63505715 Wreck of an unknown three-mastedschooner. To many people, the Outer Banks are synonymous with shipwrecks.
Indeed, one would have trouble finding a more representative or fascinating aspect of local history. Just as the sea has always been an integral part of life on these barrier islands, so too have been its many victims. A countless number of ill-fated vessels as well as many of the courageous seafarers who manned them have succumbed to the local “perils of the sea. “The Tiger, an English ship of Sir Richard Grenville’s expedition, was the first unfortunate vessel, wrecking here in June, 1585.
The latest may be as recent as this morning’s newspaper. Why have so many ships been lost, after the lethal dangers of the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” became widely known? Unfortunately, avoiding these navigational hazards is much more difficult than recognizing them. In days gone by, it was the wooden sailing ship carrying goods and passengers that kept the nation’s commerce afloat. To follow coastal trade routes, thousands of these vessels had to round not only North Carolina’s barrier islands, which lie 30 miles off the mainland, but also the infamous Diamond Shoals, a treacherous, always-shifting series of shallow, underwater sandbars extending eight miles out from Cape Hatteras. While many believe that navigating Diamond Shoals is the only challenge, there are several other complicating factors.
6350642090First, there are two strong ocean currents that collide near Cape Hatteras. Flowing like massive rivers in the sea, the cold-water Labrador Current from the north and the warm Gulf Stream from the south converge just offshore from the cape. To take advantage of these currents, vessels must draw close to the Outer Banks. The remains of the Laura Barnes (wrecked 1921) on Coquina Beach, now mostly covered by the shifting sands.
NPS Ordinarily, following this course would not lead to trouble but the storms common to the region can make it a dangerous practice. Devastating hurricanes and dreaded nor’easters overwhelm ships with raging winds and heavy seas or drive them ashore to be battered apart by the pounding surf. Since the flat islands provide no natural landmarks, ships caught in storms often ran aground before spotting land and realizing their predicament. Combined, these natural elements form a navigational nightmare that is feared as much as any in the world. Pirates, the American Civil War, and German U-boat assaults have added to the heavy toll naturehasexacted. The grim total of vessels lost near Cape Hatteras is estimated at over 1,000.
While hundreds of these “dead” ships now reside in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, their legacy lives on in many ways. Mariners stranded on the islands often chose to remain, establishing families and a heritage which continues to this day. Many island residents made a substantial part of their living salvaging cargoes and dozens of local buildings were built entirely or in part from shipwreck timbers. Due to the frequent storms and many other navigational hazards resulting in great loss of vessels, the U. S. Lighthouse Service, U.
S. Lifesaving Service (1874-1915), and U. S. Coast Guard (since 1915) have kept a steady watch for almost 200 years.
635055245Map of the most commonly seen shipwrecks on the seashore. NPS Remains of Shipwrecks That Are Sometimes VisibleThough the vast majority of area wrecks have broken up and are lost to the sea forever, divers have access to a variety of sunken vessels offshore. Many shipwrecks also lie buried beneath the beach and can be uncovered by storms. After a brief period, they are again concealed when beach sands rebuild.
At one time, a large number of shipwrecks were visible and recognizable along the seashore. Today, due to time, storms, salvaging, and vandalism, this is no longer the case. Parts of the following wrecks may still sometimes be seen. Please remember not to disturb or remove any shipwreck remains.
Laura Barnes TheLaura Barnesis representative of the many wooden sailing ships that were lost on the Outer Banks. The four-mastedschooner came ashore in dense fog on the night of June 1, 1921. The crew was rescued by Coast Guardsmen from nearbyBodieIsland Station. Her remains have since been relocated a mile south of their original location to Coquina Beach (across from theBodieIsland Lighthouse) for public viewing. Lois Joyce One of the Outer Banks’ most recent shipwrecks, theLois Joycewas a 100-foot commercial fishing trawler lost in 1981 while attempting to enter Oregon Inlet during a December storm.
Though the crew was rescued by Coast Guard helicopter, the $1,000,000 vessel was a total loss. The wreck is located on the northern, ocean-side hook at the mouth of Oregon Inlet and is best viewed at low tide. It is accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles only. Oriental A Federal transport during the Civil War, the steamshipOrientalhas been grounded in her present position since 1862. Local rumor has it that some of the area’s largest fish make their home in theOriental’s rusty remains.
