Too much nature

Earlier this week, a Columbia River salmon fisherman shot a sea lion that had taken a fish off the line of another fisherman. The sea lions (along with the fishermen, for that matter) gather near the base of Bonneville Dam, where fish aggregate to wait for a chance to enter a fish ladder that allows passage over the dam and on to spawning grounds further upriver.

(The photo above shows a fish ladder at the much smaller dam on the Peconic River on Long Island. The Peconic ladder provides a slope that is angled such that fish can ascend, with baffles inside to divert the flow of water to the sides and slow the current in the center, creating a low-flow channel up which fish can swim. The Bonneville ladder has a different structure, being composed of a series of pools and weirs that allow fish to make a short jump and then rest before the next jump. However, in either the case the narrow entrance – relative to the natural width of the river – creates a bottleneck where fish must aggregate and become easy targets for sea lions, birds and fishermen.)

The actions of the fisherman are actually strangely aligned with proposals being developed by Oregon and Washington for “limited selected lethal removal” of sea lions on the Columbia. In both articles linked above, the voice opposing the killing of sea lions comes from the Humane Society, an animal rights organization. There is an important distinction between animal rights activism and environmentalism, a distinction that many people overlook or of which they are simply not aware. Strictly speaking, killing of animals in and of itself is not an environmental concern. Environmentalism, as I see it at least, is about protecting biodiversity, ecological structure and key ecosystem processes. Removing individuals from a plant or animal population can be consistent with environmental goals as long as the population is still able to replenish itself and serve its ecological role (e.g., corals provide habitat, trees secure the soil, herring feed larger predators, wolves remove the old, weak and sick from caribou herds, etc.). A coast-wide population of 300,000 sea lions is probably more than capable of reproduction and serving the functions that sea lions serve in the Pacific coastal ecosystem.

This is not to say that environmentalists cannot also place a priority on animal rights. I know many who wear both hats, and count myself among them to a degree (but I do eat meat, and will probably continue to do so as long as I remain friends with Marno). But it is important to recognize whether an argument is based on animal rights or environmental principles. “Limited selected lethal removal” will probably not compromise the conservation success that has been achieved with sea lions. But many find it to be unacceptable treatment of our pinniped neighbors. The Canadian seal hunt is a similar issue. The current population size and growth rates allow for limited sustainable harvest, but the method is deplorable. Equally deplorable is the live finning of sharks. However, in contrast to seal clubbing or killing of “problem” sea lions on the Columbia, shark finning is problematic for both ethical and environmental reasons. Sharks are long-lived, slow growing apex predators with low reproductive rates, and consequently have been overfished in many places to the detriment of ocean and coastal ecosystems (as addressed recently in high-profile Science paper by the late Dr. Ram Myers.).

The controversy over killing of sea lions on the Columbia, whether by vigilante fishermen or the states, also highlights another modern environmental challenge. The typical cry of the environmental community is that we have too little nature. Rainforest is being cut, slashed and burned, salt marshes are cleared for summer homes, fisheries are depleted, coral reefs are bleaching and dying, and wildlife is driven extinct. And that is all true. But in some cases we seem to have too much nature, and some ecosystems have become drastically out of balance through an overabundance of certain species. The number of sea lions in the Columbia River is probably not an “overabundance” per se, but the sea lion population has become disproportionately large relative to the salmon population. Deer are certainly overpopulated in many northern forests, and are overstripping the forest understory. Some lobster fishermen argue that there are too many striped bass, and they are causing excess mortality of juvenile lobsters. The numbers of cormorants along the Atlantic coast has also generated concerns over their impacts on forage fish populations.

It is tempting to view these problems of excess and imbalance as being the results of highly successful management. To be sure, striped bass numbers have climbed from their frighteningly low numbers of the 1980s due to bold, aggressive and effective management of fishing and habitat (see Dick Russell's fine book for an excellent account of this history). However, any problems that striped bass might now be causing are not the result of successful striper restoration, but rather due to other management failures (e.g., overfishing of southern New England lobsters, damming of rivers and depletion of herring runs) that have placed those species interacting with stripers in a precarious position. In contrast, the overpopulation of deer has almost nothing to do with sound deer management, but rather depletion or outright eradication of natural predators (wolves, catamounts, etc.) that should keep deer in check.

