Sea Level is Rising 60% Faster Than Scientists Predicted

Sea-level Rise Outpaces Expert Predictions
From: David A Gabel, ENN
Published November 28, 2012 08:56 AM
ENN - Environmental News Network

(One meter rise, approximately 3 feet, of sea level would dramatically change the northeast coastline of America)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected an annual sea level rise last year in 2011 of 2 millimeters per year. According to new satellite data, there appears to be a stark difference between their projections and reality. Sea-levels are rising 60 percent faster than predicted, at a rate of 3.2 millimeters per year. Global temperatures, on the other hand, are continuing to rise at the consistent pace which IPCC predicted. The study shows that the increased rate in sea-level rise is not significantly affected by internal variability in Earth's climate system, but is rather reflective of a general trend.

The research was published in the Institute of Physics' journal, Environmental Research Letters, and conducted by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Tempo Analytics, and Labatoire d'Etudes en Geophysique et Oceanographie Spatiales. They believe that their findings will shed a light on the importance of tracking past predictions, especially since these IPCC predictions are frequently used by decision makers.

Satellite data from the last 20 years on global temperatures and sea-levels were analyzed and compared with the IPCC prediction. The general warming trend of 0.16 degrees C per decade was in line with the IPCC projection. This was even after short-term phenomena were excluded, such as solar variations, volcanic eruptions, and El Nino/Southern Oscillation.

To measure sea-level, satellites bounced radar off the water surface. This is a much more accurate method than tide gauges because the satellites have near-global coverage, and the tide gauges are only along the coast. The tide gauges are also influenced by non-climate factors like ocean currents and wind.

The result of their analysis was a sea-level rise rate that is 60 percent faster than previously predicted.

According to lead author of the study, Stefan Rahmstorf, "This study shows once again that the IPCC is far from alarmist, but in fact has under-estimated the problem of climate change. That applies not just for sea-level rise, but also to extreme events and the Arctic sea-ice loss."

The article was published in the journal, Environmental Research Letters

Water Quality Slowly Gets Better in Lower NY Bay After Sandy

DEP: Contamination in Raritan Bay is decreasingFailure of sewerage treatment plants during storm raises levels of bacteria in local waters
BY NICOLE ANTONUCCI
Staff Writer
The Independent Weekly Newspaper
11-22-2012

Contamination levels in local estuaries, bays and waterways are returning to normal as sewage treatment plants and pumping stations regain power and renew operations, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection said last week.

As a result of superstorm Sandy, the Middlesex County Utilities Authority (MCUA) and the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) in Newark went offline and began discharging raw sewage into local waterways, forcing the DEP to issue a commercial and recreational harvest ban on New Jersey shellfish, according to Kerry Pflugh.

“We are taking water-monitoring samples daily and fortunately the levels are coming down,” Pflugh said on Nov. 15. “They will continue to come down as the plant comes back online.”

According to the DEP website, watermonitoring sites for Middlesex and Monmouth counties include the Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Navesink River and Shrewsbury River.

Pflugh explained that the Oct. 29 superstorm caused severe damage to the PVSC and other plants, which spilled raw sewage into the waterways.

“Since then, we made tremendous progress fixing the facilities that were damaged. There is now primary treatment for the PVSC plant, but they are still working on the problem,” she said.

“It’s a huge effort. There was a lot of damage. We don’t know when they will be fully operating, but until that time we are taking daily water-quality samples.”

Pflugh reported that levels of fecal coliform bacteria were at significantly higher levels immediately after the storm, posing a health risk for anyone who came in contact with the contaminated water.

“People were advised not to come in contact with the water because if the bacteria got on their hands and they inadvertently touched their mouth, there is a potential to become ill and they could pick up a virus,” she said.

The highest reported contamination level was 1,100 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters of water on Nov. 1.

Other levels in the Raritan Bay weren’t as high but still posed a risk, with levels in the bay at 240 colony-forming units and the Shrewsbury River and Navesink River between 110 and 290 colony-forming units, she said.

As of Nov. 15, levels at all 10 watersampling sites were below 10 colonyforming units. The maximum acceptable level is 14.

“The numbers have come way down. They are below levels of concern,” Pflugh said. “That is because the Middlesex facility is back online and they are no longer releasing untreated water.”

While levels have returned to normal, Pfugh said the advisory is still in effect.

Bivalves such as clams, oysters and mussels are filter feeders that can accumulate harmful bacteria carried into waterways by stormwater. The DEP must wait seven consecutive days for the shellfish to purge themselves of the bacteria, she said. After seven days, the DEP collects samples of the shellfish for tissue tests, and if bacteria are within the acceptable levels, the shellfish area may be reopened.

According to the DEP website, New Jersey hosts the nation’s second-largest shellfish industry, estimated at generating $876 million, which supports 5,800 fulltime jobs.

“We are working diligently with the PVSC and other facilities to get people back online,” Pflugh said.

“We continue to see daily improvement and I do expect that in the very near future that facility to be back fully operational and we will continue to see improvement in the water quality.”

Thanksgiving with Northern Star Coral

I took to the beach early on Thanksgiving morning. I was there to take a two-mile walk along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and to take joy in walking and talking with friends. The place was Monmouth Beach, a small one square mile beach town located on the northern Jersey Shore, about a 5 to 10 minute drive from the shores of Sandy Hook Bay. 

