Watching Our Water Ways

UPDATE, June 17, 6 p.m.

I forgot that I had written about ospreys and their hunting techniques in this blog in August of 2011.
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In an osprey nest monitored with live video by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, it appears that all three eggs have hatched into baby osprey.

The video at right was recorded from the live WDFW Ospreycam and posted on YouTube Saturday by someone called AccSpec, who says the nest is located near Gig Harbor.

View the live Ospreycam here. A 10-second update of the webcam is available for slow computers and seems to work better at night. To read the story about how the webcam was installed, click here.

Opreys eat fish almost exclusively, which is why they nest near water. Adults typically hover over the water before they drop like a rock and dive feet first, grabbing fish with their sharp talons. The young will begin exercising their wings before they take their first flights and learn to fish.

OTHER LIVE OSPREYCAMS

Hog Island ospreycam is managed by Audubon on Hog Island near Bremen, Maine. These ospreys laid their eggs about the end of April.

Cape Cod ospreycam monitors a nest at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster, Mass.

Hellgate Canyon ospreycam is located at Riverside Health Care Center in Missoula, Mont.

OTHER WILDLIFE CAMS

Pintail duck wildlife cam in the Prairie Pothole Region near Egeland, N.D. The eggs were laid May 16 and should hatch at any time, but long-term prospects for the ducklings are not good. Previous research in the area has shown that the likelihood of surviving predators and other threats is about 5 percent.

Atlantic Puffin cam at Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge in Maine.

Elephant seal cam located between San Simeon and the Piedras Blancas Light Station on the Pacific Coast of California. The webcam is a joint project of Friends of the Elephant Seal and California State Parks.

Salmoncam shows salmon returning to Issaquah Hatchery, operated by WDFW. The camera in the holding pool shows a still photo that refreshes every 10 seconds.

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The state’s derelict vessel law, revised this year by the Legislature, will oil the gears of a state program that disposes of abandoned vessels throughout Puget Sound and along the Columbia River.

Legal action is pending against the 180-foot New Star, which was scheduled to remain at the Port Ludlow Marina for a few days but has been there since October. / Photo courtesy of DNR

For some reason, Washington state and Kitsap County in particular seem to attract more than their share of junk vessels. If you are on or near the water, you may spot these old boats grounded on the beach or else abandoned at anchor.

Some of these ugly boats are still seaworthy and just need some loving care. If the owners act responsibly and find safe moorage or else move their boat from place to place, they will probably never have to deal with the state’s Derelict Vessel Removal Program. Otherwise, recent changes in the law will allow the process to grind on more quickly.

Check out my recent stories in the Kitsap Sun on:

• Feb. 17, 2013: Bill in Legislature seeks early action for derelict vessels
• March 8, 2013: Derelict vessel bill passes House
• May 20, 2013: Derelict vessel bill signed into law

Melissa Ferris, who heads the state’s program under the Department of Natural Resources, told me she is pleased with the final version of the law. For one thing, it imposes a permanent $2 fee on vessel registrations in Washington state, a fee that was scheduled to drop back to $1 at the end of this year.

The $2 fee has allowed her program to operate with two staffers instead of one, she said. The Legislature additionally funded a third person in its jobs bill last year, and the new staffer has focused his full attention on identifying derelict boats and completing the paperwork needed for disposal.

Within the past few months, Melissa said, five abandoned vessels were removed from Poulsbo’s Liberty Bay. Others were pulled out near Port Orchard and Manchester — not including the numerous vessels taken into custody in Kitsap County over the past few years.

“We’ve removed a lot in Kitsap County, but we’ve been generally busy in a lot of places,” Melissa told me.

Vessel removals are pending in King, Pierce, Thurston, Jefferson, Clark, Skagit, Island, Whatcom and San Juan counties. Check out the list of “Notices of Intent to Obtain Custody” on DNR’s website.

Besides the permanent fee, the revised law removes criminal sanctions for failing to register your boat. Now, you will be hit be a fine, much like failing to purchase new car tabs.

Some of the fine goes back to the law-enforcement agency that writes the ticket, so the result could be increased enforcement.

From Melissa’s point of view, more boater registration is a good thing, because much of her time is spent tracking down legal owners who have not registered their vessels for many years.

In addition, government agencies will be required to inspect and register their vessels prior to sale. It’s surprising how many boats on the water these days used to be owned by a state or federal agency. Government vessels are generally exempt from registration.

The revised law also authorizes $200,000 to be spent on a pilot program that will take back boats the owners no longer want. It’s easier and cheaper to take the boats while they’re floating rather than dealing with them after they sink. Melissa said she will look to California, Florida and other states that have experience with similar take-back programs.

“We want to focus on boats that are the hardest for people to take care of on their own,” she noted.

Large cabin cruisers and old sailboats with little value are the most likely candidates for the take-back program, which could be made permanent if it is successful.

Appeals by boat owners who face losing their boats must be filed with the state’s Pollution Control Hearings Board, instead of the courts, under the revised law.

