POSSESSION SOUND, Everett, Washington — Now is the sweet season, with its lengthening days and warm radiance of spring on Puget Sound.
The return of the light is rousing the natural world from dormancy. Puget Sound is on the rebound, not only in the turn of the season, but in a resurgence of life.
Today there are more humpbacks and gray whales, more harbor porpoises and seals, more sea lions and more orcas in these waters than a generation ago. These surging populations are the result of decades of protection. An exception are southern resident killer whales, an endangered species. They, and the Chinook salmon the southern residents primarily eat, are struggling for survival against an array of threats.
Jennifer Olson, left, Josh Searle (in blue, center), and Katherine Dye check water samples collected as Ardi Kveven, at the rail, cleans equipment on Possession Sound. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)
But there is another story underway here, too, of a marine mammal comeback in Washington from the urban waters of Puget Sound, to the seascapes of the San Juan Islands. The ordinary places we think we know onshore are an altogether different matter seen — and heard — from the water, where the creatures with whom we share this place are cavorting in a spring catenation of life.
In an uncertain world, made even more precarious by a warming climate, it’s also important to celebrate what’s getting better, and understand that changes we make can allow nature to heal and recover.
Ardi Kveven was at the helm of the research vessel Phocoena just offshore of Everett on a recent spring morning. She had the vessel built with funding from the National Science Foundation for the Ocean Research College Academy (ORCA) she directs at Everett Community College. The program instructs kids in the science, wonder and history of Puget Sound through a curriculum centered on getting students out on the water.
Instructors use an interdisciplinary approach, with all hands literally on deck, as professors of English, history and science all explore what Puget Sound can teach. And who knew there was so much to see and explore, all within sight of Interstate 5, whizzing by in the distance?
Here was a menagerie in an ecosystem that actually starts in the forests miles away, in the Snohomish River.
“Marbled murrelet!” called out Kveven, pointing to a chunky pair of birds bobbing in the blue not far off the bow of the boat. These birds nest in the forests of the Cascades and fly all the way to the estuary of the Snohomish River, where they feed on sand lance, herring, and other fish they take back to their forests nest.
Gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus (Emily M. Eng / The Seattle Times)
The Snohomish also carries the nutrients and silty sediment in a freshwater plume all the way out to these nearshore waters of Puget Sound around Whidbey and Camano islands. Ghost shrimp feast on the detritus, as they burrow in the soft silt — and become a meal for one of the largest animals in the Sound: gray whales.
Snuffling in the mud, a small population of gray whales, nicknamed the Sounders, has taught itself to split off from the northbound migration of grays each spring for a side trip to this estuary, for a ghost shrimp snack that plumps them up before they return to the rest of the population to finish their trip.
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Freshly smoothed sand covers the carcass of a 15-ton humpback whale that was buried in the sand in Barnegat Light, N.J. on Monday, Dec. 28, 2020. The whale had washed ashore three days earlier. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)Wayne Parry
BY WAYNE PARRY ASSOCIATED PRESS
BARNEGAT LIGHT, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey beach is the final resting place for a 15-ton (13,600-kilogram) whale whose lifeless body washed ashore on Christmas day.
State and local officials used heavy equipment to bury the 31-foot (9.5-meter) male humpback whale on a beach Monday morning.
The whale was frozen solid and could not be cut into pieces for removal, as is commonly done in other cases in which dead whales wash ashore. That was the way crews removed a large whale that washed ashore in Toms River in April 2017 when temperatures were warmer.
“We needed to do something with it and we couldn’t leave it there any longer; there were just too many people coming near it,” Bob Schoelkopf, co-director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, said after the whale was buried on Monday.
A front-end loader rests on the sand in Barnegat Light N.J. on Monday, Dec. 28, 2020, after burying a 15-ton humpback whale whose carcass had washed ashore three days earlier. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)Wayne Parry
Crews using two front-end loaders dug a trench and rolled the whale into it, then smoothed sand on top of it. By early afternoon, the only sign that a massive whale had been there was a lingering stench in the immediate area.
