PA: Nixon County Park, York Co. - I'd Rather Walk

Autumn hillside, Nixon County Park, York County, PA.

I used to drive the lead Jeep in long caravans of 4WDs full of tourists visiting the South Carolina coast. We rolled over dunes, roared up barren beaches, and snaked through jungle-like lowcountry forests bedecked in curtains of Spanish moss. The sea island park I worked for made almost all of its money on these tours, so they were important if we wanted to take home a paycheck. As one of my first professional jobs in my early twenties, it's when I really began to dislike tourism. I still do.

Ruby-crowned kinglet, female.

I understand that many natural areas around the world wouldn't be what they are today without the money tourism generates. But the kinds of people who paid a hundred dollars or more for a Jeep tour to look for 'gators weren't the kinds of people I felt any connection to. And they certainly didn't spend enough time to develop any relationship to the landscape. There are different kinds of tourism of course, but I have my particular 'beef' with ecotourism. But after a recent trip to Acadia National Park with its packed tour buses with camera-wielding out-of-towners clogging roads and parking lots, I had to re-examine my dislike for all thing touristy in nature.

UK birders on a morning hike, York County, PA.

Near where I live there is a large Amish Market placed just off a busy interstate. Like in Acadia National Park, the buses can quickly clog the parking area and the sheer numbers of people can overwhelm the vendors and the space inside. I shop here frequently and have often wondered how the Amish bakers, butchers, cheese-makers, and produce sellers handle it.  I asked Susan at the bakery about the tourist hoards. She said "Yes, sometimes I feel like the attraction, and they don't necessarily buy much of what we sell. We rely on our local folks like yourself to sustain our business."

Savannah Sparrow.

I make a terrible tourist. I am not into resorts and I don't enjoy manufactured or fake landscapes. I don't feel the need to be entertained by guides or hired locals, and sure as heck wouldn't pay money for a tour when there is a perfectly good trail system nearby!  I just get out of the car and walk. There's something about the earth underfoot that can tell you more about a place than any guide. Having the freedom to stop along the trail and simply listen or look speaks volumes about the forest, farms, neighborhoods, waters, and people you meet along the way.  But my distaste for tourism runs deep and I credit those first few years on that beautiful sea island in South Carolina with stoking it. 

Overgrown farm road in York County, PA.

The people who paid over a hundred dollars to explore our remote sea island for a two hour Jeep tour had the money to do so, and this leaves travelers without such means to find places and experiences that are affordable and accessible. More affordable or free and accessible places tend to be better patrolled and policed: a good thing for the benefit of those environments. But those out-of-the-way places that cost a lot of money to visit? They are probably out of range of local natural resource authorities as well.  I used to collect those funds. Off-road enthusiasts paid the park hundreds of dollars in back country fees and private tour groups with their own 4WD expedition vans paid three times as much. Tour guides walked out with pamphlets that explained back country rules after they signed a piece of paper to promise they wouldn't harass wildlife.

Monkshood in October.

As leaders of our own tours, we were expected to demonstrate proper back-country travel protocol but I frequently observed permit holders busting over dunes for some 'air time' and once watched an expedition van loaded with "nature" photographers racing a flock of black skimmers up the beach - straight through a nesting area! There was nothing I could do except radio our HQ and hope the one back country ranger (usually on another island) could come by to investigate.  When a region depends on ecotourism to expose rare and fragile environments as economic privilege, the ecosystems suffers first and foremost. Additionally, the influx of ecotourism dollars rarely stems profitable  illegal activities such as poaching, logging, fishing, and resource extraction.   

A healthy young crop of chestnut oak forms a colorful understory.

Before I left my position as rookie ranger in South Carolina I asked permission to walk the island rather than drive it. My supervisor was intrigued. "Walk it?" he asked. "That's eighteen miles up and eighteen miles back." It took me three days. After working on the island for several years, I had never known the island as I did that week hiking it. What I experienced would fill a book. Two hours by Jeep failed to reveal the dozens alligator nests, osprey, eagles, owls, red-bellied mudsnakes, and glass lizards that lived just yards from the vehicle trail. I counted fifty sea turtle nests in places we hadn't even considered good nesting sand, far from the egg poacher's trails. I added ten new birds to  my life list. I watched dolphins cooperatively herd schools of small fish into mud cuts on the back island edge and sat for an hour counting clapper and king rails in a low tide marsh. I caught sight of my first American bittern staring at me from only yards away. I learned to "see" hawks and owls by the chatter of other birds. I began to understand landscape as an immersive experience. 