(Northern Star Coral recently found at Monmouth Beach, NJ)

Monmouth Beach was one of the many Jersey Shore communities pounded hard by Super Storm Sandy almost a month ago by towering waves of seawater. It was still easy to see the horrendous impact of the storm from boarded-up or demolished buildings and  mounds of wood, appliances and other debris lining the streets.

The town has been protected for many years by a tall rock wall designed to hold back the wave action from the ocean. While the stone wall survived, many of the stairs over the wall did not, making the ocean beach nearly unreachable. Yet, a keen eye will spot a few sites where a flight of wooden steps still exist in some shape to go over the bluff, and onto the beach, even if it includes climbing down a few rocks. 

Once there, I found the beach had been greatly eroded and is much thinner after Sandy especially when high tide waters just about reach the wall. Yet, Monmouth Beach is still known as a good surf fishing location and not far away from where I was standing were several fly fisherman in the surf and several fishermen sitting in chairs, their fishing rods in PVC pipes and stuck in the sand. All were hoping for striped bass, but none of the fishermen I talked with had had any bites. 

No matter, it was a lovely beach day. There was a mix of sun and clouds and the temperature broke 60 degrees, perhaps one of the last few mild days of autumn. It was a beautiful balmy Thanksgiving day and I was thankful to be back relishing an ocean beach.

As I walked down the narrow beach for the first time in some weeks, I could see mixed in with the pebbles, clam and mussel shells and other beach detritus a bunch of unusual items washed ashore by churning waves from the longshore current , a stream of water propelled by winds and waves northward, and deposited at the high-tide line.  These were not simply empty shells or fish bones.

Strewn across the tideline were countless bits of coral. That's right, coral. Even just saying the word invokes in the minds of many people images of beautiful tropical reefs full of fish and alight in bright colors in crystal clear waters. Not something found in the busy, bustling, and often murky ocean waters neighboring New York Harbor.

Yet, these tidal waters are full of surprises. According to Peterson's Field Guide to the Atlantic Seashore, this is Northern Star Coral, the only shallow-water and cool water species of coral found from Cape Cod to Florida, though most common in Long Island Sound. 

 

Northern Star Coral has adapted to living in the urban waters of the mid-Atlantic in a number of different ways. Don't let its small size and plain appearance fool you. This is one unique, hardy little stony coral, a marine invertebrate.

The Northern Star Coral does not form enormous reefs as many coral species do in tropical waters. Amazingly, over countless years, this coral has evolved to attach itself to stones, old shells and other smooth objects where it will grow up to 5 inches in height. Scuba divers often find Northern Star Coral attached to shipwrecks off the coast of New Jersey in colonies of up to thirty polyps.  The size of a single polyp is up to 0.4 inches.

What's more, Northern Star Corals do not contain much in the way of photosynthetic algae as tropical corals do to provide a polyp's food. Instead, the coral has developed to become a filter-feeder, just like an anemone, a related species. Without the need for light, Northern Star Coral can survive in the cool, low light and frequently murky conditions of the North Atlantic where tropical corals would die. There is some evidence, however, to suggest the coral does host symbiotic brown algae that can appear translucent to dark brown and provide some degree of nutrition.

Unfortunately, in my hand were the deceased victims of a high energy storm. When alive, Northern Star Corals are beautiful looking,  off-white to pink in color with bushy polyps extended outward. Now these hard skeletons were bleached white, though some still had a hint of brown algae on their calcium carbonate base. 

(What live Northern Star Coral looks like underwater. Picture from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Though lifeless, the coral skeletons reveal there is a great variety of life that can be found near and in New York Harbor. Uprooted by strong waves and stranded by the ebbing tides, a piece of coral as it decomposes in the sand, is not something to be ignored at the water's edge. It reaffirms the countless life below the surface and the great struggle for survival in changing currents, light conditions, and temperatures. 

With a few bits of star coral in my pocket, I made it back to where I started, at the same time as the tide was rising. Timed it right, as I also made it back in time just as the Thanksgiving meal was being served. Maybe coral is lucky. 

A "Wild" Life Thanksgiving

What Are Animals Eating This Thanksgiving?  How About Slugs, Grubs, and a Side of Poison Ivy….
Posted on Friday, November 16, 2012 by eNature

As we sit down to big Thanksgiving meals this time of year, it’s also fun to think a bit about what’s on the table of various species of wildlife.

Taken as a whole, the animals of our world eat just about every conceivable thing imaginable, from juicy berries and fresh-caught fish to the poisonous, the slimy, the stinging, and the prickly.

Here’s a quick look at the dining habits of wildlife, including what foods our birds and mammals eat, where they store their food, and what they do to prevent other animals from taking and eating it.

Picky Eaters
Some animals will eat a wide variety of foods, while others are specialists, concentrating on one or two items. In an extreme example of specialization, the teddy-bear-like Koala of Australia eats, exclusively, the leaves of certain kinds of eucalyptus trees and eats them only at certain seasons when the trees are producing specific oils.

Pandas are specialists too, confining their diet to bamboo. Arctic Foxes are so dependent upon lemmings for food that the two species follow cyclical variations in population, the fox population increasing or decreasing a year after the lemming population does so.

