Another oil spill kills and injures sea birds

11/23/2009

A surf scoter found near the San Leandro Marina / Credit Nils Warnock, Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN)

Another oil spill has occurred, this time in the San Francisco Bay. And once again it barely made the news, at least nationally. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in early November that a Panamanian tanker, the Dubai Star, had spilled between 400 and 800 gallons of bunker oil into the San Francisco Bay on October 30th. This created a slick a mile and a half long, some of which washed up on the Alameda coastline. Rescue workers rushed to save dozens of American coots, eared grebes and diving ducks - such as the surf scoter in the photo - that had become covered in tarry black oil and beached themselves.

Sharol Nelson-Embry, a naturalist with Alameda’s Crab Cove Nature Center, said in an interview for the Chronicle's in Alameda blog, “Just 10 days earlier we had a big wave of dunlins, sandpipers, and dowitchers fly in. They were sitting ducks for the oil.”

The birds rescued have been sent to the San Francisco Bay Oiled Wildlife Care and Education Center, managed by International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC), a partner in the State of California's Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN - check out OWCNs blog on the oil spill and release of birds). I mentioned them just recently - too recently, from the poor bird's perspectives - in my blog about the sea-slimed birds washing up all over the Pacific Northwest coast. In total, they rescued 49 live birds, but at least 20 birds died in the mess (that only counts the ones that washed ashore, and not ones that may have died out in the Bay, uncounted). The rescue workers clean the birds delicately, rehabilitate them to health, and then reintroduce them to the wild, if at all possible. 

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and Department of Fish and Game (DFG) closed the area between Alameda County shoreline between the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the San Mateo Bridge to fishing and shellfish harvesting. They also recommended not fishing in areas with a sheen on the ocean surface. Sounds like common sense, but you might be surprised by how many people ignore such warnings.

The Dubai Star oil spill occurred during a refueling stop a couple miles south of the Bay Bridge. The SF Chronicle reported that investigators initially suspected a faulty hose but state investigators later found that one of the ship’s huge fuel tanks overflowed during fueling, and the workers didn’t notice until it had started leaking into the Bay. Note that ships of this size have overflow tanks, and the spill had gone on long enough that it overflowed even a containment tank.  The company claims the Coast Guard cleared them the day of the spill, but the California Office of Spill Prevention is trying to figure out what caused the tank to overflow. It will be interesting to see what the final investigation shows.

Oil spills inspire many locals who want to help, but only trained volunteers can work with rescued, oiled birds because untrained helpers may stress the birds more than necessary. If you’re interested in helping in the event of an oil spill and you live near the coast, get trained now. Then, when emergency strikes, you’re ready to go.

Am American coot that was caught in the oil/ Photos Courtesy Paul Kelway/IBRRC

Help for Ecuador’s Great Green Macaws

11/19/2009

A great green macaw at the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest in Ecuador. This one was rescued from the pet trade so can't be released back into the wild/ Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

In the 1990s, The Peace Corps sent Eric Horstman to Bosque Protector Cerro Blanco (Cerro Blanco Protected Forest), a dry tropical forest near Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil. It was a far cry from the Amazon jungle he initially dreamed of, but he grew to love the place. He stayed for two years, writing recommendations to the Pro-Forest Foundation (Fundacion Pro-Bosque) on how best to manage and preserve its rich biological diversity, and especially its crown jewel, the critically endangered great green macaw (Ara ambiguus guayaquilensis). Horstman went on to other Peace Corps stints in Ecuador, but  in 1993, Horstmann got the chance to return to implement the plan he’d written. He’s been there since.

“The great green macaw or Papagayo de Guayaquil is the symbol of our reserve and also the natural symbol of the city of Guayaquil, through a municipality declaration,” says Horstman. It is an endangered subspecies of the great green macaw which has a broader range throughout South America, and the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest is one of few protected areas in Ecuador for the species. “The resident population of 15 macaws range widely outside of the 16,000 acre reserve.  This points to the need of establishing a conservation corridor between Cerro Blanco and adjacent patches of dry forest, most less than 100 acres in size."

I visited the reserve in 2007 on my single day on the mainland Ecuador after an eco-cruise of the Galapagos Islands on Ecoventura. After hiking through the hills of the reserve for a bit, photographer Jason Kremkau and I met up with Horstman and he told us the reserve’s history, and showed us a couple of enclosures that housed many animals from the area that had been intercepted from the pet trade – including some great green macaws. Sadly, most cannot be returned to the wild because people either clipped their wings, or they have been in captivity so long they wouldn’t survive in the wild.

