BROOKS KRAFT/SYGMA FOR TIME
RICHARD WHEELER
OCTOBER 12, 1998
What a Long-Gone Bird Tells Us About Today
BY CHRISTOPHER HALLOWELL | WAREHAM
Richard Wheeler wants to tell you a story about a bird--a fine but
flightless bird that lived a long time ago in the North Atlantic.
"A magnificent creature," he calls the great auk, "an
extraordinary paddler and swimmer." Sitting on the deck of a
Wareham, Mass., home adorned by portraits and a sculpture of the
2-ft.-tall black-and-white bird, the shaggy-maned Wheeler scowls
when he thinks about the great auk's fate. During the 18th and
19th centuries, commercial fishing vessels scoured the waters off
North America for cod. Since the all but defenseless great auk
provided a source of meat and oil, fishermen clubbed the birds to
death by the millions on the rookeries off Newfoundland. The last
two known members of the species, a nesting pair, were killed on
June 3, 1844, strangled by Icelandic fishermen recruited by a
merchant who hoped to sell the skins to collectors.
To Wheeler, the lost bird was a herald of humanity's continuing
plunder of the seas. Having devastated the cod population,
Atlantic fishing boats are exhausting the haddock, herring and
flounder. "How do you make people see that we are strip-mining
the oceans?" Wheeler, once a commercial fisherman himself, asks,
his voice edged with puzzlement. "I find myself depressed. Our
relationship with the planet is terribly flawed."
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HEROES FOR THE PLANET
heroes gallery
Sylvia Earle
Niaz Dorry
Richard Wheeler
Guy and Neca Marcovaldi
Princess Basma
Hirofumi Yamashita
Legacy: Remembering Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Peter Raven
William McDonough
Russell Mittermeier
Robert F. Kennedy and John Cronin
Yvon Chouinard
Cynthia Moss
OCEAN WEB RESOURCES
International Maritime Organization
United Nation's agency working to improve maritime safety and prevent
pollution from ships
American Oceans Campaign
Committed to protecting and preserving coastal waters, estuaries, bays,
wetlands, and deep oceans
SeaWeb
Public education program designed to raise awareness of the ocean and
the life within it
Ocean Views
CROWDED
The number of people living in coastal regions will jump from 2.5 billion to 6.3 billion in only 30 years
TRASHED
14 billion lbs. of debris were dumped into the seas in 1996, when
200 billion lbs. of fish were taken out
DAMAGED
About 10 percent of coral reefs have died, and an additional 30% may be
gone in two decades
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Books on Oceans and the environment @barnesandnoble.com
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