News

October-November 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

REMEMBER THIS PHOTO?

This amazing photo by photographer Suzanne Steel appeared in our last issue as part of an ad. In the rush of last minute production we neglected to notice that no photo credit was included. Our apologies to Suzanne. We encourage you to see more of her photography and learn about her designs at www.hotsteeldesign.com.

KAYAK INDUSTRY SUPPORTS MARINE AUCTION

The paddling industry will be prominent at Georgia Strait Alliance’s Gala Dinner Auction & 15th Anniversary Celebration in Victoria on October 22nd. By supporting GSA in its fundraising effort, the industry is helping to make a difference for the future of the orca and countless other marine creatures that call the Strait of Georgia their home.

The event is a celebration of GSA’s first 15 years as well as a launching point for ‘The Next 15’ in GSA’s efforts to protect the region’s marine environment. As of press time, paddling-related items to be at the auction included:

• a fiberglass Enigma kayak from Extreme Interface

• a 4-day kayaking expedition for two from WeGo Kayaking

• day paddles, guided tours and kayak rentals from companies including Sea Legs Kayaking Adventures, Gulf Island Kayaking, and Rainforest Expeditions

• a 2-day introductory kayaking course from Ocean River Sports

• a collapsible kayak carrying cart from Seaward Kayaks

• paddling boots from Brooks Paddle Gear

• native oceangoing canoe excursion from Nala Adventures

• outdoor wear and gear from West Marine

The auction will also include great getaways (including a 7-day natural history trip on a 70-foot motor sailor), boating and marine supplies and services, fine art, handcrafted jewelry, books, home and garden supplies, professional services, outdoor fun, fine dining and entertainment opportunities and lots more. You can view the auction items at www.GeorgiaStrait.org/auction. The event takes place at McMorran’s Beach House at Cordova Bay and includes an elegant seafood dinner. Auctioneer Arvid Chalmers of the Salt Spring Hysterical Society is guaranteed to keep you laughing. As well, there will be a silent auction throughout the evening, along with great door prizes, refreshments and lots of surprises! Tickets are $65 each or $600 for a table of 10; call 250-753-3459 or email auction@georgiastrait.org. Hurry, as this is a limited seating event not to be missed!

END OF THE SEASON PARTY / SALE

Nantahala Outdoor Center’s annual year-end party, the Guest Appreciation Festival, will lure thousands of outdoor enthusiasts to North Carolina’s Nantahala River Gorge Oct. 28-30. Bands will play amid the flea market-style gear swap, and shoppers wearing Halloween costumes will lend a unique atmosphere to the gorge’s biggest celebration. The NOC’s Outfitter’s Store will mark down prices on camping and paddling gear while also selling its line of demo boats and rental bikes, and the main parking area will fill with nonprofit organizations and padding clubs selling and swapping outdoor equipment. The used gear sale will begin with a preview Friday afternoon, Oct. 28, at 3 p.m., before the goods go on sale Saturday at 9 a.m.

The Outfitter’s Store will also welcome Leland Davis, author of North Carolina Rivers and Creeks, who will sign books, and Andria Baldovin, creator of Yoga for Paddlers, who will lead a yoga session. Outside the store, canoe clubs will compete for the Canoe Club Cup, while less competitive paddlers will take their end-of-season trips down the Nantahala. Guided and self-guided rafting trips will continue throughout the Festival, so bring the family to enjoy the river before winter begins. For updates and a complete list of events, visit www.noc.com or call 828-232-7238.

KOKATAT’S NEW STAFFER

Leading watersports wear company, Kokatat (www.kokatat.com), has hired Lisa Beckstead to the Sales and Marketing team as their new Public Relations and Field Marketing person. Lisa will oversee Kokatat sponsorship and donation opportunities, will be the go-to for public and media relations. She’ll also spend time in the field attending paddling events. As a long time professional kayaker, Lisa has years of experience in the paddlesports market and brings industry knowledge with her as well. She can be reached at 541-912-7304 or by email at lisa_beckstead@kokatat.com.

MAIN MAN

There’s another kayaker in the Seaward Sales Office—Allan Main has paddled in to fill the newly created position as Director of Sales and Marketing. Allan’s promotional skills will also focus on the launch of Seaward’s new thermoformed line of touring and recreational kayaks. Allan gained marketing and sales expertise in the clothing industry and as a publisher for an outdoors magazine. He’s a recent arrival in Chemainus, BC, adjacent to the Gulf Islands, where he, his wife and young son will explore and navigate Seaward’s local waters. www.SeawardKayaks.com

THE MARINE ‘GRASSROOTS’

Nikki Wright of the Seagrass Conservation Working Group wrote WaveLength to say she greatly enjoyed the article by Neil Schulman, entitled ‘There’s Life in the Mud’ (June/July 2005, available online) in which stressed the value of eelgrass beds to river and sea life. These eelgrass beds host more species diversity per square foot than anywhere other than a coral reef, but compete for public attention with more charismatic habitats, and species. Paddlers, who see the beds first-hand, can appreciate the value of these subtle but incredible places.

