Subject: [Tweeters] Tern of Events in B'ham
Date: Jan 31 21:43:12 2011
From: David Barber - dbarber71 at comcast.net
I am curious about the rest of the story. The article said that it
doesn't want the terns "where it plans environmental cleanup work." On
the face of it, that does not seem to be necessarily unreasonable,
particularly if the port cannot do the cleanup work if the terns are
there. I'm not making any judgments here, just asking a question. What
is the rest of the story.
Down here on the Columbia, we have had a couple of interesting dilemmas
concerning salmon. One is the sea lions who kill and eat (perhaps they
only eat some of what they kill and just enjoy killing the others)
salmon on their spawning runs up the river. The sea lions hang out in
front of the fish ladder at Bonneville. And directly related to terns,
terns congregate at the mouth of the river where they eat tremendous
numbers of juvenile salmon as they head to the ocean.
The relationship here, based on my limited knowledge of what is actually
the full story in Bellingham, is that all of these stories involve
wildlife doing what they do naturally, but what they are doing
'naturally' today is partly based on what humans have created.
A judge recently ruled that killing the sea lions is not an acceptable
solution to the seals taking advantage of the human dams that have
created a marvelous feeding site. At the mouth of the Columbia, I
believe it was the Corps of Engineers that has created new sand islands
for the terns that congregate there to entice them to move from the ones
the Corps created. In Bellingham, perhaps the Port needs time to clean
up the mess that was left by Georgia Pacific when they left town.
Again, I don't know, but I am pretty sure we need more information
before making any judgments on this story.
David Barber
Vancouver, WA
On 1/31/2011 8:45 PM, Mechejmch wrote:
> I attended two meetings at Port HQ and thought I might encourage the
> Port to embrace the terns as a gold mine/discovered resource, one that
> would bring lots of birders into town, who would spend money, of course.
> I asked that they consider setting aside even a small corner for the
> terns, given that the property won't be developed for many years.
> There's even an old pier that would be perfect....for the terns. And
> how phenomenal is it to have a large nesting colony of spectacular
> birds just two blocks from downtown?
> They wanted _no part of any idea_ about welcoming the terns for
> another year. They do not want a single egg laid on the property, even
> though _they_ created an ideal nesting ground when they razed the old
> pulp mill buildings.
> The plan involves erecting concentric circles of silt fencing around
> the entire nesting area of last year (it was huge!) to reduce the
> 360-degree visibility that a colony requires to keep all eyes out for
> land predators. It also involves thin, two-color mylar strips that
> move in the slightest breeze, and coyote silhouettes and Bald Eagle kites.
> It breaks my heart to consider that those magnificent birds will, more
> than likely, move on if the port has its way.
> I could go on.....
> Joe Meche
> Bellingham
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: travel girl <travelgirl.fics at gmail.com>
> To: Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
> Sent: Mon, Jan 31, 2011 8:26 pm
> Subject: [Tweeters] Tern of Events in B'ham
>
> http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_bellingham_terns.html?source=pimail
> seems the city would prefer the terns remove the city from their
> address book...
>
> 00 caren
> http://www.ParkGallery.org <http://www.parkgallery.org/>
> george davis creek, north fork
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