At 6:01 pm, President Barbara Saunders called the meeting of the Society to order. Vice-President Ken Chaya then introduced the first speaker, Dana Tricarico of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Seascape Program, standing in for Jake Labelle, who was unable to be present. Her talk entitled “The New York Seascape: Promoting Marine Conservation in Our Ocean Backyard,” described the mission of the program as being to Discover through Research, to Protect by informing public policy and to Inspire by engaging and educating the public. The Ocean Backyard of the title is the New York Bight which encompasses some 16,000 square miles of ocean from Montauk Point to Cape May New Jersey. This area has a wide range of habitats from the deep-sea Hudson Canyon to estuarine and brackish waters and is home to a wide diversity of vertebrate and invertebrate species and a migration route for many more. It is also bordered by intense urbanization and is a major shipping area, making conservation a daunting challenge. Dana first described some of the research being carried out by the members of the program on diadromous fish such as eels and alewives and resident shark species such as the sand tiger shark. Migratory and population studies on whales are also a major focus of the program, as several species migrate through the Bight, crossing busy shipping lanes as they do so. Turning to Policy matters, Dana outlined the Ocean Action Plan, which aims to protect wildlife while taking into account the interests of many competing stakeholders, such as those involved in commercial and recreational fisheries, oil and gas exploration, and windfarm development. A plan to designate the Hudson Canyon, with its diverse fauna including cold water corals, as a Marine Sanctuary has not yet been achieved but is a major goal of the program. Also of concern is the seismic impact of both oil and gas and windfarm development on cetaceans with their sensitive acoustic abilities. Next, Dana reviewed the goals of the Aquarium Conservation Partnership, to which the New York Aquarium belongs. This gives strength in numbers to aid in promoting such policies as the campaign to reduce single use plastics and of plastic straws, both of which policies the NY aquarium upholds, and to influence public policy at the state, regional, national and even international levels. As a final comment Dana emphasized the need to educate the public about these conservation issues and the steps that concerned individuals can take, especially in reducing the use of plastic. At the conclusion of Dana’s talk, President Saunders presented her with a Certificate of Appreciation on behalf of the Society.
At 7:32 pm President Barbara Saunders reconvened the meeting. Recording Secretary Hamish Young read the minutes of the January meeting. They were approved as read, with a minor tweak proposed by Linnaean Society member Peter Post to remove any ambiguity about the field observation of a Painted Bunting in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Secretary Lydia Thomas presented four applicants for membership in the Society: Kathleen Heenan sponsored by Barbara Saunders, Carol Seferi and Christina Colon sponsored by Ken Chaya, all for Active membership, and Theresa Brown sponsored by Paul Sweet for Supporting membership. The applications were approved unanimously. President Saunders reminded the membership of the upcoming Annual Dinner on Tuesday March 10th, at which the Eisenmann Medal awardee and speaker will be Stephen Kress. She announced the slate of candidates, approved by Council at the February meeting, for Officer positions in the Society: President: Ken Chaya; Vice-President: Rochelle Thomas; Treasurer: Ruth Hart; Secretary: Lydia Thomas; Editor: Jon Hyman. The position of Recording Secretary is open. She then asked for nominations from the floor. When none were received, she said that nominations for any position may be submitted to Secretary Thomas by February 29th. The membership will vote on the candidates at the Annual Dinner. President Saunders informed members that the Society’s website is being redesigned and will be up and running by the spring. She thanked the members of the design sub-committee for their work in setting up this new and improved website. She also thanked Council member Sherry Felix, who has been Webmaster on the current website for almost 10 years. President Saunders informed the membership that a first-ever LSNY ballcap is to be offered for sale at the Annual Dinner and that Volume XI of the Transactions (a 3-year endeavor) will be published this spring. She then thanked the editorial team and all of the writers and researchers involved with this project. She also urged members to propose speakers for the upcoming season. Past President Rubenfeld’s new book, “American Birds: A Literary Companion,” has been published and a review by LSNY member Patrick Baglee is available on the Society’s website. Conservation chair Rochelle Thomas alerted the membership to a proposal by a golf course to appropriate eighteen acres of wetland adjacent to Liberty State Park. In concluding remarks, President Saunders reminded members of the Society’s Instagram account and to visit the website.
President Saunders introduced Joshua Hammer, former bureau chief and correspondent at large for Newsweek, whose talk entitled “The Falcon Thief: A Tale of Adventure, Skullduggery and the Search for the Perfect Bird” recounted a series of extraordinary events that began with the apprehension of Jeffrey Lendrum at Birmingham International Airport in May 2010, while he was waiting for an Emirates flight to Dubai. An alert janitor noticed that Lendrum had gone into the men’s room with three suitcases and had remained there for about 25 minutes. After he left, the janitor entered the room and found that nothing had been used, but there was an egg carton with one red egg in a diaper bin. Increasingly suspicious, the janitor called the police counter-terrorism unit, who detained Lendrum and performed a strip search, whereupon they discovered fourteen eggs in woolen socks strapped to Lendrum’s body. Initially, Lendrum claimed that they were duck eggs strapped to his body to help him maintain an upright posture. The police, not convinced by this cock and bull story, contacted Andy McWilliam the head of the National Wildlife Crime unit who realized immediately that these were peregrine eggs being smuggled to Dubai for sale to the falconry community. Eventually, it became clear that Lendrum had stolen the eggs from the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, and that he was a professional egg smuggler. Joshua gave a detailed account of the life and times of Lendrum, who began his smuggling career as a boy in the Matobo National Park in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and of the falconry tradition in the Arabian Peninsula, where wild peregrines are highly prized for their speed and hunting skills. Lendrum has also stolen eggs from northern Québec, Patagonia and South Africa, all the while maintaining that he is a conservationist. Undoubtedly he is a very skilled naturalist and rock climber with rappelling skills of the highest order, but a conservationist he is most certainly not. For his crimes he has served several jail terms, and is currently incarcerated in a British prison where he is awaiting the results of an extradition order to Brazil for crimes committed in South America. As Joshua pointed out, the capture of Lendrum, has not led to the uncovering of the wider illegal network of egg smuggling, fueled by the immense riches of the Arab world, with consequent dangers to the world’s fastest bird. At the conclusion of Joshua’s talk, President Saunders presented him with a Certificate of Appreciation on behalf of the Society.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:53 pm.
Respectfully submitted by Hamish Young, Recording Secretary