To try to increase numbers of the macaw in the wild, the Rescate Jambeli Foundation captively breeds the birds, and more than 20 chicks have now born and raised at their center.  “It is hoped that in the near future, work will begin to begin releasing macaws back into the wild to help bolster the population,” says Horstman.

The Cerro Blanco forest preserve is unusual in that it’s owned, in part, by the cement company Holcim, as mitigation for their limestone quarries nearby, and partly by the Pro-Forest Foundation. Tropical dry forest itself in Ecuador is an endangered habitat, with a high level of biodiversity. The Cerro Blanco forest preserve alone boasts 54 mammal species, including howler monkeys, white-fronted capuchin monkeys, and the South American coati, as well as 219 bird species and over 500 vascular plants, 100 of which live only in this region. One proactive aspect of the reserve is that they have converted former cattle pasture to a native tree farm, which they’re using to help restore dry tropical forest in other locales, including the corridor Horstman mentioned.

Horstman recently published an article in Order of the Earth newsletter which highlighted Ecuador as the first country to inherently recognize nature's rights. In 2008, the country approved Article 71 to their constitution that states: "Nature has a right to integrally respect its existence as well as the maintenance and regeneration of its vital cycles, structures, functions and evolutionary processes. In addition, all people, communities, and nationalities can demand the public authorities comply with the Rights of Nature." Article 73 also states: "The state will apply measures of precaution and restriction for all activities that could lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of ecosystems, or the permanent alteration of natural habitats."

That is huge. According to the article, Ecuador has now become the world's first nation to recognize and legally protect nature's inherent rights.

Tasmanian devils breeding younger

11/17/2009

Tasmanian devils face a devastating contagious cancer that scientists fear may lead to their extinction in the wild/ Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

Australia's Tasmanian devils, which live only on the island state of Tasmania, have been plagued by a devastating contagious cancer - known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD) that had never before been seen before first documented in the late 1990s. Discovery News reports on a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Menna Jones of the University of Tasmania and colleagues. The study shows that the devils have started maturing and breeding at younger ages. Most animals in areas affected by the disease end up dying before the end of their first year of life, so precocious breeding is apparently an adaptation that has helped them prolong or put off their own demise. That's quite remarkable to watch a species adapt their life history right before our eyes, as a disease leads them to the brink of extinction. Scientists are working hard to create an "ark" of diversity for devils in case the species dies out in the wild.

I met with Jones in Tasmania in 2006 when their research program was still trying to confirm the disease's cause. They now know that the disease arose in a single animal and has since spread rapidly and virulently throughout much of Tasmania. It spreads when the animals bite one another during feeding or breeding.  I'd brought my two kids to Australia to cover a few Aussie wildlife and travel stories, one of which was covering the Tasmanian devil disease. We had only arrived to Australia from the States a day before, had barely checked into the Hobart hotel, and met Jones at a gorgeous ritzy waterfront restaurant, and my son Sam fell asleep in his chair after ordering filet mignon (he didn't get to eat it because he was asleep before it arrived). What can I say, the menu options were limited. I'll never or the trip to Tasmania, and especially that night, and Jones' enthusiasm towards her research, even as my child snoozed on the chair. I wrote articles for National Wildlife and Scientific American on the 'lil devils. And of course I did a previous blog post when Australia offically dubbed the species endangered back in May.

Celebrate Steve Irwin Day Nov 15th!

11/13/2009

Celebrate Steve Irwin Day November 15th! /Credit: DCL

I remember vividly when I found out about the tragic death of Steve Irwin, September 4th, 2006. I’d stayed up after midnight writing but before bed, I checked the news online. Across the page I saw, “Breaking News” – Steve Irwin reported dead. I could not believe my eyes. I thought the man was invincible! I adored Irwin’s infectious personality and humor, and my children and I – especially my son - loved his show Crocodile Hunter. His death felt a little more personal than perhaps it otherwise would have because my two children and I had returned from a trip to Australia only two weeks earlier. During that trip, we visited Irwin’s Australia Zoo and toured the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital where I interviewed head vet Jon Hangar - who appears in some episodes - for an article I wrote for National Wildlife Magazine. Irwin and his family weren’t at the zoo then, but were on their very last trip together, catching crocs in far north Queensland, right before he boarded the boat from which he went snorkeling, when a stingray barb pierced his heart.

