tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43405774273586934792024-03-14T02:10:56.661-07:00Conservation of Caribbean SeabirdsWill Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-62458884699948445222017-05-07T05:18:00.001-07:002017-05-07T05:18:54.029-07:00BirdsCaribbean Bahama seabird expedition starts today<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We are heading out today. Watch here or updates. Abaco from May 7-14 and the Berry islands and Joulter cays from May 14-21.<br />
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We are meeting up with Bahamas National Trust staff to count, help, and, if possible, band seabirds. We need to understand what is happening to populations of small seabirds.<br />
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Ttfn</div>
Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-77392928041672116422014-10-21T21:16:00.001-07:002014-10-21T21:16:43.524-07:00Nest Boxes for Audubon's Shearwater installed in Culebra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Alcides from Puerto Rico sent these great pictures of their nest boxes installed at a shearwater colony in Culebra. Can't wait to see how they work.<br />
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Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-72155747448621630932014-07-20T21:09:00.000-07:002014-07-20T21:33:29.288-07:00Dave Lee - Original creator of the West Indian Breeding Seabird Atlas - RIP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It is with regret that I post that my friend David S. Lee of Raleigh and Cooterville, North Carolina, has passed away from a fast-onset form of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) on 7/19/2014. Below are my thoughts on how we can honor his legacy in working to protect nature, enjoy life, and challenge authority.<br />
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Dave Lee was first and foremost a brilliant naturalist and conservation biologist with expert knowledge of most aspects of Zoology and more Botany than anyone could guess. He grew up in Maryland in the 1940s and 50s, but he spent a great deal of time in Florida during his formative years and for his undergraduate and graduate education. His highest formal degree was a Masters of Science from the University of Florida in Gainesville, but he was widely respected by his few peers in Vertebrate Zoology. His first job out of graduate school was teaching high school in Maryland, and many of his students from those few years are still his friends. He taught writing and had an excellent talent for writing stories that were both scientific and entertaining. He later became a museum curator, and he served with distinction on many Masters and Doctoral Committees, including mine. </div>
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He was an only-child and his parents (David is survived by his mother) encouraged his love of nature. He boasted to have captured all the salamander species in North Carolina before the age of 12. </div>
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His conservation work spanned the globe including a lifelong dedication to the preservation of Asian Turtles, South American Tortoises (<a href="http://tortoisereserve.org/">tortoisereserve.org</a>), and hundreds of projects for North American Fish, Salamanders, Snakes, Lizards, Turtles, Warblers, and Seabirds. He also was an important (founding?) member of the Society of Caribbean Ornithologists (now BirdsCaribbean), where Dave helped to push for work to document and protect seabird colonies and to create a database to track the populations (see: <a href="http://wicbirds.net/">wicbirds.net</a>), though he also contributed to projects to protect Kirtland's Warbler and other Bahamian and Caribbean animals.</div>
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Dave's greatest love was his fantastic wife, the well-known mammologist Mary Kay Clark, who also survives him. Second was his love of partying in Cooterville, which is an unincorporated township in Eastern North Carolina with a population of Dave and anyone visiting him. But perhaps his third greatest love was the pelagic community associated with the Gulf Stream off the Southeastern United States. </div>
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As Curator of Birds at the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, he spent thousands of hours offshore documenting the fantastic diversity of seabirds that can be found in the waters of the state. In the late 1970s and early 80s, many of the observations by Dave and his colleagues were doubted by skeptical scientists. The doubters were only convinced by collected specimens at first, but now rare tropical and South Atlantic birds including Black-capped Petrels, Trinidade Petrels, Band-rumped Storm Petrels, Audubon's Shearwaters, Bridled Terns, Masked Boobies, and White-tailed and Red-billed Tropicbirds are regularly observed, and other scientists and naturalists make a pilgrimage to the Outer Banks to fill their life lists with Caribbean and South Atlantic seabirds.</div>
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It seemed his most proud victory was his part in the decades-long effort to prevent the exploitation of the North Carolina Outer Banks by oil drilling companies. Dave regarded oil and gas exploration as the greatest threat to pelagic ecosystems having carefully studied the potential benefits and permanent harms that drilling operations have brought to other shorelines where operations have been permitted. After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, David volunteered many hundreds of hours as an observer on vessels documenting the damage to the Gulf of Mexico pelagic and nearshore ecosystem. He shared skepticism with other threats like Sargassum harvesting and offshore wind farming - anything that was done in ignorance or under-appreciation of the importance of wild places was targeted with unrelenting adherance to Dave's First Principle (see below).</div>
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Along the way, Dave wrote thousands of articles for the popular press, peer-reviewed scientific journals, and edited volumes on the conservation of North American Fish, Caribbean and North Atlantic Seabirds, Turtles, and Tortoises. He was a frequent contributor to the magazine "Wildlife in North Carolina," (including this month <a href="http://www.ncwildlife.org/Portals/0/Learning/documents/WINC/Sample_14/July-Aug-Poison-Ivy.pdf">www.ncwildlife.org/Portals/0/Learning/documents/WINC/Sample_14/July-Aug-Poison-Ivy.pdf</a>) a publication of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission geared for hunters and naturalists that share Dave's love for wild places and have the ability to lobby the state to protect more wild places.</div>
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David Lee was an inspiration and a shock to everyone fortunate enough to interact with him. He was a hilarious jokester, and many Fools will look less ridiculous now that he no longer propagates believable tales on April 1st. There may even be a few of us out there who believe there is a cryptic species of parasitic box turtle in China that makes its living by mimicking other box turtles to get in close. Then, these imposters quickly bite off some of the flesh of their unwitting host turtles before they can retract to the safety of their bony carapaces (<i>If you have the document, please post in the comments section:)).</i></div>
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Sure, he was not perfect. Dave liked to crack racially insensitive jokes, and he definitely recruited others into drinking more than they should, handling venomous animals when ill trained or overserved, and even encouraging people to sleep in the wrong tent during the annual Cooterville camping party. </div>
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A forgiving historian, however, would try to argue that Dave Lee never intentionally hurt anyone. He might have committed lies of omission, like the time he watched while some tourists learned that clearings created by leaf-cutter ants in the Amazon are not good places to stand and gab. Or a bunch of other times that are NSFW, but he could hardly be faulted for carefully observing and documenting exciting events in the world around him, and he was an excellent photographer most of the time.</div>
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There are as many stories about Dave Lee as there are times people hung out with him. His life was a parade of absurd anecdotes and tall tales that were mostly true. He made special violation sheets to notify Cooterville visitors of their myriad possible offenses, and he was a committed scholar of anything politically incorrect.</div>
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I have studied his philosophy and his writings for many years, and I owe it to the world to try to relate some of his most important truths. </div>
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The first principle of what we might call the Cooterville Lifestyle is to document and protect nature. Stopping the onslaught of humanity is a constant battle. Most people do not understand, but naturalists, particularly those who have studied the diversity and beauty of life over many decades and have witnessed nature's global decline, know that we are by no means winning the war despite many rightly celebrated victories and much greenwashing by corporate, government, and non-government propaganda. </div>
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The second principal is to have a good time and understand the scope of your powerlessness. "Life is 90% attitude and 10% aptitude" read the sign on Dave's Desk at least from 1998. He was always having fun, even when he was stuck in some hellscape with diversity only in the biting, stinging, and blood-sucking insects and only SPAM to eat for weeks at a time. </div>
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Third, don't be afraid to hurt someone's feelings if their ego is getting in the way of the correct action. Sometimes, that someone might be you, but Dave was absolutely untrusting and suspicious of anyone's authority on any subject, and he never willingly compromised the best action to appease some fool's self-importance. Dave Lee lived by very simple principles. He wasn't always right, but he was always honest about his opinion and willing to learn something new.</div>
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I liked being around him because I like being harassed, challenged, and caught off-guard. He will be missed, but we should carry on the Cooterville Lifestyle - perhaps slightly modified to avoid lawsuits and a few unnecessary hurt feelings - as best we can.</div>
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Will Mackin</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dave Lee with his Camera and the infamous SPAM hat, at Cooterville South, which is Long Cay, Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, The Bahamas. This island, particularly the habitat in the photo, is the densest and second-largest known colony of Audubon's Shearwater in the World, and Dave and Mary Kay first documented its importance in 1991.</td></tr>
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Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-91575873425925828652014-05-12T10:23:00.002-07:002014-06-26T04:41:58.330-07:00Why do we need Artificial Nest Boxes for Cavity-nesting Seabirds?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have always been fascinated with the nesting process in birds. Nesting is such an obvious limitation to an egg-laying species, and birds have evolved fascinating behaviors and preferences that seem arbitrary and sometimes bone-headed. Many birds make their own nests or just lay their eggs on the ground in the open and sit on them until they hatch. Others depend on natural cavities, and it works great when cavities are plentiful, like for forest birds when dead trees are left standing and hollowed out by woodpeckers.<br />
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In landscapes that we have converted and managed for human use, the nest cavities are usually limiting resources. What should be a plentiful resource becomes a bottleneck for populations in altered lanscapes. The Bluebird Nest Box movement in the continental United States <a href="http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/eastern_bluebird/lifehistory" target="_blank">is credited with restoring the population</a>. For seabirds, we are hoping to get a similar project going that can have population-level impacts for several species.<br />
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<b>Nest boxes provide better nesting sites for White-tailed Tropicbirds in Bermuda</b><br />
In Bermuda, David Wingate, Jeremy Madeiros, and many others have been installing nests for Bermuda Petrels and White-tailed Tropicibirds. Both species were formerly very common on the mainland of Bermuda, but have been devastated by dogs, cats, pigs, rats, and other invasive mammals. For tens of millions of year, these species nested in cavities on islands devoid of terrestrial predators. They have had a hard time adjusting to this new geological era where people and their commensal mammalian community invaded those islands, and their populations have plummeted.<br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Will/Downloads/2011Tropicbird%20Breeding%20Success%20and%20Status%20Report.pdf" target="_blank">Here is the case for artificial nests for Tropicbirds</a>. You rarely see this type of data in print. But this paper shows - by a simple <a href="http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/Service/Statistics/Signed_Rank_Test.html" target="_blank">Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Signed Ranks Test</a> (<b>W+ = 16, W- = 5, N = 6, p <= 0) </b>- that Tropicbirds that nested in artificial nests from 2006 to 2011 had significantly more fledging success than those in natural cavities . The difference was 75% success in artificial nests to 67% in natural nests. Thus, not only are the artificial nests acceptable to tropicbirds, they increase fledging success by 12% on average.<br />
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<b>My First Forays into Nest Building</b><br />
The fact that cavity-nesting birds are limited by nest sites is easy to demonstrate; just put up nest boxes in a suburban area. As my obsession with birds developed in high school, I began building nest boxes for different birds. The first nest I ever set up - a "bluebird" house - was quickly taken up by a pair of Tufted Titmice at my suburban Atlanta yard. Next, I made my own Screech Owl box. Sure enough, there was a Screech Owl pair using it that same year.<br />
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The piece de resistance of my nest-box days was the Barred Owl house. It measured about 3 ft in height, 18 inches in width and 15 inches in depth (<a href="http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/RTProduct.asp?SKU=COV-10190&src=froogle&kw=COV-10190" target="_blank">something like this</a>). I hope my mother has a picture of this monstrosity. I'll post it if I can find it. I had my good friend JR, who worked for a tree-cutting company, use his harness to climb up into an old red oak in my parents' front yard. He tied the box on the main trunk about 20 feet up the tree. Again, within a year, the box was occupied. Not by Barred Owls, but by their bigger, meaner cousins, a pair of Great Horned Owls.<br />
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<b>And 20 years later, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCA3HtRMuNs" target="_blank">Road Goes on Forever</a>. </b><br />
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Today, I find myself in possession of 25 nests for cavity-nesting seabirds (see below). About 15 are spoken for so far. Please let me know if you would like to try some in your part of the Caribbean.<br />
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All or almost all of the world's Bermuda Petrels currently nest in artificial nest sites, and White-tailed Tropicbirds that use nests provided for them are doing better than those in natural cavities. I've made Audubon's Shearwater nests and tropicbird nests in the Bahamas using cement and had good success, but the fragility and inconsistent nature of such nests makes them less than ideal. These nests are stackable, affordable (about $75 - less than an owl house like the one I made back in 1993), and they can help stop the decline of seabirds in the Caribbean.</div>
Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-47646167862525611092014-04-16T08:24:00.000-07:002014-04-16T08:24:01.795-07:00Sea Level Rise at 3 mm per year since 1993<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">This current rate - <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-5-1.html" target="_blank">3 mm per year</a> - is shocking. Since 1999 when I started studying Audubon's Shearwaters in The Bahamas, global sea level has risen 4.5 cm. I find nests that are right in the spray zone of the high tide, including at least one nest that I started studying in 1999. At Little Tobago, there is a shearwater nest that is below the high tide line by a couple of millimeters. They can nest in the same site for 50 years once established. When that nest originated, potentially hundreds of years ago, it was probably 10-20 cm above the high tide level. Now, it gets swamped in Spring tides and likely fails every year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I often cynically joke that sea level rise is not a problem we will worry about for seabirds - not because it won't kill them but because we will be so busy dealing with "natural" disasters in coastal areas that no one will think about the seabirds. But this math is pretty scary. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Shearwaters prefer coastal nests just above the high tide line. In the image above, you can see the spray zone of Long Cay, which is uninhabitable by shearwaters, as the barren area of eroded rock without vegetation. As the sea rises, the spray zone will encroach on this prime habitat and all the nests within it could become sinks that fail every season as a spring tide or storm surge inundates the nest with saltwater and drowns the chick. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A high percentage - maybe 10% - of their current nests will be unusable within the next 20 years. Of all the seabirds in the Caribbean, this species might be the most affected by sea level rise. Perhaps the new seabird nest boxes (see previous post) could help provide alternative sites above the tide line.</span><br />
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Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-49386877837887285422014-04-11T15:27:00.002-07:002014-04-11T15:30:51.820-07:00Nest Boxes for Cavity-Nesting Seabirds are Ready to Order!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Designed by David Wingate of Bermuda, these nest houses for cavity nesting seabirds represent decades of design from the world's expert on saving endangered petrels and tropicbirds.<br />
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The devices are ingeniously simple and the pieces stack inside one another. The top is vented and held on with sturdy molded tabs that lock in. They can be buried in sand, covered in rock or cemented in place, and you can install them in any location that will be safe from Dogs, Cats or other predators.<br />
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Bermuda Audubon and the Bermuda Department of Conservation Services <a href="http://bermudaconservation.squarespace.com/longtail-igloos/" target="_blank">sells the previous version</a> and has had great success filling cliffs with White-tailed Tropicbirds. Special baffles for the entrance can limit the tunnels to smaller species including Cahows or Audubon's Shearwaters. The first 25 are available for installation in the Caribbean. Just contact me with shipping information and an explanation of when and where you will put them in. The only costs are shipping and an agreement to send pictures and reports on the success of your nest boxes.<br />
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The molds were funded by Bermuda Audubon Society, while BirdsCaribbean and the National Fish and Wildlife Federation funded the molding of the first 50 boxes. They can be used anywhere in the world. Contact me for ordering information.</div>
Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-65215675740232442032013-08-20T18:38:00.002-07:002013-08-20T18:38:31.102-07:00We too care about Laughing Gulls<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds meeting in Grenada in July 2013, the Seabird Working Group of SCSCB hosted a symposium on seabird biology and preparations for the recovery efforts from the oil spill. I gave a talk about a paper a group of us have prepared on Priorities for Seabird Conservation in the Caribbean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apparently, I made a crack at the expense of one particular bird: The Laughing Gull. Although it was the most harmed bird in the spill, I am not advocating for restoring that species in the Caribbean. I did not intend to make light of the more than 3000 Laughing Gulls that were found dead in the cleanup efforts. I apologize for doing so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I received some feedback about that talk that I will share here. I share it mostly because it is an important oversight of what I said at the talk and I need to clarify my careless words. I will redact information about the person who sent it to me to protect her anonymity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Subject: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Lauging Gulls are NO laughing matter</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Mr Macky:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />A friend of mine who works for a "fancy" environment organization recently attended the birding meeting in Granada where <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span> spoke. She says <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you </span>made a joke about the brutal death of thousands of laughing gulls and then said "the laughing gulls didn't do anything wrong." Lots of people "snickered" and then later on when <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span> talked about working together to save birds <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span> made a point of saying there would be NO HELP FOR LAUGHING GULL PROJECTS with incoming funding. I have lived my entire life in _______, State where I am a retired school teacher. The Gulf oil spill disgusted me and I was so pleased to hear that something was being done to help increase importance of these animals and to help protect them. I know I am not a "scientist" but a group of my friends-all older gals- LOVE gulls. In fact, these birds have been so therapuetic- helping see us through happy and sad times. We have nicknamed ourselves "the gull girls."<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>We love gulls, but we do not love <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span>. So your "scientists" may laugh, but these gulls are no laughing matter. who mr. macky, do <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span> think <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span> are? We know who <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span> are now and on behalf of the gulls, <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">FLOCK</span> <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">YOU</span>!<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sincerely,<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jane Doe"<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is my response:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I apologize for making light of the death of laughing gulls in the oil spill. I did not intend to disrespect this magnificent species, but if your friend came away with that impression, then I failed to communicate well.</span></div>
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I was also devastated by the destruction from the oil spill and do not take any deaths lightly.</div>
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As far as restoration goes, Laughing Gulls will likely be restored in the Gulf area, and I support that action. In the Caribbean region, Laughing Gulls have increased over the last century. In general, this species does very well around humans and benefits from the extra food that humans provide. That fact in no way justifies their killing in the DWH disaster.</div>
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Laughing Gulls are actually a major predator of the other seabird species, taking eggs, chicks and even adults. Because many of those species have severely declined over the last century, our efforts in the Caribbean after the oil spill should focus on restoring other birds.</div>
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I take your opinion seriously and appreciate the fact that <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span> contacted me with your concern. <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">You</span> are right to love Laughing Gulls, and i share your emotional connection to them and to seabirds in general. They are fantastic birds.</div>
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I will choose my words more carefully in the future. Too frequently, gulls are used as a punching bag for dismissive comments about wildlife, even by people who have the responsibility to protect them. They are great and beautiful animals and they deserve the full protection of the law.</div>
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Please relay this message to your friend and let me know of any other comments or questions <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">you</span> have. I will clarify my thoughts on Laughing Gulls to everyone in the Caribbean Seabird Working Group and on my blog and other forums.</div>
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Sincerely,</div>
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<br /></div>
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Will Mackin"</div>
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Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-80848106501040600492013-08-11T12:29:00.001-07:002013-08-11T14:38:26.170-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am giving a poster at the AOU meeting in Chicago. Here is a .jpg of the poster.<br />
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This poster describes results of five surveys for Audubon's Shearwaters in the Bahamas. From the low 95% confidence interval of the densities in those surveys, I project the total population on the many islands that we have not surveyed. The point is that we can be certain of about 7000 breeding pairs of shearwaters in the Caribbean, mostly in the Bahamas. Projections using the low 95% density indicate there are likely more than 33,000 breeding pairs. Finally, projections indicate that there were at least 1,000,000 breeding pairs of Audubon's Shearwaters in the Caribbean before the main island populations were extirpated and it is not unreasonable to think that there would have been 12,000,000 breeding pairs.This rare, secretive bird was a very common species and is not playing the ecological role as a top oceanic predator and disperser of nutrients to the soils of the Caribbean. Perhaps this lack of nutrients is a factor in the lack of recovery of soils that were cleared by Europeans?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi7qy6-mkGh0AKhWgncIqMe61QHt1OgslXHxiX8hJiwIUQ5MhPbYFK8fsDtCFJ1ij0bHSviIDEToGWSVPXciO-dXfz1rl2GZgcV8MfzkubS43xgnbxjLF7t1V3Ed880jezNNSWE4CDKR0/s1600/ChicagoPoster20130807.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi7qy6-mkGh0AKhWgncIqMe61QHt1OgslXHxiX8hJiwIUQ5MhPbYFK8fsDtCFJ1ij0bHSviIDEToGWSVPXciO-dXfz1rl2GZgcV8MfzkubS43xgnbxjLF7t1V3Ed880jezNNSWE4CDKR0/s320/ChicagoPoster20130807.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-66517715355737214582013-02-15T16:13:00.002-08:002013-02-15T16:13:36.702-08:00Offshore Oil Exploration from North Carolina?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Once again there is a push to sell leases for offshore oil drilling in North Carolina. How many times has this idea been studied and rejected? The basic problems are: 1) Small amounts of oil that is difficult and expensive to extract, and the natural gas has a low value because gas is oversupplied right now, 2) Offshore North Carolina is a very important fishing ground and hotspot for seabird and other wildlife biodiversity, making it the least desirable place in the Atlantic for the continuous oil pollution that happens when you drill offshore, much less a spill, 3) North Carolina has a very valuable tourism industry that would be harmed greatly by the infrastructure and oil spills that happen when you drill offshore, 4) Finally, we have very frequent storms and hurricanes in North Carolina. This is not the peaceful Gulf of Mexico. Every time a storm hits, we'll be spilling oil and having equipment destroyed. And it will all wash up on the most pristine beaches on the Eastern Seaboard.</div>
Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-72768963760484855452013-02-15T13:24:00.001-08:002013-02-15T16:17:20.288-08:00Artificial Nests for Tropicbirds, Shearwaters, and Petrels<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The aforementioned <a href="http://wicbirds.blogspot.com/2012/08/saving-fluffy-tropicbird-who-fledged.html" target="_blank">nest boxes</a> for cavity-nesting seabirds are nearly ready for ordering. Check back soon. We have received two separate grants to help fund the mold and initial run to create the boxes. As soon as they are ready for pre-ordering, I will post a link. Until then, you can contact me.<br />
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These plastic boxes are designed by Petrel and Tropicbird expert <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_B._Wingate" target="_blank">David Wingate</a> and should retail for around $75 plus shipping. They are stackable, so you can order a bunch for your property. Instead of bluebirds houses, you can have tropicbirds, shearwaters, and maybe someday some petrels nesting, if you own beachfront property in the Bahamas or Caribbean.</div>
Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-7355524156671982532012-08-28T07:37:00.002-07:002012-08-28T07:39:56.902-07:00Saving Fluffy - a tropicbird who fledged too soon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRk0tSklaCCgJl6oU0uBEZxFX46XneUEXDY8MHFWo7OS1T7gWmbv90Xe8PD2y4HWoXgQjWvswhIdFH58yN2kV5hqz_H0ZXDA41TDiGlRhs9YboD7UMNUef2QeBa3n360MTjdcgzuJ9Aw/s1600/fluffy1sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRk0tSklaCCgJl6oU0uBEZxFX46XneUEXDY8MHFWo7OS1T7gWmbv90Xe8PD2y4HWoXgQjWvswhIdFH58yN2kV5hqz_H0ZXDA41TDiGlRhs9YboD7UMNUef2QeBa3n360MTjdcgzuJ9Aw/s1600/fluffy1sm.jpg" /></a></div>
Recently, my friends at the Bahamas National Trust's <a href="http://www.bnt.bs/_m1731/The-National-Parks-of-The-Bahamas/Exuma-Cays-Land-and-Sea-Park">Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park</a> emailed me for advice about a young White-tailed Tropicbird that was saved from drowning by a boat captain (Captain Mark). The bird was probably hatched on Hog Cay, a nice tropicbird and shearwater colony at the southern tip of Warderick Wells.<br />
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On August 13, 2012, Captain Mark and his crew saved the listless and waterlogged chick from the water, named it "Fluffy," and fed it (squid, canned fish, and other seafood) on their deck for about a week. Before they left the Park, they took the bird to the park headquarters, where the warden continued to feed the hungry chick. <br />
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White-tailed Tropicbirds are <a href="http://wicbirds.net/wttr.html">vulnerable and rare</a>, but they actually do quite well around people as long as you don't have dogs, cats, rats, or other invasive species running loose on the island. The most vulnerable point of a tropicbird's life is that period between when its parents abandon it until the bird teaches itself to find enough food to survive. If it lives through that early childhood, it could live for decades. That extra food and time provided by Captain Mark and the Exuma Park may have given the bird enough energy to survive through the hard times ahead. <br />
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While I don't want to encourage amateur bird lovers to begin programmes of rescuing young tropicbirds, this type of one-time opportunity must have been a fantastic experience for the people participating in the charter and for the boat's crew and captain - not to mention how great it was for the bird. <br />
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The methodology used - moving a chick to a different site and feeding it until it fledges - is actually quite similar to <a href="http://www.conservation.co.nz/upload/documents/science-and-technical/dsis150.pdf">how seabird conservation experts encourage seabirds to form new populations at safe, protected colonies where they can be monitored</a>.<br />
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Thus, the Exuma Park might want to put some artificial nest cavities around the ranger station. This is a good, safe site with no introduced predators, and Dave Lee and David Wingate are developing a low-cost artificial nest. Perhaps we'll install a few at the Park next year? I would not be surprised if our friend Fluffy returns and tries to nest near the park headquarters or at Hog Cay in about 4 or 5 years.<br />
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If someone reading this post wants to help stop the decline of tropicbirds, installing ideal, safe nesting sites near active breeding colonies has worked very well in Bermuda and could bring breeding tropicbirds close to your safe (dog- and cat-free) island.<br />
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According to the Exuma Park Warden, who fed Fluffy for a few more days,<br />
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"The tropic bird flew away on his own a few days after you dropped
him off. I set up a little fort for him under my grill on the deck.
It had bars around three sides and he was pretty happy in there. He ate
a lot and was pretty active stretching his wings. He'd occasionally
wander out and I'd put him back. Then late one afternoon [~August 22], he walked all
the way to the front of the house, did a leap of faith and flew all the
way over to the island on the other side of the mooring field. That
was the last I saw of him."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2fHxNBZnaO9rR5TxqZeFxbajsrzGowOX-4kVUQsg5RujNnKeQpwneu1hBK8MSoRTiAgkNqYVq9KopzIT-gGmn_MpxMhbddXLk5izhrWPb1dp5mov10L0YTKinnc8GEPtDQGsXv3Ptybc/s1600/fluffy2sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2fHxNBZnaO9rR5TxqZeFxbajsrzGowOX-4kVUQsg5RujNnKeQpwneu1hBK8MSoRTiAgkNqYVq9KopzIT-gGmn_MpxMhbddXLk5izhrWPb1dp5mov10L0YTKinnc8GEPtDQGsXv3Ptybc/s1600/fluffy2sm.jpg" /></a></div>
Long Live Fluffy! <br />
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Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-63584599929993883032011-05-04T05:48:00.000-07:002011-05-04T05:48:23.860-07:00A new data entry form for the WICBirds.net Atlas of Seabird Breeding Sites<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Today I uploaded a <a href="http://www.wicbirds.net/docs/contribute.html">spreadsheet form </a>for people to submit their survey data to the WICBirds.net Atlas. Hopefully, this format will make it easier for people in the Caribbean to submit records of breeding and details about the breeding sites.<br />
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Please let me know if you have any comments or questions about the entry form.</div>Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-3600129033361393812011-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:002011-05-04T06:01:53.294-07:00A comprehensive monitoring plan for seabirds in the Caribbean<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">You might say to yourself "What would a planned, coordinated monitoring program for Caribbean Seabirds cost and how would you structure it?" That is the topic of today's post. The goal of an effective monitoring plan is that it can detect a certain level of change (e.g. 25%) within the population. Right now, all we can do is say where the birds are breeding, which is a good improvement over the status prior to the earliest regional review of the entire seabird population (van Halewyn and Norton, 1984). To get to that next level, we need better counts and censuses of the populations.<br />
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We know the populations have crashed over the last century based on firsthand accounts of people who lived in the Caribbean region. Islands that were covered in seabirds every spring sit vacant or have small populations now. Are the declines continuing? Our data for most species are not good enough to say. This is important. If they are continuing to decline, we should be undertaking all drastic measures to keep them off the endangered species list. If the decline has stopped, we should still watch them but drastic measures would not be necessary.<br />
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With terns, the birds move islands between years. Roseate Terns rarely nest on the same island twice. We need to estimate the populations within wide areas every few years. There is not likely to be a big source of funding for this action, so we need to divide up the work among local volunteers who can do it with little trouble. We need to create an efficient system to gather up the data and collate it into the database that we already have. Perhaps we could simply use the eBird system that has been created. I will work on it and have a report at the meeting in Abaco in July.<br />
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I realized I left off two really good sets of data from the Bahamas. One was a sequence of surveys in the 1990's by Bailey Smith and Lorraine Minns, two naturalists who live near Great Exuma and decided with encouragement from other Bahamian naturalists to survey the seabird breeding sites. They recorded data for several years. Their data set is among the most comprehensive for any island group. A second series of surveys were those by Jim Kushlan off his own private boat. He surveyed colonies in the Berry Islands, off Abaco, and around Bimini. His contributions were very important as well. The point of these is that naturalists around the region can make important contributions, but without coordination and comprehensive planning, they are just opportunistic surveys. We cannot get a legitimate estimates of these populations without covering all of the islands regularly.<br />
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We now have the database, the knowledge of where most remaining colonies are, and a network of naturalists and biologists who are dedicated to seabirds and could reasonably monitor a subset of colonies at regular intervals. At this point, we need someone to coordinate the effort, a group of dedicated and scientifically literate volunteers who can make legitimate surveys, and the will to conduct the surveys. We may also need some funding, but it will not be exorbitant.<br />
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What we need are naturalists near each colony who will agree to regularly count the seabirds. It doesn't have to be done every year, but that wouldn't hurt. Every 5 years would be sufficient. They would need to have some Sherman-style live-capture rat traps, the ability to recognize the birds, and access to a boat. Some flagging and tape measures would be handy. We could cover most islands in the Lesser and Greater Antilles this way. There may be some very remote cays such as those in the remote areas of the Bahamas (The Plana Cays, Cay Sal Bank, Cay Lobos, The Ragged Islands, and Mira-por-vos) that would need some outside help. There are about 800 nesting islands in the entire region. We just need to divide the work and create a portal through which people can enter their data. This is a very attainable goal.<br />
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I will put together a workshop for the meeting of SCSCB in Grand Bahama this year. I'll have that portal and people can sign up for their islands.</div>Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-24929875057172764612010-10-28T14:32:00.000-07:002010-10-28T14:32:21.947-07:00Pelagic Caribbean seabirds found in oil spill responseThe US Fish and Wildlife Service has made the summary data available for seabirds that were found in the oil spill recovery. The report is available here: <a href="http://www.fws.gov/home/dhoilspill/collectionreports.html">http://www.fws.gov/home/dhoilspill/collectionreports.html</a><br />
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Below is a tedious listing of the dead birds found. The interesting thing is that any of the pelagics were found at all. The recovery rate for a bird oiled 150 km out at sea and subject to burning and pick up in oil collecting boats could not be better than 3% and is likely less than 1%.<br />
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We should have been out there in a boat dropping marked bird carcasses but how were we supposed to know.<br />
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Especially for Masked Boobies and Audubon's Shearwaters, we should multiply their numbers by a factor of between 33 and 100 to get a minimum estimate of the number of actual dead birds. For the nearshore species, recovery probably mirrored that of Alaska during the Valdez spill where they estimated recovery at about 10%.<br />
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The other outstanding questions are where exactly were each of these birds found and did the birds that were found alive survive. I can't imagine a situation where you would catch one of these things alive unless it was injured or a young, starving fledgeling. One should be able to detect if it is a young of the year bird from date it was found, plumage, molt, and wing proportions, at least for a shearwater, but most of these carcasses may have already been destroyed.<br />
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For Caribbean seabirds, the results are as follows:<br />
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Bermuda Petrel and Black-capped Petrel - none found<br />
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Audubon's Shearwater: 3 total birds. One oiled, dead bird. One dead bird with no visible oil. One live bird with no visible oil. There were also 4 dead, unidentified shearwaters. Three had no visible oil. For the other, the Oiling status was not reported (?).<br />
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White-tailed and Red-billed Tropicbirds: none found<br />
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Brown Pelicans - 738 were found. 290 had no signs of oil (187 dead, 103 alive). 259 were oiled (111 dead and 148 alive). 189 were dead but oiling status was not reported. We don't have the data, but I assume most if not all were of the North American subspecies (Pelicanus occidentalis carolinensis) rather than the Caribbean subspecies (P. o. occidentalis).<br />
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Masked Boobies: Of the 3 breeding boobies in the region, only Masked Boobies were found. There were 8 total birds. 4 were dead and had no outward oil signs. 2 were alive without signs of oiling. 2 others were alive and oiled.<br />
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Magnificent Frigatebird: 7 were found one dead with no sign of oil, 2 dead with signs of oil, 2 alive with signs of oil, and 2 dead where the oiling status was not reported.<br />
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Laughing Gulls: 2654 - 1208 dead, no oil, 256 alive no oil; 704 dead, oiled, 201 alive and oiled; 285 dead, oiling status not reported)<br />
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Least Terns: 106 - 40 dead no oil, 5 alive no oil; 43 dead oiled, 6 alive oiled; 12 dead status not reported.<br />
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Royal Terns: 270 - 83 dead, no oil, 28 alive, no oil; 92 dead, oiled, 47 alive, oiled; 20 dead no report of oiling status<br />
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Sandwich Tern: 63-20, 6; 18, 10, 9<br />
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Roseate Tern - 0 (but there were 107 unidentified terns: 50, 1; 37, 1; 18<br />
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Sooty Tern - 0<br />
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Bridled Tern - 0<br />
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Brown Noddy - 0<br />
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Black Noddy - 0<br />
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Double - crested Cormorants - 18 - 10, 5; 0,1; 2Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-36826882068439594282010-08-17T18:19:00.000-07:002010-08-17T18:19:06.734-07:00Oil settling to the bottomhttp://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/17/scientists-toxic-oil-settling-on-gulf-floor/?hpt=T2<br />
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New evidence is confirming that the oil has not disappeared but is settling to the bottom and contaminating organisms there. Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-87278768191966556542010-08-10T22:40:00.000-07:002010-08-10T22:59:53.684-07:00The AftermathThe oil has finally stopped flowing. We don't really know how much oil spilled, but its within the ballpark of 4.9 billion barrels, we're told. Some say it has been eaten up by bacteria, along with the dispersant. Conservatives say it's another environmentalist exaggeration, like climate change, evolution, and atomic theory. Some say it is dispersed throughout the Gulf and will continue to affect the wildlife in the deep ocean for a long time to come. I recommend reading <a href="http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/09/bp-ocean-cover-up?page=4">this article</a> from Julia Whitty of Mother Jones, who details some of the vulnerable wildlife of the Gulf ecosystem and points out that the glowy prognostications and public relations campaign by BP may not tell the whole story.<br />
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We lucked out in the Bahamas region because the winds all summer have been strong out of the East, pushing water into the Gulf and preventing large surface plumes of oil from entering the Gulf Stream. Our luck was apparently Texas' bad fortune, in that they had oil pushed onto their beaches and deeper waters.<br />
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I had an interesting discussion with a conservative friend this weekend who pointed out the standard talking point from conservative blogs (e.g. <a href="http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2010/06/26/a-little-perspective-on-the-bp-spill/">http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2010/06/26/a-little-perspective-on-the-bp-spill/</a>) that the amount of oil estimated to have spilled (4.9 million barrels = 206 million gallons; <a href="http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/bpspillstats/graphics/oilbudget-noaa/image_view_fullscreen">http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/bpspillstats/graphics/oilbudget-noaa/image_view_fullscreen</a>) would only fill 17.7% of the Louisiana Superdome, while the Gulf of Mexico has a volume of water equal to 550 million Superdomes. While it's easy to break down that statistic for how deceptive it is (the spill happened in one small section of the gulf, one gallon of oil can pollute many thousands of gallons of water when dispersed into it or spread on top of it, organisms magnify the oil up the food chain, and so on), he went further and expounded that deepwater drilling might be a lot better than shallow drilling because a spill won't hit land as easily and can be dispersed throughout the ocean.Not wanting to have a pointless shouting match at a 3 year old's birthday party, I left it with a "we'll just see what happens as we learn something about the effects of the spill."<br />
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We still have almost no data about what this spill has done to the ecology of the Gulf by affecting important plankton and animal populations (whales, dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, seabirds, life at the deep scattering layer, Bluefin Tuna, and so on). Scientists will be studying this for decades, and I would be so happy if BP is right, but everything I've learned about chemistry, fragile ocean food webs, and sensitive long-lived animals at the top of those food webs tells me that this prediction that "the spill is over and everything will just go back to the way it was" sounds too good to be true. We can't go by what we see - beaches that are cleaned up or fish and shellfish that are still alive right now. The big question is what will there be in 10 years? Will parts of the food web fail or will certain species just disappear, like the herring in <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008912109_exxonherring24m.html">Prince William Sound did after Valdez</a>? I can say with all honesty that I hope BP is correct, but I expect that they are almost exactly wrong.Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-63200092645333802642010-07-27T14:57:00.000-07:002010-07-27T14:57:39.784-07:00Cay Sal Bank Still Free of Surface Pollution from the Horizon SpillI recently participated in the third trip to the Cay Sal Bank aboard HMBS Nassau. This expedition visited the Cay Sal Bank to collect pre-impact assessment data including sediment samples on the beaches. The seabirds are in fantastic condition with no sign of oiling. Thousands of chicks of Sooty Terns, Brown Noddies, Bridled Terns, and Audubon's Shearwaters were on one of the cays.<br />
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It appears that the very strong easterly winds of the last 3 months have saved the Cay Sal Bank in the short term, for which I am very happy. Now the question is when will those winds stop blowing, allowing the loop current to begin funneling oil out into the Gulf Stream, how toxic will that degraded oil be, and how much damage is being done to the ecosystem underneath the water. The effects of the spill could play out over many years, but at least the direct effects that many of us feared at first have not impacted the islands along the Gulf Stream so far.<br />
