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July 28, 2005 - A tale of sadness & survival12A • The Suffolk Times • July 28, 2005 Suffolk Times photo by Paul Sloutwburgh As long as there Is a plentiful supply of food there Is peace In the osprey nest (left), but should there be a shortage, then the strongest one takes over and the weaker one loses out. This action by the young Is not unusual in the hawk family. Right: A male harbor seal pup recovered from Smith Point County Park with its umbilical cord still attached. This recovery and another one farther west are the first confirmed documentations of 'pupping' on Long Island. A tale of sadness &survival IF You cAN r srANn a little sadness, then this is not for you. All is not the way we would like to have it in the nat- ural world. Just recently a good friend of mine called and said one of his young ospreys was on the ground. He and his wife had watched this family of ospreys through a scope in an upstairs window from the day they Cost arrived in March. I'm sure many O N of you have done the same thing in one way or another. Up to a day ago, it had been a delightful pastime to peak into the private fives of this osprey fancily and watch the young grow. Then the unexpected happened. One of the two young was seen on the ground below the nest, and here is where I came in. My friend called to tell of the disaster and asked if I could give him some ad- vice on what to do. We've put young os- preys back in their nests when they've been found tangled in monofilament fish line or found out of the nest for some other reason. I explained it was really quite simple, but now my wife says no more climbing ladders — leave it to the younger ones to do the climb- ing — and so I went on to tell him to cover the bird in a towel or something so it would stay calm as the climber went up to the nest and then just put the bird back in. Now all my friend had to do was find someone with a sturdy extension ladder and a will to climb. Within a few hours I received a call from Richard to say they had followed my suggestions and had successfully put the young osprey back in the nest, but in so doing had scared the other young osprey, which flew away to a nearby tree. Ev- erything looked like luck had been on the young osprey's side; soon it looked like things would go back to nor- mal. Not so, and here comes the hard part to understand. It is not that unusual in the family of hawks for a larger and stronger young to become very aggressive and often viciously attack the weaker one, which this one began to do once he flew back to the nest. The parents flew in and just sat nearby and watched big brother or sister literally peck away at the weakened young os- prey until it killed it. At no time did the parents stop, or even make any attempt to stop, the harassment. This is hard for us humans to un- derstand. Could it be that the parents found fish scarce and there wasn't enough food for both young, and the older, stronger sibling solved the prob- lem by pushing the weaker one out of the nest? This might have been the reason in the beginning that the weaker osprey was found on the ground be- FOCUS NATURE by Paul Stoutenburgh PEI A 4111, - 1111111i y� III R' • Moss Rock f� I ' • Pnrkgstanos • • R&.MdM Wall Sysloms Family Owsed A Oprabd Since 1397 cam nt. Mo a a woe 3t cnikrad Smna ? • ma, • Connele Block, low the nest. Remember, there was no attempt by either parent to stop the stronger one's actiorts'Ihe weaker os- prey couldn't fly to get away so it had to suffer the consequences. Perhaps the bigger osprey had hatched first, mak- ing it stronger and more aggressive and thus able to take more of the food, and the one that didn't live had just never been able to keep up. Once again, I have to repeat that this action is quite normal in the hawk fam- ily. It helps guarantee that at least one strong, healthy hawk will survive. In o world, we would have tried to help the weaker one, but not so in the natural world, where survival is all that counts Sentiments play no part in the hard -to- realize world where only the strong and the healthy survive. It's like so many telephone calls I get from very concerned and thought- ful people who ask what to do with a baby bird that's lost its mother, etc. I tell them to leave it alone and the mother will find Senti it, and if she doesn't, that's nature's way of weeding play n out the weak, the slow, the In the unqualified. It sounds cruel to us, but it's been working since time began. The next heartbreak is about a baby seal. I got a call from Linda that there was a baby seal on the beach and would I like to see it. Well, that surely was something we would like to see, for baby seals are not usually born this far south. Their nursery and home is far- ther north along the rocky coast where the water is colder and the environ- ment provides better protection than our hot, sandy beaches. In no time Barbara and I were off to the appointed location, which was on the beach west of New Suffolk.This was going to be a first for us, for the only seals we had ever seen this far up in the bay were spotted during the win- ter, when they would be seen on a rock off New Suffolk proper. When we got to the location, Bar- bara met some friends who told us it was farther up the beach, so I drove with one of the men to the spot farther to the west while Barbara walked the beach with her friends When we got there, sorrow filled the air. A small group of people huddled over a dead baby seal that still had its placenta loosely wrapped around it. We felt awful to see this dead pup in front of us. As we all looked on in sadness, the waves gently rocked the little body back and forth, almost as if it were trying to revive it. But then there I go, trying to attach human feelings to the animal world. They don't belong there, I know, but it's hard to separate our feelings Barbara had her cell phone and for our 20 minutes tried to reach the research team at Atlantis in Riverhead, where