A Struggle to fight back the sea

Some of the nation's richest and most important ecosystems lie where the ocean meets the land. It's these same coastal areas that are going to disappear as sea level continues to rise as a result of climate change.

But in one wildlife refuge in North Carolina, conservationists are attempting what would seem to be impossible: fighting back the sea.

The Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge encompasses 154,000 acres of marshland and a rare type of lowland forest called pocosin (right). It's just about the only place on Earth where the endangered red wolf still roams, and a lot of it is at or near sea level, which means it's in big trouble as the sea rises.

But with the unbounded optimism of youth, a dozen or so college students arrived on one spring day to see what they could do.

Jamie Rowen from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is raking oyster shells into mesh bags. They will be used to build a reef off a nearby coastline. This music major — studying classical guitar — likes the change of pace.

The bags (left) filling and then stacking on wooden pallets are enough to build just a few hundred feet of reef to slow erosion along a coastline that stretches hundreds of miles. So you might ask whether these students are tilting at windmills.

The sea has been encroaching here for decades. Just ask Winston "Winkie" Silver — his family home on the nearby Outer Banks has been moved six times. Silver knows that the pond pines, which are characteristic of the pocosin coastal forest (right), are also losing ground to the ocean.

"The stumps [are] out there in the shallow water," he says, and "if you bring your boat in there and tear your boat up, you know that once was tree-lined and land."

A Forest Experiment

Silver wears a homemade visor to keep the sun off his ears. He's been hired to use his barges to build the reef out of these bags of shells. And though the work is taking place on a federal wildlife refuge, the effort is actually being led by Brian Boutin, a scientist from the Nature Conservancy.

Boutin starts out in his pickup truck toward Point Peter, where the reef is being built. On the way, he explains the reef is just one part of a larger plan to preserve the refuge. We pull over along the side of the gravel road to see another element of the plan.

The eager, young biologist slips on his rubber boots and heads off into a wide expanse of marsh, typical of the refuge. Water comes up the sides of our shoes — you can't get any closer to sea level than this. About 100 yards off the road, he points proudly to a bare twig coming out of the sodden soil. It's a freshly planted cypress tree.

"Once these leaf-out this spring here, we'll have a nice lime-green veneer across the top of all this marsh grass out here, so it will be pretty evident how many cypress are in this area," Boutin says.

The experiment is designed to see whether the 20,000 cedar trees they've planted can help create forest, which is home to the red wolf (left), black bear, bobcats and other animals whose habitat is gradually disappearing. Of course, if the sea keeps rising, the trees could simply find themselves drowned in saltwater; Boutin has been thinking about that a lot.

Adapting The Landscape To Change

Soon after we return to the road, we come across a refuge construction crew, installing a new culvert. Surprisingly, the goal of this project is to bring more water into the marsh where the trees are growing. Boutin explains that the hope is this fresh water will build up organic soil here by encouraging the plants that produce it.

"Part of the soil condition those species need is to have a damp soil," he says. So even though it may seem counterintuitive to bring in water to stave off sea-level rise, wetland species need to be wet. The soils here used to be fed by sediments flowing down the nearby rivers. But that sediment is no longer making its way to the marsh, thanks to dams and channels. That means the plants here are the main source of soil, and they don't build it up very fast — just a few millimeters a year.

Unfortunately, sea level is rising at the rate of 3 or 4 millimeters a year here, and that rate is forecast to grow. (Left: coast already losing battle with sea level change from climate change).

"We are not quite keeping up with sea level rise, and I think that's going to be the case pretty much everywhere we work with in Pamlico Sound," Boutin says. "But the idea is to reduce the rate of loss." (Right: Flooding at 1 foot sea level rise)

Losing the battle — but losing it slowly — makes perfect sense to Mike Bryant, who runs this refuge for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"We expect change from sea level rise as a consequence of the warming and the melting of ice," Bryant says. "And as that sea level rises, we expect to lose land." The future of this reserve doesn't look bright: "I don't know if it's doomed, but I certainly think it's shrinking."

