Text and Image by UC Berkeley



In the famed Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed near Bakersfield, Calif., shark teeth as big as a hand and weighing a pound each, intermixed with copious bones from extinct seals and whales, seem to tell of a 15-million-year-old killing ground.

Yet, new research by a team of paleontologists from the University of California, Berkeley, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and the University of Utah paints a less catastrophic picture. Instead of a sudden die-off, the researchers say that the bone bed is a 700,000-year record of normal life and death, kept free of sediment by unusual climatic conditions between 15 million and 16 million years ago.

The team's interpretation of the fossils and the geology to establish the origins of the bone bed, the richest and most extensive marine deposit of bones in the world, are presented in the June 2009 issue of the journal Geology.

The mix of shark bones and teeth, turtle shells three times the size of today's leatherbacks, and ancient whale, seal, dolphin and fish skeletons, comprise a unique six-to-20-inch-thick layer of fossil bones, 10 miles of it exposed, that covers nearly 50 square miles just outside and northeast of Bakersfield.

Since the bed's discovery in the 1850s, paleontologists have battled over an obvious question: How did the bones get there? Was this a killing ground for megalodon, a 40-foot version of today's great white shark? Was it a long-term breeding area for seals and other marine mammals, like Mexico's Scammon's lagoon is for the California gray whale? Did a widespread catastrophe, like a red tide or volcanic eruption, lead to a massive die-off?

The new and extensive study of the fossils and the geology of Sharktooth Hill tells a less dramatic story, but an important one, for understanding the origin of rich fossil accumulations, said Nicholas Pyenson, a former UC Berkeley graduate student who is now a post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia.

"If you look at the geology of this fossil bed, it's not intuitive how it formed," Pyenson said. "We really put together all lines of evidence, with the fossil evidence being a big part of it, to obtain a snapshot of that period of time."

Pyenson and his colleagues, totaling five UC Berkeley Ph.D.s and UC Berkeley integrative biology professor Jere Lipps, hope that the study will draw renewed attention to the bone bed, which Lipps said needs protection even though a small portion of it was added to the National Natural Landmark registry in 1976.

"This deposit, if properly developed, would look just like Dinosaur National Monument," said Lipps, referring to a popular park in Colorado and Utah. "(Sharktooth Hill) is actually much more extensive, and the top of the bone bed has complete, articulated skeletons of seals and other marine mammals."

One 12-foot-long fossil seal skeleton that Lipps helped excavate during the 50 years he has visited the bone bed was mounted and displayed for decades at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), which houses thousands of fossils excavated from the Sharktooth Hill deposits during expeditions in the 1960s and 1980s. Other collections are in the California Academy of Sciences, San Diego Natural History Museum, Buena Vista Museum of Natural History in Bakersfield, and UC Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), where students over the years have made studies of the bone bed's extinct sea turtles, sharks, marine mammals and seabirds. Lipps is a faculty curator in the UCMP.

The paper's other coauthors - all of whom obtained their Ph.D.s from UC Berkeley - are Randall B. Irmis, now an assistant professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, and Lawrence G. Barnes, Edward D. Mitchell Jr. and Samuel A. McLeod of NHM's Department of Vertebrate Paleontology.

When the bone bed formed between 15,900,000 and 15,200,000 years ago, the climate was warming, sea level was at a peak, California's Central Valley was an inland sea dubbed the Temblor Sea and the emerging Sierra Nevada was shoreline. By closely studying the geology of the Sharktooth Hill area, the paleontologists determined that it was part of an underwater shelf in a large embayment, directly opposite a wide opening to the sea.

Pyenson and Irmis examined some 3,000 fossilized bone and teeth specimens in the collections of many museums, including the NHM and UCMP, and they and Lipps also cut out a meter-square section of the bone bed, complete with the rock layers above and below, and transported it to UC Berkeley for study.

