Reflections on Cape Charles and the Eastern Shore
CAT HAS BEEN FOUND.
BRING FRANK HOME…
A much loved Siamese cat slipped out of his walking harness last night and ran off into the woods behind a house on Courthouse Road in Eastville. He is an inside cat and will be scared and timid… if you see him please call 678 7202 or 695 2194. Reward offered for his safe return.
Frank is missing in the area of Courthouse Road in Eastville.
The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos is a project of Machipongo’s United Poultry Concerns. Formed in New York City in June 2010, the Alliance is an association of groups and individuals who seek to replace the use of chickens in Kaporos ceremonies with money or other non-animal symbols of atonement. The Alliance does not oppose Kaporos per se, only the cruel and unnecessary use of chickens in the ceremony.
NEW YORK, September 14, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – On September 17, 2018, hundreds of activists from the Northeast and Canada will stage a Mass Vigil where brutal slaughter is performed in residential streets as part of an “atonement” ritual known as Kaporos. Under Section 356 of the Agriculture and Markets law, individuals may intervene if an animal is deprived of food and water for 12 hours or more while confined. During this Vigil, activists will exercise their right to provide water and food to thousands of suffering 6-weeks-old chickens. 60,000 chickens are crammed for days in plastic crates prior to the Kaporos ritual, which includes merciless swinging by their delicate wings. Such handling causes broken bones and torn ligaments as they scream in pain.
The ritual culminates in throat cutting at illegally rigged-up slaughter stations, where children stuff the wounded birds into filthy traffic cones to bleed to death slowly in pain and terror. 15+ laws are broken, more than half of which are health codes, posing a significant public health risk (see the toxicology report), yet the NYPD aids this ritual thanks to Mayor de Blasio’s craven desire to curry favor with this powerful voting bloc of the Orthodox Jewish Community. His administration has come under fire lately for failing to enforce laws mandating a secular education for the children of these very same communities that are breaking the law with impunity.
WHO: The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, Jewish Veg, and The Save Movement – including Anita Krajnc, whose infamous arrest for providing water to a thirsty pig en route to slaughter was covered by news outlets internationally during the so-called “Pig Trial.”
WHEN: September 17th, Monday, 6:30pm
WHERE: Kingston and Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn
WHY: Activists are holding this Mass Vigil and providing care to these mistreated birds as an act of civic duty and compassion for the birds who have been crated for days in the streets without food or water, and to expose Mayor de Blasio’s deference to politics over the public interest.
VIRGINIA BEACH — The Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center and its Stranding Response Team releasedd five rehabilitated turtles back into the Atlantic Ocean.
Four of the five (Wisteria, Honeysuckle, Captain, and Poppy) were Kemp’s ridley sea turtles and all four were inadvertently hooked by fishermen.
Also released was Drake, a Loggerhead who was found “cold-stunned” in the Chesapeake Bay on New Year’s Day.
The Mysterious Kemp’s ridley
The Kemp’s ridley is the most endangered of all sea turtle species. Efforts to save this turtle began in the 1960s and have continued to today. Since those efforts began, much has been learned about the Kemp’s ridley. Many more questions remain unanswered.
The Kemp’s ridley has always been a mystery. Sailors, explorers, and fishermen had seen other kinds of sea turtles coming up to nest on beaches in various places around the world but it seemed no one had seen a Kemp’s ridley nest. Some thought it might not even be a species. They suggested it was a hybrid, an infertile offspring of two other species. But when fishermen caught some Kemp’s ridley sea turtles with eggs inside them, the riddle deepened. If these turtles were a separate species, where did they nest?
In 1951, the first published record of a Kemp’s ridley nesting anywhere in the world was submitted by J.E. Werler. The turtle was seen nesting in 1948 on what would later be designated as Padre Island National Seashore.
But there were thousands of Kemp’s ridley turtles out in the Gulf of Mexico at that time. Where did the majority of them nest? Finally, in the early 1960s, Dr. Henry Hidebrand from Corpus Christi, Texas, came upon some home video footage that would solve the mystery and launch an international campaign to save a species.
