Why Tearing Down Dams Can Save Endangered Killer Whales

Decent Essays
Why Tearing Down Dams Could Help Save Endangered Killer Whales In the industrialized world, it’s easy to see that construction and manufacturing have had an enormous impact on the ecosystem. Whether you believe in climate change or not, the affects of pollution on the environment are plain to see. In her 2017 article entitled “Why Tearing Down Dams Could Save Endangered Killer Whales,” Hanna Brooks Olsen examines the effect of declining Chinook Salmon population on pregnant Orcas near Seattle.
Although her intentions are good, she doesn’t do a very good job connecting her ideas. She tends to jump between topics a lot, without clearly bridging the gaps between them. One question that I kept asking myself while reading this article was, “why

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    California’s San Joaquin River was a source of life. It helped provide food for thousands and was a home for many, but the Bureau of Reclamation took it all away when they ordered the construction of the Friant Dam. The Dam wasn’t created to destroy life, but to give life. It helped southern Californians get the water they needed by diverting the river into an aqueduct and sending it south. But what many didn’t predict was the mass die off of many fish that once lived in the San Joaquin.…

    • 411 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Her explanations are hard to follow; they are comparable to a rough first draft of a paper. It is as if she is brainstorming all of her thoughts, and the…

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. (5 points) Which of the topics that we covered during this quick summer session did you find the most interesting? Why? Answer: I thoroughly enjoyed learning about behavioral obedience in “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You?…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It seems in portions of the article, he is very unorganized by bringing up topics without explaining the significance to his purpose. An example of this would be when he brings up plagiarism and cheating. He describes how “[Students will] find that cheating is common (Edmundson 22),” without explaining the relevance. This does not achieve his purpose because it is hard to follow and unclear why it was brought up. Without clarity on matters such as this, the students are left grabbing at straws trying to understand what Edmundson means.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lamott's Writings

    • 185 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Despite each tragedy, she finds reasons for maintaining optimism and it’s a good reminder for people such as me. One thing I liked was how she’s able to set up emotional connections by using astute popular culture references and presenting humility. Her poignancy and insight are qualities I hope to…

    • 185 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The Missing Sea Otters

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages

    According to the article “Search for the Missing Sea Otters: An Ecological Detective Story” by Mary E. Allen and Mark L. Kuhlmann, the sea otter population has been decreasing at a rapid pace since the 1990’s in Aleutian, Alaska. This is demonstrated by article “What Could be the Cause of Decreasing Otter Numbers” which states that in 1997, the decline of the sea otter population had increased to about 90%. They hypothesize that the decrease in the sea otter population has been caused by their predator, the killer whale because the sea otter’s bodies do not come ashore. The evidence suggests that killer whales are eating the sea otters because in the text “What Predator Could be Causing the Large Decrease in Otter Numbers”…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Caitlin is a very interesting writer and she wrote about a very interesting subject. Starting the book, I had no expectations for what it was going to be like and the first chapter took me by surprise. Day one at her new job, she had to give an old man a clean shave. Normally, people learn the ropes of the whole business for the first few days but she was thrown in right away to shave a man’s face. Luckily, she said she did a great job from the evidence that the family did not notice if she had shaved him wrong.…

    • 1367 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Whales Whales in captivity is a horrible thing because the whales are separated from their familie, are forced to perform in front of screaming audiences, and they can act out and hurt humans and each other in small spaces. Male orca whales have collapsed dorsal fins. When there in the wild there dorsal fin stays straight up. When there in captivity there dorsal fin collapses. This is most likely because they are cramped up in a tight place so they can’t swim freely.…

    • 708 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Water pollution in California is a major issue that has been one of the main causes for them to ban plastic bags. The ocean water has raised a big health concern in California because people are swimming in water that has trash floating around them. Banning plastic bags is one of the most important things that have happened to the California environment because it will reduce the amount of plastic that is going into the Pacific Ocean. The water in California has a very big impact in what has caused the great pacific garbage patch. This has a major impact on California because people now have to worry about what is around them while being in the water.…

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The weakness of the speech: The main points in her speech need more sources and documents to support, although the speech is inspiring, it is lack of…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Also, the environment of Plateau's territory was impacted by the pipeline expansion project. There are concerns about alternate routing, shipping issues, and impact on marine life, including orcas and wild salmon. The construction and operation of the pipeline would affect the environment as well: Air quality can be affected by dust during construction; Noise is increased relative to background noise by construction activities; and risks to wildlife can be caused by the removal, alteration and fragmentation of habitat. Therefore, the People of Plateau and other First Nations concerned about the environment condition of their territory.…

    • 208 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1) Pacific Salmon Life Cycle a) As it stands, man-made dams disrupt the complex and specific life cycle of the Pacific salmon. Dams impact and affect the pivotal reproduction of the salmon species by causing a disturbance in the pattern of migration during the reproductive season. The Pacific salmon goes through two miracles in its lifetime of transformations of changing its entire system to go form fresh water to salt water. The miracles of the fish bodies adapting to the change in environment are caused by migration for dietary and security reasons. Salmon migrate from a young age from freshwater streams into the ocean because of an abundance of food and less predators to increase the probability of growing to mature reproductive age.…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Removing killer whales from their natural habitats does indeed have certain negative effects on these marine animals. According to a report released by The Humane Society titled “Killer Controversy: Why Orcas Should No Longer Be Kept in Captivity”, the mortality rate for orcas held in captivity is two and half times higher than when in the wild. It has also been reported that the annual survival rates are significantly lower in captive orcas. Killer whales also exhibit certain behaviors when in captivity that are not observed when they are in their natural environment. For instance, female orcas have shown rejection and aggression towards their newborns more often when they are in captivity compared to the wild- in the wild, this behavior is a rare occurrence.…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She is an Atlantic national correspondent, is the author of the book The End of Men based on her story in the July/August 2010 Atlantic. These things make her a more credible person to be writing because she has experience in the field of writing with her book. You can also look and see that she has done many articles…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However when she did write on these topics in the essay, they were full of examples. Short quotes and excerpts form other author’s work were constantly thrown in as supporting details for her purpose, but the information came so fast that it was hard to focus on the point she was making. I found myself somewhat lost among literary and scholarly references. This scholarly style of writing was alongside the very personal narratives that the author weaves in and out of the paper, and the two don’t seem to mesh. Both of these are examples of somewhat polarized styles of writing.…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays