WHY SOAR?

SOAR has a serious side in its missions to help kids find ways of helping the ocean and watersheds throughout the world. I started on having seen hundreds of albatrosses killed by plastic debris at Pihemanu (Midway Atoll). I was inspired by the questions of young people in Ohio and by USFWS biologists working hard to protect endangered species and damaged habitats.



SOAR has a very fun and tough to define side.....thanks to FRED AND FRIENDS, Project SOAR helps with watershed and ocean workshops throughout the world, and generally makes people smile while they learn some tough stuff about how we treat our rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and the one ocean on planet earth..........

INVITING SOAR INTO YOUR SCHOOL, ORGANIZATION, AND COMMUNITY

SOAR introduces young people to ways they can make a difference in their local community and the wider world.



Take advantage by:



1) Invite a SOAR learning kit or bring Ron Hirschi to your school as a guest author or speaker for your organization. Ron has many years experience as an author and as a biologist. SOAR adds another dimension to his list of hands on projects he shares in writing, art, and ecology workshops.



Many schools invite Ron for his work as author of more than 50 nonfiction books, including many with ocean themes. Others bring him to school as a scientist or artist, but the best fit is always when schools use Ron to help them integrate curriculum.



Tom Bates, Principal at Tremont Elementary in Ohio recently said in an interview following Ron's visit, "What stood out to me was how Ron was able to gear his activities and discussion and information so it was meaningful to the students, whether they were in kindergarten or fifth grade."



Be in touch at whalemail@waypoint.com for visit information.



2) SOAR now has a new kit circling the globe along with a Laysan Albatross "Friend of Fred". This duo is packaged with a box full of ideas, activities, information about Papahanaumokuakea, ocean debris, and other materials aimed at sparking new projects related to the sea. Also included is a journal chronicling Fred's adventures, all of which began when kids at Columbus School for Girls (CSG) learned how they could take action to help the ocean.



Currently, this treasured package is in the hands of The Bush School in Seattle.


NOTE: You might also be lucky to receive one of the earlier packages with a FRED and Friend, already traveling. To date, Fred has visited Australia, Switzerland, Israel, England, The Dominican Republic, and many corners of the United States.

22 January 2011

A MOST BEAUTIFUL BIRTH IN THE NEW YEAR..........

I remember so well, a day in 2009. Out on Eastern Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Matt Brown walked a small group of us to a most unlikely spot. Birds hovered around our heads, screaming as loud as they did when Alfred Hitchcock chose this very place to record the audio for THE BIRDS..........We had to watch our step as we made our way through thousands of nesting terns, noddies, Laysan Albatross. We passed a small wetland Matt created to encourage, successfully, the nesting of rare Laysan Ducks.......Then, in the distance, we could see oh so silent and still, magnificent birds taller than the rest with golden heads and gleaming white bodies...........but on closer approach, we could see they were decoys, meant to attract one of the rarest large birds of the ocean, Short Tailed Albatross.

Matt (USFWS Refuge Manager) told us that one pair had visited the decoys early in the year and he had high hopes they would return one day.............Well, you are in for a treat to witness their return. Return they did this winter! One pair found the island and have successfully hatched one chick.

Here's a photo I took on Eastern Island  in 2009 of the decoys that helped attract the pair now raising a chick. This photo also includes young Laysan and Black Footed Albatross about to fledge..........




You can see a photo of the 2011 Short Tails by visiting Barb Mayer's great site, Friend of Albatross Midway (FOAM) at:

http://foam-friends-of-albatross-on-midway.blogspot.com/

Note that the photo was taken in January, so the surrounding area is filled with nesting Laysan Albatross tucked atop their eggs. Keep in mind that it will be more than six months before the young birds of any of the albatross parents are ready to fly on their own. Remember too, that hundreds of these young birds will not survive unless we rid the sea of lighters, bottle caps, plastic shovels.........

Keep watching the FOAM site and I will also try to get updates from Matt and others out on Midway within Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Sanctuary..........Watch also for a Short Tail Albatross Friend of Fred coming soon for someone with interest in learning more about these incredible birds. And, oh, did I mention this hatching is the FIRST known on Midway?????? Much like the birth of a Blue Whale or successful rearing of a Polar Bear Cub in American icescape within Alaska to be sure.......Cause for celebration in these times of change for all creatures of planet earth.  
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3 comments:

Barb said...

That's a great picture of the decoys, Ron! Not only does it clearly show the fake birds, but it reminds us how flat these atoll islands are!
And thanks for mentioning FOAM!

January 23, 2011 at 1:04 PM
ron hirschi said...

