SurfWriter Girls

Sunday, June 9, 2024

The Whales are Singing!

Cold War Spy Recording Saves Whales

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

When an engineer at a U.S. government listening station off the coast of Bermuda listening for Russian submarines during the Cold War heard strange underwater sounds it turned out to be something totally unexpected – the sounds of whales singing.

At first no one knew what the sequence of repeated sounds was...until Roger Payne, a marine biologist doing research in Bermuda in 1967, was asked to listen to a recording of them and identified the plaintive notes as whale vocalizations – or songs – sung from one whale to another.!!

Knowing that the whale population was endangered, Payne thought the human-like nature of these songs could generate support for the giant marine mammals. So, in 1970 he produced an album of the sounds, "Songs of the Humpback Whale."

It was an overnight sensation that brought the plight of the whales to the public and helped launch a worldwide conservation movement to "Save the Whales."

The whales, whose songs are especially noticeable during mating season, use the vocalizations to attract mates, communicate with members of their pod, and let other whales know their location. The songs, which sometimes last up to 30 minutes, can travel as far as 9,000 miles.

After Payne's album came out, the whales' songs quickly moved into mainstream culture, showing up in musicians' songs, including folk singer Judy Collins' album "Whales & Nightingales" where she sings a haunting duet with the whales.

Whale songs played a key role in saving the Earth in the 1986 movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home when an alien probe traveling through space is going to obliterate the Earth with a death beam if it doesn't get a response to the call signal it’s transmitting.

In the movie the only ones who can call back are the whales – which are extinct in the 23rd Century. So, the Star Trek crew must go back in time to find some.

Payne's whale songs album and the creative works it inspired did what he hoped – draw attention and support to the whales. Payne also founded the Ocean Alliance organization to protect whales and dolphins. Based in Massachusetts, it helped pass the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and 1982 international moratorium on whaling.

Ocean Alliance and other organizations, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are continuing to research the whales and to learn more about their songs.

Thanks to that chance undersea spy recording and Roger Payne's keen ear, the whales are still singing.

Whale art by Dave Reynolds

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Friday, May 17, 2024

Rachel Carson's Natural Wonders

Unsilencing the Spring

Now that spring is here and you can hear the sounds of birds chirping, celebrating the day and drawing attention to their aerial acrobatics, think how different the world would be without their joyful notes.

Rachel Carson (1907 - 1964), the author of Silent Spring – the landmark 1962 book that launched the environmental movement – did just that, reflecting on how pesticides used in agriculture and industry were killing birds and other wildlife and threatening the health of mankind.

Carson, who received her MA in Zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932, is an example of what one person can do to make a difference – a major difference.

Despite enormous obstacles placed in her path by the chemical industry and agribusiness, who labeled her an alarmist and extremist, Carson pursued her mission to convince the scientific community and U.S. government that chemical pollution was endangering the planet and all living things.

Carson’s efforts successfully led to a nationwide ban on the use of DDT pesticides and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel believe that Carson’s pioneering work in environmentalism is as relevant today as when it was first conducted. She combined a scientist’s approach with an artist’s eye to convey the wonders of the world of nature, imploring people to take a good look at the beauty around them and to treasure it.

In Carson’s words:

“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again? ‘”

After starting out her career writing radio scripts for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Carson went on to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service where she became the Editor-in-Chief for all its publications.

Drawing on her scientific research, Carson also wrote articles for professional journals and magazines, including Atlantic Monthly, and five books – all explaining and extolling the importance and joys of nature.

Examining the mysteries of the sea,

Carson showed readers the rich life beneath the ocean’s surface in her award-winning books…

Under the Sea-wind…

The Sea Around Us…

The Edge of the Sea

Carson also gave parents the perfect book to introduce children to the world around them and to inspire them to enjoy and protect nature…

The Sense of Wonder.

In looking back through history, it’s often the case that an incident or comment that initially doesn’t seem that important can turn out to be monumental.

For Rachel Carson it was a letter from a friend – Olga Owens Huckens – telling about the death of numerous birds in the woods around her home in Massachusetts.

The birds had been killed by government-ordered, aerial spraying of DDT to get rid of mosquitoes. And now the woods, once filled with the sounds of songbirds, were strangely silent.

