New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
Shark fishing for big blue sharks
Thursday 07/28/2011
Out to sea yesterday off Portsmouth, shark fishing for big blue sharks, but struck out. My fellow boaters asked if I could jump in the chum line and splash a bit mid afternoon. Yes shark fishermen can be ruthless for a bite. By afternoon the haze coming from the land was more like fog. It's one thing to talk about it (pollution), but seeing it for real really drives home the need to change things.
And how things are changing. The political wind sure smells fowl to me. At the state and federal level efforts are underway to curb efforts to block polluters. In a meeting last week with the Lakes Management Advisory Committee our group learned of the terrible cuts underway at the NH Department Of Environmental Services. Bleak is the forecast for pollution to our crown of lakes Winnipesaukee. The stripping of power from the Shoreland Protection Act by this years legislature means way more pollution in the big lake, let alone others. On the federal level there is an all out attack on the EPA which is simply trying to curb the worst of polluters. That is enforcing the Clean Air Act put in place by president Richard Nixon some forty years ago and actually requiring a reduction in mercury and arsenic releases as well as smog and carbon pollution. I feel so bad for my two little granddaughters who will grow up in a world much more polluted.
And speaking of granddaughters, while at my daughters house the other night she pointed out my five year old granddaughter's jewelry box in her room. Slide open on drawer and you will find bracelets and bling, but slide open another and there sits two big dead beetles. Oh yes she's really into bugs. I did take the girls for a walk down the road here a few days ago. We took a wagon and did some road side clean up along the way to great grandma's house. A stop at "the brook" was in order this hot day for a wade and to see what we could see. The older Katie took my challenge for her to scale the granite wall under the old RR bridge. Not much now with a low flow in the brook but quite the challenge in the spring. I'll invite her back when she is a bit older for that one.