Below the bone bed, they found several feet of mudstone interlaced with shrimp burrows, typical of ocean floor sediment several hundred to several thousand feet below the surface. The bone bed itself averaged 200 bones per square meter, most of them larger bones, with almost no sediment. Most were disarticulated, as if the animal carcasses had decayed and their bones had been scattered by currents.

"The bones look a bit rotten," Lipps said, "as if they lay on the seafloor for a long time and were abraded by water with sand in it." Many bones had manganese nodules and growths, which form on bones that sit for long periods in sea water before being covered by sediment.

Toward the top of the bone bed, some articulated skeletons of seals and whales were found, while in the layer above the bone bed, most skeletons were articulated and encased in sediment.
The team's conclusion is that the climatic conditions were such that currents carried sediment around the bone beds for 100,000 to 700,000 years, during which time bones remained exposed on the ocean floor and accumulated in a big and shifting pile.

Given the rarity of bones marked by shark bites, plus the occurrence of terrestrial animals such as tapirs and horses that must have washed out to sea, predation by sharks like Carcharocles megalodon seems unlikely to have been the major source of the bone bed, the authors wrote. Because of few young or juvenile specimens, the team also discounted the hypothesis that this was a breeding ground for early seals such as Allodesmus. The absence of volcanic ash makes a volcanic catastrophe unlikely, while the presence of land mammal fossils makes red tide an unlikely cause.

"These animals were dying over the whole area, but no sediment deposition was going on, possibly related to rising sea levels that snuffed out silt and sand deposition or restricted it to the very near-shore environment," Pyenson said. "Once sea level started going down, then more sediment began to erode from near shore."

Pyenson noted that, while bone beds around the world occur in diverse land and marine environments, the team's analysis of the Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed could have implications for other fossil-rich marine deposits.

The work was funded by UCMP and UC Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology, as well as by grants from the Geological Society of America and the American Museum of Natural History, and graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation.

Text and Photo by Liz Clark



The clouds came snarling back at the land. From a dead calm the wind climbed quickly to 20 knots, then 30, then 40, and... (George claims it was gusting over 50 knots.) It pushed us directly towards the reef, whose sharp coral "jaws" lay in wait less than 50 feet off the stern. With the engine completely disabled, Swell dangled at the mercy of the freak blow on a mooring in which I wasn't totally confident. The wind waves grew to 3 feet just in the short half mile fetch across the bay.

I stood helplessly at the helm in a sailor's nightmare. Even if I dropped the anchor, I was already too close to the reef to have enough scope to hold me off. I readied the sails, knowing my only chance might be an attempt to sail upwind if the line broke. I frantically gathered some precious belongings, my computer and the ship's log, and shoved them in a waterproof bag. I'd almost resigned, as if I were on the reef already...

"This is it," I thought. "There is no way the mooring line is going to hold."

The rain came in sideways on the wind, stinging against my face, but I stood like a stone although my stomach had curled into a tight ball and my limbs were jelly. My heart had lodged stiffly in my throat. The wind screamed in my ears. It roared and hollered and threatened. Whitewater ran towards us across the surface of the lagoon. I stared blankly into the scene with the same feeling of terror that I had felt at the realization that I wouldn't make it over the set wave at Teahupoo, except this lasted a lot longer. I waited and cringed with each wind wave that yanked the mooring line with a force that I knew would be the last it could withstand. Looking back at land, the trees shook furiously and debris swirled. I could see George running around his yard trying to pin down lawn chairs and securing the "flying dinghy," as it was attempting to fly away without a driver. The minutes seemed eternal. I was short of breath, almost nauseated.

Yank.........yyyyyannnnnnnnnk...YAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNK. I could feel the boat lifting the cement mooring block and then setting it back down...I knew it only took the weakest link and I would surely be on the reef...

Finally it seemed the worst was over. Gradually, the whitecaps got farther apart, the wind waves diminished, and the rain fell more slanted. When I felt sure that we were safe, my body went limp. I dried off and curled up in my cabin next to the water bag. The motor mounts would not be ready for 4 more days!

