Balanced on the Equinox

SUBHEAD: We are  between two worlds - the darkness and the light - it is only through shadows that we can discern.

By Juan Wilson on 21 March 2019 for Island Breath -
(https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2019/03/balanced-on-equinox.html)


Image above: A humming bird and honey bees drinking from a backyard fountain. From (https://imgur.com/gallery/2KD9o).

This website, IslandBreath.org, has been reporting on the negative impacts of human behavior in regards to the living world we inhabit. This includes phenomena like global warming, increased atmospheric carbon, rising oceans, over development, desertification, environmental collapse, extinctions, etc.

Some would say we have focused on negativity, or as some call it "doomster porn". I admit we are guilty as charged. We were hoping that we could turn the rudder of our "ship of fools" just a few degrees away from our courseof crashing on the rocks. We were 50 years too late to that party.

The Club of Rome (see https://www.clubofrome.org/) convened in 1970 to survey the future and laid out our options for surviving calamity. Some who read the grasped it's implications. Most ignored the implication.

Some were ahead of the curve and abandoned modernity early.

One was  Ted Kaczynski who quit as a professor of math at UC Berkley to live in a cabin the woods... and go mad -  fighting "The System" by becoming the "Unibomber"and using terrorism to solve the problems he percieved (see http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2018/11/times-up-cease-and-desist.html).
Another way to go was the approach of Albert Bates who went off with a bunch of hippies to start the "The Farm" in Tennessee.

"In 1971, a caravan of 80 school buses and assorted other vehicles carrying 320 hippie idealists landed on a cattle farm in central Tennessee. They had a mission. The banner on their band bus read 'Out to Save the World!'"

The Farm still operated as a self sustained community.

"Today The Farm is home to a little over 200 people living on 3 square miles of forested highland with four generations of families and friends."For more see (see http://www.thefarm.org).

My point is that it is better to try and build a better place to live for as many living creatures near you as possible than to "fight the system" - and as it usually goes - either beat The System then become its replacement or to be beaten by it and lose everything.

Somewhere between the cracks you may be able to avoid The System and build a place for yourself that is under the radar and rich and green.

Then, if you're lucky, you might entice the wildness of Nature to be a partner in enriching the lives of those around you.

Here on Kauai, in Hawaii, we have been lucky enough to entice some forest around us and welcomed the bees, and hornets, and wasps, and moths, and butterflies and worms and grubs and chickens and mina birds, and parrots, and egrets et cetera, et cetera. In other words, the birds and the bees. The more the merrier as we hurtle towards our fate.

In fine arts chiaroscuro is the discipline of controlling light and dark to achieve an effect. Without light there is nothing to see, and without some darkness there is no shape or form. 

We are all in the business of painting our surroundings to achieve the reality we hope to live in. This moment in time, a solar equinox, is a time to focus on what we may actually accomplish with what is at hand. 

Visualize it and make it happen.   


.

Less rats mean more birds and fish

SUBHEAD: Rodent eradication saves chicks and fertilizes soil and reefs for better biodiversity.

By Jan TenBruggencate on 6 July 2018 for Raising Islands -
(http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2018/07/new-study-finds-rat-eradication.html)


Image above: Rat in tree eating Hawaiian bird eggs. From (https://conservationbytes.com/2015/01/06/help-hawaiis-hyper-threatened-birds/).

If the rat eradication of Lehua Island (in Kauai County, Hawaii) ends up being successful, it could result in a more productive nearshore fishery.

Which is ironic, in that many of those fighting the eradication program were fishermen.

A new study in the journal Nature says that when rats kill off seabirds on islands, it means those birds are no longer pooping in the nearshore waters, fertilizing reefs. And that means fewer fish on those reefs.

This study was done in the Chagos Archipelago, where some islands have rats and others are rat-free. Researchers looked at both the fertility of the land on those islands and the productivity of their reefs, where erosion from the land would carry nutrients like bird-poop-sourced nitrogen.

The Chagos are atolls and reefs just south of the Equator in the Indian Ocean. Their ownership is disputed between Great Britain and Mauritius. One is Diego Garcia, which houses a U.S military base.

The results of the research were clear, said the authors, who are from Australian, British, Danish and Canadian research institutions.

On islands without rats, seabird density as well as nitrogen deposits were hundreds of times higher. Yes, hundreds: 250 to more than 700 times higher.

Those rat-free islands had reefs that had 48 percent more biomass of "macroalgae, filter-feeding sponges, turf algae and fish."

The researchers looked specifically at damselfish, and found that they both grew faster and had higher total biomass on the rat-free islands.

The theory, then, is that seabirds feed in the open ocean, deliver bird poop to the islands, and that the islands then feed the nearshore waters, which makes the waters more productive and capable of producing more fish.

"Rat eradication on oceanic islands should be a high conservation priority as it is likely to benefit terrestrial ecosystems and enhance coral reef productivity and functioning by restoring seabird-derived nutrient subsidies from large areas of ocean," the authors wrote.

Rats are not the only problems on islands. On Midway Atoll, near the western end of the Hawaiian archipelago, mice began eating seabirds after rats were removed from the islands there. The case of the vampire mice, which chewed into the necks of Laysan albatross, is reviewed here.

On other islands, the mice even seemed to be getting bigger on their diets of eggs and bird flesh. The Washington Post was among the many international publications that picked up the vampire mouse story.

All that said, rodents mainly go after eggs and chicks of nesting seabirds. That was the case at Lehua Island. Here is a description of the situation on the little island north of Ni`ihau before an application of a rodenticide to try to wipe out the rats.

"We found Wedge-tailed Shearwater and Red-tailed Tropicbird eggs broken open, the edges gnawed, the insides consumed. Tiny seabird chick bodies were commonplace–pulled out of burrows and half eaten.

This was particularly true for the diminutive Bulwer’s Petrel–the vast majority of Bulwer’s Petrel burrows we found had bits and pieces of chick inside," wrote Andre Raine, Project Manager for the Kauai Endangered Seabird Recovery Project.

A couple of months after the 2017 rat eradication effort at Lehua, Raine said he could clearly see the difference:

"Fat, healthy Wedge-tailed Shearwater chicks shuffled about in their burrows looking like animated fuzzballs. One of our burrow cameras showed a Bulwer’s Petrel chick exercising outside its burrow and actually fledging – a great omen, as this is something we have never recorded on our cameras in previous years," he wrote.

Most, but not all the rats were killed off at Lehua, and wildlife crews were back this year with rat-hunting dogs to try to kill off the survivors and protect the island's nesting seabird population.

And the island's coastal reefs and fisheries.
The removal of rats from islands is a major conservation effort. It has been done successfully at islands in Hawai`i like Mokoli`i off O`ahu and Mokapu off Molokai.

When it was accomplished at Palmyra Atoll south of the Hawaiian Islands, it had the unintended effect of killing off the disease-causing Asian tiger mosquito, which had depended on rats for blood meals. 
.

What, me worry?

SUBHEAD: Poor humans can see imminent environmental collapse, but seem incapable of avoiding it.

