White Squirrels to Bring in 25,000 to Cool N.C. Town

You'll see at least one white squirrel: non-releasable Elliott  

Olney, IL, watch your back! Brevard, NC--a longtime rival  White Squirrel Capital of the World--may be snatching the title for good. About 20,000 - 25,000 people are expected this weekend at Brevard's 7th annual White Squirrel Festival to go on a white squirrel safari, compete with white squirrel photography, feeder-making and the "squirrel box derby." (Well, okay, some actually come for the music.)

Normally there's just one guy in a  squirrel suit called Woody the White Squirrel, but this year's extravaganza will feature 250 people in white squirrel costumes dancing to BrotherBrother for five minutes Saturday afternoon to set a world record. (Coincidentally, robots in Austin will be dancing for their own record nearly simultaneously.)

"We're really having fun with the theme," says the guy who dreamed the whole thing up, Phil Davis. "We're willing to be a little weird." Brevard is joining the ranks of towns that have parties to celebrate something no one can imitate: local wildlife. So along with 32 Bald Eagle Watches, Moose Festivals and events to watch hummingbirds and bats, it's only natural that a town with 1,000 white squirrels would flaunt it.

Many small towns--especially Olney--brag about their white squirrels. Cryptomundo lists 10 white and black squirrel cities and some try to tour them all. White squirrels, which are far more rare and exotic--breed competition that is suitably fierce and fun.

"There's a bunch of wannabe cities," Davis dismisses the competition. "They paint their squirrels is the rumor. We're not in support of towns that bleach their squirrels."

Typical pattern of Brevard, NC, white squirrel

Davis, a branding expert, said the town had an anemic monarch festival before he hit on the idea of trying a squirrel festival to coincide with more proven entertainment, a Memorial Day concert. Something about the name caught on. Now some attendees are astonished to find that white squirrels really live there. "You mean they actually exist?" they'll ask.

"It's primarily a music festival. They just love the fact it's wrapped in white squirrels," he says. "They love the magicalness of it."

Elaborate and very cool map showing percent of white squirrels around town

But there's plenty for people who actually want to see and celebrate the white squirrels. There are free  squirrel safaris that center around the likely ground of Brevard College. And they're guaranteed to see at least one: Elliott, a genial white squirrel who couldn't make it in the wild. Elliott was attacked by an adult when he was young, lost an eye and has complicated tooth problems, says wildlife rehabilitator Jennifer Burgin. Now five, Burgin feeds him a special diet by hand twice a day.

Burgin, who has been rehabbing squirrels for 20 years, likes how the town appreciates their squirrels. "They're very serious about their white squirrels," she says. "Everybody is very proud of them." In 1986 Brevard banned killing, catching or hurting its squirrels. People take extra care to avoid hitting them,  says Davis, who himself rescued one from the road. "I don't want people of gray persuasion to get angry, but white squirrels do enjoy some special protection."


Another thing Brevard has up on Olney is a population of about 1,000 squirrels and the White Squirrel Research Institute. Founded by a former professor at the college, Bob Glesner, the institute gathers and processes an impressive set of data on white squirrel population. Local residents volunteer for an annual survey to count both the number and percentage of white squirrels.

Glesner is watching whether the population becomes fragmented, but generally thinks they're doing okay. About 37% percent of the town's squirrels are white overall. But around the college, where the tours go, it's 46%. The highest is the performing arts center, where almost 9 in 10 squirrels are white.

The town is quick to point out that their white squirrels are not albinos. They have black eyes and their fur is just a color phase--a hair color, like a chocolate or yellow lab. Brevard's squirrels have a distinct look: a darker stripe down their spine and dark frosting on the top of their head.

Davis thinks the white squirrels are just what Brevard, which sits near the border with Georgia and South Carolina, needs. "Don't laugh," he says. "There was another rodent that saved another city. I don't think anybody's laughing about Disney and Orlando."

Where to Go See Unusual Squirrels
More Interesting Animals You Can See Down South
Adopt a Brevard White Squirrel
Attend the World's Biggest White Squirrel Festival in Brevard, NC

Wild Squirrel Invades Squirrel Rehab Room

The last time cheeky wild Mommy Squirrel came inside my apartment and somehow got Mickey, the squirrel recovering from a malocclusion, to bust out of her cage, there was some question as to why I didn't get pictures. At the time, it seemed like an emergency. 


Today I left the office for two minutes and came back to find Mommy Squirrel in my chair. So I grabbed the camera to see what Mickey would do. She came out and deliberately ate in front of Mommy Squirrel, but then seemingly ignored her. My dog Jolly would do give dogs who barked at him a kind of I can't see you kind of nonchalance.

I hope it's not any kind of Mickey's disability that she actually can't see the invading squirrel. I suspect Mickey is like my mom: she only pretends to be oblivious, but is on top of everything going on.

Where to go to See Interesting Squirrels
Where to See Wildlife in New York

Will Sea Turtles Be The Big Victims of the Gulf Oil Spill?

Kemp's Ridley sea turtle trudges through beach, photo by krembo1

The sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico may turn out to be the ones in the most trouble from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Even though they haven't shown signs of oil, they may be ingesting it.

Dr. Mike Ziccardi, a veterinarian who runs the Oiled Wildlife Care Network and is handling all the non-bird oiled wildlife in the gulf, now says they're getting a high number of dead turtles, 156 so far. Mostly juveniles and mostly the rarest kind, Kemp's Ridley, TampaBay.com reports. The dead sea turtles "are in higher numbers than you would expect," he told Reuters.