Schoelkopf said its cause of death was unknown, but there were no obvious physical signs of injury on the parts of it that were visible. It did not appear to have eaten in quite awhile, indicating it may have been ill.
NEW JERSEY – Authorities and marine mammal rescuers are trying to figure out how to get a 15-ton, frozen-solid dead whale off a New Jersey beach.
The 31-foot male humpback whale washed ashore near the inlet in Barnegat Light on Christmas day.
Bon Schoelkopf, co-director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, said its cause of death was unknown, but there were no obvious physical signs of injury on the parts of it that are visible.
Because the animal has been exposed to freezing temperatures for an extended period, it cannot be cut up and removed piecemeal, which is the usual way large whales are disposed of in similar situations. That was the way the stranding center removed a large whale that washed ashore in Toms River in April 2017 when temperatures were warmer.
“It’s frozen solid,” Schoelkopf said. “There’s not much we can do. Cutting into a frozen whale like that isn’t going to be easy.”
Schoelkopf said his team is looking for an off-site location to move to whale, so that a necropsy can be done to determine its cause of death before the remains are buried somewhere.
There are two front-end loaders on the beach that will be used to try to remove the whale.
“It has to be moved whole,” he said.
The whale is located just off the rock jetty of the Barnegat Inlet at Barnegat Light State Park, where one of the Jersey Shore’s iconic lighthouses is located.
Whale watching boats had spotted the whale alive earlier this year in Sandy Hook Bay, where it had been photographed feeding, Schoelkopf said.
In September, a different humpback whale was found dead off the Jersey Shore after being entangled.
Another dead humpback whale was found floating off Cape May in November.
Anyone visiting the area should stay clear, Schoelkopf said, because of possibility for diseases to be in the carcass.
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By Nina WuHonolulu Star Advertiser – June 23, 2020
The Ocean Voyages Institute this morning pulled into Pier 29 in Honolulu with more than 100 tons of marine trash hauled from the middle of the Pacific Ocean, mission completed despite the ongoing pandemic.
The Sausalito, Calf.-based nonprofit once again chartered the locally-based, sailing cargo ship Kwai for the 48-day expedition that set out in early May.
“I am so proud of our hard working crew,” said founder and executive director Mary Crowley in a statement. “We exceeded our goal of capturing 100 tons of toxic consumer plastics and derelict ‘ghost’ nets, and in these challenging times, we are continuing to help restore the health of our ocean, which influences our own health and the health of the planet.”
On last year’s expedition, the institute deployed GPS-enabled satellite beacons, drones and other technology to better track the debris in the ocean, and has found it plays a key role in more effectively removing it. The beacons were placed on nets with the help of crowd-sourced yachts and other commercial vessels, based on Crowley’s theory that one tracker leads to other nets.
Crowley, herself a lifelong sailor, was hoping to launch a considerably larger expedition this year, with more vessels over a three-month period, but had to scale back due to the impacts of the pandemic.
The Kwai, led by Capt. Brad Ives, nevertheless embarked on the expedition, departing from Hilo on May 4 after a self-imposed quarantine of three weeks.
“We were very careful to keep the crew quarantined, and to test any new crew members coming on board because we wanted to make sure the expedition was safe from a health perspective,” she said.
She hopes the pro-active approach to removing the marine debris in the Gyre — halfway between Hawaii and California — will help spare coral reefs as well as wildlife, including whales, dolphins, and sea turtles from entanglements.
Friends Jay DeBenedict and Robert Riley made it to shore in this boat after being hit by a whale, June 8, 2020. (Photo: Jay DeBenedict)
Jay DeBenedict was livelining bunker and settling in for a day of fishing with buddy Robert Riley off the coast of Seaside Park on Monday when the pair got the surprise – and the scare – of their lives.
“We saw whales throughout the day, but we didn’t see this one,” DeBenedict, 62, said. “Out of nowhere, this whale breached and I thought he was going to land in the middle of the boat. He hit right against the T-top.”
Friends Jay DeBenedict and Robert Riley made it to shore in this boat after being hit by a whale, June 8, 2020. (Photo: Marine Mammal Stranding Center)
The men’s 23-foot center console boat was rocked by the weight of the whale to the point where it tipped over, sending both into the ocean. Then, the terror of being immersed in the water got even more bizarre.