Architect Andreas Herrera traveled between the U.S. and Mexico regularly in the 1940s. He had his own small plane and usually flew along the coast. He had heard rumors that hundreds of turtles sometimes crawled up onto one of the beaches he flew over. He was interested in seeing these turtles, and started taking a video camera with him on his trips in case he ever saw them.
One summer day in 1947, he looked down as he flew over an area in Mexico called Rancho Nuevo and saw a beach covered with turtles. Excited, he found a place to land his small plane, got his video camera, and captured the turtles on film.
That video footage wasn’t discovered by the scientific community until the early 1960s, when Dr. Hildebrand saw it. Scientists were amazed – nothing like it had ever been seen. Thousands of sea turtles were on the beach, digging holes and laying eggs. There were so many turtles, some even dug up the eggs of others as they laid their own. The scientists estimated that 40,000 female Kemp’s ridley sea turtles had come ashore to nest on that one day on the 16-mile stretch of beach at Rancho Nuevo (Hildebrand 1963).
Finally, the mystery was solved and the nesting grounds of the Kemp’s ridley became known to the scientific world. But with the good news came the bad: this species was and still is in serious trouble.
The 1947 film footage taken by Andreas Herrera showed the incredible mass nesting of tens of thousands of Kemp’s ridley sea turtles on the beach at Rancho Nuevo in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Unfortunately, it also showed mass destruction. Scientists reviewing the footage in the 1960s saw people taking the turtles’ eggs as they were laid and loading them by the millions into trucks. Some of the nesting females were also taken. The scientists estimated that 90% of the turtle nests were destroyed the same day they were laid.
If 90% of the nests laid were being destroyed, how long could the species survive? How long had this wholesale destruction been going on? Conservationists and scientists traveled to Rancho Nuevo and found the turtles were still nesting each year but had already declined dramatically since the film was taken years earlier. They appealed to the Mexican government to stop the wholesale destruction that was still taking place.
In 1966, the Mexican government took action. They passed legislation protecting the beach at Rancho Nuevo and brought in guards to stop the taking of eggs and turtles. Despite these protection efforts, the number of Kemp’s ridley nests found each year continued to drop. By 1985, only 702 nests were found worldwide the entire year.
In 2011, several thousand Kemp’s ridley sea turtles came ashore to nest in one day at Rancho Nuevo in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Such mass nesting events, called arribadas, happen several times each summer.
Photo from National Marine Fisheries Service, taken by Toni Torres of the Gladys Porter Zoo
In the 1970s, the U.S. joined efforts to save this species. At the time, almost all known nesting of Kemp’s ridley sea turtles was occurring at Rancho Nuevo. Nearly all Kemp’s ridley eggs were literally in one basket! What if a hurricane, oil spill, or other disaster wiped out that beach? The species was very vulnerable. The situation was dire.
In 1974, the National Park Service proposed re-establishing a nesting colony at Padre Island National Seashore (PINS). The seashore is part of the native nesting range of the Kemp’s ridley and offers long-term protection for the turtle, its nests, and its nesting habitat. Boosting nesting at PINS would help to re-establish a nesting colony at the northern end of the Kemp’s ridley historic nesting range at a protected area in the U.S. where nesting had previously occurred. It would also provide safeguards against species extinction.
In 1978, agency officials from Mexico and the U.S. and conservationists agreed to attempt to re-establish a secondary nesting colony at PINS to help save the species. They formed an international, multi-agency partnership and established the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle Restoration and Enhancement Program (KRREP). The National Park Service led development of an action plan for the KRREP. The goals of th eplan were to re-establish a Kemp’s ridley nesting colony at PINS and to protect nesting turtles, eggs, and hatchlings at Rancho Nuevo (Caillouet et al. 2015, Shaver and Caillouet 2015).
This project was based on the theory that sea turtles imprint to their natal beach and that, as a result of this imprinting, adult females return to the beach where they hatched to lay their eggs. This theory was unproven at the time, and no project of this magnitude had been attempted before. But the Kemp’s ridley was on the verge of extinction, and bold actions were needed to save the species.
