What We Can Learn From Starving Pelicans

What We Can Learn From Starving Pelicans

 

If you don’t live here on the West Coast, you probably haven’t heard about the pelicans. Hundreds of dead, starving and distressed pelicans have shown up on beaches from San Francisco Bay to Peugeot Sound. Here in Humboldt County, the animal rescue group Bird Ally X have now gone into crisis mode for the second time this year with another overwhelming influx of sick and injured pelicans.

Bird Ally X found most of the distressed pelicans around here suffering the same kinds of problems that birds caught in oil spills exhibit; oiled feathers compromising the bird’s natural insulation and waterproofing, leading to hypothermia and death. However, the oil in the birds’ feathers did not come from an oil spill, but from public fish-cleaning stations. A lot of sport fishermen use these cleaning stations to dress their catch before heading home, and the oily fish waste has become irresistible to the starving pelicans.

Pelicans have evolved over millions of years to catch small fish by diving into the water after them. Pelicans do not do very well on a diet of salmon heads, guts and bones, and the fish oil that pervades all of this fish waste, if it gets on their feathers, will do them in in a matter of hours. Please, support Bird Ally X and other groups now working frantically to feed, care for and rehabilitate literally hundreds of sick and injured pelicans, but recognize that starving seabirds is a bigger problem than these groups can solve.

This is not the first time starving seabirds have made headlines in recent years, but mostly, people seem to have gotten used to seeing dead birds scattered all over the beaches. The last time I went to the beach it looked like an avian Auschwitz, littered with dead gulls as far as the eye could see. This ain’t right folks. This is a symptom of something very serious.

In the news reports, they tell us that pelicans were once driven to the brink of extinction by the use of chemical pesticides like DDT, industrial pollution, and habitat loss, but the brown pelican has made a dramatic recovery in recent years and have again become common on the North Coast. They then explain that now that pelican populations have returned, there’s a lot more competition for food, so of course, some of them, mostly juveniles, starve.

That makes sense, right. Starving pelicans is not a tragedy. No, starving pelicans is a success story. These pelicans are only dying because there are too many pelicans, and there are too many pelicans because we’re just so damn good at wildlife conservation these days. Are you buying this?

Sure, pelicans have made a comeback, but consider this: 95% of the wild birds in the US have been wiped out. That includes pelicans. The few seabirds you see at the beach these days represent only a tiny fraction of historic populations. When Eureka was full of redwood trees, at least twenty times as many pelicans, gulls, cormorants, osprey, plovers, muriletts and who knows how many other species that have completely disappeared, made their homes around Humboldt Bay, and up and down the Lost Coast.

 

one of over 4,000 pelicans to die in Peru this year

Today, as the ghastly scene playing out on North Coast beaches reveals, our coastal ecosystem no longer supports enough life to maintain even these diminished bird populations. Far from a success story, this tragedy reveals how badly we’ve failed at wildlife conservation, and how little we know about the marine ecosystem.

I see people at the beach, doing their best to ignore the horror show going on around them. It’s bad folks. It should bum you out. Beaches should be strewn with sea shells, not bird skeletons. Don’t try to blow it off with the speculation that this is some cyclical thing that just happens from time to time, like they did with global warming. This is what we have done to planet Earth. Face it.

Look into the eyes of those starving birds, surrounded by their dead kin. Feel their anguish, their desperation, and their courage, as their world falls apart around them. Learn what you can from them, because its going to happen to us too.

 

Jared Huffman’s Wife Earns the Candidate a Second Look

Jared Huffman’s Wife Earns the Candidate a Second Look

 

Folks who frequent this blog know that I was nonplussed by the sponge that 2^nd CA District Congressional Candidate Jared Huffman sent me a couple of weeks ago. This week Huffman’s campaign sent out a new mailer that caused me to give him a second look, or at least give his wife a second look.

Holy cow! Jared Huffman has got a HOT wife! She’s got classic blonde California granola-crunching-hippie-chick good looks in faded blue jeans. He’s in there too, and there’s a couple of brats thrown in, but wow, she looks great!

This full page photo was clearly intended as the main focus of this mailer. With the big question mark on the cover, that photo taking all of page 2, a few bland platitudes on page three, and a few endorsements on page 4, clearly Huffman’s campaign thinks that the hot blonde hippie -chick, and the two adorable kids have the power to win votes, more than, say a one page written statement of vision on the issues of the day.

Don’t forget, these are the same people who thought that sending me a sponge was a good idea, but in this case, I think they are right on the money. This mailer definitely improved my opinion of Jared Hoffman. I’m not exactly sure why, and I’m not exactly ready to vote for him, but if he sent me a few more pictures of his wife, without him and the kids in the way, maybe at the beach, in her bikini, I might be persuaded to pull my lever in the voting booth for her.