Local governments are free to set up their own appeals process if they get involved with abandoned boats. As always, local governments that go through the process of disposal can recover 90 percent of the cost from the state program.

Melissa said the revised law encourages boat owners to deal with boats before they become a problem. “I think it will help move the whole program from a reaction process to a preventative focus,” she said.

A work group will tackle some of the more difficult issues that were not resolved before final passage of House Bill 1245 this year. Issues include how to make the owners of large vessels financially responsible for the problems they cause and how to get more boatyards interested in disposing of large vessels.

Melissa says this positive legislation was the result of a successful collaboration between state agencies and the bill’s sponsors: Rep. Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge Island, in the House and Sen. Kirk Pearson, R-Monroe, in the Senate.

Other information can be found on the website of the Derelict Vessel Removal Program.

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A technique that could flag the presence of human waste in a sample of water is under development in a partnership between the Kitsap Public Health District and University of Washington’s Center for Urban Water.

Shawn Ultican, left, a water-quality investigator with Kitsap Public Health District, and University of Washington-Tacoma undergraduate Derek Overman test the water from a drainage pipe at Silverdale Waterfront Park.
Kitsap Sun photo by Meegan M. Reid.

As I explained in a May 29 story in the Kitsap Sun, it could be helpful for pollution investigators to know whether bacteria are coming from human waste or from animal waste.

For example, if bacterial levels are high in a stream but human waste is not present, then investigators could look for deposits of dog waste or livestock waste or else search out signs of wildlife. In that case, one could avoid testing for failing septic systems, saving a lot of time and money — not that this would occur in most investigations.

The technique under review involves testing for certain chemicals associated with humans, such as caffeine, medicines, personal care products, flame retardants, pesticides and human hormones. The current research is trying to identify which of these compounds could serve as the best routine test for human waste.

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For the past several years, June has brought us a new television season of “Whale Wars.” But this year the production has been delayed, and nobody seems to know when the show is likely to air.

Whale Wars, of course, is the weekly documentary showing confrontations on the high seas, as Sea Shepherd Conservation Society tries to stop Japanese whaling in the Antarctic.

As I reported in January (Water Ways, Jan. 4), Sea Shepherd hired its own film crew during this past whaling season (summer in the Antarctic, winter here). At the time, it seemed like the group did so to be able to control the filming. But in a new blog entry in The New Yorker, Raffi Khatchadourian suggests that it was the Animal Planet producers who got cold feet, given the Ninth Circuit Court injunction that prevented Sea Shepherd from getting within 500 feet of the Japanese ships.

The U.S. affiliate of Sea Shepherd and Capt. Paul Watson himself withdrew from the anti-whaling campaign, leaving in charge the Australian affiliate, which is not subject to U.S. court jurisdiction.

Brian Eley, senior communications manager for Discovery Channel, responded to my inquiry yesterday, saying it isn’t clear when Season 6 of “Whale Wars” will air. Footage was delayed this year “through no fault of anyone.”

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An easement requested by the Navy to prevent industrial development along the western shoreline of Hood Canal appears to be the first of its kind in Washington state.

One can envision this easement as a strip of underwater area from the Hood Canal bridge south to a spot just south of the Jefferson-Mason County line near Eldon, as I described in a Kitsap Sun story on May 15.

In most areas, the protected bedlands will be defined by their depths, from 18 feet below the average low tide to 70 feet down. More than 4,000 acres of state-owned bedlands would be covered by the easement.

“The practical effect of the agreement will be to preclude new near-shore commercial or industrial construction along the areas of the Hood Canal and neighboring waterways managed by DNR where the Navy operates,” states a joint press release issued by the Navy along with the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

It was quickly recognized that this could mean the end of the controversial pit-to-pier project for loading gravel onto ships and barges. If the developer, Thorndyke Resource, is unable to obtain a state lease for the proposed pier, the project would be dead in the water. The company, which has been working on the project for years, does not intend to give up without a fight.

Since the story first came out, the Navy has been preparing to conduct an appraisal, which will involve hiring an independent contractor, according to Liane Nakahara, spokeswoman for Navy Region Northwest. Once the appraisal work begins, it will take at least a couple months to complete, she said. Then the Navy and DNR must each approve the appraisal results.

I can’t imagine how difficult it will be to estimate how much money the state could lose by locking up this strip of underwater area for decades. If the pit-to-pier project were a certainty, then it would be easier to figure out how much revenue the state would lose by blocking that one lease. But what would be the probability of the pit-to-pier project getting all the required permits if the easement were not a factor?

What other types of development would be foreclosed by the Navy’s easement along Hood Canal, and where might these projects be located? If one could assume that the Jefferson County shoreline of Hood Canal would never be developed with marinas or piers anyway, then the loss would be zero and the Navy’s easement would be cheap. These are the questions that will drive an appraiser crazy.

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Daffy Duck, my favorite cartoon character, underwent quite an evolution through his career — from a small duck swimming on a pond in 1937 to the witty, wisecracker of my childhood, the Daffy we know today.

