What difference could this possibly make? It's not like we're hunting them or even having dead Orcas washing up on the beaches.
There are no "Puget Sound Orca", as if that is some different sort of Orca. There are Orcas in Puget Sound, the San Juans, and the whole of the inland passage up through Canada and Alaska. The pods move around. They're not even really sure where they all go from time to time. Sometimes they just seem to go away, only to show up again some months later.
Makes you wonder what this is really all about, since obviously it isn't about Orcas.
Right, but with this designation they will not have to wait for any actual provable damage, all you have to do is allege a potential threat and you can start shutting things down.
Its the old situation of the 60s radicals adopting a cause that can't reject them as an attempt to implement their leftist policies.