Ocean Watch

Monday, February 17, 1997

Mynah gang didn’t alarm
reader’s plucky plover

My mail recently has been full of interesting marine tidbits.

Here are a few:

On plucky plovers: I asked readers to share stories with me about golden plovers, the charismatic shorebirds that visit Hawaii each winter. Sadie J. Doyle of Honolulu sent this:

One day, years ago, Doyle heard some loud mynah bird squawking and went outside to investigate.

What she saw was "an unforgettable performance never again to be matched in all my years in Honolulu."

There in her yard, its back to a fence, stood a golden plover facing a semicircle of mynah birds. They were "fussing and shouting mynah obscenities. Yah! Yah! Your mother wears combat boots!" they seemed to say, taking a step toward the plover, one at a time.

The plover replied by also stepping forward, facing the mynah, and delivering its own shrieking insults. The mynah backed down.

Each mynah took a turn, and each time, the plover stood its ground and "put the upstart mynah in its place."

Eventually, the mynahs gave up. "The plover watched them depart ... then proceeded to go about his little ballet as he extracted edible goodies from the ground."

It's a great plover story. Thanks for writing.

On lobsters and chemicals: In U.S. waters, the taking of egg-bearing lobsters is illegal. Such laws were enacted to let the lobsters reproduce, thus perpetuating the fishery.

This logic appears to have escaped some lobster catchers who take fertile females anyway.

Before inspectors examine the catch, the criminal fishers remove the sticky eggs from the mother's shell. One common way to do this is to dip the animal in chlorine.

Such dips dissolve the hard-to-

remove glue that holds the eggs onto the female.

Now, researchers at Woods Hole (Mass.) Marine Biological Laboratory has figured a way to fight chemicals with chemicals. When lobsters that have been chlorined are dipped in a solution of potassium iodide, they turn yellow. This happens even 10 days after a chlorine dip.

Hopefully, cheaters will be prosecuted as a result of this new test.

Dolphin deaths: Since the passage of dolphin-safe legislation in 1991, about 4,000 dolphins have been incidentally killed in tuna nets annually. This number is way down from the 52,000 killed in 1990 alone, but still, 4,000 each year is a lot of dead dolphins.

This "acceptable kill rate reinforces my belief that keeping dolphins in marine parks and research facilities is a good idea. If we are to save dolphins, people have to see some and researchers have to learn more about them.

The number of captive dolphins in the world is minuscule compared with the number killed. At least those in marine parks are safe from killer nets.

Sea horses' slaughter: Throughout China, sea horses are considered good medicine, particularly useful in aphrodisiacs.

Now, as a result of economic booms there and in other Asian countries, demand for the little fish is shrinking their populations at alarming rates.

Of the 20 million sea horses caught each year, some are sold for aquariums but most are dried for use as medicine, even though its effectiveness is unproven.

Sea horses are vulnerable to overfishing with their limited range in sea grass and mangrove areas. But there's hope. Captive breeding has been started in at least eight countries.

Oiled birds: Regarding my column on the large cost and small reward of washing oiled seabirds, Mike Talvola of Los Angeles writes via e-mail: "I am struck by the similarity to the 'war on drugs' that pours huge amounts of money ... toward illegal drugs when at least some of that money directed toward nicotine and alcohol would probably result in much greater benefit."