Nixon Park, York County, PA.

Shortly after my island walk we moved to Maryland where I began my teaching career and continued to work in natural resource education and law enforcement. I made it a point to never spend a full day in the classroom, taking classes outside for hikes in the woods or just around campus. With my park assignments I left the truck and patrol car parked and did most of my shifts on foot, though I worked with rangers who never left their vehicles unless they were writing a ticket or answering nature's call. I hiked with my young children on the AT or local park trails, fly-fished, rode bikes, bird-watched, camped. I never felt the need to travel to resorts or vacation-lands when there was so much to explore close to home.  And when I travel for work now, attending this conference or that meeting, I still make time to walk the landscape and to get to know it from the ground up. I'm a bit feral when it comes to striking out to the woods, mountains, rivers, and  I could easily go completely wild.

An October morning over the foothills of central York County, PA.

I often wonder how much more scientifically and culturally literate we could become as a society of pedestrians who chose to walk or hike compared to touring from inside a tour bus or SUV. I know that freedom from extravagant costs of exclusive resorts and access to privileged locations opens me up to actually putting my money thoughtfully into the pockets of those who work and live in the landscapes I want to explore. My guides are often the folks I meet along the way. Today while hiking at a local park in York County I met up with two nice folks from the UK who had just visited the busy Amish Market and were doing a little birding. I was happy to serve as their 'local guide' and direct them to a nearby hawk watch, the AT, and some great local eateries. (We friended each other on Facebook so that when I get to the UK they can return the local favor!)  "How beautiful to just spend this time and walk," Bryan said as he and his wife Kim topped a ridge trail to look over the view. "We find that in America you imagine more sightings of wild beasts and tend not to see the real ones." 

Bug and Annie hike with their noses.

The idea of being a tourist places me immediately outside an intimate experience of the land and the people who live on it. It's a temporary experience I need only endure for the scheduled time slot. Walking instead unhitches me from an agenda framed by the constraints of the short-term visitor and frees me to look for those things I would otherwise miss. Better yet, walking with my coonhounds engages a whole new world of scent and track that I would have missed completely had not they strained against their harnesses to follow some trail or sniff some sign. 

Crossing.

Debates over the pros and cons of ecotourism are held at all levels of conservation, biological science, economic development, and cultural preservation. But I think that a walk in the woods (not a movie about a walk in the woods) even and especially close to home can certainly be a personal trek well-grounded to the wilds of our own perception. Beyond the itinerary of a highly structured day or week as a visitor with limited time in a new place, pretending (even for just an hour or two) that your feet are striding on home ground can make all the difference, and for that experience alone I'd rather walk.

PA: Waggoner's Gap, Cumberland Co. - Birding the Ridge

My favorite time of the year is now. The Appalachian Mountains are nearly at peak color and the migration season for birds is in full swing. I live just an hour from the famous Kittatinny Ridge that defines the top of the long hogbacked Blue Mountain  that runs 187 miles through Pennsylvania. The mountain is part of the Valley and Ridge region of the Appalachian Range and it rises steeply - almost suddenly - from the drop-faulted Great Valley region. It a barrier of sorts, though a very permeable one, to millions of raptors that come streaming south out of Canada and New England. The birds sail on the winds that carry them effortlessly southward against the north-facing slope of this wall of Tuscarora quartzite.

Entrance to Hawk Watch off of Rt. 74 (Waggoner's Gap Road) that passes through the high wind gap.

You simply cannot live in Pennsylvania and not be aware of the geology and geography of this huge state. What's more, the Pennsylvania naturalist is most aware of how geology and geography affect what kinds of plants and animals are found here, and how the changing seasons interact with landscape and wildlife. The mountains and river valleys determine how and why the winds funnel migratory species the way they do and if we can read these patterns correctly we can be in just the right place at the just right time for some spectacular encounters. Pennsylvania's many hawk watch lookouts are where to be when the winds blow just right - like today!

Blue Mountain rises like a sheer wall from the farming valley below.