His widow Terri, his daughter Bindi Sue and his son Robert have chosen Nov 15th to commemorate Steve’s life on Steve Irwin Day. When I think of Steve Irwin, I think of the incredible passion he had towards wildlife and the way in which he excited kids who watched his shows. While his techniques were somewhat controversial among biologists and others, there’s no doubt he absolutely loved animals, and he devoted much of his money as well as his entire life to helping them and encouraging that same passion in others. 

The Irwins encourage people across Australia and around the world to wear khaki clothing to show their love for Irwin on the 15th - the color of the uniform Irwin almost always wore. According to the Steve Irwin Day website,  “Khaki is more than a colour. It’s an attitude. It’s a stand to do something positive in our world and a passion to make a difference.” The Australia Zoo sponsors the conservation group Wildlife Warriors, established by the Irwins in 2002 to help wildlife and habitat around the world. The organization rescues wildlife during crises such as tsunamis, educates communities, conserves habitat, and researches crocodiles worldwide – one of Steve’s great loves. You can even buy Wildlife Warrior wristbands through Animal Planet to support the organization and show your support.

The plight of koalas is one of Wildlife Warriors' most pressing issues. The species is listed by the government as "vulnerable" in the southeast Queensland bioregion, but are truly threatened throughout their range by two devastating diseases – koala retrovirus and Chlamydia. I wrote about the Wildlife Hospital and Hangar’s passion for saving koalas in my article, Will Urban Sprawl K.O. the Koala?  as he continues to honor Irwin's legacy. Some 6,000 wildlife patients come through the hospital every year, many of which are koalas hit by cars or attacked by dogs. Australia has an amazing network of volunteer wildlife ambulances and animal rehabilitators that even wake up in the dark of night to rescue car-struck animals, and bring them into hospitals such as the one at the Australia Zoo. Hangar sequenced the genome of koala retrovirus, performs surgery on koalas and other animal, and is a passionate conservationist in his own right. The Irwin family is also working hard to “Save Steve’s Place” – the 330,000-acre Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve on Queensland's Cape York peninsula, a wetland area threatened by strip mining.

To celebrate Steve Irwin Day, the Zoo has sent out into the world twelve Joey Ambassadors, young people passionate about wildlife who want to make a difference like Irwin did. They come from Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and the USA and will try to meet challenges in the weeks leading up to Steve Irwin Day, such as gathering 15 books to donate to a school in Tanzania, getting a local school to host a Khaki Day, and raise funds for wildlife and habitat conservation. Ten year old Jacob Danko of Pennsylvania is one of those ambassadors, an animal lover and Steve Irwin fan from Pennsylvania. The primary focus of Steve Irwin Day is fundraising for wildlife conservation andif you're passionate about wildlife you can donate to Wildlife Warriors here.

What will you do to remember Steve on his special day? What are your favorite memories of Steve's legacy, and the Crocodile Hunter series?

Albatrosses feed on giant garbage patch

11/11/2009

Have you read about the gigantic patch of garbage - mostly plastic - floating in the Pacific Ocean? When I say gigantic, I mean huge, ginormous, massive, sprawling, mind-blowingly large. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch actually consists of two patches, in fact: the Western Garbage Patch east of Japan and west of Hawaii, and the Eastern Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California. The Eastern patch alone is twice the size of Texas. Holy mackeroli.

Though the two patches lie 6,000 miles apart, a current called the Subtropical Convergence Zone connects them. Each plastic patch swirl in gyres due to ocean currents, and has created an ocean "desert" devoid of most life. Learning about this issue is part of why I chose to take the No Plastics Pledge, as I mentioned in my first post to this blog, The Great Turtle Race is On! It took me several months to remember my reusable grocery bags from my car, but I finally got the hang of it! I have also replaced my use of water bottles with a thermos I carry with me and send my kids to school with lunch boxes instead of plastic bags. I haven't totally eliminated plastic but am working on reducing my use of it day by day.

So that brings me to today's topic. In the for Discovery Channel Animal News article, Remote Albatrosses Feed on Ocean Garbage Patch, Jennifer Viegas reports on a recently published scientific study that shows these giant oceanic seabirds feed their babies plastic from the Western Garbage Patch! Laysan albatrosses nesting on the remote Kure atoll in the Pacigfic Ocean feed their chicks ten times more plastic than those nesting in Oahu, Hawaii. The reason? The adults forage on the garbage patch, and inadvertently bring back plastic trash to their chicks. The plastic can kill birds when it punctures their intestinal tract, or blocks digestion. Toxins from the plastic are suspected in wildlife cancers and disease, as well.