No one is sure what killed the turtles. There was Dr. Ziccardi was initially very cautious, noting that turtles just wash up dead this time of year and that they showed no oil. Some blamed shrimpers. OnEarth, the NRDC blog, says that Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP) estimates fishermen kill 25,000 sea turtles each year.  And that's way down from a decade ago, before the mandated Turtle Exclusion Device, when 86,000 were wiped out.

Now Dr. Ziccardi he's contemplating something more insidious: that they are injesting the oil but it doesn't show up on the outside. "Marine mammals and sea turtles are much more likely to have less apparent external exposure and greater internal exposure than avian species," he wrote on his blog. Animals that don't show oil can have internal oil damage. Sometimes you can see it in their feces but others have "sub-apparent internal exposure." You can find that by looking for microscopic toxin damage or chemical analysis, he says.

Kemp's Ridley's are critically endangered and only found in the gulf and on the east coast. They're carnivorous bottom-feeders, exactly what you don't want to be in this oil spill. It's the smallest sea turtle, nests during the day and en masse at sites called arribadas. In 1947 42,000 nested in one day near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. That fell to 5,00, but has climbed up to 7,866 in 2006. They nest at Padre Island, TX, too, but only 127 nests were counted in 2007.

A big set back was a 1979 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Ixtoc I,  that's a lot like Deepwater Horizon. the Blow Out Preventer failed. The spill was slow moving. Relatively few dead animals were found. Though the direct link was never found, the Times says, the population went way down.

All seven species of sea turtle are either endangered or threatened and five live in the Gulf of Mexico, the Parks Service says. The other big threat to sea turtles is people stealing the eggs and eating the females when they go ashore to lay them. It's mostly outlawed, but just this week Mexican cops caught two guys with 5,800 eggs near Acapulco.  In Denespar, Indonesia, cops confiscated 71 huge, endangered green sea turtles about to be served as food in a stall, the AP reports. The Jakarta Post says they also just caught men smuggling 12,000 turtle eggs in cigarette cartons aboard a ferry.

Looks like we might not have oiled birds being soaped up for camera, but something much slower and grimmer.

Where to Go See Turtles in the Wild

Where to Go See Animals Down South

Your Hair Probably Isn't Going to Clean Up the Oil Spill--and Neither Is Your Dog's or Alpaca's

Hundreds of volunteers are assembling booms at Boom B Qs

Funny thing about all that hair and fur being shorn around the country to great fanfare to sop up the BP gulf oil spill: nobody wants it. Or at least the people actually cleaning up the oil say it isn't as good as the store-bought booms they're using. But that hasn't stopped people from sending it in and reporters from extensively covering the sweet but so far futile gesture.

Last week the official spill Facebook page, Deepwater Horizon Response,  put out this deeply unpopular message:

We are not using hair booms at this time but are using commercially available sorbent boom when possible. In a February 2010 NOAA field test, commercial sorbent boom absorbed more oil and much less water than hair boom. Widespread deployment of hair boom could exacerbate the debris problem. There is adequate supply of ...sorbent boom for now, but we do encourage ideas of alternative solutions by calling (281) 366-5511.

The main group amassing hair, Matter of Trust, does some amazing recycling and has been championing and testing hairmats since at least 2007. The hair, stuffed inside pantyhose, really seems to work. But even they say only the hazmat crews should install and remove the booms. They're taking the rejection graciously, but proceeding full steam ahead:

BP hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about the properties of hair, fur, wool and fleece. And they're a little busy right now.... Matter of Trust is saying officially: "At this time, we are simply providing volunteers the opportunity to make hair boom and stockpile them all along the Gulf Coast, in case BP needs them." We're calling it Plan H (H is for Hair).

But let none of that get in the way of a "local people helping in international crisis" story.

Even the Canadians and horses are getting in on it. Well after the word that booms aren't being used, alpacas are still getting shaved and National Geographic is still doing a story on it. The group collected 10,000 pounds of alpaca hair. Hair is coming from Soho, Petco, and fans of Rachel Maddow. The Miami Herald and  About.com are still pushing haircuts. ZooToo has a how-to story on donating your pet's hair. Some stories have a teeny disclaimer on the end--oh, yeah, this may not work or be used sort of thing.

All of this is a sweet gesture, like donating blood after a catastrophe. It's wonderful to see so many people worried about the turtles, pelicans, dolphins and manatees their hair might help. But is it doing any good?

Where to Go to See Wildlife
Where to Go See Wildlife Down South

RESCUE GROUPS

• International Bird Rescue Research Center, based in California, started when after 1971 spill by the Golden Gate Bridge killed 96% of birds collected. 
• Tri-State Bird is based in Delaware and handles spills up and down the east coast. They offers training for general bird care and oil spills. Tri-State started after a 1976 spill in the Delaware River.
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network would help manage the turtles and marine mammals potentially hurt by the spill. Also based in California, the center has posted channels for volunteers in different states.

 PREVIOUS STORIES ON THE DEEPWATER HORIZON SPILL

• The Price of All This Cleaning Up Oiled Wildlife?
• Valdez: A Comparison for Wildlife 
• Media Upset Not to Find All Those Oil-Soaked Birds
• How Will the Gulf's Dead Zone Impact the Oil Spill?
• Wildlife Rescuers in Gulf Overwhelmed--By Volunteers, Not Patients
• Groups Recruiting Volunteers to Clean up to 400 Wildlife Species at Risk From Oil Spill
  
• Pelicans, Otters, Manatees Could be Hurt by Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
  
• Several Manatees Swimming Toward Danger and the Oil Spill; Mobile May Release Dammed Waters
  

Will NYC Get an Official Wildlife Care Center?

