Recovery Implement

Southern Resident Killer Whale ESA Recovery Plan Implementation

The Endangered Species Act requires the Secretary of Commerce to develop and implement recovery plans for the conservation and survival of listed species. The Recovery Plan for Southern Resident Killer Whales reviews and assesses the potential factors affecting those whales, and lays out a recovery program to address each of the threats.

There is considerable uncertainty about which threats may be responsible for the decline in the orca population, or which is the most important to address for recovery. The plan lays out an adaptive management approach and a recovery strategy that addresses each of the potential threats based on the best available science. The recovery program outline links the management actions to an active research program to fill data gaps and a monitoring program to assess effectiveness. Feedback from research and monitoring will provide the information necessary to refine ongoing actions and develop and prioritize new actions.

NOAA’s Fisheries Service and a variety of partners have been implementing actions identified in the recovery plan for several years. Actions that were funded and implemented in 2003-2007 are listed in the plan’s implementation schedule. The links to the left provide examples of recent actions and links to our partnerships for the major threats and topic headings identified in the Recovery Plan for Southern Resident Killer Whales.

We're gathering information to track recovery actions that are implemented throughout the region. While we've been able to track federal spending as included in the implementation schedule, we'd also like to know about other activities. If your group has been working on projects that contribute to recovery of Southern Residents, please let us know. Send an e-mail that includes:
1) The title of your project,
2) Which action or actions in the plan that your project supports,
3) The duration of your project (start and end dates, ongoing), and
4) Costs associated with your activity (for specific projects or per year).

September 2009: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Endangered Species Act Bulletin (PDF 2.4MB) includes an article on Southern Resident Killer Whale recovery. See page 26.