An important article.

A Sad Day in North Carolina

Fracking in NC approved

These are our elected representatives, making deals at midnight to ensure their own stay in power.  I need a new candidate to vote for for governor in November, since Walter Dalton apparently now supports fracking.  Where is the leadership that is going to work for us?

The Dickens You Say! (A brief history of the Atlantic Cod).

The scene: bedroom of Ebeneezer Scrooge, commercial fisherman, somewhere in New England, late in the evening.  The ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, appears through the wall.

Jacob: Ebeneezer, Ebeneezer, wake up!

Ebeneezer (groggily): Jacob, oh my goodness, is that really you?

Jacob: It is, indeed, Ebeneezer.  I come with a warning for you.

Ebeneezer: What is that you are all tied up in?

Jacob: Those are the fishing nets we used in life, Ebeneezer.

Ebeneezer: Looks darned uncomfortable.

Jacob: Trust me, it is, but that’s not the worst of it by far.  Not at all.  So that you can learn more, you will be visited by two ghosts tonight.

Ebeneezer: Two ghosts?  Sounds vaguely familiar.  Aren’t there supposed to be three?  Are you going cheap on me?  You always were a cheapskate, Jacob.

Jacob: When the clock strikes one, all will be revealed!  (He disappears into the mist).

Ebeneezer: What a crazy dream!  I knew I shouldn’t have had fish for dinner tonight!

Later that evening, the clock strikes one. The Ghost of Atlantic Cod Past. a large fish, enters the bedroom through the wall.

Ghost: Ebeneezer, wake up!

Ebeneezer:  (in terror) Oh, please, no, let me sleep.

Ghost: You have slept long enough.  Tonight, your eyes will be opened.  I am the Ghost of Atlantic Cod Past – take my fin and we will trawl for knowledge of your region’s past.

Ebeneezer: Rather ironic, I’m trawling with a fish, rather than for a fish.

Ebeneezer and the Ghost leave the bedroom and arrive in the port of Gloucester in 1800’s Colonial New England, overlooking the harbor.

Ghost: Did you know that fishing was our country’s first industry?  Hundreds and hundreds of those schooners you see operated out of several New England ports, catching cod with actual baited lines.  There was no refrigeration yet, so cod was “salted” at sea to preserve it.  Salt cod was then sold all over the world, and related industries like boat building also boomed.

Ebeneezer: Fascinating, if just a little primitive.

Ghost:  Primitive?  I’m guessing you never read “Captain’s Courageous” by Kipling?  You might change that description to adventurous if you had.

Ebeneezer:  Hmmm, never heard of it, can I get it on my Kindle?

Ghost: Not from here you can’t! You’d have to go to a library or a bookseller.  But it is time for us to move on.

Ebeneezer and the Ghost arrive in New Bedford, circa 1925.

Ebeneezer: Ooh, steam trawlers.  Now we are coming up to modern civilization, something almost recognizable.

Ghost: The Industrial Revolution completely changed the fishing industry.  Trawlers, cold storage, and distribution modernization allowed fresh fish to be shipped far away from ports.  Species other than cod, like haddock and herring, were then targeted.  The popularity and “harvesting” of fish soared.  When fisherman “fished out” one area, they just moved on to another.  Scientists warned, even then, that this growth couldn’t be sustained.

Ebeneezer: Oh, come on, a few guys on boats started using nets rather than fishing lines.  How much damage could they do?

Ghost: Dragging those heavy nets across the ocean bottom damages marine habitats.  And, let’s see, ah, in 1930 alone tens of millions of haddock were “harvested” around Boston, and even more millions of baby haddock were just discarded dead at sea!  Fishermen were using nets with too small a mesh.

Ebeneezer:  So, of course, they acted quickly to fix that process, right?

Ghost:  Oh, absolutely, yes, 23 years later, in 1953, the first regulations specifying a minimum size for trawler nets were enforced. 

Ebeneezer:  Hmmm, well, you know there was no internet in those days.  And you had to spin a dial on a phone several times to make a call.