By William E. Rees on 16 November 2017 for The Typee -
(https://www.thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/11/16/humans-blind-imminent-environmental-collapse/)


Image above: The evolution of Alfred E. Neuman at Comic-Con 2014 in San Diego. From (https://coolsandiegosights.com/2014/07/24/pics-of-2014-san-diego-comic-con-preview-night/).

A curious thing about Homo sapiens is that we are clever enough to document — in exquisite detail — various trends that portend the collapse of modern civilization, yet not nearly smart enough to extricate ourselves from our self-induced predicament.

This was underscored once again in October when scientists reported that flying insect populations in Germany have declined by an alarming 75 per cent in the past three decades accompanied, in the past dozen years, by a 15 per cent drop in bird populations.

Trends are similar in other parts of Europe where data are available. Even in Canada, everything from casual windshield “surveys” to formal scientific assessments show a drop in insect numbers.

Meanwhile, domestic populations of many insect-eating birds are in freefall.

Ontario has lost half its whip-poor-wills in the past 20 years; across the nation, such species as nighthawks, swallows, martins and fly-catchers are down by up to 75 per cent; Greater Vancouver’s barn and bank swallows have plummeted by 98 per cent since 1970. Heard much about these things in the mainstream news?

Too bad. Biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century. It is caused by many individual but interacting factors — habitat loss, climate change, intensive pesticide use and various forms of industrial pollution, for example, suppress both insect and bird populations.

But the overall driver is what an ecologist might call the “competitive displacement” of non-human life by the inexorable growth of the human enterprise.

On a finite planet where millions of species share the same space and depend on the same finite products of photosynthesis, the continuous expansion of one species necessarily drives the contraction and extinction of others.

Politicians take note — there is always a conflict between human population/economic expansion and “protection of the environment."

Remember the 40 to 60 million bison that used to roam the great plains of North America?

They — along with the millions of deer, pronghorns, wolves and lesser beasts that once animated prairie ecosystems — have been “competitively displaced,” their habitats taken over by a much greater biomass of humans, cattle, pigs and sheep.

And not just North Americans — Great Plains sunshine also supports millions of other people-with-livestock around world who depend, in part on North American grain, oil-seed, pulse and meat exports. 

Competitive displacement has been going on for a long time. Scientists estimate that at the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago, H. sapiens comprised less than one per cent of the total weight of mammals on the planet. There were probably only two to four million people on Earth at the time.

Since then, humans have grown to represent 35 per cent of a much larger total biomass; toss in domestic pets and livestock, and human domination of the world’s mammalian biomass rises to 98.5 per cent!

One needs look no further to explain why wildlife populations globally have plunged by nearly 60 per cent in the past half century.

Wild tigers have been driven from 93 per cent of their historic range and are down to fewer than 4,000 individuals globally; the population of African elephants has imploded by as much as 95% to only 500,000 today; poaching drove black rhino numbers from an already much reduced 70,000 in 1960 to only 2,500 individuals in the early 1990s. (With intense conservation effort, they have since rebounded to about 5,000).

And those who still think Canada is still a mostly pristine and under-populated wilderness should think again — half the wildlife species regularly monitored in this country are in decline, with an average population drop of 83 per cent since 1970.

Did I mention that B.C.’s southern resident killer whale population is down to only 76 animals? That’s in part because human fishers have displaced the orcas from their favoured food, Chinook salmon, even as we simultaneously displace the salmon from their spawning streams through hydro dams, pollution and urbanization.

The story is similar for familiar species everywhere and likely worse for non-charismatic fauna. Scientists estimate that the “modern” species extinction rate is 1,000 to as much as 10,000 times the natural background rate.

The global economy is busily converting living nature into human bodies and domestic livestock largely unnoticed by our increasingly urban populations. Urbanization distances people psychologically as well as spatially from the ecosystems that support them.

The human band-wagon may really have started rolling 10 millennia ago but the past two centuries of exponential growth greatly have accelerated the pace of change. It took all of human history — let’s say 200,000 years — for our population to reach one billion in the early 1800s, but only 200 years, 1/1000th as much time, to hit today’s 7.6 billion!

Meanwhile, material demand on the planet has ballooned even more — global GDP has increased by over 100-fold since 1800; average per capita incomes by a factor of 13. (rising to 25-fold in the richest countries).

Consumption has exploded accordingly — half the fossil fuels and many other resources ever used by humans have been consumed in just the past 40 years.

See graphs in: Steffen, W et al. 2015.The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, page(s): 81-98.)

Why does any of this matter, even to those who don’t really give a damn about nature per se? Apart from the moral stain associated with extinguishing thousands of other life-forms, there are purely selfish reasons to be concerned.

For example, depending on climate zone, 78 per cent to 94 per cent of flowering plants, including many human food species, are pollinated by insects, birds and even bats. (Bats — also in trouble in many places — are the major or exclusive pollinators of 500 species in at least 67 families of plants.)

As much as 35 per cent of the world’s crop production is more or less dependent on animal pollination, which ensures or increases the production of 87 leading food crops worldwide.

But there is a deeper reason to fear the depletion and depopulation of nature. Absent life, planet earth is just an inconsequential wet rock with a poisonous atmosphere revolving pointlessly around an ordinary star on the outer fringes of an undistinguished galaxy.

It is life itself, beginning with countless species of microbes, that gradually created the “environment” suitable for life on Earth as we know it.

Biological processes are responsible for the life-friendly chemical balance of the oceans; photosynthetic bacteria and green plants have stocked and maintain Earth’s atmosphere with the oxygen necessary for the evolution of animals.

The same photosynthesis gradually extracted billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere, storing it in chalk, limestone and fossil fuel deposits, so that Earth’s average temperature (currently about 15º C) has remained for geological ages in the narrow range that makes water-based life possible, even as the sun has been warming (i.e. stable climate is partially a biological phenomenon.); countless species of bacteria, fungi and a veritable menagerie of micro-fauna continuously regenerate the soils that grow our food.

Unfortunately, depletion-by-agriculture is even faster — by some accounts we have only just over a half-century’s worth of arable soils left.

In short, H. sapiens depends utterly on a rich diversity of life-forms to provide various life-support functions essential to the existence and continued survival of human civilization.

With an unprecedented human-induced great global die-off well under way, what are the chances the functional integrity of the ecosphere will survive the next doubling of material consumption that everyone expects before mid-century?

Here’s the thing: climate change is not the only shadow darkening humanity’s doorstep. While you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media, biodiversity loss arguably poses an equivalent existential threat to civilized existence.

While we’re at it, let’s toss soil/landscape degradation, potential food or energy shortages and other resource limits into the mix.

And if you think we’ll probably be able to “handle” four out of five such environmental problems, it doesn’t matter.

The relevant version of Liebig’s Law states that any complex system dependent on several essential inputs can be taken down by that single factor in least supply (and we haven’t yet touched upon the additional risks posed by the geopolitical turmoil that would inevitably follow ecological destabilization).

There are many policy options, from simple full-cost pricing and consumption taxes; through population initiatives and comprehensive planning for a steady-state economy; to general education for voluntary (and beneficial) lifestyle changes, all of which would enhance global society’s prospects for long-term survival.

