Minke Whale Near South Amboy, NJ

Whale led back into deep waters off South Amboy after nearly washing ashore
Published: Sunday, July 29, 2012, 5:05 PM     Updated: Monday, July 30, 2012, 6:19 AM
By James Queally/The Star-Ledger
NJ.COM

South Amboy -  Rescue crews have successfully led a Minke Whale out to deep waters off South Amboy after the one ton animal nearly washed ashore this morning, officials said.

After nearly four hours and several attempts to move the whale out of shallow waters, members of New Jersey's Marine Mammal Stranding Center managed to nudge the animal back out to sea around 2 p.m., said agency director Bob Schoelkopf.

The 20-foot long whale was first spotted near South Amboy around 10 a.m., according to Schoelkpf, who said it was unclear why the animal floated in close to shore. While whales and other sea mammals tend to move toward shore if they are injured or sick, but Scoelkopf said the animal did appear to be harmed in any way.

Rescue workers with the Stranding Center, Perth Amboy Fire Department and U.S. Coast Guard managed to lead the whale out to deeper waters after several attempts to "re-float" it, Schoelkopf said.

“That’s about a ton, ton and a half of animal," he said. "So it’s not something you could just push back into the shallows.”

Officials will monitor the whale until it gets dark out to ensure that it does not return to the shallows. Schoelkopf said whales rarely approach the shore in New Jersey, where the animals more commonly collide with freighters. Last month, another Minke Whale collided with a cargo ship when it was entering Port Elizabeth, killing the animal almost instantly.

“For a live Minke to come ashore is quite unusual," he said.

Urban Waters: Is it Safe to Eat that Fish you caught?

Is it Safe to Eat that Fish you caught?
From: ROWAN SHARP/ecoRI
Published July 29, 2012 09:25 AM
EcoRI News

Does New York or New Jersey keep a record of how many people go fishing specifically in our urban waters?

PROVIDENCE, RI — On a recent afternoon, a few hours before dusk, Brian Watson, of South Providence, sat in a red fabric lawn chair on the wooden dock at India Point Park. Watson was fishing for bluefish and striped bass — “blues and stripers” — as he has for the past seven years, and he always eats his catch.

Does he worry about the safety of taking fish from heavily urban waters? “If the water wasn’t good, they wouldn’t let us fish,” he said.

Watson isn’t alone. Local urban fishermen and women can be found at city shores almost every evening. They fish at India Point Park, or further up the Seekonk River at the abandoned railroad bridge off Gano Street. They lean their poles against the railing on South Water Street, under Interstate 195. It’s a cozy scene: friends and family chatting and laughing, clustering around the poles when someone gets a bite, lone fishermen squinting calmly at the water.

The water itself is less picturesque; it’s not uncommon to see algae-greened plastic bottles and other trash bobbing in the current. But more threatening is the urban waters’ invisible burden: mercury and chemicals such as carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The popular fishing spot under I-195 connects to the Woonasquatucket River, and is therefore downstream from Centredale Manor, the 9.4-acre Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site in North Providence, a known source of PCBs and dioxins.

Watson hadn’t heard about mercury or PCBs. Neither had Rafael Perez, of Washington Park, who fishes under I-195 with pieces of clam belly he buys on Thurbers Avenue. Perez has fished regularly there, where the Providence River nears Narragansett Bay, for two years. Like Watson, his fish end up on the dinner table.

“I see a lot of debris and garbage when the tide is coming in and out,” Perez said, but added that he doubts the fish are unsafe to eat. Occasionally, he sees televised safety advisories tell him not to fish. Logically, Perez figures if there’s no advisory, there’s no problem.

“Most of the time, they give you advice,” he said. “They tell you if there is any contamination in the water.”

No money to keep watch
But, how safe is it? And who is keeping track? In North Providence, directly around the Centredale Manor Superfund site, Stacy Greendlinger, EPA’s community involvement coordinator for the site, has directed an aggressive outreach campaign. In the past two weeks, Greendlinger has personally knocked on 60 to 100 North Providence doors to inform residents that it’s not safe to fish or swim in the Woonasquatucket River. EPA has erected signs to this effect and annually publishes a written advisory called “Woonasquatucket River Do’s and Don’ts.”

Farther downstream from Centredale Manor, however, the outreach campaign tapers off — to the point where Watson, Perez and others fishing were unaware of it. Dave Deegan, media contact for EPA’s Region 1 (New England), confirmed that, for more general issues of fish consumption safety, state health agencies and not the EPA are expected to “take the lead role.”