“When I stepped down, I was on the whale,” said DeBenedict, a Surf City resident. ” I pushed off him and got away from him, but I didn’t want to get too far away from the boat either.”
“We swam back, got on the boat, and it had a lot of water in it,” said DeBenedict. “I said, ‘let’s just point the boat toward the shore.’”
Amazingly, the boat had righted itself after the trauma of the hit, which DeBenedict said could only be compared to the sound of a car wreck. The swamped boat’s engine stayed on, in neutral, and the pair called police and pointed the bow directly west – toward the Seaside Park beach.
“If we had been near the inlet, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” DeBenedict told Shorebeat a few hours after the incident.
The episode also merited a call to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, who dispatched a marine biologist to see if the whale could be located. Indeed, the whale is thought to have been a juvenile – had it been an adult, the biologist theorized, the boat would have been fully destroyed and neither man would likely have been able to get back to shore.
Friends Jay DeBenedict and Robert Riley made it to shore in this boat after being hit by a whale, June 8, 2020. (Photo: Jay DeBenedict)
Whales have been sighted commonly along the New Jersey coast this spring, including one that took up residence inside the Navesink River in Monmouth County. Anglers, both on boats and from shore, have reported seeing whales almost every day in recent weeks.
“I really thought we were going to be crushed,” DeBenedict recalled. “There was no time for fear, no time for jumping out of the water, not that it would’ve done any good.”
The strangest part of the whole experience: “I knew I was safe in the water, but I was standing on the whale, that was a little freaky,” he said. “When I got back to shore, I knew it wasn’t funny, but I was laughing – like, ‘did this just happen to me?’”
Almost just as amazing as the entire experience was a stroke of good luck during the incident. While climbing back onto the boat, DeBenedict and Riley’s personal items floated right up to them, allowing DeBenedict to grab his prized fishing rod as well as his wallet from the surf.
He said the pair was helped by Seaside Park police officers who guided them safely through the breakers onto the beach. From there, a pickup truck with a trailer took the boat onto dry land where it can be repaired.
A million seabirds died in less than a year as a result of a giant “blob” of hot ocean, according to new research.
A study released by the University of Washington found the birds, called common murres, probably died of starvation between the summer of 2015 and the spring of 2016.
Most dead seabirds never wash ashore, so while 62,000 dead or dying murres were found along the coasts of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California, researchers estimate the total number is closer to 1 million.
Alaska saw the most birds wash up. In Prince William Sound in southern Alaska, more than 4,500 bird carcasses were found every kilometer, or 0.62 miles.
The blob stems from a years-long severe marine heatwave, believed to be caused by an anticyclone weather system that first appeared in 2013. The weather phenomenon known as El Niño accelerated the warming temperatures beginning in 2015 and, by 2016, the rising heat resulted in water temperatures nearly 11F (6C) above average.
Anticyclones form when a mass of air cools, contracts and becomes more dense, increasing the weight of the atmosphere and the surface air pressure.
Heat maps at the time showed a huge red blob growing, spanning more than 380,000 sq miles (1m sq km). That’s nearly 1.5 times the size of Texas or four times the size of New Zealand.
The study found that the murres mostly likely starved to death. The seabird must eat half its body weight to survive, but food grew scarce amid intense competition from other creatures. Warming ocean waters gave fish such as salmon and halibut a metabolism boost, causing a fight for survival over the limited supply of smaller fish.
Researchers also uncovered other effects, including a vast bloom of harmful algae along the US west coast that cost fisheries millions of dollars in revenue. Other animals also died off, including sea lions, tufted puffins and baleen whales.
“Think of it as a run on the grocery stores at the same time that the delivery trucks to the stores stopped coming so often,” Julia Parrish, a co-author of the study and UW professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, said in a press release.
The murres’ population also took a hit. According to the study, a limited food supply resulted in reduced breeding colonies across the entire region. Between the 2015 and 2016 breeding seasons, more than 15 colonies did not produce a single chick. Researchers say those estimates could be low since they only monitor a quarter of all colonies.