Saving Malayan flying foxes

11/10/2009

Jonathan Epstein with the Wildlife Trust releases a Malayan flying fox/Copyright © 2009 Wlldlife Trust

The Malayan flying fox (Pteropus vampyrus), doesn’t look like your ordinary bat. They eat fruit rather than insects, have large eyes, and a huge wing span of up to five feet across. Parents might know of the beloved children's book, Stellaluna, which features a flying fox, also known as fruit bat, as the main character. Or did you see the animated movie Ferngully? The character Batty Koda was also a flying fox. Megabats live throughout the “Old World” of Australia, Indonesia, and islands off of Africa, and unlike microbats, they don’t echolocate.

Because of their large size, people have overhunted fruit bats for food, and some have gone extinct or currently face extinction. That’s the case of the Malayan flying fox, the largest flying fox species, which is listed as near-threatened in the IUCN Red List. They live throughout Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Flying foxes play important ecological roles as seed dispersers of the fruit they eat, and in some cases they also pollinate flowers. Their decline would have repercussions throughout the ecosystems in which they live.

A new study led by Jonathan Epstein of the Wildlife Trust became the first to look at the effect of hunting on these giant bats in Malaysia. They monitored 33 roosting sites in peninsular Malaysia over three years, analyzed hunting license sales to figure out whether the bats were being sustainably harvested, or not, and outfitted Malayan flying foxes with satellite telemetry collars to see where they went. 

According to the findings over the past three years, some 87,800 bats were hunted between 2002 and 2005, and using conservative baseline population estimates of 100,000, 250,000 and 500,000 bats in Malaysia (the exact numbers remain unknown), they found that at any of those values, current hunting levels appear to be unsustainable and could cause the species to go extinct in peninsular Malaysia. On top of the officially reported numbers, farmers sometimes kill bats as pests, plus there’s some illegal hunting activity, and those values are not included in the stats.

Epstein and his colleagues fitted seven adult male bats with satellite telemetry collars, and their results showed - for the first time - that these enigmatic mammals fly long distances between neighboring nations.  Some individuals flew hundreds of miles, beyond peninsular Malaysia all the way to Thailand and Indonesia.

Epstein and his colleagues believe neighboring nations should work together to ensure the migratory animals get managed sustainably so the species does not decline and go extinct. Perhaps these animals should have an international treaty protecting them akin to the one protecting migratory birds. Epstein and his colleagues recommended a temporary ban on hunting in Malaysia to more closely assess the situation. Officials from the Malaysian Department of National Parks and Wildlife (PERHILITAN), who participated in the research, have decided to review current hunting policy due to the new study.

British naturalist and author Gerald Durrell, founded the Wildlife Trust in 1971. I remember reading Durrell’s hilarious books about wildlife when I first visited Australia in 1990 as a college student. The Trust now supports wildlife research around the world.

Endangered Mississippi Sandhill Cranes get a boost

11/09/2009

Three endangered Mississippi sandhill cranes Credit US Fish & Wildlife Service

Starting at the crack of dawn Friday, November 6th, some 25 to 30 volunteers hid in blinds throughout the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge's wetland pine savanna to count and identify individuals by looking for colored bands around each crane’s long legs. The crane count not only provides refuge staff with critical information about the endangered birds' habitat use, but also allows volunteers who have a passion for birds to get a close-up view. They observes the birds for five hours, between 5am and 10am. "It is a snapshot survey of the population that allows us to track population trends over the years," says Refuge Ranger Emily Neidigh.

This was the first refuge established specifically to help an endangered species; Mississippi sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis pulla) are a critically endangered subspecies of the wide-ranging sandhill crane that have distinct coloration, behavior, and genetics. The refuge, initially established in 1975, is on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, near Gautier, and currently consists of over 19,000 acres in four separate units.

In addition to the crane count, last week biologists released ten captive-reared Mississippi sandhill cranes onto the refuge.  Only 100 individuals of this subspecies remain in the wild, and a mere five percent of the original acreage of pine savanna habitat remains along the Gulf Coastal Plain. The flock lives only on the refuge and on private lands surrounding it, but the good news is the flock has increased from an all-time low of 30 to 35 in the mid-1970s - albeit ever so slowly.

