♪♪
-And I think it's something that gives me hope.
I hope it gives other people hope.
[ Air hissing ]
-Once threatened, now thriving,
it's an incredible comeback story.
The return of the beloved humpback whale.
-We live in coyote country and they're not going away as.
-Coyote sightings continue.
Animal experts advise how we can coexist with wildlife.
-There are salmon here.
We know that if we give them a chance,
they will figure out how to survive.
-One of the most industrialized areas
of the Duwamish River now boasts a rest stop
for migrating salmon.
These stories and more next on "CityStream."
♪♪
Hi I'm Enrique Cerna.
Welcome to "CityStream" from Pioneer Square Habitat Beach.
♪♪
The small scenic park is sandwiched
between the ferry terminal
and the historic Washington Street boat landing.
When the existing waterfront was first developed,
many intertidal areas were lost, including sloping beaches
and vegetated hiding spots for fish.
But this new habitat beach has restored the function
of a natural shoreline.
To create it,
45,000 tons of sand, gravel, shells and rocks
of all sizes were brought in.
These materials mimic
the existing ecosystem of Elliott Bay.
♪♪
Just behind me, these waters are witnessing
the incredible comeback of humpback whales.
This charismatic and winsome creature
was once on the brink of extinction
from commercial whaling,
but global conservation efforts started
more than a half century ago
have resulted in a remarkable recovery story.
It's a moment of celebration,
hope and resolve to stay the course
to meet continued challenges facing this beloved species.
Producer Annabel Cassam
and photographer Pete Cassam explain.
[ Boat motor rumbling ]
♪♪
-One of the things that attracts us to whales
is the fact that they are mammals like us.
And they share many of our characteristics.
They breathe air.
They give birth to live young.
They nurse their young.
[ Whales calling ]
They have these things
we can relate to as land mammals that we are.
-Oh, my god.
-Look there.
-Oh, wow.
♪♪
-But humpback whales have a special place.
They're probably one of the most active species.
They're most likely to breach.
Or engage in behavior
like slapping their pectoral fins or tails.
They're also just really beautiful.
They have these long pectoral fins,
longer in relation to their body than any other whale species.
They make them very maneuverable and they use them to, you know,
touch other whales and reach out.
♪♪
Humpback whales are one of the larger whale species
that were exploited and hunted
in what's called the modern era of commercial whaling.
The modern era of commercial whaling
started in the early 1900s,
when steam powered catcher boats and explosive harpoons
allowed humans to hunt these larger species.
There was actually a commercial whaling
that occurred inside the Salish Sea.
They took hundreds of humpback whales in winter months,
suggesting some animals may have been overwintering here as well.
Slowly, the formation of the International Whaling Commission
ended up putting protections,
and that occurred through the '50s and '60s.
There were additional protections that came in
from the Marine Mammal Protection Act
and the Endangered Species Act,
and that's when they finally started to recover.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
And when we first started studying humpback whales
off the US west coast, there were only about 500.
And that was in the late 1970s.
And now we're estimating abundance
on the West Coast at over 5,000.
We've also seen their return to some areas
where they hadn't been seen for 50 years or more.
One of those areas is the Salish Sea, and in that area,
humpback whales were largely eliminated in the early 1900s.
In the period I've studied humpback whales,
we would see hardly any humpback whales
inside of Puget Sound proper.
In our most recent assessment,
we could identify over 700 different humpback whales
that had been sighted within the Salish Sea
in the last ten years.
That's been a very dramatic increase.
[ Air hissing ]
♪♪
But humpback whales,
along with many of the other baleen whales species,
go through an annual migration.
They feed in the spring, summer, and fall
in more productive, higher latitude waters
in the Northern Hemisphere.
And then in winter months,
the majority of the animals migrate to lower latitudes
closer to the equator,
which is where they give birth and mate.
And there is the advantage in these warmer water areas
of avoiding killer whales and warmer waters for their calves.
One of the amazing things about humpback whales
in the North Pacific
is there's been increasing collaboration among researchers,
and so that's created a nice network.
We've actually documented whales from Washington
going to Central America, Mexico,
Hawaii, and the western North Pacific.
And so now we have an ability to track them
along that whole migration.
