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Blake,

FYI: I was first alerted to the plight of one loon on Friday morning. By Saturday morning a second loon had joined the first. Two biologists, one I was told was from USFWS and the other from the state, happened to be parked on the shoulder of the LM road with their binoculars raised, when a friend of mine stopped to see what they were watching. The biologists, who were conducting an annual wintering bald eagles survey, noticed the the loons in distress. The first bird (I assume it was the first one) happened to die in their presence. Dove and never surfaced.

That's when I received a call. It would have been much sadder for me if the loons had been oil-soaked on the beach, which would have been a problem people caused. Events like miscalculated landing space on a frozen like likely occurs every year everywhere throughout the range of common loons. In much the same manner an immature peregrine might whack into the side of Winslow Ledge or the Fairlee Cliffs, or an immature osprey latches on to a bluefish or striped bass that is way too big and is pulled below the surface. Or an immature mammoth wandering out onto La Brea Tar Pit for a drink of surface rainwater unaware of the tar below.

As a professional naturalist, steeped in evolutionary biology, I accept this as a weeding out process, the elimination of genes from the breeding population. It is an act of natural selection that people don't often see, not unlike predation or starvation. Conservation is all about the success of the species, not the misery of the individual. Having just finished six years working in the field with timber rattlesnakes you'd be surprised how many field biologists told me they would kill a black racer whenever they caught one dining on a baby rattlesnake.

These loons might or might not have been our VT or NH birds. They could have been from Labrador or Michigan or Greenland. The ice was thin, the distance far, and as far as I was the concerned the risk too great for anyone to attempt a rescue. Besides, the bald eagles and snapping turtles have to eat too.

Ted

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 10:38 PM, Blake Allison <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Reading about the distressed loon was very upsetting. The likelihood that in the end it perished even more so.

Reviewing the few e-mail exchanges about the event, put up on the UV-Birders list-serv, I cannot help wondering about the absence of a protocol for intervening or the urgency for implementing one.

Best as I can tell, from what communication I saw, only one agent, VCE, was contacted, and that had a distinct "hopefully," quality about it.

By my count, there are four agencies that could have responded - VT Fish and Wildlife, VINS, the Loon Center in Moultonborough, NH and VCE - yet, I don't see any evidence they were contacted.

By all accounts, rescuing that bird out in the middle of Lake Morey would have been challenging, and I am not advocating putting anyone's life at risk to have done that. Just the same, this is a species whose situation is precarious, suggesting a more aggressive response to that bird's peril was warranted and might have been mounted had the overseers of its well-being been contacted, which based on e-mail evidence did not happen.

Did I miss something in an e-mail exchange that would warrant a revision of my assessment?

Blake Allison
Lyme, NH 03768-3322

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