The Razorbill Invasion of Florida

                     A Razorbill on a North Sea outcropping.  Photo from Orca's Weblog

Every so often and for whatever ecological reason, populations of some birds irrupt. Actually the population does not irrupt; birds in the population irrupt.  When they irrupt, birds leave their usual range and move to different areas usually seeking food.  Some of these irruptions are cyclical and can almost be predicted on a calendar. Others are more random occurring irregularly every few years.  Still others may have never occurred before in recent times.

The highly predictable 10-year cycle of Ruffed Grouse is one example.  This cycle has been researched for as long as people have known about Ruffed Grouse and entire books have been written on the subject.  Their numbers build and build and suddenly when numbers are at their apex the numbers of individuals in the population collapses.  Reasons for the collapse can be legion. With Ruffed Grouse there are generally two factors at work.  One is the spread of disease among densely packed animals.  The other is not enough food (especially catkins which are essential winter food) available to support the burgeoning population.  Ruffed Grouse literally eat themselves out of house and home and when they do their population crashes.

Snowy Owls also function on a nearly predictable cycle.  Theirs is a four-year cycle that closely mimics the ups and downs of numbers of North American Brown Lemmings, a major food item for Snowy Owls.  Lots of lemmings results in more young owls surviving and that means that the owl population can increase.  A sudden drop in the lemming population means that Snowy Owls suddenly have to search anywhere and everywhere for food.  In these situations the owls leave the High Arctic and pour south in large numbers looking for food.  Occasionally they have been recorded as far south as Alabama and Florida when food resources are scarce in their normal range.

For other bird species the irruptions are not as predictable but they are still based on the availability of food.  Red-breasted Nuthatch is one example. Some years in my native northern Wisconsin you are hard pressed to see or hear even a single Red-breasted Nuthatch all winter long.  Other years you almost need a shovel to clear them out of your way.  Results of a Christmas Bird Count I used to conduct in Barron County Wisconsin are illustrative.  From 1972 through 1975 we recorded one single Red-breasted Nuthatch in the Cedar Lake Christmas Bird Count circle.  That was an average of 0.25 Red-breasted Nuthatches per year.  However in 1976 there was a massive failure of the cone crop among spruce trees in the boreal forest and Red-breasted Nuthatches swarmed south.  That year we recorded 139 Red-breasted Nuthatches in our count circle.  In 1977 and 1978 there were none.

During the fall and winter of 1977 – 1978 there was a huge incursion of Common Redpoll and Purple Finch in northern Wisconsin.  My former wife and I surmised that we had at least 20 Common Redpoll’s and 7 or 8 Purple Finches at our backyard bird feeders that winter.  We put up mist nets to capture and band the birds and by the end of March 1978 we had banded more than 3,000 Common Redpolls and more than 1,000 Purple Finch.  The following year we did not see a single individual of either species.  It was likely all food related. 

The same phenomenon is occurring in the 2012-2013 fall/winter in Florida and Razorbill is grabbing the birding headlines.  This Arctic-nesting seabird, a relative of the extinct Great Auk and the common and often comical Atlantic Puffin, generally nests on rocky islands and inaccessible promontories from easternmost Maine north to the High Arctic of Canada.  They are generally associated with cold water throughout the year where they eat a variety of marine life including fish and crustaceans.  In most years they rarely migrate south of New York/New Jersey in winter.  The first one I ever saw was on the coast of New Hampshire on November 22, 1984.  The furthest south I had ever seen a Razorbill was on the coast of Delaware on March 1, 1995.  That was until this year.

The first indication of an impending invasion happened two weeks ago when a single Razorbill was taken to a rehabilitation center on Florida’s east coast.  Soon another one showed up and then someone found a healthy bird floating around near Ponce Inlet in Volusia County.  That seemed to be the opening of the flood gates and now Razorbills are being seen in sizeable numbers as far south as Fort Myers and Miami.  Someone recently went offshore from Miami and reported multiple flocks of 150 to 200 individual Razorbills.  This is totally unheard of this far south.

Last week I made a day trip to Palm Beach County to look for a Razorbill that had been observed there.  I wanted to get it for my Florida state list and add it to my meager Palm Beach County list.  I did not have to work hard and easily found the bird.  The following day I received an email from the local bird sighting group with the astonishing news that a Razorbill was just seen that morning on Anna Maria Island west of Bradenton about 25 minutes from my dining room table.  What made this news astonishing was that the bird was on the Gulf side of the state meaning that it likely flew across the peninsula to get here.  Given this species’ breeding range, you would expect them on the Atlantic Coast.  However to get to the Gulf side took real effort.

A quick check of the Avisys database reveals that there are no records of Razorbill from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi or Texas.  Thus unless there had been Razorbills somewhere on the Gulf Coast of Florida in past years, this bird was likely the first one ever seen on the Gulf of Mexico!

Surprised by its presence and always looking for a new bird for my Manatee County list, I flew out the door headed for Anna Maria Island.  Enroute I called my friend Sue Paschall, a fledgling birder from Bradenton and picked her up on the way to the island.  This would be a life bird for Sue and an entirely new bird family she had never seen before.