[ Insects chirping ]
We really benefit from our collaborations
with researchers in Mexico, like Jorge Urbán,
who works out of southern Baja California.
-Inside the Salish Sea,
that dramatic increase in humpback whales
that we've seen in this area is largely good news.
But with that, it's brought them into areas
of increased vessel traffic,
more interaction with human activities.
♪♪
-The humpbacks are coming back to this area.
They're right here in Elliott Bay,
creating some things that we have to start
to think about to make sure
that they're safe, getting their needs met.
But at the same time, we're getting our needs
like this ferry met as well.
Soundwatch was developed by the Whale Museum back in the '90s.
No one was really educating folks about
how to motor around these animals.
We had had reports over multiple days
of a young humpback being here in Elliott Bay.
We made the decision to go out.
We were working with Cascadia Research
to get some pictures to assess its health.
[Chuckles] He was out in the middle of the ferry lanes
doing his little humpback things,
which included a lot of resting.
So when he's resting, he's right below the surface of the water.
And even though he's big, you can't see him.
He was breaching a lot.
I got several pictures of him
breaching down the entire Seattle waterfront.
It became pretty apparent that being in the ferry lanes,
that some contact and outreach
needed to happen with the boats in the area.
So we talked to Port Control in Seattle,
let them know we were out there
letting these big vessels know where the animal was at,
and just making sure you got enough space to do his thing.
That day we all came together.
The big commercial boats, the little private boats,
the transiting boats, harbor patrol,
all of it came together to just make space for this animal.
And I walked off the boat that day just like,
wow, this is what it could be.
We were a part of the solution.
Maybe we'll have more humpbacks here if we make space for them.
I think they will come.
[ Water splashing ]
-Humpback whales now are spared from the threat
of commercial whaling,
but they still face a number of risks and hazards,
and among them include vessel strikes.
The amount of vessel traffic we have bringing goods.
Ships have gotten larger, faster and more numerous.
Another major cause of mortality and injury
is entanglement in fishing gear.
A lot of their use of the US West Coast
is as their feeding destination, spending, you know,
months and months feeding and --
and that requires healthy ocean prey abundance.
It isn't just that they're migrating by,
but they're using these waters on a kind of repeat basis.
And that's an important reason
to protect those resources that they rely on.
[ Water lapping ]
[ Air hissing ]
Humpback whales have shown this remarkable recovery.
They were decimated by human whaling.
It's really exciting to see them come back, not just in numbers,
but also return to these waters
that they were formerly gone from.
It's something that gives me hope.
I hope it gives other people hope
that we can make positive change in the environment
and see these kind of success stories.
♪♪
[ Air hissing ]
[ Whale calling ]
[ Water lapping ]
-For more information on boater education,
go to WhaleMuseum.org
and search for Soundwatch Boater Education
or check the website, BeWhaleWise.org.
♪♪
Next on "CityStream," coyotes often go unnoticed,
but many are on the prowl across the city.
How to stay safe and coexist with our wild neighbors.
♪♪
Earlier in this show,
we told you about the resurgence of humpback whales.
Another wildlife species found in abundance here is the coyote.
These urban carnivores often go unnoticed,
but the fact is they've been living
in the Seattle area for decades.
Producer Ian Devier spoke to biologists and experts
to learn what residents can do to stay safe
and coexist with our wild neighbors.
♪♪
-I have a high respect for coyotes.
Yeah, they are so adaptive.
-I just think coyotes are fascinating in general.
-I just find them to be amazing animals.
They're super intelligent, able to live in different places.
-This is an animal that has had to outsmart larger predators
as their population expanded.
And then they've slowly started to go
from this more wild rural animal
to do exactly what they do in all other metropolitan areas.
♪♪
-In the early 1900s,
coyotes essentially lived between the Rockies
and the Mississippi.
Now they're found, you know,
from northern British Columbia and into Alaska,
all the way down to Mexico, coast to coast.
-Coyotes have probably been here for half a century
or quite a bit more.
-The first coyote was documented
in King County in 1937 in Enumclaw.
-We hear a lot of, you know, it's urban sprawl.
And I think that's true for many, many wildlife species,
but not for coyotes, because they're coming to us.
They're coming to where the food is.