we knew the people would be inter- ested in picking up this baby seal for smdy.'Ihey are interested in live or dead seals in our area, as they all, alive or dead, give researchers data to build their studies on. None of our telephone numbers worked, so we did the next best thing — we took the seal to Riv- erhead.They were apologetic about their tedious telephone ments answering system but glad to have the seal to exam- part me. We found out that the world best thing to do if you find a seal or turtle anywhere along our beaches is to can their hotline at (631) 369 -9829. They are profes- sionals and know how to handle such situations They told us they had recovered two live seal pups born this season on Long Island. These recoveries are the first confirmed documentation of "pup- ping" on the island; one was found at Smith Point County Park on the south shore and the other one was farther west. Both pups are both doing well at the center. The first pup was recovered on May 28 with the umbilical cord still attached. They figured it was just seven days old. All at the research complex in Riverhead are looking forward to soon releasing the pups back into their natu- ral environment. Kimberly Durham, the Rescue Program director in Riverhead, said we could see a video of the first pup if we logged onto their website at www. riverheadfoundation.org. Hopefully the video of this live pup will make us all feel better after having read about some of the heartbreak we experi- enced this week. where only the strong and the healthy survive. • Bann. Wal?M ne to "-I • Nfia Blocks • coeda,tona • Bluestone ur •rom...' .sononmes ambrldge Bea -Mix iG 7 Pavmgstonca • Taa,au a Much x+milr�,l V� ➢�`UIYA.- •11 -Rock •Gmoml shale • cimcc.y add., www. cambrid a aver;.coin `-1,1 c-­11 9 P used a aks IIo • Sand and so muat low the nest. Remember, there was no attempt by either parent to stop the stronger one's actiorts'Ihe weaker os- prey couldn't fly to get away so it had to suffer the consequences. Perhaps the bigger osprey had hatched first, mak- ing it stronger and more aggressive and thus able to take more of the food, and the one that didn't live had just never been able to keep up. Once again, I have to repeat that this action is quite normal in the hawk fam- ily. It helps guarantee that at least one strong, healthy hawk will survive. In o world, we would have tried to help the weaker one, but not so in the natural world, where survival is all that counts Sentiments play no part in the hard -to- realize world where only the strong and the healthy survive. It's like so many telephone calls I get from very concerned and thought- ful people who ask what to do with a baby bird that's lost its mother, etc. I tell them to leave it alone and the mother will find Senti it, and if she doesn't, that's nature's way of weeding play n out the weak, the slow, the In the unqualified. It sounds cruel to us, but it's been working since time began. The next heartbreak is about a baby seal. I got a call from Linda that there was a baby seal on the beach and would I like to see it. Well, that surely was something we would like to see, for baby seals are not usually born this far south. Their nursery and home is far- ther north along the rocky coast where the water is colder and the environ- ment provides better protection than our hot, sandy beaches. In no time Barbara and I were off to the appointed location, which was on the beach west of New Suffolk.This was going to be a first for us, for the only seals we had ever seen this far up in the bay were spotted during the win- ter, when they would be seen on a rock off New Suffolk proper. When we got to the location, Bar- bara met some friends who told us it was farther up the beach, so I drove with one of the men to the spot farther to the west while Barbara walked the beach with her friends When we got there, sorrow filled the air. A small group of people huddled over a dead baby seal that still had its placenta loosely wrapped around it. We felt awful to see this dead pup in front of us. As we all looked on in sadness, the waves gently rocked the little body back and forth, almost as if it were trying to revive it. But then there I go, trying to attach human feelings to the animal world. They don't belong there, I know, but it's hard to separate our feelings Barbara had her cell phone and for our 20 minutes tried to reach the research team at Atlantis in Riverhead, where we knew the people would be inter- ested in picking up this baby seal for smdy.'Ihey are interested in live or dead seals in our area, as they all, alive or dead, give researchers data to build their studies on. None of our telephone numbers worked, so we did the next best thing — we took the seal to Riv- erhead.They were apologetic about their tedious telephone ments answering system but glad to have the seal to exam- part me. We found out that the world best thing to do if you find a seal or turtle anywhere along our beaches is to can their hotline at (631) 369 -9829. They are profes- sionals and know how to handle such situations They told us they had recovered two live seal pups born this season on Long Island. These recoveries are the first confirmed documentation of "pup- ping" on the island; one was found at Smith Point County Park on the south shore and the other one was farther west. Both pups are both doing well at the center. The first pup was recovered on May 28 with the umbilical cord still attached. They figured it was just seven days old. All at the research complex in Riverhead are looking forward to soon releasing the pups back into their natu- ral environment. Kimberly Durham, the Rescue Program director in Riverhead, said we could see a video of the first pup if we logged onto their website at www. riverheadfoundation.org. Hopefully the video of this live pup will make us all feel better after having read about some of the heartbreak we experi- enced this week. where only the strong and the healthy survive.