We drove to Longboat Pass and walked the seawall toward the bridge.  Someone there pointed us toward the bird as it floated in the water maybe five feet from shore.  We walked up to the bird and were so close we could see it blink its eyes.  It was actively hunting for food with its face submerged beneath the water's surface.  Occasionally it would dive giving us great views of it “flying” underwater.  Sue made a comment about it acting like a penguin which was a very astute observation because its behavior was very much like the Humboldt Penguins I have watched foraging off the coasts of Chile and Peru.

 The Manatee County Razorbill photographed off Anna Maria Island by Claire Herzog   Image used with Claire's permission.

We watched the bird for maybe ten minutes and then left it still actively foraging along the shore.  In my haste to get to the island I failed to bring along my camera.  This picture, of the same individual, was taken the following day by local enthusiastic birder Claire Herzog.  Coincidentally the bridge over Longboat Pass plays an important role in my new novel "Minor League Heckler."  However you will have to buy the book to find out why and how.

Since the Anna Maria Island bird there have been additional Gulf Coast observations in Florida including one at Fort DeSoto Park in Pinellas County, the Venice jetty in southernmost Sarasota County, Stump Pass Beach State Park in Charlotte County, and Bunchie Beach near Fort Myers in Lee County.  At one point it was possible to keep track of how many Razorbill’s had been seen in Florida.  Now the number is out of control and is anyone’s guess.

Adding to the excitement, on Friday someone found a Thick-billed Murre at Fort Clinch State Park in northernmost Nassau County.  The curious thing about Thick-billed Murre is that their normal range is at a latitude even higher than the Razorbill.  Something clearly has happened to the food resource further north to bring so many Arctic seabirds down to the subtropics. 

Someone recently posted a comment on the Florida bird list serve pondering whether the invasion was related to the failure of nesting habitat or if something had happened to the nesting habitat.  That seems highly unlikely given the rocky areas they nest in on remote uninhabited islands and the even more remote sea stacks and cliff faces in Arctic Canada.  No doubt what happened is that some important item or items in the natural prey base of Razorbill has crashed.  It must be just one or two prey species because we have not witnessed a huge increase in numbers of Northern Gannet, or Red-throated Loon or even Common Loon; all species from a similar winter habitat and prey item suite.  Just like with the Red-breasted Nuthatches back in northern Wisconsin the abundance and presence of some food tem fell off the charts and the Razorbill’s have headed south

Now I am wondering if this invasion extends to the West Indies.  There are no records of Razorbill from any country in the West Indies including both Cuba and the Bahama Islands.  With 519 species on my West Indies list it has become increasingly difficult to get a new bird for that list.  My hunch, given the large numbers of Razorbill offshore from Miami and all the birds that have been found in Palm Beach County, is that there are at least a few Razorbill’s somewhere in Bahamian waters.  If Razorbill’s turn up in Key West then the question becomes – will they make the 90 mile hop over to Cuba since they are in the neighborhood?

Oh to be back again sitting on the beach of North Bimini with my spotting scope pointed toward the open ocean.  Now that I mentioned it I think I’m going to call an airline to see if they have any space available on the next flight to Bimini.  I can’t think of a better Christmas present for myself than looking for and maybe finding in the West Indies an Arctic seabird that just like me, had its fill of the cold and headed south to the subtropics.  If they are wise the Razorbill’s, like me, won’t go back.

Thailand's Golden Triangle

Thai Airways flight 140 was scheduled to leave Bangkok at 1:45 p.m. but Thai decided it wanted to leave a bit early. Airlines in the United States should take a hint from Thai.  Our destination was Chiang Rai, the most northerly airport in Thailand and the gateway to the famous Golden Triangle.

The flight north over the Thai countryside was a bit of a disappointment because despite it being crystal clear out, there was so much water vapor in the air it was next to impossible to get any impression about the landscape below me. I had paid $15 extra to fly in Business Class on this Airbus 300 and the extra space was nice. Unfortunately Thai does not serve anything alcoholic on its domestic flights “We trying to cut costs, you know” so it was an extra $15 spent for nothing. At least the wider seats were nice.

We arrived in Chiang Rai about twenty minutes ahead of schedule and Budget had my rental car ready and waiting when I arrived at their counter.  As I passed through the arrivals area of the Chiang Rai airport I noticed a large display area. In the area was a banner sign that said “Toilet Exposition and Conference, Bangkok.  Beneath the announcement of the exposition was its motto, “Happy Toilet – Happy Life.”  This is one of those incidents that Sam Kinison once summed up by saying “You can’t think these things up. Someone has to actually do it first.”

River Lapwing – most easily found in Thailand only near Sop Ruak

  

By far the best bird of the afternoon was the highly localized River Lapwing that, out of character for the species was along the shore of a lake just before you enter Sop Ruak. I can’t really explain why these denizens of the river environment were this far inland on a lake. I guess its just one of those ornithological mysteries that are not worth spending the time on trying to figure out.

I birded my way north and then northeast to Sop Ruak, Thailand, a village strategically placed at the junction of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. The mighty Mekong River (here about ¾ mile wide) separates Thailand from Laos, and the Sop Ruak River that enters the Mekong near downtown Sop Ruak separates Thailand from Myanmar.  You could, and I did, throw a rock across the river and it would plunk down in Myanmar.

