This fall, skyscrapers in New York City are dimming their lights to help migrating birds stay on course as they fly south. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
This fall, skyscrapers in New York City are dimming their lights to help migrating birds stay on course as they fly south. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building are famous for lighting up the New York City skyline. But if you look closely this fall, you might notice that the lights have been turned down at several famous New York buildings.
It’s part of a voluntary effort led by the Audubon Society. City lights confuse migratory birds, who typically use the moon and stars to navigate. Ornithologist Daniel Klem says thousands of birds die when they run into buildings or fall exhausted onto city streets.
“It’s an astronomical amount of unintended carnage in my view, and anything we can do to prevent it and make people more aware of it will be helpful.”
Klem says skyscrapers in Chicago and Toronto are also turning down their lights this fall to aid the birds on their passage.
The home appliance industry is taking issue with a lawsuit filed by several states. The states want improvements made on energy efficiency standards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
The home appliance industry is taking issue with a lawsuit
filed by several states. The states want improvements made on energy efficincy standards. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
In all, fifteen states and the city of New York have filed suit,
claiming the Department of Energy is years behind schedule writing
updated energy efficiency standards for twenty-two common appliances. The
states say if the federal government would get up to speed, consumers would benefit.
But the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers says there are
good reasons the government is behind schedule. General Counsel
Chuck Samuels says the energy department faces a lot of complex
rule-making.
“It is impossible for any agency to do all these rule-makings. What DOE has been forced to do is to prioritize and pursue those standards
that which will have the most benefit.”
Samuels says refrigerators and clothes washers have become much
more energy efficient. He acknowledges that tougher rules for other
large appliances like furnaces and air conditioners have not been
finished.
Many schools are finding that food that comes from cans... (Photo by Davide Guglielmo)
Aren't as good for the tastebuds or health of the students as locally-grown foods. (Photo by Daniel Wildman)
More and more schools, universities and other institutions with cafeterias are by-passing processed foods from multi-national corporations. Instead, they’re buying food from local farmers. Advocates say locally-grown fruits and vegetables are fresher. They say the food tastes better, and they’re finding kids sometimes ask for apples and tomatoes instead of candy and chips. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
More and more schools, universities, and other institutions with cafeterias are bypassing the processed foods from multi-national corporations. Instead, they’re buying food from local farmers. Advocates say locally-grown fruits and vegetables are fresher. They say the food tastes better. And they’re finding kids sometimes ask for apples and tomatoes instead of candy and chips. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:
(Sound of cafeteria)
In this cafeteria, there are displays on the wall asking, “What is local food?” and answering, “Foods grown and raised where you are.” Well, that makes sense, but there’s more.
“Then when you get into the lines…”
Sociology professor Howard Sacks is director of Kenyon College.
“We have these menus that talk about all the things that are being served here and it tells exactly where they come from. So the pasta alfredo with tomato and basil features noodles produced by Mrs. Miller’s noodles in Fredericksburg, Ohio, and the cream is by the Broughton Dairy in Marietta, Ohio. As you can see this is about thirty lines long and it shows about thirty different local producers.”
As recently as the late 1990’s, only a handful of colleges and universities had programs to buy locally-produced foods for their cafeterias. Today, more than two hundred are looking for local farmers for their produce, dairy, and meat products. Most of those schools, such as Kenyon, Yale University, and the University of Wisconsin among the nation’s most expensive and elite.
But even some struggling public school districts are making it a priority to buy local foods. Ray Denniston is Food Services director of the Johnson City School District in the Catskills region of New York. He says a few years ago they served produce that had been shipped from California or Mexico, or they just opened cans.
“So your fruits and vegetables, kids weren’t taking them; it wasn’t a quality item. I’m not going to say we didn’t worry about it, but it got less attention then the other items on the trays. And now that’s changed. So, instead of getting a canned green bean, which I might as well put sawdust out there as far as nutrients, instead of that, now we would have fresh broccoli.”
Denniston used to sit in his office and look at price quotes from food distributors. Now he visits farms and negotiates the best prices for local products he can find in season. He says the change started with a few tomatoes.
“When I first met with Frank, the farmer, he stopped down and dropped off just some tomatoes. And the staff had some, we had some in the cooler and we brought some out and we cut them and there was a taste thing, and they said, ‘Don’t ever get any others but his.’ I mean, they were just so much sweeter, juicier, wonderful tomatoes and then it just kept going.”
