Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Thursday 9 November 2017

Volunteers track dead birds as indicator of coast’s health

By PHUONG LE to test our ideas in the
Associated Press past about whether peo-
OCEAN SHORES, Wash. (AP) ple may be scavenging
— Barbara Patton scans the bird carcasses from the
expansive beach on Wash- beach,” she said.
ington’s outer coast look- Parrish said there can be
ing for telltale signs of dead skepticism about citizen
seabirds: a feather sticking science.
straight up, dark colors in She designed the bird sur-
the sand, unusual seaweed veying program years ago
clumps that could mask a so information collected
carcass. could be independently
Minutes into the nearly mile- verified - by photographs,
long walk near her Ocean measurements and other
Shores home, she and her paper records.
husband, Mike, encounter On a recent clear day not
the first of three birds they’ll far from where the Pattons
find that morning. collected their carcasses,
Experience tells them it’s Jeanne Finke, Susan Kloep-
a common murre. But the pel and Bob Witt fan out
retired volunteers work across the beach.
through a protocol to iden- Brown pelicans and
tify the species: Eyes gone. seagulls soar above crash-
Breast eaten. Feet pliable. In this photo taken Sept. 28, 2017, Bob Witt picks up the remains of a Brandt’s cormorant as part of ing waves. Little sandpip-
They measure the wing, bill a citizen patrol surveying dead birds that wash ashore on beaches along the U.S. West Coast, in ers scurry and peck in the
and other body parts, and Ocean Shores, Wash. wet sand. But Finke and her
photograph the bird, front Associated Press team are more interested
and back. land to breed or nest. But Combined with other of years ago. in the birds that are dead
All of that information is en- more birds are dying and large-scale data from sat- “It helped us to be able than alive. q
tered into a massive data- dying close to shore, Parrish ellites and other surveys,
base kept by the Coastal said. Parrish said, it can provide World Science Forum holds first
Observation and Seabird Researchers think warmer- high-quality data over a
Survey Team, or COASST. than-usual ocean temper- geographic scale not at- Mideast conference in Jordan
The long-running citizen atures shook up the eco- tainable any other way.
monitoring program at the system, favoring warmer The data is used to track By ALICE SU, opening session, a robot
University of Washington species and redistributing seasonal, short-term and Associated Press shaped like a person rolled
tracks dead seabirds as an the seabirds’ food. long-term changes in sea- DEAD SEA, Jordan (AP) — onstage, holding hands
indicator of the coastal en- COASST volunteers are birds, revealing patterns The king of Jordan and the with a physicist. The robot
vironment’s health. helping search for clues about where and when president of Hungary on greeted the audience,
“The data that the partici- and identify die-offs faster. certain species die. There Tuesday opened the World saying it had come from
pants collect is invaluable,” In 2014, when Cassin’s are seasonal peaks, after Science Forum, a biennial Japan and would now be
said Julia Parrish, associate auklets, a small diving sea- breeding seasons when ex- gathering of scientists and based in Jordan. Jordan’s
dean of the university’s col- bird with blue feet, began hausted parents and chicks policy makers from around King Abdullah II present-
lege of environment and washing ashore by the wash ashore or when sea- the world that is being held ed achievement awards
head of the program. “We thousands along the U.S sonal migratory birds get for the first time in the Mid- to 14 Jordanians in differ-
can’t get it remotely, with West Coast, citizen scien- stranded. dle East. Participants said ent fields, including medi-
satellites, with drones.” tists patrolling their stretch The data amassed has also science could pave a path cine, physics, mathemat-
Lately, the data has point- of beaches were among been used by other scien- to peace in the conflict- ics and architecture. The
ed to bigger and more fre- the first to notice it. Patton tists and resource manag- scarred region. four-day conference, held
quent seabird die-offs. recalls counting a few doz- ers to monitor bird health “It is no accident that this on the Jordanian shore of
“It’s causing us to step back en dead birds in one walk. and other research. year’s forum focuses on the Dead Sea, drew 3,000
and say, ‘Whoa, what’s go- Under the program, hun- Kristine Bovy, associate an- the issues of food security, participants. The World Sci-
ing on here?’” Parrish said. dreds of volunteers comb thropology professor at the water and energy,” said ence Forum was launched
“For four years running, stretches of beach from University of Rhode Island, Hungarian President János in Hungary in 2003.
we’ve had unusual mortal- Mendocino, California, to used the modern bird data Áder. “All three of these “Having grown up on the
ity events of marine birds Kotzebue, Alaska, each to help evaluate how in- areas are fundamental to eastern side of the Iron
from California to the Arc- month looking for car- digenous people in the Pa- security. A series of histori- Curtain, science provid-
tic Circle.” casses that have washed cific Northwest may have cal examples proves that ed my first window to the
Seabirds spend most of ashore. Since 1998, they’ve scavenged to find bones shortages of food and world,” said László Lovász,
their time feeding and liv- recorded nearly 76,000 and other natural resourc- water also threaten so- president of the Hungarian
ing out at sea, coming to dead birds. es on the coast hundreds cial harmony.” During the Academy of Sciences. q