A Race To Save A Continent

This blog is not used for promoting the endeavors of others, but in this case, I must make an exception.  Katharine and David Lowrie are running the length of South America in a quest to raise funds and environmental awareness for the continent’s threatened habitats.  You can read their story soon in my article for Earth Island Journal titled, A Race To Save A Continent.  http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/a_race_to_save_a_continent/

In addition to being a runner, Katharine Lowrie is a painter and is raffling two of her paintings.  Ticket sales will help support their cause.  For more information…  http://www.5000mileproject.org/2013/04/5000mileproject-final-charity-running-raffle/   Closing date is May 12 2013.  Please consider a donation to this worthy environmental effort.

Kickin’ Off The Season

Beachkeeper’s Diary #6

Another Island Note…

I am driving through an early morning rain.  It is barely light.  Heading south, I look over and see the salt boat loading up, consuming mountains of the white stuff deep in its holds.

I stop a few miles further at Kite Beach and park the car.  It is time to kick off another season of looking for turtle nests.

Some of you may remember last year’s Beachkeeper’s Diary.  These are accounts of mine spent as a volunteer for Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire’s Beachkeeper program. It is my job to walk two miles of beach every Thursday morning from the dive site, Atlantis, to Hidden Beach, a conglomeration of rocks that denotes the end of prime turtle nesting at the southern end of Bonaire.

Tracks in the sand.

I am not too optimistic of finding any tracks today.  After all, this is the first patrol of 2013, and while Hettie and others have started seeing behemoth loggerhead turtles while diving, it may be a few weeks before the first nesting is attempted.  But it is just good to be back walking the sand again.  I pass spots that were chosen as nest sites by sea turtles during the 2012 season.  Here on Bonaire, the loggerheads are usually the first to nest, followed by hawksbill and green sea turtles.  The nesting periods overlap, and with about a two month incubation period, the season runs from May to November.

Along my walk, I pick up trash.  That’s part of the job.  The world’s obsession with plastics is obvious as I gather bottles, caps, old razor handles and other minutia.  And then there is discarded fishing line.  Both plastics and line are dangerously detrimental to sea mammals and fish when ingested.  Entrapment can be a real problem for turtles and some mistake floating plastic bags as jellyfish, a food that they relish.  I end up gathering a small shopping bag of beach trash on this day.  Last year, I just dumped the collected trash in the garbage cans at Kite Beach.  But Bonaire now has a recycling center where batteries, electronics, metals, plastics, paper, aluminum and three colors of glass are collected.  This is just what our tiny island needed.  Most of it is sent abroad to countries around the world for reuse.  Since the recycle center is on my route back to town, I can just dump the beach trash there when I head home.

But before I end my trek, I stop to admire a rainbow at Alligator Rock.  It’s that magic time when early morning rain mixes with rising sunrays and splashes the primary colors over the cobalt blue sea.  I drop my pack and do some yoga in the golden light.  I’m the only person on the beach, and from this perspective, perhaps in the world.  It’s going to be another good season.  I wish the turtles success in their quest to perpetuate their kind.  Namaste. 

 

Flamingo Sunday

Another Island Note…

It started out as just another Sunday road trip.  About once a month, we drive the southern part of the island.  It is a pleasant ring road where one can view shocking pink water at the salt works, kite boarders going aerial at Atlantis and the crashing waves on the Wild Side, Bonaire’s churning, windward coast.  By the time the loop is completed at Lac Bay, we usually stop at the Beach Hut and quaff a cold, draft Heineken beer.

But this is not just another Sunday.  While driving, I look ahead and see two bicyclists coming toward our car.  One of the cyclists holds his handlebar with one hand.  In the other, he cradles a baby flamingo.  All three, the two bikers and the bird, stare determinedly straight ahead as we pass.  I could not believe my eyes.  “Did you see what I just saw?”  I say to Hettie.  She had not.  “That guy had a baby flamingo in his arms!”  “Turn around,”  replies Hettie.  “I gotta see this.”

I do just that.  I quickly turn the car around and catch up to the bikers.  We know one of them, Corine van der Hout.  “We found this bird on the road and was afraid it might get hit by a car or attacked by the dogs nearby,” Corine explains.  “We’re trying to take it to a safe place.”

We offer to drive the bird to the Pekelmeer Flamingo Sanctuary on the south end of the island.  Both Corine and her friend, Marco, are visibly relieved.  It is a real feat to go bicycling with a flamingo.  Hettie carefully holds a shopping bag while Marco places the young bird into the sack.  It is still grayish-white, not having had the chance to eat the carotene-rich algae that gives the adult birds their distinctive orange/pink coloration.  The three of us—Hettie, the flamingo and I—are soon off.     

Once we drive away, the bird struggles to get out of the bag.  Hettie finally deduces that it is just rearranging its long, gangly legs.  Once comfortably positioned, the flamingo is quiet for the rest of the ride.  Fifteen minutes later, I stop the car at the Pekelmeer.  This place is a flat expanse of stick-to-your-flip-flops sand, saline water, scrubby bush and scattered rocks.  It is a harsh environment for us humans, but one in which flamingos thrive.  We walk a few hundred yards with the bird in bag to water’s edge.  Hettie places the sack on its side and urges our new-feathered friend to exit.  It reluctantly stumbles out.  Once released, the bird squawks heartily, struts to the shallows and takes a sip of water.  Then it flutters its wings and slowly walks away from us.  The bird is back to being a flamingo again.  And us humans?  We press on with a promise of a cold draft at the Beach Hut.  It is time to salute a successful relocation.