Snapping Turtle

Frogs and toads were not the only herps we encountered during Saturday's field trip. Near the start of our trip, we encountered this Snapping Turtle that was crossing the road along one of the dikes, so we stopped to take a look. It did not seem happy about our presence, as it reared up on its hind legs a few times, but it did not attack anyone. This individual was about a foot long; I have seen much larger individuals.

Its back was partially wet and covered with some vegetative matter. The long green strands are bladderwort stems. Bladderwort is a predatory plant with bladder-like sacs that suck in invertebrates that happen to swim past.

Lingering Oil, Sea Turtles, and Transparency

As I mentioned in my earlier post on the NOAA report, even if the numbers in the report are accurate (and there is good reason to think they are not) the remaining oil still poses a significant threat to people and wildlife. Here are some possible long term effects, especially on sea turtles:

Rick Steiner, a retired University of Alaska professor who worked on the Exxon Valdez disaster, questioned the validity of the estimates in the report, explaining, "These are just what we call WAGs — wild- a-- guesses."

Even if the report's numbers were dead-on, Steiner said, that would not mean the oil spill disaster is over, as some pundits are claiming. The impact is likely to linger for a decade or more.

For instance, in the Exxon Valdez spill, four years passed before the herring population in Prince William Sound collapsed. The toxic contamination had apparently hurt the herrings' immune system.

"The coast is not clear," agreed Ron Kendall, director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University. "Even if all the oil was gone tomorrow, the potential ecological consequences will be unfolding for days, weeks and years to come."

The effects on sea turtles, for instance, likely won't be known for seven years, because that's how long it will take before this year's hatchlings return to the gulf coast to lay their own eggs, he said.

Last month, scientists reported that they found near the spill site a massive die-off of pyrosomes — cucumber-shaped, gelatinous organisms that are a food source for endangered sea turtles. One scientist called it "just a mass eradication" of the creatures.

Meanwhile, droplets of oil turned up inside the shells of young crabs that are a mainstay in the diet of fish, turtles and shorebirds. The orange spots were detected in crabs across the northern Gulf Coast, from southwestern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

Harriet Perry of the University of Southern Mississippi said that in 42 years of studying crabs, she'd never seen anything like it. The crabs are a key species for the whole food chain, she said. "If we have a loss of blue crabs, we're looking at a loss of everything."

Drew Wheelan from the ABA suggests another possible spill casualty: a major fish kill in Fourchon, Louisiana.

Unfortunately initial media coverage of the NOAA report left the impression that the environmental disaster was over. Columbia Journalism Review lambastes The New York Times in particular for uncritically repeating claims that the oil has disappeared. Since the Deepwater Horizon first exploded, BP has shown no interest in either transparency or accurate reporting, government agencies have been too willing to repeat low-ball damage estimates and assist BP's obfuscation, and the media (with few exceptions) have not applied sufficient skepticism to the information coming from BP and the government. The performance of these public institutions has made for a truly sorry spectacle.

Cleaning a Sea Turtle

Checking a turtle's eye

The Deepwater Horizon Response Flickr site is one place to check if you want to see images from the oil spill. Since it is run by the government and BP, the images tend to put as positive of a spin as possible on the disaster. Despite that limitation, it sometimes has interesting photos, like this set showing the cleaning of a Kemp's Ridley Turtle (Lepidochelys kempii). All the photos in this post come from that set.

The Kemp's Ridley  Turtle is an endangered species. The main threat is from accidental capture by shrimp trawls or other types of fishing operations. Before beaches were protected, the turtles' eggs were vulnerable to harvesting. Unfortunately, the oil spill has added an extra threat to their survival.

Great Swamp Herpefauna

I was at the Great Swamp NWR yesterday in search of early spring migratory birds. I saw my first returning Eastern Phoebe of spring migration. (I did see an overwintering phoebe during the C&O Canal Count in January). Waterfowl were in low numbers, but there was a diverse mix of species visible from the blinds. I enjoyed hearing a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks as well.

However, reptiles and amphibians were far more noticeable than birds. Lots of Spring Peepers were evident around the swamp. I saw none but heard their peeping calls. In addition to the peeping, I heard some rising trills that I could not quite place. It was similar to the call of Gray Treefrogs, except that the audio samples I have heard of that species are of trills on an even pitch rather than a rising one.  

Update: I now think that the trills were from New Jersey Chorus Frogs. Both New Jersey Chorus Frogs and the similar Upland Chorus Frogs occur in Morris County, but New Jersey Chorus Frog is more likely to be encountered in the Great Swamp according to the refuge's herp list.

Another frog species present was Wood Frog (one is shown above). These frogs were calling in groups in several shallow ponds along the boardwalk trails. Wood Frogs have already laid a lot of eggs, as evidenced from the many egg masses, but are still very actively courting and mating.

In addition to the frogs, many snakes were active. Most of the ones I saw were taking advantage of the warm day and sunning themselves. I saw two Garter Snakes, neither of which was in a good spot for me to photograph it. The Northern Water Snake below was both photogenic and cooperative, as it stayed in the same position despite much activity on the boardwalk nearby.

