Earth Day 2017

The last two years on this or my other blog I’ve done Earth Day Resolutions. This year on Earth Day I marched through the streets with a few thousand other scientists, punny and error-free signs raised high, mostly quiet but some of us shouting “What do we want?” “Science!” “When do we want it?” “After peer-review!” and “Climate Change!” “IS REAL!”. It felt good to be united like that, it felt positive to be there. But at the same time…where the hell are we living right now that I had to march down the street declaring Climate Change Is Real? In NEW ORLEANS of all places, a city which could be half underwater within the next hundred years (no, that is not exaggeration). Especially because I live in a region that DOESN’T EVEN RECYCLE! Like, literally, there is no recycling plant in New Orleans. I don’t know how it works in Baton Rouge but out here I don’t think you can recycle anything but paper/cardboard and even that is hard to find. It makes my skin crawl. How did we as a country, as people get so far off track?

The next day I went out into the field for my research. I saw some really beautiful things out there that gave me hope.

Like this Roseate Spoonbill nest!

And this beautiful Forster's Tern egg.

And this sora! A secretive marsh bird I've heard thousands of times (literally just heard one from my room) but never seen before!

And these absolutely adorable Tricolored Heron fluffbabies!

And of course this excellent pelican parenting behavior!

But I also saw this:

Pelican nest made with a plastic tarp and a Slim Jim wrapper.

And this:

 

Forster's Tern nest made on a bottle and some other random plastic junk that washed ashore.

People are the absolute fucking worst, man. And I don’t mean “people who litter” or “people who hate science”…I mean PEOPLE. You and me included. It is functionally just about impossible in this world, especially in this country, to live in a way that doesn’t contribute to the plastic and acidity in our oceans, the gases warming our atmosphere, deforestation, the decline of other species. There may be a few people who manage it but I can’t imagine how. Obviously, there are people who try to limit their impact and people who don’t, or even worse who deny they even have one which is absolute fucking lunacy, but it just doesn’t feel like enough. It never feels like enough. I don’t know if it’s possible that it could be enough at this point.

But that doesn’t mean we stop trying. If we fail, we’re killing ourselves, not the entire planet. It will keep spinning without us and other species will continue to grow and evolve. Maybe a new species will develop technology like we did and be better at it (my money is on Bonobos, personally. Solving problems with sex, not violence, seems like a real good way to start towards decreasing harmful individualism). I find that oddly comforting.

This is a massively depressing Earth Day post. But then, this is a massively depressing day in a massively depressing year in a massively depressing political climate that I hope desperately will not last.

Anyway. Our work continues:

Earth Day Resolutions:

   1. Continue taking reusable bags grocery shopping – I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but also remember to bring them when shopping other places as well (works just as well for clothes, random junk from Target or Home Depot, or whatever).

   2. Rent a house where I can garden and grow as much produce as possible. I can even garden in the winter down here! If possible, also get backyard chickens.

   3. Get over feeling embarrassed and weird about asking for coffee in a reusable cup at Starbucks, etc. Do it anyway.

   4. Continue going to grad school and learning more about our environment and how to protect it.
   5. Take time to really appreciate and be grateful for the beautiful things I get to see every day. Field journal regularly!

   6. Blog more often/practice communication for a non-scientific public.

The Comeback Kid

You want to hear a story of resilience? Brown pelicans (Pelicanus occidenalis) almost went extinct in the US in the '60s and '70s. They disappeared completely from Louisiana ("The Pelican State") in 1963. As with almost all near-extinctions these days, the culprit was humans. Specifically, DDT, the chemical most famous for almost killing off bald eagles.

How do you like me now, humans?

Pelicans have big ol' flappy feet. Witness:

https://www.emaze.com/@ALFQIRFL/brown-pelican

And one of my VERY FAVORITE things about pelicans is that unlike other birds who lay on their eggs with their feathery breasts or even develop a brood patch (bare patch of skin on the chest that keeps the eggs extra toasty warm) pelicans stand on their eggs with their big ol' flappy feet to incubate! Is that not the cutestbest?! Of course, when you stand on your eggs and a pesticide like DDT makes the shells really brittle you can guess what happens.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/broken-egg-royalty-free-image/108514822

Near extinction, is what. Luckily, they were labeled as Endangered in 1970, a regulation banned DDT in 1972, and pelicans from Florida were raised and released all across their former range. They are still a Species of Concern in Louisiana but they were taken off the Federal Endangered Species list in 2009.

In 2003, four pairs were seen nesting on Rabbit Island, a tiny island in Southwestern Louisiana. This was a part of their original range but no one had seen them there for decades. It is a couple hundred miles west of the closest nesting island in Eastern Louisiana, where the majority nest, and a couple hundred miles east of the closest nesting colony in Texas. It's a unique tiny island that is technically in a "lake" mostly cut off from the Gulf, except by a shipping channel. 

Over the next several years more and more birds started to nest there. It became incredibly important in 2010 as the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill gushed toxic oil into the Gulf of Mexico and a huge clean-up began, including saving and cleaning pelicans who had become oiled. 

(I don't want to put a picture of an oiled pelican in here because they are tragic and make me feel sick. Google them if you haven't already seen it)

Rabbit Island became an important release site, mostly because it was known that other pelicans thrived there and it was not affected by the oil in the Gulf. Leg-banded oil spill birds can still be seen on the island during nesting season.

Now there are hundreds, possibly thousands of pelicans nesting on this one tiny island, flying and diving and fishing and raising weird-looking alien babies and being hilariously regal. We saw at least 100 nests yesterday and it is still about a month earlier than they usually start nesting in earnest.

All of this only happened because of dedicated scientists, animal caretakers, the Endangered Species Act, and the EPA. This is one story among hundreds. It happens to be very close to my heart, but so is the fact that forty years ago Sandhill cranes were nearly extirpated in Wisconsin, Whooping cranes were nearly extinct in the wild, and gray wolves are still touch-and-go in many of their home ranges because as soon as they are delisted everyone wants to start hunting them again.

We need regulations. We need the Endangered Species Act. We need the EPA. We need big goofy birds that fly in Squadrons and have a net for a mouth and incubate with their feet.