♪♪
-Their prey generalists
so they can eat lots of different things.
There's some research going on right now
looking at that actual question.
-The Seattle Coyote study is looking at the diet and genetics
of urban coyotes throughout the greater Seattle area.
So we use all noninvasive methods.
So mainly just looking for scat out on trails and whatnot.
And then we use a process called dietary meta barcoding,
which basically looks at the genetics of prey items
within each of these scats and IDs it to species.
That allows us to kind of understand what vertebrates
and what plants that these coyotes have,
generally eating across a long period of time.
-Having the scientific evidence.
This is how many hundreds or thousands of coyotes samples
we've taken and from these areas
of the county or western Washington,
I mean, that tells us a lot.
-Mainly they're eating rabbits.
They've got some chicken in their diet.
They've got they do have a little bit of cat.
Um, everyone always thinks
they're only eating cats, not true.
-It's more likely that cats are hit by cars.
As far as the statistics out there.
But if someone calls us and says,
you know, I've let my cat outside,
is it possible that coyotes could take it?
I can't say no.
-I can tell you from looking at scats,
there's a lot of blackberry in there,
but I've also seen them eating thimble berries and blueberries.
They'll eat a lot of cherries as well.
Small mammals like voles and rats that cause,
you know, infrastructure destruction
or spread diseases and things like that.
-To the extent that coyotes are focusing
on those types of prey items,
it can be really beneficial to human communities.
[ Coyote howling ]
-Uh, coyotes have a very intricate communication system.
[ Coyote yowling ]
-Those yips and barks are not I'm coming for you.
[ Coyote yowling ]
-They vocalize just to keep social contact
within the family group.
-Oftentimes that's just them saying, "Hey."
[ Coyote yipping ]
"Who's out there?" You know, "I'm over here."
So it's a non-confrontational call.
Depending on the time of the year.
We get those calls all the time.
There's 30 coyotes here.
[ Coyotes calling ]
-It's called the beau geste effect,
something to do with harmonics in their vocalizations,
and it makes it sound like there are more animals
than there actually are.
[ Coyotes calling ]
So there have been studies that have shown
that humans overestimate the number of animals
by about a third.
[ Coyote barking ]
-Sometimes when they see dogs or people
kind of near something they care about,
like their dens, they'll emit like a warning bark,
[ Coyote barks ]
and there's nothing to be scared of there.
They're just communicating that you're kind of in their space.
And they -- they might not want --
not want you there.
-It's not uncommon for coyotes to follow people
along green spaces or down trails.
-In Seattle, the peak of denning time
is between May and June.
And so that's often when we see that escorting behavior.
And all they're doing is pretty much making sure
that you're away from their babies,
because that's what they're care about.
That's what they're protecting.
-There's a tremendous amount of fear
that doesn't necessarily need to be there.
I've been doing this for 23 years,
and out of thousands of calls that we take,
I'm guessing less than ten times has there been
actual contact between a coyote and a human.
So it's very rare.
-We don't even have a coyote bite a year,
and it's more likely that animal is going to follow you.
It's going to be inquisitive.
And that's when we need to have
both adults and children educated
to have a reaction that's appropriate.
-We call it humane hazing.
It's really trying to just encourage coyotes
to not become too used to being really close to people.
-I'm going to throw this stick, you know,
or if I've got a coat on because there's rain.
We're raining right now.
And make yourself look novel
and big and yell, "Go away, coyote."
-Any activity at all,
any behavior you can do that makes them feel unwelcome,
the more you can exclude, the better.
-If the whole community is doing that,
that animal never has the opportunity to think,
I've got it made in your backyard.
The encounters we don't want to see
is when the coyote doesn't budge,
doesn't seem like it's scared at all.
-It may not seem like that big of a deal
then, right then and there.
But that's not natural for a wild raccoon, coyote,
whatever to be walking around amongst students
on a college campus.
-People sometimes think that,
like feeding coyote is helping that coyote.
But there's kind of a saying in wildlife biology
that a fed coyote is a dead coyote,
and that's because it will habituate coyotes
to think that people equal food.
-That's just going to lead one way --
loss of fear and then...
the ultimate removal of the animal.
-Lethal removals, you just change that territory dynamic.
So that's an open house.