You can see the exposed boiler and smokestack in the ocean surf off Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, opposite the Self-Guided Nature Trail parking lot. Questions:What are the Outer Banks known for?What was the first?Why are there so many in this area? (2 main reasons)What happened to sailors on these ships?What 3 organizations have tried to keep the number of shipwrecks down?Where can adventurers find these shipwrecks?What causes visible shipwrecks to disappear?Summarize each of the famous shipwrecks described at the end. (30pts)Designers Set Sail, Turning to Wind to Help Power Cargo ShipsBy JOHN J. GEOGHEGANPublished: August 27, 2012 If the world’s shipping fleet were a country, it would be the world’s sixth leading emitter of greenhouse gases.
To reduce those emissions and, not incidentally, to conserve expensive fossil fuels cargo ship designers are now turning to the oldest source of power there is: the wind. The new vessels, mainly still on drawing boards and in prototype, look nothing like the graceful schooners and galleons of centuries past. Last spring, for example, the University of Tokyo unveiled a model of its UT Wind Challenger at the Sea Japan trade show. It has nine masts, each 164 feet tall, with five rigid sails made of aluminum and fiber-reinforced plastic; the sails are hollow, designed to telescope into one another in rough weather or at anchor. Then there is the 328-foot, 3,000-ton cargo carrier being designed by B9 Shipping (pronounced benign), part of the B9 Energy Group in Northern Ireland.
Its three masts rise 180 feet, as tall as a 14-story building. Powered by a combination of wind and a Rolls-Royce biogas engine, it is intended to operate with no fossil fuels. A model of the B9 ship was tested last month at the University of Southampton in England. “The tests were promising,” said Diane Gilpin, a founder-director of B9 Shipping. “They validated the economic case for deploying a B9 ship on certain trading routes.
” The next step, she said, is to seek financing for a full-size ship to demonstrate the technology. It would cost $45 million and take three years to build. Several factors are driving efforts like these. Effective this month, ships in North American waters are required to burn low-sulfur oil, which costs 60 percent more than bunker fuel.
The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization is also phasing in restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions by commercial ships. Meanwhile, the price of bunker fuel, which accounts for most of a vessel’s operating cost, has been rising steeply 600 percent over the last 10 years. Wind, of course, is cost- and emission-free. But none of the designs under consideration would replace a ship’s engine, only supplement it. Nor is wind power practical for large vessels like container ships, which sail faster than 15 knots and need their deck space for cargo. But it is well suited for smaller, slower-moving ships, those in the 3,000-to-10,000-ton range which accounts for 10,000 vessels, one-fifth of the world’s total cargo ships, and are an essential link in the global supply chain.
Still, wind-powered technology faces a steep development curve before the industry will be ready to embrace it. “There are a number of projects looking at the use of wind as a power source for shipping,” said Craig Eason, technology editor at the shipping newspaper Lloyd’s List. “Whether these projects will prove to be successful business ventures remains a question. ” Wind is one of a number of technological fixes under consideration to lower costs and emissions. They include replacing bunker fuel with liquid natural gas; streamlining hull designs; adding exhaust scrubbers; or just steaming more slowly. All of these ideas face economic obstacles.
Shipowners don’t necessarily pay for their ship’s fuel; the charterer does. So there is little incentive to make an energy-saving investment if the owner does not benefit financially. Moreover, most sectors of the shipping industry are losing money, so it is not an ideal time to introduce new technologies. “The industry is quite conservative,” said Roger Strevens, vice president for environment at the shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics. About wind power, he added, “There are a mix of significant technical, operational and economic hurdles to overcome. ” Or as Richard Pemberton, a marine technology expert at Southampton, put it, “The shipping industry will adopt whichever technology allows them to make a profit.
” One company that is well past the design stage is SkySails. Founded in 2001 in Hamburg, Germany, it has been selling automated towing kite systems for cargo ships for several years. Resembling a giant paraglider, SkySails’ 3,500-square-foot kite is launched from a ship’s bow, pulling it forward when the wind is right. The company says that depending on wind conditions, fuel consumption can be reduced 10 to 35 percent. SkySails has installed its giant kites on six ships, and Cargill, the world’s largest charterer of dry bulk carriers, has announced plans to install the latest SkySails technology this year on its ship the Aghia Maina.
But wind technology for modern cargo ships goes back at least a quarter of a century. In 1986 Capt. D. C.