Then came the rich green colored broccoli. It was a big change from what they offered their kids before.
Other schools say students love the taste of milk from local farms that don’t give their cows antibiotics. Johnson says cafeteria workers are excited by the fresher vegetables and meats. They like talking with the students about the food, and they like cooking again. Many schools don’t even have kitchens anymore; they only have heating trays for pre-packaged foods.
Deb Bruns is with the California Department of Education. She says those heated meals often don’t taste very good and she says they send the wrong message to kids.
“…that lunch is a time to grab something processed and hurry through it and get out to recess, and it doesn’t matter what we tell them in the classroom about nutrition if we’re not modeling that in their dining experience then we’re just missing such an opportunity to really teach them where their food comes from.”
Many schools start these programs because of nutrition and obesity concerns. By serving fresh, local food, the nutrition lessons continue when the kids line up in the cafeteria. Some schools say prices from local farms are actually lower then national distributors, but they often end up spending more money on fruits and vegetables. That’s because – believe it or not – kids are eating more broccoli, apples, and tomatoes.
In Everette Smith's three story barn, a replica of a 1910 era racing boat is taking shape. The wood boat's deck is Spanish cedar that will gleam once the boat is finished. (Photo by Lester Graham)
The popularity of antique wood power boats from the first half of the 20th century has resurged. The gleaming wood and craftmanship is appealing to the visitors to the Antique Boat Museum exhibit in Clayton, New York. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Everette Smith still builds wood boats. He's piloting a replica of a 1910 era racing boat that he built. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Some people dream of making things with their hands while they spend their days at the office shuffling papers. Others know from early on that they’re supposed to create with their hands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham profiles a man who knew his art would be of wood and water:
Transcript
Some people dream of making things with their hands while they spend their days at the office shuffling papers. Others know from early on that they’re supposed to create with their hands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham profiles a man who knew his art would be of wood and water:
(ambient sound)
At just about any large of expanse of water, you’re likely to find a boat owner who’s found an old wooden powerboat and restored it. The gleaming mahogany or cedar deck is so shiny it looks like plastic.
Here at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York, thousands of people visit every year, but especially when the antique boat owners gather to show off their craft. John MacLean is the Executive Director of the museum.
“These antique boats are extraordinary pieces of furniture. People would pay a fortune to have this kind of craftsmanship in their furniture in their houses. They have to be fabricated so well and the craftsmanship has to be so good because they have to be watertight.”
The wood powerboats were built from the beginning of the 20th century into the 1940’s. But there are a few wood boats that are not nearly that old. A handful of people are still building the boats. Some are replicas of old designs and some are new designs that look like they might have been built 75 years ago.
Everette Smith is among the contemporary boat builders. He started building boats in 1971… when almost no one was building them. He remembers thinking every step in the process seemed to be a major accomplishment.
“I had finished putting my first plank on. I was so proud of it. I pulled the clamps off and I stood back. And it just went ‘pshhkt’ – it sprung off in a bunch of fragments. So, by the time you really get done with it, you know you’ve accomplished something. It’s a pretty remarkable thing. I think the moment, though, is the moment you first get in it on the water. I mean that is a magic moment.”
Well, that kind of seems like an invitation.
(sound of boat starting up)
I asked if we could take one of his new, but old-looking boats – a long racing boat – out on the water.
“We’re in the Saint Lawrence River in the middle of the Thousand Islands just off Clayton, New York. We’re in a reproduction of a 1910 Lierre number boat designed by Charles Mauer. There were originally twenty of them built, so this is number twenty-one. Top speed’s about thirty-five. You know, it’s a smooth ride, but it’s not fast.”
Fast enough. Water splashes the skipper and passenger every time the racing boat hits a wave. Smith jokes about how the original boats quickly added some windshields. Not this one.
Smith says, as a kid, he was inspired by a great uncle who used to carve canoe paddles for the kids in the family. His grandfather and father taught them to maintain and varnish the wood boats that they had then, and his father used to buy boat kits for Smith and his brother to build.
“I am sort of aware of how the older generation might be looking down and thinking about what we’re doing, and there are times I’m really happy because I know that my Great-Uncle George and my grandfather would love the canoe stuff and the small boat stuff. I think they would really dig that.” (laughs)
And Smith’s contemporaries also dig it. Rebecca Hopfinger is curator of special events at the Antique Boat Museum. She says wood boat builders are admired for their craftsmanship, and their determination to pursue their art.