The Wild Bird Fund, which is New York City's defacto wildlife rehabilitation center, collected signatures this weekend to become the city's official place to go with injured, sick or orphaned wild birds and animals. They explained to people at a wildlife fest that New York is the only big U.S. city without a real wildlife care center.


So a bunch of volunteer wildlife rehabbers have picked up the slack. Rita McMahon and Karen Heidgerd run the Wild Bird Fund though  Animal General, a vet practice that donated care for 1,146 birds and 13 mammals last year.

Hawk from Teddy Roosevelt Audubon Sanctuary

A handful of other rehabbers do heroic amounts of work, too. Bobby and Kathy Horvath take the really hard cases, like coyotes and injured hawks. Vivienne Sokol is Manhattan's bird rehab expert. My friends Vicki Puluso, Chris Durham and Maura Mondrano handle squirrel cases.


Because the city is strapped, the Wild Bird fund is hoping to get a grant from Pepsi. Bobby Horvath has told me the plan got a boost after the recent coyote episode.

The New Yorkers that call me with animal troubles are usually surprised the city doesn't do anything for wild animals. Renee, a pregnant mom from outer Queens, about a day and night worrying and searching for some solution for the baby squirrels she found abandoned in her air conditioner. (I got to see them at the fest, looking plump and happy. Another rehabber, Ruby, took them in. New Yorkers see baby squirrels like unseen mythical beasts).

The finders and baby squirrels show up as if with a dowry of a cage, esbilac, dishes, blankets and nuts. Which makes me think New Yorkers would be behind getting the center going.


Donate to the Wild Bird Fund
Sign Their Petition to Get a Real NYC Rehab Center
Where to See Animals Around New York City

Recovering Squirrel Fends Off Invader

Mickey, the sweet black squirrel with a malocclusion, had an intruder this weekend. A wild squirrel we call Mommy Squirrel bust into the apartment and got Mickey so agitated that for the first time in three months she bothered to escape from her cage and climb a brick wall.

Mickey normally doesn't like to go out of her house. She comes out to eat, go to the bathroom, harumph around to complain if I haven't adequately stocked her with avocado. She only climbs the bars if she's agitated.

Mommy Squirrel lives nearby. Like last year, she is nursing and hungry enough to make a pest of herself. She is both pushy and picky. If she mere peanuts, apples and bananas are offered on the window sill, she'll put her paws to the window. Where's my chestnut? Or even a walnut will do.

Saturday I was painting and had the window open. I walk into the office to find Mommy on my desk chair and Mickey climbing the wall. I'm not sure which of these ladies upset the other. I'd like to think Mickey, enraged at yet another encroachment on her home ownership, came out to drive intruder Mommy Squirrel away.

I shooed Mommy outside, then guided Mickey back to her house. Once Mommy was out, she headed back that way anyway. The only solution I can think of is just to leave plenty of nuts outside for Mommy, who is having a tough time this year because her ne'er-do-well sons from last year have claimed my bountiful window sill as their turf and try to chase her away.  


 
Where to Go to See Special Squirrels
Plenty of Wildlife Lives in NYC. Found Out Where

Valdez: A Comparison for Wildlife

How does the Deepwater Horizon oil spill compare to the historical monster of Exxon Valdez, by which we judge all oil disasters? How long will this go on?


We went back to the records of Valdez to look at its size and what we might lay ahead.

•  In the Valdez spill Scientific American reports that 2,000 sea otters, 302 harbor seals and about 250,000 seabirds died in the first few days. So far we have only 2 birds in care that I know of.
•  Rescuers retrieved a total of 36,471 carcasses and captured 1,630 live birds, the IBRRC reports.
• The Valdez spill was March 24, 1989. The last wildlife rehab center closed September 6 of that year. The Deepwater Horizon spill was on April 22, 2009. By that measure, rehabbers will be on the scene until early October.
• By the 10th day of the Valdez oil spill, rescuers were finding 180 oiled birds per square mile, the Coast Guard reported.
• The oil spread so far in Prince William Sound that rescuers had to set up four wildlife care centers. They've already set up three down south. There are Oiled Bird Rescue Centers in Fort Jackson, Louisiana, Theodore, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida.
• How long will it take the wildlife to recover? Here's the really scary part. They're still digging up oil in Valdez and some species are still recovering.

Where to Go to See Wildlife
Where to Go See Wildlife Down South

RESCUE GROUPS

• International Bird Rescue Research Center, based in California, started when after 1971 spill by the Golden Gate Bridge killed 96% of birds collected. 
• Tri-State Bird is based in Delaware and handles spills up and down the east coast. They offers training for general bird care and oil spills. Tri-State started after a 1976 spill in the Delaware River.
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network would help manage the turtles and marine mammals potentially hurt by the spill. Also based in California, the center has posted channels for volunteers in different states.

 PREVIOUS STORIES ON THE DEEPWATER HORIZON SPILL

 

• Media Upset Not to Find All Those Oil-Soaked Birds We Were Expecting

•  How Will the Gulf's Dead Zone Impact the Oil Spill?
•  Wildlife Rescuers in Gulf Overwhelmed--By Volunteers, Not Patients

• Groups Recruiting Volunteers to Clean up to 400 Wildlife Species at Risk From Oil Spill

• Pelicans, Otters, Manatees Could be Hurt by Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

•  Several Manatees Swimming Toward Danger and the Oil Spill; Mobile May Release Dammed Waters

Where Are All Those Oil-Soaked Birds We Were Expecting?

