Empty Sound

I talked to a former lobsterman from Connecticut awhile back who had to sell his boat and find other work because there were too few lobster left in Long Island Sound.

He moved his big hands as he talked. The crows feet at his eyes had seen a lot of shadeless days on the seas.

There was no whining, no tears. There was just no more lobster.

The end to a livelihood, the end of his family's business. The collapse of an ecosystem.

He was convinced it was because of pesticides sprayed on land washed into the sound. The lobsters eggs, he said, were deformed by the poison. This is a guy who is attune to the marine world because it's where he grew up, where he lived and worked. He gets it.

A recent story in the New York Times cited other possible causes including climate change warming the waters around the lobster.

But there was this optimism from one of the lobstermen: "“Time will tell, you know. Right now, there are some small lobsters around. If everything goes right, they could bounce back. We’re pretty optimistic in this business.”

More on what happened to the lobsters.

To the Baiji

To the baiji -- sorry I never knew ye and no one else can ever know you again.

A recent National Academy of Sciences study noted that at least three species – the Caribbean monk seal, Atlantic gray whale and Steller’s sea cow – became extinct because of hunting for their fur, blubber and meat during the 19th and 20th centuries. The most recent extinction, declared in 2008, was the baiji, a type of porpoise, from the Yangtze River in China.

The study also announced 20 ideal places to protect marine mammals and 11 that were "irreplaceable" including the Hawaiian Islands, Galapagos Islands, Amazon River, Yangtze River, Indus River, Ganges River and the Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean.

All of nature is arguably irreplaceable but the list should be a good conversation starter. Besides, people think in terms of places, not ecosystems or even single species, so this puts conservation in an effective context.

Wild Come Back

Exactly why was last week's story of a mountain lion, who walked 1500 miles before getting killed in Connecticut, a sad story? Not sad in a deluge-of-tears way but sad in just-wish-it-ended-differently way.

All of the characteristics we admire were displayed by this rare beast. He was courageous, independent, adventurous, determined, and a survivor.

The last sighting of a mountain lion in Connecticut was in 1880, until an astonishing flurry of sightings a few weeks ago. Then in one swift, inglorious moment, the cougar was killed by an SUV on the drab Wilbur Cross Parkway. Bummer. 

It may also be sad because it is expected. The incident earned a collective shrug, “Of course. It's surprising he didn't die that way sooner, or get shot or something.” It actually is astonishing he made it that far.

People know, and accept, what has happened to America's wilds to make this great cat so rare to begin with. Little by little we pushed them out like so many great beasts.

Take some land here, cut down a forest here, build a strip mall there, we need more roads! and soon the animals have nowhere else to go. It didn’t help that we went on mountain lion killing sprees in the name of progress in the early years.

The lion was a loner too, very likely in search of a mate. We can all identify with that. How far have you gone for a mate?

But seriously, imagine a human being doing that. Walking 1500 miles looking for a mate and  finding none. Imagine what the world looks like to us in that scenario. That is how bleak it must have looked for a mountain lion.

For his pluck alone, this cougar seemed to deserve something much better after having come that far. For some conservationists who secretly, or not so secretly, long for a natural world the way it was before modern America came roaring through, the story leaves a bitter taste.

But we really can’t be too bothered. We have much bigger problems, environmental and otherwise, and that is just plain sad too. 

There is optimism in this story though. As David Baron pointed out in his playful New York Times op-ed about the mountain lion. The specific narrative may be sad but overall, America may be getting wilder. That is an immensely cheerful possibility.

Coupled with the extremely rare gray-hooded gull sighting off Coney Island recently, it is downright exciting. Let's hope this gull doesn't choke on a hot dog or get caught up in the Cyclone.

Let's also hope that the gull and mountain lion are not a sign of desperate wildlife wandering around an unrecognizable world, but rather a moment where wild in America has taken on an exciting new dimension.

The Evil Sharks Made Me Do It

Looking at the titles of some of the shows on Discovery Channel's Shark Week, the bloody pandering is downright shameful. The only thing to discover here is an end to the channel's credibility.

Here are the titles of some of the shows this week with side comments by Eco Ocean.

Jaws of the Pacific  -- the author of Jaws spent the rest of his life trying to save sharks, deeply unhappy that he stirred such a hatred for the great fish

Into the Shark Bite  -- you are more likely to get hit by lightening than attacked by a shark

Rogue Sharks -- what? sharks are now akin to rogue nations, prone to anarchy and independence

Top Five Eaten Alive -- gimme a break!

Ten Deadliest Sharks -- you mean the best hunters with awesome biology that we can learn from?

You can see what I meant in yesterday's post.

Discovery Channel's Shark Week creates a blood lust for shark hunting and killing at the expense of an important top predator in need of saving. Don't watch it.

Boycott Discovery's Shark Week

Discovery Channel's Shark Week panders to our fears of sharks, creating a blood lust for shark hunting and killing at the expense of an important top predator in need of saving. Don't watch it.

Shark Week also represents missed opportunities to raise awareness.

Segments about shark fin soup, overfishing, and a reality check on shark bites would go a long way to rationalizing the fear and telling the whole story -- that sharks and people are connected. People need healthy oceans and sharks are crucial to keeping oceans healthy.

Discover this: 

• Tens of millions of sharks are killed each year for their fins for soup.
• Overfishing kills sharks as bycatch and upsets the food web by removing their prey.
• You are more likely to get hit by lighting than bit by a shark.

Image courtesy of sharkman.mysite.maltanet.net

International Bonkers

A new report shows that nature does not follow political geography. A leatherback turtle does not know whether they are in Papua New Guinea or Australia as they forage for food. How dare them.

All kidding aside, it can drive one bonkers to cheer protections here and there, say a new marine park in the Philippines or an end to ocean dumping in Indonesia, while so much of the ocean is open season -- nobody's jurisdiction.

It is only a matter of time before industrial fishing fleets fish out these common areas, snagging turtles and changing the food web along the way. History has shown that people's use of a commons often ends in tragedy.

On the positive side, in the leatherback study scientists learned exactly where the turtles travel across the vast Pacific Ocean.

Perhaps we could establish international turtle lanes, like international shipping lanes, where certain activities are limited during specific weeks or months of the year. We could effectively create safe passage for these great creatures through international waters. It is not too difficult to imagine a less confrontational  Sea Shepard-like vessel escorting mass migrations of turtles.

Steinbeck Ponders the Beautiful Abyss

Ocean fascination and appreciation Steinbeck-style:

"For the ocean, deep and black in the depths, is like the low dark levels of our minds in which the dream symbols incubate and sometimes rise up to sight...And even if the symbol vision be horrible, it is there, and it is ours. An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep.

-- John Steinbeck from Log from the Sea of Cortez