A Matter of Taste
Some animals eat the same foods as humans, such as fish, fruits, and mushrooms. Birds eat blueberries, raspberries, and, if they can get to them, all manner of nuts. Chipmunks eat pine nuts, coveted by human cooks as an ingredient in pesto sauce. It is said that native peoples of the Northeast learned to harvest maple sap by watching squirrels. Red Squirrels harvest sugar by biting into a maple’s surface, letting the sap ooze out, and returning when the water in the sap (which when fresh is only 2 percent sugar) has evaporated and the sugar content is about 55 percent.

But many animals consume items that most of us wouldn’t think to put into our mouths.

Leatherback sea turtles eat mainly jellyfish; backward-projecting spines in the turtle’s mouth and throat help keep its slimy prey from slipping away. Pallid Bats eat scorpions, and Fishers (mink-like creatures) eat porcupines. Red Squirrels eat Amanita mushrooms, some of North America’s deadliest fungi (to humans). Countless species eat grubs, earthworms, and carrion. Least Shrews will enter a beehive—to dine. Many birds, including the Wild Turkey, routinely eat poison ivy berries, and deer and other mammals browse on the very leaves that cause susceptible humans so much misery.

Food Storage
Humans have grocery stores, pantries, and refrigerators, but animals have to be more creative with their food collection and storage methods. Some small mammals simply store food in underground burrows. The Yellow-pine Chipmunk stuffs its cheek pouches with food and carries it to its subterranean cache. One such cache was inventoried and found to contain nearly 68,000 items, including more than a dozen different kinds of seeds and a partially eaten bumblebee. One Eastern Chipmunk was observed collecting a bushel’s-worth of chestnuts, hickory nuts, and corn kernels over three days. A Harris’s Antelope Squirrel was found carrying 44 mesquite beans in its cheeks. Southern Flying Squirrels may store up to 15,000 nuts in a season.

An individual Eastern Gray Squirrel spends the late summer and fall picking and burying hundreds of acorns and nuts. It buries each nut individually, digging the hole and then tamping the soil down carefully to hide the nut from others. Studies have shown that these squirrels recover about 85 percent of the nuts they bury, and that they probably find them by scent, rather than memory. Many of the remaining nuts germinate and eventually grow into trees.

Foiling the Competition
Acorn Woodpeckers drill holes in trees and fence posts and then wedge acorns and nuts in, too tightly for a squirrel or other competitor to pull out. Loggerhead Shrikes impale their prey (smaller birds, mice, or insects) on thorns or barbed wire, and often leave it there to save for later. Grizzly Bears store the remains of large kills such as an Elk or Moose in a shallow depression covered with branches, dirt, and leaf litter, returning to the cache until its meal has been consumed. Mountain Lions, wolves, and foxes will hide their uneaten kills for later consumption as well. The Wolverine doesn’t waste much time hiding its cached food, it simply sprays it with a foul-smelling musk to keep others away.

You Are What You Eat
In some cases the cliche is true. Marine creature called sea slugs or nudibranchs feed on sea anemones and their kin, and incorporate the anemones’ protective stinging cells into their own bodies, discharging them into the mouth of any unlucky predator that comes along. Hawksbill sea turtles eat toxic sponges, which in turn can make the turtle’s flesh toxic.

There doesn’t seem to be any danger of the toxin in poison ivy being retained in the flesh of a turkey that has dined on it, and then passed to those who eat the turkey. However, those of us who eat Thanksgiving turkeys might consider this: Some native American peoples truly believed that you are what you eat, and didn’t eat turkey for fear of inheriting qualities they perceived in the species, including cowardice and stupidity.

There’s something to think about during your post-feast stupor!

OPEN: Great Kills Park & Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

A message below on 11/21/12 from the Gateway NRA unit of the National Park Service:

 Dear Subscribers, Friends, and Colleagues,

As you know Gateway has been closed since the evacuation notice was given on Sunday, Oct. 28.  But just after the storm an amazing team of personnel assembled from NPS sites across the country has been working on the recovery and rehabilitation of the park properties with the primary goal of establishing the safety of all park employees and visitors.  After safety issues are addressed the operations have turned to reopening areas of the park which can be used by visitors.  

If you come to visit any of these areas you will see areas that have been damaged by Sandy. Please exercise caution when walking or hiking and be aware of debris and downed tree branches that have been set aside for pick up. 

We are pleased to announce that Great Kills and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge will be open to the public beginning Friday, Nov. 23 for seasonal hours and days of operation.   Go here to see the press announcement: 

 http://www.nps.gov/gate/parknews/gkp-jbwr.htm   which as of  2pm has not been released.   Check this link after 4pm for more details. 

Thank you for your interest in Gateway; 

have a wonderful Thanksgiving, 

and practice safety in all your activities.

Charles Markis,

Program Guide Editor

--
Charles Markis

Park Ranger/Interpretive Specialist

Gateway National Recreation Area

210 New York Avenue

Staten Island, NY  10305

Following Sandy: A Toxic Mess in Lower NY Bay

Sandy Stirs Toxic-Site Worry
By ROB BARRY, DIONNE SEARCEY and JOHN CARREYROU
November 11, 2012, 7:36 p.m. ET
The Wall Street Journal

Hurricane Sandy's environmental impact is still being assessed, but the worries for residents of New York and New Jersey are crystallized by one fact: Of the two states' 198 Superfund toxic-waste sites, 45 are within a half-mile of coastal areas vulnerable to storm surge.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees cleanup of those sites, was unable to say how many of them flooded on the night of Oct. 29. But the agency said its initial appraisals show that several "were impacted by the storm," including a site contaminated by lead near Sayreville, N.J., and the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek sites in New York City.