Unique human qualities, from high intelligence (e.g., reasoning from the evidence), through the capacity to plan ahead to moral consciousness, may well be equal to the task but lie dormant — there is little hint of political willingness to acknowledge the problem let alone elaborate genuine solutions (which the Paris climate accord is not).

Bottom line? The world seems in denial of looming disaster; the “C” word remains unvoiced. Governments everywhere dismissed the 1992 scientists’ Warning to Humanity that “...a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided” and will similarly ignore the scientists’ “second notice." (Published on Nov. 13, this warning states that most negative trends identified 25 years earlier “are getting far worse.”)

Despite cascading evidence and detailed analysis to the contrary, the world community trumpets “growth-is-us” as its contemporary holy grail.

Even the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are fixed on economic expansion as the only hammer for every problematic nail. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases reach to at an all-time high, marine dead-zones proliferate, tropical forests fall and extinctions accelerate.

Just what is going on here? The full explanation of this potentially fatal human enigma is no doubt complicated, but Herman Melville summed it up well enough in Moby Dick: “There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.”

.

Lehua Island rodenticide info

SUBHEAD: Site available with links to articles, research and  testimony letters about the aerial drop.

By Kawai Warren on 5 August 2017 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/08/lehua-island-rodenticide-info.html)


Image above: There is no question that the introduction of rats, by humans, to Hawaii has been a disasters, especially for places like Lehua with ground nesting birds. Poisoning mammals may not directly kill birds but it may kill mammals like monk seals and whales near the shores where poison reaches the water.  From (http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/publications/newsletters/kararehe-kino/kararehe-kino-issue-19/which-toxin-is-best-for-eradicating-rodents).

A new website is now live for anyone wanting quick links to articles, research and public testimony letters about the Lehua aerial drop. The link is (https://www.lehua-island-hawaii-conservation.org/).

It is a resource for concerned residents, fishermen, journalists and scientists who need reliable information about the project.

The site states in part:

LEHUA ISLAND, 18 miles from Kaua'i in western Hawaii, is a rare and pristine State Wildlife Sanctuary. It harbors Federally-listed endangered and threatened species such as monk seals, green sea turtles, and three species of endangered birds.

Endangered loggerhead turtles have been sighted, and a rare species of reef coral (Cosinaraea wellsi) has been reported at a depth of 120 ft. Whales, dolphins, manta rays and eagle rays frequent the area. A native Hawaiian subsistence community of Ni'ihauans, 3/4 mile from Lehua, catches fish and ama crab in Lehua's waters to feed their families.

Starting August 8, 2017, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and US Fish and Wildlife intend to drop approximately 11.5 tons of diphacinone rodenticide on Lehua Island.

The diphacinone rodenticide will enter the coastal waters below the high tide line, resulting in an unknown level of collateral damage to non-target species within this precious marine and cultural ecosystem.

In their agency comment letters, NOAA, the EPA, Hawaii Department of Health, and many scientists have expressed concern about the lack of baseline, Lehua-specific data to justify the poison drop, as well as lack of a rigorous monitoring commitment and enforcement mechanisms for the proposed biosecurity acitivities.

The EPA urged DLNR to conduct effective consultation with the local Hawaiian and marine community. Yet, two native Hawaiian organizations and a representative of OHA submitted comment letters and an Opposition Statement describing environmental justice issues and lack of inclusion in decisionmaking.

A public meeting called by DLNR to announce the Final Environmental Assessment for the aerial drop was met with intense community outrage.

In 2009 DLNR had conducted a very similar aerial drop of diphacinone on Lehua that failed in its rodent eradication goal. Mortalities that followed included two whales and a large-scale fish die off that agencies claimed were not related to the aerial rodenticide drop.

Nevertheless, following the 2009 diphacinone aerial drop, the head of Hawaii Department of Agriculture's Pesticide Branch, prior to his retirement, directed staff "not to issue aerial application permits that might result in pellets entering into marine ecosystems until the EPA develops study protocols for such ecosystems."

This Archive provides quick access links to official source documents, research reports and other official information for those wanting to learn more about the concerns raised in the Lehua aerial rodenticide operation.

The Archive was assembled through the input of scientists, legal researchers, policy watchdogs and others concerned about the lack of public awareness about this project, questionable statements made by agency staff, and significant omissions within the Environmental Assessment documents approved by the project's state and federal agencies.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Impact of Lehua rat poisoning 6/8/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy operation coincides with fishkill 3/18/09
.

Truth about Hawaiian bottled water

SOURCE: Ken Taylor (littlewheel808@gmail.com)
SUBHEAD: The industry exacerbates the global water crisis, and it’s not good for the islands either.

By Risa Kuroda on 27 July 2017 for Civic Beat -
(http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/07/the-truth-about-hawaiian-bottled-water/)


Image above: Kauai Natural Artesian Water promotional photo showing a waterfall background. That's not where this water comes from. From (http://www.foodsofhawaii.com/author/kauai-natural-artesian-water/).

Quickly trying to gather your things and your peace of mind, you relax your shoulders slightly: you’ve made it through the security checkpoint at Honolulu International Airport.

Since TSA made you empty your Hydro Flask, you decide to look for a drink. The only water fountain in the terminal trickles water so intermittently that it would take ages to fill your bottle.

You considered just getting a sip to quench your thirst but perceived the risk of catching a minor disease or being shot in the face with a random jet stream as you unwillingly pursed your lips as close to the fountainhead as possible. With a defeated sigh you drag yourself to a store to find no shortage of cold, refreshing, pristine, and over-priced Hawaiian bottled water.

Chances are, you recognized maybe one of the three Hawaiian bottled water brands in that airport store. Hawaii bottles an abundance of magical life giving elixirs but for the most part the water in the bottles of Hawaiian Springs, Waiakea or Hawaii Volcanic, to name a few, is not the water that most Hawaii residents drink.

As the state’s second-highest revenue-generating export, Hawaii’s water travels thousands of miles to bring in in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the local economy.

Sounds like a good trade off right? Unfortunately the implications of bottled water on our islands may not be as pristine as we hope it to be.

In fact, our bottled water industries gravely contribute to the exacerbation of the global water crisis, which has profoundly negative impacts on our environment and local communities.

The global water crisis is no hoax. Earth is covered in water but only 2.5 percent of it is fresh water.

Of that portion, 70 percent of it is locked in ice and nearly 30 percent is deep underground in aquifers. Just 0.3 percent of all fresh water is surface water, or what is considered “renewable water” within humanity’s conceivable lifespan.

Though agriculture is the main culprit of consumptive, meaning non-renewable, water extraction bottlers like Hawaiian Springs and Hawaii Volcanic’s unscrupulous use of artesian aquifer wells contribute to what political and environmental pundits foresee as eventual cause for future wars.


Image above: A Surfrider poster about the danger to sea birds of floating plastic junk like water bottle caps. From (https://www.b4plastics.com/nl/news/survival-of-the-fittest-plastics-een-evolutie-die-we-uitlokken-of-ondergaan).