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In Thailand, where a major plastic bag ban went into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, shoppers are trying out creative new ways to transport their groceries, like wheelbarrow shopping above or the plant pot carryout method, below.
Justin Auciello reports for WHYY
New Jersey environmentalists are lamenting the state Assembly’s failure to vote on a comprehensive ban on single-use plastic, the most stringent of its type in the nation.
The legislation targets the sale of single-use plastic items, including single-use plastic straws, shopping bags and polystyrene containers, and paper bags. The Senate voted favorably on the statewide ban on Monday but the legislation was not posted by a vote by the Assembly.
The ban on single-use plastic and paper bags would be implemented after one year, and a ban on polystyrene containers, such as Styrofoam, would take effect after two years. Plastic straws would only be permitted by customer request.
And that lack of action is angering environmentalists.
Representatives of Clean Ocean Action, a regional coalition based in Sandy Hook that fights for clean water off the New Jersey and New York coastlines, said they’re disappointed, but will continue to fight and work with local municipalities to expand and build upon the foundation already set. Forty-eight towns have already taken action against single-use plastics.
‘Environmental Protection 101’
“How many more whales, turtles and other marine life must die before our elected leaders act? Single-use plastics cause needless misery and blight,” said Cindy Zipf, the organization’s executive director. “We call upon the Legislature to get a bill on Governor Murphy’s desk no later than Earth Day that would ban these initial plastics within the year. No more excuses. This is Environmental Protection 101.”
During Clean Ocean Action’s beach sweeps in 2018, volunteers removed more than 450,000 pieces of debris, with plastics accounting for the vast majority of items.
New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel said the lack of a vote on the legislation “failed the people of New Jersey.”
“Because of these setbacks, we will redouble our efforts to get this comprehensive plastic bag ban passed in the next session. We will keep going until the Legislature acts and passes a full statewide ban,” he said.
Critics said the legislation was unnecessary because of advances in recycling technology. Others decried one aspect of the proposal that would force food retailers like grocery stores to give away reusable bags for free for the first two months of the ban.
An October 2019 Monmouth University poll found that about two in three New Jersey residents said they supported a plastic bag ban, but many backed away from that zeal when presented with specifics about how it would impact their shopping habits.
When given several options, only 31% of respondents supported a complete ban on single-use plastic bags. Another 27% suggested that consumers should pay a fee for the bags, and 39% stated that stores should be able to continue to give them out for free.
Bills were closely watched amid a growing global problem
Recently retired U.S. Border Patrol Agent Christopher Harris stands next to a pit of plastic debris that got washed into an area neat Imperial Beach in San Diego on Monday, Mar 12, 2018. He says the area was recently cleaned. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
In a setback for environmental groups, California lawmakers early Saturday morning ended the 2019 legislative session without passing two bills that would have been the most ambitious effort in the nation to reduce the massive amounts of plastic pollution that are washing into oceans, rivers and lakes around the world.
The bills, which each cleared one house but not both chambers as required, would have required companies that sell products widely found in grocery stores and fast-food restaurants to reduce plastic pollution 75% by 2030. That could have come through recycling, composting or reduction in the amount of packaging.
In addition, the bills would have required that starting in 2030, all single-use packaging and food products — including plates, straws, forks, spoons, knives, cups and bowls that are offered for sale, sold, or imported into California — would have had to be recyclable or made of materials that decompose when composted.
“It’s very disappointing that with such a clear crisis facing our oceans, the environment and the recycling infrastructure, that the governor and Legislature couldn’t get a solution past the interests of the plastics industry,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a non-profit advocacy group. SKIP AD
Lawmakers did send a third plastics recycling bill to the governor, AB 792, by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco.
If signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, that measure will require plastic beverage containers sold in California to contain 10% recycled plastic by 2021, 25% recycled plastic by 2025, and 50% recycled plastic by 2030.
“This is the most aggressive recycled-content mandate not only in the United States but in the world,” said Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks.