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Liz Clark sails solo around the world on her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, in search of people, places and waves. She sends us travel updates, stories and photos several times a week.

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Text by Plataforma SINC, Photo by Fernando Torre Alonso



A team of researchers from the University of Cantabria have developed a statistical model that makes it possible to study the variability of extreme waves throughout the year. Their study has shown that there are seasonal variations in the height of waves reaching Spain's coasts, and stresses the importance of this data in planning and constructing marine infrastructures.

"Anybody who observes waves can see that they are not the same height in winter and summer, but rather that their height varies over time, and we have applied a 'non- seasonal' statistical model in order to measure extreme events such as these," says Fernando J. M ndez, an engineer at the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics at the University of Cantabria and co-author of a study published recently in the journal Coastal Engineering.

The new model can chart the pattern of extreme waves "with a greater degree of reliability", by studying 'significant wave height' (Hs) in relation to a specific return period. The Hs is the representative average height of the sea, provided by buoys (it is calculated by measuring one in three of the highest waves), and the return period is the average time needed for the event to happen.

For example, if a wave height of 15 metres is established at a certain point on the coast with a return period of 100 years, this means that, on average, a wave of 15 metres could reach this point once every 100 years. "This can be very useful when it comes to building an oil platform in the sea or a particular piece of coastal infrastructure", explains M ndez.

The researchers have used data recorded between 1984 and 2003 by five coastal buoys located near the cities of Bilbao, in Vizcaya; Gij n, in Asturias; La Coru a, C diz and Valencia in order to demonstrate the validity of their model. The results show that extreme Hs values vary according to location and the month of the year.

The meteorological component of extreme waves
The results showed a similar seasonal variation between waves in Bilbao and Gij n, with waves being less than four metres high between May and September, but increasing after this to reach an average height of seven metres between December and January. The period of large waves in La Coru a extends from October to April, because of the city's westerly position and resulting exposure to more prolonged winter storms.

The Atlantic coast of C diz, meanwhile, reflects the characteristic calm of this area of sea between July and September, with Hs values below two metres. The figures for December and January, however, can vary a great deal from one year to another, reaching wave heights in excess of six metres.

Waves on the Mediterranean coast at Valencia measure between 3 and 3.5 metres from September until April, although the graphics reveal two peaks during this period, one of which coincides with the start of spring and the other with the autumn months, during which the phenomenon of the gota fr a occurs. (Gota fr a events are atmospheric cold air pools that cause rapid, torrential and very localised downpours and high winds).

"All these data are of vital importance in terms of coastal management, since they can establish the risk of flooding and are indispensable for the carrying out of marine construction work, for example infrastructure built close to the coast," says Melisa Men ndez, another of the study's authors. "In addition, they make it possible to calculate the likelihood of a maritime storm occurring."

The researcher also stresses that this information could be very useful in helping to better understand some biological processes, such as how the distribution of marine animals is affected by wave swell, and seaweed growth rates, as well as geological processes, such as how particulates and sediments are transported along the coast.

Extreme value theory
The model developed by the Spanish scientists is based on 'extreme value theory', a recently-developed statistical discipline that aims to quantify the random behaviour of extreme events. The latest advances in this field have made it possible to better study climatic variability at various scales - over a year (seasonality), over consecutive years or decades (which allows climatic patterns to be derived), and over the long term (providing trends).

The study into extreme waves is on the seasonal scale, but the team has also studied extreme sea level values over almost a 100-year period, thanks to data gathered during the 20th Century by a mareograph located in Newlyn, in the United Kingdom. The scientists have already started to obtain information about extreme swell and sea level values at global level as part of a United Nations project to study the sea's impacts on coasts all over the planet, and how these affect climate change.

