Connecting People with Nature

Another Symbol of the Wilderness in Peril

By Naturalist William Hudson

The dictionary defines the word synergy as "The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects."

In Nature, synergy is usually a good thing, and the world is full of fascinating synergistic relationships that make up the threads of every healthy ecosystem. Unfortunately, negative synergies are also possible, particularly when a number of human-caused insults to an ecosystem combine to make a bad situation worse. The tragic die-offs of thousands of loons and other diving birds along our Great Lakes shorelines over the last several years are an alarming example of this phenomenon.

Loon die-offs human-caused

In a recently released report, the NYDEC estimated that since the year 2000, over 50,000 fish-eating birds in the New York waters of Lakes Erie and Ontario, many of them loons, have suffered from the horrible slow death of botulinum poisoning. Botulism is a neurotoxin-induced muscle paralysis caused by Clostridium botulinum, a naturally occurring bacterium involved in the decay of plants and animals. Although there are at least seven types of Clostridium botulinum bacteria, each requires a rich nutrient source and a lack of oxygen to proliferate. Type-C botulism has been known for many years to cause occasional die-offs of puddle ducks in warm, overly fertile ponds or wetlands, and Type-E has caused small, sporadic die-offs of fish-eating birds, primarily in the Great Lakes. In recent years, however, something has changed. Outbreaks of Type-E poisoning have been much more common and widespread, occurring in each of the last six years and involving many more birds. Although the exact mechanism is poorly understood and not well-researched, it appears that a combination of man-caused phenomena is responsible for this alarming epizootic.

Invasive Species and Polluted Runoff Combine with disastrous results

Here's how we think this negative synergy works: our combined sewer and sanitary sewer overflows, lawn chemicals, and agricultural run-off, still at levels far higher than Clean Water Act targets for the mid-1980s, have made our lakes overly fertile. Non-native zebra and quagga mussels, brought from Eurasia by freighters, have filtered the water of the Great Lakes, allowing greater light penetration into deeper waters. The excessive nutrients and increased light allow algae, like the pale green cladophera that piles up on our beaches every summer, to proliferate. When the blooms of algae die and collect on the bottoms of the lakes, they provide the food source and create the anaerobic conditions needed for the growth of botulism producing bacteria. Warmer than average water temperatures in recent years may also contributing to this toxic growth.

But how does the botulinum toxin get into the birds? Apparently, non-native mussels on the lake bottom concentrate the toxins released by dying Clostridium bacteria, and pass them through the food chain to the round-nosed goby, another incredibly abundant invader introduced in ballast water from ocean going ships. When rafts of migrating diving ducks and loons settle in on the lakes in the still-warm waters of autumn, they feed on the poison-laced gobies, become paralyzed, and drown, washing up in huge numbers on the shores of Western New York and elsewhere in the Great Lakes. In case you haven't heard, we are now advised to handle any Great Lakes bird or fish that is behaving abnormally with rubber gloves, to avoid being poisoned ourselves.

Action needed to save the Great Lakes

The Sweetwater Seas, as the Great Lakes are sometimes called, are probably the Earth's most important freshwater ecosystem, holding about 90% of North America's and 20% of the entire world's fresh surface water. Vast human and natural communities depend on the ecological stability of the Great Lakes ecosystem, and I think that this most recent catastrophe speaks loud and clear to the need to take action. Most of the laws and regulations needed to stop pollution of the lakes and to prevent the introduction of new aquatic invasive species have been on the books for years or even decades, and new Great Lakes protection measures are currently being debated on both state and federal levels. All that we need is for people of good will to insist that these protective measures are enacted and enforced; and not tomorrow but today.

John Muir once described the call of the common loon as "one of the wildest and most striking of all the wilderness sounds, a strange, sad, mournful, unearthly cry, half laughing, half wailing". I have had the good fortune to hear this amazing call echoing over the still waters of Canadian lakes, and cannot imagine a world in which this call has been silenced. If we keep pumping our sewage into the Great Lakes and allowing ocean going ships to dump ballast water in the name of commerce, the call of the loon may well be silenced, and we will all be the poorer for it.

In the past we have marked the continuing abuse of the Great Lakes in closed swimming beaches and fish consumption advisories-now we are marking the time in a great die-off of one of the purest symbols of the American wilderness. I hope this is as unacceptable to you as it is to me. Although I don't often ask this of our readers, I am asking each of you to become involved in helping to save our Great Lakes. The internet is full of sites and links that provide information and opportunities to become involved; a few of these are provided below, along with links that will allow you to hear the call of the loon on your computer. Even if you have never contacted your legislators please contact them about saving Our Great Lakes ecosystem, before it is too late. If you need something to give you the courage to make these calls and demand greater protections for the Great Lakes, listen carefully, preferably with your eyes closed, to the call of the loon, think of thousands of them dying unnecessarily and washing up on our shores every year, and then make your own voices heard.

Some Links of Interest

Call of the loon
Call of the Loon(you may need to download the free media player)
Link to NYDEC website on die-offs
Healing Our Waters coalition website
National Audubon's Great Lakes Page
Link to Great Lakes United
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neoNaturalist.com's e-newsletter chicklet
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