You can learn a lot about the birds and the bees — not to
mention the bears and a whole lot of other creatures — by watching
a live telecast among hundreds of webcams fixed on wildlife in
every corner of the globe.
Each location has its own story and its own history, but many
existing webcams are coming under the support and networking of
Explore.org, an
educational program funded by the Annenberg Foundation, with
special attention from Charles
Annenberg Weingarten.
One live cam is situated near an osprey nest on Hog Island
(first video), an educational nature camp in Maine that has been
associated
with Audubon since 1936. Today, Hog Island Audubon Camp is
operated by Project Puffin, which is part of National Audubon
Society’s Science Division.
The issue of ocean acidification gained some traction this week
in the U.S. House of Representatives, where bipartisan support led
to the approval of four bills designed to bring new ideas into the
battle to save sea life from corrosive waters.
If passed by the Senate, the legislation would allow federal
agencies to set up competitions and offer prize money for the best
ideas for reducing ocean acidification, adapting to ongoing changes
or solving difficult research problems. The bills also foster
discussions about climate change by bringing more people to the
table while providing increased attention to the deadly conditions
that are developing along the coasts and in estuaries, such as
Puget Sound.
U.S. Rep. Derek
Kilmer
“We know that changing ocean chemistry threatens entire
livelihoods and industries in our state, said U.S. Rep. Derek
Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, in a
press release. “There are generations of folks in our coastal
communities who have worked in fishing and shellfish growing — but
that’s endangered if we don’t maintain a healthy Pacific
Ocean.”
Later in this blog post, I will reflect on other
Kilmer-related issues, including the so-called Puget Sound Day on
the Hill.
In a phone conversation, Rep. Kilmer told me that he was
encouraged with the widespread support for a bill that he sponsored
called the Ocean
Acidification Innovation Act of 2019 (HR 1921), which passed
the House on a 395-22 vote. The bill would allow federal agencies
to sponsor competitions and offer prize money for the best ideas.
Money would come out of existing funds that agencies use for
related purposes. The bill was co-sponsored by Northwest Reps.
Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, along with Rep. Suzanne
Bonamici, an Oregon Democrat, and Rep. Don Young, an Alaskan
Republican. Five representatives from coastal areas in other parts
of the country added their names to the bill.
“There is a legitimate problem, and people are beginning to see
the impacts of the changing ocean chemistry,” Derek said. “This
should a bipartisan issue.”
A student art contest focused on endangered species produced
some impressive paintings and drawings this year for the 14th
annual Endangered Species Day, which was celebrated this past
Friday.
The contest, called Saving Endangered Species Youth Art Contest,
is sponsored by the Endangered Species Coalition. It gives the
young artists and their audience a chance to understand species at
risk of extinction. Some choose plants and animal that are well
known; others go for the obscure.
The grand prize this year was awarded to Sam Hess, a first
grader from Portland, Ore. He depicted a Texas blind salamander, a
rare cave-dwelling species native to just one place, the San Marcos
Pool of the Edwards Aquifer in Hays County, Texas. The salamander,
which grows to about 5 inches, features blood-red gills for
breathing oxygen from the water.
The art contest, for students K-12, is sponsored by the
Endangered Species Coalition, including more than 450 conservation,
scientific, education, religious, recreation, business and
community organizations.
“We owe it to this generation of children to pass down healthy
ecosystems brimming with wildlife,” said Leda Huta, the coalition’s
executive director, in a
news release. “Every year, their artwork demonstrates how
deeply they feel for nature and all of its wondrous creatures –
large and small.”
My mind is unable to grasp, in any meaningful way, how much
death and destruction was caused by fishing nets that were lost and
abandoned through the years.
Filmed in 2007, this KCTS-9
video describes the problem of ghost nets and a project that would
eventually remove nearly 6,000 nets.
Nearly 6,000 of these so-called “ghost nets” have been pulled
from the waters of Puget Sound over the past 17 years. Until
removed, they keep on catching fish, crabs and many more animals to
one degree or another.
We can support responsible fishing, but those of us who care
about Puget Sound must never again allow lost nets to be forgotten,
as if “out of sight, out of mind” ever worked for anyone.
The latest concern, as I reported last month in the Encyclopedia of
Puget Sound, is that 200 or more ghost nets are still lurking
at depths below 100 feet, which is the level considered safe to
operate by divers with normal scuba gear. Remotely operated
vehicles (unmanned submarines) are being developed to go after nets
remaining in deep water, where they are killing crabs and many
other deep-water species — including rockfish, some of which are
listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Washington State Senate has tackled the problem of marine debris
by approving one bill to ban the use of plastic grocery bags and a
separate bill to discourage the use of plastic straws. Both bills
have now moved over to the House of Representatives for possible
concurrence.
Issues of waste, recycling and compostable materials have been
the subject of much debate in the Legislature this year, with at
least a dozen bills attempting to address these multiple
problems.
More than 5,000 underwater photographs, taken by photographers
from 65 countries, were submitted for judging in the annual
Underwater Photographer of the Year competition.
The contest, based in Great Britain, was started in 1965 and
celebrates the art and technology of capturing images under water —
from the depths of the ocean to “split shots” at the surface, from
open waters to enclosed estuaries, from lakes to even swimming
pools.