Sometimes in travel you find a place that clicks. A place filled with serenity. A place where you feel welcome and don’t ever want to leave. A place like the place Jimmy Buffett sang about in his song “I Have Found Me a Home.”  I first felt that feeling when I visited Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. I felt it again when I visited Sop Ruak. It’s the kind of place where you walk around telling yourself, “I could live here” and you know that you could.

Sop Ruak. Laos is to the right. Myanmar is the peninsula straight ahead. Thailand to the left.. The river is a small section of the very large Mekong River. This makes up the “Golden Triangle.”

  

One of Sop Ruak’s claims to fame is its existence on the Golden Triangle.  The Golden Triangle is one of Asia's two main illicit opium producing areas.  It is an area of around 350,000 square kilometers that overlaps the mountains of four countries of Southeast Asia, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.  Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent together with Iran and Pakistan it has been one of the most extensive opium-producing areas of  of the world since the 1950s. The Golden Triangle also designates the confluence of the Sop Ruak River and the Mekong River because the term has been appropriated by the Thai tourist industry to describe the nearby junction of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar (Burma).

Opium and morphine base produced in northeastern Burma are transported by horse and donkey caravans to refineries along the Thailand-Burma border for conversion to heroin and heroin base. Most of the finished products are shipped across the border into various towns in North Thailand and down to Bangkok for further distribution to international markets. In the past major Thai Chinese and Burmese Chinese traffickers in Bangkok have controlled much of the foreign sales and movement of Southeast Asian heroin from Thailand, but a combination of law enforcement pressure, publicity and a regional drought has significantly reduced their role. As a consequence, many less-predominant traffickers in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand now control smaller quantities of the heroin going to international markets.

Heroin from Southeast Asia is most frequently brought to the United States by couriers typically Thai and U.S. nationals and Hong Kong Chinese, traveling on commercial airlines. California and Hawaii are the primary U.S. entry points for Golden Triangle heroin, but small percentages of the drug are trafficked into New York City and Washington D.C. While Southeast Asian groups have had success in trafficking heroin to the United States, they initially had difficulty arranging street level distribution. However, with the incarceration of Asian traffickers in American prisons during the 1970's, contacts between Asian and American prisoners developed. These contacts have allowed Southeast Asian traffickers access to individuals and organizations distributing heroin at the retail level.

Its other claim to fame, strictly for from a tourist standpoint, is the Hall of Opium.   The Hall draws visitors into the world of opium, taking them on a ‘journey’ that sheds light on the more than 5,000 years of use and abuse of opiates dating back to pre-historic times.  The exhibits at the Hall explain the continued use in pharmaceutical preparations and medicine for the treatment of ailments and international efforts to control illegal drug abuse. Case studies help visitors to understand the problems of addiction and choices available to fight the temptation of drugs.

Every step of the way through the 5,600 sq-meter exhibition area in the Hall of Opium, the information is presented through the dramatic use of state-of-the-art multimedia innovation and is vivid and poignant. The use of audio-visual presentations and interactive displays, coupled with dynamic spatial design, work together to enlighten and provoke thought. The Hall of Opium at the Golden Triangle Park also incorporates an information center for research and extension education on opium, opiates and other narcotics.

I checked into my hotel, the Imperial Golden Triangle Resort, an absolutely wonderful and at $20 US a night remarkably cheap gem in northern Thailand.  After a few nights here you literally wonder why you ever go home

After stowing my bags I walked north (upstream) along the main road checking for birds and trying to avoid snarling dogs.  I succeeded in both accounts.  Without doubt the best bird here was the Amur Falcon that flashed past me enroute to decapitating its dinner somewhere nearby.  I returned to the hotel at about dark and then walked into the little village of Sop Ruak.

A stunningly beautiful Amur Falcon over Sop Ruak

American and European tourists seem to enjoy being bused around like the Japanese. Once they arrive at a destination, they listen to the local story recited by a local resident; obligingly nod their heads in unison and say “very interesting” and then move on to the next location on their guided tour itinerary.  It seems that most of these tourists learn what they can about an area by standing in lines at souvenir shops where they can buy “authentic” whatever’s imported yesterday from Indonesia or the Philippines, and then return home with stories about what “bargains” obtained while shopping in country X. 

 A massive statute of Buddha along the Mekong River in Sop Ruak

American and European tourists have become so ingrained in having everything done for them and having that done instantly, that few seem to take any adventure in their travel  Our lives seem to focus around the California Factor We want our meals quickly. We complain if our computer takes more than five seconds to connect to the Internet.  We unnecessarily send back restaurant food if it’s not to our exacting specifications.  We complain if we have to park too far from the entrance to a shopping mall, and God/Allah forbid is someone cuts off our SUV while in freeway traffic.  No matter what it is we must have it now. If its not 105 percent correct we’ll send it back.  Everything, including our vacation experiences, must be exacting, ahead of schedule and precisely how we ordered it or we send it back.

Dinner one night in a restaurant that sat out over the Mekong River was, appropriately, Mekong River catfish.  It and a large bottle of Singha beer, cost an entire $3.00 US.

