Just as I am now wondering about all the by-catch of the enormous nets that are used in the ocean fishing industry. The purse seine nets can be up to 6,500 feet in length (a mile is 5,280 feet) and 650 feet in depth. Corks are put on the upper part of the nets and lead weights on the bottom. Another netting method is drift netting. Perhaps the worst type of fishing is bottom trawling. Tuna fishermen look for dolphins because they often swim near tuna schools but nearer the surface of the water. If the dolphins get tangled in the nets and cannot reach the surface to breathe, they perish, and anything else that may get caught in the nets such as sea turtles or unwanted fish. It is unsustainable fishing. It is killing literally tons of marine wildlife other than tuna. For us. The billions of us. When we purchase well-known brands of canned tuna, such as Starkist, Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea, and probably even lesser brands that are packed in Thailand, we are not directly involved or knowledgeable about the origins and catching techniques. This distancing from whence cometh our daily bread is one of the facts of modern life. Starkist, with its avidity, ranks at the very bottom of the destructive fishing industry with its lack of transparency about where and how it gets its tuna. (Sierra May/June 2019) There is self reproach about the small can of tuna I had at lunch. We shouldn’t be eating much tuna anyway due to its lead content. But that overriding thought keeps coming back to my mind, “How do we continue to feed the accelerating masses of humanity?” With the Covid 19 pandemic still hovering over our nation, and the world, we are having to learn to live in a state of necessary and forced adaptation. We may have to continue to live in an adapted state to cut corners, to tighten our belts, even after the pandemic. Young Australian born author, Charlotte McConaghy, has touched a nerve with her book, “Migrations.” When she writes, “…remembering what its like to love creatures that aren’t human,” I felt stunned. Thinking of how much I love having wildlife living near me, another sentence rang true: “How lonely it will be here, when it’s just us.” The main character, Franny Stone, in “Migrations” has convinced a fishing boat captain to help her follow the few remaining Arctic terns in their migration to the Antarctic. It is the longest migration of any bird. It is a dangerous and arduous journey for both the birds and the boat. It is a dark book, but it does make you ponder. And when you read in Sierra (Jan/Feb 2020) magazine, “There are 3 billion fewer birds in North America than there were in 1970—more than one in four has disappeared,” it makes your heart hurt. The book tends to blame the extinctions on climate change, the warming of the oceans, and that may well be a prophecy. But as the present administration continues to open up national parks and forests for harvesting wood and drilling for oil, including drilling in the ocean, the wild lands needed for animal habitat survival are shrinking. As one example: “The present administration has moved to exempt Alaska’s Tongass National Forest from road-building rules, opening the door to logging on 165,000 acres of old growth forest.” (Sierra, Jan/Feb 2020)
The most recent gutting of the National Environmental Policy Act is…..“declaring a pandemic… economic emergency, (therefore) waiving enforcement of the Endangered Species Act and other key environmental laws.” (Sierra, Sept/Oct, 2020) As long as this administration reigns our environment, our planet will suffer. It will definitely be lonely here, when it is just us. I am thankful and happy for the wild things with whom we still co-exist. As Psalm 118:24 states: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice in it and be glad.” [email protected] ©Ann Rains September, 2020 Note: For more information about this administration’s assault on the environment go to: sierra.com/trumpwatch
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