Heather Spence, Marine Biologist

The Arlington Virginia Planetarium is in jeopardy. A vote tomorrow (Thursday, April 29 2010) will decide whether the Planetarium will continue or will be closed.  Please join the facebook group and go to the meeting and show your support:

The April 29th meeting is a School Board Meeting, located at 1426 N. Quincy St. Arlington, VA 22207 @ 7:30 p.m. During this meeting, the School Board will vote on the fate of the David M. Brown Planetarium.

“Friends of the Planetarium” would love for you to join us in support of the planetarium during this meeting.

If you lend your voice, “Friends of the Planetarium” will make sure it is heard! Please E-mail schoolbd@arlington.k12.va.us | Call (703) 228-6015 | Sign http://bit.ly/save-the-planetarium

Washington Post “Help Children Reach For The Stars”

Birds alter their songs in response to noise – and the media is picking up on it:

Washington Post article “Song sparrows adjust their songs to fit in with urban noise”

ABC Science show “Birds raise their voice over noisy traffic”

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From Washington Post April 20 2010:

Sunday April 25, 2010 

Location: Lagos del Sol, Cancun Mexico

Time: 11 am to 5 pm

Benefits Red Cross

Another IWC Tackles Big Issues

Heather Spence

Earth Day is almost here – April 22. On this day, we may be interested to learn the details of a compromise being developed by our partner in acronym, the International Whaling Commission. One of the earliest slogans in the environmental movement was “Save the whales.” Whales have captured the public’s attention and interest, not just for their size or behavior, but also for their underwater communication. “The recordings worked because they have a very emotional impact on people who hear them – I’ve actually seen people weep while listening to them. People began realizing this is a terrible thing happening to the largest animals that have ever lived on Earth” says Roger Payne, famous researcher of humpback whale songs.

Whales are threatened globally by ocean noise, warmer more acidic seas, offshore energy development, and hunting. The peaks of whale hunting occurred in the late 1700s in the southern hemisphere for Right whales, in the mid 1800s off new england for Sperm whales, and in the mid 1900s with global industrial whaling. A moratorium on hunting was agreed to in 1986 by all IWC members except Japan, Iceland and Norway. 1800-2200 whales are killed every year. Japan claims the hunts are for science, Iceland and Norway conduct commercial hunts, and indigenous groups in US, Canada, Russia, Greenland, St. Vincent and Grenadines do ‘subsistence’ hunting. This is all direct hunting – whale mortality as a side effect from other fishing efforts is another whole issue, and one in which Mexico has been very involved especially with Vaquita conservation.

“Whales face more threats today than at any time in history,” says Patrick Ramage, global whale program director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. US commissioner Monica Medina says “it’s a global problem and needs global solutions.” How will we proceed? What compromises can and should be made? We have the ability to obliterate life – we can do it if we don’t decide not to. On and around Earth Day, as we especially think about our individual and group roles interacting with our environment, how do we want to contribute to global solutions?

Questions? Comments? E-mail me:  info@heatherspence.net

IWCC website (International Women’s Club of Cancun)

My neices and nephew and I were walking on the beach at sunrise in North Carolina when we found some fruit washed up that looked a lot like apples. We asked around about where they might have come from. It turns out, it is a closely guarded secret in Nags Head! Normally, locals go out in the morning to collect them and there aren’t any left by the time tourists go out on the beach. The information that we were able to get is that there is an apple tree just offshore that continues to produce apples even though it is now under water.