And so it goes with the Columbia River sea lions. Their numbers are strong due to effective conservation. That they might be causing problems today (although predation on 3-4% of the salmon run hardly seems to constitute a severe impact) is not really due to that conservation success. Instead, the real problem is our multiple insults to the salmon population. Dams that block migration, or at least force fish into a highly vulnerable bottleneck at the entrance to a fish ladder, poor water quality and habitat degradation due to poor land-use practices and watershed planning, and overfishing have driven salmon numbers to a level where sea lion predation looks to be a problem. However, as the Humane Society contends (the animal rights group somewhat ironically picking up the environmental argument), blaming the sea lions is really just ignoring our own environmental failings and ducking our responsibilities.

In Memoriam

Another quick post to follow yesterday's (something more substantial is coming in the next few days). The minke that was visiting Brooklyn beached itself and died. The reason is unclear as yet, and I don't want to use this sad turn of events to launch into a sermon on how humanity is destroying the waters and wildlife of the world. Humankind probably had nothing to do with this. Sometimes baby whales just get separated from their mothers, don't know where to go or how to hunt, and don't make it. Nature can be as cruel as she can be magnificent.

But I want to say a quick thank you to the little guy, and wish him peaceful rest. We forget that this heavily urbanized and industrialized harbor around our city was once one of the most ecologically vibrant and productive estuaries on the Atlantic coast. Now, it is mostly a colossus of glass, steel and concrete that, oh yeah, happens to be surrounded by water. Yet, life still thrives in and around those waters. To be sure, the pulse of nature here is not like it once was, but stripers and herring still run, and shorebirds still populate the remaining marshes and beaches. And once in awhile, something like the little minke provides, even if only for a few hours, a particularly poignant and exciting reminder of the ecosystem amidst which we live.

Brooklyn's newest visitor

Since my only two readers (or the only two of whom I'm aware, at least) reside in Brooklyn (Hi Cat! Hi Jason!), I had to post a quick note about a rare cetacean visitor to the JV borough.

Keeping up with the Remengesaus

When it comes to marine conservation, it is not the Joneses we should be chasing, but rather President Tommy Remengesau Jr., leader of the tiny island nation of Palau. President Remengesau called for his nation and the rest of Micronesia to protect 30% of their coastal waters from fishing, and Palau is already reaping the benefits in terms of productive fisheries and vibrant dive sites for tourists. By contrast, less than 1% of coastal waters in the United States have been similarly protected. As a nation built first as a maritime economy and culture, and now the world’s foremost scientific nation and the cradle of modern environmentalism (going back before Teddy Roosevelt and continuing through Al Gore today), it is more than a little embarrassing for the United States to be lagging behind such a small developing nation on this front.

A word of warning here in only my second post: You will not read many kind words from me about President George W. Bush in this space. But my first comment about W will in fact be kind. Last year, the President created the world’s largest marine sanctuary when he designated the Northwest Hawaiian Islands as a national monument. That was a bold, ambitious and laudable action that, coupled with the network of marine protected areas at California’s Channel Islands, represents an important precedent and step toward more strategic, effective, and conservation-minded management of marine species and habitats in the U.S.

I could write pages on the utility and limitations of marine reserves, and the state of both the science and politics associated with their creation. But I won’t do that...yet (although I have actually written a fair bit on the subject, such as this, this and this). For now, I just wanted to acknowledge the small country in the South Pacific for proving to be a world leader in marine conservation. Kudos, Palau!

On your mark...

A river herring run is one of nature’s most egalitarian phenomena. Every spring, two distinct but closely related and nearly indistinguishable species, the alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) and blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis), swim up Atlantic coastal waterways from Newfoundland to Florida to spawn. These relatively small silvery fish migrate hundreds or even thousands of miles from the vast ocean to the coast and on upstream to produce their next generation. Unlike the better known species of salmon that adopt a similar life history but are much more picky about the size and characteristics of the rivers they will use, alewives and bluebacks use spawning grounds ranging from large, majestic rivers to small tidal creeks. Therefore, a herring run is a piscine experience that doesn’t require a journey to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef or even the wilds of Maine to be experienced. River herring runs are incredibly accessible to nature lovers, occurring in backyards, town parks, and even some highly urbanized areas.

