Small Signs of Hope

1. Red Wolves are doing fine in North Carolina. The picture at top is your hero at a North Carolina road sign last week. Nearly wiped off the face of the planet, the last Red Wolves were trapped, bred, and released back into nature at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina where they have added to their own numbers and now seem to have settled down to a more-or-less stable population of just over 100. More Red Wolf introductions have been tried in other locations with less success (they need a big area without too many humans which is hard to find on the East Coast), but a small pocket of Red Wolves may have naturally shown up along the West Virginia/Virginia border (Shhhhh! Tell no one!). The Red Wolf, is a naturally occurring and stable hybrid of the Grey Wolf and the Coyote. If anyone tries to tell you stable hybrids do not occur in nature, tell them nonsense. Of course they do, and the Red Wolf is a perfect example.



2. Blue whales have been discovered singing off the coast of New York. The voice of a singing blue whale has been tracked just 70 miles off of Long Island and New York City. A second blue whale was also heard singing offshore in the far distance. There are only about 600 blue whales in the Atlantic and only about 15,000 across the globle.



3. Four Fish Stocks Rebound. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has reported to Congress that four stocks — Atlantic bluefish, Gulf of Mexico king mackerel and two stocks of Atlantic monkfish — have been rebuilt to allow for continued sustainable fishing.



4. New Jersey Shorebirds are Adding a Little Weight. Sanderlings, Red Knots and other shorebirds that depend on horseshoe crab eggs to rebuild body mass lost after long migrations from South America are finally making weight again in time to head North on a normal migration schedule. Overfishing of horseshoe crabs, which started about two decades ago, resulted in a near total collapse of the Redknot population. With restrictions on horseshoe crab harvests, however, the population of that ancient creature is just starting to rebound, and with it the food sources of migrating Redknots and others shore birds. We have a long way to go with the Redknot, but we may have reached the bottom of the decline.



5. Shad runs in the Potomac are inching back up. American shad populations in the Potomac River are on the rebound thanks to a successful shad restoration program launched by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. The numbers are still far, far below what they once were, but the fishing is pretty good just below my house, none-the-less.
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