Text by NCAR, Graphic by Geophysical Research Letters




Melting of the Greenland ice sheet this century may drive more water than previously thought toward the already threatened coastlines of New York, Boston, Halifax, and other cities in the northeastern United States and Canada, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The study, which is being published May 29 in Geophysical Research Letters, finds that if Greenland's ice melts at moderate to high rates, ocean circulation by 2100 may shift and cause sea levels off the northeast coast of North America to rise by about 12 to 20 inches (about 30 to 50 centimeters) more than in other coastal areas. The research builds on recent reports that have found that sea level rise associated with global warming could adversely affect North America, and its findings suggest that the situation is more threatening than previously believed.

"If the Greenland melt continues to accelerate, we could see significant impacts this century on the northeast U.S. coast from the resulting sea level rise," says NCAR scientist Aixue Hu, the lead author. "Major northeastern cities are directly in the path of the greatest rise."

A study in Nature Geoscience in March warned that warmer water temperatures could shift ocean currents in a way that would raise sea levels off the Northeast by about 8 inches (20 cm) more than the average global sea level rise. But it did not include the additional impact of Greenland's ice, which at moderate to high melt rates would further accelerate changes in ocean circulation and drive an additional 4 to 12 inches (about 10 to 30 cm) of water toward heavily populated areas of northeastern North America on top of average global sea level rise. More remote areas in extreme northeastern Canada and Greenland could see even higher sea level rise.

Scientists have been cautious about estimating average sea level rise this century in part because of complex processes within ice sheets. The 2007 assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that sea levels worldwide could rise by an average of 7 to 23 inches (18 to 59 cm) this century, but many researchers believe the rise will be greater because of dynamic factors in ice sheets that appear to have accelerated the melting rate in recent years.

The new research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and by NCAR's sponsor, the National Science Foundation. It was conducted by scientists at NCAR, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Florida State University.

How much meltwater?
To assess the impact of Greenland ice melt on ocean circulation, Hu and his coauthors used the Community Climate System Model, an NCAR-based computer model that simulates global climate. They considered three scenarios: the melt rate continuing to increase by 7 percent per year, as has been the case in recent years, or the melt rate slowing down to an increase of either 1 or 3 percent per year.

If Greenland's melt rate slows down to a 3 percent annual increase, the study team's computer simulations indicate that the runoff from its ice sheet could alter ocean circulation in a way that would direct about a foot of water toward the northeast coast of North America by 2100. This would be on top of the average global sea level rise expected as a result of global warming. Although the study team did not try to estimate that mean global sea level rise, their simulations indicated that melt from Greenland alone under the 3 percent scenario could raise worldwide sea levels by an average of 21 inches (54 cm).

If the annual increase in the melt rate dropped to 1 percent, the runoff would not raise northeastern sea levels by more than the 8 inches (20 cm) found in the earlier study in Nature Geoscience. But if the melt rate continued at its present 7 percent increase per year through 2050 and then leveled off, the study suggests that the northeast coast could see as much as 20 inches (50 cm) of sea level rise above a global average that could be several feet. However, Hu cautioned that other modeling studies have indicated that the 7 percent scenario is unlikely.

In addition to sea level rise, Hu and his co-authors found that if the Greenland melt rate were to defy expectations and continue its 7 percent increase, this would drain enough fresh water into the North Atlantic to weaken the oceanic circulation that pumps warm water to the Arctic. Ironically, this weakening of the meridional overturning circulation would help the Arctic avoid some of the impacts of global warming and lead to at least the temporary recovery of Arctic sea ice by the end of the century.

Why the Northeast?
The northeast coast of North America is especially vulnerable to the effects of Greenland ice melt because of the way the meridional overturning circulation acts like a conveyer belt transporting water through the Atlantic Ocean. The circulation carries warm Atlantic water from the tropics to the north, where it cools and descends to create a dense layer of cold water. As a result, sea level is currently about 28 inches (71 cm) lower in the North Atlantic than the North Pacific, which lacks such a dense layer.

