Every day is turkey day in the Ocean State

            It’s looking like it’s going to be a banner year for wild turkeys in Rhode Island, and while some people aren’t thrilled by that prospect, I can’t help but smile about it.

I’ve been enjoying occasional visits to my backyard this summer by four hen turkeys and their 26 poults, which I’ve watched grow from fluffy, down-covered chicks into half-sized versions of their parents. They appear to strut their stuff proudly, take dust baths in my garden, and peck at whatever seeds the songbirds spill from my feeders. And while I have to be careful walking in the yard in bare feet, I’m not complaining.

            Wild turkey conservation is a tremendous success story in Rhode Island. They were hunted out of the Northeast by the late 1700s, and despite efforts to reintroduce them to Rhode Island in the 1950s, they remained mostly absent until the Department of Environmental Management undertook a determined effort to restore them. Twenty-nine birds captured in Vermont in 1980 were released in Exeter in 1980, and in the mid-1990s another 105 birds were released in West Greenwich, Burrillville, Scituate, Tiverton and Little Compton. Five years later, the state was home to about 6,000 turkeys in nearly every community.

            According to Brian Tefft, the DEM wildlife biologist who keeps track of turkeys in the state, their population has declined by almost half since their peak in 2001. The reasons are unclear.  The state has plenty of available habitat, but also plenty of places where turkeys are few and far between. That makes Tefft wonder whether there may be subtleties in their preferred habitat that are not being met here. 

            Food doesn’t appear to be a limiting factor in the growth of Rhode Island’s turkey population, though this year’s gypsy moth infestation may mean fewer acorns for turkeys to eat next year. And while natural predation is likely high, Tefft says that hunters take so few that their impact is “biologically insignificant.”

            The one factor that’s difficult to assess is weather, and that can have a major effect on the health of the hens and the durability of their chicks. A snowy and icy winter can make it difficult for adult turkeys to access food, which could leave them thin and unfit to reproduce.  And lots of rain in early summer could cause hypothermia in the chicks.

            That may be the reason why just 2 to 4 chicks survived per hen each year over the last decade or more, compared to 5 or 6 chicks during the peak years in the late 1990s. Last year was a banner year for chick survival, however, and Tefft said this year probably will be, too.

            He bases that assessment on his “brood index,” which he calculates at the end of August every year based on reports from the public about the ratio of chicks to hens observed each summer. He typically receives about 350 reports from throughout the state every year, though this year he has received more than 600, which in itself is a sign that turkey numbers are on the upswing.

            So if you see any hen turkeys followed by a trail of little ones before the end of the month, report them to Tefft via a form on the DEM website. And enjoy what Tefft calls an important part of Rhode Island’s natural and cultural heritage.

This article first appeared in The Independent on August 18, 2016.

More tropical fish arriving in Narragansett Bay earlier in season

            When a tropical fish called a crevalle jack turned up this summer in the Narragansett Bay trawl survey that the University of Rhode Island conducts every week, it was the first time the species was detected in the more than 50 years that the survey has taken place. The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s seine survey of fish in Rhode Island waters also captured a crevalle jack this year for the first time.

            While it’s unusual that both organizations would capture a fish they had never recorded in the Bay before, it’s not unusual that fish from the Tropics are finding their way to Narragansett Bay. In fact, fish from Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean have been known to turn up in local waters in late summer every year for decades. But lately they’ve been showing up earlier in the season and in larger numbers, which is raising questions among those who pay attention to such things.

Crevalle jack captured in Florida (Photo by Clare Sunquist)

            “There’s been a lot of speculation about how they get here,” said Jeremy Collie, the URI oceanography professor who manages the weekly trawl survey. “Most of them aren’t particularly good swimmers, so they probably didn’t swim here. They don’t say ‘It’s August, so let’s go on vacation to New England.’ They’re not capable of long migrations.”

            Instead, fish eggs and larvae and occasionally adult fish are believed to arrive in late summer on eddies of warm water that break from the Gulf Stream. Collie said they “probably hitch a ride” on sargassum weed or other bits of seaweed that the currents carry toward Narragansett Bay.

            Most of these tropical species, including spotfin butterflyfish, damselfish, short bigeye, burrfish and several varieties of grouper, don’t survive long in the region. When the water begins to get cold in November, almost all perish.

            “There’s no transport system to carry them back south, which is the reason they can’t get back where they came from,” Collie said.

            While climate change and the warming of the oceans has been responsible for many unusual marine observations in recent years, that does not appear to be the case with the annual arrival of tropical fish in local waters.