He noted that mercury, a perennial fish contaminant, is not a legacy of the Centredale site, but rather enters the weather system via smog from often distant industries, then precipitates out.

The state Department of Environmental Management (DEM) gives a general outline of fish consumption safety in this year’s freshwater fishing abstract, the document that lists technical details such as catch limit and fishing license information. The document, available — though not prominent — on the DEM website (pdf), cites “preliminary” data from 1998; it suggests eating stocked freshwater fish and avoiding bass altogether, and identifies waters with high mercury levels. The DEM referred questions to the state Department of Health (DOH).

Robert Vanderslice, DOH’s chief of the office of environmental health risk assessment, said bluntly: “The last time the health department did any data analysis of fish was over 10 years ago.”

Asked whether he or the DOH was aware of the bustling culture of urban fishers, he said, “Not really. I have no data.”

And what of those TV advisories that urban fishers seem to rely on? The Department of Health hasn’t put out new fish consumption advisories in years. Vanderslice said that, unless the fishermen had misinterpreted a recent warning about blue-green algae, the notices they mentioned had come from other agencies.

“It’s not that the health department doesn’t support this and think it’s important,” Vanderslice said, noting that the DOH has never had the resources to take action, because no laws mandate regular monitoring of fish toxicity.

He said that when a law about environmental health does exist, the EPA provides funding to state agencies — as it does, for example, for asbestos cleanup. But no law means no state or federal funding. No funding means no data. No data means no public warnings.

And as far as other community outreach goes, there simply isn’t the manpower — Vanderslice hasn’t had a single staff member for five years. Before that, he had one.

He noted that the only states to have sophisticated and well-funded freshwater fish monitoring programs are the Great Lakes states, where fishing plays a significant economic role.

Fragmented monitoring
While the EPA doesn’t fund health department work on fish consumption, the EPA’s aquatic research facility in Narragansett conducts studies. The EPA’s Narragansett lab focuses on coastal waters, but many of Providence’s urban fishing spots verge on Narragansett Bay, and popular eating fish, such as striped bass, are saltwater species that move inland to spawn. This summer, Jim Lake of the EPA lab will collaborate with Vanderslice, sharing new data on mercury in fish tissue.

Also, growing public concern has lead community organizations and universities to do what government has not. This year, a group from Brown University will work with Rhode Island’s Narragansett tribe to gather newer and more complex data on fish toxicity in traditional tribal fishing areas, such as Mashapaug pond. And David Taylor, a Roger Williams University marine biology professor, has recently studied mercury in fish caught off India Point Park.

Vanderslice said he will use all these data sources to update the Department of Health’s fishing safety website and to issue the department’s first fish consumption advisories in years. The webpage currently identifies mercury as the sole danger with local fish consumption. Although the department is well aware of PCB contamination in fish, it offers no public information on the issue.

Another key piece of the puzzle is community outreach. With the Department of Health unfunded, this task — outside the immediate radius of Centredale Manor, that is — has been largely taken up by non-governmental organizations such as the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, a group of concerned residents, government representatives, and local nonprofits that works for the river’s restoration.

Alicia Lehrer, executive director of the council, said the group has waged an active campaign to disseminate EPA’s “Dos and Don’ts of the Woonasquatucket River.” Don’ts include swimming and, of course, eating fish caught there. Outreach strategies include signs, leaflets, classes held at public parks and youth programs.

But Lehrer said it’s difficult to get the message across. People are “definitely fishing in the Woonasquatucket and I’m sure that they’re eating the fish from time to time,” she said. “I was hanging out at Riverside Park two weeks ago and I saw some people fishing there and taking the fish home.” Lehrer approached the fishers, warned them about safety, and suggested they catch and release.

Little Rhody has a big relationship with water. The Ocean State’s famously long coastline is just the beginning — the state is decorated with ponds, rivers and estuaries. Fishing and swimming are at the heart of Rhode Island’s tourism industry. But some of the state’s waters are so troubled that it will be years before we can do those things safely.

Lehrer said water quality in the Woonasquatucket River will improve when the Narragansett Bay Commission completes its current project of revamping the sewer system to minimize sewage overflow, another key contaminant. But river sediment, with its long-term industrial toxins, presents a different challenge. The Centredale site, the subject of EPA study for 20 years, represents a $60 million clean-up project that’s yet to begin, according to Lehrer.