If the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet were to increase by 3 percent or 7 percent yearly, the additional fresh water could partially disrupt the northward conveyor belt. This would reduce the accumulation of deep, dense water. Instead, the deep water would be slightly warmer, expanding and elevating the surface across portions of the North Atlantic.

Unlike water in a bathtub, water in the oceans does not spread out evenly. Sea level can vary by several feet from one region to another, depending on such factors as ocean circulation and the extent to which water at lower depths is compressed.

"The oceans will not rise uniformly as the world warms," says NCAR scientist Gerald Meehl, a co-author of the paper. "Ocean dynamics will push water in certain directions, so some locations will experience sea level rise that is larger than the global average.

Text and Image by UCSD



To help fishermen and scientists better understand this behavior, Scripps researchers deployed acoustic recorders on longlines in 2004 off Sitka, Alaska, as part of the Southeast Alaska Sperm Whale Avoidance Project (SEASWAP). The results helped identify the sounds that attract whales to the fishing vessels. Encouraged, the researchers added video cameras to the fishing gear in 2006, which led to some unexpected results.

The resulting video, recorded using ambient light at 100 meters (328 feet) depth, not only successfully gave the fishermen a clear idea of how the thieving whales were stealing the fish--they pluck the line at one end to jar the black cod free at the other end, somewhat like shaking apples from a tree--but it gave scientists a chance to match the animal's acoustics with video depictions of its physical features. Sperm whales typically dive to dark depths spanning 300 to 2,000 meters (984 to 6,500 feet) to catch prey, making it virtually impossible to capture such activity on video. The fact that the animals produce foraging sounds at such shallow depths around fishing vessels is the main reason the Alaska footage is so unique.

The clicks emitted by the whales are produced more rapidly as they approach their targets of interest and are among the loudest and most intense sounds produced by any animal, according to Thode, an associate research scientist with Scripps Oceanography's Marine Physical Laboratory.

"The sounds can be louder than a firecracker," said Thode. "But until this video recording was made, scientists had not been able to get a direct measurement of the size of the animal and the foraging sounds at the same time."

The Alaska video allowed Mathias and Thode to not only match the size of the whale's head with its acoustic signal, but permitted them to infer the size of its spermaceti organ, which produces a white, waxy substance previously used in candles and ointments, as well as the so-called "junk" inside the whale's head. The junk is a large organ that is believed to play a role in transmitting sound from the whale's head.

Thode said the study could be a first step in the broader use of acoustics to census whale populations as supplements to visual counts of the animals. Currently it is difficult to relate the number of whale sounds recorded to the number of animals present. The ability to tease individuals apart acoustically would be a basic step toward solving the problem.

"It's interesting to see if you can identify an individual animal from its sounds and that's something people have been fascinated by for a long time," said Thode. "Humans can recognize individual people over the telephone using features of their sounds, but it's been quantitatively very difficult to do this for individual animals."

Thode said the video also may assist fishermen in reducing sperm whale encounters with their gear. Besides being economically damaging, the encounters are potentially dangerous to both humans and marine mammals due to the possibility of entanglement. Thode said the video recording has encouraged the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service to start deploying acoustic recorders during black cod surveys off the Alaskan Coast to measure the scale of the sperm whale problem.

Text and Photo by Liz Clark



It was a quiet, cloudy day back at Swell on the mooring in front of the Riou house; Swell was unable to go anywhere while the machine shop fabricated the new motor mounts. The surf was down, and, for the moment, there was no one knocking on the hull. I puttered around contentedly. It had been a loaded week between the leak discovery, the uncertainty of my visa situation, fulfilling the government's paperwork obligations, and removing the broken motor mounts, while simultaneously being surrounded by a flock of new friends at George's house and on my new favorite sailing family's catamaran, Shimmi. It felt like I hadn't taken a breath in a week. When I get rolling with that kind of momentum, the universe usually throws out a few reminders to 'SLOW DOWN!'.