After nine days in Thailand I thought it was a novelty to hear American English spoken at dinner.  “We’re from near Sacramento,” the American tourist snarled as if I was supposed to know her family was from Sacramento.  “This is our first time in Thailand and it will be our last time,” she told me when I asked how they liked being in Thailand. When I asked why she did not like it, she rattled off a litany of reasons.

“Everything moves so slowly here. Its nerve wracking,” she started.  It was obvious she had never driven in Bangkok traffic.

“It’s so hot here,” was the next complaint.  The warmest it had been during my stay was 94 degrees F and that was in the lowlands near Bangkok. She apparently forgot about the continuous days of 105 degrees or greater that visit Sacramento from June to September each year.

Her final complaint was that they could not get any news here. “All the papers and all the news broadcasts are in Thai and we can’t keep track of the Dow while we’re here.”

Was it a surprise to anyone that newspapers were in Thai since we were in Thailand?? And the same for the reporters on the television? They’re Thai after all.  Perhaps copies of the English language Bangkok Post had eluded her.  Perhaps in this distressing foreign experience she had forgotten how to use her remote control button because the English language BBC World News, presented in the Queen’s own bloody English, had been on every television I watched since my arrival.

She and her family were traveling on a “See Asia” package that included being squired around Thailand in an air conditioned bus. They were “doing” the Golden Triangle for a couple days and then on to Chiang Mai. They would spend time visiting the Hill People near the Myanmar border, although each night they would be whisked in their air conditioned bus back to the Sheraton in downtown Chiang Mai each night.

She invited me to have dinner with her family.  Her husband, an investment banker and two teenaged daughters sat at a large table overlooking the Mekong River. They were looking across the expanse of the river to the other shore. 

“Have you considered taking a side trip to Laos while you are here,” I asked?

“I don’t even know where that is,” her husband, Chris, said. From where we were sitting we could see the lights of a small village flickering on directly across the river in Laos.  I pointed out that he was looking at Laos. He didn’t have a clue.

“What is there to do in Laos,” their oldest daughter asked.

I gave her a list of trekking options and exploration options they could use.  For one they could take a river boat downstream for several days and then fly back to Bangkok.

“That sounds like, so like, primitive,” the enlightened oldest daughter said when I described taking a long tail boat across the Mekong River to Laos that morning.  

She would have never made it on a four day boat trip down the Rio Napo in Ecuador, let alone a four minute trip across the Mekong River to another world. Maybe that's why she should go.

Lesser Prairie-Chicken and the Falling Sky

The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced its legally-required intentions to determine if the Lesser Prairie-Chicken should be added to the list of Federally threatened or endangered species.  Predictably this has caused the nutcases to come unglued claiming all manner of horrible things will befall the world if the bird is listed. The ranting and raving stems from the standard uninformed line about how the Endangered Species Act will "stop" development.

You would think that after more than 40 years of the Endangered SpeciesAct these neanderthals would know that the Act doesn't "stop" anything.  It is designed to force agencies to find ways to proceed without adversely affecting the species or its habitat.  In fact when there is a Jeopardy determination in a biological opinion under the Act the Act has failed.  

The Act says that Federal actions must ensure that the continued existence of the species is not threatened by those actions and conservation measures and mitigation measures are put in place to make sure that doesn't happen. Still these individuals run around with their chicken little mind set certain that the sky will fall if a species is added to the list. 

What will come of this process is a final determination as to whether or not the species will be listed.  It will look something like this determination I authored twenty years ago when there was a proposal to list the Ferruginous Hawk as a threatened species.  There was not enough evidence available to warrant listing the hawk. There appears to be more than enough available to warrant listing the Lesser Prairie-Chicken.

The president of the Florida Keys Association of Realtors once came unglued because the Lower Keys Rice Rat was an endangered species. She told me with great authority that "if one landowner isn't allowed to build on his land because of a god damned rat there is going to be a holy war in the Lower Keys."  I asked her matter-of-factly "Shirley, what does it say to you about the quality of  the human environment when a rat has to be listed as an endangered species?"  She looked blankly out her office window and then changed the subject.  That conversation happened in 1992.  I was last in the Lower Keys in August 2012. There has been no let up in the amount of development.  Humans, development, and the Lower Keys Rice Rat are still there.

Once I accompanied one of my biologists on a visit to a Corps of Engineers colonel in Los Angeles who immediately began hyperventilating about how the Act "stops development." After a few minutes of this nonsense I asked him to look out his window (we were in downtown LA across the street from where the OJ Simpson trial was held) and show me where development had been stopped by the ESA. Realizing his bluff had been called he began working with us instead of against us.

A farmer from near Lexington, Nebraska made a pilgrimage to Washington one March day to plead for relief from the Endangered Species Act.  He sat in our office in Arlington Square waxing poetic about how people "all over the Platte River" were losing their jobs because of the Whooping Crane and because there was federally listed critical habitat for the bird on the river.  I knew this farmer because once John Sidle and I flew a reporter from the Omaha World-Herald over his illegal dike in the Platte River and Fred's resulting story got the Corps of Engineers to direct him to remove the dike.  The farmer didn't remember me until I asked him to "name ONE person along the river who has lost their job because of the Act."   He thought a second and finally said, "well, there are none."  Damned right there weren't.