            “Warming doesn’t really have an effect on it,” said Mark Hall, the owner of Biomes Marine Biology Center in North Kingstown, which has been exhibiting locally-caught tropical fish since it opened in 1989.  “It’s just the way the Gulf Stream meanders and carries these fish our way.”

            Ocean warming does appear to be affecting the timing of the arrival of the fish, however.

            “Twenty years ago I wouldn’t bother trying to find tropicals until mid-August, but now we’re seeing them in July,” Hall said.

            The good news is that none of these tropical species appear to be harming or out-competing the native marine life in Narragansett Bay.

            “They arrive in July or August and are dead by November, so they’re just not here long enough to have an impact,” said Hall. “I can’t think of a single animal that’s having a negative effect.”

            Collie agrees. “These strays are small and appear here in small numbers,” he said. “The threat would come from wholesale movements of new species that can stay here for long periods. Tropicals aren’t a threat.”

            For those interested in seeing some of the tropical species that are making their way to Rhode Island, visit Biomes in North Kingstown or Save the Bay’s Exploration Center and Aquarium at Easton’s Beach in Newport. Save the Bay just opened a new exhibit this month featuring tropical fish species collected locally by its staff, volunteers and partner organizations, including Norman Bird Sanctuary and DEM. The exhibit, called The Bay of the Future, features a wide variety of what manager Adam Kovarsky calls Gulf Stream orphans.

            “We want to spark people’s thought processes about the things that can happen from climate change,” Kovarsky said. “While tropical strays have been showing up here forever and ever, there’s evidence that now they’re showing up in larger numbers and arriving earlier and surviving later. It’s not a problem now, but eventually they may stay year round, and that could stress our local species.”

            The Save the Bay exhibit, the largest display of warm-water species it has ever featured, includes striped burrfish, pinfish, short bigeyes, scamp groupers, spotfin butterflyfish and many others in a tank 12 feet long and 7 feet high. 

This article first appeared on EcoRI.org on August 17, 2016.

Warming oceans could mean boom in southern New England jellyfish populations

            When Jen Scranton went swimming in a protected cove at Fort Wetherill in Jamestown last month, she felt like she was swimming “in a giant wet ball pit.” She said she was surrounded by thousands of jelly bean-sized jellyfish. And although she didn’t get stung, she did feel a bit disconcerted by the experience.

            She’s not the only one. Many people throughout Rhode Island and beyond have reported unusually large numbers of jellyfish in recent years. And while this year is not turning out to be a big year for jellyfish in Narragansett Bay, some scientists claim that the warming of the oceans may be creating conditions that benefit jellyfish.

            Jack Costello, a biology professorat Providence College who studies jellyfish, said that there is considerable debate among scientists about whether there are substantial changes in jellyfish populations worldwide.

            “The popular story is that we’re changing the oceans, getting rid of the fish and causing jellyfish to multiply,” he said. “There may be some truth to that. But there is also clear evidence that some species of jellyfish aren’t doing well,” especially those that spend part of their life cycle on the seafloor.

            The only thing scientists seem to agree on is that there is great variability in jellyfish abundance from year to year that cannot be explained. Last year jellyfish numbers boomed in Narragansett Bay. Like algae blooms, some jellyfish species explode in abundance in regular cycles, while others occasionally get blown into the Bay by changing currents.

            “Most of the jellies that people know about are the high profile species, the large ones we can see easily,” said Costello. These include the common moon jelly often seen at beaches in the summer and the lion’s mane jelly, a large cold-water species most often seen locally in April and May. The Portuguese Man ‘o War, a southern species familiar to many people, is perhaps the most dangerous variety, but it very seldom shows up in Rhode Island waters.

            According to Costello, one of the major periods of jellyfish activity in Narragansett Bay is in late winter and early spring, when several tiny species are most active. But few people notice them. That’s when several species of ctenophores are increasingly abundant.

            Ctenophores are gelatinous predators on zooplankton and larval fish, and one species found in Narragansett Bay is clearly benefitting from global warming.

            “They overwinter in shallow inshore waters, which warm up before the central bay,” explained Costello. “And when we have a really warm early spring, they produce higher populations, which affect the population of zooplankton and affect the life cycle of other species in the bay.”

            Chris Deacutis said that sea nettles, a small bell-shaped jellyfish with foot-long tentacles, may also be increasing in numbers in Rhode Island due to warming waters. The supervising environmental scientist at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management said that sea nettles are becoming increasingly common in the salt ponds in South County, where they are often difficult to see but produce a painful sting that “feels like someone rubbed a match across your face.”