Anderson of Earth Ship Limited fitted a 3,500-ton grain carrier called the Carib Alba with an auxiliary wind-propulsion system called Comsail. “On a perfect day,” he recalled, it “saved an astonishing 35 percent of fuel. ” But after oil prices collapsed that year, the Carib Alba’s owner took a blowtorch to Captain Anderson’s sailing masts, leaving them on a pier in Houston and bringing a promising experiment to an abrupt conclusion after 363 days of testing. QUESTIONS (ANSWER IN COMPLETE SENTENCES OR WRITE THE QUESTIONS THEN THE ANSWER FOR FULL CREDIT! DO NOT COPY DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE, THIS WILL RESULT IN HALF CREDIT!)What shocking fact does the article start with?What are cargo ship designers trying to do to combat this?What features are found on the prototype UT Wind Challenger?What is special about the engine of the B9 prototype? What did tests reveal?What factors are causing the shipping industry to look for alternative fuel and power sources?Why is wind power not practical for large vessels?Aside from wind, what other options are they looking into?What will ultimately be the deciding factor in what the shipping industry will turn to?What is SkySails? What do their systems resemble?What did Capt. Anderson try in 1986? What was the result?Slowing to a Whale’s Pace in SamoaBy SCOTT BAKERScott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, writes from Samoa, where he studies the formation of local communities among dolphins and their genetic isolation from one another. Today was the last day of our surveys in Samoa.
We have completed the circumnavigation of both islands, Upolu and Savai’i, covering more than 600 nautical miles, and have encountered short-finned pilot whales, spinner dolphins, rough-toothed dolphins, bottlenose dolphins and beaked whales. The strong trade winds we have experienced over the last few days are a reminder that it is winter in Samoa, and with this comes the annual migration of humpback whales. Although it is still early in the winter breeding season, humpbacks are our most common sighting along the south coast of Upolu. The Samoan islands are part of a vast winter breeding grounds of humpback whales in the South Pacific, including New Caledonia, Tonga, the Cook Islands and the Society Islands of French Polynesia.
These whales feed during the austral summer months in the Southern Ocean near the Antarctic and migrate thousands of miles to the warm waters of the tropics to mate and give birth. Based on catch records from 20th-century commercial whaling (including illegal Soviet whaling), it seems likely that populations around these islands once numbered 20,000 and were reduced to only a few hundred before international protections were enacted in 1966. Using a large catalog of individual identification photographs and DNA profiles from biopsy samples (the same methods used in our study of dolphins), members of the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium have estimated that the populations have recovered slowly and now number about 4,000. After our work with the dolphins, the whales require a shift in timing and approach. Rather than moving at speed, as we did with the dolphins as they rode our bow, we now try to move in slowly behind the whale as it surfaces, to photograph the natural markings on the underside of the tail (flukes).
Once the whale dives, it could be six to nine minutes before it resurfaces. The trick is to maintain position during this time, in hopes that the whale surfaces nearby. During one of our encounters, the whale rolls slowly at the surface, revealing all-white coloration on the undersides of its fluke. This white coloration is characteristic of humpback whales in the South Pacific, whereas those in the North Pacific are often entirely dark. The small marks and scars on the undersurface and variation in the trailing edge can be used for individual identification.
Juney will add these photographs to her catalog for Samoa. Tomorrow we return to Apia. Renee has already left for Hawaii, where she is helping with a long-term study of rough-toothed dolphins. Juney and I will work on a short report for her ministry and an article for The Samoa Observer, the local newspaper. Neve and I will visit with colleagues from the secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program to discuss a Web site for submitting records of stranded whales and dolphins in the region.
With growing access to the Internet and smartphone technology, even remote villages can contribute to documenting the relatively uncommon stranding events in the region. Given the increasing concern for human-related causes of strandings, records from Oceania could provide a baseline for a relatively undisturbed habitat. At dinner this evening, we discuss plans to repeat surveys of Samoa next year during the austral summer, to look for seasonal differences in species distributions and to focus on the offshore species in calmer conditions. For the moment, these are just plans.
