Full Circle: Part 2

Fifteen years ago I went on a summer exchange to the University of Hawaii at Hilo. I was testing out a childhood dream of becoming a marine biologist. I took my first marine biology courses along with oceanography and I began to scuba dive. Two weeks ago, I returned to the Big Island of Hawaii to see it again, dive it again and refresh my memories of those days. Here are some pictures from my dives there.

Full circle

I started this blog about a year ago as my sabbatical began. Now it is over and I returned home for a few days. Just behind these mountains is Anaconda, MT, where I grew up.

Oyster Bay Chickee: Before the Big Paddle

Feeling has returned to my arms and here is a picture from just before departing on 18 hours of near-continuous paddling with my buddy, Dan, that left me with no sensation in my left arm. Use your mouse to scroll left and right over the image. It may take a few moments to load.

Numbness and The River of Grass

I spent 5 days in the wilderness of the Everglades over Thanksgiving. It's a long story and it will take many posts to discuss it all, but it didn't go as planned and a few problems have left my left hand numb. I'm not sure if or when I'll have feeling again in it. You should know a few things about the Everglades: 1) It's really big and takes a long time to get from point to point in a canoe and 2) It's different than you might think. A large portion of the Everglades is sedge grass (more on this later). I didn't expect to see what looks like a prairie underwater, but it's a huge part of the park. Here's a panorama of this portion of the park. Run your mouse left or right on it to see the whole picture. As you can see, my buddy Joe Loveland made this little application for me, so that I could show this picture. Thanks Joe! (Typing this is odd since I can't feel what my left hand is typing!)

Consumption: Past, Present and Near Future

I recently took a trip to Key West. Here. I can prove it. See. I was in southern Florida but closer to Cuba than to Miami. I even took the obligatory sunset shot. There was plenty to see in the Keys, but some of the most memorable sights were of disturbing levels of consumption. No. Not just of alcohol or other recreational drugs, but consumption of the sea.


The Ghost of Consumption Past: Turtle Soup


Historically, sea turtles were a favorite on many sailing ships. They weren't difficult to catch and they could be kept alive in the bottom of the boat and killed as food was needed. In the late 1800's sea turtles were caught and canned in Key West. As you might expect, most of the turtles were caught off of the shores of other, poorer countries, in this case Nicaragua. Turtles were placed on their backs and their flippers were sewn together to keep them from flapping about. After being brought back to the Keys, they were kept in crowded bins called kraals and then slaughtered for turtle soup and then canned. This occurred until the 1970's. As has happened with every major fishery in the world in modern times, the turtle fishery collapsed. Overharvesting is probably not the main cause of collapse in this case; drownings in fishing nets, pollution and habitat destruction all contributed greatly. By the early 1970s sea turtles were protected in the US and the fishery ended. Only 7 species of sea turtles exist on Earth today and 6 of those species are listed as endangered or critically endangered (there's not enough data on the 7th). With how many times over-consumption of natural resources has led to huge crashes, I'm sure that we've learned our lesson.

The Ghost of Consumption Present: Cheap Trinkets From the Sea
After leaving the turtle cannery museum a little nauseous, I soon got really ill. I walked into one of many shell shops in the Keys. It seemed as though I was in some other country. Here are some of the wares that you could purchase in such a shop.

Shells, of course. And they're cheap. And most are from other countries. Poor ones. Yay!


How about sea stars from the Philippines? Dirt cheap! Why buy seastars from the Philippines when you're in Florida? Because they're cheap! And who's reading the label anyway? And where's the Philippines anyway?

Buy a gross, if you like! We can always get more!

Do you need coral, but hate busting it off of the reef yourself? Buy coral from someone else's reefs. Small coral heads, or large ones, it's your choice!!

Perhaps you're interested in something handcrafted?

These hangings are only $2.00. What a deal. Between shell collecting, assembly and shipping, you'd think that maybe they'd be a little bit more expensive to produce. Thank goodness that they're not! Need something even cheaper? How about a shell pelican?

If shells aren't your thing, then you could always look in the vertebrates section.

Interested in shark jaws or a few hundred of them?

Need an alligator head, but hate dealing with Ebay? We have a deal for you. Pick your size.How about a pufferfish blow-out sale?

Googly eyes are added at no extra charge and are extra hilarious. Can you believe only $10 for these beauties?

Perhaps you desire something with a softer touch. There are piles of sponges to choose from. Good thing these aren't soaking up our seas anymore! Be sure to check out the creatures made from sea sponges too!

I guess that we can assume that these resources will always be here for us to exploit (hopefully there will always be cheap labor to make our needed shell pelicans too!). I'd hate to see a world where we couldn't buy a shark skull, bath sponge and shell pelican all in one place and all for less than $20.