One peculiar thing about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill so far: hardly any wildlife covered in oil. The lack of  oiled birds has mystified rescuers and exasperated the media. TV networks are clamoring for images, showing clip files and giving the impression that tons of animals are showing up hurt. That's not so--at least not yet.

Mike Ziccardi, a vet and director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network,  says on the OWCN blog that he got into a spat with "a fairly irate reporter from a major national news outlet" who demanded video access to the necropsy (animal autopsy) of some sea turtles. The network were desperate for dead turtle images even though the turtles didn't show initial signs of oiling and, as Ziccardi pointed out, were in found in a time and place typical of stranded turtles. (The other big threat to turtles is shrimp boats, Wallace Nichols from Grupo Tortuguero points out.)

Keith Olbmermann started a broadcast this week in ominous tone about "as dead jellyfish begin to wash up on the Mississippi coast." Dead jellyfish might be the one bright spot of the oil spill, given that the Gulf Dead Zone has caused a plague of jellyfish in the gulf.

A brown pelican is only second bird to be treated. Photo by IBRRC

Apparently California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger so expected oiled wildlife images that he dreamed some up. He just announced that he was withdrawing support for drilling off California's shores: "I see on TV, the birds drenched in oil, the fishermen out of work, the massive oil spill, oil slick destroying our precious ecosystem," he said at a press conference.


Both Schwartzenegger's descion and the lack of injured animals is fantastic, of course. Right now, nearly two weeks into what may be the worst oil spill in U.S. history, exactly two birds are in treatment. There's a northern gannet and this brown pelican. They're going to be media stars, these two.

Ziccardi is mystified by the lack of oiled animals. By this time in an oil spill, he says, "wildlife field operations are in full swing, the largest number of animals are being (or have been) collected, and facilities are bustling with activity." He doesn't know what to make of this lack of animal injury: "Normally I would be overjoyed at this lack of overt animal impact. No, overjoyed is a significant understatement ... but is this lull what we should expect in the days to come, or is the Sword of Damocles really about to come crashing down?"

That's a question all of us are asking. We've been told that the oil spill was on the verge of hitting the shore since last Friday morning. I'm thrilled it hasn't fouled beaches, wetlands and wildlife, but how is it not? Where is the oil going?

Ziccardi wonders if the oil dispersant chemicals are keeping the oil from the surface--where it would do the most damage to birds and marine mammals--but leaving it in the water where it will do long-term, hidden damage. Especially to clam beds. He uses my favorite word of the oil spill: BIOMAGNIFY. That means basically get eaten by the bottom of the food chain, concentrate there, then work their way up the food chain.  Kind of like mercury.

Where to Go to See Wildlife
Where to Go See Wildlife Down South

RESCUE GROUPS

• International Bird Rescue Research Center, based in California, started when after 1971 spill by the Golden Gate Bridge killed 96% of birds collected. 
• Tri-State Bird is based in Delaware and handles spills up and down the east coast. They offers training for general bird care and oil spills. Tri-State started after a 1976 spill in the Delaware River.
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network would help manage the turtles and marine mammals potentially hurt by the spill. Also based in California, the center has posted channels for volunteers in different states.

 PREVIOUS STORIES ON THE DEEPWATER HORIZON SPILL

• 
  

  Wildlife Rescuers in Gulf Overwhelmed--By Volunteers, Not Patients

•  How Will the Gulf's Dead Zone Impact the Oil Spill?
• 
  

  Groups Recruiting Volunteers to Clean up to 400 Wildlife Species at Risk From Oil Spill

• 
  

  Pelicans, Otters, Manatees Could be Hurt by Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

• 
  

   Several Manatees Swimming Toward Danger and the Oil Spill; Mobile May Release Dammed Waters

Looks Like We'll Be Blessed With a Few More Baby Squirrels

Got three more baby squirrels yesterday. More victims of a squirrel mother's inappropriate urban housing choices. A very sweet family in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, discovered them in squatting in their air conditioner vent. The mother squirrel bit the man, grabbed one of her four babies and ran off. Renee, the human mother of the house sat up all night with worry, leaving the squirrels wrapped for warmth but available for the mother to take. Squirrel mom returned, but didn't take the babies.

I'm full up with squirrels, so my fellow rehabber friend Vicki is coming to the rescue and taking them tonight. They're all boys, all healthy, still with their eyes closed. One is a screamer.

The adolescent squirrels were highly interested in the new arrivals. Or at least the formula-filled syringe I was feeding them with.

Flying Squirrel! Grover jumps around the cage while Baby Ruth plays with a paper towel.

Mickey, meanwhile, showed absolutely no interest. She did harumph around the cage--her signal that she has noticed that I have come into the room yet not delivered her food yet. I had been thinking Mickey was nearing ready to get released back to the Queens community garden where she lived before, with the possibility of recatching her if we needed to trim her teeth. She's definitely got two top teeth back, but they're crooked. But the Horvaths--way more experienced and licensed rehabbers than I--think she won't make it and offered her a permanent home with the other animals they've rescued.