“Well, I think some of the people wish they were Everette. You know, I’ve heard so many guys come through the front doors of the museum and say, ‘Oh, when I have some more time, I’m just going to work in my shop and try and build a boat.’ And, you know, Everette lives it, breathes it every day. So, there’s maybe a little bit of jealousy in a sense, but there certainly is a desire to the work like Everette does.”
Everette Smith says building wood boats just came naturally in a way that a lot of people who came of age in the 1960’s embraced. Smith says he recently read Bob Dylan’s autobiography and it stirred some of the old feelings that lead him to his career.
“And I realized, reading his autobiography, that the wooden boat thing for me was just sort of a natural progression from that time. It was interest in something that was wholesome and demanding and interesting and useful, you know. And it all seems to fall right in place. It was ‘Of course.’ I didn’t have to think it over, ‘Well, am I going to do this?’ It was just like, this is obvious. This is what I want to do. This is what I got to do.”
And apparently, he’ll keep doing it. Because in his shop: nautical hardware, long boards of hardwood, and parts of salvaged antique boat motors – all seem to promise that Everette Smith will be putting a lot more gleaming wood boats on the water.
Women marching on behalf of a campaign to remove phthalates and other chemicals from cosmetics. (Photo courtesy of the Breast Cancer Fund)
Teri Olle and her daughter, Natalie Olle Comerford, enjoy playing dress-up with cosmetics, but they choose to use products with fewer chemicals. (Photo by John Comerford)
There are new concerns that products we use every day to keep us clean and make us beautiful may contain toxic chemicals. The targets are things like shampoos, deodorants, hair dyes and cosmetics. Some companies are taking these concerns seriously and giving themselves a makeover. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has this story:
Transcript
There are new concerns that products we use every day to keep us clean and make us beautiful may contain toxic chemicals. The targets are things like shampoos, deodorants, hair dyes and cosmetics. Some companies are taking these concerns seriously and giving themselves a makeover. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has this story:
(Sound of woman and child talking)
Teri Olle is playing dress-up with her two-year-old daughter, Natalie, in the family’s bathroom. Teri is applying lotions to her daughter’s chubby cheeks, while Natalie puts lipstick on her mother.
Little girls like Natalie have been playing dress-up for generations. But Natalie’s game is slightly different. She’s using nail polish, lipsticks and creams made without man-made chemicals.
That’s because her mother is an environmental activist who lobbies against toxic chemical use. With cosmetics, her biggest fear is a group of chemicals called phthalates. Phthalates increase the flexibility of plastic and keep nail polish from chipping.
“Phthalates are testosterone-suppressing synthetic hormones, essentially. And they’ve been linked with all sorts of developmental problems, including, most dramatically, a set of male genital defects that show themselves as birth defects in infant boys.”
Last month, scientists released the first study on male babies. They found a strong link between high levels of phthalates exposure in pregnant women and damage to their sons’ reproductive tract. Studies like this, and others on lab animals showing possible links to reproductive problems, prompted the European Union this past March to ban two types of phthalates from all products sold in Europe. The states of California, New York and Massachusetts are also considering similar plans.
Olle is five months pregnant with her second child. She doesn’t know if she’s carrying a boy, but she says chemicals in cosmetics could be risky for any fetus. So she’s not taking any chances.
“For me, as a person, if someone said to me, ‘You can either use this product that may cause a genital defect in your baby boy or not’, I would think most people would go, ‘Really, we probably shouldn’t be using these products.'”
And it’s not just phthalates that could be a problem. Environmentalists say that the ingredients in cosmetics haven’t been evaluated for health or safety effects. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t do that kind of testing. And in 60 years, it’s banned only nine ingredients. So there are other chemicals, like coal tars used in hair dyes and formaldehyde used in nail polish, that might cause health problems as they’re absorbed by the skin into the bloodstream.
Because of these concerns, a group of environmentalists called the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has convinced 136 natural cosmetics companies to sign a pledge to check for potentially toxic chemicals and eliminate them.
One of those companies is Avalon Organics. Over the past year, Avalon’s spent two and a half million dollars to reformulate their products and switch to more natural alternatives. Gil Pritchard is the company’s President and CEO. He says the jury’s out on whether these chemicals definitely cause harm. Even so, he didn’t hesitate to make the investment.
