbook. They can’t be another animal driven to extinction by greed driven human interests.
That was pretty much all I was thinking about while we slowly pulled away from port.

That night, I got off my watch at midnight and tried to fall asleep. But I woke up at 4am feeling woozy and decided to take a walk, hoping it would distract me. It didn’t.
Later I managed to fall back asleep, but when I got up… all I wanted was ginger ale and crackers. I was on a seasickness medication as well (but this stuff wasn’t very good).

I remember going to the mess and eating two apple muffins while laying on the floor. The mess is where there is usually the least amount of movement. So it helps to lay in there while you’re feeling sick.

We saw a pod of dolphins swimming off of the bow that morning, though. It was amazing. I’ve been close enough to touch them before, but never like this. They were dancing between each other and jumping, twisting, spinning etc. Just surfing the waves off our bow. They stuck around for several minutes just watching us watch them… and then like a ballet they all turned off quickly and disappeared. Pretty incredible.

Over the next few days I started to feel worse, not better. At first the seasickness was different from the transit I did from Sydney to Melbourne… instead of being nauseous all the time, I felt like all my energy was resting in my shoulders and that nothing I ate was settling. It was uncomfortable… but I could live with uncomfortable. Sad to say it got exhausting, painful, and torturous.

Every time I walked into a companionway I thought I was going to projectile vomit all over the floor. I cannot even remember what I did some days… outside of my watches… because I was either so sick I A. did nothing, or B. so drugged up when I was off my watch that I couldn’t stay awake. I slept almost every night on the floor in the mess… because every time my cabin moved I looked for the waste basket. I can pretty much count on one hand the amount of days I was able to hold down food…

But honestly I will spare you the details of my two week spew fest, and just explain to you why I chose to leave the campaign.

I really don’t think I could describe to you all how sick I was, and how horrible I felt every day without completely grossing you out. I didn’t even let anyone on the ship know how sick I was until week 2 at sea… but I was getting exhausted pretending to fell better than I was.

I think for those of you who have been following my blog for a long time, you know that I’m willing to sacrifice a lot of this cause and that comfort is not my priority. However, sometimes you have to think about your limitations.

If you know horrible seasickness, you know that at your best, you think you’re going to die. And that at your worst, you think you are going to have to live in that state for the rest of time because you don’t see yourself ever being able to escape the misery.
It is exhausting feeling like you need to spew almost every hour of every day. And those seasickness pills are not okay to be on every day, either. I changed medications part way through the two weeks I was at sea, and those pills were great! I didn’t feel woozy at all while I was on them. But they make you VERY tired. I mean I couldn’t barely keep my eyes open sometimes. That’s not a safe state to be in while working on a ship and learning safety drills etc.

The ship was going to dock to bring on more crew. And I came to the realization about 4 days before we reached port that I needed to seriously think about whether or not I was going to get over that motion sickness.

It was extremely frustrating. I didn’t have the patches to try, and it wasn’t like we had been at sea for a month or so and I KNEW for certain that I probably wasn’t getting over the seasickness. I had two weeks… and while some days I was okay, the others made it hard to justify attempting to do it for three months.

Especially considering the fact that the weather was only going to get worse. The Antarctic seas are not calm… they are some of the roughest waters in the world. I didn’t see myself being able to function in them.

Honestly I think there was a 50% chance I would get over it and a 50% chance I would never. I didn’t like those odds. Especially when negative meant my having to be drugged up to even function (and again that is not a safe way to be working on a ship everyday).

It wouldn’t have been fair to the crew if I either so sick I was taking watches off to rest (which my watch officer had me do a few times) or if I was drugged up and sleepy and couldn’t do my job to my 100% ability.

Also my health. I know of past crew who have lost up to 20lbs at sea because of the motion sickness. I lost a few pounds myself. I weigh about 113lbs. I don’t have 20 to spare. Also I was getting pretty weak. I was afraid with my not being able to hold down much of anything that my immune system wouldn’t protect me like it should.

I was not once myself during those two weeks. And after two days of emailing with my family and getting advice from my fellow crew… and lots of tears… I decided that the responsible thing to do would be to come home and fight this battle from land.

This was really hard for me to do. And hard doesn’t even begin to describe it honestly. This campaign is so important to me. You all know how I feel about cetaceans… but it’s also Antarctica. It’s one of the only untouched places in the world (with the exception of illegal whaling) and I want to see it left alone and kept untouched. I’m tired of people destroying our home. I want greed driven interests out of Antarctica.

Staying would have been dangerous… I would have ended up a liability. It would have also been incredibly selfish. This is a fight I will have to help with on land and not at sea.

Which is too bad because I really loved being at sea. I liked not being able to see land. There was something remarkable about being at the mercy of the elements. I was never once scared of the fact there was approx. 9000ft of water below me, in fact I found it pretty cool. I loved seeing stars without any light pollution. I loved going outside at night and seeing the phosphorescence bouncing off the side of the ship with the waves. I loved that there were no sirens, or airplanes, and nowhere to spend money… I just really loved working and being at sea. I loved having the opportunity to physically intervene with whaling.

But I can be home and proud of the three and a half months I put into getting the Steve ready for campaign.

This isn’t the end of my work. It’s just a reality giving me a road block and now I need to find a new way to help the Antarctic whales… and of course other projects as well.

-Elora

I am really lucky to have such a supportive family and group of friends. I love you guys!