British Columbia and Washington both have eelgrass mapping and monitoring projects. Paddlers in BC have been contributing to the work of the Seagrass Conservation Working Group in over twenty communities for the past three years.

Nikki invites other paddlers to join this work. You can help us map eelgrass locations on the coast (by foot or kayak), enter data or organize community events. She can be reached at 250-652-1662, or at seachange@shaw.ca. Seagrass Conservation Working Group http://www.stewardshipcentre.bc.ca/eelgrass/index.html.

FIRST NATIONS ADVENTURES

Frank Brown, pioneer of aboriginal ecotourism and one of the key figures in the recovery of the ‘canoe culture’ on the coast, has launched a new business in partnership with the Songhees First Nation of Victoria, BC. Called Nala Adventures, Frank uses traditional ocean going canoes (below) to transport visitors to former Songhees village sites where they are offered a salmon barbeque and story telling. For more information, call 250-885- 2616 or visit www.nalaadventures.com.

SEA LEVEL RISE WILL IMPACT SEA TURTLES

A study on the Caribbean island of Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles suggests that up to 32% of total current beach area could be lost with sea-level rise of just 0.5 meters (18 inches), a finding that has significant implications for the survival of sea turtles, not just on Bonaire but throughout their nesting range.

Six species of sea turtles nest on the mainland and island beaches of the Caribbean: the hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley, olive ridley and green. Populations of all these species are declining throughout the region because of over-exploitation, disease, incidental capture and destruction of critical nesting habitat. These threats may now be compounded by the prospect of rising sea levels resulting from climate change, which would encroach on and reduce the turtles’ nesting beaches.

In a paper in the journal Conservation Biology, Marianne R. Fish of the University of East Anglia in England and her colleagues examined the nesting distribution of sea turtles on Bonaire, and determined the possible extent of beach habitat under threat as a result of various scenarios of sea level rise. They surveyed turtle nesting beaches to establish the average distribution of nesting sites relative to the shoreline, and then calculated likely inundation levels based on projected sea level rises of 0.2 m, 0.5 m, and 0.9 m, the best- worst- and intermediate-case scenarios predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Fish and colleagues found that, under those three scenarios, sea turtle nesting area was reduced by 11%, 59%, and 79% respectively. Nesting habitats on longer, narrower beaches were at greater risk, as were those where development precluded nesting females from retreating further up the beach.

The authors conclude: “The potential effects of sea-level rise on nesting beaches cannot be considered in isolation from existing human threats to turtles and their habitat... Human encroaching on nesting habitat has been suggested as the primary cause of decreasing turtle activity in many areas, and loss of beach area to sea-level rise will likely exacerbate this problem.”

Source: Fish, M.R., et al. 2005. Predicting the impact of sea- level rise on Caribbean sea turtle nesting habitat. Conservation Biology 19(2): 482-491.

GLOBAL WARMING—EVIDENCE GROWS

June 2005 was the second warmest June on record according to a new report issued by the US National Climate Data Center, exceeded only by temperatures in June 1998, which was a strong El Niño year. Monthly global average temperatures have been warmer than the 1971- 2000 average monthly temperatures for 120 straight months, going back to May 1995.

Meanwhile, evidence of accelerating global warming is evident in increased glacial and polar ice melting around the world, ocean temperature warming and faster than predicted sea level rises. Excessive carbon in the atmosphere is already causing irreparable environmental damage to the Earth’s oceans, and drastic cuts in emissions are necessary to prevent further devastation, a panel of leading scientists has warned.

Can there realistically be any doubt that global warming is already well underway?

The National Climate Data Center reported last week that the average global temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces for June (based on preliminary data) was 1.1°F (0.60°C) above the 1880-2004 long-term mean. This was the second warmest June for combined land and ocean surface temperatures since 1880 (the beginning of reliable instrumental records). For global land surfaces alone, June 2005 set a new record with a temperature that was 1.9°F (1.06°C) above average. Widespread anomalous warmth covered much of the Asian continent, Western Europe, Canada and the eastern half of Australia. The global ocean surface temperature was second warmest on record.

A heat wave, which began in May 2005 across areas of South Asia, continued into late June. Hundreds of people reportedly died as a result of temperatures reaching 113°F-122°F (45°C-50°C) in parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. A heat wave in Italy in late June was the most severe in the northern part of the country since 2003.

The average temperature for the contiguous United States for June (based on preliminary data) was 0.9°F (0.5°C) above the 1895-2004 mean. New York State had its warmest June on record, with 12 other states from Minnesota to Maine ranking much above normal for the month.