I once thought that if you passed on information to the public they would get the message and our job would be completed.  However its a never ending battle and it shows no signs of letting up.

Another time I was asked to give a presentation on the effects of irrigation agriculture on endangered species to a group of irrigation farmers in Palco, Kansas   At the conclusion of the talk a grizzled old man raised his hand and asked me "what's a skink?"

I explained that a skink is a type of lizard.  He asked me "Well, then, do you think a lizard should be allowed to stop a water project?"  I asked more questions and learned that a state-listed species of skink was holding up a water project in western Kansas and this man thought that was almost blasphemous.  

Without answering him I asked "Sir, do you know what an armadillo is? A little animal that spends most of its life dead along side the road?"  

Saying that he did I said "The armadillo is the only species of animal that can not contract leprosy. It produces carries the virus in its body but produces a chemical that keeps the virus from growing and causing leprosy.  There is enough of that chemical in one armadillo to treat seven human victims of leprosy. Now do you know what is in that skink?"

He didn't.

I asked "Do you want to take the chance?"

He said he didn't.

I replied, "That's why we have the Endangered Species Act - to keep all the parts no matter how seemingly inconsequential together."

After the last question was answered he walked up to me, shook my hand, and thanked me "for opening my eyes."   Hopefully the next day he was in a local restaurant telling his other uninformed buddies about armadillos and leprosy and skinks and how they all matter.

It looks like some old colleagues in Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas will have to use the same logic if the Lesser Prairie-Chicken gets listed.

It's Opening Day of Deer Hunting in Wisconsin

It's that day again - the opening day of the deer hunting season in the great Badger/Packer/Cheesehead state of my birth.    No day in the state is more sacred and more anticipated that this day.  By tradition, almost, opening day is the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  Opening day of the walleye fishing season is a much more subdued affair. Many were the times that I stood in the racing waters of the Red Cedar River below the damn in Mikana waiting for 12:01 a.m. to come on the opening day of fishing season.  At the appointed minute everyones fishing lures hit the water and the spring ritual began.  But it pales in comparison to the opening day of deer hunting season.

Opening day of the Wisconsin Badgers football season and opening day of the Green Bay Packers season are also monumental days in Wisconsin.  Tail-gate parties begin.  The number of green and gold  and/or cardinal red bumper stickers on cars increases almost exponentially.  All eyes are focused on Green Bay or Madison on that day.  But it pales in comparison to the opening day of deer hunting season.

There is absolutely nothing like the opening day of deer season.  I remember one year sitting in the bar in Mikana the night before deer season opening listening to some crackpot blathering on about the albino deer that he saw occasionally in his pasture.  This guy was convinced, and became even more so with each passing bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon, that his albino deer was an albino because his neighbor had a Charlois bull (a white skinned breed of bovine) and this guy just knew beyond any shadow of any doubt that the Charlois bull had bred a female deer and that's how the albino deer found its way to his pasture. No amount of explanation of genetics and mutations could convince him otherwise.  He was, like so many others in Wisconsin at this time of year, what I used to call a "Nine-Day-A-Year-Deer-Biologist."  He knew and no amount of fact was going to change his opinion.

My first professional job after graduate school was working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in Pierce and St. Croix Counties.  Our office was in Baldwin and Bruce Moss was my supervisor.  One morning on our way over to get a cup of coffee before heading out to the field Bruce told me a story that has never left me.  Its a story that is as true today as it was in June 1976 when Bruce uttered it.  It goes:

Imagine that you have a pain in your tooth.  You go to the dentist and he says you need a root canal.  Because of the dentists training and experience you let him open your tooth, pull out the nerve, kill the tooth, and then refill the tooth.   

Or if you have a pain in your right side and you go to the doctor and the doctor says you have appendicitis.  He then tells you that if your appendix is not removed it will burst and the poisons in it will likely kill you.  Because of the doctor’s training and experience you let him open your body, cut a part of it out of you, and then you let him sew your body back up.  

However when it comes to wildlife, everyone from the president of the local bank to the janitor at the local high school is an expert and wildlife biologists who many times have as much or more training and experience as a doctor or dentist don’t know a thing about what they are saying.

And so it goes with deer hunting.

Before the deer hunting season opened in 1976 I was sent to Balsam Lake to explain a radical new concept for the deer hunting season.  Since deer hunting season began it was always nine days long.  It began the Saturday before Thanksgiving and ended the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  It was as predictable as the sunrise and it was as much a part of the culture of Wisconsin as mom, home, and apple pie.  If you wanted the nine-day biologists up in arms, just mess with their deer hunting season.  That is exactly what had been proposed and that's what I was sent out into the lion's den to explain. Because of rapid human population growth in the southern third of the state the DNR proposed that the hunting season be shortened to four days in southern Wisconsin.  It would remain at the cherished nine days in the central part of the state and anywhere "up north" (north of Highway 29 the season would be two weeks long.  The idea being that more hunters would go up north to hunt because the season was longer.  I went over to the Polk County Sportsman's Club meeting to explain this.