Thanks in large part to conservation activist Rosalie Edge (1877-1962) the annual hawk slaughters that occurred along the Ridge (most horrifically at Hawk Mountain Lookout in the early 1900s) had been stopped by mid-century and hawk watching took its place. Now there are over a dozen well-attended lookouts along the Kittatinny Ridge from the  Delaware Water Gap to the Maryland Line. Waggoner's Gap is one of these and like the others it is staffed by volunteer spotters through the fall migratory period to count and record species and numbers of raptors. Blue Mountain funnels millions of accipiters, buteos, eagles, harriers. osprey and falcons on through great Appalachian Mountain chain that will carry them to the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Some birds will cross the open Gulf while others will join millions more funneling into Mexico and on to Central America.

Facing north to spot hawks coursing along the ridge.

The counts are very official, following protocol for identification and counting - and also very fun. The north wind made it feel more like an early winter day but it was just the "push" the migrating hawks needed to make hundreds of miles by sundown. The day's count from our lookout will be combined with counts from all the others along the ridge to add important data to a long history of hawk watching counts. This information will help ornithologists and conservationists to gauge how populations of raptors are faring. With solid conservation policy in place we know from these counts (which have been going on since the 1940s) that hawks and all their cousins are in pretty good shape along the Eastern Flyways. This is great news considering how some species like osprey and eagle were affected by DDT in the 50s and 60s.

Pennsylvania Audubon has done a great job with public education and signage. Well done!

When I found my place among the dozens of hawk watchers at the ridge, I learned very quickly what the landmarks were. "Over the red maple!" "Just above the oak!" "Look to the right of the mid-slope pine!" "There - above the big dip!" "Moving from the little dip to the big dip!" Hawks came in singles and in groups. Bald eagles were high above following the highest lift of the wind wave, while accipiters like Sharp-shinned hawks and Cooper's hawks moved just at tree height - sometimes just over my head!

Trail blazes mark the way to the top of the ridge.

Just a note for folks new to hawk watching: The trails here are a jumble of sharp quartzite blocks and I suggest hiking poles for steadying your walk up. Plan on spending several hours if a hawk watch is underway, but it may not be a great destination for young children who could get pretty bored if they cant use binocs or a scope.  You won't have any trouble figuring out where to look with the spotters making their calls, though. Everyone pitches in, even the non-birders were calling out 'Bird!" so that spotters and more expert watchers can identify them.

Owl-On-A-Pole.

Every notable Kittatinny Ridge lookout that I have ever visited, including lookouts along the Atlantic coast, have an Owl-On-A-Pole decoy. What self-respecting hawk wouldn't love the opportunity to take a swipe at an owl? Sometimes a very close encounter can be had - as happened today when a Cooper's Hawk took two dives at the owl while I was sitting only a few yards away!

Cooper's Hawk.

Throughout the morning Red-shouldered Hawks surfed the crest of the wind wave along the north slope and Red Tailed Hawks took up the space between the very high eagles and the sharpies at eye level. We caught sight of two Peregrines power-flapping across the valley. A pair of Harriers was observed making a move through the gap right behind us. I gave up trying to record all my sightings and concentrated instead on watching and photographing everything I could.

Bald Eagle, Third Year.

What may not be so obvious to the new hawk watcher is the person sitting near the spotters obviously not watching for hawks. Instead, they are hunched over a check sheet with one or more click-counters in hand listening to the spotters confirmations of species. The counter this morning was very focused on his work and I didn't see him look up until there was a few minutes lull in the action.

Red Shouldered Hawk.

If possible, the spotter will identify the raptor by sex, age, color morphology, and quantities (if in a kettle or flying with a scattered group). The counter will mark a chart on a clipboard and sometimes call out the current  total for certain species. "Up to ten Balds!" "That's our third Peregrine!" Many bird clubs and nature centers will post their totals for the day/week/month and season on their websites or at the kiosks leading to the lookout. You can check the day totals against other sites on hawkcount.org.   When you click on Waggoner's Gap you can see too that spotters count a lot more than just hawks! In my few hours on the ridge I heard spotters call "Monarch!" "Cans! (Canada Geese) 100!"and "Is that a duck?"

Bald Eagle.

 Our raptor conservation partners in the south are watching too! Last year, spotters in Panama had a record 2 million raptors pass overhead in one day. One of the ladies on the lookout today had been there. Jean described the spectacle as "just rivers of hawks, vultures, eagles, falcons flowing over our heads like water." She recommended I look at a video (noted below) that she brought up on her smart phone. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing!And as of this weekend the Florida Keys hawk watch station recorded an all time high for peregrine falcons for one day at 1600!

Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Before I left my rocky perch to stretch my legs on the Songbird Trail, I checked with the counter to confirm what I thought might be our highest count hawk for the day. He nodded yes, the sharp-shinned hawk was topping the list. This very small, feisty little hawk is the size of a Blue Jay. Coming by the hundreds of thousands through the mountain chain from the vast forested landscapes of New England and Canada (it breeds in PA too!) I saw about about a dozen before I had to get up and stretch.

Cooper's Hawk attacking Owl-On-A-Pole.

The best look at a hawk I had was the Cooper's Hawk that took a dive at the owl decoy. I was lucky enough to fire off a dozen pictures with my 400mm lens even before those around me could find the bird in their viewfinders. This bird was missing two of its primaries and I saw in the pictures later at home that the replacements had just broken the quill sheath and were popping out. This hawk will do just fine on its way south.

The Cumberland Valley.

The Songbird Trail looped around the Hawk Watch Lookout and meandered through a dry red oak and pine forest studded with patches of witch hazel in full bloom. This is the last of the blooming plants of the season, a small tree found near water or in hollows. The trail climbed the boulder path to a secluded overlook that looked south across the Cumberland Valley.  It appears all farms and woodlots far below, but the valley has a long military history in Pennsylvania. Not far away is the town of Carlisle, home of the Carlisle Army Barracks. The U.S. Army War College Library and the U.S. Army Military History Institute occupy a large campus in town. This valley was an important passage too for both Union and Confederate troops during the Civil Way, slaves escaping to freedom, and for waves of settlers heading further west.

Witch Hazel blossom.

The geologic history of the valley is much more complex and involves a system of fractures, faults, and limestone karst topography. It is not unusual for a stream to disappear underground and reappear miles away. South Mountain frames the southern boundary of the valley and here it is the northernmost tip of the famous Blue Ridge that extends all the way to Georgia. The hogback ridge on which I sat and ate my lunch, high above the Cumberland Valley, is still actively eroding. A small ledge of rock just a few yards from where I sat suddenly dislodged and splintered in half.

Tuscarora Quartzite lifted facing southeast - a classic 'hogback' ridge.

I continued down the trail to finish my hike at the parking area and the sharp features of the hogback softened as a wide lump of collapsed overhanging shelf. Lichen-covered and studded with small maples, the footing here was precarious as I stepped from shifting rock to tilting ledge. Where leaves were caught and decaying, pockets of soil had formed and supported small stands of young birch, a fast-growing pioneer.  Though the day was a little chilly for people, I had to remind myself that any good Timber Rattlesnake would be enjoying the warm sun above his den on such a comfortable ridgeline. The large Tuscarora State Forest  just west of here contains some of the healthiest populations of timber rattlers in the state, and though I really wanted to find one, I didn't.  As I neared the parking area I heard for the last time that day a spotter call out "Red Tailed Hawk above the oak!"

A collapsed section of hogback ridge - left slope faces north, right slope faces south.

Notes:

See what "rivers of raptors" looked like on one November day in Panama, 2014.
http://www.hawkmountain.org/who-we-are/news/2-million-raptors-pass-central-panama/page.aspx?id=5207

Bird the Ridge!
http://ebird.org/content/pa/news/bird-the-ridge/

Hawkcount.org contains a wealth of information by site, region, day, and species - even down to the hour. Really take some time to explore this site to find the nearest hawk watch to you.

October

October is a fine and dangerous time in America, a wonderful time to begin anything at all.

- Thomas Merton

The first full week of October is drawing to a close and I am finally free from some pressing work at the office and a tight writing schedule at home - at last for a short time. Time to go out and see October.  In a way, my break out from weeks of sit-down-indoor-work was kind of like hibernating for two months. Then all of a sudden, it's October!

Variegated Fritillary.

We dodged a bullet last week when Hurricane Joaquin veered north and east, away from the Mid-Atlantic coast. The Southeast, however, was inundated days before the hurricane even began to move out of the Caribbean. Huge rain trains streamed over the South Carolina coast and into the midlands causing the most severe flooding in the state's history. Here, however, we had several days of moderate to heavy rainfall and no real flooding except on the Eastern Shore and Atlantic Coast in MD, DE, and NJ.  But we really needed the rain here and the ponds on the farm filled right up!