-We know that another coyote is going to fill that void.
The goal now is to educate the community
to keep that new coyote wild.
It is virtually impossible to re-instill fear
into adult coyotes.
Now with young coyotes,
you can really ingrain fear into those coyotes.
And -- And that's really what we should be doing.
-In most cases, it's a peaceful coexistence.
Coyotes live quite well without having
any interactions with people.
Mostly what it comes down to is making sure our food is secured,
any outdoor food.
[ Food pellets clatter ]
Not leaving pet food on the porch.
-Clean up your garbage, your compost, your garden.
Uh, again, exclude as well -- hot wire, fencing.
-You also have a pear tree and a plum tree.
I know it's daunting,
but you might want to try to keep that stuff picked up
because that's why they're coming there.
-And there's nothing that coyote
will or can do to avoid that.
It's on us to make them avoid it
by making those spaces unfavorable to them.
We live in coyote country and they're not going away.
So the thing of it is, is, uh, learning how to live with them.
[ Coyote howling ]
-Now, if you come across an animal,
that may be a potential problem,
Call the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Enforcement Office at (360) 902-2936.
And if you spot a coyote
that poses an immediate danger, call 911.
♪♪
Just ahead on "CityStream,"
it's a grueling journey for migrating salmon,
but a new rest stop offers them a breather along the way.
♪♪
-Welcome back to "CityStream"
from Pioneer Square Habitat Beach
on the shores of Elliott Bay.
This is a beautiful location
where the public can walk all the way from downtown,
right to the water's edge.
More than 150 years ago,
when Seattle was known as then Si'ahl by local tribes,
the area was filled with native plants such as ocean spray,
shore pine, and salmonberry.
Today, these plants are scarce,
but the massive transformation of Seattle's waterfront
promises to change that.
Producer Randy Eng explains.
♪♪
-Part of what makes us whole
as a person is to truly understand the value
of the place that we stand on, the story of that place,
and how it might shape and inform the way we live our life.
For this place in particular,
we're talking about a food ecosystem
that fed people very well for a long time.
♪♪
This used to be the Dzidzilalich village,
which was known as an intertidal lagoon
that was home to several sea species
that fed people really well, in particular the starry flounder.
Several different varieties of flounder were harvested here,
and people would travel far to come,
harvest those fish with spears
that were made from certain types of plant materials,
using cordage that were made from certain types
of plant material.
♪♪
And so this place, knowing where we began
and understanding the changes that it's,
you know, undergone,
is going to help us find a direction into
where we can go in the future
and how we can bring along with us those teachings of the land
and the wisdom that it holds.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
-We are here today
to celebrate the start of construction
of the Pioneer Square Streets Improvements Project.
We are incorporating native plants,
and we'll be adding interpretive panels and ground level etchings
depicting uses of indigenous people in the area.
-We are trying to have a living memorial
essentially, through the stories of plants.
The selection really centers around what
my ancestors would have utilized as a traditional technology,
and that looks like what plants were fashioned into cordage,
into rope, into spears, into hooks,
and things that we would have utilize
to maintain our way of life.
They'll be plants like ocean spray,
also known as ironwood here.
Various cherry trees will be planted here.
Those plants are going to help tell a story.
And so when we get to know our place
where we are in this world,
we have a better sense of connection to the land
and a better respect for it.
♪♪
-Building a better connection to the land
is also helping to improve the vitality
of this region's salmon runs.
Not far from here
along one of the most industrialized parts
of Seattle's Duwamish River,
work has wrapped up on a project years in the making.
As Michael Crowe reports,
one private company took the lead
to create a so-called salmon rest stop.
♪♪
[ Machinery beeping ]
-In a cascade of noise, a landscape is reborn.
[ Machinery beeping ]
The setting -- a vigorous shipyard
on Seattle's Harbor Island
is far from untouched wilderness.
Here they work on everything from Navy vessels
to the Washington State Ferries fleet.
[ Ferry engine rumbling ]
But this effort is not about constructions of steel.
[ Seagulls calling ]
This is about softening a section of riverbank
for some of its oldest residents --
migrating salmon.
-So we're dredging here to generate the clean fill
that we're going to place up here
to build up the shallow water habitat.