But the two other recycling bills, Assembly Bill 1080, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, and Senate Bill 54, by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, never came up for a vote before the Senate and Assembly adjourned for the year around 3 a.m.
The bills, which were among the most high-profile environmental measures in California’s state capitol in 2019, are eligible to be considered again next year.
“We weren’t able to get the votes necessary this late hour,” said Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, D-Whittier, in a tweet at 3 a.m. Saturday. “But rest assured, we will be back in January.”
Exactly why the bills’ backers couldn’t secure the votes for a landmark environmental law in a Democratic-controlled Legislature with a history of passing major environmental laws was not clear early Saturday.
Several politically prominent groups, including the wine industry, opposed the bills, saying they would have given too much power to state bureaucrats at CalRecycle, the agency that would have been charged with writing specific rules to implement the law by 2024.
Other opposition in recent weeks came from Waste Management and recycling and refuse industry companies and trade groups, particularly in Southern California, who worried that if the packaging industry was forced to create a broad new recycling system, it could cut into their businesses.
Among the supporters of the bills were most of California’s major environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Audubon California, Natural Resources Defense Council and Oceana. The proposals also were endorsed by the California Coastal Commission, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and numerous cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Half Moon Bay, Alameda, and others.
Opponents included the California Chamber of Commerce, the Chemical Industry Council of California, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the Plastic Shipping Container Institute, and other industry groups.
Critics said many of the large companies already are working toward the bills’ goals. They also called the measures overly broad and potentially costly. Eighty percent of the 25 largest consumer packaging companies have committed to making 100 percent of their packaging recyclable or compostable by 2030, industry officials noted, including the five largest — Nestle, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Unilever and Anheuser Busch — which have set 2025 as their target date.
Amid the political stalemate, a relentless number of scientific studies and news accounts have established plastic pollution as a growing and serious environmental problem.
Sorted cubes of recyclable plastics numbers 3,4, 6 and 7 at Republic Services in Anaheim, CA, on Friday, May 17, 2019. The cubes of plastic will be sent to the landfill since China no longer buys this type of material. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
The facts are daunting. Half the plastic that has ever existed on Earth was made in the last 13 years. Only 9% of the plastic sold every year in the United States is recycled, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Up to 13 million metric tons of it ends up in the world’s ocean each year — the equivalent of a garbage truck-full being dumped into the sea every minute — where it kills fish, birds, sea turtles, whales and dolphins that eat it or become entangled by it.
Because plastic, which is made by petroleum products, lasts hundreds of years, it does not decompose, but instead breaks down into trillions of tiny pieces, some microscopic. Studies have shown they end up in fish, in rain, and in food that humans are consuming, including fish.
A study published in 2015 by the non-profit San Francisco Estuary Institute found that at least 3.9 million pieces of plastic pour into the bay every day from eight large sewage treatment plants — leaving the bay with higher concentration than the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and other major U.S. bodies of water.
Another study published last month by the Desert Research Institute in Reno found for the first time the existence of microplastics in Lake Tahoe’s famed blue waters, with many pieces so small they are barely visible. Scientists said they don’t know for sure how the plastic particles got into the lake. But they noted it comes from synthetic clothing, Styrofoam packaging, food containers and other litter, which once broken down can be moved miles by wind, rain and snow.
In California, plastics that once were recycled now are not.
Last year, China announced that it would no longer accept large amounts of plastic and other materials recycled in the United States for processing.
That caused a huge glut of waste plastic and other materials in California and other states. A few other Asian countries began buying more, but overall prices fell. With fewer markets, some cities that collect plastic in blue recycling bins at the curb have had to pay to get rid of it. Others have put the materials into landfills.
In August, rePlanet, one of California’s largest recycling businesses, closed 284 collection centers across the state.
In this 2015 photo, plastic debris is strewn on the beach on Henderson Island in the South Pacific. (Jennifer Lavers via AP)
| Lummi Nation spiritualist Richard Solomon offers a prayer for the southern-resident orcas on a private beach in the San Juan… (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)
ABOARD THE LENGESOT IN THE SALISH SEA — The tote was loaded and full of water, the cedar boughs cut and stacked on deck. But as Lummi tribal members headed out on their traditional waters to offer a ceremonial feeding of live chinook salmon to the endangered southern-resident killer whales, neither whale nor fish was anywhere to be found.