American Painted Lady Butterfly.

October in the Mid-Atlantic means huge migratory flocks of songbirds at night and great kettles of hawks, vultures, and eagles streaming over the mountains. I was able to keep up with all the action in my sequestration by peeking at Facebook. All of our local, regional, and national bird and wildlife organizations keep very active pages and members load the most amazing photographs and video. But Facebook can only satisfy this migratory maniac for so long! Out! Out!

Palm Warbler in fall attire.

The shimmering pond, ringed with cattail and willow, was just what I needed. Just me and the solitude and beauty of the season. Very different from a loud, often gossipy, and incredibly distracting work environment. I'd rather have the open outdoors alone than an open office full of people. Out here for the first time in many weeks I felt the stress and screen-fog melt away.

Buckeye Butterfly.

I wish there was a way to post the scent of this walk around the pond. The pungent beehive smell of a nearby honey bee nest (I think in one of the wood duck boxes?) permeated the banks of flowers and grasses as the bees worked hard to collect late season nectar. Autumn butterflies, wasps, beetles, bee-mimic flies, and dragonflies blanketed the whole scene, sweet with the blossom smell of asters.

Monarch Butterfly.

The most common butterflies today were the Buckeye and the migratory Monarch.  Monarchs were traveling from across the wide soybean fields in lazy-flapping pairs and triples to congregate here at the pond, possibly their last stop to feed before leaving the head of the Chesapeake along their flyway to the southern states. There were hundreds!  And then the late season dragonflies! As red as an October sunset...

Ruby Meadowhawk.

October

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes' sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Robert Frost

What Migration?

So its been a while since my last post. Sorry. So much has happened beyond my writing desk (the kitchen table) that I am hopelessly at a loss as to how to catch up with everything going on outside. I haven't been in the field, hardly at all. Work on my dissertation, final chapter of six, has been basically non-stop since August. When not at work - I'm researching and writing. Meanwhile the cat relaxes in the middle of the clutter with her music. She really does. She has her own pair of headphones. I have mine...

Kiwi while I write.

I did see autumn sneak in behind a blue ox, though. So I knew it was coming. But I had to get home and finish a section I'd left dangling. I have no idea why I decided to take a break with this ox. I just got up from the table one Sunday afternoon and drove up to hang out with him. He's an old friend.   Note the trees turning yellow in the background. One of the birdiest places at the Landis Farm is the ox pasture. Poop, hay, grassy field, brush, ox = sparrows, chickadees, wren, cardinal, mocker, some fall warblers, finches, and overhead a red tailed hawk.

A blue ox. My one foray beyond the computer.

I have been so focused on GETTING THIS DONE that I really haven't done any birding except in this ox pasture. Oh my. I've missed a spectacular songbird migration. Forgot about looking at any stars or the eclipse of the moon. I did start a painting of some black vultures but it sits pretty much the way I left it a month ago. The writing is non-stop.

I've been watching my FB friends post their spectacular pictures of their birding finds - trying not to get so distracted that I run out the door to join them. Living basically as a shut-in, I asked my old friend Mike for some help. We were in the same ranger training class years ago - not many birders in that group that year! We stuck together! He gave me permission to post his picture of one of two Maryland vagrant Brown Boobies this year. The pair has become quite the celebrity duo in the touristy environment of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. They've been perching on the mooring lines of a naval ship and have been the focal point of hundreds of water taxi trips. Water taxis - laden with birders! And here I am missing all the bird party fun...

Photo by Michael Lathroum, 21 Sept. 2015

I've noticed that the early morning hours - once filled with birdsong from my woodsy backyard - is now silent. I get up at 0430 and start writing, stop at 0600 and go for a walk, then leave for work at 0800. It's all silent except the loud hollering of the Carolina wren who announces everything I do with gusto. "SHE'S UP! SHE'S UP! SHE'S UP!" and "WALKING! WALKING! WALKING!"

Carolina Wren.

For now I have to stay focused and hope that the end of Chapter Six comes before the end of migration. Please forgive me if I'm not posting as often as before. I have three draft posts in que, but it takes me hours to put them together - hours I need to put towards the dissertation! But they'll come - maybe out of season - winter reading for some? Summer reading for friends south of the Equator for sure!  In any case - be patient. And keep checking back.