Ghost:  Tough times for all concerned.  Particularly if you were a baby haddock.  But it is time for us to move on.

Ebeneezer and the Ghost arrive in Washington, D.C. in 1976.

Ebeneezer:  Hmmm, the U.S. Capitol, surely you aren’t going to tell me there’s a fishing frenzy going on here?  Or is it just time for the Friday Fish Fry in the Senate?

Ghost: No, this is where the Magnuson Act was passed, allowing the U.S. to control its ocean waters out to a distance of 200 miles from shore.  You see, profitability in the fishing industry had waxed and waned since the early 1930’s.  Stocks of various fish had dwindled, while the tastes of the American public changed frequently.  And a newer threat had arisen in the 1960’s: ocean-going fish factories, known as deep water fleets, were coming to Georges Bank from many other countries, all over the world.  These could do the work of a thousand of those old schooners and deliver consumer-ready fish in half the time.

Ebeneezer:  Well, that’s a good thing, right?  Protecting our shore from foreign interlopers?

Ghost:  Lots of people thought so at the time.  All the international fleets had to leave.  The government offered easy financing to build new, modern fishing vessels, mini versions of the factory deep water trawlers.  Unfortunately catch quotas were seen as standing in the way of this new, revitalized fleet and were abandoned.  By the early 1980’s, fish catches were again at record highs, higher than those recorded even during the time of the deep water fleets.  It just couldn’t last.

Ebeneezer:  Let’s see, we did just what the international deep water boats were doing, only more and better? There’s a saying, it’s all over except the finger pointing?

Ghost: Exactly.  One by one, the stock of cod, halibut, perch and flounder collapsed.  By supporting the fishing industry, the government was blamed for having contributed to the problem.  Environmental groups rallied to the cause, too late.  Even fishermen then clamored for more and reasonable regulations and fish quotas. 

Ebeneezer:  I suppose you could say there is a lesson in there somewhere for all of us.

Ghost:  Somewhere?  You have become a master of understatement, Ebeneezer!  I believe you have learned something tonight.

Ebeneezer: Ghost, I have seen enough to become seasick.  Please take me home!

Ghost: As you wish, my work is done.  But yours is not, you may expect another visitor soon.

Later that evening, the clock strikes two. The Ghost of Atlantic Cod Present. a much smaller fish, enters the bedroom through the wall.

Ghost: Ebeneezer!  I have come to enjoy your company tonight.  You have enjoyed the company of many of my brethren, haven’t you?

Ebeneezer: Bah, humbug!  Can you come back in the morning?  I really need my beauty sleep. Yikes, is this a dream or a nightmare?  You are not looking well, ghost.  Why so emaciated?

Ghost:  A lot of the small prey that I eat are gone.  Decades of overfishing really upset the balance of the ecosystem.  For a while the population of the fish that I eat exploded, but then their prey, the zooplankton, declined.  It’s a complicated world, you know.

Ebeneezer:  But surely you can just come back?  Fishing moratoriums have been in effect, on and off, for going on twenty years now. 

Ghost: Scientists aren’t completely sure.  There’s a lot of factors involved, probably more than we understand.  The population of seals that prey on me.  Nutrients and pollution in the ocean.  Global warming.  Ocean currents.  Your fishing moratoriums have helped, just in time for sure. We’ll see.  The last measurement of my population in Georges Bank was about 10% of a target goal.

Ebeneezer:  Well, that’s a relief. 

Ghost:  Swell.  I’ve assuaged your conscience, my work here is done.  You can safely keep eating your scrod.  Back to bottom-feeding for me!

Later that evening, the clock strikes three. The ghost of Jacob Marley returns to the bedroom through the wall.

Jacob: Ebeneezer, I’m back! You said you wanted a third ghost.

Ebeneezer: I’m tired, but I think I’d prefer the Ghost of Atlantic Cod Future, no offense to you.  To wrap it all up for me.

Jacob:  I couldn’t find any volunteer in that category, that population is distinctly lower than it once might have been.  Didn’t you learn anything tonight?