Despite the importance of Oceania and the vast jurisdiction of Pacific Island nations, money for surveys of cetacean diversity in the region is difficult to find. I have been extremely fortunate to have support for the current surveys from a Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship and from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a longtime supporter of research by our South Pacific Whale Research Consortium. The vessel owner, Greg Hopping, gave us a deep discount on the charter boat because of his personal fascination with whales and dolphins. It will be a challenge to find other sources willing to invest in this research but it will happen. QUESTIONS (ANSWER IN COMPLETE SENTENCES OR WRITE THE QUESTIONS THEN THE ANSWER FOR FULL CREDIT! DO NOT COPY DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE, THIS WILL RESULT IN HALF CREDIT!)Who is Scott Baker? What is he studying?Where is he studying? How far has he traveled?Why are the Samoan islands so important?How many whales could have been found in this area in the 20th century? Why have their numbers declined?How does tracking dolphins and whales differ?Which whales have a white coloration on their bellies? How can this information be used?What will the website they develop try to track?What will next year’s survey look at?In at least 2 sentences, discuss what animal you would like to track and why. Satellites Show Sea Ice in Arctic Is at a Record Low ByJUSTIN GILLIS The amount of sea ice in the Arctic has fallen to the lowest level on record, a confirmation of the drastic warming in the region and a likely harbinger of larger changes to come.
Satellites tracking the extent of the sea ice found over the weekend that it covered about 1. 58 million square miles, or less than 30 percent of the Arctic Ocean’s surface, scientists said. That is only slightly below the previous record low, set in 2007, but with weeks still to go in the summer melting season, it is clear that the record will be beaten by a wide margin. The National Snow and Ice Data Center, a government-sponsored research agency in Boulder, Colo.
, announced the findings on Monday in collaboration with NASA. The amount of sea ice in the summer has declined more than 40 percent since satellite tracking began in the late1970s,a trend that most scientists believe is primarily a consequence of the human release of greenhouse gases. “It’s hard even for people like me to believe, to see that climate change is actually doing what our worst fears dictated,” said Jennifer A. Francis, a Rutgers University scientist who studies the effect of sea ice on weather patterns. “It’s starting to give me chills, to tell you the truth. ” Scientific forecasts based on computer modeling have long suggested that a time will come when the Arctic will be completely free of ice in the summer, perhaps by the middle of the century.
This year’s prodigious melting is lending credibility to more pessimistic analyses that that moment may come much sooner, perhaps by the end of this decade. “It’s an example of how uncertainty is not our friend when it comes to climate-change risk,” said Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. “In this case, the models were almost certainly too conservative in the changes they were projecting, probably because of important missing physics.
” Experts say that a powerful storm in the Arctic this month almost certainly contributed to the record by breaking up ice. But the record low would not have occurred, they say,if the ice had not been steadily contracting for the past several decades. The pace of that decline seems to be accelerating. But scientists are somewhat cautious in their predictions, given that sea ice is prone to natural variability. They have only a 33-year record of careful satellite observations, and before that, only sketchy data from maps and other historical sources. By itself, the melting of sea ice does not raise global sea levels, because the floating ice is already displacing its weight in seawater.
But the sharp warming that is causing the sea ice to melt also threatens land ice, notably the Greenland ice sheet, which is melting at an increasing rate. Melting land ice does raise sea levels. Already, the reduction in sea ice is altering weather patterns in the Arctic region, and perhaps beyond. It is putting stress on the ecology of the region and causing rapid erosion of shorelines that are now exposed to more vigorous waves. The melting does, however, offer some potential benefits, including new shipping routes and easier access to oil and other mineral deposits. A rush is on to stake claims and beginmineral exploration in the Arctic.
The average temperature of the region is rising more than twice as fast as that of the earth as a whole, confirming a prediction first made in 1896: that increasing levels of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels would have an especially large impact in the Arctic. One reason is that the white surface of the ice reflects a great deal of sunlight back to space, but the darker water and land exposed when the ice melts absorb more heat from the sun, which in turns leads to additional melting, more sunlight absorption and so on a feedback loop that scientists call Arctic amplification. Dr. Francis is one of a small group of climate scientists who argue that the decline of sea ice is already having consequences for weather in the Northern Hemisphere’s middle latitudes, including in the United States.
She has published research suggesting that air circulation patterns are being altered in a way that favors more extremes, like heat waves and droughts. Such ideas are not considered proven, but they are getting more attention as the weather careers from one extreme to another. Every year, the surface of the Arctic Ocean freezes during the long, dark winter, with the extent of sea ice usually peaking in March. Until recent decades, a high proportion of the ice was thick enough to survive the summer.