More than her malocclusion issue, they don't think she's "wild up enough." There's something just off about her. She's never tried to bite me. I've clipped her teeth, bathed her, pulled her out of her house, tried to get her to take care of orphans. I deserved to be bitten. She doesn't take an interest in her grooming or housekeeping like a proper squirrel. Even the adolescents are already stuffing their box with papertowels. I hope for Mickey's sake there's something I've missed that they can do. Meanwhile, she's really lucky to get the offer.
Where to Go to See Unusual Squirrels

Where to Find Wild Animals in NYC

Read how the squirrels got here

Read where Mickey came from

Wildlife Rescuers in Gulf Overwhelmed--By Volunteers, Not Patients

Oiled gull in CA in 2007 by Ingrid Taylar. Not many oiled birds seen yet in the gulf.

So far only a single bird, a Northern Gannett, has shown up oiled from the massive Deepwater Horizon spill. Wildlife rescuers and nonetheless overwhelmed--by all the untrained human volunteers.

As the potential for the spill gets bigger, the big wildlife groups are contemplating holding training classes to equip the would-be volunteers, says Kai Williams, executive director of the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council.


Right now several groups are taking in information from potential volunteers.  The National Wildlife Federation is directing people to sign up with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.

 "If you have the ability to restain an animal, that's going to be huge, just the basic ability to hold an animal," says Williams. "They're getting a lot of untrained people, not wildlife rehabilitators, people who have never picked up a bird."

What makes planning the response so hard is no one knows how big this still-developing catastrophe is going to be or when and where a rush of injured animals will show up. Some contemplate that the Gulf Stream could wrap it around Florida. Some worry the spill could end up bigger than Valdez. Williams notes that fewer birds live in Valdez, but there are also turtles and marine mammals to worry about.

The northern gannet is being bathed, fed electrolytes and pepto bismal, but rough weather this weekend prevented picking up more patients. A caretaker told the AP that the bird came in brown, but should be white at its current age.


Nationally, three groups are known for their training in helping animals that have gotten coated in oil.

• International Bird Rescue Research Center, based in California, started when after 1971 spill by the Golden Gate Bridge killed 96% of birds collected. 
• Tri-State Bird is based in Delaware and handles spills up and down the east coast. They offers training for general bird care and oil spills. Tri-State started after a 1976 spill in the Delaware River.
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network would help manage the turtles and marine mammals potentially hurt by the spill. Also based in California, the center has posted channels for volunteers in different states.

Where to Go to See Wildlife
Where to Go See Wildlife Down South

How Will the Gulf's Dead Zone Impact the Oil Spill?

The Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico may collide with an area already bedeviled by environmental catastrophe, the infamous Dead Zone--an area of essentially no life or oxygen. So what happens when an inexorable oil slick meets and an undead patch of water?

The Gulf's Dead Zone is about 6,000 to 7,000 square miles, one of the biggest in the world, Microbial Life Educational Resources of Carleton College says. It's caused by fertilizer run-off in the Mississippi overfeeding algae. Phytoplankton gobble up the algae--and all the oxygen. Scientists call the areas hypoxia--or low oxygen. They can't support life.

The oil spill so far is smaller, about 1,800 square miles. So far.

Right now the dead zone is west of the Mississippi and the oil spill is east of it. The dead zone is mainly at the bottom, which is littered with phytoplankton carcasses. The oil is on top.

But Nancy N. Rabalais, Ph.D., executive director of Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium thinks they're likely to meet.

"If the winds continue from the southeast as is common this time of year, then the surface manifestation may move to the west of the Mississippi River delta and become a surface feature of the Louisiana area of hypoxia," says

Some seem to have fantasized that the oil burn off will end up cleaning up the dead zone. Not so, says Rabalais. "The burn would reduce the more volatile and toxic components," [in the oil] she says, but not burn off the algae.

The algae isn't going to slow the oil down, she says, but the oil may slow down the production of algae:

"The movement of the oil would not be affected by where the area of low oxygen may be. Algal production if the oil were to come into the low oxygen would probably be reduced in productivity because of the proximity of the oil."


The dead zone won't necessarily have cleared out the wildlife; it's too soon to tell, she says. While the dead zone is indeed dead to most sea life like plants and fish, birds and marine mammals pass through: "The area of low oxygen does not affect birds and marine mammals because they are air breathers and the marine mammals and turtles can reach the surface of the water for atmospheric air."

The impact she expects is the oil will calm that waters of the dead zone. There will be less oxygen transfer from surface air into surface waters. The waters will stratify. The oil would cut back on the production of phytoplankton at the surface. And the oil and dead zone could pinch in on organisms caught between the top and bottom.


Perhaps the biggest impact is that the oil spill may decimate the wetlands--the wetlands the government had been building up in hopes of filtering water of fertilizers to short-circuit the dead zone. So much for that.

Several Manatees Swimming Toward Danger and the Oil Spill; Mobile May Release Dammed Waters

Biologists know that a handful of manatees are in the Gulf of Mexico and swimming westward--toward the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but so far they have decided not to try to intervene. Mobile Bay officials may release dammed waters to push the oil away from the bay, a local scientist says.

A female manatee that spends the summer in Mobile Bay is now in Appalachicola Bay, FL, says Ruth H. Carmichael, senior marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, which is bracing for the oil slick.  Appalachicola Bay is roughly 250 miles from Mobile--if you take the shore route. They can swim up to 45 miles a day, but 5-15 is more likely.

"I hope she finds a nice location to wait for a while," Carmichael says. "The USGS also has a few tagged manatees they know are moving this way.  We are doing nothing to move or disturb the animals.  Right now the oil is offshore and the manatees are in shore.  We need to trust them to take care of themselves for now."