The 45 Superfund sites vulnerable to coastal flooding were identified by The Wall Street Journal using data from the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Many of the sites are concentrated in northern New Jersey in a blighted industrial zone west of Manhattan, 11 flank the Delaware River and a half-dozen are scattered across New York's Long Island.

Superfund sites are generally considered the most hazardous toxic-waste sites in the country. Congress established the program in 1980 following the Love Canal environmental disaster, which ravaged a community of several hundred families that had settled over a former chemical dump in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Once the EPA has given a site the Superfund designation, the agency has the power to force the sites' polluters to pay for its cleanup costs. That process, along with the actual cleanup, often takes a decade or longer. Today, there are 1,313 active Superfund sites nationwide on the EPA's so-called National Priorities List. New Jersey has the most, at 111. New York is fourth, at 87.

The EPA said it tested water samples its workers took from Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal and nearby flooded buildings, but found only "low levels" of potentially cancer-causing pollutants, which it said may be "related to spilled fuel and runoff from asphalt." New York state officials say they think the floodwaters probably traveled over the Gowanus and Brooklyn's other Superfund site, Newtown Creek, without disturbing the pollutants that line the bottoms of both waterways.

But Thomas Burke, a professor and associate dean at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said the Gowanus and Newtown Creek—whose cleanups haven't begun in earnest yet—are more vulnerable to flooding risks than sites in more advanced stages of remediation, where caps and liners have already been placed over bottom-lying toxic material.

"There really has to be a careful evaluation of whether there has been any disturbing of the waste," Mr. Burke, a former director of sciences and research at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said. "Flooding moves things around much more quickly."

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 doesn't offer any clear-cut lessons. During Katrina, several Superfund sites in Louisiana flooded, including the Agriculture Street Landfill Superfund site, which was used to burn debris after Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans in 1965. In the 1970s and 1980s, a residential development, elementary school and playground were placed atop the site. After Katrina's passage, workers found high levels of cancer-causing hydrocarbons in the courtyard of an apartment complex on the site littered with residential debris. But the ground there hadn't been disturbed by the floodwaters, says Tom Harris, administrator for the remediation division of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. "We never really figured out what the heck was going on," he says.

Ground-water sample tests by the EPA also showed elevated levels of arsenic and other metals at two other sites, the Delatte Metals Superfund Site in Tangipahoa Parish and the PAB Oil Superfund Site in Abbeville, La., according to the EPA's website.

New Jersey officials downplayed any problems. "There was no major flooding in North Jersey. Superfund sites were not inundated by tidal surges," said Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the state environmental agency.

To be sure, the area's Superfund sites are far from the only issue of concern following Sandy. State and federal work crews have been fanning out daily along shorelines and to sites of industrial spills to monitor containment efforts.

Of particular concern were fuel spills at a handful of refineries, said U.S. Coast Guard Commander Eric Doucette, who was overseeing a hurricane pollution response team made up of Coast Guard members and officials from the EPA, as well as New York and New Jersey state officials.

The surge of water that rushed over a Motiva terminal in Sewaren, N.J., dislodged fuel tanks and spilled 378,000 gallons of ultra low sulfur diesel fuel into the Arthur Kill. Crews operated vacuum trucks, skimmers and deployed boom to contain the spill, most of which had evaporated, Mr. Ragonese said.

Floodwaters at a Kinder Morgan Terminal in Carteret, N.J., sent an empty tank crashing into one filled with biodiesel, causing a spill into nearby Rum Creek, eventually flowing into the Arthur Kill, an industrial waterway. Kinder Morgan says the spill was contained within a day.

While most of the areas impacted by industrial spills were along waterways long ago polluted by factories situated on their banks, some wetlands were at risk. Fish were likely poisoned, but experts said many of the birds that normally nest near areas where the spills occurred were spooked by the storm and had already flown away in search of shelter elsewhere. Shell, which operates the Motiva terminal, said in a news release that 12 oiled birds were rescued, four of which died.

The storm also inundated numerous water treatment facilities in New York and New Jersey that were left to pump untreated sewage into area waterways. Some were still without power more than a week after the storm and were having trouble getting up to full speed again. As of mid-week some of the facilities were still pumping water that had been only minimally treated.

In Sandy's wake, one New York neighborhood group is taking matters into its own hands. Kate Zidar, a member of the Newtown Creek Alliance, said her organization hired an independent consultant to do some testing after the EPA declined to take samples of the floodwater inside buildings close to the creek. "There's an information gap that we need to fill," she said.

Newtown Creek, a 3.8-mile stretch of water at the junction of Brooklyn and Queens, became a Superfund site in September 2010. Pesticides, metals, PCBs and volatile organic compounds have been found in its water from 150 years of industrial pollution, including numerous oil spills, making it "one of the nation's most polluted waterways," according to the EPA's website. Sandy's floodwaters extended from the creek for several blocks, submerging most of the area's industrial businesses and some residential basements. Nathan Frey, a 33-year-old contractor who sculpts plaster just feet from the creek's banks, was still dealing with the aftermath of the storm last week.