But scientists say the warming trend has reduced the ice to just a shell in many places. The means it can melt easily in the round-the-clock sunshine that strikes the highest latitudes in summer. Said Walt Meier, a top scientist at the snow and ice center, “Parts of the Arctic have become like a giantSlusheethis time of year. “QUESTIONS (ANSWER IN COMPLETE SENTENCES OR WRITE THE QUESTIONS THEN THE ANSWER FOR FULL CREDIT! DO NOT COPY DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE, THIS WILL RESULT IN HALF CREDIT!)What have satellites noticed about the Arctic sea ice? When was the previous record?How much has it declined since the 1970s?When are scientists predicting there will be no ice in the summer? What do they use to predict this?What might have been the cause for the drastic decrease this year?How many years do their records go back? How does this affect their predictions?Why does the melting sea ice not raise sea levels? What kind of ice does?In at least 4 sentences, state your opinion about this environmental change and how you think it will affect humans in the future.
How do you think it will affect the animals who rely on the sea ice, like polar bears and seals? Denmark Expedition Gathers Crucial Data for North Pole Claim Scientists gathering data to underpin a claim by Denmark to a vast Arctic Ocean tract including the North Pole have harvested crucial new information about the seabed and toasted their arrival at the pole with sparkling wine. By John AcherCOPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Scientists gathering data to underpin a claim by Denmark to a vast Arctic Ocean tract including the North Pole have harvested crucial new information about the seabed and toasted their arrival at the pole with sparkling wine. Denmark is pressing ahead with its claim to the area – which is thought to hold untapped oil and gas and is likely to offer new shipping lanes as ice recedes – in the teeth of rival claims from Russia and Canada. Denmark and its semi-autonomous dependency Greenland are preparing to file a claim to an area extending north of Greenland and encompassing the pole under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) by November 2014. Much depends on whether Copenhagen can obtain data showing that the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater formation stretching 1,800 km (1,118 miles) across the pole, is an extension of Greenland’s land mass.
“We had a critical gap in the bathymetric (water depth) data, and we have covered that now,” Christian Marcussen, the expedition’s chief scientist, told Reuters by satellite phone from the Swedish icebreaker “Oden” at the North Pole. The 45-day expedition, which set out at the end of July, reached the pole on Wednesday and spent the night there, but left no flag behind on the ice when it resumed its voyage on Thursday. The 17-man expedition team, travelling with about 50 other scientists from Swedish and other research projects, raised a toast to its success with sparkling wine and posed for a group photo with Danish, Greenlandic and other flags on the drifting ice. But Marcussen said the custom of posing alongside the flags of all the nationalities that made up the international research team was not meant as a political statement, and was only intended to emphasize cooperation. LOW KEY APPROACHThe Danes’ low-key approach contrasted with a Russian mission five years ago which courted controversy by using a miniature submarine to plant a Russian flag on the seabed at the pole, a move which drew accusations of imperialism.
“We do not go in for that kind of symbolic warfare, we do not think it is very useful,” said Klaus Holm, Denmark’s Arctic ambassador. “We don’t have a submarine to plant a Danish flag, and we would rather use our resources to gather the data. “Denmark has played down the idea that the race to claim the pole could trigger conflict. It says diplomacy will prevail, and that states with rival claims are committed to negotiating through established channels. “There might be overlapping legitimate claims which all have scientific backing,” Holm said. This year’s Danish expedition is the third in a series of voyages that began in 2007 to gather data to support a claim to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), which assesses the scientific validity of such claims.
Denmark has identified five potential claim areas off Greenland and the Faroe Islands – both parts of the Kingdom of Denmark – and has already submitted claims for areas north and south of the Faroes and for two areas south of Greenland. The fifth area, probably the most sensitive part of any future claim, is roughly 150,000 square kilometers (58,000 sq miles) extending north from Greenland and encompassing the North Pole. Despite a record thaw of sea ice in the Arctic, the expedition vessel has had to break through thick ice to gather seismic and sea depth data. “In patches measurements were simply impossible and cancelled . .
. Equipment has been damaged by the ice so it has not been a piece of cake,” said Martin Breum, a journalist and author travelling with the mission. Once claims are submitted, it is likely to take years or even decades for the CLCS to issue a report, and only after that could negotiations between states begin, Holm said. The Oden left the pole on Thursday afternoon.