Manatees spend the winter near hot springs or power plants in Florida, but as their population has recovered, they are swimming further in the summer. A few now regularly visit Alabama and every few years a young male makes it up to New England.  

"Mobile Bay is trying to arrange for discharge of dammed waters , if needed, to force water out of the Bay and keep it westward off shore," Carmichael says. "Mississippi may be in greater danger.. but it is difficult to predict what will happen.  This is a terrible event. Discovering a third leak was tragic."

Where to Go to See Animals Down South

Where to See Manatees

Groups Recruiting Volunteers to Clean up to 400 Wildlife Species at Risk From Oil Spill

A stunning 400 species of birds, marine mammals, turtles, land mammals and reptiles could be hurt by the Deepwater Horizons oil spill, which is now just 6-7 miles off Louisiana. The current strong winds may blow the muck to shore by Friday morning, the latest report says.

Nola.com obtained a list of 400 species put in harm's way by the oil from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Bob Marshall writes that this is a particularly horrible time for the oil spill--right when birds are migrating through or nesting. The soon-to-be oiled area is:

vital wintering or resting spot for more than 70 percent of the nation's waterfowl, is used by all 110 neo-tropical migratory songbirds, and produces 50 percent of the nation's wild shrimp crop, 35 percent of its blue claw crabs and 40 percent of its oysters. Ressearchers say 90 percent of all the marine species in the Gulf of Mexico depend on coastal estuaries at some point in their lives, and most of those estuaries are in Louisiana.

The New York Times has a great chart highlighting which species are most at risk, mostly migrating birds. The brown pelican was just removed from the endangered species list.

The Oiled Wildlife Care Network--a collection of wildlife responders across California--has sent its director down and is collecting info on volunteers.  They say it's too late to train you to clean up animals but you could become a "convergent volunteer." Specialized groups or state rehabber associations do oil training seminars in preparation for a disaster like this.

The International Bird Rescue and Research Center is on alert, too. They regularly offer classes in Fairfield (northern California) and San Pedro (Southern California) for people to become volunteers.

The International Bird Rescue and Research Center is on alert, too.

Audubon of Florida is recruiting volunteers for the onslaught of oiled birds to be cleaned up at the Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland, FL.

The unified command for oiled wildlife is 800-557-1401.

The Lousiana Wildlife Rehabilitators Association directs residents to call (866) 557-1401 for the Oiled Wildlife Unified Command Center. Not sure which prefix is correct, but it's the same number.

The feds say they're setting up staging areas to protect the shoreline in Biloxi, Miss., Pensacola, Fla. Venice, La., Pascagoula, Miss., and Theodore, Ala.

AnimalTourism.com: Where to Go to See Wildlife

Pelicans, Otters, Manatees Could be Hurt by Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Deepwater Horizon oil spill seen from space over LA
Imagery courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory

Endangered sea turtles, herons, white and brown pelicans, dolphins, whales, manatees, tuna and assorted sea birds  could all be hurt by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that is now 16 miles off the tip of Louisiana and alarming wildlife officials all the way to Florida.

The Coast Guard is burning the oil, hoping that will keep it from making landfall and destroying wetlands. I wonder if, ironically, the giant dead zone in the gulf may mean that the area the oil spill hits may be devoid of life anyway. The next step for wildlife rescuers would be to herd animals out of the area by hazing them.
 
The International Bird Rescue Research Center in Texas says they've been put on alert for the decapitated oil well, which is gushing about 1,000 barrels (42,000 US gallons) of crude daily and already can be seen from space, with a circumference of 600 miles.

If the spill stays offshore then the impact will likely be minimal to birds. Coastal birds that are highly at risk if the spill hits shore are brown and white pelicans, terns, gulls, shorebirds, skimmers and herons. Nesting and feeding areas for birds and sea turtles such as marshes and beaches could be impacted.

Loggerhead and Kemp's Ridley turtles are in the area, Live Science says. Birds are vulnerable if they ingest the oil or get coated in it. The oil removes their waterproofing, then they die of cold. In a report on dealing with oil spills, the EPA says mammals that groom themselves with their mouths, like otters, end up eating oil and getting it in their eyes. Sea otters don't live there; river otters do. No one really knows how to help marine mammals stuck in oil, they say.

Procedures for capturing, treating, and releasing animals may hurt them more than the oil does. For example, manatees are particularly susceptible to secondary fungal and bacterial infections following capture or transportation. 

Whales, dolphins, seals and manatees end up breathing hydrocarbon vapors that hurt their lungs, getting it in their eyes and nursing young eat it. Manatees summer as far west as Texas (but that's rare); a few regularly visit Mobile, AL. The biggest danger to manatees, which spend the summer as far west as Texas, may be getting hit by boats responding to the disaster.

So far the Tampa Tribune reports that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hasn't found any oiled birds, but they are doing necropsies (animal autopsies) on 15 migratory birds found dead Tuesday in the Pass-a-Grille area of St. Pete Beach.


In Alabama, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab is sending boats out to test the waters and "trying to re-establish oiled bird emergency response plans that have not been exercised for many years." They fear it could be the worst Gulf oil spill ever. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry goes even further: "If we don't secure this well, this could be one of the most significant oil spills in U.S. history."

Where the oil spill is on 4/28

Where to Go to See Animals Down South

How Many Baby Squirrels in This Adorable Pile?