Kiwi and her music.

ME: July 20-25 Trip Log: Part 2 - Working In Conservation

Lobster Boat with stern sail.

Each morning while attending Audubon's Hog Island Educator's Camp Week (to include the following week solo camping in Acadia National Park), I awoke to the sound of lobster boats leaving port around 0430. The signature thrumming from their powerful inboard engines made me imagine crews dressed in slickers and warm hoodies sipping hot coffee while they cut through the chilly, thick morning fog. 

Traditional Greenland-style skin-on-frame kayak (qajaq).

On a hike across Hog Island we came to an open beach where we rested and explored. A traditional Greenland-styled qajaq (kayak) glided by. Almost of all of my team had no idea what they were looking at so I explained how the boat was designed as an extension of the Inuit hunter - part of his body - responsive, nimble, flexible yet strong. How integral this boat design was to a thousand year tradition of seal and whale hunting in the High Arctic! The great fishing fleets of Europe arrived in the mid-1500s and indigenous systems of hunting collapsed. With a rapid expansion of fishing technology over the following centuries the whale, seal, and fish stocks collapsed as well. Greed became an extension of a new economic order. 

Surveying moths at night.

Western North Atlantic societies may have learned many environmental lessons the hard way by experiencing near total losses of major stocks of fish, marine mammals, northern forests, and valuable soils, but clearly there are new lessons to be learned layered over the historic tales of the rise of industrial technology. At dinner one evening we discussed some of those lessons, but an important point made too: that we never stop learning from historic case studies. It isn't a simple equation of problem + solution = problem solved. With each new 'solution' there comes a whole suite of new challenges: human population, climate change, technological advance, and a false sense of conservation progress.

A volunteer seabird monitor on Eastern Egg Rock.

Many of the participants in this week's Audubon Educator's Camp were experiencing a natural world that seemed to push at their personal comfort zone. A long hike through the humid coastal woods was not always spectacular scenery or a nicely groomed path. It was root-filled and required careful navigation. At one point the navigation broke down completely and we became fairly lost. Some people grumbled, others took it as a new adventure in wayfinding. Meanwhile on the mainland, a group of  bog explorers fell through a floating mat of sphagnum moss only to stand chest high in chilly tannin-stained water. Laughter and squeals commenced as they worked together to figure out how to extricate themselves from the pond without further damaging the floating mat. What a metaphor-filled day!

Harbor seals hauled out on a favorite sunning rock.

When I speak with young folks and college students interested in conservation careers, I'm sure to explain that this work does not always fit the romantic notions of saving the whales or preserving magnificent landscapes. Sometimes conservation looks like the lobstermen (in Maine) or crabbers ( in Maryland) hauling in their traps and throwing back the undersized catch. Sometimes there is grumbling, but most all know that to take everything is to rob not only the ecosystem of its valuable members but to rob the future of watermen. Here in the Mid-Atlantic we've only just begun to explore the case studies of collapse, recovery, and adaptation to changing environments and circumstances, but some regional departments of environmental sciences and studies are looking more closely at the history and future of conservation careers as shaped by our past experiences. 

Bombus terricola! In abundance!

To hear the lobster fleet go out every morning one could easily be fooled into thinking the lobster industry is thriving, and yes, this year it has been okay say some. But in 2012 lobster prices tanked, causing chaos and despair in the Northeast seafood market. The Maine Lobstermen's Union formed to give fishermen a political and economic voice as well as a common conservation platform. They are as dependent upon multiple economic drivers, regional and global markets, and resource policies as they are upon the sea itself. "We're a new generation of fishermen," said one young lobster-women I met that week, "Most of us understand ecological principles - we've had some science education - some of us have advanced degrees. So why not make conservation priorities important to the union as well? Without them I can't my daughters or granddaughters that the opportunity to do what I've done will even be there."  Today a person working in conservation can wear many hats.

Banding a black-capped chickadee.

One of our  Hog Island instructors  reinforced the idea of "working in conservation" as compared to "working for conservation" - a distinction that is important today. For those who do not engage directly in conservation issues day-to-day, the idea of what a conservation worker is might not fit the old 20th century stereotypes. We discussed that although much as been accomplished in the last century, we are still using 20th century project-oriented ideas and that a much more radical and adaptive suite of practices needs to replace them. Conservation and livelihood must function together for the long haul and the idea of project-based strategies is now extending across decades and generations. Follow the lobster-woman's lead, I thought, even if her boat is not sparkling with high tech equipment and might be in need of new paint.