This snake was sunning on a branch over the pool where I photographed the Wood Frogs. Water snakes prey on frogs, among other things. As I photographed the snake and listened to the frogs, I was reminded of a series of photos taken by one of my Flickr contacts of a water snake eating a bullfrog. The rest of the series is in the same set.

ESA Protections for Loggerhead Sea Turtle and Kaua'i Endemics

Last week, I expressed some frustration with the Obama's administration's record on endangered species after it placed Greater Sage-Grouse on the list of candidates. Up to that point, only two species had been listed under the Endangered Species Act since Obama took office, while 249 species have been sitting on the candidate list. This week that changed in a big way, with two announcements.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle at Archie Carr NWR / Photo by Ryan Hagerty (USFWS)

First, the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a joint proposal to list the Loggerhead Sea Turtle (Caretta caretta) under the Endangered Species Act. Loggerhead Sea Turtle has nine distinct populations around the world. Of these, two will be designated as threatened and seven as endangered. The two populations that occur in U.S. waters, the North Pacific and Northwest Atlantic populations, will both be designated as endangered. Loggerhead Sea Turtles worldwide are currently classified as threatened; the new listing is in response to petitions regarding the two U.S. populations.

This is a proposed rather than final rule, so it will undergo a public comment period first. If you wish to comment on the proposed listing, you can do so at www.regulations.gov until June 14, 2010. Once the Loggerhead is listed as endangered, the government will be required to designate critical habitat to protect feeding areas in the ocean and nesting areas on beaches.

‘Akeke‘e (Loxops caeruleirostris) / Painting by John Gerrard Keulemans

Second, 48 endemic species from the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i were listed as a group since they share habitats and have similar threats. This action addresses some of the backlog in listing petitions. An ecosystem approach is particularly suitable for Hawaii since so many vulnerable species occur in a relatively small area. It provides a way for the government to protect entire ecosystems rather than the narrow ranges where a species is known to be found. The USFWS plans to list new species by ecosystem on other islands in the next few years.

The 48 newly listed species (pdf) include 45 plants, 1 insect, and 2 birds. Among the 45 plants are several that have not been seen for several years, though they still exist in remote areas. One plant, Diellia manii, was considered extinct until its recent rediscovery. The insect is Drosophila sharpi, a Hawaiian picture-wing fly. The two birds are ‘Akeke‘e (Loxops caeruleirostris) and ‘Akikiki (Oreomystis bairdi). Both are Hawaiian honeycreepers and members of the finch family. They may be better known as Kaua'i 'Akepa and Kaua'i Creeper. These species had appeared stable until the mid-20th century, when both populations suffered precipitous declines. There are now about 3,500 'Akeke'e and 1,300 'Akikiki.

Along with listing the 48 endangered species, the USFWS designated critical habitat for 47 of them. The critical habitat covers 26,582 acres in six ecosystem types, 98% of which overlaps the critical habitat already designated for other endangered or threatened species. Most is on state-owned lands. Critical habitat was not designated for one palm species because it is a prized plant for collections; the USFWS was concerned that designating critical habitat might alert collectors to its location.

Box Turtle

Here is a box turtle from Brigantine:

Box turtles have a way of always looking slightly disgruntled. Perhaps it is because I only see them when I disturb them from some activity, such as crossing a path.

I took this photo back in August. It is one of many that have languished on my hard drives without being processed. Like the lighthouse photo, I took it shortly before my laptop's screen stopped working and needed repair. I will post a few more of these periodically in the next few weeks.

New Bird Ancestor Discovered

Palaeontologists have found a new bird-like dinosaur in China. Gigantoraptor erlianensis had a toothless beak and feathered arms and was about 26 feet long and 16 feet tall. (A skull and model are pictured at right) The fossil dates from the end of the Cretaceous Period. The large size of this species took the scientists by surprise.

Paleontologist Xing Xu of Beijing's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and colleagues discovered the animal while prospecting for fossils in the Erlian Basin of the Gobi Desert in north-central China. Based on its size, the paleontologists initially classified it as member of the tyrannosaur lineage, but bits of beak, leg and other bones revealed that it more properly belonged to the oviraptorosauria group, heretofore a grouping of small, feathered creatures weighing only a few pounds. "It is the largest known beaked dinosaur," Xu says. Adds paleontologist Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City: "I was just flabbergasted when I saw it because it was so big."

The finding complicates the evolutionary descent of birds from dinosaurs. "Progressively from within advanced theropods you get smaller and smaller towards birds," Norell says. But "after some species originate and spring off the bird line, you get secondary gigantism."

[...]

Already, Gigantoraptor is proving very odd, according to the paper detailing the find published in Nature. It bears a ridged humerus (upper arm bone) never before observed in a dinosaur as well as an enormous but birdlike femur (thighbone). "Maybe it has some sort of birdlike running mechanism," Xu says. Norell adds: "We don't know the biomechanical advantage this would confer. But I don't think it's hopping around at that size."

See also this slideshow of Gigantoraptor images. There is more discussion from Grrlscientist.

Thursday Turtle

Eastern Box Turtle

Photographed last Saturday at Little Bennett.