by Carl Safina
A broken rim of clouds rings the horizon, as though the entire planetary ocean is an atoll lagoon fringed with a reefy white surf. The clouds seem to cushion the ocean from the weight of so large a sky. Again we can see fronts of darker blue water bordering lighter blue masses of ocean that run for miles. Brendan is asleep. I’d like to sleep too, but I can’t. In the midst of all this beauty, my one thought is of a loved one, many clouds away.
The airplane is loud. My legs feel cramped. An island slides by below. Clouds slip by beneath us. I get relaxed. Too relaxed to sleep. The clouds themselves begin to seem like islands, like mountains, like the surf, like white lava heads and puffy coral pinnacles. Like there is nothing to see up here, and everything to imagine. Time slows. Minutes pass between thoughts. Finally this waking dream dozes me, and my eyes flicker shut.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ALBATROSSES ROAM on their own wings, but people like me need help getting around. Dr. David J. Anderson of Wake Forest University and Chuck Monnett of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service made this book possible. Dave very generously provided access to data, and Chuck facilitated my repeated visits to the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Dr. Beth Flint cheerfully aided in my acquisition of needed details, archives, and reports. I likewise thank Patty Fernandez, David Hyrenbach, Robert Smith, John Twiss, Bud Antonelis, George Balazs, Lee Ann Woodward, Dominique Horvath, and Cindy Rehkemper for helping me see and understand challenges facing Pacific wildlife.
For revealing new worlds to me at French Frigate Shoals, Laysan Island, and Midway Atoll, I warmly thank John Bone, David Itano, Nancy Hoffman, Rob Shallenberger, Mark Thompson, Rick Gaffney, Gary Eldridge, Bill Gilmartin, Cynthia Vanderlip, Gately Ross, Leszek Karczmarski, Binka Bone, Joyce King, Anthony Viggiano, Brian Allen, Chris Lowe, Brad Wetherbee, Greg Marshall, Birget Buhleier, Laura Carsten, Mark Defley, Frans Juola, Shiway Wang, Brendan Courtot, Carrie Holt, Karen Fischer, Julie Rocho, Vanessa Pepi, Aaron Dietrich, Nick Nickerson, Catherine Tredick, Tim Clark, Mitch Craig, Melissa Shaw, Mary Donohue, Jason Baker, Dr. John Lamkin, George Grigorovitch, Petra Bertilsson, Brenda Becker, Walter Machado, Amber Pairis, Rebecca Woodward, Alex Wegmann, Ray Bolland, Jerry Leinecke, John Sikes, Russ Bradley, and Michele Reynolds. For travel in the Gulf of Alaska I am indebted to Mark Lundsten and the crew of the Masonic.
I deeply thank Stephanie Glenn, Eric Gilman, Mercédès Lee, Merry Camhi, Mike Testa, Paul Engelmeyer, Candyce Mason, Carrie Brownstein, Russ Dunn, and Myra Sarli of Audubon’s Living Oceans Program for their terrific efforts and support.
The many travels that informed this work and helped me see oceanic wildlife are not readily apparent on the surface of the final narrative. Various people helped me to begin to understand albatrosses and other wildlife in the eastern tropical Pacific, Antarctic Peninsula, and subantarctic Southern Ocean. Lisa Ballance, Bob Pitman, Jim Cotton, Mike Force, Laura Morse, and David Starr Jordan commander John Herring brought me into the eastern tropical Pacific and Humbolt Current region. My travels along the Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia Island, and the Falkland Islands were flawlessly facilitated by Wayne Trivelpiece, Susan Trivelpiece, and Laina Shill, who welcomed me into their field study of penguin ice-ecology, and by Polly Penhale and Guy Guthridge of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs and NSF’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Victoria Underwood of Abercrombie and Kent, Kim Crosbie, Victor Emanuel of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, and the crew of the cruise ship Explorer got us to and from the Antarctic in exemplary safety and comfort. Dave Anderson and Tui De Roy facilitated my travels in the Galapagos Islands. Special appreciation to Tui for such breathtaking adventures. I also thank Victor Apanius, Kate Huyvaert, and Henrik Mouritsen. I applaud the courageously dedicated people of the Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galapagos National Park, including Polly Robayo, Rodrigo Bustamante, Felipe Cruz, Mario Piu, Maria Eugenia Proaño, Robert Bensted-Smith, and Howard Snell. Particular additional thanks go to Godfrey Merlen, Dolores Diaz, and Capitan Fulton Divas of the Guadalupe River. Capitan José “Pepín” Jaramillo ran a superb diving expedition on the boat Lammer Law. The amazing glimpse of Royal Albatross global circumnavigations result from the research of Christopher J. R. Robertson and David G. Nicholls.
