More Sparrows and Petition Update

Our houseboat porch is turning into a pretty popular place to spend the night, especially with all the rain we've been getting! We now have two male house sparrows that make nightly visits. One night they shared a little hole, but usually they choose separate ones. We try to keep the lights off as to not disturb them, but when I had to turn them on briefly tonight I took two quick pictures of them roosting.

Also, you may have noticed that the Preserve the Mar Vista Resort petition has been removed from my blog. I heard last week that the property was going to be shown to a prospective buyer, and the signature rate had dropped to less than one per day, so I decided it was time to submit the petition. In all, the petition got 485 signatures! Thanks so much to all who signed and sent it along to their friends.

The Petition Site created a nice pdf document for me, which included the letter, signatures, and all the comments left by all the signers. I sent it to San Juan County Land Bank, San Juan Preservation Trust, and Coldwell Banker, the agency with the Mar Vista listing. I have also heard back from all three.

The director of San Juan County Land Bank informed me that money is, of course, the biggest issue, but that they are speaking with potential donors about the property in addition to pursuing state and federal grant money. The director of conservation at San Juan Preservation Trust also said they are exploring all possible conservation options, and would love to talk to me further about any of my thoughts and ideas.

The realtor said it is most likely that the property will be purchased as a private estate, which means no large scale commercial development will occur, but of course it will be closed to the public. He also expressed that he believes any money generated to purchase Mar Vista for conservation purposes would be much better spent purchasing other, cheaper development easements, because this way we could preserve more of the rural character of the whole island rather than a single waterfront property. He has a valid point, but I think Mar Vista is a unique property that could provide some pretty special opportunities as public land. For instance, a shore-based whale watching and research site on a part of the island where there isn't one.

That's all I know for now, but I'll continue to post updates as I learn more about anything related to thsi property.....

Trumpeter Swans

On our way to British Camp today, I was excited to see some large white birds alongside a lake. I pulled over, and sure enough - they were my first swans of the season! They were in among lots of Canada geese, American wigeon, and several other duck species I couldn't identify from a distance (you think I would have learned to ALWAYS bring my binoculars by now...), but from the picture I took I could see the distinct all black bills that confirms these were trumpeter swans. They will probably be around on the island for most of the winter, but I was very excited to see my first ones of the year!

Northern vs. Southern Resident Habitat

Today, as I was reading a chapter in Dolphin Societies: Discoveries and Puzzles, I came across a fact I had never thought about before.

There are two groups of "resident" fish-eating killer whales around Vancouver Island. One is the Southern Residents, made up of J-, K-, and L-Pods, and they spend most of their time off the south end of Vancouver Island, where we see them near the San Juan Islands here in Washington. The other group is the Northern Residents, made up of pods A-I, plus R and W Pods. They live mostly off the northern end of Vancouver Island. The two ranges are shown in the picture on the left, with the light gray representing the Northern Resident Killer Whales (NRKW) and the darker gray representing the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW). The two populations aren't known to interact with one another.

In the chapter I was reading, it mentioned that the division between the Northern and Southern resident habitat corresponds, on the east side of Vancouver Island, to "two distinct tidal regions: a northern region with southward-flowing flood currents and northward-flowing ebb currents, and southern region with opposite ebb and flood current directions".

I don't know why this seems so revolutionary to me, but it never dawned on me that the barrier between Northern and Southern Residents was more or less drawn by the tidal region. Of course its not an absolute barrier, with Southern Residents sometimes coming down the inside passage to the inland waters of Washington state, but this still seems pretty significant. It doesn't seem unreasonable that salmon runs may also be divided by the tidal exchange regions, and maybe there is some sort of agreement that the two different areas and the salmon they contain "belong" to either of the two resident communities.

Whenever I come across something that causes me to think about the local whales in a new and different way, I get excited by it. This little fact was one of those moments for me, so I thought I'd share it, however minute it might be.