Ebeneezer:  Oh, come on, I had cod earlier this evening, how bad can it be?

Jacob:  Are you sure it was cod?  Restaurants are known for disguising their fish very well.  Have you ever eaten Chilean Sea Bass?

Ebeneezer:  Sure, many times.  I have a refined palate, you know, and it has a distinctive flavor.

Jacob:  Actually, what you ate was Patagonian toothfish.  Another fish that was threatened when it’s popularity exploded.  Those marketing people are quite good.

If you did have cod, it could have also been from Iceland or Norway, another reason fish is so expensive these days.  They are doing some good things there, though, fishing sustainably, some even using hook-and-line gear.

Ebeneezer: You’re kidding, talk about primitive!

Jacob: Sheesh, you are not making this easy.  I have two questions for you.  At its low point, the cod population in the ‘90s was about 4% of what it was in the Atlantic in 1850, 150 years ago, by our best measurements.  What do you think would happen if, because individual farmers wanted to make more money, 96% of all pigs, chickens and cows were killed off?

Ebeneezer:  Outrage.  Protests.  Marches on…somewhere.  Internet tweets exploding.

Jacob:  Well, yes, I will give you the latter, at least.  But the outrage over cod and other ground fish washed away in a sea of coulda, woulda, shoulda pretty quickly into hopelessness and apathy.  And we’d had decades to see it coming.

Okay, question number two.  How much of that initial outrage would be spurred by our thoughts of not being able to eat the dinner we like, or not being able to earn the income we are used to, and how much by the thought that we practically committed complete genocide on another Earthly, living species?   What does that say about humanity?

Ebeneezer: (Gulp).  You know, Jacob, I could use your advice.  I’ve been thinking of getting out of the fishing business for a while now.  The fun is long gone, what with all these crazy regulations.  Fishing, what a bore, let’s face it.

I need something more adventurous, something exciting.  You say those marketing people are doing great work, thinking up ways to sell stuff to people who need it?  Maybe I’ll give it a try.

Jacob: Sheesh, only in America!

 For a guide on how to choose sustainable seafood, click here.

For detailed info on the status of cod stocks in New England and Canada, click here.

To see info from the Environmental Defense Fund on Atlantic Cod, click here.

The Final Frontier?

Q: The skeleton of what exotic, aquatic animal is displayed in many American homes?

A: Me!  I’m a coral.  Lots of you have samples of my skeletons in your home aquariums. That’s kind of spooky, if you ask me. You people call yourselves civilized?

You’ve heard of coral reefs?  They are made by us corals. That’s right, we are very tiny animals, called polyps. We have cell membranes, are just a few centimeters in length, and a few millimeters in diameter.  I’m spineless, yes, and genetically equivalent to my many brothers and sisters.  We are a little like an underwater “Borg” colony, I guess you could say.  A sack with a stomach and a mouth, with surrounding tentacles that can catch plankton.  We keep it simple, although there are a thousand different kinds of us, producing different exoskeletons that might end up looking like a brain or a table top.

Single-cell algae live right within my tissues, providing me with energy and nutrients and color via photosynthesis.  How cool is that?  Hey, I protect them and they work for me.  Sunlight is the key for that process to work so I need to live in clear water, not too deep and not too shallow.  I secrete a hard, carbonate exoskeleton which protects me.

Those skeletons of me and my family add up and bond together over time to form coral reefs.  Persistence is the key to that, us corals have been around in one form or another for over 500 million years. Yep, pretty much forever. 

Most of our existing work has been around for less than 10,000 years, though, that is when melting ice caused sea levels to rise and flood continental shelves.  My kind had to grow upwards, matching the rising sea levels.  Persistence does pay off, as you can see some of our reefs from space today.  How much of your work can be seen from space?  Nothing I know of besides the Great Wall of China (I heard that has been crumbling, by the way, somebody had better get on it!)