“It’s convincing enough for me and our company to exercise what we call a precautionary principle – to adopt it and say look, we may not have direct scientific evidence, but there’s enough evidence here to say whoa, I can feel the heat from the stove. I don’t need to put my finger on and burn myself to know that that’s one of the likely outcomes.”
But not all companies feel this way. Procter & Gamble, in Cincinnati, Ohio, has not signed the pledge. Nor have any other major cosmetic companies. Tim Long is a company spokesman. He says environmentalists are blowing this issue way out of proportion.
“The amounts of most of these ingredients that the activists have concerns about are, in fact, extremely small and at the doses used in our products, there’s no scientific evidence to support that they’re resulting in any harm to consumers.”
Long says Procter & Gamble complied with the EU directive and took the banned phthalates out of all of its products both in Europe and the U.S. But he says that wasn’t necessary, since phthalates, along with all other cosmetic ingredients, simply aren’t dangerous. He says his company wouldn’t be using them if they were. And the FDA says that these cosmetics are safe.
Environmentalists say that more research needs to be done to better understand the effect of chemicals used in cosmetics on the body. But Teri Olle says that with so many natural alternatives available, it makes sense to be careful.
“When I became pregnant, I definitely became more conscious of what I was putting on my body. I mean, if you’re supposed to avoid soft cheeses and cake batter, it certainly can’t be good for you to be spraying petrochemicals on your body. That definitely can’t be good for the baby.”
So when the baby’s born this September, instead of using products with man-made chemicals, Teri Olle will be spreading diaper rash ointment with beeswax and apricot oil on her newborn baby.
Don Mikulic with the Illinois Geological survey hunts for the fossilized brachiopods and snails available in the quarry. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The quarry and the entire Chicago area were under a vast coral reef more than 430 million years ago. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The flat, terrace-like structures are called "wetland cells." They'll be planted with native wetland species. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Some of America’s grandest city parks were built when urban areas still had room to grow. But today, older cities wanting new parks face shortages of space, money, or both. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one major city’s development of a park … from below ground
level:
Transcript
Some of America’s grandest city parks were built when urban areas still had room to grow. But today, older cities wanting new parks face shortages of space, money, or both. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one major city’s development of a park from below ground level:
At first blush, an old quarry site doesn’t seem to be a good candidate for a new city park, especially this one.
For the past fifteen years, the city of Chicago has used this quarry as a landfill. The site, called Stearns Quarry, lies off the beaten track, in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, more than two miles southwest of downtown.
Right now it’s kind of ugly. Tractors are patting down a mound of debris and dirt that’s piled up thirty-feet above the nearby street.
(Sound of trucks)
I find the project manager, Claudine Malik inside the site’s construction trailer. She’s hovering over a map of what the park might look like by next year.
“It’s a twenty-seven acre site. It’s roughly a square and if you think of it as broken up into about four separate areas, that helps you map it out mentally. As you come in, there’s an athletic field, It goes down to a pond, which will be stocked for fishing. The majority of the section is a sledding mound. And along the back wall, which is a long preserved quarry wall, is a series of wetland cells that lead down into the pond.”
That’s a lot of different uses to cram into the site’s 27 acres. It’s hard to imagine a stone quarry turned into a landfill and then turned into a city park. To get a better idea of how it will be transformed, Malik and her team take me on a ride around the site.
(Sound of truck starting)
The plan puts every inch of ground to use because there aren’t many chances to put new parks in the city. Malik says rising land values in Chicago make even small land purchases pricey. And everybody seems to have ideas for the park.
Local residents, the state of Illinois and the city gave designers a tall order to fill. Since they’re all putting money into the five million-dollar project, everybody gets something they want.
Soon we spot Don Mikolic, a scientist with Illinois’ Geological Survey. He’s checking the quarry walls before the park’s complete.
(Sound of tapping)
“There’s part of a snail right there.”
Turns out, the quarry’s produced some of the best aquatic fossils in the Midwest.
“In fact you can probably find specimens from this specific quarry sitting in some of the biggest museums around the world.”
And some of the limestone exposed by quarrying will be left for park visitors to view. These walls offer more than just natural history though. Stearns Quarry is part of the region’s architectural history too. The quarry opened in 1833, a few years before Chicago became a city. Its limestone strengthened Chicago harbor and can be found in historic Midwestern churches.