 

It’s Election Day, Don’t Forget to Vote

It’s Election Day!

Don’t forget to Vote

Voting, generally a futile exercise, will be exceptionally meaningless this Election Day because we have nothing to vote on. We have no bond measures, all of the school board positions were unopposed, no referendums, no ballot initiatives, no candidates of any kind. We’ll have no secret ballots, no poll workers to chat with, no “I Voted” stickers, no running into neighbors you haven’t seen all year, no waiting up for late to hear the election results.

 

On the other hand, my recycling bin isn’t full of glossy campaign literature. The landscape hasn’t been overrun with political signage, and I haven’t heard a single attack ad. Maybe an Election Day without an election isn’t so bad after all.

 

Still, I need the exercise. So, I thought I might make up my own ballot and vote on some issues that really matter to me. Since I usually vote “absentee” anyway, I just dropped my ballot in the mailbox addressed to the Humboldt County Board of Elections care of Humboldt County Clerk and Registrar of Voters, Caroline Crnich.

 

First, a few Humboldt County issues:

 

Vote YES….I strongly favor a resolution, instructing that funds from the the County General Fund be budgeted immediately to purchase a much needed vowel. The county shall then instruct the County Clerk to insert the newly purchased vowel into her last name in a way that renders her last name, “Crnich”, pronounceable, by a 2/3 super-majority of Humboldt County voters.

 

Vote NO….On a new county ordinance prohibiting the siting of a school, park or playground within 1000 yards of a marijuana dispensary, or commercial growing operation. Children caught playing, loitering or learning within these boundaries, face harsh new penalties including a fine of no less than $500 and will be remanded to the custody of Humboldt County Child Protective Services. I encourage everyone to vote no on this. I know kids can be a real pain in the ass, and I sure don’t want them around my place, but this approach is not the answer.

 

Vote YES…On the bond measure to establish, and fund, from a one dollar per plant tax on commercial marijuana growers, a council of five individuals, elected by the people of Humboldt County to serve as Humboldt County’s official Council of Cool People. The Council of Cool People will be entrusted with authority to approve or reject names of new local marijuana strains. It is hoped that through the formation of this council, the county can save us the embarrassment of having our number-one economic export bear trade-names like “Green Crack” or “Sour Pussy”.

 

Now on to the California State ballot measures:

 

Vote YES… On a state initiative to address California’s debt crisis by renaming the state Calvin Foreman, and moving it to Mexico.

 

Vote NO…On a referendum to accept or reject an offer from McDonalds Corporation to rename The Golden Gate Bridge for a fee of $375 million dollars, and the ongoing cost of the upkeep of the bridge. McDonalds proposes changing the name of The Golden Gate Bridge to, you guessed it, The Golden Arches.

 

Vote YES…On an initiative to legalize ALL medical and recreational drugs. If this initiative passes, all commercially available drugs will be available for legal sale to any adult over the age of 21. This will include pharmaceuticals, herbal supplements, plant medicines and mushrooms, as well as new designer drugs with no known medical uses. If this law passes you will be able to purchase any drug, from Angel Dust to Zoloft, with or without a doctors recommendation, legally, so long as you can show a photo ID that proves you are of age.

 

The initiative includes a “Mandatory Minimum” for marijuana. That is, a minimum amount of marijuana that you must carry at all times. If you get pulled over for speeding, say, and you don’t have any marijuana in the car, not only will the cop give you a ticket, he will also give you some pot as well. Face it, if you were speeding, and you just got hassled by the cops, you probably really need to smoke a joint.

 

Also, a lot of really boring people like to talk a lot. They should be obligated to smoke you out if you are going to have to listen to them. If this initiative passes, they will be forced to carry some weed with them, and if they don’t have any, you can call the cops on them.

 

I wholeheartedly endorse this initiative. I cannot tell you how long I’ve dreamed of having the opportunity to buy dangerous, addictive drugs in a safe, legal environment, brightly lit, with perky sales clerks and weekly specials.

Am I the only middle-aged guy who still likes to drop acid once in a while, or occasionally feels nostalgic for the drugs of my youth, like Quaaludes and PCP, but has no idea where to find these things anymore. I want to see signs on Main St. that say “Drug Emporium” or “Phil’s Pharmacy of Fun”. This initiative can make it happen. So please vote YES on this measure.

 

I encourage everyone to get out and vote this Election Day. I think the low turnout just might be a blessing. Maybe we can pass some bold new legislation this time, and democracy will work, for a change.