I first reported on this contest in
Watching Our Water Ways last year and received such a positive
response from readers that I decided to make it an annual feature
of this blog. The 125 winning entries are shown in an online
Gallery
of the 2019 winners. A series
of videos provides insight from the photographers telling the
stories that surround their winning entries.
Concerns about the endangered southern resident killer whales
seems to be spurring legislative support for new enforcement tools
that could be used to protect shoreline habitat.
Bills in both the state House and Senate would allow stop-work
orders to be issued by the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife when shoreline construction is done without permits or
exceeds permit conditions. If passed, the law would require that
Fish and Wildlife officials first work with contractors and
property owners to achieve “voluntary compliance.”
Working with property owners is the key, stressed Jeff Davis,
deputy director of Fish and Wildlife in charge of habitat
protection. Under current law, property owners who commit serious
permit violations are charged with criminal misdemeanors. That’s
neither good for the agency nor for the property owner, who may end
up battling each other in court, said Davis, who once worked as a
Fish and Wildlife habitat biologist in Kitsap County.
The criminal approach may work well with “egregious violations
of the law,” Davis told the House Committee on Rural Development,
Agriculture and Natural Resources, “but it’s not an appropriate
tool for the vast majority of noncompliance we see out there. We
would rather work with people so they are in compliance and there
aren’t impacts to fish.”
A photograph of a tiny orange octopus was the most popular image
last year among all the photographs posted to Instagram by NOAA
Fisheries, the agency formally called the National Marine Fisheries
Service. More than 2,000 people “liked” the picture and many more
viewed it from among more than 150 top photographs posted last year
by NOAA Fisheries’ Communications shop
on its Instagram
page.
A baby octopus found on an
autonomous reef monitoring structure. (Click to enlarge.)
Photo: James Morioka/NOAA
The octopus photo was taken during a NOAA expedition to assess
the health of coral reefs in the Pacific Remote Islands, which had
undergone a massive die-off in 2016 and 2017 caused by excessive
warm water. The tiny octopus was discovered on an “autonomous reef
monitoring structure” used to measure the recovery of ocean
ecosystems. For details about the voyage, see NOAA’s story
“Research Expedition to Assess Coral Reef Conditions and Recovery
from Mass Bleaching.”
“Hundreds of meters deep in the dark of the ocean, a shark
glides toward what seems like a meal. It’s kind of ugly, eel-like
and not particularly meaty, but still probably food. So the shark
strikes.
“This is where the interaction of biology and physics gets
mysterious, as the shark finds its dinner interrupted by a cloud of
protective slime that appears out of nowhere around an otherwise
placid hagfish.”
I don’t usually begin my “Amusing Monday” blog posts with a
quote from a news release, but writer Chris Barncard has described
precisely what leads up to an encounter between a fish predator and
the mysterious hagfish. Biting a hagfish sends a shudder of
revulsion through an enemy trying to eat it. The
news release, found on the website of the University of
Wisconsin – Madison, describes the research that has led to a
mathematical description of an attack by hagfish slime.
Last week, a new animation was posted online describing the
matriarchal social structure of our beloved killer whales, in which
elder females serve as guides for generations of their living
descendants. (See first video.)
The new video, part of the TED Ed collection of animations,
focuses on the 74 Southern Resident orcas and how they stay with
their mothers for life. The video’s creator, animal behaviorist
Darren Croft, credits the Center for Whale Research with
studies that have successfully identified every filial relationship
among the Puget Sound orcas for more than 40 years.
The
TED Ed collection includes hundreds of animations created by
TED
Conferences LLC, the media organization responsible for nearly
3,000 online TED Talks. TED
combines the concepts Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED)
and operates under the slogan “ideas worth spreading.” An annual
conference is held in Vancouver, B.C., with smaller events held
throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
The Ted Ed series was started six years ago to inspire students
to discuss creative ideas, develop innovative concepts and become
young leaders. TED Ed has developed a flexible curriculum that can
be used by teachers or students themselves. Each video has a
“create a lesson” button
for teachers or students to adapt the video to their own situation
and branch out into other ideas.
Students can organize themselves as a club in an after-school
setting, work with a teacher in a classroom, become part of a
larger ongoing program. or develop an idea alone or with a partner.
The program is designed to teach students from ages 8 to 18 and
welcomes participants over age 13. See “Get involved” or review the
“frequently asked questions.”
The TED Ed videos cover a multitude of topics, including
science, technology, health, history, art, literature, health and
even riddles. Some are better than others, but the best ones
provide tidbits of information that can actually cause one to
change his or her way of thinking. YouTube has a large collection
of TED
Ed videos.
The new video about orca matrilines offers possible explanations
for why female whales have been known to live well beyond their
reproductive lifespan. Males and females tend to stay with their
mothers for life, although males will interact with other pods for
mating. As older females die off, their daughters become the new
leaders of the matrilines, which together make up larger pods.
The video, called “The Amazing Grandmothers of the Killer Whale
Pod,” has more than 142,000 views so far and more than 300
comments.
Other TED Ed videos I found worth watching include the second
video on this page, “When will the next ice age happen?” and the
third, “Jellyfish predate dinosaurs. How have they survived so
long?” Also check out the following or search for subjects from the
full list:
