Same ills, different Earth Day

Lindsay Sandham

The first nationally observed Earth Day celebration was in 1970, and

although its focus has evolved, the environment and its natural

ecosystems remain in danger.

Earth Day was observed Friday, but the Peter and Mary Muth

Interpretive Center in Newport Beach hosted a family-oriented

educational festival Sunday.

The Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends organized a celebration

with a variety of exhibits designed to educate residents on

indigenous sea life, plants, birds and how they depend on one

another. Three environmental documentaries in the Newport Beach Film

Festival were also screened at the center.

Volunteers from organizations and groups devoted to preserving the

environment, such as the Surfrider Foundation, the Environmental

Nature Center and the Nature Conservancy, set up informative stands

and answered questions.

One of the more popular exhibits was the live touch tank, or

“Sharkmobile,” where children looked at and touched fish, urchins,

starfish, sea slugs and baby sharks.

“I like the shark, because it’s really cute,” said 5-year-old

Makaela Orlando of Costa Mesa. “I’m not afraid of sharks at all.

Sharks are really cool to me.”

The “Sharkmobile” is a portable exhibit that travels to schools

and educates students about local marine life. The creatures are

constantly changing, depending on what’s living in the Back Bay.

“These are all caught right here in the estuary,” said Craig

Pernot, a scientific aide for the department of fish and game. “We’ll

probably have them for about six months, and then we’ll release them

back into the harbor.”

Attendees of the Earth Day celebration were able to see a baby

leopard shark, a baby gray smoothhound shark, a round stingray, a

California halibut and a fantail sole.

Another popular highlight of the festival was the Birds of Prey

stand, which featured four live birds on display, courtesy of the

Orange County Bird of Prey Center. Although children were prohibited

from touching the animals, they were able to get a very close look at

them.

A Red-tailed hawk, an American kestrel, a Western screech-owl and

a great horned owl were all leashed, and each had its own display

stand.

Birds come to the center after having been physically or

psychologically injured, and ty most of them are released after

rehabilitation.

“I don’t know that they’re listed as endangered,” said Judy

Bartholomew, Bird of Prey center educator. “But they’re certainly

threatened.”

She explained that their numbers are depleting because their

habitats are being destroyed by urban development and the

construction of roadways.

Inside the center, a number of hands-on activities and educational

booths were set up.

Nikolai Alvarado, a marine biology student at Orange Coast College

who is also a special-projects director for the Coastal Dolphin

Survey Project, manned a booth that featured video footage of the two

dolphins that died in the Back Bay last year and information about a

study being done on them.

The goal of the Newport Harbor Dolphin Research Project is to

educate the public about the two dolphins, Alvarado said, and they

are working on building an exhibit to tell their story.

A necropsy of the younger dolphin that died in November revealed

that something the dolphins ate in the bay killed them, Alvarado said

in a report about the project’s findings.

“Some of these fish have three times the level of pollutants that

are considered to be safe for human and wildlife consumption,” he

said.

The dolphin study is a perfect example of why the public needs to

be informed about water quality issues and dangers within the

environment, Alvarado said.

* LINDSAY SANDHAM is the news assistant. She can be reached at

(714) 966-4625 or [email protected].