The baby squirrels have learned to nap in a hammock. Can you guess how many of the babies are huddled together? (answer at bottom)

At first Baby Ruth was shy and would have been sulking in the corner. Here she's at the bottom of the pile. I do hear some grumbling from the pile. It's not always Ruth crying; it's usually just that Alvin is roughhousing with his sisters. They have all gotten the hang of the hammock, which I just put up today.

 Alvin eats breakfast in bed.

Baby Ruth and Benji thinking: why is there not a nipple attached to that camera?

Baby Ruth experiments with almonds.

 Meanwhile, in the fortress of solitude on the other side of the room, Mickey is making some serious progress. For the last couple days she's eaten nuts. That means she's feeling more comfortable with her teeth. She still can't crack nuts--let's not get carried away. But once I open them for her, she eats them. I hope this means she'll be able to go back home soon, though I will miss her.

Where to Find Wild Animals in NYC

Read how the squirrels got here

Read where Mickey came from




Answer: All four.

Bald Eagle in Mating Crash May Get to Go Outside

Alaska bird rescuer Cindy Palmatier won't know for a month if the eagle that plunged into the snow while clutching her mate will ever fly again. Cindy Palmatier, director of avian care at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage, says the eagle did get bandages off one wing and may get to go outside Wednesday or Thursday.


The eagle pair became national news after they locked talons in their courtship dance on Easter morning and didn't let go in time. Normally they swing each other around, then break free. This time, at least one of them miscalculated and they crashed into the snow in Valdez. The male died on impact. Bob Benda, a biology professor, was on of the first on the scene and thought the female was dead, too, then noticed she was breathing.

Benda kept the bird overnight in a crate and again thought she died, the Valdez Star reports. In the morning he was happy to see her alive and got her flown to Anchorage.

I had wondered if the eagle might be pregnant, but Palmatier doesn't think so. The aerial spiral is normally a prelude to mating, she says. "I've never had an eagle lay an egg," she says. "If animals are stress they tend to just reabsorb the pregnancy," she said. And they treat 800 birds a year, 50 of which are eagles, she's had plenty of chances to see egg laying if it weren't so unlikely with these distressed birds.

Palmatier, who's also a vet tech, says the eagles they get fall into three categories: toxins (often from eating at the garbage dump), starvation (especially this time of year, before the salmon run) and trauma. Trauma can include anything from fighting with each other to getting hit by cars. They're currently getting a lot of emaciated patients because the winter was mild for moose and caribou, so there are few carcasses around to eat. Once again, our national bird becomes a lot less majestic once we learn the details of its lifestyle.

If the eagle is lucky, she'll recover from her head trauma and wing injury and get released in Valdez. If not, she'll become a permanent resident somewhere, if not the center.

The Bird Treatment and Learning Center has 30 birds that do educational displays for the public, but only four live at the center. The rest are farmed out to qualified volunteers who have built an enormous cage--often the size of a house. Interestingly, Palmatier says the state of Alaska doesn't let people rehab mammals--aside from a handful of big game babies that may go to the zoo.

Check out the Bird Treatment and Learning Center

Where to Go to See Eagles

Go to See Eagles

Baby Squirrels Lose Potential Foster Mother, Gain a Sister

Mickey has been evicted. I could tolerate when the one-time mother squirrel would tussle with these three orphaned babies when they dared to enter her squirrel palace. I thought she'd get used to them. Instead she actually followed one out of the house, went to where the babies were sleeping, picked out the one who had trespassed on her property and started slapping at him with her paws. Luckily, like most squirrels, she is an incompetent and half-hearted fighter.

So, I evicted her. Don't worry; she still gets to have the house she has come to love so much. But she's moved to another cage. And she totally knows what's going on. After the incident of her pushing around the baby squirrel, I took all the babies out of the cage and put them in a carrier. She came out 10 minutes later and searched the area for them.

Meanwhile, the babies got another companion, a female baby squirrel of what seems to be their age. She's from Stuyvesant Town and was climbing on people's feet. She's healthy but too young to be out on her own. She ate and immediately joined the pile of baby squirrels in the basket. She's a little bit shy, which is understandable, but the group accepts her as one of their own. They invited her to their favorite basket for a nap.

In keeping with my tradition of naming the squirrels after successive U.S. presidents, I looked to the list and found we were back to Grover Cleveland, for his second, later term. I can't have two Grover Clevelands running around. So, at my husband David's suggestion, she's named Baby Ruth, after Cleveland's daughter, who also inspired the name of the candy bar. 

 Benji, the smallest one, seems to have had the worst injuries from the fire. One of her hind feet was singed. She lost one claw and two are precarious. She also has two fresh wounds, which I think are scabs that her overly helpful siblings licked too much. Grover and Alvin are competing to see who can be the most obnoxious and strong eater. After their formula they often go to a stuffed animal duck in their cage and, still having the urge to drink, try to suckle on him.

My Squirrel Patient is Impatient with Me and My Redecorating

Benji's first grape

Today I tortured Mickey, the sweet black squirrel who's recovering from malocclusion, again. Or at least that's how she sees it. I caught her, clipped her teeth, cleaned the gunk off her paws and then took her house. The outrage!


I had noticed she had a hard time getting in and out, so I widened the door, installed a step on the inside and a hinge so I could open the roof easily. I replaced the filthy fleece with a yoga block and several walnuts--to get her thinking about using her teeth. She is still mad at me but she seems to like the improvements and I could hear her trying to open the walnuts.