The earliest Daffy Duck was basically an out-of-control nitwit. During the 1940s, when he starred in more than 40 films, Daffy’s personality changed “from uncontrollable maniac to maniac with brains, who was insane but in control of the situations he found himself in,” according to Matthew Hunter’s “What Makes Daffy Duck?”

During the 1950s, developer Chuck Jones experimented with Daffy’s greed for money. Jones made him “skinnier, beakier and scruffier-lookier,” as Hunter described him.

Daffy was often paired up with Bugs Bunny through the 1950s and ‘60s, and he joined with Speedy Gonzalez in some adventures. The 1970s and ‘80s brought television specials featuring up-to-date animation and a host of Looney Tunes characters all featured in cartoons together.

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I already miss Ron Ross, who was the inspiration for numerous stories I wrote through the years. Ron died two weeks ago, on May 26.

Ron Ross

Every few months, Ron would call me with a questioning tone to his voice. He would talk about some city, county or state policy or regulation and tell me how it was working, or not working, and how it was affecting him or someone else.

“How does this make any sense?” he would ask.

Many times, Ron would have the nut of an issue, which would pan out into a story. Sometimes these stories involved property rights, but Ron was never the kind of property-rights advocate who believed a person should be able to do anything he wants with his property. He just wanted government rules to make sense and work for the majority of people.

It drove him crazy when a well-intentioned regulation caused more problems than it solved. Ron was, if anything, a common-sense kind of guy.

If the salmon couldn’t get upstream, he didn’t wait for all the permits he was supposed to get, not while the salmon were waiting. He just got out with some volunteers and moved the fish upstream — not to a place of his choosing, but to exactly the place where they were supposed to go. How could anyone argue with that?

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A group of eight transient killer whales pass by Bremerton’s Lions Park Thursday afternoon.
Kitsap Sun photo by Larry Steagall.

I was at my desk Thursday afternoon, tracking down some information for a story, when a call came into the newsroom: Killer whales were passing under Bremerton’s Manette Bridge.

Oh sure, I thought, I’ve heard this type of call before. Although I never fail to check out orca reports, such calls usually lead to what I call a “wild whale chase” with no whales being found. It usually turns out that someone has seen a sea lion resting on the surface with a big flipper sticking up in the air.

A moment later, I got a call at my desk. It was Howard Garrett of Orca Network, who had heard about eight transient killer whales on their way toward Dyes Inlet. He mentioned that marine mammal biologist Brad Hanson was following them in a boat.

My heart skipped a beat, and the rest of my day involved talking about whales, watching whales and writing about whales along with the people watching them. Please check out my story on the Kitsap Sun’s website.

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UPDATE, June 7, 2013
Orca Network reported last night:
The L12s, who had been with J pod for a two days, departed late in the afternoon June 2, then returned June 5 with most, if not all, of the rest of L pod. These 60+ orcas traveled up and down their familiar route from south of San Juan Island well into Georgia Strait for the past two days, passing Lime Kiln Lighthouse this evening, heading south.
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June is Orca Awareness Month, as proclaimed by Gov. Jay Inslee, and whale observers are now waiting for all three pods to get back together for their annual salmon feast in the Salish Sea.

In previous years, the three Southern Resident pods might have shown up by now, but it would not be surprising to see them as late as the end of this month or even early July.

Killer whales off the south end of Stuart Island last night.
Photo by Capt. Jim Maya

J pod has been around our local waterways following an unusual absence, as I reported in Water Ways last month (May 16). As of last night, J pod was near Stuart Island, which is just south of the Canadian border, according to a report from Capt. Jim Maya of Maya’s Westside Charters. Jim, who sent the photos shown on this page, called it “one of my best evenings ever on the waters of the San Juan Islands.”

Earlier this week, J pod was seen several times with 10 members of L pod, known as the L-12 subpod, which includes a year-old calf, L-119.

The rest of L pod and K pod have not been back for awhile, although K pod was spotted along the west side of Vancouver Island on May 20. K pod is the one tracked for three months this past winter by researchers with the National Marine Fisheries Service. See Water Ways, April 5.

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More than three years ago in Amusing Monday (Nov. 9, 2009), I featured the beautiful music of Robert Tiso, who had perfected the art of playing the glass harp, a series of glasses filled with water.

I’m not sure how I missed this bit of history, but I recently learned that Benjamin Franklin loved the sound created when crystalline glass was stroked by the human finger. Being the thoughtful inventor he was, Franklin believed it was a waste of time to fill and tune each water glass when they could be made to play just as beautifully without water, provided they were made to the proper size.

Franklin also came up with the idea of spinning the glasses, so the musician could move his fingers more quickly from one to another. He first called the new instrument the glassychord but later settled on armonica, as revealed in a letter to an Italian friend written in 1762:

“… Being charmed by the sweetness of its tones, and the music he produced from it, I wished only to see the glasses disposed in a more convenient form, and brought together in a narrower compass, so as to admit of a greater number of tunes, and all within reach of hand to a person sitting before the instrument, which I accomplished, after various intermediate trials, and less commodious forms, both of glasses and construction, in the following manner….

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