“We are now struggling through heavy ice towards Siberia,” Breum said. QUESTIONS (ANSWER IN COMPLETE SENTENCES OR WRITE THE QUESTIONS THEN THE ANSWER FOR FULL CREDIT! DO NOT COPY DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE, THIS WILL RESULT IN HALF CREDIT!)What could be under the land that Denmark wants to claim?Why is it only now being claimed?What about the land gives Denmark a good claim to it?How did Russia try to lay claim to the land? Why was it controversial?How do Denmark plan to deal with countries that have also made a claim?Where else are they trying to claim land?What caused researchers a problem as they neared the pole?How long do researchers say it could take for official claims to be recognized?In at least 2 sentences, discuss your opinion about the claims and who may have the best one and why. Sea Lions Feasting on Threatened Salmon Should conservationists stop the California sea lions from eating threatened Columbia River salmon? ByJessica MarshallandNature magazineFromNaturemagazineWhat do you do when a charismatic marine mammal is wreaking havoc by gorging on a threatened species that humans also find delicious? That’s the awkward problem faced by wildlife managers along the Columbia River in Washington and Oregon states, where sea lions have been congregating for the past decade to feast on salmon waiting to climb the fish ladders at the base of the Bonneville Dam on their spring voyage upriver to spawn. To protect the Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in the river, some of which are listed as threatened populations, in 2008 the states of Washington and Oregon obtained permission from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland, to kill California sea lions (which are normally protected) seen feeding repeatedly at the dam, after attempts to frighten the animals away proved ineffective. In response, the Humane Society of the United States, based in Washington DC, and others filed a lawsuit to stop the practice and their legal challenges have continued.
A US district court in Portland, Oregon, is expected to hear full arguments for a final ruling in the next few weeks. In the meantime, more than 40 California sea lions have been killed and 11 transferred to aquaria and zoos. Survey data collected by the US Army Corps of Engineers during the years of the cull show that numbers of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) are decreasing at the dam, along with the amount of salmon they eat. The corps and others attribute this to the removal programme. Muscling inBut the cull may have been too successful.
Last year, the larger Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus), which arrived in earnest at the dam in 2005 and have returned in greater numbers each year, outnumbered California sea lions for the first time and ate fully half of the predated salmon. “Part of this switch toward the Steller sea lion abundance may be due in part to success of the removal programme,” said Doug Hatch of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland, Oregon, speaking at a meeting of the American Fisheries Society in St Paul, Minnesota this week. The problem with this shift is that Steller sea lions are themselves listed as a threatened species, meaning that ‘hazing’ disturbing them with, for example, rubber bullets is the only option for dealing with them. But the eastern stock of Steller sea lions, which includes those at Bonneville, is under review for delisting as threatened, so that protection may not last. Counting the damageA key issue is exactly how much the sea lions are affecting the salmon, particularly the species that are listed as threatened.
This is a difficult question to answer. Accurate numbers are available from near the dam, where sea lions and the prey in their mouths can be counted directly, but the dam is 235 kilometres from the mouth of the Columbia River and sea lions are present patchily throughout this length. Hatch’s best estimate is that sea lions take on average a little over 10% of the listed populations annually between the dam and the ocean. He and his colleagues are tagging sea lions to improve understanding of where the mammals go within the river and beyond. The Humane Society says that the cull focuses on the wrong problem sea lions instead of reducing the allowable fishing catch, improving habitat, and reducing losses from hydropower, which it maintains are greater threats to the fish.
Archaeological records suggest that sea lions are recent arrivals in the Columbia River, but researchers are finding that the smorgasbord of oily fish is expanding more than their range. “We have captured and handled the largest California sea lions anyone has ever touched,” says Robin Brown, a marine mammal specialist at Oregon Fish and Wildlife in Corvallis. The biggest weighed 658 kilograms, compared to a typical weight for a male of 200-400 kilograms. “This Columbia river salmon seems to fatten them up bigger and better than anything we’ve ever seen. “QUESTIONS (ANSWER IN COMPLETE SENTENCES OR WRITE THE QUESTIONS THEN THE ANSWER FOR FULL CREDIT! DO NOT COPY DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE, THIS WILL RESULT IN HALF CREDIT!)Why is there an issue with the sea lions eating the salmon?How have the states reacted to conserve the salmon? What did they try before?How did the human society react?What did the survey by the US Army Corps reveal?How might the cull have been too successful?Why is the cull controversial?Why is it hard to directly count how many salmon are being eaten by the seals?In at least 3 sentences, discuss your opinion about this issue. Do you agree with the cull, or side with the human society? Do you feel more tests need to be done? In Virginia, Encroaching Seas Pit Parking against Preservation As federal managers adapt to rising sea levels, local officials fear changes to parking rules that could undermine local economies ByJennifer WeeksandDaily ClimateCHINCOTEAGUE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Va.