Yes, and with ocean water levels rising, it also shows the precarious nature of these Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.....with sea levels rising, we have already lost incredibly important monk seal and honu habitat.

Friends on Kauai and leaders of other Island Nations call for US leaders to do more to curb emissions......plastics are one thing. Coal fired plants and too many exhaust pipes are another.

Let us hope for a better future for nesting seabirds and distant islands. We need to do more to keep these places in everyone's focus. Sharply.

Ron

January 23, 2011 at 5:23 PM
ron hirschi said...

Yes, and with ocean water levels rising, it also shows the precarious nature of these Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.....with sea levels rising, we have already lost incredibly important monk seal and honu habitat.

Friends on Kauai and leaders of other Island Nations call for US leaders to do more to curb emissions......plastics are one thing. Coal fired plants and too many exhaust pipes are another.

Let us hope for a better future for nesting seabirds and distant islands. We need to do more to keep these places in everyone's focus. Sharply.

Ron

January 23, 2011 at 5:23 PM

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X310 Plastic Ocean Activity


It's me, Fred, the Monkey.

If you look closely, you can see I wear X310's leg band around my neck. It's to remind me of her. She was a Laysan Albatross. She was born in March 2008 and lived on Pihemanu, one of the most remote atolls on earth, now part of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

You can wonder about Pihemanu and about X310. She didn't live very long, dying in June 2008. Her parents flew thousands and thousands of miles finding food for her. But x310, like lots of baby albatrosses died before she got to soar the seas. Some albatrosses fly three million miles during their life. Like X310's parents, their sea is a new challenge in food finding because of our actions on land.

Adult albatrosses fly more than a thousand miles just to get a single meal for their babies. But the ocean is full of plastic. And if you read my buddy, Ron's blog and website, you learn about plastic in the sea. It is everywhere and babies like X310 die because they eat so much plastic, they can not get it out of their stomachs.

Where's all this plastic come from?
Where does it go?

Here is a simple activity:

Get up from your chair and walk around the classroom or wherever you are sitting.

Write down each thing around you that is made of plastic.

Everybody compare lists and make a total of the plastic products.

Now, the hard part of this activity:

Can you find alternatives for the things you use, alternatives not made of plastic?
Maybe start with drinking water from a fountain or glass or reuseable container?
Maybe start a really good recycling project?
Maybe make some art from recycled plastic?
Learn more on links here on this site and others.
Talk about times with no plastic.
X310 would have appreciated if people, just a few years ago had decided to make a plastic-free world for you....
You and X310.

Learn how you can SOAR with FRED by arranging a visit with Fred and his ocean teaching kit by emailing his banana provider at whalemail@waypoint.com

FEEDING A BABY ALBATROSS OCEAN ACTIVITY

What you need:

Pint size plastic beverage container with wide mouth (about 1.5 inches) ---This approximates the size of a baby albatross stomach and esophagus.

Important to have the lid too.

Enough plastic items (bottle caps, toothbrush, legos, fishing line, small chunks of nylon rope, markers, pens, more bottle caps and even a few more bottle caps since they are pretty much the most common marine debris.

Talk with your audience of kids of any age about ocean debris and the way adult albatrosses fly out a few hundred or even a thousand miles to find flying fish eggs and squid for the little ones. They return to Pihe Manu or up on the Northeast shore of Kauai, find their young one among thousands of others and begin to feed by regurgitating "food".......

As you talk about this, have the kids place one or two pieces of the plastic into the bottle.

Replace cap with each addition of plastic. Shake gently to mimic bird moving around the nesting area a bit.

Remove cap. Shake gently to mimic the bird trying to dislodge "food" that can not be digested. In a perfect ocean, this would be squid beaks, fish bones, or other natural pieces of food.

Add more plastic, repeating above until no plastic falls out of the bottle when cap is removed (bill is opened) and the bird tries and tries, but can not toss up the mass of debris. See how much and how many different kinds of plastic can be added. Does the rope tangle with the legos and bottle caps. Do five bottle caps cause a blockage in the esophagus???

In nature, the upchucked mass is like an owl pellet and is known as a bolus. Natural foods slip freely through the esophagus and more feeding can continue. Most times, a baby albatross will toss up one bolus before leaving the nesting island. Unfortunately, thousands die because plastic blocks the stomach completely.

Your feeding the baby albatross activity can lead to a lot of discussion of plastics we use, discard, then find their way into the ocean and into the mouth of a baby albatross.

If you want to have a Baby Albatross Feeding Kit, complete with some plastic items that actually came from once living albatross at Pihe Manu, Papahanaumokuakea, be in touch.