Bottled water, and its role in the global water crisis, is also about the bottles, the transportation, the marketing, the profits and the collateral damages that occur both to the environment and to human communities during and after the production of this fetishized commodity.

Though some companies are turning to glass bottling most, including the main bottling companies in Hawaii, still use polyethylene terephthalate plastic. Every PET bottle made requires double the amount of water actually in the bottle to manufacture. Since the average American consumes 36.4 gallons of bottled water per year, we are actually consuming around 72.8 gallons of bottled water.

In the same one-year span, more than 17 million barrels of crude oil is needed to produce the bottles — an amount of oil enough to sustain 1 million vehicles on the road or power approximately 190,000 American homes for one year. In a study done on FIJI Water, the manufacture and transport of one bottle was worth 7.1 gallons of water, 1 liter of fossil fuels and 1.2 pounds of greenhouse gases.

At what enormous cost does Hawaiian water make its way not to the communities where it came from but to the lobbies of five-star hotels in Hawaii and around the world? It is estimated that solving the water crisis would cost $10 billion.

The price that bottling companies pocket in revenue is $13 billion. We cannot think for one second that Hawaii has nothing to do with perpetuating a crisis.

Plastic bottles also do not biodegrade. The bottled water industry generates as much as 1.5 million pounds of bottles per year and only 13 percent of plastic bottles are actually recycled after being discarded. The rest go to landfills, where they can leach toxic chemicals into the land.

Or better yet, they end up in the ocean: Marine plastic pollution has impacted at least 267 species worldwide, including 86 percent of all sea turtle species, 44 percent of all seabird species and 43 percent of all marine mammal species.

Since Hawaii depends on the environment, including the vitality of our marine life, it is incredibly important for us to not turn our islands into a giant, lifeless trash heap. After all, would tourists or even the film industry pay to experience Hawaii’s dead monk seals and turtles?

In addition, though bottling companies can contribute jobs to a neighborhood, when the profit-driven interests of a corporation conflict with the interests of a local community or ecosystem, it is rarely the latter that benefit.
]
Most often, local communities and watersheds are left to deal with negative externalities when bottling companies decide to turn a blind eye.

For example, our state is currently in a period of drought and has just recently bounced back from a period of severe to extreme drought just last year. Given intensifying global warming, it is not prudent to be unscrupulously drawing upon water sources for jobs and capital accumulation. In the end, the communities will be the ones literally left in the dried up dust while bottling corporations’ wallets are lush with green Benjamins.

Bottled water is no environmentally friendly product. It is a prime example of greenwashing, which is an attempt to do ethically or environmentally what should not be done at all.

Under General Comment 15 of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, governments have a responsibility to ensure that its citizens not only have access to but also actually have clean and affordable tap water in accordance with their right to life.

The residents of Hawaii, like those of San Francisco and Concord, Massachusetts, need to take back the tap and push Hawaii lawmakers to wake up to the dirty truth that is Hawaii’s bottled water industry.

---

Decision against Kauai Springs
SUBHEAD: The industry exacerbates the global water crisis, and it’s not good for the islands either.


By For Chris Deangelo on 6 October 2014 for the Garden Islands -
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/a-landmark-decision/article_7feed654-4d29-11e4-afca-c7950a559d55.html)


Image above: Label for  a five gallon bottle of Kauai Springs water. The water comes from a diversion of spring water to Grove Farms. From (https://i2.wp.com/kauaisprings.com/images/Kauai-Springs-Label-1.jpg).

In February, the state Supreme Court — in what has been called a landmark decision for Hawaii’s Public Trust Doctrine — sided with the County of Kauai by striking down a 2008 circuit court ruling that the Kauai Planning Commission “exceeded its jurisdiction” in denying Kauai Springs, Inc. permits for its operation.

Seven months later, and contrary to that ruling, the Koloa-based water bottling and distribution company’s doors remain open.

“They continue to operate,” said Attorney David Minkin, who was hired as special counsel to represent the county in the Kauai Springs case. “Working with the Planning Department, we have sent them a notice of violation telling them that, if they don’t shut down, we will start fining them and turn it over both at the Planning Commission level as well as the prosecutor’s office to go after them for violating the law.”

The notice was sent to Kauai Springs on Tuesday, following a site investigation of the property by the Planning Department a week before. It orders the company to cease and desist all water bottling and distribution activities. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $10,000 per day, as well as criminal prosecution, the letter states.

Kauai Springs has been given until Oct. 14 to respond.

On Wednesday, at the request of Councilman Tim Bynum, Minkin briefed the Kauai County Council’s Planning Committee on the Supreme Court ruling in the case and its application and relevance to the law.

Hawaii’s Public Trust Doctrine states that, “For the benefit of present and future generations, the state and its political subdivisions shall conserve and protect Hawaii’s natural beauty and all natural resources, including land, water, air, minerals and energy sources, and shall promote the development and utilization of these resources in a manner consistent with their conservation and in furtherance of the self-sufficiency of the state … All public natural resources are held in trust by the state for the benefit of the people.”

Minkin said the Supreme Court judge ruled the Planning Commission made the right call in denying the permits.

So what does the ruling mean moving forward?

“It means that, especially when water’s at issue, that every agency that has some duty or responsibility has to take a look at it from the constitutional perspective of the Public Trust Doctrine,” Minkin said. “You just can’t punt it and say, ‘Not my kuleana.’ You have to look at it. You have to evaluate it. You have to get information. And if you’re left with a question in the back of your mind that you don’t have enough information, it’s not the department, in this case the Planning Commission, it’s not their duty to go out and track down and get information.”

Instead, the applicant — in this case, Kauai Springs — must present the appropriate information.

“It basically shifts the burden,” Minkin said of the ruling.

Councilman Mel Rapozo questioned what good the Supreme Court decision is if the county doesn’t act on it. He said it’s time to put teeth behind it and stop Kauai Springs from utilizing the island’s natural resources illegally.

“I think the public needs to know. Are we going to fine them? Are going to just send them letters? I mean, if it’s this landmark decision, we should be prosecuting,” Rapozo said.

Kauai Springs has a long-term agreement with the Knudsen Trust to obtain water from a spring at the base of Mount Kahili. The pipeline, which brings the water to company’s Koloa bottling facility, is owned by Grove Farm.

Deputy County Attorney Mauna Kea Trask said the ruling was a substantial document, 107 pages to be exact, and “took a while to digest.”

“We are moving down that avenue,” he said of enforcement, adding that his hope is to reach a resolution without having to expend additional funds or go back to court.

Minkin said recent efforts to work things out with Kauai Springs’ legal counsel proved unsuccessful.

“We’ve resolved it as much as I can, now the next step has to be taken,” he said to Rapozo. “And I’ve made the recommendation, I agree with you — my background is also law enforcement — and I think, yes, this needs to be shut down.”

Kauai Springs owner Jim Satterfield did not return phone calls or emails seeking comment.

For several years, the case went back and forth, with both sides filing appeals. In 2007, the Planning Commission denied Kauai Springs’ three permit.