Ten young cranes, between five and six months old, were released using two different methods so biologists could determine which works best. "We're still refining our release techniques to give the cranes the best chance at survival and incorporation into the wild population," said Scott Hereford, Refuge Supervisory Wildlife Biologist. 

The first group of six, reared at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans, Louisiana, got introduced into an enclosure where they’ll stay for 30 days with wing restraints as part of a gradual or "acclimated" release. This allows other wild birds to interact with them, since others can fly into the pen but the young cranes can't fly out. until the wing restraints are removed. It also lets the young cranes get used to the area and develop site fidelity. "They were socialized prior to transfer to the refuge to develop group cohesion, thereby increasing survival, mimicking the tendency for wild subadults to form groups of three to seven," says Hereford. Five of these six crane chicks were “costume reared” by humans using crane suits and puppets on their hands.

"Caretakers are costumed the entire time we are raising the chicks, from hatching to the point that they get transferred to the refuge," explains Megan Savoie, Crane Program Coordinator for the Audubon Center.  Like all birds, cranes imprint on the first thing they see, so in order to avoid the crane chicks imprinting on a human, biologists use crane puppets to feed them when the chick is young. One of the six cranes in the enclosure was reared by crane parents but then socialized with the other crane chicks.

The second group of four cranes got released directly onto the refuge, without any enclosure or wing restraints. All four of these birds were reared at the White Oak Conservation Center in Yulee, Florida. Two got released together, near other individuals from the wild flock. The other two of the four got released individually in different parts of the refuge, but each near other wild birds.

"Nearly all the releases thus far have been via the acclimated release. It was developed here, and has been used in crane releases elsewhere," says Hereford. "We've rarely used direct releases, but I thought I'd try a few since it would have the advantage of allowing cranes to more quickly colonize new areas - no big expensive pen needed. We hope direct releases will be another tool in our toolkit of techniques in recovery efforts for the endangered Mississippi sandhill crane." It will be intriguing to see how the released cranes fare in the future!

Bats avoid fireflies for dinner

11/06/2009

Bats love to eat insects on the wing, but apparently don't like  fireflies. Fireflies are blinking beetles that evolved their neon flashing "lanterns" specifically to avoid getting eaten, because they contain substances called lucibufagins that don't taste very good to most creatures that would eat them. In "Hungry Bats Prompt Firefly Flashes," Discovery Animal News' Jennifer Viegas reports a new study published in Animal Behavior that the presence of bats results in firefly flashes. The fireflies seem to be telling the bats "don't eat me!" The scientists examined the bat fecal pellets and found that they had very few fireflies.

In Long Live Fireflies! I blogged about the Firefly Watch program.

Sea slime killing seabirds off Oregon and Washington

11/05/2009

Wildlife rescue teams wash sea slime off a loon Photo Courtesy Paul Kelway/IBRRC

Thousands of seabirds have now died in the Pacific Northwest over the past several weeks, in a near repeat of what occurred in California’s Monterey Bay in November 2007. The cause? A strange foamy sea slime has covered stretches of ocean, coating seabirds’ feathers, and leaving them vulnerable to death by hypothermia and predators. Seabird feathers have natural water resistance but in the case of oil, or in this case seafoam, it coats them with a substance similar to soap, compromising their feathers' natural waterproofing ability.

In mid-September birds started washing up on Washington’s Olympic peninsula. Around one thousand scoters, or sea ducks, died at that time. Biologists thought it was over, but then it started up again in October, reaching all the way down from Washington to Cannon Beach, Oregon. The dead and dying birds include common murres, common loons, red-throated loons, and grebes.

Volunteers and biologists from several organizations have rescued as many birds as possible before they succumb to hypothermia. Over 500 have been cleaned and sent to the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) in Fairfax, California which specializes in helping seabirds survive oil spills, though this seafoam has a natural cause. Scientists have identified the same dinoflagellate in the Oregon and Washington seafoam that caused the Monterey Bay situation - Akashiwo sanguine - which causes a red tide event.

"A. sanguinea is a naturally occurring algea along the Washington coast, however this fall it's concentrations were much higher than normal," explains Penelope Chilton, Research Coordinator for COASST (Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team), a network of volunteers that collects data on seabirds. "The interesting thing about this particular dinoflagellate is that when it is churned up in heavy surf the hard outer shell breaks open releasing a surfactant that is then whipped up into essentially a coastal bubble bath." Many red tide events kill marine life directly through toxins, but in this species, there’s no toxin but the sea slime from the surfactants kills birds by coating their feathers.