I thank Elliot Norse for his special encouragement. Patricia Paladines did everything from travel reservation to language translation to sharing walks to the bay. For important information I thank Suzanne Iudicello, George Burgess, Dave Cline, Bruce Babbitt, Ellen Pikitch, Pete Desimone, Pete Osswald, Stan Senner, Will Novy-Hildesley, Norbert Wu, Vikki Spruill, Daniel Pauly, and Richard Ellis. Additional help came from Diane Glick-Morris, Nancy Anderson, Alexandra Srp, Paul Srp, Bill Sladen, Dave Witting, Alice Tasman, Katy Hope, and Cynthia Robinson. Joanna Burger and Michael Gochfeld first involved me in seabird studies many hazy summer days ago, and though I have wandered far, I continue to make my nest nearby.
Wherever I settled in to write, Jennifer Chidsey arrived with encouragement, insightful comments, binoculars, chopsticks, and an inexplicable desire to read each draft. Faith and very helpful criticism from Jean Naggar, Jack Macrae, Jennifer Weltz, Bonnie Thompson, and Steve Fraser saved the narrative from wandering around like a nonbreeding albatross.
For travel assistance I am deeply grateful to Jocelyn Sladen and Anne Alexander Rowley of the Greenstone Foundation, and Monica Jain and the Avina Foundation. A big literary boost arrived from the Lannan Foundation in the very same month I sat down to begin working on this manuscript, and it very much helped me get focused and going. A most astonishing fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation altered time and space for thought and work. I thank also Emly McDiarmid and Gus Speth of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies for extending to me a visiting fellowship and warm welcome.
For generosity and high expectations in our shared efforts to restore ocean wildlife I deeply thank Julie Packard, Jeanne Sedgwick, and Mike Sutton of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Wolcott Henry and Angel Braestrup of the Munson Foundation, Leslie Harroun of the Oak Foundation, Richard Reagan of the Norcross Foundation, Josh Reichert of the Pew Charitable Trusts, Andy Sabin and the Evan Frankel Foundation, H. B. and Jocelyn Wallace and Eric Gilchrist of the Wallace Research Foundation, Bob Kearney and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Paul Tudor Jones, George Denny, Eliot Wadsworth, Mark Winkelman, Robert Campbell, Geoffrey T. Freeman and Marjorie M. Findlay, Mike Northrup of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Streisand Foundation, Bacon-Moore Foundation, Lemmon Foundation, Daniel Thorne Foundation, French Foundation, Josie Merck and the Merck Foundation, Nat Reed, Michael Steibner, Richard Worley, Willard Overlock, Christopher Mailman, Fred Garonzik, George Trumbull, Martin Lane, Michael Egan, Vaim Nikitine, Jennifer and Ben Freeman, Frederick Khedouri, Patricia and John Rich, Caroline Mason, Jonathan Ilany, Robert and Birgit Bateman, Pat and Rosemarie Keough, Bret Lyons, Bill Michealcheck, Walter Giles, and Rick Burnes.
I often wrote in the cabin of my twenty-four-foot boat, and I thank the terrific staff of the Westlake Marina in Montauk, Long Island; Captain Mike Brumm of the Montauk-based charter boat Daybreaker; and Jerry and Marie Borriello of the Marie for providing the surroundings and camaraderie that made those long hours pleasant and productive. Tim Dykman provided necessary distraction by sharing his boat, his e-mail connection, and his trampoline.
The human heroes of this story are people on the front lines of efforts to preserve and restore albatross populations around the world. Among others, they include Nigel Brothers, John Cooper, Sandy Bartle, John Croxall, Rosemary Gales, Henri Weimerskirch, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Graham Roberston, Jim Ludwig, Julia Parrish, Ed Melvin, Kim Rivera, Beth Clark, Mark Lundsten, Eric Gilman, Charles Wurster, Denise Boyd, Kent Wohl, Patrick Gould, Chris Boggs, Euan Dunn, Janice Molloy, Peter Ryan, Narelle Montgomery, Marilyn England, Dave Chaffey, Ingrid Holliday, Richard Thomas, Esteban Frere, Carles Carboneras, Aldo Berruti, and Deon Nel. Special acknowledgments go to the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Counci
l for their Black-footed Albatross population analysis workshop, New Zealand Department of Conservation, Australian Fisheries Management Authority, Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, BirdLife International, Environment Australia, The Forest and Bird Protection Society, Environmental Defense, Defenders of Wildlife, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, American Bird Conservancy, Audubon’s Living Oceans Program, the Antarctica Project, Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, International Southern Oceans Longline Clearinghouse, Pacific Seabird Group, Humane Society International, Oceana, The Ocean Conservancy, and several others, whose omission by name here is a reflection on me, not on them or their hard work and critically important efforts. I celebrate and thank all of you and can only hope my contribution here proves worthy.
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