Ringing the white walls of Mr. Frey's high-ceilinged workspace was a thin brown line about five feet from the ground, marking the height the floodwaters reached. He says the water seemed clear and didn't smell like oil, but it was impossible to know just how contaminated it was. "Everybody is concerned," he said.

In the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, which lies between the gentrified enclaves of Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, residents and business owners said water overran several blocks on both sides of the canal. Ron Mehlman, a 75-year-old sculptor who owns a building on Bond Street a block from the canal, says his street-level studio was under several feet of water. When it receded, the water left some mud residue.

The Gowanus's banks were once dotted with mills, tanneries, and chemical and gas plants, which discharged waste into its waters. The pollutants present in the water and the sludge at the canal's bottom include PCBs, coal tar wastes and heavy metals. The EPA designated the canal a Superfund site in March 2010.

In New Jersey, one site may have been affected by the storm: the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund Site in Sayreville. A seawall and jetty along the bay's southern shore were contaminated with lead slag, a byproduct of metal smelting, which has tainted the surrounding area with lead and other heavy metals. On a flyover to survey damage, a U.S. Coast Guard member spotted an overturned 10,000-gallon fuel tank near the sea wall, but it didn't appear to harm it.

The EPA said it is collecting samples from the site "to determine the extent of flooding damage and its impacts on lead contamination."

Write to Rob Barry at rob.barry@wsj.com, Dionne Searcey at dionne.searcey@wsj.com and John Carreyrou at john.carreyrou@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared November 12, 2012, on page A6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Sandy Stirs Toxic-Site Worry.

Survival Drama in NY Harbor from a Clearnose Skate

I was on the sand at Ideal Beach in Port Monmouth by mid-morning. What a great feeling to be back after Super Storm Sandy devastated the area.

(The bottom face of a dead Clearnose Skate found recently in Port Monmouth, NJ)

The breeze had shifted to the east and the sun was trying to shine from under large patches of gray clouds.  It was chilly with an air temperature of 48 degrees. The surface water temperature of Lower New York Bay was similar, in the upper 40s to lower 50s. The water level remained high from the previous incoming tide. These coarse conditions didn't matter though, I was back at the beach. 

(The smae area of face from a live skate. Picture taken by author at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History)

As my habit, I immediately got busy combing the beach from one end to the other looking for what there was to find on the wave-washed sand. Evidence of the great storm of three weeks ago was still piling up on the beach, with debris stacked high all along the tideline and measureless "junk" (flotsam) by the jetties and groins. Not only garbage, but great logs and whole trees had come to lie along the edge of the bay. There were even bits of pumpkins scattered along the beach, ones that almost certainly got washed up from people's flooded properties.

The beach wasn't just full of trash. There were natural artifacts from the bay to be found too, evidence of what once lived in the estuary before the arrival of Sandy. Sure, there were plenty of clams, oysters, and whelks to name just a few. But the most common find were skate egg cases. There must have been dozens of empty egg cases lying all along the high tide line. 

(A skate egg case)

(An opening in the egg case where a young skate swims out of)

I am sure, the egg case from a skate looks unusual. Nothing else around the shoreline of Lower New York Bay resembles a skate egg case. Some species of sharks lay eggs cases, but those can be found in tropical waters. Around here we find skate egg cases, or as some folks call them mermaid's purses, since they look like a small leathery purse.

The egg case is made of keratin, the same substance that human fingernails are made from. Inside the leathery, rectangular egg case an individual skate embryo survives with the help of four long, thin, horn-like projections sticking out from each corner. These four projections act as straws to discharge waste and circulate water and nutrients to the young skate living inside.

Never heard of a skate, you almost certainly are not alone. Skates are not the most extroverted of fish. Even though skates are a common group of fishes in Lower New York Bay, many people have never heard of them, let alone seen one. Mainly due to a skate's fondness for living alone at the bottom of the bay or ocean. It buries itself under sand or mud, and feeds primarily at night on crabs, shrimps, worms, clams, and small fish. 

(Pictures of live Clearnose skate taken by author at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History)

A skate is a wide, flattish, non-bony,  cartilaginous fish. Similar to sharks and rays, their skeleton is made up of cartilage that has calcium deposits. A skate looks like a ray. They have “wings” or fin-type projections on the sides of their body to swim, and a whip like tail, which it uses as a rudder. Skates, however, are not rays. The two should not be confused. Rays  give birth to live young, while skates lay eggs.  

Akin to a chicken laying an egg, a female skate will lay a small egg case (3 to 4 inches long) that holds a young skate inside. Unlike a chicken, though, mother skate will not incubate the egg case. Instead, the skate egg case attaches itself to a pier, piling, or a rock on the sea floor for up to five to six months. 

(A beautiful fish - a Clearnose Skate. Picture taken by author at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History)

Once washed up on the beach, the egg case is usually empty. The young fish having already hatched out sometime before by breaking a seam on the side of the purse. Holding the egg cases in my hand, I could notice that the seam had been broken on all of them. A good sign of new life in the bay.