“We have got to figure out a way to make this river swimmable and fishable, but we are many, many years away from that right now,” she said.

At the moment, though, urban fishing continues as usual. Lehrer’s group has mitigated danger along the Woonasquatucket by posting signs, but no signs are posted on South Water Street, where Perez fishes. Nor are there warnings at India Point, where, down the dock from Watson, Ethan Schar kept an eye on his fishing pole. Schar lives in Costa Rica, but has traveled regularly through Providence during the past two years, always stopping to fish. He often eats his catch, saying, “I figure they’re okay. Some people say the fish are contaminated, but I don’t think so.”

Little Sea Robins Grunting in Lower NY Bay

The waxing crescent moon was setting the other night as my friends and I were heading down to the edge of Sandy Hook Bay in Atlantic Highlands, near the mouth of Many Mind Creek, to pull a seine net through the water. We wanted to find what might be living in this small bit of Lower New York Bay towards the end of July, downstream from New York City. 

 

Surface water temperatures were in the upper 70s. Air temperature readings were in the upper 70s as well. Skies were clearing as thunderstorms were moving eastward out to the open ocean. There was an incoming tide. Everything was coming together nicely. It was a perfect time to see firsthand what small aquatic organisms were living in the shallow areas along the beach. 

Among the critters caught in the net, identified, then released were American eels, Kingfish, Snapper Blues, several immature Blue-Claw Crabs, and hundreds of hermit crabs. We also noticed a few Horseshoe Crab molts on the beach, former housing for ones living in the bay.

The biggest surprise came when we caught a few juvenile Striped Searobins. I had not seen one up close in a few years and forgot just how weird looking they appear, even when young. 

 Searobins get their name from their large pectoral fins that resemble the wings of a bird, like a robin. They are reddish to brown in color. They have a large boney head, broader than its body, and a large mouth that looks like it could swallow your finger whole. The fish also have 9 to 11 jagged spines on their dorsal fins.

Stranger still was that the fish was speaking to us. It was making na unmistakable sound. The fish was using its swim bladder to produce a series of grunting calls. One after another. 

Searobins are famous for their sound producing abilities. The fish can make a variety of sounds including barks, growls, and clucks. Searobins possess a very large swim bladder that can vibrate by a variety of muscular movements.

Speaking softly it was saying something to us. We had no idea for sure, the context of their sounds is largely unknown. Yet, it was probably nothing nice. The fish was almost certainly annoyed with us for disturbing it nightly forging routine.

After taking a few pictures, we put most of searobins back into the bay. I kept just one. The one that seemed most content and quiet. I wanted just one to put into an aquarium back home to study its way of life. These are surely alluring fish. 

A study in 1976 by McBride ad Able suggested that Striped Searobins were among the four most abundant fish in Sandy Hook Bay during the summer. Today, a good number are still found in the bay and adjoining Navesink River, where people often use the fish as bait for bigger fish.

Striped Searobins can grow to be about 18 inches long, but have been caught a bit bigger in some places. The largest striped searobin ever recorded in the coastal waters of NY State was taken in Long Island Sound, it was 19.6 inches long. 

The little searobins we found in our seine net were more like fingerlings, about 2 to 3 inches long. Most likely they were hatched from eggs last year (between May to October) or even two years ago in Lower New York Bay. Striped Searobins are slow growers and reach adulthood by its second or third year.

Searobins are bottom fish or benthic feeders. They inhabit the shallow sandy bottom areas of the estuary. They feed on a variety of bottom dwelling crabs, clams, shrimps, and fishes. Come fall, the Searobins will migrate out to the continental shelf where they will spend the winter in deeper water up to 300 feet.

And so it often goes, another interesting fish is found to call Lower New York Bay home. The estuary rarely disappoints. No doubt the tidal waters are alive now with the sound of grunting searobins cursing my name.

Young Ospreys Want to be Fish Hawks

A sound of summer. Have you heard it yet?  The tidewaters of Lower New York Bay has some 30 or more active Osprey nests, each with 1 to 3 young. By July the bay comes alive with these young-of-the-year Ospreys. They want to an adult fish hawk bad.

(Three Ospreys in the nest. Mom is in the center with two juvenile Ospreys on either side of mom)

Young Ospreys are maturing fast. As I write this, the adolescent birds are learning how to fly or fledge, which means to fly from the nest for the first time. These big baby birds are quite active, preening and exercising their wings. You can see these unripe Ospreys flapping and fluttering their wings, and hopping up and down in the nest.  Just like any teenager, they can't wait to be on their own.