So what good are coral reefs?  Well, we provide homes for about 25% of all marine species, even though we cover only about 0.1% of the world’s ocean surface.  Coral reefs are like English muffins, we have the nooks and crannies that fish love to navigate, or love to visit to eat those fish.  That  also creates a lot of touristy opportunities for your kind.  My reefs have been called rainforests of the sea, because of the extremely diverse ecosystems which you can find there. 

Actually, I would really prefer that you did NOT find them there.  Human interference is one thing that is killing me off.  Prime example: sunscreen.  You heard right!  Thousands of tons of it washes off of humans and finds its way into ocean environments.  Some sunscreens use chemicals which, if even a minute part of them gets into me, it stimulates viruses inside my algae. The viruses replicate until the algae explodes.  Without the algae, I turn white and die.  This can end up infecting the whole reef, a phenomenon known as coral bleaching.

Do you need any more evidence that we’re all interconnected on this Earth?  Seriously, I would reconsider/review your choice of sunscreens.  These four chemicals that cause my viruses (oxybenzone, butylparaben, octinoxate, and methylbenzylidene camphor) are ones that you may be PUTTING DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR BODY.  I’m no doctor or scientist, I’m just saying, let the buyer beware.  Smart companies are now marketing sunscreens that don’t include them.  Thank you!

Ironically, I know quite a bit about sunscreen.  My symbiotic algae make a compound they share with me, which I modify as a sunscreen that protects both of us.  It really works, fish that feed on coral even benefit from the same protection.  Smart scientists are trying to replicate a synthetic version, in the hopes of creating a pill for humans.  Since coral is endangered, they at least have the decency not to try to extract it from us.  That would pretty much be the final indignity.

What with global warming, acid rain, overfishing, agricultural runoff and pollution, I have my tentacles full.  About 25% of coral reefs have perished over just the last few decades.  Another 25% could easily die out over the next twenty years if things don’t change.  Seems like you humans are racing to see which you can destroy first, the rainforests on land or the “forests” under the water. That would be one-half of all coral reefs – gone.  Where’s the outrage?  I need a new publicist, that’s for sure.   

Well I’ve spoken my peace, for what it’s worth.  Now for the entertainment part of our show.  I’ve always wanted to paraphrase the great and wise Seabastian, with apologies to the Disney folks.  Feel free to sing along, it will make you feel better!  I think you know the tune.

Under the sea

Under the sea

Coral be living

So don’t be giving

Your sunscreen to me

Under the sea

Under the sea

You got to hear it

Just don’t go near it

Naturally

Under the sea

Under the sea

Darling it’s better

Down where it’s wetter

Please take care of me.

To view a 60 Minutes video of a visit to a coral reef, click here.

To see comments from a UNC ecologist on the above 60 Minutes segment, click here.

For info from the EPA on coral reefs and what they are doing to protect them, click here.

Click here to learn what you can specifically do to protect coral reefs.

Whoops!

You say you have a horror story about an airplane ride?  Oh, really?  I bet you were never grounded and then caged up for a month in Fulton County, Alabama, now were you?  I think I have you beat, then.

Let me explain, I’m a whooping crane, known to your scientists as a Grus americana.  You probably haven’t ever seen me or heard my early-morning bugle call, since there are so few of my kind left, only about 400 now in 2012.  Think that’s a low number?  In the 1940’s there were only fifteen (correct, 15) of us left at one point; every living whooper today is descended from those 15.  Sort of our George and Martha Washington, Thomas and Martha Jefferson, (I guess Martha was pretty high on the popular name list in the 1700’s) and perhaps Sally Hemmings was in there also.

You think you have it tough?  Try being 5 feet tall and mostly white, living in the wild.  Who are our predators?  Might be easier to list who isn’t!  Bear, wolf, fox, lynx, eagle, raven and bobcat are often after me or my young.  Teenage boys with raging hormones and access to guns are no friends, either.  Luckily for them, no matter what mayhem they cause, they generally get off with a slap-on-the-wrist fine and probation, even though it is illegal to harm us cranes.  Not so lucky for me.

