Audubon Society Call to Action to Save Loons

Bald eagles, loons and other aquatic birds are being poisoned
the unnecessary use of lead fishing tackle. Switching to steel
can preserve these birds without changing the fishing
experience.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

I received an email from the NH Audubon Society this mornign and I wanted to repost it here in its entirety (as the text requests that it be redistributed as widely as possible). As you may know, I am an avid bird watcher and I enjoy recreational sport fishing. I have long been an advocate of using steel splitshot instead of lead and avoiding lead tackle of all kinds in order to protect aquatic birds.

Lead tackle ingested by ducks, loons, herons and other aquatic birds poisons and kills them. From a fisherman's viewpoint, I find no difference whatsoever in my ability to fish using steel instead of lead. Steel is roughly 68% of the density of lead. It is more than heavy enough to drag your line down in the water.Adding a tiny amount to the diameter of a steel sinker or heavy-headed jig gets you the same weight without any noticeable difference in size.

A distant loon calling late in the day, herons flying overhead, or a bald eagle sitting high in a tree overhanging the lake, and the other wildlife that can all be poisoned by the use of lead tackle are actually part of what makes fishing enjoyable and relaxing. Insisting on using lead makes no sense. Please take a moment to read the Audubon Society email below and take action to extend the current restrictions on lead tackle in New Hampshire (or your own state).

"Dear Friends of Loons, Senate Bill 224, which would increase protection [for] aquatic birds, particularly loons, from toxic lead fishing jigs will be heard before the House Committee on Fish and Game and Marine Resources this coming Tuesday, April 24, at 1:00 p.m. in the Legislative Office Building in Concord. Your calls, emails and letters to every member of this committee (contact information below) between now and next Tuesday will be the most important thing you can do this year to assure a future for New Hampshire’s loons. Senate Bill 224 as amended by the Senate would leave existing regulations (restricting the use and sale of lead sinkers 1 ounce or less and lead jigs less than 1 inch in length) in place through 2014, and would ban the use of lead-headed jigs less than 2.5 inches in length beginning in January of 2015. Our loon population remains far below historic levels and the number of loon pairs on New Hampshire’s lakes decreased in 2011, after a record-high number of deaths from ingested lead tackle in 2010. This decrease occurred despite record levels of management and outreach in recent years, and continued declines are projected unless mortality from lead poisoning is addressed. We know the toll lead tackle is taking on New Hampshire’s loons because biologists have been monitoring the State’s loon population very closely for many years. Although no specific numbers are available, biologists across North America have also documented lead fishing tackle ingested by Canada Geese, American Black Ducks, Wood Ducks, Great Blue Herons, and Bald Eagles, among other species. It will not be easy to gain the support of the House Fish and Game and Marine Resources Committee in view of the concerted efforts of certain fishing groups and the lead tackle lobby. We need to work harder than ever to bring this bill out of committee with a convincing vote and then on to the final stage, a vote by the full House. Your help with the following actions will make all the difference in securing these critical protections for our loons and other water birds: 1. Please contact as many of the House Fish and Game and Marine Resources Committee members as you can between now and next Tuesday, April 24th to express your support for loons, waterfowl, and the important protections in SB 224. 2. If you can, please attend the hearing and sign in as supporting the bill, whether or not you choose to testify. 3. Please distribute this email as widely as you can to friends of loons and other wildlife in New Hampshire. Numbers matter in the House; the more people committee members hear from, the more likely they will take our concerns to heart and vote to save loons and other wildlife from this needless cause of death. Next Tuesday will be a critical day for loons in New Hampshire. I hope I will be able to report that loons won out over toxic lead fishing tackle. It’s in our power to make it so. Thank you for your continued support of our loons! Note that the below are home phone numbers as representatives do not have offices. House Fish & Game and Marine Resources Committee Chairman: Clifford Newton- (603) 332-5643 V. Chairman: Dennis Reed- dreed1@msn.com; (603) 934-6607 Clerk: Joe Duarte- joe.duarte@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 483-8454 Betsy McKinney- betsy.mckinney@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 432-5232 Michael McCarthy-michael.mccarthy@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 598-4966 Tyler Simpson- Tsimpson.rep@gmail.com; (603) 968-9285 James Webb- james.webb@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 845-3454 Benjamin Lefebvre- bplefebvre@gmail.com; (603) 677-2722 Lyle Bulis- (603) 444-5024 Leo Pepino- l.pepino@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 624-1476 Norman Tregenza- norman.tregenza@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 733-6736 Daniel Carr- daniel.carr@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 239-6830 Dick Patten- dickpatten17@gmail.com; (603) 228-1803 Elisabeth Sanders- (603) 642-5070 Richard Okerman- rep.rokerman@gmail.com; (603) 893-7705 Marc Tremblay- marc.tremblay@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 752-1995 David Watters- david.watters@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 749-4539 Jenna Roberts- jenna.roberts@leg.state.nh.us; (603) 868-7402"