The parents know it's time to teach their children well. Their offspring have reached the age when mom and dad need show what it takes to be an adult hawk. 

First to go is the feeding. Mom and dad no longer feed their young, but merely drop a fish in the nest for the chicks to feed themselves.

Next comes the flying. The young Ospreys must summon the courage to frantically flap their wings, touch the air, and trust that they will not fall down. If all goes well, soon the young Ospreys will begin to make attempts to catch a fish for themselves when they have improved their fishing and flying skills. Some parents might even place a fish on a nearby branch for a struggling young Osprey to make every effort to fly over and take it. 

These youngsters stay in the company of their parents throughout August and early September. From time to time, they will be taught the finer points of flying, hunting, and what it takes to be Fish Hawk.

Both girls and boys are every bit the size of their mom and dad by now. Young Ospreys are about two feet tall with a five foot wingspan. The major difference between adults and offspring is the color of the plumage. Immature Ospreys are lighter brown on the back and wings with white specks on the edges of the feathers that give a rough, crusty appearance. 

It's great to see all this new life around Lower New York Bay. Of course it wasn't always like this. Ospreys were nearly wiped out and uncommon for most of the 20th century by the effects of habitat loss, water pollution, and DDT.

The sight of these baby birds calling and flapping is a clear sign of the improved habitat for Ospreys to survive and raise a family in Lower New York Bay and its tributaries. More work needs to be done though. We need to preserve and restore additional habitat on the way to ensure that Ospreys return to these urban tidal water for generations to come.  

Killifish don't Kill Fish in New York Harbor

High tide in the Navesink River, a tidal waterway in the northern Jersey Shore that is part of the Lower New York Bay watershed region. As I waded in the water late in the afternoon, the air temperature was near 100 degrees, making the 80 degree river seem cool by comparison.

(A Striped Killifish recently found in the Navesink River, NJ)

Curious to see what might be living near the edge of the river, I started throwing a 7-foot wide cast net that I had in the trunk of my Subaru. I was a bit rusty at first. I haven't used a cast net in awhile. It took a few tosses to get used to the timing of its release. Cast nets can be tricky to use in the beginning, but once you have the hang of it, the net is a very effective way of catching fish without getting wet, like with a seine net.

Fortunately, It didn't take many flings of the net for me to start grabbing hold of some fish, and it didn't take long to notice that the upper end of the tidal river was jam-packed with little bait fish, mostly killifish. Summertime and the water was jumpin' with killifish.

There are over 700 different types of killifish found in most regions of the world. In Lower New York Bay, the most common species is the Striped Killifish.

As fish go, these are relatively easy to identify. Striped Killifish have long, pointed snouts and long, compressed bodies that grow up to 8 inches in length, though most adults are between 5 to 7 inches long. Females are larger than males. Not surprisingly, the most common identifying feature for this fish is its stripes. Adult females have several irregular stripes going horizontal across the length of the body. Ecologically unaware people often confuse the female as a juvenile striped bass, because of the parallel stripes.  Adult males have short vertical bars traversing its body. 

(A female Striped Killifish)

(A male Striped Killifish)

Striped Killifish feed primarily on juvenile fish, worms, and small crabs and clams. They swim in large schools often found in a variety of shallow water places around Lower New York Bay, by sandy beaches to inside wetland creeks.  

Although the fish sounds ordinary, it's the name that provides the most attention. Why Killi-fish? Does the fish kill other fish?

Although they like live food, killifish tend to be more bait than butcher. Striped Killifish are in fact important food and fare for a diversity of larger fish and birds frequently seen in or near Lower New York Bay, including Striped Bass, Bluefish, Great Egrets, and Green Herons.

Killi is actually a Dutch word for a water channel or a small body of water, such as a  creek.  Kill Van Kull, a narrow tidal waterway between Staten Island, NY and Bayonne, NJ, gets its name from the early Dutch settlers that arrived in the region in the early to mid 1600s. The English translation is  Van Kull's creek. Killifish found in present-day Lower New York Bay also got its name from the early Dutch settlers. The fish must have looked similar to the small baitfish they would came across in coastal waters and river mouths back in Europe. The name Killifish really means a fish found in or near a small body of water. 

