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The Island Moon Published by Island Moon Publishing, LLC 15201 S. Padre Island Drive Ste. 250 Corpus Christi, TX. 78418 editor@islandmoon.com (361) 949-7700
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The
Island Moon The Island Newspaper since 1996
Island Area News ● Events ● Entertainment
March 15, 2012
Photo by Miles Merwin
The Island Where Sharks Attend Spring Break but Dogs Don’t
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com
The locals had packed their cupboards with care In fear that Spring Breakers soon would be there But the cold blowing rain that swept along the sand Left no one on the beach but the hotdog man
It’s a fact. City crews had the beaches ready, the traffic lanes were cut, the trash cans were in place, the only thing missing were the Spring Breakers. The first week of the annual Spring Break run came in like a lamb last weekend as spitting rain and a biting wind blew in cutting the number of Lobster Tans down to zero. Even the palest of the pale would have had a hard time working up a good burn last weekend. The only vehicle on NoPac between Packery Channel and Newport Pass was the lonely hotdog man selling his wares to customers who came disguised as empty sand. Then as the week progressed we got the fog early and late but beautiful weather during the day and the beaches filled up and things got back to Spring Break normal. There were signs that the Spring Breakers were here all along just staying indoors until the weather cleared. The restaurants were full and Island traffic was up noticeably. If the mid-week weather holds this weekend should be a busy one as it is the one when staggered Spring Break schedules overlap.
Unusual flotsam We have had an unusual amount of driftwood washing up of late. It can be found all the way from Fish Pass south to the National Seashore. It is unusual not only for this time of year but any time of year for the beach that far north. Further south, down at the south end of Malaquite Beach, and on up through Kleberg we’re seeing a lot of Sargasso weed washing up. We saw the same last year this early in the year and it was a harbinger for the heavy Sargasso crop that followed in the spring and summer. Beach driving conditions everywhere except Port Aransas beaches have been dicey so far this year as well. The soft beach sand that usually picks up about twenty miles down the beach near Little Shell has migrated north to a point about six miles south of the northern end of PINS and stays tough until south of Big Shell. Even along the eight miles of Kleberg County beaches that start just south of Bob Hall Pier the driving has been touch and go. It likely will stay that way until we get a good rain or a high tide event.
Packery depth The crews that recently did dredge work in Packery Channel had to bug out a little earlier than expected and didn’t make it all the way to the mouth of the channel. They had to stop about ten days and 300 feet short and will have to come back at some point later in the year. It is not expected to affect the ability to navigate the channel but could cause problems later Around the Island Continued on A 4
Next Publication Date: 3/22/2012
Bull Sharks in the Canals? And the Survey Says… By Dale Rankin In the world of the mainstream media the first rule of operation is to scare as many people possible with the fewest facts allowable. You know, “One of your household appliances could kill you, details at ten!” Then you have to wait around until ten to find out that if you fill your sink with water and stick your head in it long enough you will drown. Well, this is not one of those stories. Let’s start from the beginning. The National Geographic channel recently did a story about why bull sharks have a tendency to attack people in a particular canal system in Australia but in a similar canal system in the United States they don’t. Well, guess which canal system in the U.S. they chose to contrast with the one in Australia? Ours.
Swimming with the sharks One of the reasons that National Geographic chose our canals is that the Hart Research Institute at A&M Corpus Christi has been studying shark populations and behavior in this area for the past three years, so good data exists. Dr. Greg Stunz, a Professor of Marine Biology at the Hart Institute runs the shark program which tags “hundreds” of bull sharks of all sizes each year in the water off our beaches. “The Spring Breakers are swimming with the bull sharks right now,” he says. Bull sharks, some of them very large, do exist here. Stunz says they are also in the bay and are routinely caught off the pier in Oso Bay. The female bull sharks are also known to make their way into Nueces Bay to have their pups; no one is completely sure why but the availability of small fish for food is a good guess.
Work on the Aquarius Extension continues at a brisk pace as crews have now begun work on the permanent roadbed. You can see in this photo how wide the entire right of way will be. Work was scheduled to be finished by the end of June but at the current pace it looks like it might be sooner.
Marine Science Institute Vandalized By Ronnie Narmour
But due to the law of unintended consequences it turns out that having their young in the bay is very good for the bull shark population because the favorite food of big bull sharks is little bull sharks. By having their pups in the bay it allows them to grow there to a size large enough for them to survive in open water before they leave the bay. “The bull sharks are as abundant here as anywhere, we routinely catch bull sharks in the nine-foot realm off our beaches, they are there,” Stunz says. “They just don’t attack people. We’re not really sure why but they don’t. We Sharks Continued on A4
Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery National Park Service, Padre Island National Seashore E-mail: Donna_Shaver@nps.gov
Volunteers attending training at Padre Island National Seashore, in preparation for the upcoming Kemp’s ridley sea turtle nesting season.
Aquarius Work Moving Quickly
Now that might seem alarming at first and if we worked for Australian Rupert Murdoch our headline might read. “Run For Your Very Lives…Bull Sharks in the Canals!” That headline would sell a paper then by the time you read to the third paragraph you would find out there’s really nothing to worry about except the sharks in Mr. Murdoch’s newsrooms. So we’re not going to do that.
By: Donna J. Shaver and Dimitra Guerrero
Each February and March, Padre Island National Seashore staff members hold several training sessions for volunteers that will participate in our program on North Padre Island
Year 15, Issue 414
Swimming with the fishes
Public Invited to Attend Sea Turtle Seminar
The staff at Padre Island National Seashore has been busy preparing for the upcoming 2012 Kemp’s ridley nesting season. We are in the midst of training hundreds of people to help find, document, and protect nesting sea turtles, sea turtle nests and stranded sea turtles in Texas this year. From 10:00 am until noon on Saturday March 24, we will give a seminar that is open to the public free-of-charge. We provide more details about this seminar near the end of this article.
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and the program that Tony Amos oversees on Mustang Island. This year, we have trained more than 100 people that will aid with our program at Padre Island National Seashore. Most of our volunteers are local residents, but some travel here each week from San Antonio and Austin just to help. On March 3, we welcomed back nearly 60 “returning volunteers” for a refresher course covering patrol procedures, safety, and UTV operation. On March 10 and March 13 we held our last two volunteer classroom sessions for this year’s nesting program. In these two classes combined, we trained more than 70 people, most of whom were “new volunteers”, participating in our efforts for the first time this year. The two classes included an overview of the program’s history, a description of the tasks that volunteers can help with, safety information, and other related information. Most of these volunteers also attended a full day of UTV safety and operations training. Most of the Padre Island National Seashore volunteers will participate in our patrol program to find, document, and protect nesting Kemp’s ridley sea turtles and their eggs. Most will patrol the northern half of North Padre Island in a UTV with a Biological Science Technician, but some will conduct walking patrols between Bob Hall Pier and the Packery Channel. Others Turtles Continued on A 4
Pier at MSI where vandals destroyed beacon lights and other equipment in the pier lab. (inset) ARK Volunteer, Amanda, shows where vandals attempt to steal Red Tailed Hawk at MSI According to campus security at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute at approximately 12:30 a.m. on March 11, four young men vandalized the MSI pier, pier lab and attempted to steal a Red Tail Hawk from the ARK. They broke into the pier lab and sprayed chemicals from a fire extinguisher on most of the scientific equipment, broke out the green beacon lights on the pier then tore open screening on a large bird cage where a hawk was
in rehab. Campus security chased the men down as they made their way to the jetty, dropping the bird along the way. One of the vandals was described at 5’4’’, weighing 150 pounds. No arrests have been made. Security measures will soon be implemented with a heavier gate and barbed wire. To date, this is the institute’s first report of vandalism. Photos by Ronnie Narmour
Worldwinds Damaged
A few weeks ago Don Jackson and his helpers out at Worldwinds Windsurfing out at Bird Island Basin were happy to be finished with the new addition to their building. They were gearing up for Spring Break and the beginning of the busy part of the year when windsurfers come from all over the world to enjoy the perfect windsurfing conditions at Bird Island – rated as one of the top windsurfing spots in the world. Then late last week they hit a bad spot – or rather they were hit in a bad spot – when a guy going somewhere between 55 and 70 mph through the 15 mph speed zone approaching Worldwinds smashed his red Dodge pickup into the newly finished building and sent Don and friends back to work. There is no word on why the fellow, with a lady passenger along for the ride, was going 70ish down that road. He realized his folly about a hundred feet out and locked ‘em up but to no avail. When he hit the caliche gravel his locked up wheels did no good and he was still moving fast when he made impact. He struck a glancing
blow to the first out building then crashed headlong into the main building. Fortunately he didn’t damage much gear and somehow managed to drive off. He was caught a short while later and charged. Don has got the place back to normal now and no one was hurt. Go out and spend a day on the water at Worldwinds, but watch out for the speed limit signs.