Kauai Springs turned around and sued the commission over the denial of the permits.

In 2008, 5th Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe sided with Kauai Springs and ordered the county to issue the permits.

“We felt, and the county felt, that was inappropriate … and we appealed it and we got the initial decision by the intermediate court,” which vacated the circuit court’s final judgement, Minkin said. “Applicant wasn’t happy with that and then it went up to the state Supreme Court, and the state Supreme Court went even further than the intermediate court did, to basically specify what our duties are as the county.”

The county has spent about $111,000, under the budget of $115,000, on the case, including the appeal, according to Minkin.

Bynum said he is proud of the Planning Commission and county for taking the Public Trust Doctrine seriously. While the court case was long, with many ups and downs, it was important for the community, he said. 

.

Hawaii's feral chicken "problem"

SUBHEAD: What came first? The chicken or the Whole Foods parking lot in Kailua on Big Island.

By Kristen Downey on 25 May 2017 for Civil Beat -
(http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/05/why-wild-chickens-are-flocking-to-whole-foods-in-kailua/)


Image above: The Wild chickens are flocking to Whole Foods in Kailua on the Big Island. From original article.

The Kailua Neighborhood Board passed a motion recently asking the city to revise its feral chicken removal program to focus on trapping roosters.

In the past two years, regular customers at the upscale Whole Foods grocery store in Kailua have been noticing an odd phenomenon — more and more feral chickens are roosting in the parking lot.

Whole families of birds –roosters, chickens and chicks– are perching in and under the trees near the entrance to the store, nesting near the area where the shopping carts are stored, and strutting up and down the rows of the parking lot. They’re also crowing. A lot.

Inside the store, a 5-pound, free-range chicken from California costs about $20. Outside, in the blocks surrounding the store, about three dozen are roaming free.

“I don’t remember there ever being chickens like this. Never. Maybe on the Pali, but never like this,” said Amanda Gomez, 29, of Kaneohe, scanning the Whole Foods parking lot. “There are so many moms and babies. They love this area right here.”

Opinions are divided over the feathered newcomers. Some in Kailua admire the birds’ bright plumage and see them as charming wildlife.  Some are irritated by their incessant crowing. Some wonder if they could carry disease and some are growing afraid of them. Some have a live-and-let-live attitude toward the birds.

And some people want the government to get rid of them.

“Are they pests or are they pets?” asked Scot Matayoshi, who serves on the Kailua Neighborhood Board. He has been pushing for the city to trap and remove the birds, particularly the roosters, but said that his effort has been controversial to some people on the board who would prefer the birds be left in peace.

“Whether or not one regards feral chickens as pests is a matter of individual preference,” said Sheila Conant, a professor emerita at University of Hawaii and an expert on Hawaiian birds.

“Having a neighborhood rooster that crows in the middle of the night or very early in the morning could certainly be exasperating. At the moment, I don’t mind the chickens. They can be fun to watch.”

According to the Hawaii Department of Health, the birds don’t present a public health risk.

The federal Centers for Disease Control, however, advises that people who have physical contact with poultry or poultry waste are at risk of salmonella infection. The germs can get on the hands, shoes and clothes of people who have contact with the birds or their saliva or droppings.

Complaints about chickens came up last month at the Kailua Neighborhood Board meeting. Board members passed overwhelmingly a motion asking the city of Honolulu to revise its feral chicken removal program to focus on trapping and removing roosters. They said that would be cheaper than eradicating both males and females.

But Matayoshi said city officials told him they haven’t been able to find a pest removal company that wants to remove the birds. There’s only one company on the islands, Sandwich Isles Pest Solutions in Pearl City, that can be hired to remove bothersome birds, and the city does not have a standing contract with the firm for the work, Matayoshi said.

Harold Scholes, a pest control consultant at Sandwich Isles Pest Solutions, said the company catches and euthanizes unwanted chickens for private clients. For $300 a week and $115 per trip to each site, the company will set up a trap, provide it with bait and water, and remove the animal humanely. He said that other parts of the island, not just Kailua, have seen an increase in feral chickens.

According to Sherilyn Kajiwara, director of the Honolulu customer services department, the  city manages feral chicken issues only on its own property, and only on a case-by-case basis.  Other property owners — whether private owners, the federal government or the state government — are responsible for dealing with their own problems.

But in response to growing calls for action, the city last year added what she called a “fowl response component” into its animal control contract with the Hawaiian Humane Society. The Humane Society began handling the job in January.

“Under the city contract, the HHS will respond to public complaints related to pet fowl nuisances,” Kajiwara said in a statement to Civil Beat. “It does not address feral animals and does not have a fowl eradication component.”

She referred further questions to the Hawaiian Humane Society.

Fines For Nuisance Violations

Suzy Tam, communications director for the Humane Society, said the $80,000 contract for poultry remediation services calls for the Humane Society to respond to “nuisance” complaints. That’s defined as any animal “making noise continuously for ten minutes or intermittently for 30 minutes or more,” and causing a disturbance, or owning an excessive number of animals.

Violations can lead to fines of up to $50 for a first offense and up to $1,000 for further offenses.
She said the Humane Society does not remove nuisance chickens, whether owned or free-roaming.
Tam said the Humane Society has gotten 289 complaints about chickens since late January, with calls coming from all over the island.

She said they have mailed out 83 warning letters and issued six citations to residents with chickens on their properties during that period, but have no way of comparing the numbers to previous years because the contract is new.

Outside Whole Foods in Kailua, there is a whole range of perspectives about the chickens and speculation about where they came from.

Dallas Pabilona, of Hayward, California, a tourist, squealed with laughter when she spotted a cocky rooster strutting in the median in front of her car. She was dismayed to hear that some people want to cull the flock.

“If they weren’t here, where would they live?,” she asked. “This is everybody’s home.”

Bob Beard, the oceanarium manager at the Pacific Beach Hotel and a long-time Kailua resident, on the other hand, scowled at the birds as he sat at an outside dining table near the entrance to Whole Foods, only a few feet from a rooster perching noisily in a tree.

“They’re chickens,” he said. “They do what people like to do. They copulate. I’m surprised there’s not more cats around—there’s a lot of free meat.”
He also thinks they’re dirty.

Michael La Rochelle, 25, a nanny and student, said he called 911 one day this week after spotting a young man trying to catch a large rooster with a kind of lasso. He said Kailua police said they would check it out. When he returned, the man was gone, and the rooster was still the cock of the walk.

La Rochelle said he thought the man was trying to catch the rooster to use it for cock-fighting. “He was going after a rooster,” he said. “If he wanted to eat it, he would pick a chicken.”

Pumehana Piko, who grew up on Molokai and Maui but who has lived on Oahu for 14 years, said she believes the chickens in Kailua have been released or escaped from cockfighting businesses because they seem unusually fierce. Cockfighting is illegal in most parts of the country but is only a misdemeanor in Hawaii, and the events can be popular and well-attended.

“They breed for chickens that are aggressive,” said Piko, 37.  She said people who organize cockfights earn big money from it–$5,000 or $20,000 for a match—and that more people are trying to get into the business.

