Shipping News
I have to start with the long-awaited arrival of a container ship at the Port of Sydney.
It arrived under tow, carried only 4,200 containers and couldn’t have unloaded here if it had wanted to, but there was a container ship at the Port of Sydney.
Port general manager Paul Carrigan told CTV reporter Kyle Moore:
It’s great to see a ship of this size in the harbor. The harbor was dredged quite a few years ago. This has about 4200 containers on it, some of the ultra large have about 18,000, but Sydney harbour can accommodate that as well.
I think this marks a turning point in local port development history — the one where we shift from pointing to shovels about to break ground on a $1.5 billion, deep-water, transshipment and intermodal mega-hub to celebrating the arrival of broken-down vessels and reminding reporters we once dredged the harbor. Even a cold-hearted monster like me has to feel some sympathy.
With the MSC Kim arriving safely in Sydney on Friday, March 11, our #EnvironmentalResponse activities are concluding. #BravoZulu to our vessel crews, MCTS officers, & all who helped mitigate the safety and environmental risks posed by this large vessel being adrift on the water. pic.twitter.com/xOTSHMK92P
— Canadian Coast Guard (@CoastGuardCAN) March 12, 2022
But this actually is a good news story, because the MSC Kim was carrying “approximately 2500 metric tonnes of hydro carbons,” and none of it ended up in the ocean. As Bob Grant, a senior environmental response officer with the Canadian Coast Guard, told CTV:
If the vessel had to go aground and leak into the marine environment there would be a completely different conversation happening right now.
Oddly enough, the Coast Guard was at the same time dealing with a second vessel that had lost power in the area — the bulk carrier MV Comanche. The CCG tweeted on March 12 that the vessel had been towed to Placentia Bay where it had anchored and would wait out “an incoming winter storm.”
I was curious as to the causes of power loss on large vessels and I found this chart in an analysis by marine insurer, UKP&I:
Source: UKP&I
The report notes that the worst damage associated with power blackouts tends to be when vessels are entering or leaving port or loading or unloading cargo so again, these incidents could have been much worse.
And speaking of incidents that could have been much worse…
More Shipping News
On March 13, the Ever Forward container ship ran aground in Chesapeake Bay, after leaving the Port of Baltimore en route for Norfolk, Va.
The vessel is operated by Evergreen Marine Corp. Taiwan Ltd., the same company that operates the Ever Given, the container ship that ran around in the Suez Canal almost exactly a year ago (and which, as it happens, safely transited it on March 16 this year).
According to the Marine Traffic website, the 12,000 TEU Ever Forward was still aground as of 9:12 AST Friday morning:
Screenshot captured 18 March 2022 at 9:12 AST.
The vessel wasn’t blocking the navigation channel and Reuters reported on March 16 that the grounding had not resulted in a fuel leakage. Evergreen said it was arranging for divers to inspect the vessel and “co-ordinating with all the concerned parties to refloat the ship as soon as possible.”
Tim Bousquet found the local angle on this story, tweeting:
Another ultra-large ship has run aground. The economics of shipping are such that it’s less costly to bring some of the containers to Baltimore rather than simply unload them in Norfolk, a mere ~4-hour truck drive away. This is why there will never be a megaport in Nova Scotia
Regular customers
And now for something totally different:
Researchers in the UK have discovered that Scottish seagulls will travel dozens of miles to visit their favorite fish and chip shops.
Sadly, the focus of the research, conducted by the British Trust for Ornithology, was not the fast-food preferences of Herring Gulls but the steep decline in their numbers — they’ve been added to the Birds of Conversation Concern Red List because their populations are down 48% since 1986.
The study, led by Dr. Nina O’Hanlon, focused on the habits and habitat of Herring Gulls during the non-breeding season. Researchers used GPS technology from 2014 to 2015 to track 20 gulls from five colonies in two regions along the west coast of the UK:
In the southwest Scotland region we tracked birds in the Southern Hebrides (Oronsay and Islay) and Firth of Clyde (Lady Isle and Pladda), and in the northwest England region from Walney
Source: Habitat Selection and Specialisation of Herring Gulls During the Non-breeding Season, O’Hanlon et al
Reporting for the Scottish Daily Mail, Krissy Storrar wrote:
The experts found that outside the breeding season, herring gulls used a range of habitats, including grassland, farmland and urban areas, as would be expected for a species that can survive on a wide variety of different foods from chips to earthworms and freshly caught fish.
While the birds exhibited “an overall preference for intertidal habitats” where the menu was likely to include mussels and worms, Storrar says:
The data revealed that several of the gulls from Scotland visited the Wee Hurry Chippy in Troon, while an individual tagged on Lady Isle in the Clyde even took a trip to the Ayr Racecourse.
O’Hanlon told Storrar:
We downloaded data from at least five individuals at the chip shop. Some of the individuals were making repeated visits.
Menu at the Wee Hurrie in Troon, Scotland. (Source: Restaurant Guru) For the record, none of the reviews on this site were left by Herring Gulls.)
The researchers ended with a call, not to expand chip shop services to gulls, but to better protect the areas “most favorable” to them:
For example, through reducing human disturbance, sustainable management of harvesting intertidal invertebrates, and managing conflict between wildlife and shellfisheries, which would likely benefit multiple species using intertidal habitats.
Featured image: Herring Gull by Scottmliddell, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Lichen Corner
On the subject of protected species (my segueway game is strong this week), I have more lichen news for you.
First, there is a provincial organization dedicated to these complex organisms called Lichen NS, “a symbiosis for lichen conservation.”
And second, in April 2020, at the same time Canadians were choosing the Star-tipped Reindeer Lichen as the national lichen, Nova Scotians voted on a provincial lichen and the winner was…the Blue Felt Lichen (Pectenia plumbea):
Blue Felt Lichen (Pectenia plumbea). Photo by Troy McMullin via Consortium of North American Lichen Herbaria)
Lichen enthusiasts are currently working to have it officially designated as a Nova Scotian symbol, joining our bird (the osprey), our flower (the mayflower), our dog (the Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retriever), our berry (the wild blueberry) and our mineral (the stilbite), among others.