            Deacutis agrees with Costello, though, that there is little scientific evidence that links temperatures and jellyfish numbers. But, he said, that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. He said that no one is measuring jellyfish densities regularly, and that would be the only way to determine if changes are really taking place.

            “The bay varies significantly depending on the weather from season to season,” he said. “Heavy rains in summer cause hypoxia very quickly, and that would probably drive more gelatinous species. Jellyfish seem to do OK even in low oxygen conditions and can find enough food in those conditions to survive and reproduce pretty well.”

            Deacutis said that in a low oxygen environment, the food web becomes “short circuited. The sensitive species like fish swim away or die, while those like jellyfish that can survive on bacteria and small zooplankton do well.”

            But even if jellyfish populations really are growing due to the warming climate, he doesn’t believe it is a signal of doom.

            “If sea nettles started exploding in the salt ponds, that would be a bad thing for people,” he said. “But would it harm the ecosystem? There’s no evidence of that. Climate change is causing complex reactions to ecosystems like Narragansett Bay. Things are changing. It’s not necessarily true that things are getting worse as much as they are simply changing.” 

This article first appeared on EcoRI.org on August 10, 2016.

Extinction predicted within 50 years for local sparrow

            Saltmarsh sparrows are the only species of breeding bird found nowhere else but the East Coast of the United States, where they live exclusively in coastal marshes, including several sites in Rhode Island. But the birds are predicted to go extinct within the next 50 years.

            That’s the unfortunate news reported by University of Connecticut researchers Chris Elphick and Chris Fields earlier this month. Their data shows that the sparrows, which Elphick describes as small songbirds similar to the sparrows that visit many bird feeders in winter, have been declining at a rate of about 9 percent per year since the late 1990s.

Saltmarsh sparrow by R. Crossley/Vireo

            “To put it in context, if your stock portfolio was declining at that rate, you’d be losing money fast. It’s pretty bad,” he said. “About three-quarters of the population has disappeared.”

            According to Rachel Farrell, a member of the Rhode Island Avian Records Committee, birdwatchers in the Ocean State have made similar observations about saltmarsh sparrows, which they used to be able to find in good numbers at numerous salt marshes in the state. Now they report that the birds are few and far between. She said that birders have reported that the sparrows have all but disappeared from salt marshes in Little Compton, and they have declined somewhat in recent years at the marshes at the Charlestown and Quonochontaug breachways and around Ninigret Pond.

            Walter Berry, a research biologist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Narragansett, has conducted annual surveys of saltmarsh sparrows at Ninigret and Quonochontaug since 2007, and while he hasn’t observed a population decline during that period, he is pessimistic about their future.

            “Saltmarsh sparrows look like they’re holding their own at those sites, but judging by the quality of the habitat there, they won’t be holding their own for very long,” he said.

            The cause of the range-wide decline of saltmarsh sparrows is uncertain, though sea level rise and tidal restrictions at marshes are major factors.

            “The presence of a road across a marsh that restricts the natural tidal flow, even if there’s a culvert that allows the water to go in and out, is one of the most important predictors of decline,” Elphick said. “We found no decline in marshes without tidal restrictions, but the trouble is that nearly all marshes have some sort of tidal restriction.”

            He notes that locations that are experiencing the greatest sea level rise are also the sites where the decline in saltmarsh sparrows is greatest. That’s because the birds nest on the ground in the marsh, and the high spring tide causes many nests to flood.

            “If that only happened once a month, it wouldn’t be a problem because the birds’ nesting cycle takes 23 or 24 days to complete,” Elphick explained. “So if there’s a 24-day window between spring tides, they can reproduce. But if that window gets shorter because of big storms or onshore winds driving the water high up into the marsh, or if the marshes don’t drain the way they would naturally, suddenly the birds don’t have enough time to reproduce.”

            To complicate things, Elphick said that as sea level is causing the peak of the high tides to get higher.

            “It doesn’t take too much sea level rise to flip the switch for the birds,” he said. “Literally, a couple inches can make the difference.”

            To draw their conclusions, Elphick, Fields and their colleagues surveyed for salmarsh sparrows at 1,800 locations throughout the birds’ breeding range and compared their results to similar surveys conducted in the 1990s and 2000s. They also monitored nesting success and estimated the survival rates of adult birds.

            Sadly, the researchers say there is little that can be done to protect the birds in the long term, since any steps taken now to reduce sea level rise won’t have a practical effect until it’s too late. They are exploring several short-term or temporary fixes, however, like identifying the marshes that are least susceptible to the effects of sea level rise so they can be protected from development or alteration. They are also identifying locations where it is possible for the marshes to move inland as sea level rises so those inland locations can be protected as well.