Malik says the site’s history will find its way into the design as well. Just another thing for the planners to work into the park. Which makes you wonder, what’s driving a park to be all these things at once? To get some perspective, I head to the offices of the American Planning Association.
The APA is a professional organization for urban planners. Megan Lewis researches parks for the APA. Lewis says parks like Stearns Quarry face bigger challenges than the grand old parks designed in the 19th century.
“Now, you can’t really approach park planning especially in a city in the same way, because you don’t have the luxury of having all of that land available to you. So you sort of have to see what is there that can become a park and what do we do with it?”
Lewis says the mix of recreation, open space, even history, has a lot to do with the demands from so many competing interests. To see how thing have changed, she gives the example of Frederick Law Olmsted. He’s most famous for developing New York’s Central Park, a hundred and fifty years ago.
“The planning was sort of done in isolation. He would come up with his grand idea and he maybe only had a few people involved. But I think that now, so many people are empowered to say, This is what I want this place to be like, that planning doesn’t really happen in isolation anymore. Which is good, because you want it to be a democratic process.”
(Sound of quarry)
Back at Stearns Quarry, you can see just how those demands are being incorporated. Meeting all those different needs in a relatively small area with a relatively small budget is played out in each square foot.
This new use of the site is again reflecting the city’s needs. The little piece of land has evolved as the city has evolved. First it provided stone for building the city. Then it was a dumping ground. And now it’s a break from the asphalt and concrete, a place to play and rest in a bit of nature.
Chronic wasting disease is affecting many captive deer, and has now been found in New York. Some question whether the disease has spread to wild deer. (Photo by Dr. Beth Williams, University of Wyoming, courtesy of CWD Alliance)
Chronic Wasting Disease has now been found in New York
and officials there are killing and testing hundreds of wild deer. They’re trying to keep the fatal brain disease from spreading to other animals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:
Transcript
Chronic Wasting Disease has now been found in New York and officials there
are killing and testing hundreds of wild deer. They’re trying to keep the
fatal brain disease from spreading to other animals. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:
Five captive deer in central New York tested positive for chronic wasting
disease earlier this month. It was the first time the neurological sickness
appeared in the Northeast.
Officials’ biggest concern is whether the ailment has spread to the wild. That’s why they’re killing and sampling up to 420 wild deer near where the
disease was detected.
Ward Stone is New York’s lead wildlife pathologist. He says those measures
are important, but they may not help in the long term.
“It would be nice if we could eradicate it in the next few weeks and it
doesn’t take hold, but I think it’s here to stay and I would not be
surprised to one day see it from Boston to Los Angeles.”
Chronic wasting disease has been found in 12 states, including Wisconsin and
Illinois. There’s no evidence it affects humans. Still, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention recommends against eating meat from infected
deer.
Many power plants like this one emit a large volume of polluting gases. Unlike those power plants, Ohio Edison decided to settle the lawsuit filed against the Sammis Plant by installing equipment to reduce pollution. (Photo by Lynne Lancaster)
More than five years ago, several eastern states filed suit against Midwest power companies. They claimed the power companies were violating the Clean Air Act, and their residents were suffering from air pollution that drifts eastward. Now, one of the power companies named in the lawsuit has settled. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jo Ingles reports, environmentalists think this agreement might prompt other utilities to follow suit:
Transcript
More than five years ago several eastern states filed suit against Midwest power companies. They claimed the power companies were violating the clean air act, and their residents were suffering from air pollution that drifts eastward. Now, one of the power companies named in the lawsuit has settled. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jo Ingles reports, environmentalists think this agreement might prompt other utilities to follow suit:
Ohio Edison has agreed to pay more than a billion dollars over the next seven years to install pollution control equipment that will reduce the amount of pollution emitted into the air from the Sammis Plant near Steubenville, Ohio.
In addition, the company will spend ten million dollars over the next five years for alternative energy projects in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Plus Thomas Sansonetti with the U.S. Justice department says the company will pay a huge fine.
“In fact, it’s the second largest civil penalty ever obtained in this field….it’s 8.5 million dollars.”
Environmentalists are cheering the settlement, saying it will prompt other power companies that have polluted in the past to pay up.
