Cry of the Loon is in danger

By Ron Schmidt
Sun contributor
GRAND MARAIS, Michigan — I bolt upright from a deep sleep and try to get a handle on what has roused me so abruptly. The clock reads 2 a.m. and I’m not expecting company. My cabin is three miles from the nearest neighbor and I rarely hear any man-made sounds.
I pad naked to my front deck and listen to frogs croaking. Then I hear it – the tremolo alarm call of my pair of loons 150 yards out in the lake beyond my dock. A second pair answers immediately from a second lake — a quarter of a mile west, across the marsh. All four are worried and alert for danger. Then, there it is. The hoot (who cooks for you) of a hunting barred owl. A newly hatched loon chick would be a find dinner for these owls. Sadly, there are not chicks this summer, just as there have been none for three summers now. From behavior learned over millions of years though, the loons still call their alarm.

Of course, these loons do not belong to me or anyone, though I think of them as mine. They next each year on my lake, and I feel protective of them and their nest. Intrusion by people on personal watercraft and predators can easily ruin nesting and though I can do little about predators, I do keep humans away from the loon’s island during June when privacy is critical.
I get great joy from hearing all the calls the loons make to each other. I thrill to hear the woosh-ing of their wings as they fly overhead. I know it will be a sad day if there are no more loons here. Loons are in danger in this part of Michigan’s upper peninsula, however, just as in many other areas. Habitat destruction is one cause, but a more subtle and deadly one is mercury poisoning.
I was unaware of this threat until a loon researcher, Damon, headquartered at the Seney Wildlife Refuge, stopped by to check on my loons and fill me in. He is in the middle of a six-year investigation of the dwindling loon populations on Upper Peninsula lakes. Loons are hot hatching chicks in most lakes, or if they do, the chicks die off before time comes to migrate in the fall.
Damon is convinced that mercury contamination of the fish in these lakes is causing all the trouble, but it will take more time to have scientific proof. Most mercury is produced by coal-burning power plants, which also cause significant acid rain. Mercury dissolves more readily in acidic water and lakes around here are very acidic. I hope his research will help convince our politicians and those in charge of cleaning up our air to stop letting mercury pollute our air and water. In the meantime, I choose to live without electricity for six months of each year at a cabin outside of Grand Marais. It is of little consequence I know, in the overall electric industry, but it is something I can control. I hope that others who depend upon electric power year around, will try to reduce their use by knowing that the cost is far greater than the cash needed to pay monthly bills from electric utilities. Keeping pressure on our federal representatives to not roll back clean air standards doesn’t hurt either.