            But ultimately, Elphick is not optimistic about the future for saltmarsh sparrows.

            “This is a really difficult problem, one we’ve ignored, and the longer we ignore things the harder they are to fix,” he said. “It’s not just about the sparrows, though. That’s just one species in these marshes. If we start acting now, all the things we do to benefit this sparrow will also benefit all the other species in the marsh, even if it doesn’t work for saltmarsh sparrows.

“This sparrow tells us there’s something bad happening in the system that we have to act on now if we’re not going to run into bigger problems down the road,” he added.

This article first appeared in EcoRI.org on July 20, 2016.

Researcher worries shark fishermen may capture his research subjects

           It’s the peak of shark fishing season, when hundreds of fishermen enter tournaments throughout southern New England and Long Island to catch the biggest shark in nearby waters. And it has BradleyWetherbee worried.

            The University of Rhode Island shark researcher knows that one mako shark he tagged off the coast of Maryland last year – which a sponsor named Charlotte – arrived in Rhode Island waters last week after a year-long, 6,500 mile journey. And given his track record of having his tagged sharks captured and killed by commercial and recreational fishermen, Wetherbee has his fingers crossed that Charlotte survives the month.

            “Makos are caught in all kinds of fisheries all around the world,” he said. “They’re the shark everyone wants to catch because they’re good to eat – like a shark version of swordfish – and they fight and jump and put up a big battle.

            “But it takes a great deal of effort and money to catch and track sharks, and we don’t want to see our research subjects captured and killed and lose their contribution to science,” he added.

            Wetherbee doesn’t object to shark fishing. In fact, his research is aimed at collecting information about the animals so they can be better managed and available for sustainable harvest for many years to come. He just hopes that any fisherman who catches Charlotte or any other shark with a satellite tracking tag on its fin will release the shark back in the water unharmed.

            Little is known about the health of mako shark populations, the migratory routes they travel, or their preferred feeding grounds. Wetherbee hopes his research will help to answer some of these questions. Makos are especially difficult to manage because they travel through the waters of dozens of countries, thereby requiring significant international cooperation to protect them from overfishing.

            Shark fishing isn’t the only threat to mako shark populations, however. The demand in China for shark fin soup is causing 70 million sharks to be killed each year for their fins. And while little shark finning takes place in New England waters, mako sharks have a worldwide distribution, so they are among the most commonly captured shark in the finning trade.

            Wetherbee and his colleagues at the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova SoutheasternUniversity have tagged more mako sharks in the Atlantic Ocean than any other scientists. The satellite tags they attach to the sharks’ fins enable the researchers to track the animals’ movements from day to day, which is how Wetherbee knew exactly when Charlotte arrived back in Rhode Island waters. It’s also how he knows that nearly a third of the 50 mako sharks he has tagged in recent years have been caught and killed by fishermen.

            “It’s easy to see the track lead right to a port somewhere and the tag just ends up sitting on a dock,” he said.

            The data Wetherbee is collecting from his tagged sharks is providing estimates of mako shark mortality that are far higher than scientists once believed.

            “So it’s possible that they are being overfished much more than previously thought,” Wetherbee said.

            His tagged sharks have moved through the waters of 27 countries. One shark traveled 14,000 miles in one year, and many have traveled more than 10,000 miles. Charlotte’s route took her from Maryland to Virginia, then north to Rhode Island and Long Island, where she spent several months last fall.  She then returned south to North Carolina before going on a two month loop far out into the Atlantic in April and May. She returned to south coastal waters in June, and then traveled to Rhode Island, where she arrived last week.

             “It’s information that no one had any idea about – their movements, how much time they spend in the north in winter, the countries they visit,” Wetherbee said. “It’s generating a lot of great information that is useful for managing shark populations.”

            The URI scientist said that Charlotte is obviously unaware of the risks she is taking by arriving in Rhode Island waters at this time.

            “She’s running the gauntlet,” he said. “There are three shark fishing tournaments just in tiny Rhode Island, and many more in Massachusetts and Long Island. There are hundreds of boats out there that would like to kill her and eat her. And if she makes it up to Canada, that’s where the longline fishery takes place. That’s another place she could easily get caught.

            “If I were Charlotte’s parent, I’d be crossing my fingers that she makes it out of here alive,” Wetherbee said.

            Monitor the movements of Charlotte and the other sharks Wetherbee has tagged here. 