Eventually, the maps of this area show this refuge will be almost entirely submerged once sea level rises four feet. That could be within a lifetime, according to some forecasts.

But Bryant says change is inevitable on planet Earth. And he can at least help the ecosystems adapt with some grace.

"I don't think we can we can put a dike around a 150,000-acre refuge and pump it out," he says. "So I think we just have to adapt that landscape to the change." (Right: flooding at 2 feet sea level rise)

That means fighting back the tide in the short run, but it also means thinking ahead.

"We'd like to think about where is the next best place for wildlife on higher ground," Bryant says. "How do we have wildlife corridors between Alligator River Refuge and those lands? And how do we secure some of those lands that are on higher ground, for wildlife in the future?"

Focusing On The Vulnerable Areas

While Bryant starts the delicate task of buying or getting wildlife easements on neighboring land, Boutin is trying to buy time. (Right: Area of wildlife refuge under water at 4 foot rise in sea level)

When we arrive at Point Peter, a gale is blowing up in the fetch between us and the Outer Banks off to the east.

"So what you see is we're standing in front of an unprotected area," Boutin says. "And you can see how much wave action is coming in and pounding the shore, and what the size of the waves are here."

These churning whitecaps are eating away parts of Point Peter at the rate of 30 feet a year, he says. But then he points to some white pipes sticking out of the water to our left. That's where Winkie Silver has been stacking bags of oyster shells in the water. Boutin says the marsh behind that reef is eroding at a much slower rate.

But he knows he can't protect very much of this coast with labor-intensive reefs.

"We are focusing on finding those areas that are most vulnerable right now and that are most in need of having their shoreline erosion addressed," he says.

It's not a permanent solution, but in the process, they're learning what works — and what doesn't work — in their struggle to fight back the sea.

Source:
NPR,"A Struggle To Fight Back The Sea", accessed April 25, 2011

Great Britain's Spring may lose song of cuckoos, nightingales and turtle doves

Some of Britain's most cherished spring visitors are disappearing in their thousands. Ornithologists say species such as the cuckoo, nightingale (left) and turtle dove are undergoing catastrophic drops in numbers, although experts are puzzled about the exact reasons for these declines.

The warning, from the RSPB, comes as the songs of the cuckoo, nightingale and wood warbler herald the return of spring. In the case of the cuckoo (right) – "the simple bird that thinks two notes a song", according to the poet William Henry Davies – its call has become synonymous with the arrival of warm weather. It is the quintessential bird of spring.

Yet there is now a real risk that, with other migrant birds from Africa, it may no longer make its annual appearance in our woodlands, said Dr Danaë Sheehan, a senior RSPB conservation scientist. The call of the cuckoo could be silenced in the near future unless scientists can unravel the causes of the drastic decline in their population, she said.

According to Sheehan, numbers of migrant birds from Africa have declined dramatically in the UK since 1995. For turtle doves (right) the figure is 71%; nightingales, 53%; and cuckoos, 44%. "That is a very significant and very worrying decline," she added.

Today, eight out of 10 of Britain's most rapidly declining species are sub-Saharan migrants, with the turtle dove heading the list. Other species are close behind: the latest figures show that the wood warbler (left) has declined in Britain by 60 per cent since the same date, the pied flycatcher by 51 per cent, the yellow wagtail by 49 per cent, the whinchat by 43 per cent, the nightingale by 41 per cent, the spotted flycatcher by 38 per cent and the cuckoo by 37 per cent. In England alone, the cuckoo has declined by 55 per cent in 15 years.

"The real problem is that there are so many different possible causes for these losses – which makes it difficult to tease out the factors involved in their decline and to prepare plans to put things right. (right: yellow wagtail)

"These losses could be the result of changes in farmland use in Britain which are affecting the way these birds breed when they arrive here in spring. Or they could be due to the spread of human populations in Africa and the destruction of natural habitats where they make their homes in winter.

"Climate change is almost certainly involved as well. Our problem is to unravel those different causes and assess how they interact."