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Having seen what an unspoiled, wild place the Cay Sal Bank is, I hope it can be recognized as a biosphere reserve and a model for what an island ecosystem should look like when left as a wilderness. Here's to hoping that oil leases and development plans for the Bank are never sold or fulfilled.Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-68959758139075276182010-06-12T07:30:00.000-07:002010-06-12T07:30:34.415-07:00Wicbirds.net is back onlineMost of Wicbirds.net is now operational again. I'm still debugging a few pages and images, but the account is transferred over and the text about each species is online. Let me know if you find any issues.Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-74602868172538750412010-06-09T11:52:00.000-07:002010-06-09T11:52:20.523-07:00American Petroleum Institute's Ad on wicbirds' Blog!!API has been running an ad on Google adsense that shows up on our blog! If you watch the ad, the president of API points out that they've drilled thousands of wells in the Gulf of Mexico and produced billions of gallons of oil and cubic feet of natural gas, but that this event indcates that they need to reexamine their practices so they can keep their employees safe.<br />
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While I agree with the employee part, they totally left out the environmental part. What about all the invertebrates, fish and birds? What about the fishermen that can't make a living any more? What about the beach communities that will go under when their tourism revenue goes away? It's fairly offensive that they would make a statement and not mention all those lives they've ruined, but to be honest, it's not much different than anything they've said in the past. I would not want to be those people in 20 years after they've led the charge against doing something about climate change and stonewalled for decades. They will be history's villains. Watch their ad if you want. I'm all for openness, even for chronic deceivers, but I could not let it sit on my blog without a response.Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-18549216020656222322010-06-08T21:04:00.000-07:002010-06-08T21:04:49.136-07:00BP Ordered Removal of Mud Against Expert RecommendationsThis report, if true, is hard to take sitting down.<br />
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/08/oil.rig.warning.signs/index.html?hpt=T2Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-84776513044022753392010-06-08T05:41:00.000-07:002010-06-08T05:42:55.549-07:00WICBirds.net is down right nowIf you're looking for WICBirds.net, it is down temporarily. I apologize for this delay. It's a problem with the Verizon-Yahoo breakup. I'll have it up ASAP. Until then, if you would like to see Dave Lee's identification guide for birds in the gulf, email me and I will send it to you electronically. Likewise for any information about the breeding sites.Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-48696562564070670512010-06-07T07:09:00.000-07:002010-06-09T11:42:15.031-07:00Oil Drilling Off North CarolinaDavid Lee, the co-editor of this blog, has been studying the seabirds of the North Atlantic since before I was born, literally. As curator of birds at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, he spent thousands of hours observing and collecting seabirds off the coast of North Carolina, and he discovered, among other things, that the productive fishing area off of Hatteras Island called "The Point" by fishermen is also a critical feeding area for the rarest seabirds in the Atlantic Ocean, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fea%27s_Petrel">Fea's Petrels</a> from Cape Verde and Madeira, <a href="http://www.birds.com/species/f-j/herald-petrel/">Trinidade Petrels</a> which breed 7,700 Km to the southeast, at Trinidade and Martin Vaz Islands, <a href="http://www.wicbirds.net/bope.html">Bermuda Petrels</a>, which were thought to be extinct for 300 years until a handful were discovered nesting on offshore rocks in Bermuda, and <a href="http://www.wicbirds.net/bcpe.html">Black-Capped Petrels</a>, which once nested on islands around the Caribbean and are now hanging on in Haiti by nesting in inaccessible cliffs hundreds of meters in the air.<br />
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Since the 1980's, oil companies have been lobbying to open the continental slope of North Carolina including "The Point" to drilling, and Dave has been a leading voice of opposition. Here's an article from the <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19891204&id=r8AsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hRQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6820,1816780">Wilmington Star-News</a> in 1989. Note that oil drillers have used the same lines about safe drilling for years. Let's hope this idea of opening North Carolina's Outer Banks to offshore drilling will now go away in light of the Horizon disaster, but I'm not holding my breath.Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-30792068405977283152010-06-07T06:20:00.000-07:002010-06-07T06:29:38.277-07:00Projected Path of Surface Oil mirrors the path of Shearwaters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/06/04/news/economy/bp_spill_worst_case/oil_current.top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/06/04/news/economy/bp_spill_worst_case/oil_current.top.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>If it behaves like the virtual dye simulated in this <a href="http://www2.ucar.edu/news/oil-spill-animations">study</a>, the surface oil will be lingering exactly in the primary foraging area for August and September of Audubon's Shearwaters and White-tailed Tropicbirds, along with Black-Capped Petrels, Bermuda Petrels, and other rare seabirds. It should also show up in the Cay Sal Bank and the coast of Cuba. All the East Coast beaches and fisheries to Cape Hatteras will also get high concentrations of fouled water with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycyclic_aromatic_hydrocarbon">PAHs</a> that can linger and contaminate animals like shrimp and oysters long after the tar balls are gone. This model can't account for storms or fronts. Where the huge plumes of undersea oil will go is another question entirely.Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-26645663164879075012010-05-29T09:10:00.000-07:002010-05-29T09:10:55.500-07:00Stock in BP?I don't really understand BP's stock price. Is the company worth more than the tourism and fishery industries of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama?<br />
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BP has a market capitalization of $134,000,000,000 and a share price of $42.95. It has fallen from $60 per share before the spill (Market Cap = 187,000,000,000).<br />
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Thus, Investors are pricing the oil spill at $53,000,000,000.<br />
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What do you think the oil spill will cost?Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340577427358693479.post-50248393441186711522010-05-29T08:50:00.000-07:002010-05-29T08:50:18.820-07:00I am in denial; Cross your fingers for Cay Sal BankI returned from the Cay Sal Bank Rapid Ecological Assessment on Wednesday. The Bank is amazing. Fisheries, Coral Reefs, Sea Turtles, Seabirds, and long, perfect beaches. Now let's just cross our fingers and hope for a miracle that spares the Cay Sal Bank.Will Mackinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17550004977200324376noreply@blogger.com0