Wisconsin, Michigan, and Vermont had their second warmest June on record. Much of the anomalous warmth occurred in the second week of the month, when mean temperatures in parts of the Northeast quarter of the country exceeded 10°F above average.

The statewide temperature for Alaska was 3.0°F (1.7°C) above the 1971-2000 mean, the third warmest June since statewide records began in 1918.

Other, recently published climate-related studies which reflect unprecedented rates of ice melting, oceans warming and sea levels rising are summarized below:

Hillary Issues Call to Save Mt. Everest (July 11) — Edmund Hillary, the first climber to conquer Mount Everest with his Sherpa guide, urged that the world’s highest mountain be placed on the United Nations’ list of endangered heritage sites because of the risks of climate change. (http://ap.lancasteronline.com/4/unesco_everest)

Data Reveal Sea Levels Have Risen More than 1 Inch in Last Decade (July 7). For the first time, NASA has the tools and expertise to understand the rate at which sea level is changing, some of the mechanisms that drive those changes and the effects that sea level change may have worldwide.

North Atlantic Ocean Temps Hit Record High (July 7). Ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic hit an all-time high last year, raising concerns about the effects of global warming on one of the most sensitive and productive ecosystems in the world. (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=920468&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312)

Carbon Emissions Threaten Sea Life (July 5): Excessive carbon in the atmosphere is already causing irreparable environmental damage to the Earth’s oceans and drastic cuts in emissions are necessary to prevent further devastation, a panel of leading scientists has warned. (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/07/04/oceans.acid/)

(http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/jun/global.html#Temp) (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2005/jun/glob_jan-jun_pg.gif). Thanks to Michael T. Neuman (mtneuman@juno.com)

‘CLOSE FISH FARMS’ SAYS TOURISM ASSOC.

In August, the BC Wilderness Tourism Association (WTA), representing nature-based tourism operators and their sector associations, said it was urging the BC and federal governments to close salmon farms on migratory routes in the Broughton Archipelago and along the North Coast. The 100-member organization also supports a moratorium on the expansion of open netcage finfish aquaculture until peer reviewed science shows minimal or no impact on wild fish stocks. In the short term, the organization is calling for the fallowing of fish farms located on key migration routes in time for the spring 2006 migration.

“Many of our businesses and operations completely depend on healthy wild salmon stocks,” said Brian Gunn of Strathcona Park Lodge and president of the WTA. “We can’t afford to sit around and wait for more science when the wild salmon in this province are known to be threatened.”

The WTA has met with industry, environmentalists, scientists and the BC Salmon Farmers Association.

Craig Murray, owner of Nimmo Bay Heli-Venture Resort, which caters to fly fishing enthusiasts and adventure seekers in the Broughton Archipelago said, “BC’s tourism industry needs government and the salmon farm industry to act now to make sure salmon farms are fallowed, or moved from migratory routes to protect the wild salmon.”

Tourism is British Columbia’s largest land-based employer with 117,500 full-time direct jobs and gross annual direct revenues of $9.5 billion. Within BC tourism, wilderness tourism is the fastest growing sector.

HUMPBACKS SIGHTED

Bill Henwood of Parks Canada reports that in September, he and his colleagues sighted at least two and possibly three humpback whales feeding together in Malaspina Strait, near the southern tip of Texada Island, in central Strait of Georgia. Humpbacks were plentiful in Georgia Strait at one time, before whaling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the Atlantic humpbacks are thought to number over 16,000, Pacific populations have been estimated at between 2,000 and 5,000.

HAYLEY’S SLIDESHOW

Kayak guide Hayley Shephard will be presenting a slideshow of her solo sea kayak journey around Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands), November 9th and 10th. The venue had not been chosen by press time so please check www.WaveLengthMagazine.com for details (see ‘Events’) or email Hayley. She will present an inspiring evening of stories, music and stunning images on her solo journey around the remote Queen Charlotte archipelago. Tickets are $10 and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Raincoast Conservation Society. For inquiries, contact Hayley Shephard at oceanmaid1@yahoo.com or phone 250- 704-9848.

RAFFLE WINNERS

Winners in the Georgia Strait Alliance’s Great Summer Raffle were drawn September at their office in Nanaimo. 1st prize winner, Helga Sigmundson of Nanaimo, will be paddling a Greenland II Folbot double folding sea kayak (value: $3300). 2nd prize winner, R. Hameister of Nanaimo, will have a Sea Kayak Getaway at Coast Mountain Lodge donated by Coast Mountain Expeditions, www. coastmountainexpeditions.com (value $1273). 3rd prize winner, Alexander Vockham of Thetis Island, will have a one night’s stay for two at Sooke Harbour House, www.sookeharbourhouse.com (value $316.25).

Thanks to Amber Hieb for her great work coordinating the raffle and bringing in the largest amount ever raised by a GSA raffle! And thanks to the generous prize donors, all who purchased tickets, and all of the volunteers who helped sell tickets.