Conservation efforts to save and recover the Kemp’s ridley have continued and expanded over the years since the Imprinting and Headstarting Project ended in 1988. In Texas, organized patrols to find and protect Kemp’s ridley and other sea turtle nests are now conducted not only at PINS but also in many other areas along the Texas coast. Through these programs, conducted by the National Seashore and many partners, Texas beaches are monitored each summer and any nesting sea turtles or nests found are protected. In Mexico, nest detection and protection programs that began at Rancho Nuevo have also increased and expanded to include most of the species nesting range in Mexico.
Beef is the largest food based culprit when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.
To counteract the effects of cattle farming, California startups are increasingly targeting carnivores with plant burgers so beef-like they bleed–and new research is breaking down food’s impact on climate change, and potential solutions are emerging to cut down on a potent greenhouse gas that cows emit.
The Impossible Burger
Beef, responsible for roughly 6% of greenhouse gas emissions, is the single biggest food factor when it comes to climate change, according to a 2013 United Nations report.Cows emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas, when they burp and pass gas. This accounts for nearly half of beef’s greenhouse gas emissions. This includes cattle manure that emits a greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide, how cattle graze on pastures and deforestation, particularly in Brazil.
Global beef demand is projected to nearly double by 2050, fueled by booming populations in China and India, according to the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank.
Given that anticipated growth, two avenues are emerging to limit associated rise in greenhouse gas emissions: Make real beef more environmentally friendly, or convince people to eat something else.
On the “something else” side, the hottest trend today is beef-like burgers from plant material. One kind, called the Impossible Burger, is targeting carnivore eaters. It looks, tastes and feels like a real burger. It even bleeds and sizzles like one. It has its share of controversies, though, including how its main plant-derived ingredient is genetically modified and that its nutritional content is comparable to real beef, canceling out any health benefits.
On the real beef side, Elm Innovations, a nonprofit founded in 2016, is working with researchers at University of California, Davis, to feed cattle a supplement of particular kind of seaweed.
“The seaweed very dramatically reduces cow-burped methane to the tune of 50% or greater, which is extremely large,” said the group’s founder, Joan King Salwen, whose family had a cattle and sheep ranch.
The beef industry itself and companies that sell it, like McDonald’s, are increasingly realizing the importance of addressing the issue.
Earlier this year McDonald’s announced its first-ever target cutting its greenhouse gas emissions, with beef as its largest challenge. “The biggest focus for us is how do we feed those animals using less land,” said Robert Gibbs, an executive vice president with the fast food chain.
McDonald’s works with companies that own live herds through the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, whose members include the National Cattleman’s Beef Association.
“We recognize that we of course have a significant carbon footprint so we want to work to improve that,” said Ashley McDonald, the industry group’s senior director of sustainability.
What could be next: The World Resources Institute is working toward reducing the projected global growth in beef demand over the next 30 years. The U.S. cattle industry has among the most sustainable practices in the world, so the group suggests exporting more American beef and reducing production elsewhere.
“If we were to cut back on U.S. beef consumption by half, that doesn’t mean put half of U.S. beef producers out of business,” said Rich Waite, an associate at the World Resources Institute’s food program. “It could just mean expanding exports to countries where beef consumption is going to be doubling.”
The effort to better track movement of dolphins through the bay and its tributaries began last June, and since then, over 900 sightings have been reported.
“We were only expecting maybe 25 to 30 [dolphin sightings] a year,” said Helen Bailey, a research professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “We had over 900 reported last year, and we were able to verify nearly 450 of those.”
To report a dolphin sighting, go to the Dolphin Watch website.
Scientists say dolphins used to visit the bay more frequently. Published reports of sightings date back into the 1800s. But as pollution degraded the Chesapeake’s water quality through the 20th century, they became more rare.