But hey, I’m an optimist and there is a lot to be optimistic about, once you know my whole story.  Our main flock, now numbering about 300, migrates from Alberta, Canada to the gulf coast of Texas and back each year. You could call us the original snowbirds.  I can easily spiral up on the wind, my black wing tips sticking up and long, black legs trailing behind, and then glide downward.  A whooping crane in flight is poetry in motion, as they say, and we birds know this route by heart.

Smart biologists and ornithologists from both the U.S. and Canada got together to protect cranes and had an aha!moment: why not try to establish new populations on different migratory paths?  Brilliant!  They hatched and reared cranes in isolation in central Wisconsin.  But how to get them to migrate to a new location?  More brilliance: ultralight aircraft were used by the group, called Operation Migration, to lead us on the path to the Florida gulf coast.  This flock, begun in 2001, is now up to about 100 birds.  Once we learn the route, we are good to go.  Pretty smart, huh? 

Anyway, I was proud to be part of this year’s class of nine newborns, hand-picked to follow along and learn the ropes on the 1,300 mile trip.  I do have to say, though it is nice of you, and even inspired, to dress the pilot and plane up to look like us cranes, it is not really necessary.  We are not quite that stupid, we know it is just you crazy (albeit lovable) humans!

We feasted on corn, soybeans and cheese and then started out from Wisconsin in October.  My only disappointment was being told we could not detour to that South of the Border place that’s all over the billboards, it was too far out of the way.  It was smooth sailing, though, for a couple of months.

Suddenly, though, everything came to a grinding halt in Alabama in December.  Seems the Federal Aviation Administration had ruled that our whole migration was illegal!  There’s a law that says ultralight aircraft cannot legally be used for commercial purposes, and guiding whooping cranes apparently qualifies as a commercial enterprise.   Say what?  Can you say, “Bureaucracy in action”?  All nine of us were immediately inspired to change our affiliation to vote Republican and reduce such crazy regulations.

So it was Christmas in Alabama for us, three squares of fish, snails and berries and an occasional hour out of prison to stretch our legs.  The horrors!

This issue was actually debated for about a month.  That’s right, paid members of the FAA put their heads together to consider what could be done.  And you wonder why it is so hard for the government to accomplish anything?  Finally they found a way out of this embarrassment: grant us a special, one-time exemption to complete the trip, but only because we were already en route.  What happens next year is anyone’s guess; the FAA says a more comprehensive, long-term solution is needed, a decade after these flights were started.  What could that solution be, maybe a group rate on first-class flights?  Nah, that would be no fun, and who wants to go through those screeners, anyway?

Well, all’s well that ends well for now and, truly, I have to be thankful just to be alive.  So thank you and your kind for your support.  It is estimated that there were about 1,400 whooping cranes alive in 1860.  Perhaps by 2160 we can get back to that number.  If I had bet on that happening in the ‘40s, probably all 400 of us cranes could retire to crane condos in Boca Raton. 

This story is dedicated to the memory of John T. Ferris.

Editors note: This year’s migration from Wisconsin to Florida could not be completed once the birds refused to follow the ultralight aircraft any longer after their month's respite.  Can you blame them?  The birds are now being transported by truck to the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama.  For up to date information, check the link below.

For up-to-date info on the status of this year's migration, click here.


To see a video of whooping cranes in the wild, click here.


For more info on cranes and the efforts to help them, click here.

Move Over, Lion King!

The scene: a fancy office at the William Morris Talent Agency in Hollywood, California.

Mr. Lazar, Highly Successful and Powerful Agent:  Thanks for coming in today, Ms. Ah….

Binturong: Bindy.  Call me Bindy.  Actually, I just go by the one name.  Like all the great ones.  My formal scientific name is arctcitis binturong, but I only use that on contracts. 

Mr. Lazar: Sure, Bindy, well, I know you’ve come a long way, …

Binturong:  All the way from Southeast Asia, actually.

Mr. Lazar: …but I don’t have a lot of time today, you say you have a screenplay?

Binturong:  I sure do. (Drops sheath of stapled papers onto desk.)  It’s called, “The Poop that Saved the Rain Forest”.