The first had been a terrifying moment at Teahupoo a few days prior--caught inside on a freak set, double the size of any other wave that morning. (I won't go into detail so as to spare my dear mother the agony, but basically I saw my life flash before me when a massive west bowl death lip crashed right in front of me...and then two more after that) To say the least, the incident had ROCKED my world and instantly hitched my 'runaway snowball' of momentum. Over the last few days, it had seemed that the backs of my eyelids were solely featuring visions of that approaching set wave every time they descended over my eyeballs.

But I was now feeling recovered from that adrenal blindsiding, and energized to tackle some of the never-ending 'to do's'. I came out of the cabin to shake a rug and noticed a thick glob of clouds creeping down the valley to the northeast. The dark mass moved like a stalking cat--slowly, steadily, with purpose--until it filled the sky all around to the west...and then it pounced.

To be continued...

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Liz Clark sails solo around the world on her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, in search of people, places and waves. She sends us travel updates, stories and photos several times a week.

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Text by Navy Marine Mammal Program, Photo by NOAA



Dolphins have a clever trick for overcoming sleep deprivation. Sam Ridgway from the US Navy Marine Mammal Program explains that they are able to send half of their brains to sleep while the other half remains conscious. What is more, the mammals seem to be able to remain continually vigilant for sounds for days on end. All of this made Ridgway and his colleagues from San Diego and Tel Aviv wonder whether the dolphins' unrelenting auditory vigilance tired them and took a toll on the animals' other senses?

Ridgway and his team set about testing two dolphins' acoustic and visual vigilance over a 5 day period to find out how well they functioned after days without a break.

First Ridgway and his colleagues, Mandy Keogh, Mark Todd and Tricia Kamolnick, trained two dolphins to respond to a 1.5 s beep sounded randomly against a background of 0.5 s beeps every 30 s. Ridgway explains that the sounds were low enough for the dolphins to barely notice them as they swam through their enclosure, but the animals sprung into action every time they heard the 1.5 s tone, even after listening to the sounds for 5 days without a break. Their auditory vigilance remained as sharp as it had been 5 days earlier.

Next Allen Goldblatt and Don Carder designed a visual stimulus to test the dolphins' vigilance while they continued listening to the repetitive beeps. Knowing that the dolphins' binocular vision is limited because their eyes are situated on opposite sides of their heads, Kamolnick trained one of the dolphins, SAY, to recognise two shapes (either three horizontal red bars or one vertical green bar) with her right eye before training her to recognise the same shapes with the left eye, reasoning that if half of her brain was asleep during testing, the dolphin would only see the shapes through the eye connected to the conscious half of the brain.

But the team were in for a surprise when they began training SAY's left eye. She already recognized the shapes, even though her left eye had not seen them previously. Ridgway explains that the information must be transferred between the two brain hemispheres and suspects that the dolphin's inter-hemispheric commissars, which connects the two halves, may transfer the visual information.

Having trained both dolphins to recognize the shapes, the hard part began: monitoring and rewarding the dolphins continually over a 5 day period while the team tested the animals' responses to both the sound and visual stimuli. Amazingly, even after 5 days of listening out for 1.5 s beeps amongst the 0.5 s beep background, the dolphins were still responding as accurately as they had done at the beginning of the experiment.

The team also enticed the dolphins into a bay at night where they could be shown the horizontal and vertical bar shapes, and found that the dolphins were as sharp at the end of the 120 hour experiment as they had been at the beginning. And when the team checked the dolphins' blood for physical signs of sleep deprivation, they couldn't find any. After 5 days of unbroken vigilance the dolphins were in much better shape than the scientists.