The Striped Killifish is the largest of the killifishes in Lower New York Bay. They are a extremely hardy and a strong fish. If captured in a net, the fish will exert itself to get out by flopping and jumping to get back into the water, sometimes leaping from several inches to several feet at each hurdle. It's one brawny bait fish.

Striped Killifish are a silent, but a prominent reminder of the great quantity of aquatic life that lives in these rich, wild waters of Lower New York Bay.

NY City and Federal Officials Will Jointly Manage Jamaica Bay

City and Federal Officials Will Jointly Manage Jamaica Bay
By LISA W. FODERARO
Published: July 17, 2012
The New York Times

New York City and the National Park Service formalized a partnership on Tuesday to jointly manage more than 10,000 acres of parkland in and around Jamaica Bay, which stretches across south Brooklyn to Queens.

Under the agreement, city and federal officials will for the first time work together to improve access, foster research, run education and recreation programs and plan restoration projects for the bay, which is an important estuary and a migratory stopover for hundreds of species of birds. The move followed an announcement last fall that sketched out the vision for such a partnership.

“The United States and New York City have joined forces to establish a single seamless park that is readily accessible to New Yorkers,” said Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, who, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, signed the agreement at a news conference at City Hall.

Jamaica Bay is an unusual patchwork of private, city, state and federal lands. City parks in the bay area total 3,300 acres and include Canarsie, Idlewild, Marine, Paerdegat Basin and Spring Creek Parks, as well as Rockaway Beach. The federal holdings, which span 7,300 acres, include Floyd Bennett Field, Fort Tilden, Jacob Riis Park, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and a smattering of salt-marsh islands, all making up part of the Gateway National Recreation Area.

The announcement came after years of efforts, sometimes sputtering, by environmental advocates, city officials and nonprofit groups to protect the bay. Intensive development, industry, sewage treatment plants and Kennedy International Airport have all hampered water quality and caused erosion. But last year, the Natural Resources Defense Council signed an agreement with state and city officials that would cut in half the amount of nitrogen discharged into the bay from four treatment plants, improving the health of the bay.

The new partnership also calls for the creation of a conservancy or friends group dedicated to the bay, to encourage philanthropy. Similar conservancies have helped other large parks in New York City, including Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, find new streams of revenue, but they tend to be in affluent neighborhoods. Given that the bay is ringed by largely working- and middle-class communities, however, it is uncertain how successful that effort will be.

Mr. Bloomberg said he had appointed a task force to make recommendations for the friends group, and named Thomas F. Secunda, one of the founders of Bloomberg L.P., as its chairman. The fund-raising group will most likely be modeled on the Park Service’s most successful friends group, at Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco.

In addition, the partners will invite proposals from academic and science-based institutions for a new research program — and potentially a new science center — that will focus on the bay’s restoration. The Park Service and the mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability released a “request for expressions of interest” on Tuesday; responses are due in early November. The Rockefeller Foundation also committed $1.5 million to establish such a center, which would study the resilience of coastal environments in the face of climate change. Last fall, the foundation pledged $250,000 to develop a Jamaica Bay parks master plan.

“This historic partnership,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “will improve our city’s great natural treasure — Jamaica Bay — by creating restored, resilient natural landscapes, more outdoor recreation, new and cutting-edge research collaborations, and an improved, sustainable transportation framework.

“This is an important example of the great things that can happen when different levels of government work together.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 18, 2012, on page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: City and Federal Officials Join to Manage Jamaica Bay.

Global Warming Makes Heat Waves More Likely, Study Finds

Global Warming Makes Heat Waves More Likely, Study Finds
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: July 10, 2012
The New York Times

Some of the weather extremes bedeviling people around the world have become far more likely because of human-induced global warming, researchers reported on Tuesday. Yet they ruled it out as a cause of last year’s devastating floods in Thailand, one of the most striking weather events of recent years.

A new study found that global warming made the severe heat wave that afflicted Texas last year 20 times as likely as it would have been in the 1960s. The extremely warm temperatures in Britain last November were 62 times as likely because of global warming, it said.

The findings, especially the specific numbers attached to some extreme events, represent an increased effort by scientists to respond to a public clamor for information about what is happening to the earth’s climate. Studies seeking to discern any human influence on weather extremes have usually taken years, but in this case, researchers around the world managed to study six events from 2011 and publish the results in six months.

Some of the researchers acknowledged that given the haste of the work, the conclusions must be regarded as tentative.