River herring are more than fascinating species in their own right and a source of enjoyment for those who eagerly await their annual arrival. They also play a key role in supporting multiple ecosystems, and by extension human economies and societies. River herring are directly harvested in commercial and recreational fisheries, either being used as bait, ground into fishmeal, or eaten by people. In fact, Native Americans used river herring to fertilize fields and increase crop production, and they passed this knowledge on to early colonists. The scale of these fisheries is much less today than it once was. However, alewives and blueback herring continue to play important ecological and economic roles. They are vital to the health of freshwater ecosystems by delivering carbon, nutrients and energy upstream, against river flow, replenishing what is lost as water moves from land, down river and out to sea. More importantly, river herring are a critical prey fish in multiple ecosystems, feeding (among many other predators) tuna, cod and billfish at sea, striped bass, bluefish and harbor seals in estuaries, and ospreys, herons and otters in rivers. If you can think of a coastal predator along the eastern seaboard, chances are that river herring figure into its diet.

These humble fish, superficially simple yet behaviorally and ecologically quite complex, are in trouble. Resilient to a point, river herring have through the years endured a series of anthropogenic insults, including overfishing, bycatch mortality, water pollution, habitat degradation, and, perhaps most significantly, blockage of migratory routes by dams and other barriers. For years, river herring runs hung on across their range despite these impacts. However, we now may be reaching a tipping point as cumulative and synergistic effects seem to be driving pervasive declines in river herring populations across their range. The paper I grew up with, the Hartford Courant, recently reported on the discouraging trends in alewife and blueback runs.

Running On will not be a blog solely about river herring. Rather, this blog will address the full range of interactions between humankind and the natural world. Humans are inevitably integrated within the biosphere, ultimately reliant upon air, water, soil, wildlife, forests, oceans, and the myriad products and ecosystem services they provide. Our attitudes, actions and policies, as individuals, corporations, organizations and governments, have a tremendous role in determining the future state of global ecosystems, and therefore human society as well. So, sometimes, I will highlight and offer thoughts on key developments in environmental policy (like this news from California). Other times, I will discuss ongoing environmental issues that might not be linked to an immediate action or decision but that need to be kept fresh in our minds (like our river herring and their plight).

And some times I will simply discuss nature: its lessons, patterns and quirks, and our own new discoveries about it. Sound stewardship of natural resources requires appreciation of our inescapable co-dependence with the non-human world, as well as understanding of the nature of this co-dependence. Building that appreciation and understanding is well served by enthusiasm and excitement for the world around us. Learning about the unique hypno-attack hunting behavior of Indonesian cuttlefish (see it here in the second clip down the page) will not help manage any natural resource in a more sustainable manner. But the sense of awe it instills can reinforce the complexity and value of nature. We are constantly learning more and more about a world that we both rely upon and often relentlessly exploit, and recognizing the ever-present gaps in our knowledge, highlighted by these sorts of discoveries, might help engender a more cautious, measured and studied approach. This is a critically needed transformation. I can state without exaggeration or hyperbole that environmental degradation is the single greatest threat we face as a nation and a species. The threat of terrorism becomes irrelevant if we cannot eat, drink or breathe.

I chose Running On as a title for several reasons. After nearly a decade as an academic ecologist, first as a graduate student and then as a post-doctoral fellow, my first project as a professional environmentalist has been restoration of river herring runs. In fact, Running On is the title of white paper I wrote in 2005 outlining plans for river herring restoration on Long Island (here, but note that I write here as private citizen and not an employee of the fine organization that keeps me employed!). River herring themselves are emblematic of many environmental issues. Their ecology and conservation spans multiple ecosystems, scales, and types and degrees of human impact. And, they are hanging on (or, running on). They are often responsive to the right conservation action, highlighting the resilience and responsiveness of nature when we give her a chance.