Meanwhile, the babies the FDNY rescued started eating some solid food yesterday. Avocado and grapes are their favorite. But they'll be drinking formula for a long time yet. And the two bolder ones, Grover and Alvin, both know where it comes from: they come to the front of the cage if they're hungry and try to climb out to the milk when I'm feeding another squirrel.

Alvin seems to be picking up Mickey's sloppy eating style

I had hoped she would serve as a foster mother for the babies. Now that everyone's safe and comfortable, I can just stand back and hope they get together. If not, the babies will get their own cage and house soon.

 How to See Wildlife in NYC

Where to Go to See Special Squirrels 

Mickey's tricked out house

Instead of Going to a Roadside Zoo, Go to the FL Rehabber Who Rescues Their Rejects

Tiger brothers rescued by Wildlife Rehab or Hernando

If you're looking for an animal attraction in central Florida that doesn't make you feel icky about how they treat the animals, check out Wildlife Rehab of Hernando. Jimmy Jablon started out taking in local native wildlife--raccoons, alligators, fox--but demand for exotic animals turned out of homes and those creepy roadside attractions.

When you go to the shelter, less than an hour north of Tampa, you'll get much closer to animals than you would in a zoo and your donation for a tour ($17.50 for adults, $8.50 for kids) will go to help maintain these animals and save others. "We let all the people that come here get close to the animals," he says. "You stand a foot from the tigers and the monkeys are on a fence next to you."

Right now Jablon could use the donations, after spending $8,000 for tests and surgery for a 160 pound lion cub that's now recuperating in his house to ward off infection. Jablon has seen so many of what he calls "photo cubs"--big cats misused to pose for cute pictures when they're young--that he recognized the syndrome. The cat had been underfed and improperly fed and her skull wasn't growing to keep up with her brain. Jablon drained more of his savings from working in the insurance business to pay the vet bills, which he had been hoping to get a break on for rescuing the animal.

Recently he did get a big break thanks to Waste Management and Wal-Mart. Rather than take the retailer's unsold meat to the landfill, Waste Management makes it available to Jablon, who otherwise would have to buy 1,000 pounds of meat a week to keep his carnivores fed. "There's nothing wrong with the meat. Sometimes it's still frozen," he says. Regulations just require removing it after so many days. He's got no such help with produce: he spends about $23,000 a year on fruits and vegetables.

All of his enclosures are about twice the size they need to be, but he wants to give the animals a decent life. He only takes in creatures that he has--or can make--room for. "If I don't I'm just putting them in the same position," he says. He just built a facility for two cats rescued from Vanishing Wildlife, which rented animals out for parties, until the state shut them down.

Native animals only stay if they can't make it in the wild and seem content there. "Don't take an animal that's always been wild and try to keep them behind bars," he warns. He'd rather euthanize the animal than keep it in misery. "If we've got an animal can't be released and it's spending 12 hours a day pacing in his cage, he's just being tormented." 

He keeps an albino raccoon named Stuart Little that wouldn't make it in the wild because predators and other raccoons would pick him out immediately. Stuart has the company of four raccoons with vision, neurological or motor problems. Jablon doesn't ever keep a solitary animal of a social species. He even bought a lemur to keep two rescues company. And he's hoping someone needs a home for a wallaby soon.

The need for an exotic sanctuary just snuck up on him. "Like everybody else, I thought there was somebody else taking care of it," he says. "There's a much bigger need than people are aware of."

He also knows that long-term he can do the most good with education. As a father of a 13-year-old girl who plays a big part in the shelter, he's especially interested in teaching kids about the right way to treat animals. "We try to grab the kids the most," he says. "They put a name or a face to an animals and later they'll say 'Oh, look out, that's a gopher tortoise, don't hit it!'"

Visit Wildlife Rehab of Hernando

See more Wildlife in Florida

Visit Other Big Cat Sanctuaries Around the World

Baby Squirrels Open Eyes, Get Neglected by Potential Foster Mother

The three baby squirrels the FDNY rescued from a car fire over the weekend all have opened their eyes today and are getting bigger and stronger all the time. But so far Mickey, the squirrel recovering from a malocclusion, has not gone along with my plans to make her a foster mother.

I repossessed Mickey's squirrel house Tuesday, hoping to get her to pay attention to the baby squirrels. I thought since she had babies herself last year she'd be excited about it. Nope. I guess she isn't a fan of those pictures passed around the internet.  Or that the animals in them are really animal supermoms, like those women who adopt 18 special needs kids.

Mickey's brief foray to get avocado

Mickey, on the other hand, was just furious at the situation. She ran around the cage, chattering her teeth and pushing things over, looking longingly at her house that was just outside the cage. She was like a Leona Helmsley squirrel, only concerned about her real estate, couldn't care less about the little ones. Finally I gave her the house back. She went inside and has barely been out since. She is very aware of the babies; if I take them out for feeding, she jumps at the opportunity to go eat in solitude.


But the babies are growing so they'll soon be able to get into her house. Then I'll have to see if she warms up to them--like she did to the house. Or I may have to separate them. The small, meek girl, Benji, started the eye-opening by opening just one of her eyes Tuesday night. I'm always surprised by how slow the process is, with just a tiny hole between the lashes at first. Now they can clumsily crawl around the cage. They try to suckle a stuffed animal I put in there. That's just the sort of thing that's going to either endear Mickey to them or force me to set up another cage.


Where to Go to See Unusual Squirrels

Where to Find Wild Animals in NYC

Read how the squirrels got here

Read where Mickey came from