Wasaga Beach and the life lost. October,24th,2011

As most of you know I do photography work to try to educate people on what is going on around them. Most of it is good and then you have something like this. This is terrible. I know there will be some that want to see the photos and some that will not. Some of them I have shot to make an impact. This is real.But I ask you to please at least read through my blog and hear what I have said. What I experienced, and know that not all photos are sad. It is reality. And we must face that. And hope that something can be done to stop this horrible die off from happening like this again. It is sad,sickening and we apparently can not do anything to stop it. At least not yet. MNR are working on the cause which so far is beleived to be a type E botullism strain. A huge job for them. But the tests are lengthy. And are in progress. This is always apparently lying at the bottom of the lake to be awakened once in a while during the fall. Carried by invasive species such as round gobies and zebra muscles etc. Species we ourselves as humans have introduced into our lakes in various ways. The species that are being affected by this die off in Georgian Bay area are diving ducks,loons,gulls and fish. One eats something and something eats that and so on and so forth. The food chain. A terrible thing when something like this goes wrong. A natural die off? I am not of authority to say. All I know is this time 1000's of birds have been affected. And everyone is very alarmed and concerned. Different species of fish,sturgeon which is already an endangered species have been found washed up on the shores. Big catfish,and other big fish that when I saw them were practically all gone from the gulls feasting on them. I know what I saw were all very big probably breeding fish. Oh yes we do loose species every year from natural and unatural happenings. That is a normal occurrance. Mother nature has a way of keeping that balance. But this was so hard to take in. This was a beach full of hundreds and hundreds of dead birds and fish. Amongst them was one lonely dying red necked grebe you will meet here. She was frightened and sick. She lay there unable to move anything except her head. She opened her little eyes only a wee bit when I approached. And I for only a second saw a little glimmer of life twinkeling in those eyes as the sun hit them. And then they were closed again. She was clearly dying a very slow terrible death. I only wished that there was someplace I could of taken her for help. But not enough of those places around. What I am talking about is wildlife rehab centers. At least they could of let her go humanely so she would not have to lay there for hours all alone in pain and suffering,scared and helpless. Her eye almost looked like a tear had formed. I spent time with her. Others tried to feed her rotten apples that had washed up from somewhere. It was very very sad. One woman had tears as she was frantically trying to figure out "why". I later saw her and her husband just sitting on a picnic table on the beach just staring out into the wide open water with all the dead bodies littering the beach around them. And knowing this one tiny life sat suffering. They and I were clearly affected as were many others. Everyone who walked by this grebe stopped and gathered around her. Talked to her and tried to comfort her. It was very moving. I stood myself and just stared into the water and asked why. There are disasters happening every second of every day 24 hours a day seven days a week someplace in this world. Wether it be oil spills,hurricanes,earthquakes etc. Natural or un natural like poaching for example. But they are happening. We just don't always know about it or we hear about it but we are not there so it doesn't affect us directly. But this is our watershed and it does affect us. So much life has been and still will be lost. I watch the birds that migrate every year. I feel sadened to know we won't be seeing as high a number this year when all is said and done with this problem. That we may even see them along our lake front here on Lake Simcoe and possibly other watersheds as well. I know it does happen in other places too. But the worst of it is we are helpless to stop it right now. I only hope that will change. And they will find a way to stop this. Oh yes the yearly die off's will continue to happen. But those are generally not noticed. I hope the die off is over but they think it is not. I also hope that these poor beings will be cleaned up more on a daily basis. They should not be left say over a weekend were hundreds more join them and other lives are eating them passing it on and on. It is a huge job. But I know many people who would help with clean ups including myself if need be. In a sense I am hoping that people will realize what we have on this earth. What we are blessed with and that it does not sustain itself. We must not litter,we must not dump left over bate fish and we have to wash the bottoms of our boats when entering one waterway to another to stop the spread of invasive species. We need to be aware and we need to look after what we have. We can!!! And it is well worth it. Just look around you and you will know what I mean. Sit by the water, in an open field, hear the trees blowing in the winds. The geese as they fly over on a clear crisp night. An owl hooting in a nearby tree or hunting in a field. Baby birds in a nest gapping for food. A robin having a wonderful bath. It's all ours to see and hear. But if we do not look after it. It will be gone forever. Think about that.!