In a bid to explain what is happening, the RSPB and groups such as the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) have launched a series of projects in the UK and in Africa. These include new surveys of numbers of different species arriving in Britain as well as studies, in Africa, of sites that provide winter homes for these birds. Targets will include the cuckoo, nightingale and the turtle dove as well as the wood warbler, garden warbler, whinchat (at left), and pied flycatcher as well as the swift (right) – another popular visitor. Its numbers have dropped 30% since 1995.

"The global pressure for land has now become extreme, and it is starting to have real implications for long-distance migrant birds," said Andre Farrar, the RSPB's campaigns manager. "Climate change – which affects timings of breeding cycles – is another critical factor."

However, the work will be tricky thanks to the complexity of bird migration between Africa and Britain. For a start, these visitors have their winter homes in very different areas. Some birds, like the nightingale, cuckoo and swift, winter in humid western regions – including Nigeria and Ghana – while others, like the turtle dove and yellow wagtail (left), winter in the dry Sahel area in countries such as Chad. "Both regions are affected by rising populations of humans, but in ways that will have subtly different effects on land use and on individual bird species," said Sheehan.

On top of changes of land use in their wintering grounds, scientists suspect that many migrants are finding it increasingly difficult to feed themselves when they come to breed in Britain. For example, cuckoos eat large moths and it is known that in recent years numbers of such insects have dropped significantly in the UK. (at right: pied flycatcher)

There is almost certainly a significant problem caused by climate change. Migrant birds arrive and breed and then have chicks at times which are no longer synchronized with the best periods when food, such as insects,is available. Again this is likely to have a serious impact on population numbers.

On top of these factors, turtle doves (left) and nightingales (below right) are affected by the loss of sandy scrubland on which they like to breed. Intensification of farming has seen major reductions in this sort of habitat and this has had an impact on migrant birds, added Sheehan.

There are factors involved from outside either Africa or Britain. "Adding insult to injury to the effects of this land use and climate change is the massive slaughter that takes place in spring and autumn when birds, flying from and to Africa, cross islands in the Mediterranean Sea, such as Cyprus and Malta," added Farrar. "There they are shot, in their hundreds of thousands, by hunters – who just enjoy killing them for the 'sport'. It is against EU law, but that doesn't stop it happening."

In an article on December 28, 2010 from Cyprus it was stated that:

A record 1.4 million migratory birds were illegally trapped and killed over the key autumn season to feed an illicit Cypriot taste for such delicacies, a conservationist group say.

A survey by Birdlife Cyprus carried out between September and October 2010 showed more than a million birds were indiscriminately killed with mist nets and limesticks.

“The picture emerging from autumn 2010 is one of a bird trapping disaster on a scale unseen since Birdlife’s monitoring work began almost 10 years ago,” said a Birdlife statement.

Autumn trapping levels have been on a general upward trend for four years while mist netting levels are at a nine-year high according to the group. It said the figures showed a “serious failure” on the part of both Cypriot authorities and British Sovereign Base Areas where illegal trappings are rife.

Migrant birds from Africa clearly face a barrage of problems, although the effect of these will differ from species to species. The crucial point, say ornithologists, is that some of the most welcome visitors to the United Kingdom are now disappearing.

"Some of these birds are closely woven into our culture, like the cuckoo," added Farrar. "Others – like the spotted flycatcher (left), which specializes in living in old leafy churchyards and large gardens – are less well known but loved passionately by small groups of people who are very possessive about them and who watch out carefully for their return every year.

"And that sums up our attitude to migrant birds. We are at the northern edge of their ranges. However, they breed here and we identify them as being British, though it could just as easily be argued they are African or simply birds of the wild skies. Nevertheless, we have a deep, complex relationships with these creatures."

This point was backed by Sheehan. "These birds arrive in our countryside just as the first good weather arrives. We associate them with spring and warmth. That is why they appear so often in folklore. They are part of our culture – which makes the declines in their numbers so worrying. We have got to find out what is going on as soon as possible.