Franklin Island Light.

After listening to Dr. Steven Kress talk about how his own ideas of seabird restoration changed from species recovery (project-based) to ecosystem restoration (generational) at an evening presentation in the Fish House I thought about the implications of dedicated long-term human guardianship. More importantly I thought about those pivot points of experience that turned ideas on their heads. The ah-ha moments one year may well be the old news the next, but in conservation work we are constantly faced with large and small points where new ways of approaching old problems are available.

Atlantic Puffin.

But it takes even more. Most people know and accept that worldwide terrestrial, marine, and atmospheric crisis are the result of two hundred plus years of heavy industrial activity. Despite what the keepers of the world's major religions claim, the dominate religion of the industrialized world is the worship of the God of Growth. "More and more and more still," is the mantra of a modern society enthralled with its own hypermaterialism. One only need to see a tidal marsh littered with plastic debris or stroll a beach where garbage is interwoven into the wrack -or worse still the plastic-filled carcass of a seabird.  The idea that eggs, feathers, and bird meat were consumer goods so popular that entire species were put at risk, places so much of the responsibility on the consumer themselves. Now it's not the direct poaching of these animals but the indirect 'fallout' of the consumer waste stream that endangers entire ecosystems. We learn from this history and the lessons help redefine the idea of what conservation work looks like.

Atlantic Puffin mates.

The light keeper on Franklin Island during the late 1800s and early 1900s stood guard over his island's tern and puffin colony to protect them from greedy egg and feather hunters. His main job was to keep oil in the light, to mark the island at night and in fog to warn ships away. He wasn't paid to guard birds. But he knew that serious poaching occurring there and throughout the hundreds of nesting colonies on Maine's numerous 'egg rocks' endangered the birds and the ecosystem to which the birds belonged.

"Our work seemed done, but had only just begun."

Seabird eggs had become quite the society delicacy in Boston and New York and high society was willing to pay what it cost to get them. Much money could be made selling the eggs, and even more money could be made serving them! But at least on Franklin Island, poachers had more to contend with - often facing down an angry light keeper with a shotgun. The lighthouse keeper was not paid to protect the birds. His job was to warn ships off the shoals. But he and is family are known today for the dedication they demonstrated as compassionate conservationists as well as protectors of life and property on the sea. 

Common tern bringing food to chick.

Conservation work looks nothing like it did a hundred years ago,or even last year. But the light keeper who worked on Franklin Island did not make his biggest contribution as a light keeper - he is known today among all light keepers along the Maine coast as the one who saved colonies of terns and guillemots and puffins. He was part of a generation of people who cared enough about birds that they changed the minds of consumers in Boston and New York and collapsed an economic driver the chain of supply and demand through legislation. And he was also a person who saw his work extended beyond the duty of light keeper.

Yellow-rumped Warbler bathing in freshwater pool.

While we explored Harbor Island, our team observed a flurry of small birds visiting a tiny pool of rainwater. Here we were on an island surrounded by a vast salty sea, and this dinner-plate sized pool of water was where many species of sparrows, warblers, and finches had gathered in a riot of color and activity. I turned and saw my team all looking at the birds, as varied as the birds themselves in profession, background, experience, and ecological knowledge - and all - including the birds - were the image of conservation work in the 21st century.

Dories.

The biggest take-away from my experience on Hog Island was this: Conservation is not what is once was but we need to keep learning from our conservation history. Conservation work does not look like it did just ten years ago!  Project-based environmental education has its place but we must prepare students for multi-faceted jobs in conservation from environmental justice to landscape restoration to economic-ecosystem dependencies to even the kinds of college courses and job training they may need.

Notes: 

See the August 2015 issue of The Working Waterfront (Vol. 28, No. 6: 9) for an explanation and history of the Maine Lobstermen's Union, its history and its future. http://www.islandinstitute.org/working-waterfront

The young lobster-woman I spoke to gave credit to a conservation worker program she was involved with during her college years at UMaine. I was interested to see agriculture, forestry, and conservation combined under this one agency - now that's integrated conservation!
 http://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/get_involved/conservation_corps/