“This is hot new science,” said Philip W. Mote, director of the Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University, who led the research on the Texas heat wave and drought. “It’s controversial. People are trying different methods of figuring out how much the odds may have shifted because of what we have put into the atmosphere.”

The general conclusion of the new research is that many of the extremes being witnessed worldwide are consistent with what scientists expect on a warming planet. Heat waves, in particular, are probably being worsened by global warming, the scientists said. They also cited an intensification of the water cycle, reflected in an increase in both droughts and heavy downpours.

The study on extreme weather was released along with a broader report on the state of the world’s climate. Both are to be published soon in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The broad report found no surcease of the climate trends that have led to widespread concern about the future.

The Arctic continued to warm more rapidly than the planet as a whole in 2011, scientists reported, and sea ice in the Arctic was at its second-lowest level in the historical record. In 2010, rains were so heavy that the sea level actually dropped as storms moved billions of gallons of water onto land, they said, but by late 2011 the water had returned to the sea, which resumed a relentless long-term rise.

So far this year in the United States, fewer weather disasters seem to be unfolding than in 2011. But it is still turning out to be a remarkable year, with wildfires, floods, storms that knocked out electrical power for millions and sizzling heat waves in March and June.

Globally, the new research makes clear that some of the recent weather damage resulted not from an increased likelihood of extremes, but from changes in human exposure and vulnerability. The 2011 floods in Thailand are a prime example.

An analysis by Dutch and British scientists found that the amount of rain falling in Thailand last year, while heavy, was not particularly unusual by historical standards, and that “climate change cannot be shown to have played any role in this event.”

More important, the researchers said, was rapid development in parts of Thailand. Farm fields have given way to factories in the floodplains of major rivers, helping to set the stage for the disaster.

In the new report, researchers in Oregon and Britain found that natural climate variability played a big role in setting the stage for the heat wave in Texas. The weather in 2011 was heavily influenced by a weather pattern called La Niña, which has effects worldwide, including making drought in the American Southwest more likely.

But even taking that into account, the researchers found, the overall warming of the planet since the 1960s made it about 20 times as likely that such a heat wave would occur in Texas in a La Niña year.

Martin P. Hoerling, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was not involved in the new study but is conducting his own research on the Texas disaster, agreed that human-induced global warming had probably made the odds of record-setting heat somewhat more likely. But he said his research showed that the rainfall deficits were unrelated to global warming.

He said he was skeptical about several aspects of the new paper, including the claim of a 20-fold increase in likelihood.

More broadly, he said he was worried that the newly published studies had been done so hastily that the conclusions may not stand the test of time. “We need to think carefully about what kind of questions we can credibly pursue with this sort of rapid turnaround,” Dr. Hoerling said.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 11, 2012, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Global Warming Makes Heat Waves More Likely, Study Finds.

Black Bear Spotted in Monmouth County, NJ

Black bear spotted in Englishtown, Manalapan
Written by
Michelle Sahn
July 13, 2012
Asbury Park Press

ENGLISHTOWN — A black bear was spotted Friday in Manalapan and Englishtown, police said.

The animal was spotted around 6:30 a.m. on Route 33 in Manalapan and around 8:30 a.m. on Woodward Road, said Manalapan Lt. Michael Fountain.

Around 1 p.m., Englishtown police got an alert from county dispatchers that the animal was heading into their community and was last seen on Mount Vernon Road in Manalapan.

Englishtown Lt. Peter Cooke said he dispatched officers to the area near the Manalapan-Englishtown boundary, but before they got there, landscapers stopped them and told them they had spotted the bear on Woodruff Court.

Cooke said he also went to the area, and spotted the animal on Heritage Way.

“It was not aggressive,” he said. “As soon as he saw us, he was more scared of us, and would retreat.”

He said the bear was last seen running back into a heavily wooded area in Manalapan.

Englishtown police have posted a notice on their website, telling residents to take precautions with small children and pets.

“We get involved if bears become a problem and need to be relocated, such as a bear who has been chased up a tree,” said Larry Hajna, spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Beginning in the spring, bear sightings increase because the animals come out of hibernation.

As well, established male bears kick yearlings out, forcing the younger bears to move out of existing territory and look for a place of their own, Hajna said.

“Bears walking through a neighborhood may be moving to a more appropriate location. People should not call (authorities) unless they need to,” Hajna said.

If bears do become a nuisance, in addition to the local police people can call the Department of Environmental Protection toll-free at 877-WARN-DEP (927-6337).