It'll be about two and a half acres in size when it's done.
-Alan Sprott is VP of Environmental Services at Vigor,
and says when the company bought the site in 2011,
it inherited a legacy of contamination issues dating back
to World War I, remnants of times
when the environment was not always prioritized
in the quest for progress.
♪♪
[ Water lapping ]
But much like in nearby Longfellow Creek,
salmon still returned to the Duwamish River
every year to spawn,
and their young faced new hurdles,
returning to the sea like destroyed salt marshes
that provide a gradual transition from freshwater
to the salty ocean and food to grow.
Vigor agreed to improve that journey as a condition
of a consent decree with federal and state governments and tribes
to settle historic environmental damage to the Lower Duwamish.
-So our solution to that problem
was to take a really an underutilized portion
of the shipyard
and create this shallow water habitat
that is at the mouth of the Duwamish River.
-To that end, they removed an old wooden build way
for ship construction, and with it
more than 5,000 pilings, coated with toxic creosote.
They took out two other piers
and have removed silt laden with PCBs and heavy metals.
[ Machinery whirring ]
With that contamination gone,
the clean material they take from the bottom now
will be used to build up the shallow fish habitat.
They've partnered with salmon nonprofit
Long Live the Kings and University of Washington
researchers for the project.
-Salmon are incredibly resilient.
They will figure out a way to try to make a go of it.
And so what we're trying to do again is give them, um,
give them a little bit of a boost.
-Emily McCartan of Long Live the Kings
describes this as a rest stop,
a relatively sheltered section of healthy,
functioning estuary
that will let young salmon gather themselves
on the way out to sea.
Shallow water will support vegetation,
which attracts insects for salmon to feed on.
-So as they're migrating out of the river
and starting to hit the salt water for the first time,
they have a place where they can find food sources.
They can gather energy.
Um, and hopefully we'll see that eventually translate into,
um, you know, better survival.
-Before work began, researchers sampled water
and the diet of salmon passing through here
and across the river at Jack Block Park.
They will continue to monitor after completion
to gauge success,
and hope this can be the first step in a chain
of industrial projects to assist fish.
-When you imagine healthy habitat for salmon,
you would imagine a really pristine flowing river
with trees on either side.
Um, and, you know, really clean, clear water.
They need all of those things.
What we also know is that Seattle's not going anywhere,
and we need to be able to figure out ways
that the systems that work for humans
are also working for the environment
and for the fish and wildlife that also depend on them.
We're all interconnected.
-Certainly salmon need all the help they can get.
Chinook spawning in the rivers of Puget Sound
are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act,
and runs have been declining for decades.
-You know, the expression goes,
you know, the victim died of a thousand small cuts.
If you look at Puget Sound as a whole,
We've hardened the shoreline,
we've reduced the grass beds and so forth.
No, we're not going to put Harbor Island back
into mudflats anytime soon.
But the small benefits that we can achieve will pay off.
♪♪
-Back at Vigor, in-water work
is slated to wrap up in February,
and they'll also improve stormwater controls
to reduce runoff.
Then, researchers will return over time to study
how the fish are doing.
Hopefully, there will be more of them to follow.
-For me personally, it's a really rewarding project
to -- to have been involved with from start to finish.
And like I said, it's something that's going to be
on the landscape forever.
Um, long past, uh,
anybody that's involved in it is on the planet
that will still be here.
-Fish returning to a more natural setting
in the heart of a forest of steel.
-It'll be exciting.
That's what we're looking forward to.
-More like what they knew for the many years
before humans changed this place.
-Hope is not lost.
When we have the opportunity to say there are salmon here,
we know that if we give them a chance,
they will figure out how to survive.
We owe it to them and to ourselves
to give them that chance.
♪♪
-Vigor says the habitat project cost about $28 million
and the accompanying stormwater improvements another $5 million.
They hope this will provide a model
for integrating natural landscapes
into industrial spaces.
We'll be right back.
♪♪
That wraps up this edition of "CityStream"
from Pioneer Square Habitat Beach
along the Seattle waterfront.
If you'd like to see more
outstanding Seattle Channel programs,
go to our website,
SeattleChannel.org and search for "Feature Shows."
I'm Enrique Cerna, thanks for watching.
♪♪