Freshly out of graduate school and still idealistic as hell I thought this would be an easy sell.  It made perfect biological sense.  Hunters would still be able to shoot one buck a year (that bag limit changed a few years later) only now they had more time to hunt.  It made sense to me but not to the assembled mass of more than 100 nine-day biologists waiting for me.

Completing my presentation I asked if there were any questions.  I had already been greeted with cat calls from people in the audience - they never told us about this part of wildlife biology in graduate school!  One particularly old and grizzled man sitting near the front of the group raised his arthritic hand and asked to be called on.  When I acknowledged him he stood up and said in a very thick German accent, and with his index finger on his right hand pointed crookedly at me said,  "You god-damned college boys.  You come here and tell me about deer.  Well I've been hunting deer for sixty years and I know deer."  He put particular emphasis on the last three words.  Saying his peace he sat down.  He had no question.  He just felt compelled to put that college boy who was messing with his deer season in his place.

Later that same year I ran a deer registration station in Cumberland, in the northwest corner of Barron County.  The station was along heavily-used Highway 63, a major artery for cars and hunters returning south after hunting in northern Wisconsin.  State law required that anyone with a deer in their possession had to have it registered and a registration tag attached to it.  The registration had to be completed within a certain amount of time after shooting the deer.  Without the tag you were subject to a citation and a fine.  It was the kind of law enforcement that Barron County game warden Owen Anderson liked because he could sit in his car and drink coffee rather than actually get out in the woods and enforce laws that really mattered.

One of the activities that we participated in while registering a deer was to determine its age.  There is a very easy technique that allows for that and its done by looking at the amount of wear on the molars of the deer.  The following figure demonstrates how to tell ages of deer by their teeth.

When someone arrived with a deer my now-ex-wife and I would ask if we could examine the deer's mouth to tell its age.  Data collected on age distribution of deer provided one glimpse at the health of the herd.

To examine the mouth we made an incision on the side of the deer's cheek and then inserted a piece of metal between the jaws (a jaw spreader).  Turning the spreader 90 degrees would open the mouth and we could peer in.  When doing so the first thing you look at is the last molar on the bottom jaw.  If it had 3 cusps on it the deer was 1 year 6 months old or younger.  If there were only two cusps then the animal was at least 1 year 7 months old or older and you had to look at the amount of wear on the remaining molars to determine the age.  Something like 70 percent of all the deer harvested in Wisconsin are 1 year 6 months old or younger.  In other words, 70 percent of the deer paraded down the highway in Wisconsin in this week in late November 2012 were born in May 2011.   Sorry, that is how biology works.

Many deer hunters, however, don't let biological fact get in their way of being a nine-day-a-year-deer-biologist.  Most are convinced that you age a deer by the number of tines or points on the antlers and to be counted as a point they must be at least 3 inches long.  For example the male deer shown at the start of this post appears to be a "4-pointer" with two tines on either side of its antlers.  Another common mistake is that deer have horns. They do not.  Deer have antlers which are an extension of the bone in the skull. Antlers are replaced each year as the seasons change.  Horns are made up of a substance involving hair.  Horns do not fall off each year like antlers. Instead horns get bigger as the animal ages.  Sheep have horns.  Pronghorn antelope have horns.  Rocky Mountain goats have horns.  Deer and elk and moose have ANTLERS.

Antler growth is a function of the biological well-being of the animal.  If the deer is eating well its antler growth will be more advanced than if it wasn't eating well.  The oldest male deer I ever aged in Wisconsin was four years old.  It had one spike antler on either side of its head.  That animal had not been eating well that year.  But I digress.

In mid afternoon on opening day a group of hunters showed up with four deer in the back of their pickup.  I walked out to take care of the deer and as I left the building where we were working another pickup showed up with one deer in the back.  My now-ex-wife went out to handle that lone deer and asked if she could open its mouth to determine its age.   It was a male with 8 points on its rack of antlers.  The hunter said "sure, go ahead, but there's no need to look at its mouth.  It has 8 points so its 8 years old."  Ruth slit the deer's cheek open, inserted the jaw spreader, opened the jaws and looked at the last molar.  It had 3 cusps on it which means the deer was 1 year 6 months old.  She informed him that his deer was one and a half years old and the guy became furious!

"You don't know a god damned thing about deer!" he screamed. "That deer has 8 points and that means its 8 years old."  Ruth made the mistake of trying to reason with him and explained how we tell the animal's age.  She even re-opened the mouth, explained about the technique for aging and showed this man the three cusp on the last molar.  He wanted nothing of it and started making noise like he was threatening my wife.  That wasn't about to happen so I walked over and asked if she needed some help.  She also asked if I would age the deer for this man because he didn't believe her. I spread the mouth open, saw the 3 cusps on the last molar and said "Sir, your deer is 1 year 6 months old.  It was born last year in May."  I then showed him the chart we used to tell the age of the animals.