Yet, Skate egg cases were not the only unusual biological thing  to be found on this breezy day in Port Monmouth. Off down the edge of the bay, something else weird looking caught my eye.

Mixed in with the countless debris and trash was the remains of an adult skate. At first the dead skate looked like a prehistoric find, unearthed in some archeological dig. Yet, here in front of me was an example of the constant life-and-death struggle that the strenuous urban estuarine environment imposes on all of its inhabitants. The predator-prey relationship in an enormous watery food web.

There was not much here to look at. No doubt the gulls, hermit crabs, and other coastal scavengers  had a feast. Not a huge kill here either, but notable as a relic of unseen life in the bay.

(The dead skate was recently found along a beach in Port Monmouth, NJ)

From what I could see the critter appeared as a Clearnose Skate. It's my best guess. The snout was pointed like a Clearnose Skate, and the area around the nose was still semitransparent. The disc was wider than long, the tail was longer than the body, and the tail had three rows of sharp thorns. There were spines on the back too. All features of a Clearnose Skate, a common sea creature. The critter was small though, less than a foot in total disk width.

(The sharp, thorns of a skate located on its tail)

Although nearly impossible to determine what exactly caused the death of this poor critter, the discovery does follow soon after Hurricane Sandy. By and large, Clearnose Skates leave the bay sometime in autumn to migrate offshore and swim south for the winter.  The fish are sensitive to cold temperatures.

Possibly this skate kicked the bucket from old age or too much stress, or eaten by a predator, such as another skate, ray, or a seal in the violent turbid waters of Hurricane Sandy. It may well have suffocated by an inversion in the water from strong winds or a steep drop in temperature at night that brought about less oxygen to the bottom of the bay. Whatever it was, this small skate isn't talking.

Yet, while one poor skate is gone, it is heartening to know that all of the empty egg cases lying on the beach signify the renewal of life. A new generation of skates have escaped the wrath of Sandy to live another day. Their world will not be easy, though, battered by surf, storms, and threatened by predators and pollution, but they have the opportunity now to perpetuate the species and be part of the great battle for survival in this hard and hectic urban estuary near New York City.

How Did Birds Survive Sandy

To Birds, Storm Survival Is Only Natural
By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: November 12, 2012
The New York Times

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy and the spiteful me-too northeaster, much of the East Coast looked so battered and flooded, so strewed with toppled trees and stripped of dunes and beaches, that many observers feared the worst. Any day now, surely, the wildlife corpses would start showing up — especially birds, for who likelier to pay when a sky turns rogue than the ones who act as if they own it?

Yet biologists studying the hurricane’s aftermath say there is remarkably little evidence that birds, or any other countable, charismatic fauna for that matter, have suffered the sort of mass casualties seen in environmental disasters like the BP oil spill of 2010, when thousands of oil-slicked seabirds washed ashore, unable to fly, feed or stay warm.

“With an oil spill, the mortality is way more direct and evident,” said Andrew Farnsworth, a scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “And though it’s possible that thousands of birds were slammed into the ocean by this storm and we’ll never know about it, my gut tells me that didn’t happen.”

To the contrary, scientists said, powerful new satellite tracking studies of birds on the wing — including one that coincided with the height of Hurricane Sandy’s fury — reveal birds as the supreme masters of extreme weather management, able to skirt deftly around gale-force winds, correct course after being blown horribly astray, or even use a hurricane as a kind of slingshot to propel themselves forward at hyperspeed.

“We must remind ourselves that 40 to 50 percent of birds are migratory, often traveling thousands of miles a year between their summer and winter grounds,” said Gary Langham, chief scientist of the National Audubon Society in Washington. “The only way they can accomplish that is to have amazing abilities that are far beyond anything we can do.”

Humans may complain about climate change. Birds do something about it. “Migration, in its most basic sense, is a response to a changing climate,” Dr. Farnsworth said. “It’s finding some way to deal with a changing regime of temperature and food availability.” For birds, cyclones, squalls and other meteorological wild cards have always been a part of the itinerant’s package, and they have evolved stable strategies for dealing with instability.

Given the likelihood that extreme weather events will only become more common as the planet heats up, Dr. Farnsworth said, “the fact that birds can respond to severe storms is to some extent a good sign.” Nevertheless, he added, “how many times they can do it, and how severe is too severe, are open questions.”

Among a bird’s weather management skills is the power to detect the air pressure changes that signal a coming storm, and with enough advance notice to prepare for adversity. Scientists are not certain how this avian barometer works, yet the evidence of its existence is clear.

As just one example, Dr. Langham cited the behavior of the birds in his backyard in Washington on the days before Hurricane Sandy arrived. “They were going crazy, eating food in a driving rain and wind when normally they would never have been out in that kind of weather,” he said. “They knew a bigger storm was coming, and they were trying to get food while they could.”

Songbirds and their so-called passerine kin may be notorious lightweights — if a sparrow were a letter, it could travel on a single stamp — but that doesn’t mean they’re as helpless as loose feathers in the wind. Passerine means perching, and the members of this broad taxonomic fraternity all take their perching seriously.

When a storm hits, a passerine bird can alight on the nearest available branch or wire with talons that will reflexively close upon contact and remain closed by default, without added expenditure of energy, until the bird chooses to open them again. If you’ve ever watched a perched bird in a high wind and worried, “Poor squinting thing — could it be blown away and smashed to bits down the road?,” the answer is not unless the perch is blown away with it.