Fresh meat from the garden?

This pool on the Isinglass River is a great, easy access place to fish for brook trout.

As you know if you're a regular reader of this blog, I am competing with a garden in Georgia in the 1000 Pound Challenge with a goal of putting 1000 pounds of food on the table from a garden of 500 square feet or less in one calendar year. Although the challenge covers only produce grown within the garden plot, there are other ways to put food on the table with the garden.

For example, as a part of my annual spring garden preparation, I turn over the soil in my raised bed gardens to loosen it up and to dislodge and pull out weeds that have infiltrated the garden. Today, I decided that as I turned over a few pitchforks full of dirt, I might as well collect the earthworms that were uncovered (about 4-5 in each turn) and put them to good use. Of course, leaving them in the garden to enrich the soil with worm casings is also good use, but I had another purpose in mind.

I have also written in this blog that fishing is foraging, too, and a great way to put food on the homestead table. While we don't often think of the garden plot as putting meat on the table, it is very effective at propagating earthworms because of all the organic matter worked into the soil to make it fertile for the plants. While earthworms are edible, they're very small and don't particularly appeal to my predilection for haute cuisine...

Earthworms do, however, top the preferred menu for brook trout and brook trout is certainly on my menu. So this morning I threw a handful of earthworms in a biodegradable paper cup with a bit of dirt and headed for the nearby Isinglass River with my father-in-law to do a little fishing. Within our first ten minutes there I caught my first fish of the year, a ten inch brook trout.

The fish I caught was most likely stocked as part of the NH Fish and Game trout stocking program. Game fish populations are closely monitored and catches are limited by the NH F&G so as to maintain sufficient numbers in New Hampshire waters. Plentiful game fish allows New Hampshire to profit from licensing fees and tourism generated by fishing. The benefit for the environment is that the state has a powerful economic incentive to keep its streams and rivers protected from pollution and the encroachment of suburban sprawl. More wild areas mean more wildlife and a healthier environment for all.

Despite the early success, we did not land another fish over the next few hours and we left for home. Within minutes of arriving home, of course, it started to hail even though we had beautiful partly cloudy, warm weather for our mid-day fishing. It is New England, after all.

To make a long story short, The fish I caught with the earthworms grown in my garden weighed in at .266 pounds after being cleaned and dressed (bones in). That's an entree for one person. Unofficially, then you could say that my garden produced this bounty as well, although it doesn't count for the 1000 Pound Challenge. Living with the land, however, means that we take advantage of available food sources that put minimal strain on the environment. Fishing not only meets that goal, but provides some good relaxation therapy and a chance to build memories and strengthen bonds with friends and family.
--
Don't forget to like the 1000 Pound Challenge on Facebook!

Extending the growing season with row covers

DIY garden row cover
Phot by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

If a New Hampshire garden is to compete with a garden in Georgia for total yield over a span of twelve months in the 1000 Pound Challenge, a key factor with be the ability of the northern garden to extend the growing season. One way to do that is with the use of row covers.