Though initial funding to rescue the birds came from some government agencies, as well as Petco Foundation and the Oregon Humane Foundation, private wildlife organizations such as IBRRC will end up paying the bulk of costs to care for, feed, rehabilitate and release the birds. They welcome donations.

The U.S. Coast Guard flew 305 of the birds from Astoria, Oregon to Sacramento, California where workers from IBRRC rushed them to the San Francisco Oiled Bird and Education Center, co-owned by IBRRC and Oiled Wildlife Care Network. In a tragic turn of events, the same Coast Guard C-130 plane that flew the birds collided with a marine helicopter, and crashed off of San Diego. Though they were not on a bird rescue mission at the time, it held one of the pilots that helped with the birds along with six other crew. No survivors have been found.

Back in 2007, biologists had no idea what caused the yellow-green soapy slime in Monterey Bay. A huge team of scientists worked to identify the cause, led by the California Department of Fish & Game’s David Jessup and including scientists from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML). They published the results in the online journal PLoS ONE. According to one of that study’s co-authors Raphael Kudela, professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, big red tide events have started increasing in frequency, especially since 2004. Global warming has caused ocean temperatures to rise, which may contribute to the increase in red tides, as well as other bizarre mucus blobs occurring throughout the ocean.

Boat alarms may help save manatees

11/02/2009

A Florida Manatee in the Homosassa River in Florida Copyright (c) 2000 Wendee Holtcamp

The gentle “sea cow” or Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostrus) – a subspecies of West Indian manatee – thrives on aquatic vegetation in the spring-fed rivers and shallow marine and estuarine waters off of Florida, though they also occasionally venture into the Gulf of Mexico. Fewer than 3,500 of these endangered species remain in the wild, and one of their biggest problems is motor boats, which run into them and kill or injure them. Four of five living manatees have scars on their bodies from past boat strikes.

Conservation biologists have tried speed limits for boaters in certain areas, and have  educated boaters and the general public for years about the possibility for collisions, but still the manatees die. They collide with even slow-moving boats. And therein may lie the problem.

Dr. Edmund Gerstein, Director of Marine Mammal Research at Florida Atlantic University, who has studied manatee-boat collisions since 1991, realized that the manatees may not hear the boats, especially those moving at slower speeds. Gerstein conducted a series of audiometric experiments with captive-bred manatees to test what frequencies and sounds these marine mammals hear and respond to best. Turns out manatees did not hear the very low frequency sounds – similar to a slow-moving boat propellor – but they did hear higher frequency sounds very well. Before this, wildlife officials assumed that manatees could readily hear slow-moving motorboats, but were unable to swim out of the way quickly enough. That didn't make sense to Gerstein who knew manatees could swim in bursts of speed up to 21 feet per second. His acoustic experiments turned that mistaken notion on its head, suggesting sound not speed was the key problem.

But even better, the results gave Gerstein an ingenious idea: boat alarms. Acoustic boat alarms would cost only around $125, a low enough cost to feasibly get installed on every boat in manatees’ nearshore habitat - particularly in murky waters where boaters cannot readily see the manatees. Gerstein tested the boat alarms in the wild near NASA's Cape Canaveral with huge success. Gerstein and colleagues approached manatees slowly in a boat using an alarm and 100% responded to the alarm, moving away from the boat, often at a full 75 feet away or so. In controls, in 65 "silent runs" with no alarms, 97% of the manatees did not move away from the boat. Such acoustic alarms have potential to help reduce boat collisions with whales in other locales, as I wrote about in my post, Technology Saves the Day (and the Whales).

"I believe the alarm can and should be used today, especially on slow moving commercial barges and other large vessels that are responsible for many of the watercraft related mortalities each year. Current speed laws have no impact on these large lumbering vessels and are essentially ineffective," says Gerstein. "For the Florida manatee, this device is proven to be effective and I hope that it will be adopted into a mandated protection strategy by the State so that manatees and recreational and commercial boaters can co-exist on the waterways."

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service just initiative a review of the manatee’s “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act, and information must be sent to them by October 29th - search regulations.gov for docket FWS-R4-ES-2009-0066. FWS last designated “critical habitat” for the manatee in 1976. This 90-day review is the first step in a process in which the FWS will determine whether a more extensive review is necessary. They define critical habitat as the geographical areas that have features the species needs for survival and reproduction.