Scientists have found that many migratory birds, especially the passerines, seek to hug the coast and its potential perches as long as possible, leaving the jump over open water to the last possible moment. But for birds over the open ocean, hurricanes pose a real challenge, and they can be blown off course by hundreds of miles. In fact, ornithologists and serious bird-watchers admit they look forward to big storms that might blow their way exotic species they’d otherwise never see in their lifetime.

Hurricane Sandy did not disappoint them. As an enormous hybrid of winter and tropical storm fronts with a huge reach, it pulled in a far more diverse group of birds than the average hurricane, and Web sites like ebird.org and birdcast.info were alive with thrilled reports of exceptional sightings — of the European shorebird called the northern lapwing showing up in Massachusetts; of Eastern wood-pewees that should have been in Central and South America suddenly appearing again in New York and Ontario; of trindade petrels, which normally spend their entire lives over the open ocean off Brazil, popping up in western Pennsylvania; and of flocks of Leach’s storm-petrels and pomarine jaegers, arctic relatives of gulls, making unheard-of tours far inland and through Manhattan.

(At least a couple of these visitors fell prey to New York City’s resident peregrine falcons, which either mistook the seabirds for pigeons or were in the mood to try a new ethnic cuisine.)

Most of the visitors didn’t linger, and once the storm had passed they took off, presumably heading back to where they wanted to be. “Birds have tremendous situational awareness,” said Bryan D. Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. “They know where they are and where they’re going, they’re able to fly back repeatedly, and they’ve shown an amazing ability to compensate for being pushed off track.”

Researchers have begun tagging individual birds with GPS devices and tracking them by satellite to gain detailed insights into how birds accomplish their migratory marathons and what exactly they do when confronting a storm.

In preparation for a possible offshore wind development project, Caleb Spiegel, a wildlife biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and his colleagues at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management have attached transmitters to the tail feathers of several types of migratory birds, including the northern gannet, a big waterfowl with a spectacular fishing style of falling straight down from the sky like a missile dropped from a plane.

As it happened, one of the gannets was approaching the southern shore of New Jersey at just the moment Hurricane Sandy made landfall there, and Mr. Spiegel could catch the bird’s honker of a reaction. Making a sharp U-turn, it headed back north toward Long Island and then cut out to sea along the continental shelf, where it waited out the storm while refueling with a few divebombs for fish.

“The bird has since returned to New Jersey,” Mr. Spiegel said. “It’s pretty much back where it started.”

In a renowned tracking study that began in 2008, Dr. Watts and his colleagues have followed the peregrinations of whimbrels, speckled brown shorebirds with long curved beaks that breed in the subarctic Hudson Bay and winter as far south as Brazil. Because whimbrels regularly pass through the “hurricane alley” of the Caribbean and other meteorological hot spots, Dr. Watts said, “we’ve tracked many birds into major storms.”

In August 2011, the researchers marveled at the derring-do of a whimbrel named Hope as it encountered Tropical Storm Gert off the coast of Nova Scotia, diving straight into the tempest at 7 miles per hour and emerging from the other side at a pace of 90 m.p.h. Not long after, the scientists cheered as four other whimbrels successfully navigated their way through Hurricane Irene.

The joy was short-lived. In September 2011, two of the four Irene survivors sought refuge from another storm by landing on the island of Guadeloupe, where they were shot by sport hunters. Dr. Watts has since discovered to his dismay that throughout the Caribbean islands, hurricane season is considered hunting season, as enthusiasts target the many migratory birds grounded by bad weather.

“There are 3,000 permanent hunters on Guadeloupe alone,” he said. “The annual take in the West Indies may be 200,000 birds.”

Even the hardiest hurricane wrangler is helpless in the face of a gun.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 13, 2012, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: To Birds, Storm Survival Is Only Natural.

How Did Urban Wildlife Survive Sandy?

 November 7, 2012, 2:33 pm
Where Do the Wild Ones Go?
By EMMA BRYCE
The New York Times

(A White-footed Mouse)

After a damaging storm, an outpouring of support often flows to the people affected and even their pets. But the day after last week’s superstorm hit New York City, I noticed sparrows pecking away as usual at the freshly turned earth. My thoughts turned to how the city’s wildlife fared — the birds, raccoons, red foxes, mice and so on. Are they as resilient as they seem?

A white-footed mouse can benefit from increased ground cover after a severe storm.Bruce Museum CollectionA white-footed mouse can benefit from increased ground cover after a severe storm.

According to Paul Curtis, an urban wildlife expert at Cornell, there is in fact little consensus on how badly urban wildlife populations are immediately affected by severe weather. Population counts are expensive and complicated to conduct, he noted.

But Dr. Curtis said that the chances of surviving a flooding disaster like the one brought on by Hurricane Sandy depended on a creature’s habitat. Animals that can nestle in tree holes or take refuge among branches have an advantage over those that build their shelters on the ground.

“Those that tend to nest in trees will just hunker down,” Dr. Curtis said. Raccoons, opossums and squirrels, for instance, would have been safer than mice, who probably felt the full brunt of the storm in parts of the city that were flooded.

Birds also take refuge in trees, naturally, scoping out large ones with dense canopies when a threat approaches. The blanket of foliage helps them weather the storm.

