Here we are in mid-July. Already. It's going way too fast as usual! I hope you get to take some time off this summer and enjoy all of the beauty around us here on the East End. If you haven't in a while, now's a great time to take a hike and experience the natural world, and seek some serenity from the strip.

Great natural landscapes are all around us. You can read about some local places to visit at www.nature.org/longisland

Did you know that more than 2/3 of the Montauk peninsula has been protected for public use? Thanks to many visionaries and many dollars, we can immerse ourselves in the wild, natural beauty of Montauk, while still have easy access to town.

Wherever you choose to visit this summer, do it soon. Before you know it, this wonderful season will come to an end!

 

In a previous blog, I promised to send along some pointers for action you can take to ensure our beaches and bays stay healthy. I don't know if anyone is paying attention -- don't worry there won't be a quiz. 

But no matter where you live, you need healthy oceans to support your daily life – air to breathe, food to eat, places to work and play. Even small changes can make a difference. Here's today's tip on how you can help:



Make informed seafood choices. Keep a copy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s seafood guide in your wallet or text Blue Ocean’s FishPhone to help you choose sustainable seafood at the grocery store or a restaurant.

They are both easy and simple ways to find out if the fish you are thinking or buying is sustainable or not. And who knows, they may even help you try something you've never had before!

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If Oil Should Strike Our Shores

Talking to a colleague in Florida about the oil spill, she shared some great advice for us here on Long Island: organize a beach clean-up and encourage people to clean up the beach themselves. A debris-free beach means an easier clean-up later – if oil should strike our shores.  It may sound like double the work. If we are going to clean it up later, why bother cleaning it up now? Aside of the practicality of doing so, there is an important reason behind it. Trash on the beach that is covered with oil is considered a hazardous material and requires trained crew and personnel to take care of. That can delay the clean-up process, causing even greater risk to fish, wildlife, and wetlands. It induces more clean-up cost, too. If oil doesn’t hit, we’d have a clean beach. And that would be a good thing. To get involved, you can volunteer with Operation SPLASH who specializes in cleaning up our waters and beaches. Check them out at operationsplash.net/

SHARK!

Granted, that is not a word you want to hear when you are at Hither Hills. Like the folks who recently sighted one, I'd certainly be very uncomfortable sharing the water with such a massive creature!

But some sharks are among the most endangered and at-risk marine animals on earth. Globally, over 70 million tons of shark are caught and killed annually: sometimes for food, sometimes as by-catch and sometime just for their fins — a luxury commodity used in soup. 

Shark fin soup, sold at astronomical prices, is the result of perhaps the most wasteful of marine practices. The fins are chopped off (the dorsal fetches the highest price) and the writhing carcass is dropped overboard.

Like a plane that has lost its ability to steer, the shark spirals into the blue — a slow, topsy-turvy death.

Sharks are hitting bottom because humans are eating at the top of the marine food chain. Because sharks are generally slow-growing and slow-reproducing top predators, the taking of sharks...

Celebrating its 10th year, the Beaches and Bays Gala is The Nature Conservancy’s largest fundraiser. It happens Saturday, June 26th at the Center for Conservation in East Hampton.

 

“This year’s Beaches and Bays Gala is a chance to celebrate with all of our wonderful supporters. It’s an opportunity to look back on all that we have accomplished together for conservation on Long Island and beyond,” said Nancy Kelley, executive director of The Nature Conservancy on Long Island. “But it’s also about looking forward to the future of conservation which has such an important role in all of our lives and affects everyone across the globe.”

 

Long Island Chapter Trustee Barbara Slifka will be honored for her commitment to conservation. She has been a major supporter of the Conservancy’s local shellfish restoration work, as well as international programs including ocean conservation, climate change and protection of native lands in the Amazon. In recognition of Ms. Slifka’s extraordinary support...

Last week, I had the pleasure of working with the wonderful East Hampton Garden Club who hosted a Flower Show at the Maidstone Club. So, what’s the connection to conservation?

The Nature Conservancy was invited to display a Conservation Exhibit there.

The show’s theme was Harvesting the Land and Sea, which ties in perfectly to our east-end environment. We featured our shellfish restoration efforts and brought our beautiful “Take a Second Look” poster series. The display portrays marine life as art, with a close up focus on the beauty of scallops, clams, fiddler crabs and seagrass. But of course, our aquarium with live clams, scallops and oysters stole the show! It was hard not to get your attention when they did what they do best – opening up their beautiful shells, swimming in the water, filtering it and keeping it clean.

Our special thanks goes out to all of the hard working ladies of the East Hampton Garden Club who made this event one to remember!

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It’s officially summer! And what a great start to the season. Hopefully, you are getting out and enjoying the nature and environment around us. By now, nature is in full swing. Ospreys are feeding their chicks, piping plovers have hatched and insects are busy pollinating crops.

There’s a lot to celebrate this summer. But there’s also a lot to be mindful of when you are out there enjoying the natural world. As I mentioned a few blogs ago, I’d be sharing some tips about our waters. Things you should know and how you can help. Here’s a few simple solutions:

1.       Pick up any trash you see on the beach. As it turns out, the ubiquitous white plastic bag looks like a squid when it’s in the water. And what eats squid? Many marine creatures -- sea turtles, dolphins, whales. When they eat plastic, it spells disaster.

2.       BYOB. That’s bring your own bag when you go shopping! Less disposable bags mean less waste in our waters.

3.       Reduce your fertilizer and pesticide use, go organic...

We're unsure about whether or not the oil from the gulf will wash up on our local shores but one thing is certain: our coasts are under assault every day. The threats are numerous, and many are not visible. That's why it's so important to take measures to protect our coasts and oceans, essentially making them as resilient as possible so that they may fare well in the face of such threats. There are solutions. One of which is studying and restoring our wetlands so that they can do their job - filtering the water and keeping it clean. We're doing just that on Long Island. Over the next several days on this blog, I'll explore with you the different ways that we can work toward healthy waters and coasts.

You can learn more at www.nature.org/marine

Leaked emails. Hidden data. Suspicion and speculation. Finger pointing and denial. It’s not the plot of latest mystery novel; unfortunately it’s how climate change science is being spun lately.

 

The fact is: climate is warming and the likelihood that we’ve caused it has been endorsed by every national science academy that has issued a statement on climate change, including the science academies of all of the major industrialized countries. At present, no scientific body of national or international standing has issued a dissenting statement.

 

With that said, there are clearly gaps in our understanding of some of the specifics. Downscaling global climate models for regional application is problematic. There is a great deal of uncertainty about the magnitude and rate of polar ice-sheet breakdown. We don’t know for sure whether certain storms will get bigger. Scientific debate over these issues is healthy. Debate fuels scientific research by identifying areas of uncertainty to be addressed...

On a birding outing during the weekend, my husband and I layered up and headed out to Ponquogue Bridge, Hampton Bays. A few lonely black ducks dotted the shoreline. As the bay was frozen, there was little chance of seeing any more wading birds so we headed down Dune Road.

There is something so austere about birding in the winter in an otherwise bustling summer town. Only one or two cars passed us along the strip. Houses stood abandoned for the season, boarded up, forbidding. There was seemingly nothing going on until we caught a fleeting glimpse of the "Gray Ghost." This elusive being is not easy to come by and when it does, you don't forget it.

The adult male harrier, also known as the gray ghost because of its ashen feathers, is a stunning bird of prey. It hunts in marshes, looking for rodents and other tasty treats. Its face has the look of an owl with a lean, slender body. A distinct white patch on the rump and its graceful flight help identify it. But not all harriers are gray. Females and immature...