Rhode Island aids cause, bans shark fin trading

            The first shark I ever saw was about 25 feet long – nearly as long as the research boat I was on – and it repeatedly cruised back and forth under and around us as we drifted in Cape Cod Bay.  Then it glided to the surface and just floated next to us, unmoving, its giant fin jutting above the water line. It was a basking shark, the second largest shark on Earth, and I quickly put my wetsuit on to join a film crew in the water with it. But it disappeared before I was ready.

            I haven’t seen many sharks in the wild since that day, but I’m often reminded of that shark’s massive fin, perhaps two feet tall, and how the animal seemed to have no fear of us. Sadly, that giant fin and the shark’s lack of fear – along with the great demand in China for shark fin soup – has put basking sharks and many other shark species at great risk.

     Brad Wetherbee, a shark researcher atthe University of Rhode Island, said about 70 million sharks die each year from having their fins sliced off to meet the demand for shark fin soup. The reportedly tasteless delicacy is served primarily at weddings and other celebrations in China and at Chinese restaurants in the U.S. and elsewhere.

            ”It’s the biggest issue in the world that sharks face,” Wetherbee said. “If you could do away with one thing to benefit sharks, it would be finning.”

            Slicing off a shark’s fins causes the animal to die a slow and cruel death. Wetherbee likened it to trying to fly a plane without wings. The sharks just sink to the bottom, unable to swim, and die.

So it was heartening to learn last month that Governor Gina Raimondo signed into law a bill that makes it a crime to own or sell shark fins in Rhode Island, unless it is for use in scientific research. It makes the Ocean State the 11^th state in the nation to ban the trade in shark fins. And while there isn’t believed to be much of a market for shark fins in Rhode Island, the law is useful in raising awareness of the practice of shark finning and the ecological damage it does.

            Basking sharks have no teeth and feed exclusively on tiny plankton, which is why some biologists call them whales in shark’s clothing – they eat what most of the large whales eat. It’s also why I felt comfortable getting in the water with one. They are no threat to humans or almost any other creature. Yet they are targeted by some fishermen because just one of their massive fins can sell for tens of thousands of dollars in China.

            The depletion of global shark populations due to finning is causing a ripple effect – what scientists call a trophic cascade – that is affecting numerous other species, from shellfish and corals to sea turtles and commercially important fish. So reducing the slaughter of sharks for their fins will not only benefit the sharks, but many other marine creatures as well.

            Wetherbee said that Rhode Island’s ban on the sale of shark fins probably won’t reduce shark mortality a great deal. “We’re just a tiny state, but we want to be on the right side of this issue and make a statement about it. So in that respect it’s a good move for Rhode Island.”

This article was first published in The Independent on July 21, 2016.

Where the wild things are

What's the story behind the increased spottings of bobcats, bears and coyotes in Rhode Island?

The bright orange tackle box in the back of Charles Brown’s state-owned pickup truck is filled with all sorts of lures, none of which have anything to do with fishing. Instead, like the shelves in a chemistry lab, it contains small, colorful bottles of murky liquids emitting unappetizing aromas. With names like Cat-man-doo, Gusto and Cat Fancy, their contents are used by trappers and hunters to attract predators. One, called Booty Call, contains a putrid mix of secretions from a bobcat’s anal gland that Brown carefully applied to a series of box traps he and University of Rhode Island researcher Amy Mayer set up in South Kingstown last winter.

Mayer and Brown, a wildlife biologist for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), used the lures almost daily for five months last fall and winter as part of a project to capture bobcats in South County. Their objective was to assess what appears to be a growing population of the state’s only wild feline. The animals have been sighted with increased frequency in almost every community in mainland Rhode Island, but little is known about how widely they travel, what they eat and other aspects of their behavior and ecology.

Growing up to thirty-five pounds, bobcats are the most widely distributed wild cat in North America, where they can be encountered in deserts, prairies, mountains and coastal regions. They have always been present in Rhode Island, though they have gone through periods when they were quite scarce. Today they are most often reported in South Kingstown, Westerly and Foster, though they are known to travel through the most densely populated areas of the state as well.

Bobcats are among a group of large predators, including black bears, fishers and coyotes, that are making some residents feel that their suburban communities have become more like the wilds of Yellowstone National Park than the safe enclave to which they had been accustomed. And although the animals’ arrival in the region has been spread out over several decades, many people perceive that the predators have recently become increasingly bold as they wander through neighborhoods and brazenly stand their ground.....

Read the full feature story in the June issue of Rhode Island Monthly.