What's wrong with this picture?

Most everyone is aware of the infamous Mazama pocket gopher, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and the unfortunate and lengthy process you have to go through to use your land in Thurston County if it is in the gopher’s habitat, including up to three “gopher review” visits to your property by biologists and county officials.

Contrast that with the southern resident killer whales, a species listed as endangered, and in fact listed by NOAA as one of the top eight most endangered species. The southern residents’ habitat is The Salish Sea, which includes Puget Sound. The only restrictions in their habitat are that boaters must keep 200 yards away from the whales, slow down or stop depending upon proximity, and not harass them; the average boater either doesn’t know about the rules or doesn’t care.

Billions of dollars have been spent studying the whales, their primary food source (Chinook salmon), and the threats to their survival (lack of food, pollution, boat noise, sonar, oil spills), yet virtually nothing has been done to protect them. NOAA’s most recent “action” plan calls for five more years of studies, meanwhile the whales are literally slowly starving to death due to lack of food. There’s something terribly wrong with a system that provides more protection for a threatened species than an endangered one.

This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 4:29 PM with the headline "What's wrong with this picture?."