Mr. Lazar: Wow, the Poop that Saved the Rain Forest, is that a comedy?  I don’t rep comedies…

Binturong:  Comedy?  No, my goodness, this is a gripping drama, adventure, action, heroism, everything you would want in a movie.

Mr. Lazar: You’d better explain.

Binturong: Sure.  In my rain forest, light is at a premium, because of dense plant growth.  A tree called the Strangler Fig is very successful there, because I drop its seeds in crevasses on existing trees when I poop, and its roots grow downward, “strangling” the existing tree.  I can travel from tree to tree, without ever going down to the ground. 

I’m the only animal with stomach enzymes that can soften the seed coat of the Strangler Fig.  Without me, Strangler Fig seeds wouldn’t get spread around, and the rain forest wouldn’t have its high canopy of trees.  They call me a keystone species.  

I should probably tell you that us female binturongs are actually the dominant sex, being about 20% bigger than males.  We are also one of the few mammals that can experience “delayed implantation”, meaning that we can choose the time of the birth of our young, if conditions are right.  Neat, huh?

Mr. Lazar:  Fascinating, I could never even make that kind of stuff up, but, is there really a movie plot in there somewhere?

Binturong:  Sure is.  See, a lot of circumstances have been combining to decrease my population.  Deforestation to increase farm land kills off my habitat.  In many areas where I live the population is poor, so I get hunted for meat and to supply a demand for materials used in Asian medicines.  I’m even in demand as pets now in the U.S. – you can go online right now and buy one of me for $6,000 to $10,000!  For that kind of money, I guess you can understand why there is a high price on my life.

Mr. Lazar:  People want wild binturongs as pets?  Who?

Binturong: Probably the same people who want cute tiger cubs as pets, only to see them grow up quickly into 500 pound carnivores.  But I digress.

So, the less of me there are, the less the Strangler Fig seeds are spread, and the decline of the rain forest continues in a vicious cycle.  It’s estimated that the binturong population has declined by at least 30% in the last 30 years.

Mr. Lazar: Sad.  I’m starting to see the plot, but not the happy ending.  Every movie like this has to have a happy ending.

Binturong:  That’s where you come in.  There’s no easy solutions.  But I heard you also have some great writers as clients.  Can you help me out?

What I thought was, the movie itself could be the happy ending!  See, I’m cute, even cuter than those lame Ewoks.  People will love me, there will be stuffed animals, product placements in fast food restaurants, coloring books, all kinds of money makers.  And, of course, an outpouring of support for me and my kind and the rain forest as well.  Can you make it happen?

Mr. Lazar:  Well, I know some people at Disney.  “The Poop that Saved the Rain Forest”, I guess it’s as good a working title as any.  Memorable, for sure.  Let me make some calls.  Hmmm, I wonder if we could get Jon Lovitz, he is due for a comeback. 

Binturong: I just want to be loved, is that so wrong?

Mr. Lazar: Gee, sorry, I never offered you any refreshment.  Care for some coffee, tea, a muffin?

Binturong: I can’t take the caffeine, but do you happen to have any Strangler Figs?  I was wondering if California wanted to start a new forest….


To find out more about the binturong and threats to the rainforest, click here.


To see a video clip of a binturong up close and personal, click here.

The Pelican, Briefly

I used to envy humans for their great anchovy pizzas, and pity them for their lack of wings, but now I just fear them since it seems like you are always cooking up new ways to kill my kind.

Let me explain, I’m a pelican.  More specifically, a brown pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis, as your scientists would say.  I can be found all around the east, west and gulf coasts.  Other species of pelican are found all over the world, except for Antartica.

Have you seen me?  I’m pretty distinctive, with my long bill and webbed feet.  I’ve been told I put on a great show.  With my wide wingspan I love to soar through the air, then dive for fish in shallow waters.  What a major rush!  I have to surface and let the water drain out of my pouch so I can swallow my favorite anchovies.  How do you guys cope just walking around on land?  Boring!