Huckens asked Carson if she could do anything to stop further spraying...launching Carson on her quest to stop the misuse of chemicals in the environment.

SurfWriter Girls are in awe of what Rachel Carson accomplished and are thankful that, because of her efforts, we can all enjoy the simple pleasures of an unsilenced spring, filled with the gleeful songs of birds.

Birdsong for Spring

From the forests to the sea,

From a flower or a tree,

The birds sing for you; the birds sing for me.

From high in the sky,

From a branch nearby,

The birds sing hello; the birds sing good-bye.

From the earliest morning light,

From the darkest time of night,

The birds sing we’re here; the world is all right.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel ©

www.surfwritergirls.blogspot.com

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to the following copyrighted material. For permission to reprint or excerpt it and/or link it to another website, contact them at

surfwriter.girls@gmail.com

Sunday, April 28, 2024

Starfish At Risk

Sea Stars Critically Endangered

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

In philosophy and literature, the starfish is a symbol of enlightenment, magical powers and renewal. It’s able to regenerate and grow back limbs.

For all its abilities, though, it's currently facing a threat that could be even more powerful than it is – a wasting disease that is threatening to wipe out the whole starfish population.

Also known as sea stars, the colorful species found off the West Coast of North America is rapidly vanishing from sight.

“I’ve never seen a decline of this magnitude of a species,” said Drew Harvell, the lead author of a study in the journal Science Advances that first brought attention to the plight of the sea stars.

Once they were “as common as a robin,” Harvell observed, noting it was hard to imagine what was happening to them. A marine ecologist at Cornell University, she calls the epidemic "catastrophic and widespread" and explores this in her groundbreaking book Ocean Outbreak.

Brought on partly by rising sea temperatures from global warming, the illness is affecting more than 20 types of starfish, with the sunflower sea stars normally found in the deep waters of the Pacific Northwest among the most susceptible.

The starfish aren't the only ones at risk. As their numbers drop, it causes a ripple effect that endangers other sea life who depend on them to keep the ocean's ecosystem in balance.

Starfish eat sea urchins, which eat the ocean's kelp beds that provide food and shelter to sea life and help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Without the starfish to keep the sea urchins in check, the voracious urchins are devouring the kelp beds. To counter this, scientists at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and in Monterey at the Sunflower Star Laboratory are all trying to reverse the decline of the starfish.

To save the starfish and other endangered marine life we’ll need more than magic. It will take scientists, government, and environmental groups working together as a community.

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Saturday, April 6, 2024

Cindy Lee's National Bucket List Day!

National Day Calendar Ambassador Creates Special Day

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

What's on your Bucket List? Places to go? Things to do? Dreams to achieve? Most of us have a Bucket List simmering on the back burner.

Thanks to Cindy Lee of Huntington Beach, CA, now there's a National Bucket List Day – April 24th – designated just for celebrating your Bucket List and the things you've accomplished.

Both a dreamer and a doer, Cindy is an avid Bucket List creator. She uses the lists to keep on track to turning her dreams into reality. The lists help her to stay focused and prioritize things.

Cindy says, "A Bucket List isn't just about travel destinations. It's about facing your fears, taking on challenges and living your dreams." One of the dreams she's close to checking off is writing her first book, "Growing Your Business through Referrals and National Days."

A travel agent, CFO (Chief Fun Officer) with Bucket List Coach Travel & Tours and a travel blogger, she helps others check off the items on their lists, too. She wanted to encourage even more people to go after their dreams. And she had just the way to do it!

As an Ambassador for the National Day Calendar, she loves getting the word out about all the special National Days to celebrate – Pizza Day, Dolphin Day, Find a Rainbow Day. So, why not a National Bucket List Day? The NDC team agreed – and the new Calendar Day was launched in 2023.

Cindy, whose personal Bucket List includes exotic travel destinations, podcasting, writing, business coaching, and volunteering, spends a lot of time supporting Huntington Beach and working with the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation.

Cindy told SurfWriter Girls, “You get two dates and a dash. There is the day you were born and the day you pass away! The dash is the in between time. The important part is to live your dash.”

She says a Bucket List gives you something to look forward to. And, after you check off each item, something to be grateful for. After watching surfers from the shore, she got up her nerve to take a surfing lesson with Rocky McKinnon – and checked that off her list. She had a blast!