Marine Naturalists' Gear Down

Today I attended an all-day workshop for local marine naturalists, an annual "gear down" event that's held at the end of the season and provides a series of lectures for naturalists to continue the education. With the recent loss of seven local whales, everyone is especially concerned about the main threats this population faces: salmon, toxins, and vessel activity. All three were addressed in lectures today.

One of the most exciting parts of the workshop was the official launching of the Salish Sea Association of Marine Naturalists (SSAMN - pronounced, of course, "salmon"). I've been on a committee forming this association for the last year, and its goals are to network naturalists, create a unified and professional group representing local naturalists, and share opportunities among the group whether they be news alerts, calls to action, or educational opportunities. The vision is that the group will provide high quality and accurate education to visitors and residents of the San Juans, with the aim of encouraging stewardship and action to protect the local wildlife and the ecosystem in which it lives. If you want to learn more about the association or potentially join, you can contact Cindy, the education curator at The Whale Museum by e-mailing her at cindy at whalemuseum dot org.

Here are a few facts I learned at today's lectures....interesting to me because of their shock value:

• The AT1s, a group of Alaskan transients, numbered 22 animals when the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred. They now number 6, with no calves being born since the oil spill occurred. Like the local residents, they are a group that is not known to associate with other killer whale populations, even other transients. It may be that the social restrictions these whales seemingly put on themselves seriously restricts the ability of their population to recover.
• Local salmon runs are only at 10% of their historical numbers.
• Surfactants, or substances that reduce surface tension, cause problems by gumming up the gills of fish and suffocating them. Even biodegradable soaps have surfactants, something I didn't know....we use biodegradable soaps on the houseboat I live on because our gray water goes straight into the ocean, but maybe this isn't good enough.
• Industry was not the only major source of PCBs (a bioaccumulant toxin) in Puget Sound. Military activity, such as naval ship building and weaprony testing, caused a lot of PCBs to enter the water, as well. Torpedos, for example, were insulated with PCBs, and many detonation tests occurred in the Sound. There are 21 Superfund sites in Puget Sound, and many of the so-called "clean" sites are actually meeting some pretty leniant, shady regulations.
  

Luckily, a lot of action is being taken locally, such as the Puget Sound Partnership. Recently re-elected Washington Governor Gregoire has given the Partnership a goal of cleaning up the Sound (including the Salish Sea and San Juan Islands) by 2020. Just this week they released their Action Plan, or road map on just how they're going to do this. It's definitely worth looking into, and I strongly encourage you to read over and submit a comment on the action plan by November 20th.

Beautiful Day

Yesterday there was a nervous anticipation in the air, which as the night progressed turned to relief and joy that our country has chosen to pursue a new direction by electing Barack Obama. Most everyone seemed to be in a bright mood today, encouraged and hopeful. It's an exciting time, and I'm happy and proud to be a part of it. It's nice to feel truly inspired by a politician - something I've never felt before in my relatively short voting career thus far.















It was a beautiful, sunny fall day out yesterday, and we headed down to American Camp to go for a hike. It was really windy out, making for some spectacular wave action that we don't always see in these protected inland waters. The combination of the bright light and fall colors made for some vivid pictures. Make sure to click on them to see larger versions.

There weren't a lot of birds about, except for gulls and a bald eagle soaring on the winds, but I did spot one northern shrike. This is only the second time I've seen this species on the island, so it was an exciting find for me.

Nighttime Visitor

The last few nights, we have had a little male house sparrow roosting in the eaves on our porch. He is seemingly all right, chasing away a few other sparrows that tried to join him and disappearing during the day. When I turn on the porch light he doesn't seem to mind, and stayed put for me to take this cute photo.

Remember to Vote!

Instead of a regular blog post today, I feel it's very important to remind everyone to vote by this Tuesday. It's an exciting time, and we can all be a part of a change for the better. Please vote, and make sure your friends and family do so as well!