As of May 20, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has received 378 calls about bear sightings and nuisances, Hajna said. On May 23, a bear was spotted strolling down train tracks near James Street in an area near Lake Carasaljo in Lakewood.

Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 20, 2011, 18 counties, including Monmouth and Ocean, had 1,126 sightings and 1,915 complaints about bears which were reported to the state Division of Fish and Wildlife.

The agency’s report does not include incidents handled by local authorities without the assistance of the state DEP, Fish and Wildlife’s parent agency.

The 1,126 bear sightings in 2011 represented an increase of almost 16 percent from 2010’s report of 971 sightings, which was a 16 percent increase from 2009’s 838 sightings.

Damage and nuisance caused by bears, however, are on the decline. In 2009 there were 2,174 incidents reported; in 2010, 2,064; and in 2011, 1,915 such incidents.

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife has a website with safety tips on what to do if one should encounter a bear.

The state notes on that site, “Black bear attacks are extremely rare.”

Who Knew a Skilletfish could be found in NY Harbor?

Perhaps this was just a stroke of luck or a sign of something good or bad, but I recently found a juvenile Skilletfish while night seining near Port Monmouth, a small coastal community along Sandy Hook Bay and downstream from New York City. I was thrilled to find perhaps a new fish species for Lower New York Bay. But where did it come from and what did its detection mean for the health of the bay?

(A juvenile Skilletfish recently found in Lower New York Bay)

When first caught I had no idea what I had holding in my hand. The little fish was less than inch long with a weird fry-pan shape. Its head was wider than its body and smoothly rounded. The body color was dark brownish and molted. It had tiny eyes and fleshy lips. The strangest feature of this fish, however, was still to be seen.

I figured the best way to try to identity and key this curious fish was to put it inside a little fish tank I have for juvenile fish. Right now the tank was nearly empty except for a immature blenny that I was trying to classify. So I thought it might be just right as a temporary home. 

(A young Skilletfish hanging upside down in a fish tank by use of its suction disk)

What a bombshell. As soon as I put the fish inside the tank it quickly attached itself to the side of the aquarium. What an amazing sight! This bizarre fish was stuck to the side of my aquarium by a large suction disk on the underside of its body, like some sort of exotic tropical creature. Who knew such a fish could be found in Lower New York Bay? 

I certainly didn't. I had to call an old friend to properly classify this fish. I couldn't wait any longer to find out its name. Jim, the Fish Tagging Director for the American Littoral Society, suggested to me that it might be a Skilletfish. I never heard of it before.

After looking through a few field guides and pictures on the internet, I determined that it was in fact a young-of-the-year Skilletfish. Most likely hatched from an egg in either April or May. 

Not much is really known about the Skilletfish in New Jersey or New York. It's a rare fish to find. According to the Hudson River Almanac website, I read reports that the fish was found for the first time in the Hudson River near Manhattan in 2011. It was found living near a newly formed oyster reef.

The Peterson Field Guide to Atlantic Coast Fishes tells us that the Skilletfish is the only "clingfish" on the north coast of the United States, north of southern Florida. It prefers to live near pilings, oyster reefs, and in grassy or rocky swallows. It can grow up to three inches.

Kenneth Able and Michael Fahay in their book entitled, Ecology of Estuarine Fishes: Temperate Waters of the Western North Atlantic, assert that New Jersey is the northern limit for this species, and that "juveniles are rarely, if ever, encountered in the extensively sampled Mullica River - Great Bay Estuary. They are much more common in estuaries from Chesapeake Bay and farther South." 

No surprises then that the best source of information about the Skilletfish actually came from the Fishes of Chesapeake Bay book. The fish is common here. As written by Edward Musdy and others, the Skilletfish almost always cling to rocks or shells with its suction disk. The fish feeds on worms and small crustaceans such as amphipods and isopods. As for the life cycle of the little fish, adults "spawn between April to August. The female lays a few hundred amber-colored eggs into an empty oyster shell, and the male guards the eggs until they hatch." Skilletfish will remain in shallow waters near the shore during warmer months, but will migrate to deeper waters in winter. 

How thrilling! A Skilletfish has been discovered living in Lower New York Bay. What does this mean? Maybe nothing. Then again since this fish is fond of oyster reefs, perhaps this means that oyster populations are starting to return to the bay, which would be a very good sign for the natural restoration of New York Harbor. We will just have to wait and see.