Text and Photo by Liz Clark



Although the surf seemed like it would never quit, I could put it off no longer... Swell's bilge was filling with water again; I HAD to find the source of the leak. With only 2 weeks left on my visa, Swell would have to be ready to leave French Polynesia soon. I reluctantly pulled the goods from both the torpedo tubes, opened up the doors to the engine, and pulled off the stairs. Around the engine, all looked dry...but what's this? The head of a nut...? That's odd...? I shined the light up to find the aft port motor mount cracked and two of the bolts sheared off at the head.

In the wake of that discovery, I spent a few hours at the bottom of the ocean securing George's mooring with some new chain and a scuba tank, and multiple days shuttling back and forth to the city to dash between bureaucratic buildings in an attempt to warn immigration and customs that I was having a few problems with the boat and may not be able to leave as soon as my expected departure date. In order to get an official letter from a certified mechanic to fulfill Immigrations' request, Josh Humbert called his mechanic friend to come down to Swell and have a look. With their help, we lifted the motor in an attempt to better see the source of the water. He reached his hand under the engine and I could see where his fingers touched when they met the fiberglass on the upper back of the keel. It squished like a sponge and water oozed steadily out of the wall! I couldn't believe it...at the same time it felt like my brain squished too.

"It's ugly," was all the soft spoken French mechanic could say. "You will probably have to pull the engine, too."

The thought of another major repair, a haul out, sent chills down my spine. Not only did the idea of grinding fiberglass turn my stomach, but I was out of money. I had spent almost all of my voyage savings getting Swell through her recent repairs...Funny how life gives you what you want...I had wished for a way to stay a little longer in Polynesia, and well, although it was not quite the way I had imagined, it appeared as if wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. I would first have to fix the motor mounts, and then decide when and where and how to get Swell's leaky hull healed.

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Liz Clark sails solo around the world on her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, in search of people, places and waves. She sends us travel updates, stories and photos several times a week.

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Text and Photo by Wildlife Conservation Society



A private beach is a luxury for most, but for the maleo--an endangered bird found only on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi--an exclusive stretch of sand is now a protected nesting area for the species, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Located on the Binerean Cape in northern Sulawesi, the 14-hectare (approximately 36 acres) beach is now owned by PALS (Pelestari Alam Liar dan Satwa, or Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation), a local NGO that works with WCS to conserve wildlife in Sulawesi. The beach is now a protected habitat for the maleo, a unique bird which relies on the sun-baked sands of beaches and in some instances, volcanically heated soil, to incubate its eggs, which it buries in the ground.

The beach was purchased for approximately $12,500, funds donated by the Lis Hudson Memorial Fund and the Singapore-based company Quvat Management. The project also was supported throughout by the Dutch-based Van Tienhoven Foundation.

"Protecting this beach is just the first step in what will soon be a comprehensive conservation project for the benefit of the maleo," said Noviar Andayani, Country Director of WCS's Indonesia Program. "Fewer than 100 nesting sites still exist throughout the bird's entire home range, so every one counts."

The maleo is a chicken-sized bird with a blackish back, a pink stomach, yellow facial skin, a red-orange beak and a black helmet or "casque." The bird's eggs are some five times larger than those of a chicken and are buried by the parent birds in the soil and then abandoned. The chicks hatch and emerge from the soil able to fly and fend for themselves.

Four maleo chicks were released in a ceremony held by WCS staff members and some 60 participants from local communities to commemorate the beach's new protected status. The ceremonial party also released 98 green, leatherback, and olive ridley turtle hatchlings into the surf. The beaches of Binerean Cape are an important nesting ground for all three species; in addition to protecting maleo nests, WCS staff members safeguard turtle nests which have produced some 500 hatchlings this season.

In addition to maleos and sea turtles, the beach supports a coconut farm that produces more than 10,000 coconuts per year. Funds from the harvest will be used to pay local guards to protect the beach's wildlife.

The Wildlife Conservation Society has been actively protecting maleo nests since 2004, specifically by preventing poachers from illegally harvesting the eggs. This year, WCS staff in Indonesia will celebrate the release of the 5,000th chick as part of a recovery plan for the species.