“You’ll see kids try to grab them for pets or experiment to get them to fight each other,” Piko said.
Pauline Menor-Ozoa, of Kailua, who works in the human resources department at Queen’s Medical Center, also believes the chickens are escapees from cockfighting operations.

“My girls are afraid of them,” she said. “Usually chickens run away, but these follow you and look at you.”

Conant, the bird expert, said she is growing curious about why chickens are proliferating so quickly. In an email to Civil Beat, she said she believes that more people have been raising chickens to get their own fresh eggs, and that when it proves troublesome to care for them, they are releasing them, and they become feral.

“Feral chickens, much like feral cats, can do quite well without assistance (food or shelter) from people,” she said in an email to Civil Beat.

She identified one of the birds at the Kailua Whole Foods as a rooster, and she said his color patterns and the lack of any unusual plumage characteristics, such as feathers on the feet, or an ornate crown of feathers or distinctive markings, make it likely the bird is what is known as a “jungle fowl.” That’s the common name for the wild species from which modern chicken breeds have been developed.
There are more than 200 breeds of chickens, Conant said.

“Once individuals escape and breed on their own, they revert back to the appearance of jungle fowl in very few generations,” she wrote.

Why Kailua? And why Whole Foods? The managers at Whole Foods, as well as their public relations firm, declined repeated requests for comment.

So for now, the question is open. Perhaps the fowl feel particularly safe there.
After all, the chickens only need to cross the road.

On the other side, they get to the Kawainui-Hamakua Marsh Complex, the largest single wetland in the state, a safe haven for birds.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Chicken Odesssy - not from Polynesia 3/18/14
Island Breath: Moa - Red Jungle Fowl 10/31/06

.

Permaculture in Hawaii

SUBHEAD: Permaculture works to keep the birds, insects, soil and surrounding nature content and ourselves fed.

By Juan Wilson on 26 April 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/04/permaculture-in-hawaii.html)


Image above: We at IslandBreath have attempted to do permaculture. Photo from our backyard efforts at creating a "food forest" that we have named "Akea Aina".  In this image are cacao, starfruit, avocado, papaya, cassava, coconut, breadfruit, banana, and mango. Photo by Juan Wilson.

Akea Aina consists of about 1.5 acres of land - a third of it is our property, a third rented from the Robinson family and another third is on Hawaiian public land.

The photo above show haole koa ("false" koa) trees in foreground. They are early adopters in yards on Hanapepe Valley but few people have let haole koa grow so large as they are usually considered weed trees.

Haole koa are hard and heavy wood good for fires and they are good nitrogen fixers. They provide light shade that sun-delicate plants can grow under. Beneath them are a row of cacao trees with fruit.

To the left and right of this photo are breadfruit trees and cassava. Beyond what you can see are beehives.

In the background, from the left is a starfruit tree, coconut, mango, papaya, avocado and more. That's only a small sample of what can be grown on a small farm.

Below is a brief video survey of permaculture efforts in Hawaii on various islands. By "permaculture" we mean intentional living arrangements on land that produces food and fertile land as a foundation of healthy local flora and fauna. This way of life means living "in nature".

That implies sustainable self sufficiency in food, soil, water and energy.      

Mokupuni o Hawaii
Introduction to the permaculture training programs offered at the  La'akea community on the Big Island, with teacher Tracy Matfin. Get a look at La'akea uses permaculture principles.


Video above: Permaculture Education Programs - La'akea, Hawaii in 2011. From (https://youtu.be/-XgpTaAfb7Q).

Mokupuni o Maui
Fruition Permaculture Design as he gives us a tour of Laulima Farm in lush Kipahulu, Maui, Hawaii. Jesse Krebs discusses the key permaculture design features of this beautiful tropical farm.


Video above: Fruit-based Veganic Permaculture on Maui in 2013. From (https://youtu.be/zG2JuTvq5e8).

Mokupuni o Molokai
SustAINAble Molokai and Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Institute of America and of PRI Australia. We now have strategies to heal the land by slowing the course of water.


Video above: Heal the land, Harvest water, Grow food security on Molokai in 2013. From (https://youtu.be/P2Lp8YmJaag).

Mokupuni o Oahu
Growing your own food and being self sufficient is one of the best ways to give power back to the people and live in harmony with nature.


Video above: Permaculture with Paul Izak in Hawaii on Oahu in 2012. From (https://youtu.be/_WHG3NJEq90).

Mokupuni o Kauai
Paul Massey, the Director Regeneration Botanical Gardens gives a concise definition of what Kauai Food Forest is all about.


Video above: Permaculture in Kauai Part 2 in 2013. From (https://youtu.be/5pJrw9QuCB0).

There is no doubt in our minds that these methods of "farming" are the way to go here in Hawaii. It works to keep the birds, insects, soil and surrounding nature content and ourselves fed.

.

Seabird population down 70%

SUBHEAD: Seabird population changes are good indicators of long-term and large-scale change in marine ecosystems.

By Jan TenBruggencate on 13 July 2015 for Raising Islands -
(http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2015/07/collapsing-seabird-populations-down-70.html)


Image above: Breading pair of laysan Albatross on Midway Island. Between November and July, it is home to almost half a million of these birds. From (http://www.wildencounters.net/weblog/2010/03/midway-atoll-march-2009/).

Seabird populations have dropped by two-thirds in the past 60 years, and may have dropped significantly even before that.

Recent studies suggest that the winged wonders that soar over the oceans are dramatically fewer than they were long ago

Many of the seabirds around the Hawaiian Islands lay their eggs and raise their young on the islands.

Some islands, notably the ones in the Northwestern Hawaiian Island archipelago, are still dense with nesting birds. Around the Main Hawaiian Islands, not so much.

But they once were nesting in massive colonies here, as well, said Storrs Olson, the famed paleoornithologist at Smithsonian Institution. Olson said bird flocks flying out to sea from those colonies would have been so dense that any early voyagers would have easily found the Hawaiian Islands if they’d gotten within a few hundred miles.

But most of those Main Hawaiian Island colonies have been lost to habitat destruction and predation.

In modern times, the decline in bird populations continues.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia reported that during the last 60 years, monitored populations of seabirds have declined 70 percent. Their work was published in the journal PLOS One. Here is Eurekalert’s printing of the university’s press release. Here's Science Daily's version.

They didn’t look at all seabirds—not all seabirds are being monitored--but their work represented studies of 500 populations worldwide, which represent 19 percent of all seabirds.

Lead author Michelle Paleczny, a UBC master's student and researcher with the Sea Around Us project, said overall populations had dropped  69.6 per cent in the 60-year period from 1950 to 2010, equivalent to a loss of about 230 million birds.

re observed in families containing wide-ranging pelagic species, suggesting that pan-global populations may be more at risk than shorter-ranging coastal populations,” the authors wrote. Those pan-pelagic species would include birds like albatrosses.

We are losing the birds to a variety of threats. The authors cite entanglement in fishing gear, overfishing of food sources, climate change, pollution, disturbance, direct exploitation, development, energy production, and introduced species like cats, dogs and other predators on nesting sites that once lacked these predators.

