February 2008 E-newsletter
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This Month’s Contents:

Blue Ocean Society News | Member Spotlight
Upcoming Events | Notes from the Southeast| Conservation Tip

 
Blue Ocean Society News
 

Sometimes during our busy season, we look forward to the winter, with the idea that we’ll get to slow down our pace a bit. However, a week or so ago, I mentioned to a staff member that we had likely already seen our “slow” season, which occurred during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day!  Our apologies for getting this issue out so late this month.

I continue to be amazed at the huge amount of marine debris removed from our little coast. Between our Adopt-a-Beach Program, the New Hampshire Coastal Cleanup and cleanups we’ve done with special groups, we conducted 262 cleanups last year, resulting in the removal of over 8 tons of potentially hazardous marine debris from the New Hampshire and southern Maine coastlines.  

You can probably guess that the most numerous item was cigarettes, with 79,593 recorded. The good news was that this number decreased by about 12,000 from last year, hopefully due to increased education efforts and the presence of cigarette butt disposal stations at Hampton Beach.  Volunteers also picked up over 10,000 pieces of rope. This item likely increased this year due to the many cleanups we conducted at Foss Beach, where large amounts of fishing line and rope wash up, especially after storms.  Due to the potential for rope and fishing line to entangle both large and small marine life, these cleanups are so necessary.   

New this year, volunteers recorded plastic bottle caps, tallying over 3,500. This high number is cause for worry, as bottle caps can choke marine life, particularly diving birds. We will continue monitoring their presence and finding ways to encourage the public not to litter. 

If you’re interested in seeing the full results of our cleanup and education efforts last year and in previous years, you can view our final report to the NH Coastal Program online here, or contact us and we’ll send you a hard copy. 

Below we have a short article from one of our members on why our cleanups are so important, a report from our research coordinator down in Florida, and some conservation tips.  Stay tuned for next month’s issue, when we’ll report on ways you can celebrate Earth Day events and an exciting new project involving turning marine debris into energy!

 Member Spotlight: Our Little Slice of Paradise
 

By Kurt Farnsworth, Blue Ocean Society member

The Farnsworth family, Kurt, Julia, Alexa and Cameron decided to join the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation in the summer of 2007.  We were introduced to them inadvertently by Patty Adell, one of their staff naturalists, and the relationship has grown since then.  Our family travels 2 1/2 hours from West Springfield, MA to Hampton Beach several times a year, year round.  It is our little slice of paradise.   

 
Upcoming Events
 

Whale Watching in New England, presentation by Blue Ocean Society friend Scott Mercer, Tuesday, March 11 at 5 PM. Join us at the York Library in York, ME this evening to hear Scott, who’s been whale watching even longer than we have, share his whale stories and provide insight as to how federal, state and local regulations affect commercial whale watching, and marine life.

Beach Cleanup, Saturday, March 15, Jenness Beach in Rye, 10:30 AM 

Beach Cleanup, Saturday, April 12, Jenness Beach in Rye, 10:30 AM

Marine Debris to Energy Project Kickoff, April 18. Learn more about our new program to turn derelict fishing gear into energy!  Time and location to be announced soon.  

Earth Day Cleanups & Celebration, Saturday, April 19 at South Mill Pond and Peirce Island, Portsmouth, and Sunday, April 20 at Rye Harbor State Park. We are finalizing sponsors and coordinating with the City of Portsmouth’s Celebration of the Earth, which will also be held on April 19. Details will be finalized and posted online shortly at www.blueoceansociety.org/cleanup.htm.  Want to sponsor? Contact Patty at patty@blueoceansociety.org. 

Groups wanted for Earth Day cleanups! In an effort to “prepare” the coast for the summer tourist season and remove debris washed up by winter storms, we’re hoping to do a major sweep of the coast in April and May.  Contact us if you have a group that would like to schedule a cleanup! 

Volunteer Night:  We haven’t scheduled our next one yet, but if you want to be on our list to be informed of upcoming dates, e-mail jen@blueoceansociety.org.  

Notes from the Southeast

By Dianna Schulte, Research Coordinator
From St. Augustine, FL

As we dodge tornado warnings and wind-driven sand, we continue to fly around in a little plane searching for right whales, on the good weather days anyway.  Our 10 parallel transect lines extend about 30 miles from the shore although most of our sightings this season have been fairly close to shore. Sometimes, even close enough to see the whales from the beach!  

After five seasons of working with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as an observer for their north Atlantic right whale program, I’m still in awe of how close to shore these whales will come, and how cute and playful a newborn right whale calf can be.  

The southeast US (Georgia and northern Florida) is the only known right whale calving habitat. We have welcomed a fair number of baby right whales to the area this season (16 so far), but we have also seen a greater number of other whales- not moms or calves- in the area.   

Kingfisher, a 5-year old juvenile male, made his appearance for the 5th year in a row. Many other juveniles are here as well, gallivanting with him.

Not long ago, the right whale survey team in South Carolina spotted #3260 (most right whales have ID numbers, not names like Kingfisher), a female first seen in 2002. This whale is special to us at Blue Ocean Society as she had been entangled last summer in New England, but we were the first to document her without the rope on her in the fall. Also during that October trip, #3260 was quite active, slapping her tail repeatedly on the surface. Now she’s down here and looking great.  

Although we don’t know how old #3260 is (she wasn’t a calf when first observed in 2002), we do know she is at least 7 years old, which is old enough to have her first calf.  Only time will tell if she’s here to give birth or just to hang out and check out the scene.   

We will continue to monitor the right whale population here until March 31. At that point, I, like the right whales will begin my migration north to hopefully meet them, and other whales, on Jeffreys Ledge this summer.

Conservation Tip of the Month

According to families.com, February is statistically the month with the highest heating bills of the year. Here are some simple tips for conserving heat that may help you avoid putting on 3 sweaters! 

-        Make sure your closet doors are closed. Have you ever noticed how cold your closets are inside?  Also close doors to any space that isn’t active living space so your house can heat up quicker and retain that heat longer. 

-        On sunny days, open blinds and curtains so that the sun can shine in, especially on the south side of the house.  Make sure to close the curtains when the sun goes down to conserve all that solar heat. 

-        After using your oven, leave it open a crack to let the warm air escape into your kitchen (don’t do this if you have a young child in the house). 

-        Did you know you can adjust the rotation of your ceiling fan? Adjust the rotation of your ceiling fan in the winter (usually by flicking a switch) and use it to push warm air down from the ceiling. 

Keep warm, and we’ll see you in March!

Thanks for your interest in marine conservation.  If you wish to support our work, please click here. Have you become a member yet?

Click here to buy merchandise such as Adopt-a-Marine Creature packets, t-shirts and sweatshirts online!