{"id":6981,"date":"2018-08-02T10:12:26","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T17:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/larryeifert.com\/?p=6981"},"modified":"2023-10-29T11:12:59","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T18:12:59","slug":"water-ballet-my-48-north-magazine-story-for-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/2018\/08\/water-ballet-my-48-north-magazine-story-for-july\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Ballet – my 48 North magazine story for July"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A month late, there’s an entirely new one on in the stores this week. Better late than never!<\/strong> This is the story that goes with the sketchbook page:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re all connected to nature, connected to the web of life. Sure, we all know that, but can you explain it to your mates? Here\u2019s a story you can use. There are many types of small foraging fish in the Salish Sea, surf smelt, herring, candlefish, herring and others. All swim together, \u201cschool,\u201d for safety, and they all eat microscopic animals floating in the water. In turn, they are THE critical food source for many bigger critters \u2013 eagles, seabirds, seals, salmon and whales \u2013 to name just a few. In summer, I often see gulls frantically diving on large forage fish \u2018balls\u2019, so add gulls to the list. If the forage fish were to disappear, so would all the rest \u2013 and that appears to be what\u2019s happening around here \u2013 for lots of reasons. To explain a bit more, take surf smelt. Most spawn on beaches at high tide where they lay eggs on sand or gravel. The eggs can tolerate occasional drying, and so smelt eggs are usually higher up on the beach. Sand lance and herring are lower and never exposed to air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you sail along, glance at the shoreline you\u2019re passing. Are there human-placed boulders? Concrete walls? Old creosote-laden pilings or berms? All these are death to surf smelt because there isn\u2019t sufficient beach for spawning. If there is some room below the barriers, imagine what will happen when Climate Change raises sea level a bit more. Forage fish occupy every marine and estuarine habitat in the Salish Sea \u2013 at least the ones unaltered by us. Some forage fish spawn out in open water, but most create their next generation right on our beaches. Surf smelt eggs have been documented on 275 miles of Puget Sound shorelines, about 10% of the total. I\u2019m a painter of nature, as you can see, and, as part of much bigger projects, in the past two years I\u2019ve created outdoor exhibits for 12 locations interpreting shoreline restoration. Changes are helping these small fish, but is it enough to save salmon and orcas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And here’s the page on my website:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/larryeifert.com\/published-writings-and-art\/salish-sea-stories-48-north-magazine\/2018-03\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter.
Larry Eifert<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the blog on the web.<\/a> And here\u2019s my Facebook fan page<\/a>. I post lots of other stuff there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click <\/a>here to go to our main website \u2013 with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nancy\u2019s web portfolio of stunning photography<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\u00a0here to go to Virginia Eifert\u2019s website.<\/a>\u00a0Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A month late, there’s an entirely new one on in the stores this week. Better late than never! This is the story that goes with the sketchbook page: We\u2019re all connected to nature, connected to the web of life. Sure, we all know that, but can you explain it to your mates? Here\u2019s a story … Continue reading Water Ballet – my 48 North magazine story for July<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,112,118,125],"class_list":["post-6981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-published-story","tag-48-north-magazine","tag-stories-and-articles","tag-watercolor","tag-wildlife"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2018-7-Suf-Smelt.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6981"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12447,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981\/revisions\/12447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}