These are familiar stories in Hawai`i, where we regularly see stories of nesting seabirds like shearwaters, albatross and petrels being attacked on their nests by pigs, rats, cats and dogs.

The health of seabird populations is important because, as wide-ranging species, they can open a window to the health of the oceans.

“Seabird population changes are good indicators of long-term and large-scale change in marine ecosystems because seabird populations are relatively well-monitored, their ecology allows them to integrate long-term and large-scale signals (they are long-lived, wide-ranging and forage at high trophic levels), and their populations are strongly influenced by threats to marine and coastal ecosystems,” the authors wrote.

Citation: Michelle Paleczny, Edd Hammill, Vasiliki Karpouzi, Daniel Pauly. Population Trend of the World’s Monitored Seabirds, 1950-2010. PLOS ONE, 2015; 10 (6): e0129342 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129342

.

Radiation damages top predator bird

SUBHEAD: Breeding success of goshawk significantly dropping in North Kanto area due to Fukushima meltdowns.

By Iori Mochizuki on 24 April 2015 for Fukushima Diary -
(http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/04/breeding-success-of-goshawk-significantly-dropping-in-north-kanto-area-0-1-%CE%BCsvh-increase-reduces-10-breeding/)


Image above: A closeup of a mature goshawk from original article.

On 3/24/2015, Nagoya city university and NPO Goshawk protection fund published their report on Scientific Reports.

In this report, they proved that the radioactive contamination significantly reduces the breeding success of goshawk in north Kanto area such as Tochigi etc.

Especially the hatching rate is severely affected compared to the past ratio in the same area from 1992 to 2010. It was 90% in 2011, which was within the normal range of past 19 years but it dropped to 85% in 2012, and it was decreased to 67% in 2013.

They concluded this significant decrease is closely related to the atmospheric dose and stated 0.1 μSv/h increase in atmospheric dose reduces breeding success by 10%.

They also reported that even though the atmospheric dose comes back to the normal level as before 311, the breeding success keeps decreasing.

They assume it is because goshawk is on the top of the food chain so it is severely affected by biological concentration. The internal exposure is possibly causing the long term effect in breeding success.

http://www.nagoya-cu.ac.jp/secure/149568/270324.pdf
http://www.nagoya-cu.ac.jp/2211.htm?q=%E3%82%AA%E3%82%AA%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB
http://goshawkfund.jp/

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Fukushima Die-Offs Occuring 4/17/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Pacific Ocean Catastrophe 4/17/15

.

Fly like an eagle

SUBHEAD: You can see what Gandalf saw when he rode the Great Eagles of Manwe.

ByAmazingWorldy on 13 September 2013 for Youtube -
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8EzlRMRd2A)

Image above: Mini can on back of soaring eagle in Mont Blanc, France. Still frame from video below.

As cameras get smaller, lighter and sharper, the number of places where you won't find them shrinks exponentially. We've seen plenty of eye-popping point-of-view shots from sky divers, motorcyclists and various other daredevils, but we've yet to witness footage this clear and dynamic from the back of a soaring eagle.

Flying high over the Mer de Glace glacier in the Alps and the Montenvers Railway on the northern slopes of the Mont Blanc massif, this majestic bird provides us with a firsthand perspective of what it's like to hunt for prey in one of the most gorgeous environments on Earth — or, as Tolkien fans on YouTube point out, just what Gandalf saw when he rode the Great Eagles of Manwe.


Video above: From (http://youtu.be/D8EzlRMRd2Ahttp://youtu.be/D8EzlRMRd2A).


See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Owl lands in slo-mo 8/8/11
.

Scott's Miracle Poisons

SUBHEAD:Scotts Miracle-Gro to pay record fines for poisoning birds and selling illegal pesticides.

By Mike Ludwig on 11 September 2012 for TurthOut.org -
(http://truth-out.org/news/item/11464-scotts-miracle-gro-to-pay-record-fines-for-poisoning-birds-and-selling-illegal-pesticides)


Image above: A Scott's Gaden Feeder allows hosing pesticides onto large areas of yard. From (http://www.lawnequipmentmart.com/scotts-miracle-gro-waterproof-garden-feeder-50gal/).


Tainted, mislabeled pesticides added to the company's wild bird seed resulted in countless wildlife deaths, massive product recalls and unprecedented civil and criminal penalties.
 
America's leading lawn care company is in big trouble for potentially poisoning wild birds across the country, and lying to the government and consumers about pesticide products.

Before a voluntary recall in 2008, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company sold 70 million units of wild bird feed that was illegally treated with an insecticide that is dangerously toxic to wild birds, fish and other wildlife. The Marysville, Ohio-based company must now pay $12.5 million in criminal and civil penalties that regulators say are the heftiest ever issued under federal pesticide law.

It's practically impossible to quantify how many wild birds and other wildlife were impacted by Scotts' crimes against nature, but a federal court in Ohio fined the company $4 million, plus $500,000 worth of environmental community service, after Scotts pleaded guilty to distributing the poisonous bird feed and other crimes involving mislabeled and unregistered pesticides.

In a separate civil agreement with the EPA, which launched a civil investigation after the criminal violations were discovered, Scotts agreed to pay $6 million in fines and donate $2 million to environmental projects. Regulators also are touting this settlement as the largest in the history of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), which has regulated pesticides since 1947.

Scotts plead guilty to selling consumers wild bird feed that was poisonous to birds, along with deceiving regulators by falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels, and distributing unregistered pesticides. Misuse and mislabeling of pesticides can cause illness in humans and kill wildlife, and as a result of the settlement, a "significant number" of potentially harmful pesticides will be removed from the market, according to the EPA.

"As the world's largest marketer of residential-use pesticides, Scotts has a special obligation to make certain that it observes the laws governing the sale and use of its products," said Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice.
Scotts added the pesticides Storcide II and Actellic 5E to the wild bird feed to prevent insect infestations while the product was in storage, but the company apparently ignored the warning label on Storcide II that specifically states the pesticide is toxic to birds, fish and other wildlife. Scotts sold the tainted bird feed for two years after it began marketing the product, and for six months after company employees alerted management to the danger posed by the pesticides, according to the EPA.

Scotts also pleaded guilty to submitting falsified documents to the EPA and state regulatory agencies in an effort to deceive regulators into believing that the chemical formulas were registered with the EPA, when they were not.

Scotts claims an unnamed "former associate" submitted the falsified documents. The company claims this "former associate" has plead (sic) guilty to federal crimes and insists that she acted alone.

As the criminal violations came to light, the EPA launched a review of Scotts' pesticide registrations that uncovered a list of civil violations. For at least five years, Scotts had made nationwide sales of canceled, unregistered and misbranded pesticide products, including products with inadequate warnings or cautions on their labels.

Scotts also imported pesticides into the United States without documentation required under law, causing more than 100 Scotts' products to be in violation of federal registration law.

In a letter to consumers and investors, Scotts CEO Jim Hagedorn wrote that the company's actions do not reflect Scotts' "core values and history." Hagedorn pointed out that, as part of the civil and criminal settlements, Scotts will spend $2.5 million to help restore and conserve habitats in Ohio.