Researchers are exploring whether more dolphins are swimming up the bay, possibly invited by clearer waters, abundant submerged grasses and rebounding fisheries. Through a website they set up to collect sighting reports — and a smartphone app that will launch soon — the researchers are learning that the beloved creatures venture miles upstream in rivers such as the York and Potomac, and as far north as Annapolis and the Bay Bridge.
“It’s very likely they’re following fish into the bay. Hopefully, that’s a good sign,” Bailey said. “It doesn’t look like it’s just amusement from the coast into the bay.”
David Malmquist, VIMS – A northern snakehead—the non-native fish whose 2004 appearance along the Potomac River watershed unleashed a wave of public concern—has for the first time been found within the James River drainage in Virginia. The James is Virginia’s largest Chesapeake Bay tributary.
The fish was collected on April 27 from Lakeview Reservoir near Petersburg by biologists with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. It has now been deposited in the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Nunnally Ichthyology Collection, where it joins two other snakehead specimens.
“We now have three wild-caught specimens of Channa argus in the collection,” says Curatorial Associate Dr. Sarah Huber, “the one we just got from the James River drainage, one from the Potomac River drainage where the fish made its first Virginia appearance, and another from Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Little Wicomico River.”
The species is now established throughout the lower Potomac River watershed, and has been observed in the lower reaches of several other Maryland rivers as well as the lower stretches of the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers.
VIMS Associate Professor Eric Hilton, Curator of Fishes for the Nunnally Ichthyology Collection, says it’s likely that snakeheads could spread within the James River watershed once introduced. “Lakeview Reservoir is on Swift Creek, a tributary of the Appomattox. It can easily spread from there to at least the freshwater portions of the James River itself,” says Hilton.
A northern snakehead (Channa argus) from the Nunnally Ichthyology Collection at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. (Sarah Huber/VIMS)
A broader expansion is less probable, but not impossible. “Snakeheads are restricted to some degree by not being able to live in full strength sea water — or even the mainstem of the Bay,” says Hilton. “But it’s possible they can get from the mouth of one tributary to another along the Bay shoreline.” [Read more…]
NOAA Fisheries has released the 2017 Report to Congress on the Status of U.S. Fisheries managed under the science-based framework established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA).
At the end of 2017, the overfishing list included 30 stocks and the overfished list included 35 stocks. Overfishing remains near all-time lows and we reached a new milestone with the number of overfished stocks at the lowest level ever—just 15 percent of assessed stocks. The number of stocks rebuilt since 2000 increased to 44. NOAA Fisheries tracks 474 stocks or stock complexes in 46 fishery management plans. Each year, assessments of various fish stocks and stock complexes are conducted to determine their status. These assessments include stocks of both known status and previously unknown status. Based on assessments conducted by the end of 2017, six stocks were removed from the overfishing list and six were added. The additions are the result of stock assessments or data showing catch was too high, including international harvest on certain stocks that the United States has limited ability to control. Six stocks were removed from the overfished list and three were added based on stock assessments that indicated population sizes were too low. As required by the MSA management framework, the councils are developing management measures to end overfishing and rebuild all stocks added to the overfishing and overfished lists.
Specific changes to the status of stocks in 2017 include:
Benefits of Sustainable Fisheries Management
Sustainable fisheries management is an adaptive process that relies on sound science, innovative management approaches, effective enforcement, meaningful partnerships, and robust public participation. Sustainable fisheries play an important role in the nation’s economy by providing opportunities for commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishing, marine aquaculture, and sustainable seafood for the nation. Combined, U.S. commercial and recreational saltwater fishing generated more than $208 billion in sales and supported 1.6 million jobs in 2015. By ending overfishing and rebuilding stocks, we are strengthening the value of U.S. fisheries to the economy, our communities, and marine ecosystems.
Small Ruminant Health at Crooked Fence Farm Saturday, May 19, 9 am – 12pm
Gain hands-on experience trimming sheep hooves and caring for small ruminants during this intro to farm-based veterinary medicine with experienced livestock farmers at Crooked Fence Farm.
