<')((((((((><~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~><((((((((()'>

When I first heard about vernal ponds it was during my daily story scrounge as the environmental reporter for the Eagle Tribune. The story sounded great: getting overtime wandering in the woods at night looking for frogs and salamanders. I was not prepared for cacophony of thousands of sex-crazed frogs or the writhing spectacle of salamander orgies, politely called congressing, that greeted me and my photographer around 9 pm that sultry spring evening. I've been a vernal pond fan every since.

All kinds of steps are being taken to help these creatures. Vermont just got $150,000 to install culvert road crossings near a particularly busy vernal pond. “Salamander Crossing” signs have been installed in Homewood, AL, and Ipswich, MA. Vernal pond mapping projects are also gaining steam. In these, volunteers are asked to document the wildlife at suspected vernal ponds and if it meets certain thresholds, it can be protected by wetlands laws. This obviously isn't sitting well with some development minded folks, but with the slow down in construction the winds are blowing in favor of the amphibians. So, today's lesson is: let's seize the day. Next spring when the first warm rains are forecast, see if there is a vernal pond group willing to introduce you to a little amphibian amore. Salamanders can be very sexy. (If you have a minute, or five of them, take a look at this great vernal pond video below.)

<')((((((((><~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boston's Channel 7 News this week ran a segment on the season's first spotting of rare North Atlantic right whales off Cape Cod. However, the camera footage was of humpback whales. That prompted an email apology sent to science types by the New England Aquarium which was interviewed for the segment. The NEA didn't want anyone who knew the difference between the two whales to think the aquarium didn't. Who told the TV station the whales were North Atlantic right whales is anyone's guess, but apparently it wasn't the aquarium. They were just called for comment. (Pictured here is a humpback and below is a North Atlantic right whale.) The NEA email produced more emails from the science types that received it including this sad response from a northern right whale expert over in Seattle.

“As imperiled as they are, North Atlantic right whales are doing comparatively well compared to the population I now work on in the eastern N Pacific.  We recently estimated their abundance from mark-recapture photo-id and genetic data at a whopping 30 animals (yes, thirty).  While that is probably an underestimate that relates more to a sub-stock using the SE Bering Sea, the overall population clearly isn't much larger.  The legacy of intensive 19th century whaling, and devastating illegal catches by the USSR in the 1960's. So it may not seem like it, but you're actually an order of magnitude better off [in the Atlantic]! Cheers, Phil Clapham National Marine Mammal Lab, Seattle”

The North Atlantic right whale gets an amazing amount of press, primarily because there is concern the creature's numbers are getting so low, they may go extinct. They also strike a sympathetic cord because so may die from ship strikes. However, rarely in all this coverage is mentioned that there is a North Pacific right whale and a southern right whale, the latter numbers well into four-figures. In the spirit of Channel 7's screw up, NBN also wants to correct a post last year regarding these whales. We said the northern and south right whales were not distinct species. But this Wikipedia post makes clear we're wrong and why. We're fessing up now because we originally wrote the piece last year to suggest all this talk about endangered North Atlantic right whales was just fretting about one group of a species of whale that seemed to be doing a lot better elsewhere. Not only was NBN wrong, but now we have this sad news about the surprising death of 300 southern right whales off the coast of Argentina.

All to often the rush to put out copy trumps the accuracy of that copy. But the incorrect information lingers in civilization's collective conversation. NBN's original post was based on a recollection about right whales from an interview with an expert who knows his north from south. We should have double checked. As the amount of easily available information expands exponentially via internet access, it points up more than ever the need to double check your sources. But even more so when it comes to environmental issue where reader sympathy is so important. NBN's incorrect post could effect a readers decision to contribute to supporting the North Atlantic right whale. We will do better. We're not so sure about Channel 7. Don Henley got it right about TV.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~><((((((((()'>

What's a poor treehugger to do. On one hand we have this really neat half-chicken, half-bird called the sage grouse, on the other we hand we have prime real estate for solar panels and wind turbines. Both are ideally suited for specific stretches of the country's high plains, and apparently both can't be there at the same time, according to this piece in the Las Vegas Sun. What to do? Get used to it and say good-by to the grouse, if need be. Perhaps we can avoid the fowl's extinction as we pave over this gorgeous country with solar and wind farms. But a fresh crop of global warming warning stories has NBN once again thinking ecological Armageddon is upon us. That means the grouse could be facing far greater threats than losing habitat to alternative energy ambitions.