First Energy, the parent company of Ohio Edison, says it’s happy to settle this lawsuit because it can now plan for its future.
Votes from many of Ohio’s farmers helped President Bush win re-election last year. Now many of them feel betrayed because the President’s 2006 budget proposal calls for federal agriculture spending to be cut by nearly ten-percent. The cuts would drastically reduce farm subsidies… and they would curtail agricultural research efforts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Niedermier reports that would be an especially big problem for a fairly new crop in the Midwest… grapes for wine:
Transcript
Votes from many of Ohio’s farmers helped President Bush win re-election last year.
Now many of them feel betrayed because the President’s 2006 budget proposal calls for
federal agriculture spending to be cut by nearly ten-percent. The cuts would drastically
reduce farm subsidies… and they would curtail agricultural research efforts. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Niedermier reports that would be an especially big
problem for a fairly new crop in the Midwest…grapes for wine:
President Bush wants to cut agriculture spending by more than eight billion dollars as he
looks for ways to reduce the federal deficit. If Congress approves the proposed cuts,
agricultural research at all of the nation’s land grant universities would suffer. For
example, Ohio State University’s Agriculture Research Center in Wooster, Ohio, would
lose six-million dollars. Director Steven Slack says, when you multiply that reduction by
all the research universities across the region… it could mean a lot of cuts.
“If that budget goes through this October, we would see an impact that would reduce
about 200 faculty positions, about 400 staff positions, and about 550 graduate students
that are supported in the north central region, and these are the states from Ohio to the
east and Iowa to the west.”
One of the newer ag industries that has benefited greatly from federally supported
agricultural research is America’s wine producers. For instance, university research into
“bio-dynamic” farming can help vineyards produce wines that don’t rely on synthetic
fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides. Instead, it uses natural methods. It’s like organic
farming…. only it limits the materials used to grow a crop to the farm on which the crop
grows. It’s a closed system.
Under the President’s budget, that kind of research and much more would be cut
at a time when the Midwest wine industry is just getting a good start.
During the last few decades, U.S. wineries have grown from a few hundred, to more than
35, 000 according to the Ohio Wine Producers Association. Most of them are small,
family run operations.
Near the Lake Erie shore just outside Cleveland, Lee Kling-Shern runs the
ten-thousand gallon a year Klingshirn Winery. As wineries in this part of the world go…
his is an old one. His grandfather began growing grapes and making wine on this farm in
1937. Klingshirn says federally funded research made it possible for Midwest vineyards
to grow better varieties of wine grapes…like Viniferas.
“And it’s only been in the last 30 years that technology and research has brought
recommendations to ambitious growers like ourselves to explain how best to handle these
tender varieties and make them work in the field. And thus, today our business is now at
a competitive level with other wine-producing areas of the world as far as the varieties
that we can produce and the quality that we can make. And allows us to be something
worthwhile to come see and do and experience.”
Like Ohio wineries, vintners in states such as New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri
have turned out higher and higher quality wines. Klingshirn is worried that federal cuts
to research spending will make it harder for small vineyards to stay competitive….
“There was finally a research development operation slated to be built at Cornell-New
York which would apply to our style of viticulture here, that as far as I understand has hit
the trash can at this point. So, that’s something we’ve needed for years and years and
years and just as we’re on the cusp of getting it, it’s pulled away.”
Klingshirn and other vintners are also upset that the Bush budget proposes a fifty dollar
fee be paid by winemakers anytime they change the label on a bottle. The money would
be used to pay inspectors who make sure the new labels meet federal standards for health
warnings and other required information.
The vineyard owners and winemakers say the new fees and research cuts are bad timing
for the wine industry in the Midwest, just as many of the vintners were beginning to win
gold medals nationally and internationally.
They’re afraid their progress will be tarnished by the Bush Administration’s proposed
budget.
The Great Gray Owl is a rare sighting south of the U.S.-Canadian border. (Photo by Matt Victoria, Camillus, NY. www.fickity.net)
Ornithologist Gerry Smith, always alert alongside the fields of northern New York. (Photo by David Sommerstein)
Reporter David Sommerstein captured this pic of the Great Gray by holding up his digital camera to Gerry's telescope.