Ghost of Near-Future Consumption
Listen to the news and it's clear that there is great hope that we'll all go out and buy lots of stuff to stimulate the economy. (Warning: I'm probably going to go off here.) My wish is that you'll consume less this year. Try it. Fewer motorized toys, electronic gadgets, clothes and jewelry would probably do most of us good. It can be really hard to give other things. After 5 years of giving recording of me on guitar that I spent 100s of hours making and 100's more hours worrying about, I always felt bad giving them as gifts. That seems stupid, but I was never able to shake the nagging feeling that I was being cheap by giving something so small and insignificant. Hence, I'm not making CDs anymore (although they're available on request). Truly, one of the most significant Christmas presents that I ever received was a basket of simple things (e.g., papertowels) given to me by someone who could hardly afford to buy them at the time. It was truly giving. I hope that you are creative this year (maybe give your loved ones experiences or a laugh, or stimulate their mind or spirit or help them help others). Ideally, give of yourself even though it is scary. It hurts when someone doesn't care for what we bought them, but it's crushing when they don't care for something that we made. If we all did it, however, I think that it would be easy. Do me one favor this year. Don't buy me a seashell pelican. I already have two.

Cold tolerance, Wilderness, Thanksgiving and No Food For Thought

Ahhhh, there's nothing like chillin' in the subtropical climate of South Florida (just south of Miami). No, I didn't tranfer to a fishing boat in Alaska. I'm still working on coral reef fish surveys in Florida. Here we are (Max, Shelby and Vanessa from left to right) trying to stay warm BEFORE getting in the 68 degree water for our dive. Indeed, the weather is warmer than I've ever experienced around Thanksgiving time, but I don't know that I feel that warm. My loss of cold tolerance seems to be compensating for relatively warm climate. I think that I did too much sweating in Bonaire.
Things are going to be quiet at Biscayne National Park, so I'm going to slip into the backcountry wilderness of the Everglades for Thanksgiving. With 1,296,500 acres, the Everglades has the the largest wilderness area east of Mississippi to explore.

I won't get the chance to get mauled by giant, overly playful dogs while having Thanksgiving with my sister in Washington this year, but I hope that you have a Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your time with family and friends.
Although there is no shortage of reasons or stories to remind you to be thankful, I heard an especially powerful story on NPR this morning that I think you should listen to. This audio slideshow regarding the food crisis in Zimbabwe is an excellent reminder of how lucky you are and how far we have to go to care for the less fortunate.

Entering the Prickly Zone Part 2

A recently published internet video exposed a team of biologists passing through a mangrove to gain access to a thin band of shore lovingly called the prickly zone. This zone is not easy to get to and, as you may expect, it's not a pleasant stay. It's full of, well, pokey things --pokey cacti, thorny plants, and even sharp coral rock. The crack team infiltrated the prickly zone to monitor a population of critically endangered, but not yet listed, species. I can't tell you the island because it's better if you don't know, but the species is Opuntia corallicola. I find enjoyment in that genus name, Opuntia because it really is pointed. It's the semaphore pricklypear cactus, not to be confused with the other major cactus found in the prickly zone, the dildo cactus (Cephalocereus millspaughii). Yes, that is what it is called (Go ahead. Google it. Just don't blame me for what you find.), but some people call it pipe organ cactus (pictured to the left). Wild populations of Florida Semaphore Cactus occur on only a couple of islands in the world (Keys of Florida) and there aren't many semaphore cacti left on these islands. In fact, the status of this little cactus is depressing; the genetic diversity in the populations is tiny and there are only a handful of adult individuals left. What's worse yet is that this cactus seems to have a hard time reproducing sexually, perhaps due to meiotic problems associated with polyploidy (i.e., it has a lot of copies of chromosomes and it isn't very successful at going through meiosis to producing gametes). Thus, it reproduces asexually by dropping pads. Some individuals do end up budding despite this. Historically, the cactus was much more widespread on the Florida Keys, but development and poaching extirpated the cactus from most of its range. Despite being incredibly endangered it is not yet Federally recognized as endangered. Being pokey instead of fuzzy probably makes it harder to get much attention, except when you're trying to wrap a tag around one of the endangered pokey plants, as Max Tritt is attempting here. Opuntia has a knack for getting your attention when working with it closely. When in the prickly zone, you don't want to sit, kneel, stand too tall, or touch anything without looking carefully at it. If you get careless, you'll probably have a dildo cactus poking you in the back and pieces of Opuntia stuck in your knees. I reached to the back of my head at one point and found a cactus pad embedded in my scalp. Let me tell you finding out that it was there didn't help because all I realized in that discovery was that it was now firmly embedded in my hand.

This sabbatical has been full of different experiences (we were trying to catch a dove today -- brings back memories-- and we caught an invasive green iguana yesterday---recipe coming soon).