He was incredulous! "You god damned DNR bastards you don't know a fucking thing about deer!   I didn't have to go to college to learn how to age a deer. This buck has 8 points and that means its 8 years old. You better mark that down on your little chart."  I pulled out my data sheet and entered the age as 1 year 6 months old.   The man screamed "FUCK YOU!" and got in his car and drove off.  I'm sure later that night he was sitting in the corner bar (every town in northern Wisconsin has a bar named the Corner Bar) in whatever town he was from bragging about shooting an 8 year old deer and then having to tell off those two smarmy DNR people who told him it was barely older than a fawn.

There must be some sort of macho thing associated with shooting a deer with a lot of antlers and with shooting an older animal.  Maybe its a function of dwindling testosterone levels?

The other thing that Wisconsin's nine-day-a-year-deer-biologists know all about is the management practice of hunting does (females).  My bombastic uncle Buck Beranek, himself a pedigreed nine-day deer biologist used to bellow out at me "How can you increase the deer herd if you kill the ones that are having the babies?"  Sounds logical but there are a few dozen flaws in the argument as Wisconsin found out in the early 1980s.

In 1900 there was an estimated 100,000 white-tailed deer in all of Wisconsin.  Most of the state was heavily forested at that time and that didn't provide for an abundance of viable deer habitat.  Cutting down the forest and turning the landscape into a mosaic of tree types and ages helped deer flourish.  In 1976, the year I ran the deer check station in Cumberland, deer hunters in the state shot 100,000 deer.  A couple years later Wisconsin altered the deer season a bit and allowed (and encouraged!) the harvesting of does.  In response, in 1996 Wisconsin deer hunters harvested 500,000 deer in the state.  The population continued at fairly high levels until a disease called Chronic Wasting Disease substantially knocked back the population.  One of the reasons it was so prevalent was the ease with which the disease was transmitted in a large population of animals.

My first FFA (agriculture) teacher was a strange little man named Marcus Murray who maintained an interesting library of magazines in his classroom.  One of those that he carried was then called the Wisconsin Conservation Bulletin.

This monthly magazine was a great read for a budding biologist who wanted to learn more about wildlife.  I distinctly remember reading one issue  (it came out monthly) from 1960 that contained a story "Deer Season 1980" that provided a futuristic look at what deer hunting would be like in Wisconsin 20 years hence. Of course at the time 20 years in the future was almost like the next century.  However the story contained some guesses and projections of what deer hunting would be like in the then not so distant future.  I remember the story mentioned greater mobility for hunters, more powerful rifles with which to hunt them, and there was a hint that maybe there would be so many deer by then that hunters might be asked to shoot a few does.  That of course was a blasphemous concept but eventually it came true.  Those "god damned college boys" were right.

Tonight there will be people in hunting cabins out in the great north woods of Wisconsin telling deer hunting tales.  Some will revolve around this buck with a massive set of antlers that must have been an elk sneaking off into the forest before someone could get off a shot.  Other people will be sitting in the bar in Mikana tonight boasting about the big one they shot "Damn, Ed, I got a 10 pointer today. Biggest damned deer I ever shot."  Still others will be arguing about how old the deer was that they shot and nobody with any amount of testosterone in their blood would ever think of admitting that the deer he shot was a fawn last year.

Tomorrow morning most of the people who were unlucky today will be back in the woods trying to track down that monster buck that they can brag about to their buddies.  The number of hunters in the woods will dwindle every day as more people get their deer and even more get frustrated and give up.  That will continue until sundown next Sunday.

And the following day the stories will change to how "next year" on opening day they are all going to try a different woods to hunt or maybe use a different technique to find a deer or maybe hunt with a different group of friends in a different part of the state.  Its as predictable as the sunrise and the debates will begin anew.

Voting in Florida - America's Third World Country

                                             November 8 2012

Editor,
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Sarasota Florida


Dear Editor

Nearly 48 hours after the polls closed in Florida and still we do not have a final count of the ballots for President.  Forty nine other states and the trust territories have figured out how to count ballots and submit their results but not Florida.  Its bad enough that through legislative fiat we were subjected to voter suppression when it came to early voting, now we are subjected to vote suppression by a system that seems to work only some of the time.

This year for the second Presidential election in a row, the United Nations felt compelled to send poll watchers to the United States to ensure that our election was legitimate.  That is usually something that President Jimmy Carter does every other year when he travels to Somalia or somewhere else to ensure that fledgling democracies are voting properly.  Florida's election system is apparently on par with those third world countries where it takes days upon days determine final results.

Changing the embarrassing way in which Florida conducts its elections will require the concerted efforts of the legislature and the Secretary of State.  However they are they same individuals who are probably taking great joy in watching the pandemonium that continues.  Florida takes great pride in marketing itself as a world leader in tourism.  Yet every four years it seems Florida reverts back to being America's domestic third world country.


 Craig Faanes

Harassment by Hubbard's Marina

This past spring I made the mistake of contacting Hubbard's Marina in Madeira Beach, Florida, regarding their ferry service to an island offshore from Pinellas County, Florida.  It was a simple email asking a simple question.  At no time in the email did I even hint that I wanted Hubbard's Marina to add me to their database or did I ask them (or give my consent to) sending me emails in the future.