"Many people will hear their first cuckoo (left) of the year this weekend. It is not guaranteed they will be able to do that 10 years from now."
Source:
The Guardian,"Spring may lose song of cuckoos, nightingales and turtle doves", accessed April 25, 2011
CyprusQ.com, "Record 1.4 million migratory birds killed in Cyprus", accessed April 25, 2011

More pine barrens, last Long Island wilderness, protected

New York state officials chose Earth Day last Friday to announce purchase of a large tract of land in Long Island's pine barrens as a preserve for hikers and other naturalists and a source for pure drinking water.

The land, mostly surrounded by publicly owned property, had been sought for years by preservation advocates as an essential part of the 100,000-acre pine barrens in Suffolk County in eastern Long Island.

Calling the pine barrens a "beautiful natural resource" as well as "an important source of clean drinking water," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the acquisition would preserve the area, in the heart of the Carmans River (right) watershed, for generations.

The 99-acre parcel was purchased from a local nursery, and will be paid for with New York state's Environmental Protection Fund's land acquisition fund.

The Long Island Dwarf Pine Plains is considered to be a globally imperiled community, which is noted for dwarfed pitch pines (Pinus rigida), scrub oaks ( (Quercus ilicifolia) , and groundcovers, but without the canopy of larger oaks.

State environmental conservation laws afforded the area special protection because it overlays Long Island's purest, and federally designated, sole-source drinking water aquifer.

"We've been working for years for preservation of this key Pine Barrens parcel in the Carmans River Watershed," said Long Island Pine Barrens Society executive director Richard Amper, who praised the newly elected Cuomo for getting results.

The Pine Barrens constitute Long Island's largest natural area and its last remaining wilderness, containing a mere remnant of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens eco-region.

All of Long Island's drinking water comes from ground water wells, and nearly all of the Carmans River, as well as much of its watershed, are in the pine barrens.

The newly acquired land lies in the hamlet of Middle Island in the town of Brookhaven, about 50 miles east of New York City.

Source:
Reuters,"More pine barrens, last Long Island wilderness, protected", accessed April 25, 2011

Leukemia-type virus may be killing Fraser River salmon

In British Columbia's Fraser River, a mysterious illness has killed millions of Pacific salmon, and scientists have a new hypothesis about why: The wild salmon are suffering from viral infections similar to those linked to some forms of leukemia and lymphoma.

For 60 years before the early 1990s, an average of nearly eight million wild salmon returned from the Pacific Ocean to the Fraser River each year to spawn.

Now the salmon industry is in a state of collapse, with mortality rates ranging from 40 to 95 per cent.

The salmon run has been highly variable. In 2009 the British Columbia fishing industry suffered one of its worst years with an unexpected dramatic decline in the number of sockeye salmon returning to the Fraser River. What was expected to be an 11 million salmon run was only 1.5 million, making it a shocking collapse and leaving much of the fishing fleet docked. This was followed by the best year in 2010, with 30 million salmon. But the overall trend is downward.

Losses were particularly high in elevated river temperatures -warmer water makes it more difficult to deliver oxygen to the tissues of salmon.
Seven of the past 10 summers have been the hottest on record for the Fraser River. But experts say it's too soon to pin the blame on global warming.

"Clearly, a warming climate is going to produce some new stresses for Pacific salmon," said Daniel Schindler, a professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. "Some of those stresses will certainly be expressed through increased susceptibility to disease, including something like this."

But he added: "The reality is we have very poor understanding of how climate and disease dynamics interact with each other in salmon. We know they're going to be important, but we can't say a lot in detail."

Two years ago Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered a judicial inquiry -known as the Cohen Commission -to investigate the salmon deaths, with a final report due by June 2012.

Scott Hinch (right), an investigator at the University of B.C.'s Pacific salmon ecology and conservation lab and a co-author of a study on the salmon that was published in the journal Science, testified before the panel last month. He told it that the virus could be the biggest factor that's driving the collapse.

The study raises "a big red flag," providing scientists with a possible new explanation, said Brian Riddle, the president and chief executive officer of the Pacific Salmon Foundation in Vancouver.

"The critical thing is that for years, people have wondered about the rate of decline and how it can be pretty consistent across most populations in the Fraser," he said. "This provides a viable reason now. We're discovering something new. There's still a lot unknown. We don't understand the origin of the virus. We don't understand how it functions."

