STRANGE MUTANT SCAVENGERS
IN PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats
The clean-up crews are gone, the salmon came back, the herring were not decimated, the dead seabird and mammal carcasses have decayed, the boomers went south with the geese, and Prince William Sound is mostly at peace.
Boating people are starting to notice the rapid disappearance of an endangered bird species in Prince William Sound. The scientific name is Alarmicus Outrageous. You can recognize this bird by its raucous cry of "the sky is falling, the sky is falling."
The reason for the demise of this once prevalent avian is two-fold; loss of habitat and relentless predation. The favorite habitat of this bird is roosting amongst the print media and the TV cameras. Without this critical habitat, this bird is starving, but it was the hunters who finished them off. The hunters were scientists armed with some measure of integrity. The ammunition was research, facts, and truth.
But do not despair. A new mutant subspecies is now beginning to congregate in the Sound. The scientific name of this new Alaskan bird is Volturous Beaurocraticus. This newcomer feeds on grant funds and can spot a funding source further away than an AWACS radar plane.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill left the sweet aroma of money in the air. The clean-up workers got some, the fishermen and vessel operators got some, but the carrion birds that are still circling and picking over the bones are the bureaucrats and scientists who see the remaining restoration funds as their personal blood supply.
The Exxon fines set aside money for restoration and analysis of impacts, and it looks like a feeding frenzy as the agencies fight to gorge themselves. I have read most of the reports and I have yet to hear of a single tree that was numbered amongst the thousands of casualties of the oil spill. Why the Forest Service got invited to the feast is not evident, but cynical old sea dogs like me have seen many landsmen become pirates when there was a fat hog at sea to carve up.
This reminds me of the wreckers' coast off Cornwall, England, where the villagers used to sabotage the navigation aids and put up false lights to lure mariners onto the rocks. After the shipwreck, the villagers would wade out into the surf to kill the sailors who struggled ashore. The vessel's cargo, lumber, and fittings then became the property of the vultures on the beach.
We who have some sense of stewardship about the marine environment can only hope that some of the agencies and most of the scientists have some sense of public service and will set their sights on doing good research, not in finding a blood supply for the perpetuation of their own organization.
The new vultures aren't the only opportunists in the Sound these short winter days. Two landmark Valdez bars have enshrined the very bar stools where Joe Hazelwood picked up his load of alcohol.
One of the bartenders who personally served Joe is apparently quite miffed because the State Chamber of Commerce did not give him an award for bringing over two billion dollars to the Alaska economy. No other effort by a single individual has brought such a large infusion of cash into the Alaska economy, and the bartender is feeling like his efforts deserve recognition. As I get it, from my Valdez correspondent, the offended bartender is planning to auction off the bar stool that Joe sat on. He is figuring to get enough to retire.
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