Science, recreation and conservation converged Saturday at Kelly Lake. That’s where biologists and birders hiked to a nesting site to observe loons, and learn more about the threats they face from certain fishing gear.
Tamara Zeller stands on the shore of Kelly Lake, near Sterling, squinting and pointing across the lapping water. She’s the loon expert for U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Alaska Migratory Birds Office. Passing around a set of binoculars, she explained where to look.
“There’s kind of like a dead, brushy area,” she said. “Just follow that to the right.”
Zeller and a small group were looking for a spot of white in a landscape of earth tones – the snowy chest of a nesting loon. Loons are those big waterbirds with a black head, white speckled wings and red eyes. They carry their chicks on their back, eat fish and breed on freshwater lakes during the summer.
Kelly Lake is a designated loon nesting lake by the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and the Anchorage Audubon Society. And it’s where the Kenai Watershed Forum and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are hosting this year’s “Loons, Line and Lead” event.
Zeller said the day of loon education gets its alliterative title from the leading causes of loon deaths.
“People leave their fishing line behind and they get entangled, so we have tons of pictures of loons with, you know, fishing line wrapped around their beaks, there's our legs and their feet and their wings, and then they can't dive, and they can't, you know, feed themselves or preen or even take flight when it's time to migrate,” she said.
That’s the “line,” of “Loons, Line and Lead.” The “lead” refers to lead fishing tackle and lead poisoning, which can be fatal to loons who ingest fish that have been caught and released with tackle still attached. Zeller says anglers should consider pivoting to other metals for sinkers – like tungsten, which has a density similar to lead.
The Kenai Watershed Forum is the event’s other lead organizer. The Soldotna nonprofit’s top mission is cleaning up fishing line and other debris that threatens local waterways. The group also deploys volunteers to rivers and streams around the Kenai Peninsula during fishing season to keep those environments clean.
Volunteers with the organization’s award-winning Stream Watch program have collected more than 1,400 pounds of fishing line since the program launched in the mid-1990s.
The hike came one day after the Kenai River opened to sportfishing for the summer. The fishery draws anglers from around the world seeking wild Alaska salmon.
Lynne Schmitz was one of the roughly 20 or-so people who participated in the educational hike. She volunteers with Friends of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, a statewide nonprofit, and says she joined because she likes loons.
“I think they're pretty!” she said. “They represent nature and wildness. You know, you're not going to see them that much in town or anything, you know. And I just really like them. They’ve got a mystique to them.”
To get to the best view of the nesting loon, the group trekked about half a mile down the Seven Lakes Trail. Refuge Park Ranger Andres Bustamante set up a spotting scope and people took turns hunching over it for a better view of the bird. The loon peered back at the group from a shady spot on the opposite bank. It’d be easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there.
Zeller, the bird scientist, says loons are more than just a pretty face.
“They are indicator species, so if loon populations are doing well, it means fresh water systems are doing well, marine systems are doing well, because they share – they live in both of those environments,” she said.
Zeller said healthy birds mean a healthy environment, which means healthy people.
She also shared some fun facts with the group during a brief lecture. Loons only lay one to two eggs at a time, and can live up to 30 years. No one really knows why their eyes are red. And Alaska is the only place in North America home to all five species of loon, each of which has its own call. Later, Zeller mimicked one – the tremolo.
Zeller said the birds are also good teachers. Loons are a reminder, she said, that Alaskans are lucky to have an iconic bird living among them and that it’s easy to take what you have for granted. To close out the day, she sent the group home with loon bumper stickers – one on her own truck says “♥ a Loon! Lose the Lead and Pick up Your Line.”