He said much more study was needed.

"If this really is a virus and it's something we don't understand, then we don't know how to treat it or control it," Riddle said. "So this is something that could linger with us for a long time, and possibly until the animal learns how to deal with it. That will only happen through natural selection-type processes."

As part of Hinch's study, salmon were caught, tagged and implanted with radio transmitters and their blood, gill, muscle and fin tissues were biopsied. Scientists then tracked them and discovered that many were stressed and sick before they reached their spawning grounds.

According to the study, oceantagged salmon that had the gene signature associated with the viral infection were 13.5 times more likely to die before spawning.

Hinch said the scientists thought that the salmon became infected at sea, before making their runs up river. He likened it to "dead fish swimming."

If researchers can confirm the findings that a virus related to leukemia is responsible, "it would be quite novel," said Hinch.

While there's no similar research taking place in the U.S., Schindler said there was no reason not to assume that salmon in the nearby Columbia River in Washington state would be suffering as well.

Glen Spain, the Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said other issues were at play and that "a cascade of interrelated factors," not just a virus, could be causing the salmon deaths.

"There are fundamental habitat issues that weaken the salmon when they have too little water in the river or when the water is poor quality, when the population is truncated because of dams and there's less biological diversity," he said.

"All of those are risk factors for any number of diseases. It's sort of like the blind man and the elephant. Everybody thinks that what they've got in front of them is the elephant. The reality is that it's a whole ecosystem."

He added: "If this is a virus, it's an endemic virus and it's been out there for thousands of years. The question is, if it's attacking fish now, why now?"

Source:
The Province,"Leukemia-type virus may be killing Fraser River salmon", accessed April 21, 2011

Record number of endangered whales expected off Cape Cod

Researchers in Massachusetts say they are on track to spot a record number of endangered right whales in Cape Cod Bay and nearby waters.

So far this season, which stretches from January through mid-May, more than 200 right whales have been sighted, accounting for nearly half of the known species population.

The total thus far is the same number tracked during the entire 2010 season, said Laura Ganley, flight coordinator for the right whale studies program at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.

Aerial tracking on Tuesday resulted in 101 individual whale sightings, the most on record for a single flight.

“They’re one of the rarest mammals on earth, so it’s pretty special,” Mayo said. “If we see 10 whales, it’s a big deal.”

Last year, members of the center saw higher numbers of whales, but that occurred later in the season, Dr. Charles “Stormy” Mayo, the director of right whale habitat studies at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, said. It is unusual to see this many whales at this time of year.

With another aerial survey planned for Friday and at least a handful more after that, Ganley said researchers expect their North Atlantic right whale count to rise.

"Seeing so many right whales so close to shore is very important to researchers," Ganley said.

The whales have even been spotted from the Provincetown beaches, just 50 or 100 yards off the coastline where the water deepens quickly.

Right whales are the most endangered large whales in the North Atlantic, with about 473 left in the population, according to experts.

Researchers can identify the individual whales by the rough skin and so-called whale lice pattern on their heads, Ganley said.

The massive mammals -- most adults measure around 50 feet in length and weigh up to 70 tons -- are lured to the waters off Cape Cod to feed on zooplankton, which is most abundant in the spring. New whales have been seen among recognizable returning whales, researchers said.

"They wouldn't be here if the food wasn't great," said Erin Burke, a specialist in protected species at the Massachusetts division of marine fisheries.

In mid-April, the whales feast on a particularly fat, oily plankton near or just below the water's surface, increasing their risk of being hit by passing commercial or recreational boats.

Vessel collisions account for about half of right whale deaths caused by humans, with the remainder from entanglement, Burke said.

Once the food supply runs out, in perhaps another week, the right whales are expected to move on to summer and fall feeding habitats in the Gulf of Maine.

Source:
Reuters,"Record number of endangered whales expected off Cape Cod", accessed April 23, 2011
The Boston Globe, "North Atlantic right whales hold big confab in Cape Cod Bay", accessed April 23, 2011