Tuesday marks a month since the southern residents were last seen in their usual home waters in and around the San Juan Islands. Usually, present nearly every day at this time of year, the orcas have shown up only a handful of times this year, and then, only for brief visits before quickly leaving again for waters of the outer coast.
In this historic summer of unthinkables, day after day is passing without the orcas and fish that normally enliven the waters of the inland Salish Sea.
Meanwhile, the chinook runs to the Fraser River the whales are usually hunting in their ancient foraging grounds have cratered. And on a recent weekday on the waters of northern Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands, but for a cluster of oil tankers staging offshore from the refineries in and around Cherry Point, the waters were quiet and still.
“Do you have any fish?” Raynell Morris asked on her cellphone, calling one fisherman after another from the boat. Senior policy adviser in the Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office of the Lummi Indian Business Council, she and other Lummi tribal members normally would have loaded the tote with fish for the whales before heading out. But with no fish to be had at home, they decided to chance getting some from fishermen as they were out on the water.
As she dialed, Richard Solomon prepared. A spiritualist for the Lummi Nation, his prayers were to be offered along with the fish for J17, a matriarch of the southern residents not yet seen this spring or summer, and feared dead. And for K25, also missing. And for the extended family of the southern residents, or in the Lummi language, qwel lhol mech ten: the people who live under the sea.
After hours of searching for whales and fish, the Lummi decided to offer what they could.
Kurt Russo, a strategist with Lummi Nation Sovereignty and Treaty Protection, carries cedar boughs to be used in prayer as Lummi Natural Resource Enforcement Officer Aaron Hillaire ties up the boat. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)
Aaron Hillaire, of the Lummi Nation, docked the tribal police boat used for the voyage at an ancient Lummi village site in the San Juans, dating back more than 4,000 years. Solomon had painted his face for spiritual protection. An ermine skin flashed white from his cedar hat. Morris, carrying the cedar boughs, followed him as he walked ashore.
Solomon stopped and rinsed his face with cool, clean water. On the way to the village site, he suddenly stopped again, and plucked ripe blackberries, fat and succulent. He held onto them though, without eating a one.
Then Morris and Solomon walked down the beach to the water’s edge, where with song and prayer, they offered the berries, floated on cedar boughs, to the whales.
Lummi spiritualist Richard Solomon wears weavings made by Lummi hereditary chief Bill James. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)
Afterward, sitting amid driftwood logs on the beach, Solomon scooped up a heap of white shell fragments in his fisherman’s hands, still red from ceremonial paint. He held the shells, and their memories. They had calved off from an archaeological deposit called a shell midden: bits of shell and bone left in the ground from cooking. The midden was layered in white bands in the ground stacked head-high along the shore.
As he walked back to the boat, Solomon paused, looking out over the cove, and sang his grandmother’s song. She had grown up here. It felt so good to be back, he said, with the memories of this place. “This is when we get to time travel,” he said, still holding the shells, pouring them slowly, carefully, from one palm to the other. They made a soft rattling sound.
Ken Balcomb, of the Center for Whale Research, keeps the official count of southern residents, and usually announces the whales born and died since the previous July. But for scientists, too, it is a summer so far without precedent. Research scheduled for summer encounters with the whales has been impossible to conduct.
Balcomb said he would go out in search of the southern residents to take stock if they haven’t come home by mid-August, when Canadian scientists end their field season. Those researchers have recently been seeing the southern residents on the west side of Vancouver Island, he said. L pod was even seen off the coast of California, in Monterey Bay in April, searching for fish.
Morris said she was not yet ready to call the offering the Lummi made for J17 and K25 a memorial. But she knows their family is in trouble.
“We are here for them, and all the whale people,” Morris said. “Famine; there is no word in Lummi for what is happening.”
Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2515 or lmapes@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @LyndaVMapes. Lynda specializes in coverage of the environment, natural history, and Native American tribes.