Even in ideal conditions, these birds are pretty scarce. They need a very specific environment: windy, high dessert plains that will quite likely becomes too dry and windy for these fowl if global warming goes un-checked. As we've said before here in NBN, Global Warming is going to force some very unpleasant decisions on us. Fortunately for the grouse, and a lot of other threatened animals in the world, there are a lot of people looking out for them. This federal map designates the boundaries of local working groups dedicated to saving the grouse. These groups are no doubt bummed out by the recent federal decision not to offer federal endangered protection to the grouse. However, nature lovers farther afield can take some solace knowing these groups out west are protecting one endangered species while they  concern themselves with other struggling species.

At the same time, grouse hunters are delighted this endangered bird can still be placed in their shotgun sights. These folks are no doubt an endangered species as well. How long can we expect hunting season to stay open on a bird that's rapidly disappearing. This is where the hard decisions will have to come in, and a lot of angry people will no doubt come out. Just as the grouse occupies a very specific ecological niche, grouse hunters occupy a very specific recreational niche. As more and more animals inch closer to the endangered species list, so must those who exploit them. Get used to it. There's nothing wrong with hunting, providing you're hunting the right animal. If you can't kill grouse, kildeer. PTP. Here's a five-alarm press release from the National Wildlife Federation grousing about the grouse. Also, here's a cool video of the sage grouse in action.

<')((((((((><~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Let's go to the internet. YouTube had this video in the first page of searches for “Manatee Abuse.” It seems to pretty much cover the gamut of the complaints in the PEER release above which has: “people poking, chasing, standing on or kicking manatees, as well as separating mothers from calves each year.” The video is pretty sad to watch. But, most of the other YouTube manatee abuse videos had the same footage. Thus, a very cursory search suggests the problem isn't as bad as the problem PEER is named for. They are Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. When this group first started sending out press releases, they were all about protecting whistle-blowers in environmental agencies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~><((((((((()'>

The Newburyport Daily News in Massachusetts reported this summer that 2009 was very good year for the Plum Island population of Piping Plover. It better have been, because the birds are given free rein to nine miles of prime Atlantic oceanfront for the purposes of raising chicks for the better part of the summer. It's hard to find a larger section of public beach shut down for a longer period of time than the Plum Island Piping Plover nursery. However, similar shut-downs close off equally large percentages of prime bay beaches on Long Island, Cape Cod, even in Wisconsin. Beach enthusiasts don't take these closings well, hence the advent of tee-shirts and bumper stickers like this one here. What makes it worse is, oftentimes these baby Plovers, or the eggs, are eaten by predators like skunks, raccoon and fox, whose numbers are on the rise.

These shut-downs are no minor inconvenience. The idea that it's being done in futility on any given year is frustrating and brings into question the whole policy. Take a gander, PTP (Pardon the Pun) at this note just in from MassWildlife. Peregrin falcons were once as scarce as hensteeth, PTP. Now, their numbers are taking off, PTP. Ditto for the Northeast's osprey population. I was just down on Long Island, NY and the birds were circling overhead everywhere. When I was growing up down there, ospreys were nonexistent. And, we all know the success of the bald eagle in the Lower 48 over the past decade. That's the way it works, according to MassWildlife's wildlife expert Tom French. The populations of these struggling species will not respond immediately to restoration measures taken on their behalf.

That's the way it works, according to MassWildlife's wildlife expert Tom French. The populations of these struggling species will not respond immediately to restoration measures taken on their behalf. They take a little while then, when numbers reach critical mass, the populations take off. That's what happened with the striped bass populations of the East Coast. But it does beg the question of how much sacrifice should be made on behalf of these critters when you don't see the kind of improvements you want, and the piping plover is being generously out-shined by the raptors. The piping plover is not a raptor. In the survival-of-the-fittest scale, they are quite a few rungs down from the raptors and just a few rungs above earthworms before learning to fly.

Raptors numbers dropped sharply when the pesticide DDT, which built up in the fish they eat. That weakened their shells so the mother osprey, falcon eagle...ect, couldn't sit on them. The DDT didn't help plovers any either. But, they are also suffering from habitat loss and that's a much harder problem to correct than just banning DDT.
Raptors numbers dropped sharply when the pesticide DDT, which built up in the fish they eat. That weakened their shells so the mother osprey, falcon eagle...ect, couldn't sit on them. The DDT didn't help plovers any either. But, they are also suffering from habitat loss and that's a much harder problem to correct than just banning DDT. Stil, as this chart shows, plover numbers are climbing too. However, we're left with a quandary. When the plover populations start to show the same success as the raptors will the beaches then be opened all summer? We've paid a much bigger price to bring the plover back than what was needed to bring the raptors back.

<')((((((((><~~~~~~~~~~~~~~