THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503080514
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROANOKE ISLAND LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Something fishy is going on at the North Carolina Aquarium. The newest display at this Outer Banks attraction doesn't contain fins, gills or flippers. It is entirely for the birds.
Titled ``Osprey: An Environmental Success Story,'' the $30,000 exhibit features an all-weather video camera mounted atop a 75-foot metal tower. The lens focuses on an osprey nest that has been beside the aquarium for at least 15 years. The camera will transmit continuous images of the birds in their natural element.
By viewing a 21-inch color television, visitors will get to watch the raptors eat, lay eggs and fly around their home.
``People will be able to see a pair of nesting osprey raise their young - up close,'' Aquarium Director Rhett White said Tuesday.
``We were really anxious to get the camera in there before the birds came back this spring so that we could follow their entire sequence of reinforcing their nest, laying the eggs and bringing up their young. The osprey came back this morning, just as we were setting up the camera. We got this project done in the nick of time.''
Funded with a $5,000 grant from the Wildlife Resources Commission and $25,000 from aquarium entry fees, the osprey exhibit is the first at the Roanoke Island facility that does not focus on fish or reptiles. White said his staff chose the osprey - or fish hawks, as some locals call the birds - because they live along coastal areas. The exhibit is scheduled to open by mid-April.
``Osprey live to 15 to 25 years old and remain with the same mate for life,'' White said. ``We've had osprey out here at the aquarium for a long time, now. They're amazingly tolerant of people.''
The osprey nest sits on top of a World War II-era Navy beacon tower, between the aquarium and the Dare County Airport. The military has long since abandoned the light, which once illuminated the Croatan Sound. Only birds now inhabit the waterfront structure.
In the mid-1970s, osprey were near extinction in North Carolina. But conservation measures, bans on certain types of pesticides and business initiatives such as putting platforms on telephone poles for the osprey to build their nests atop helped bring back the beautifulbirds, White said.
``Thanks to environmental measures, they're really made quite a comeback,'' said White.
Besides the camera and live, unedited, 'round-the-clock osprey action, the aquarium's new exhibit will include detailed charts and descriptions of the birds' eating habits, habitat and family structures.
A fiber optics display will depict their annual migration route from Central America to the Outer Banks and back. Colorful story boards will chronicle other endangered or threatened North Carolina species, including the red wolf.
The osprey exhibit will be in the former Discovery Room, a 400-square-foot area behind the aquarium touch tank.
``We want people to leave these new displays with the message that environmental conservation works,'' White said. ``We are really trying to strengthen the conservation message at the aquarium. Eventually, we may have an entire aviary here, with several species of waterfowl or shore birds flying overhead.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
DREW C. WILSON/ staff
Joe Malat, top, and Larry Tillett secure a waterproof camera to a
75-foot-high World War II-era beacon where a pair of ospreys nests.
The birds returned Tuesday to their summer home, where they will be
the subject of continuous taping by the aquarium cameras.
Ospreys perch as aquarium personnel attach a video camera to the
nest where the raptors have raised their young for 15 years.
by CNB