Image courtesy morningclips.com
Join Crooked Fence Farm for an intensive introduction to small ruminant biology and healthcare. Learn about basic ruminant biology, general flock upkeep, veterinary options, and get hands-on experience trimming the sheep flock’s hooves. Located in Reisterstown, MD, Crooked Fence Farm is a diversified farm operation growing “field-to-belly” food. Farmers Sarah and Billy McCarthy raise vegetables, flowers, pork, and sheep, and sell their products through a CSA and at farmers markets in the region. The field day will conclude with a potluck!
$20 FHCASA Member / $40 Non-Members
Crooked Fence Farm, 2050 Geist Road, Reisterstown, MD 21136
Questions? Please contact Caroline Selle at caroline@futureharvestcasa.org
The Chesapeake Bay is the Atlantic Ocean’s largest nursery for young menhaden—the fish that feeds much of the East Coast’s marine food web and is the target of intense commercial fishing here. In 2006, when managers first set a bay catch cap—or limit on menhaden fishing—they recognized that taking too many could harm predators and mean that not enough young menhaden would survive to create the next generation of fish.
Last November, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, an interstate body that manages commercial fishing, voted 14-2 to set a catch cap in the Chesapeake Bay at 112 million pounds, close to the average catch in the Bay over the last several years. Thousands of citizens supported this decision to conserve the bay, which continued the commission’s tradition of stewarding fisheries based on sound science and consultation with a range of stakeholders.
But in the following months Virginia, which catches nearly 80 percent of all menhaden landed along the East Coast, failed to adopt the cap, despite a commission requirement that its members do so. Virginia also appealed to the fisheries commission to raise the cap significantly—by an amount roughly equal to 120 million fish—arguing that the menhaden population is healthy and that a big increase in the bay catch would not negatively affect the overall population.
However, the scientific data clearly show that menhaden in the bay need protection. Here are five reasons the commission should hold the line on the bay catch cap:
1. The Chesapeake Bay is Atlantic menhaden’s most important nursery.
Every year, currents carry millions of menhaden larvae from the ocean into the bay. The calm, protected waters offer young fish their best chance to feast on their primary food source, plankton, and juveniles that survive their first year return to the open ocean. Historically, around 7 out of 10 menhaden swimming in the Atlantic spent their first year in Chesapeake Bay, but recent science suggests that number has declined. As this sensitive estuary recovers from decades of pollution and overfishing, no scientific evidence supports the claim that the Chesapeake Bay, or the coastwide population of menhaden, could sustain an increase of catch.
2. Menhaden’s predators and coastal communities will suffer if the bay catch increases.
Menhaden are critical prey for many fish and birds, including striped bass, which are the flagship species of the commission and the target of one-third of East Coast recreational fishing trips, generating more than $6 billion in annual economic value. The bay is also the primary East Coast nursery for striped bass, and juvenile striped bass prefer to eat young menhaden, which provide greater nutrition than other species such as bay anchovy. But analyses of stripers’ stomachs have found poorer quality prey such as crabs and worms, suggesting the bass are not finding enough menhaden. The striped bass population is also at the low end of the level managers are trying to maintain. Other menhaden predators, including bluefish and weakfish, are also struggling. Predators that are growing in numbers, including ospreys, loons, and eagles, will increasingly need more menhaden to support them—especially those, like Chesapeake Bay osprey, that rely almost exclusively on menhaden. Managers are not yet explicitly accounting for predators’ needs, and there is no evidence that they can recover or sustain themselves if the catch of menhaden is increased in the bay.
3. Commercial vessels concentrate around the bay and catch many juveniles.
The largest fishery by volume in the U.S. Atlantic is the “reduction” menhaden fishery, which renders menhaden into fish meal for aquaculture, fish oil for nutritional supplements, and other commodities such as pet food. More than half of the entire coastwide catch is taken in and around the Chesapeake Bay, and data show that young menhaden make up a concerning portion of that: between 2006 and 2016, 1-year-old menhaden comprised an average of 31 percent—and in some years above 40 percent—by weight of the total commercial landings. Removing too many young fish is risky for the population, because it means there will be fewer fish that reach adulthood to produce the next class of fish.
4. Menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay are not enjoying the comeback seen to the north.
While evidence suggests that juvenile menhaden are on the rebound in the waters off New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, young menhaden in the bay have been at near-historic lows for over 20 years, according to annual surveys by Virginia and Maryland. This raises concerns that the bay is suffering from “localized depletion,” a term used when a population in a particular place is too low to sustain itself or predators, or both. One sign of that is a marked decrease in how many fish are caught given the same amount of effort—known as catch per unit effort—and that metric has declined notably in the Chesapeake Bay.
5. The bay cap prevents further harm while menhaden and their predators are struggling in the bay.
Scientific studies have demonstrated that all the conditions that could cause the bay menhaden population to decline currently exist. In addition, scientists could not prove that the bay was not enduring localized impacts of heavy fishing. In response to these warning signs, scientists recommended managers take a precautionary approach and integrate ecosystem considerations into menhaden policy. The commission’s November decision to reduce the bay cap from 192 million pounds to 112 million pounds—a number based on the average of several recent years of catch—was a response to that advice. Until scientists can confidently recommend an ecologically sustainable limit for the bay, the reduced catch cap is necessary.
Successful menhaden management requires that each state play by the rules. Rather than reversing a 14-2 decision that is widely supported by the public, the commission must hold the line on the Bay cap to protect menhaden and its predators. Atlantic managers must not compromise their core mission of conserving fisheries, nor their legacy of integrity, cooperation, and public confidence. Protecting the East Coast’s largest menhaden nursery will help the species recover in the Chesapeake Bay and return to abundance in its full historic U.S. range, from Florida to Maine. Only then should the commission consider increasing fishing of this vital species in its primary nursery.
Joseph Gordon is the senior manager for mid-Atlantic ocean conservation at The Pew Charitable Trusts.
United Poultry Concerns Urges Positive Action for Chickens in May
Machipongo, VA, USA – On May 4, animal advocates celebrated International Respect for Chickens Day. Launched by United Poultry Concerns in 2005, International Respect for Chickens Day celebrates chickens throughout the world and protests their suffering and abuse in cockfighting, agribusiness, experimental research, and other cruelties.
“We urge everyone to do a compassionate ACTION for chickens, on or around May 4th,” says Karen Davis, president of United Poultry Concerns which promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of chickens and other domestic fowl.
“A library display, a vegan open house, an informative blog post, or simply talking to family and friends about the plight – and delight – of chickens are great ways to stick up for chickens,” Davis says.
To honor International Respect for Chickens Day, activists are organizing creative actions across the U.S. and the world including an International Respect for Chickens Day at Good Earth Natural Foods in Fairfax, CA andInternational Respect for Chickens Day at the White House in Washington DC on Saturday, May 5th. In May, we are advertising for chickens on Philadelphia’s commuter rail line into New Jersey featuring a mother hen protecting a rescued chick under her wing proclaiming “What Wings Are For.”
Chicago activists will celebrate International Respect for Chickens Day with a Rally to End Slaughter at a Chicago live poultry market in a “hipster” neighborhood, and in Minneapolis a special event will Celebrate International Respect for Chickens Day at Chicken Run Rescue with award-winning independent documentary filmmaker Sam Sprynczynatyk and Producer Medora Frei, who will show clips and give a brief presentation about their upcoming film, Kindred Creatures, featuring several Minnesota/Wisconsin sanctuaries including Chicken Run Rescue.
“Happy chickens are cheerful birds,” says Karen Davis, who maintains a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. “Chickens love the earth and sun, yet millions are sitting in filthy dark buildings on crippled legs breathing polluted air, as documented in my book Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs. My article ‘The Social Life of Chickens’shows who chickens truly are – vibrant, personable, earth-loving, friendly birds.”
United Poultry Concerns urges people to celebrate chickens on the planet instead of the plate. For information, visit United Poultry Concerns at http://www.upc-online.org.