The Great Gray Owl usually lives deep in the northern forests of Canada. But due to scarce food, thousands of the big owls have drifted south. They’ve drifted into southern Ontario and Quebec, even crossing the border into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Last month, a Great Gray was spotted in New York, the first one documented there in almost a decade. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein was there when it
happened:
Transcript
The Great Gray Owl usually lives deep in the northern forests of Canada. But due to scarce food,
thousands of the big owls have drifted south. They’ve drifted into southern Ontario and Quebec,
even crossing the border into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Last month, a Great Gray
was spotted in New York, the first one documented there in almost a decade. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein was there when it happened:
Ornithologist Gerry Smith had invited me to see some of the best raptor habitat in northern New
York. We took off in his cluttered Saturn wagon.
“Here we go!…” (sound of engine turning on)
Gerry wears a beat up canvas hat, green sweatshirt, and always has one hand on his binoculars.
He started birdwatching when he was 13 as a sort of therapy.
“My father passed away when I was 15, but he was terminally ill, and I needed an escape, you
know, obviously as a 13 year-old kid I didn’t know that, but I got hooked, and the rest, as they
say, is history.”
More than 40 years later, he’s never had a job not related to birds. And he’s in his element
cruising the back roads of Upstate New York.
These farm fields are near the St. Lawrence River. They’re ideal for hawks and owls. They’re
grassy with occasional tree stands. And they don’t get as much snow as other parts of the state.
So birds can snag the mice and voles they live on all winter long.
In no time, Gerry’s spotting raptors. There’s a hawk perched in a twisted elm…
“Yep, it’s a Red-tailed Hawk and I think it’s got prey because it’s bending down like it’s eating.”
A rough-legged hawk soars above us, black and white plumage glowing in the sun.
“The bird was just lofting along.”
A Short-eared Owl glides past a farmhouse.
“Look how that is flying. It’s flying like a big fruit bat. Cutting left across the hay bales, coming
toward the house, above the house now, and drifting left.”
Smith’s also seen a snowy owl this year. But still no sign of the Great Gray owl.
The Great Gray usually lives in the far northern forests of Canada. But this year it has flown
south to the upper Great Lakes region by the thousands. Conservation biologist Jim Duncan is a
Great Gray Owl expert with the province of Manitoba. He says the phenomenon happens
cyclically, when the Great Gray’s main food source – the meadow vole – becomes scarce.
“It’s a regular migration. It’s like a robin migrating in response to food availability, except in the
case of the Great Gray Owl, it’s a longer period of time. It’s three to five years.”
Gerry Smith’s still waiting for the Great Gray in New York. It’s been spotted just across the St.
Lawrence River in Canada.
“There’s a single Great Gray Owl on Amherst Island, but not one, as far as we know, has made it
into northern New York despite the fact that a whole lot of us have been looking.”
Now, I know you’re going to call that easy foreshadowing. But believe it or not, just an hour
later, Gerry pulls the car over, grabs his binoculars, and peers at something big perched on a tree.
“We have the first Great Gray Owl that’s made it across the border. I’ll be a son of a gun. That is
so…Now I’m very enthusiastic. Hey, I’m gonna set up my scope.”
While Gerry unpacks the telescope, a raven flies to a branch just above the owl and tries to scare
it away. Birders call it “mobbing.”
“Now don’t you mob that owl, you fiend. I think that’s what he’s thinking of doing. Watch this.”
The owl holds its ground, and Gerry gets it in the telescope’s sights.
“That is so cool. It’s not facing us, it’s back is to us, but take a look, that shape is very
distinctive.”
It’s slate gray with some brown and white, round head, stocky body, as big or bigger than the
raven.
“This has been…oh, the owl just hooted. It’s a very low guttural hoot, something like a horned
owl, only deeper.”
Just then, the owl’s finally had enough. It takes flight and drifts slow and low to a stand of trees,
likely its roost. Gerry jots down the GPS coordinates and we get back in the car.
“Well, sir, we’ll finish the route and head back, but we have had undoubtedly the high point of
the day. That’s the high point of my winter.”
This Great Gray Owl migration is the biggest on record. Biologist Jim Duncan says it’s a chance
for all eager birders to help science.
“People have a real opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of the species, be they farmers,
housewives, commuters. They don’t have to be scientists.”
You do have to be respectful, though, if you want to report Great Gray sightings to wildlife
officials. Stay off private land, don’t make noise, and keep your distance. And enjoy a rare
opportunity to see a Great Gray visitor from the North.