Male pelicans have the life!  Each spring we start building a nest, then puff out our chests, strut our stuff and wait for a suitable female to come along and pick us.  Much simpler than Match.com, no muss, no fuss, no outdated photos.   Me and my partner later take turns standing on our eggs to incubate them for a month or so.

We pelicans have had it pretty good for the last 30 million years or so.  Humans came along with little fanfare 3 or 4 million years ago.  That DDT stuff you cooked up recently almost did my kind in completely during the ‘60s.  How would you like to eat fish contaminated with DDT?  Oh, wait, you and me both were probably unknowingly doing this during that decade, and since then as well.  DDT becomes more concentrated as it moves up the food chain, and its “half-life” in the ocean is 150 years.  Yeah, maybe that crop spraying with DDT was not the best human idea ever – some of the runoff must still be out there.

Just when I was on the brink, when it was proven that DDT caused my eggshells to be too thin to support an embryo, you banned it in 1972.  Thanks, Rachel Carson!  I started coming back strong after that.

Now Ogden Nash, there’s another great human.  A genius.  I thought he did more for pelicans in five lines than you’d think would be humanly possible, so to speak.  Now I’m told that someone named Dixon Merritt, a newspaper editor, is the real author of my favorite limerick.  You can be the judge, I’ll repeat it here for you:

A wonderful bird is a pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week;
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

You gotta admit, that’s a classic.  I still chuckle whenever I hear it.

So just when I thought all was good again, a new threat emerges: mysterious pelican killings.  What’s that about?

The last several years, hundreds of pelicans have been gruesomely killed in Texas and North Carolina.  Who’s behind it?  Well, in Texas, ninety (you read that right: nine zero) were admittedly killed by a fish farmer who was tired of us sampling his fish.  Hey, what can I say, it was a pretty easy mistake to make.  He didn’t have any signs up warning us off the property!  Lucky stiff got off with probation and a fine.  We pelicans are a protected species and anyone who harms us is violating Federal law.

In North Carolina, along the Outer Banks, there’s no proof, just a lot of carcasses washing ashore, causing suspicions and frustration.  Originally, people finding dead pelicans with broken wings or necks were so shocked they thought that someone must have shot or strangled them.  Autopsies performed recently don’t show that; they categorize the cause of death as “blunt force trauma”.  That covers a wide range of possibilities from contact with electrical wires and towers to entanglements with fishing gear to being hit by a baseball bat.  Somehow human related, in my mind, but please, feel free to prove me wrong.

And now for the good news: a group of volunteers is taking turns walking Topsail Beach, looking for evidence, scanning for birds in distress, taking pictures, hoping to find something that will fill in the pieces of the puzzle in order to solve this mystery.  Called the ‘Seanetters’, they are my new heroes, and the hope of pelicans everywhere.  There’s a $8,500.00 reward being offered for information about these killings and I hope one of you humans earns it soon. 

Have you heard of the use of gill nets by commercial fishermen?  This technique has been banned in many states, although not in North Carolina.  It’s very effective, maybe too effective.  When the fish try to swim through mesh openings, they get stuck and then can’t back out because their gills get caught.  It’s so effective that it can also trap sea turtles, ducks and my kind, too.  They call us “bycatch”.   Another word for “bycatch” would be “dead”.

So I’m here to offer you a truce:  you let me take a few farm fish, limit and monitor the use of gill nets in fishing, and keep your eyes pealed for signs of trouble.  I’ll stick around, keep the great air and aquatic shows coming, and alert you the next time you are about to destroy another habitat, or poison the planet beyond recognition, by actually dying if I have to.  It’s a tough job, but I guess someone has to do it.

Do we have a deal?

Well you’ve been patient with me so I will leave you with a tribute of my own to the late, great Mssrs. Nash and Merritt.   Enjoy!

A strange animal is the human

He acts crazily just because he can

He may think some great thoughts

But doesn’t always connect all the dots

From his brain all the way to his hand.

To view a video of a pelican in flight, click here.


For more info on endangered sea birds and Seanet, click here.


For more info on the effects of gill net fishing, and/or to take action, click here.