– A sign at the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service visitor center here states a simple motto: “Where Wildlife Comes First. ” But many visitors never see the sign, or much wildlife. Cars stream past the center on hot summer days, headed for a mile-long public beach at the refuge’s southern end. The prime goals are sand, surf, and a parking spot close to the water.
But sea-level rise threatens the refuge’s future as a beach destination. It’s on Assateague Island, a barrier island off the coasts of Virginia and Maryland. The whole island is protected as a national seashore, but different parts have diverse missions. Most of the Virginia section is a wildlife refuge except for the beach, an enclave run by the National Park Service. The refuge draws up to 1.
5 million visitors every year through the adjacent town of Chincoteague. In a survey conducted by the town last year, 80 percent of visitors rated going to the beach as their top priority. The beach is broad, clean, and unspoiled by development. It’s also in one of the most-exposed zones of the island, and often floods during storms. When this happens, as it did during a 2009 nor’easter and again in 2011 during Hurricane Irene, the adjacent parking lots are washed out and have to be rebuilt.
Even though they’re surfaced with loose sand and shells, rebuilding is expensive – up to $700,000 per episode. Managers have preserved the lots, big enough for 960 cars, by repeatedly moving them west, away from the ocean side of the island, after washouts. Zones that used to be parking areas in the 1990s are now underwater. The National Park Service has advised the Fish and Wildlife Service to move the recreation zone north to a more protected area.
“We understand that the town of Chincoteague’s economic viability is linked to beach parking,” said Trish Kicklighter, superintendent of Assateague Island National Seashore. “But you need to let the dunes act natural and move back when they want to. The current area is not wide enough to maintain a parking lot and a swimming beach. “Barrier islands are naturally unstable, constantly changing shape under the forces of waves and wind.
When storms flood the east, or ocean, side of Assateague, they wash sand over to the west side of the island and build it up. But as sea levels rise, floods are becoming more frequent and severe. The Fish and Wildlife Service projects that by 2100 rising seas will flood large sections of the Chincoteague refuge’s coastal marshes. Fish and Wildlife is writing a new 15-year management plan for the refuge, igniting a battle over the fate of the beach. Instead of spending more money to maintain a vulnerable parking lot, the agency would move the beach north and build new parking, possibly supplemented by a shuttle from a new satellite lot on Chincoteague.
Local officials oppose these ideas. Before 1962, when a bridge was built connecting the town of Chincoteague to Assateague Island, Chincoteague was a sleepy fishing community. Now the town is a tourist gateway, with seashore visitors pumping $TK million into the town annually, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service estimate. Local officials want the beach preserved at all costs. Chincoteague Mayor John Tarr and local business owners argue that moving the beach or shifting even partly to public transit will drive visitors to more convenient locations like Ocean City, Maryland to the north or Virginia Beach to the south. “I feel we are being railroaded into less or no parking at the beach, and forced to ride a trolley system in the future,” Tarr told a House Natural Resources subcommittee at a hearing last February.
Instead they want federal agencies to add a new parking lot with 300 more spaces and bring in the Army Corps of Engineers to do beach restoration, such as pumping sand from offshore to rebuild the beach. Federal managers oppose engineering solutions because they conflict with laws and policies that called for letting natural shoreline processes occur without intervening. Chincoteague’s beach-inside-a-refuge situation may be unique, but rising sea levels will affect all of the 167 national wildlife refuges that are located along U. S.
coastlines. “No one really knows what the solution is yet – we’re still experimenting with strategies to make refuges more resilient, and it’s specific to each refuge,” said Noah Matson, vice president for climate change and natural resource adaptation at Defenders of Wildlife.QUESTIONS (ANSWER IN COMPLETE SENTENCES OR WRITE THE QUESTIONS THEN THE ANSWER FOR FULL CREDIT! DO NOT COPY DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE, THIS WILL RESULT IN HALF CREDIT!)What greets visitors at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge? What is the main draw of this park?What is threatening the beach? Where is the beach located?What is causing the problems with the parking lot?What is one solution to the problem?Why are barrier islands unstable?Why do local officials oppose moving the park north?Why do local businesses oppose the move?What is their solution?In at least 2 sentences, discuss what you think is the best idea and why.