In his letter, Hagedorn claimed his company voluntarily disclosed to the government that it had illegally applied the insecticides to the bird feed, and also voluntarily recalled several other products. EPA regional spokesperson Josh Singer told Truthout that, during the civil investigation, Scotts complied with 40 orders to stop the sale of more than 100 Scotts products that were in violation of federal law. Scotts also paid a third-party reviewer to check the compliance status of the company's products, and shared that information with the government.
Here's a list of Scotts products involved in the EPA settlement:

• Banrot Broad Spectrum Fungicide 40 percent Wettable Powder),
• Basics Solutions Weed & Grass Killer Concentrate
• Brush-B-Gon Poison Ivy & Poison Oak Killer
• Contrast 70 WSP
• Duosan WSB Wettable Powder Turf and Ornamental Fungicide
• ORTHO Bug-B-Gon MAX Lawn & Garden Insect Killer Ready-To-Spray ORTHO Bug B Gon MAX Lawn & Garden Insect Killer Concentrate ORTHO Bug-B-Gon Multi-Purpose Insect Killer Ready-To-Use Granules (aka Ortho Bug B Gon Lawn & Soil Insect Killer with Grub Control
• ORTHO Home Defense Max (aka Ortho Home Defense Indoor and Outdoor Insect Killer)
• ORTHO Malathion 50 Insect Spray
• ORTHO Orthonex Insect & Disease Control Formula III Concentrate
• ORTHO ProSelect Roach, Ant & Spider Killer
• ORTHO Weed B Gon Weed Killer for Lawns Concentrate Total Kill Lawn Weed Killer (aka Weed-Be-Gon Spot Weed Killer and Basic Solutions Lawn Weed Killer)
• .

Mongoose on Kauai

SUBHEAD: A live male mongoose was captured on Kauai on 23 May 2012. By Dennis Fujimoto on 24 May 2012 for the Garden Island News - (http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/live-mongoose-captured-on-kaua-i/article_e21ae772-a57a-11e1-836f-001a4bcf887a.html) Image above: Pat Gmelin, KISC Mongoose Response Technician, holds up the trap containing a live mature male mongoose 5/23/12. From original article. A live mongoose, believed to be the first captured on Kauai, was caught in a mongoose trap Wednesday by the Kaua‘i Invasive Species Committee at the Marriott Kaua‘i Lagoons.

Keren Gundersen, project manager of the KISC, said Pat Gmelin, the KISC Mongoose Response Technician, made the discovery while conducting his daily trap checks Wednesday morning.

“I am happy that now it is proven that the mongoose reports are actually confirmed and that my hard work has paid off, but I’m sad to think that Kaua‘i now has a very real threat to our native bird populations,” Gmelin said in a KISC release. “With the help of Bill Bukoski of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Services, we determined the captured mongoose was a mature male.”

KISC said traps were initially set in the Nawiliwili Harbor area following a credible sighting which was reported in Niumalu on Mar. 24.

Within 10 days, another nine reports came in of mongoose sightings in the Nawiliwili area, including at Kaua‘i Lagoons and the Kaua‘i Marriott Resort and Beach Club.

KISC officials said mongooses can travel up to five miles a day.

“We want to thank the citizens who promptly reported the sightings,” Gundersen said. “We were able to get traps in place rapidly and finally capture the animal. We really rely on the public to alet us when they see dangerous pests, especially mongoose, because these animals can quickly leave an area.”

Mongooses were brought to Hawaii by the sugar industry in 1883 in a failed attempt to control rats in the sugar cane fields, the KISC release states. Mongooses prey on turtle eggs, birds and other animals and can be carriers of deadly diseases like leptospirosis. They currently have no natural predators in Hawai‘i to keep their numbers in check.

“Kaua‘i is the only island where mongoose were not intentionally introduced, which is why we have been successful in building populations of ground-nesting birds like the nene,” said Thomas Kaiakapu, the Kauai manager of the state’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife, in the release. “Mongoose eat eggs and chicks so they can have a devastating affect on wildlife, domestic fowl and game cocks.”

Kaua‘i wildlife managers have worried about mongooses getting established on Kauai for a long time.

A lactating female was discovered dead on Kaumualii Highway in Kalaheo in 1976, but none of the invasive animals have been found since then. Gundersen said there have been more than 160 credible reports of mongoose sightings in the past 44 years, with more than 70 in the last decade. These sightings have been reported from Mana to Lumahai, including Koke‘e, with the highest concentration being in the Lihu‘e and Puhi areas.

Gundersen said KISC and the DOFAW have been engaged in active trapping and detection efforts in the recent years. The USDA Wildlife Services traps within the Lihue Airport fence and Rana Biological Consulting, Inc., overseeing the endangered bird protection at Kauai Lagoons, has been monitoring the resort grounds for avian predators.

Because funding for mongoose control is spotty, the various entities have been working together, Gundersen said. KISC is coordinating the partnerships because it currently has a Mongoose Response Technician on staff and is taking the lead in following up on sighting reports.

“Catching a live mongoose is a definite game-changer because it increases the likelihood they are already established here,” Gundersen said. “We are appealing to everyone to call us at 821-1490 and let us know about any encounter they have had with a mongoose, even if it is not recent, so we can map historical and current sightings.”

Gundersen said the reports will help KISC paint a more accurate picture of what the status of the mongoose on Kauai might be.

“We really need to have this information before we can develop a sensible management plan,” she said. “The most logical and immediate reaction is to beef up predator control in high-value areas such as wildlife refuges and bird sanctuaries.”

The captured mongoose has been euthanized, and more tests will be conducted to determine its age, possibly its diet and conduct DNA tests.

If a mongoose is sighted, call KISC at 821-1490 immediately.

.

Owl Lands in Slo-Mo

SUBHEAD: Slow-motion hi-definition video of owl flying to camera and landing. Amazing coordinated sureness.  

By Staff on 8 August 2011 in Huffington Post -  
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/08/slow-motion-eagle-owl-video_n_921033.html)

 
Image above: Still image of an Earasian Eagle Owl landing. From video below.
 
We know that vibrations, huge bursting water balloons and sonic booms look pretty cool when viewed in slow-motion.

But wild animals are especially awesome.

Although this slow-motion video of an owl landing was uploaded over two years ago, it's making the rounds on the Web after being posted on Videosift, The Daily What and Arbroath.

According to the video's description on YouTube, the footage is taken at 1,000 frames per second using a Photron SA2 HD camera.

Although the YouTube user only describes the animal as an "eagleowl," the Oregon Zoo says that Eurasian Eagle Owls "are large owls with prominent ear tufts that are usually not raised upright. Because of this, their feather tufts probably help them more with communication and recognition than camouflage."

Can't get enough birds? Check out these videos of baby geese growing up and a beautiful, endangered Albatross soaring through the sky.


Video above: Original source of owl video we are aware of was BuzzFeed.com. From (http://youtu.be/37MNE8tOBG4)

 .