A higher level of mobility enhances an animal’s chances, too — for example, when a tree is uprooted or the wind become too strong. Birds have the greatest capability to flee to more protected perches: robins can usually “ride out the storm” this way, Dr. Curtis said.

And birds that are especially accustomed to urban living – house sparrows, starlings, and pigeons – know the ins and outs in ways that help them survive relatively unscathed. Think of the pigeons you’ve seen roosting on window ledges, or the nests you’ve spotted under awnings.

The broad assumption is that most urban animals are still sufficiently wild to retain an instinct for survival. “Most animals probably know what to do,” said Jason Munshi-South, an urban evolutionary biologist at Baruch College.

What intrigues him most are the possibilities for population increases that open up after a storm. “At some of our study sites, we’ve had hundreds of trees falling down,” which will alter habitats for some time to come, he explained.

The white-footed mouse is among the likely beneficiaries. Like the raccoon and opossum, it is attracted to what Dr. Munshi-South calls “disturbed edges,” segments of habitat that are particularly disrupted during events like storms.

For example, denser cover is created when leaves, branches, and toppled trees carpet the ground. In these localized ecosystems, animals can take shelter, nest and hide with greater ease than they could if the forest floor were bare, and this can result in a population surge.

What is more, gaps in tree canopy will allow more sunlight to filter in, attracting species that might not have been drawn to an area before.

Of course, an initial die-off is inevitable in urban wildlife populations affected by flooding, Dr. Munshi-South said. But survival is virtually a given.

“The species you have in the city can already deal with pretty extreme conditions,” including habitat removal and severe fragmentation, he said. Those hardships transform them into resourceful creatures. “Beyond the initial mortality, they’re probably not going to be much worse affected,” he said.

New York City’s indomitable rats are a typical example. While they are good swimmers and thus have a better chance of surviving than mice, their nests and burrows are still built on the ground. So it is likely that many rats died.

But with all the debris piled up after the catastrophic storm damage, innumerable opportunities have cropped up for shelter, raising the prospect of new colonies.

All the same, local rats should take note: nine days after Hurricane Sandy’s sweep through the region, a northeaster is on the way to New York City this afternoon.

A Looper of a Caterpillar in my Backyard

You never know where the effects of hurricane-turned-post tropical storm Sandy might be found. Sometimes it can be crawling in your backyard.

In the wake of extensive, long-lasting power outages that left so many people, including me, without heat and electricity for more than a week, my backyard woodpile was in dire need of replacement. It was tough, but thank goodness for a fireplace. It kept me warm when Sandy caused the community to be completely without power.

So here I was now on a beautiful, mild Sunday afternoon chopping firewood. Blue skies, bright sunshine, and kind temperatures into the upper 60s.  While hacking away at long pieces of a newly fallen oak tree, out of nowhere, I spotted something small and green crawling on my shoe.

It looked like a two-inch-long small green worm. But there was stripes running down its back. This was no common earth worm.

In fact, it was a caterpillar. Perhaps the last one I will see for the year. The mild temperatures must have brought it out of its nearby winter home. Then again maybe the caterpillar came out from under the pile of wood I picked up on the side of the road in the countryside, several miles away from the coast. 

 

After taking a few pictures and doing some research in David Wagner's Caterpillars of Eastern North American filed guide , I found the little fella to be a Looper Moth, most likely a Cabbage Looper. The caterpillars are green with three pairs of dorsal stripes and a small head. They are somewhat hairy and crawl by arching their back to form a loop and then projecting the front section of the body forward. This certainly described the type of caterpillar I found crawling around. 

(An adult Cabbage Looper moth)

The Cabbage Looper is a common moth from Canada down to Mexico. Adult Cabbage Looper moths migrate to northern areas in the spring or summer to deposit their eggs. Mature larvae will pupate on the undersides of foliage or in the soil. While larvae overwinter in the United States, most do so only in southern states, not necessarily along the northern Jersey Shore. Though according to Mr. Wagner, "it is not known how far north the species survives year-round."

The caterpillar likes to eat from a wide variety of crop plants, especially cabbage (hence the name), but also cauliflower, broccoli, kale, turnips, mustard, watermelons, cucumbers, corn, melons, squash, cantaloupe, peas, and others. No doubt, the little green creature is considered a garden pest for its big appetite of green, leafy vegetable food. It can up to 20 times its body weight a day.

Since there are hardly any farms where I live near Sandy Hook Bay, I am guessing this little Cabbage Looper came from the woodpile, which came from a farm field out in western Monmouth County, NJ. There are more  plants in the cabbage family out there than near the shores of Lower New York Bay. 

So now that I knew what it was, what do I do with it. Even though considered a pest by many gardeners and farmers alike, the little caterpillar to me looked like another victim of super storm Sandy. One more victim forced from its home and just seeking a safe and secure shelter for the winter.    

So I put the little green caterpillar into a glass jar and drove a few towns over to Port Monmouth, a low-lying section of Middletown Township that got hit hard by floodwaters from Sandy.  I gave the Cabbage Looper to a colleague's child who loves insects and just lost his home too. I think they needed each other now. Both could use a friend. The child was happy having something to take care of and it seemed the looper was happy too eating a leaf of cabbage.Little things mean a lot.