Invitational Thanks
Dear Editor: I would like to thank all who supported the 14th annual Mt. Edgecumbe Invitational Basketball Tournament last week. Thirty-two teams from around Alaska, including 120 of our own youths, participated in the four-day event. We had a great number of spectators and a record-breaking number of 48 games played. Big thanks to the Sitka Referees Association for taking this on!
Thank you to our local sponsors: Sitka CHARR, Sitka Bottling, Schmolck Mechanical, Hard Rock Construction, Sealaska and Sitka Referees Association.
Thank you also to all of our volunteers and wonderful help: Keith Perkins, Mary-Alice Henry, Devyn Peters, Jennifer Vallion, Rose Demmert, KathyHope Erickson, Nick and Ingfrid Olney-Miller, Gene Bartolaba, Hillary Martin, Bryn Calhoun, Ben Miyasato, Billy Brown, Rachel Kirby, Julie Fitzsimmons and Terry Friske for volunteering many hours on and off the court. Thank you also to the MEHS students and staff who worked extra-long hours to help produce a great event.
Again, thank you for supporting MEHS and our students.
Andrew Friske,
Mt. Edgecumbe High School
Residential/Activities Principal
Birds in Trouble
Dear Editor: ‘‘It is never too late to go quietly to our lakes, rivers, oceans, even our small streams, and say to the sea gulls, the great blue herons, the bald eagles, the salmon, that we are sorry.’’
— Brenda Peterson in ‘‘Singing to the Sound: Visions of Nature, Animals and Spirit’’
I spend a fair amount of my life’s discretionary time on Sitka trails, in Sitka National Historical Park or in my garden on Charles Street watching birds. I delight in the birds found in Sitka’s ecosystem. Varied Thrush, Trumpeter Swans, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Dark-eyed juncos and Belted Kingfishers are some of my favorites. They are my winged brothers and sisters; they are, in fact, messengers from the Divine AND they are in serious trouble.
My heart has been especially heavy these days when I consider the stress on birds. The fires raging in Australia, a result of our current climate crisis, have taken the lives of an estimated half billion animals, many of them birds like Kangaroo Island’s Glossy Black-Cockatoo. Audubons’ recent report on birds and climate, ‘‘Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink,’’ indicates that 389 North American bird species – nearly two-thirds of those studied – are vulnerable to extinction due to climate change. Risks include increased wildfires, debilitating heat waves, heavy rains, red tide and sea-level rise. AND as they point out, there’s hope - “If we take aggressive action now, we can help 76 percent of vulnerable species have a better chance of survival.”
The Audubon report was on the heels of an in-depth assessment that appeared in the September 2019 online issue of ‘‘Science - Decline of the North American Avifauna.’’ Over the last 50 years we lost 1 in 4 birds across North America and Canada. That’s close to 3 billion breeding adult birds across all biomes! We lost 33% of boreal forest birds, 23% of Arctic tundra birds and 37% of shorebirds. This includes a loss of 1 in 3 Dark-eyed juncos – one of my frequent companions. Cornell Lab of Ornithology conservation scientist, Ken Rosenberg, commented that “these bird losses are a strong signal that our human-altered landscapes are losing their ability to support birdlife...and that is an indicator of a coming collapse of the overall environment.”
So what’s a weary, yet cautiously hopeful, bird lover to do? First, and foremost, support comprehensive climate change policies and NOW! Solutions for economy-wide, deep decarbonization like HR:763 The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act are great first steps. Dr. Noah Kaufman, a research scholar at Columbia’s Center for Global Energy Policy, recently said this at the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings, “A carbon price should be part of a comprehensive climate policy” because it “would achieve large emissions reductions at a small cost.” As a result, “studies suggest roughly zero impacts on the overall growth of the U.S. economy.”
Then commit to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s seven simple actions to help birds. 1 - Make Windows Safer, Day and Night. 2 - Keep cats indoors. 3 - Reduce lawns, plant native plants. 4 - Avoid pesticides. 5 - Drink coffee that’s good for birds. 6 - Protect our planet from plastic. 7 - Watch birds, share what you see as a citizen scientist. For more information, go to https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/seven-simple-actions-to-help-birds/ and join me in giving our winged neighbors a fighting chance at survival.
Lisa Sadleir-Hart,
Bird lover and Citizens Climate Lobby Sitka Chapter volunteer
Accident Thanks
Dear Editor: This may be the first letter I have ever written to any newspaper. On Jan. 22, as I was taking my morning walk, I found some ice on the sidewalk, and down I went. Banged up my head a bit. The very first car to come by stopped, right in the middle of the street, to ask if I needed help. I am so very grateful to Jennifer for stopping! She had her passenger call 911 and within minutes the ambulance was there. Dave, who also deserves a big thank you, checked me over then loaded me in the ambulance and took me to Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital where nurse Jennifer and PA Erin and third-year medical student (sorry, I can’t remember his name) took great care of me.
I am so grateful and lucky to live in Sitka where people take the time to stop and help a person in need on the street. I know I could not have looked very good when Jennifer stopped to help me in my time of need.
A great big thank you to all who helped me! I am forever grateful to all of you.
John DeLong, Sitka