Despite that fact the emails began.  Each time I received one I would write back to Hubbards and ask them to remove me from their database because I did not want their emails.  I dont know how many times I clicked the little icon at the bottom of their emails where you can unsubscribe. The emails continued.  A couple weeks ago when I received one I wrote back and not only asked but begged Hubbard's Marina to remove me from their database.   In that email I promised that if I received one one more unwanted email I would contact the Tampa Bay Times in St. Petersburg and ask them to do a story on why Hubbard's Marina persists in harassing people.

This morning I received another email from Hubbard's.  Following is my email to the Tampa Bay Times.  Maybe now they will get the hint.  This post will stay up on my blog until Hubbard's Marina stops harassing me.

Dear Tampa Bay Times

On one occasion this past spring I contacted Hubbard's Marina in Madeira Beach regarding a service they provided. It was a simple email asking for information. At NO TIME did I suggest or even hint to Hubbard's Marina that I ever wanted to hear from them again and at no time did I ever hint that I had authorized them to put my name on a mailing list.

The email advertisements from them began shortly after my initial contact. EACH TIME I have received an email from them I have asked (and more recently begged) Hubbard's Marina to take my name and email address out of their database. Each time the email advertisements continued. To me this is bordering on if not passing harassment. A couple weeks ago I received the latest unwanted advertisement and this time I wrote to the General Manager of Hubbards Marina again begging that the emails cease.

This morning I received the latest unwanted email advertisement. In my email to their general manager a couple weeks ago I said that if they did not stop sending me email advertisements I would pass this information on to the Tampa Bay Times in the hope that you might want to do a story on why a local business refuses to listen to a very uninterested member of the public. Perhaps a story in the Times will get their attention. Perhaps not. Regardless I wanted to pass this information on to you with a request that you consider doing a story on why Hubbard's Marina flatly refuses to listen. Maybe there are other local companies that also participate in harassment activities of people. It might be interesting to find out and to ask them why they behave like they do.

I certainly hope you find this issue newsworthy. I also hope you can get Hubbard's Marina out of my inbox.

Craig Faanes

---

From: Hubbards Marina
To:
Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2012 9:17 AM
Subject: Fishing News - 11/08/12

view online version

REGULARS CLUB	WHAT'S NEW	Captain's Fishing Report Around the Pass - The water is clearing up finally after the week of bad weather! Big mackerel are around chasing all the bait they can finally see again, during this past weekend's King of the Beach the winning mackerel was almost six pounds! The flounder are still in force on the sandy spots around the pass and the grass flats in shore. Also, the snook population seems to be coming back strong! They are a great catch and release game fish that are stacking up on structure around the pass. They love a nice big live bait presented well while the water is moving. Nearshore (out to 20nm) The Kingfish and mackerel are still the main attraction of near shore fishing right now. They are everywhere, jumping out of the water even on the bait schools. The grouper are going to in close all winter, we are regularly getting keeper red grouper on our half day trips drifting across hard rock bottom within state waters. Gags finally closed unfortunately but they still offer a great fight and are also loaded up inshore on the bigger hard structure. While your bottom fishing though, don't forget about your flat-line! Offshore - Trolling for big kingfish and blackfin is so popular this time of year, and it is relatively easy to be successful. During this past weekend's King of the Beach kingfish tournament, They weighed-in a seventy-two pound Wahoo! Also, one fishing team caught and released a big sailfish. Both were caught trolling for a big Kingfish. Amberjack are moving in closer so you don't have to burn all your fuel anymore to get to these reef monsters. They love wrecks or springs and eat vertical jigs or most any large live bait. Let's be friends... 150 John's Pass Madeira Beach, FL Contact727-393-1947 or Toll Free 1-800-755-0677 HubbardsMarina.com
We are working on regulars club 2013 sign-up, if you have not been contacted by our office, get in touch with us today to update your info! We want to make sure our regular's get to schedule trips first on our new 2013 schedule to ensure they get the spots and bunks they want. For those of you who would like to come fishing with us more often but don’t want to break the bank, we offer a Regular’s club that is open to anyone who would like to join. The fee to join is $150 for the year, starting from when you sign up to the end of December 2013. Registration begins in November, and the perks begin immediately. With a Regulars club membership you receive some great deals on all of our fishing trips. For every half day and 10 hour all day trips you receive 50% off, and 30% off every 12 hour, 39 hour or any specialty trips. You would also receive 20% off all tackle and souvenirs in our marina store. For more details or to sign up just stop by the marina, or call us at 727-393-1947 or email	"If you're too busy to go fishing, you're just too busy!" We are providing a ferry service out to the 15th annual Discover the Island fundraiser put on by the Egmont Key Alliance on Egmont Key. This event is happening Saturday, November 10th and Sunday, November 11th. All proceeds will be benefiting the Egmont Key Alliance. The ferry will be departing regularly from nine am till two pm with the last ferry leaving Egmont Key at four pm.
ONLINE COUPON SPECIAL ! Free Daiwa custom shock combo bait rod per group reservation. Includes: Daiwa 2500 B series reel already loaded with line, ready to fish! Print your online coupon NOW! (Not to be combined with any other offer. While supplies last. Offer expires 11/15/12) NOTE - All specialty trips have to have a minimum number of fairs required to leave the dock. Price and schedule subject to change without notice.

Copyright 2012 Hubbard's Marina All rights reserved.

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