Row covers are used both in the early spring and late autumn to protect garden plants from cold and frost damage. They provide a crude greenhouse for an outdoor garden by covering the garden and trapping ground heat to keep the plants warm enough to survive cold early spring or late autumn nights.

They should be made of a material that lets sunlight in, but which keeps frost out and heat in. Generally, that means plastic sheeting. In my case, I had some battered plastic that I recently used to help protect my in-laws' furniture while moving it in an open truck bed during a light rain. Rather than throw out the plastic, I recycled it by making garden row covers.

I used flexible green branches from my backyard as the hoops for the row covers, and longer branches as the framing members. Row covers are actually pretty easy to build. I have prepared a slide show with step by step instructions for building your own garden row covers and a written a detailed account of the specific benefits of row covers.

With the row covers in place, I can plant seeds directly into the garden even though we have another month of frost danger, or I can transplant seedlings that I started indoors out into the garden. This will add weeks of productive harvesting to the garden.

By using row covers again in the fall, I can grow crops like lettuce, spinach and other plants that aren't as sensitive to shortened daylight hours, well into late autumn or even early winter.

Techniques like the use of row covers make a huge difference in the total annual yield of gardens in regions with short growing seasons. In New Hampshire, row covers can increase the effective growing season by 50-100% depending upon the severity of the weather.

If I'm going to have any chance at the 1000 Pound Challenge, I'll need row covers to give my garden a longer harvest time along with a number of other techniques designed to increase the yield per square foot of garden space.

First Token Harvest of 2012

Chives and oregano harvested on April 3, 2012 for
The 1000 Pound Challenge.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

I had vowed to make a harvest and take the lead in the 1000 Pound Challenge on the first day of the competition which was April 1st. Instead I ended up helping my in-laws to move from Connecticut to our house here in New Hampshire and did not have any time to get out to the garden until today. Today, however, I did make a harvest of four separate crops: leeks, chives, garlic, and oregano.

The garlic and leeks were planted in our terraced garden bed last year and overwintered in place. Ordinarily, all the garlic that I let overwinter in the garden would be dug up, separated and replanted rather than harvested for the table. Each clove will grow a new garlic bulb to be harvested in late summer or fall. In fact, I only harvest three small cloves and the rest will be replanted. For those looking to propagate garlic using this technique, I have written up a tutorial on planting and propagating garlic. The slideshow has step by step photos and instructions. Once garlic starts to grow in the spring, the fullness is sapped from the cloves as the stored energy is consumed by the new plant. If intended for the table, therefore, it's best to harvest late in the growing season as the leaves dry up and wither. I did pick out three good cloves weighing in at 0.004 lbs with the tops that I will use in a vegetable soup along with everything else I picked today.

A leek prepared for cooking.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

I trimmed the fibrous green leaves off the top of the leek and the growing roots off the bottom before weighing it up. This is the part that will go into the soup later. It weighed in at a paltry 0.02 lbs. The other leeks that overwintered will be allowed to grow bigger this year.

Finally, from the herb garden, I picked fresh chives and a little oregano that will also go in the soup. The total weight of these two items combined was 0.026 lbs. Both oregano and chives can be used fresh as I will today, or they can be dried and preserved for later use. In the fall, when the plants in the herb garden are as big as they'll get and the threat of early frost is upon us, I'll harvest as much as I can and dry it out for use all winter long.

The young green shoots of spring garlic can be shopped and
used for cooking.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

My total yield for the 1000 Pound Challenge, as of April 3rd, 2012, is 0.05 or one-twentieth of a pound comprised of four varieties of produce. It's not much, but it's enough for the lead over "The Good (& Simple) Life" in Georgia.

If you haven't seen it yet, there is now a Facebook page dedicated to the 1000 Pound Challenge.