Sea Gulls?

Peter & Alex · #1 05-09-2003, 11:44 PM

Trivial I know .... BUT ..... does anyone know why there are no sea gulls in the DR?

FireGuy · #2 05-10-2003, 01:29 AM

they taste like ... Chicken.

jeje jeje jeje

But seriously, I hadn't noticed but now that you mention it - you are of course right.

Maybe someone will have a serious answer to enlighten us both.

Gregg

P.S. - Greetings from Atlantic Canada.

Chris · #3 05-10-2003, 04:21 AM

You're quite right! I've not seen any of the usual shorebirds around the coast.

Heard a story from a guide at the crystal caves in Cabarete - Now, I do not know if this is true or not but he said that in the 60's, DDT (quite a bad poison) became available on the market to use for killing pests in fruit trees and vegetable gardens and where-ever. Apparently, or so the story goes, folks over here started using this stuff quite indiscriminately and the bird population ate it and simply died off.

Around where we are (farmland), there are some birds but they are by no means numerous.

ERICKXSON · #4 05-10-2003, 10:48 AM

try Samana' when i was alittle kid i used to see lot's and lot's

Hillbilly · #5 05-10-2003, 11:04 PM

But not too many.

As for DDT. MY GOD!, the National Service to Eliminate Malaria used to spray everyone's house with 75% pure DDT solutions, tell you NOT to wash the house down until the NEXT DAY!! You either moved out or slept in that stuff.

Then everyone washed their houses and the runoff went in to the rivers and into the sea.

God's Honest Truth...

HB

PJT · #6 05-11-2003, 10:16 AM

It would be interesting to know how much residual DDT is still remains in the enviroment. DDT banned in the States found its way to the island. Rachael Carson, where are you? Regards, PJT

Chris · #7 05-11-2003, 10:48 AM

We used a lot of that stuff in South Africa too but we never washed our houses with it - Mostly used in the fields and I don't remember correctly how, but diluted like crazy. Good God! Hillbilly, that explains a lot

Who was the company who made this stuff anyway? And it looks like the bird population could have died off massively because of this. Wow - I have not seen one seagull in Cabarete and we're on the beach quite frequently..

Dolores · #8 05-11-2003, 11:32 AM

Saw plenty in Samana, but we had taken a boat trip to remote northern shore beaches.

Peter & Alex · #9 05-11-2003, 12:44 PM

We did the whale watching bit in Samana for a few days recently, plus visits to lots of remote beaches for a looksee, but alas no seagulls and if I recall through the rum haze, no other shore birds either?
In other parts of the world they thrive, especially around garbage dumps, yet here they don't seem to exist? (That's the gulls and not the garbage)!
Perhaps it was the DDT thing that did it but you'd think they'd be replaced by others cruising the skies around the Caribbean and dropping in?
There are certainly no sightings of huge schools of small sardine type fish that I know of in these waters, perhaps that's a factor?
It would be nice to have that incessant sea gull noise, the guano on your shoulder and the seaside feel on the beach in Cabarete - or would it?

PJT · #10 05-11-2003, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Chris
Who was the company who made this stuff anyway? And it looks like the bird population could have died off massively because of this. Wow - I have not seen one seagull in Cabarete and we're on the beach quite frequently..

In the U.S. it was Montrose. It was their pesticide that was the source of the contamination of the California coast which brought about a die-off of brown pelicans and led to the eventual banning of the product in the U.S. in 1972. Regards, PJT