For the Record

By Bill Donahue and Kimberly Lisagor

Murder Most Fowl

When the shotgunned corpses of nearly 1,000 double-crested cormorants were found on an island in eastern Lake Ontario in late July, federal wildlife officials labeled the slaughter "a brazen act of environmental terrorism." An apparent retaliation for the cormorants' voracious appetite for smallmouth bass — a staple of local fishing guides — the incident was only the latest in a rash of similar killings involving waterfowl protected by the 80-year-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act. In April, city employees in Bethany, Oklahoma, attempting to exterminate 500 cattle egrets infesting a vacant lot in town, inadvertently gunned down 200 rare great egrets (above). In July, authorities in Carollton, Texas, fed up with the odors emanating from a local egret rookery, bulldozed the entire colony in a predawn raid dubbed Operation Remove Excrement, butchering hundreds of birds. And the same week, road crews at a housing development plowed through a heron colony in Conway, Arkansas, with similar results. "We're moving to the ethic we had 100 years ago, that wildlife is there to be removed," says Frank Gill, director of science for the National Audubon Society. "These killings are ominous. You can't just say, 'These things are in my way. Let's bulldoze!'"

Strait Flush
When more than 100 outrigger-canoe squads gather in Hawaii on the 11th of this month for their sport's 47th annual world championships, Kalani Irvine, a veteran of the Lanikai Canoe Club, will be looking for revenge. Outrigger canoeing has been consistently dominated by Hawaiians since 1952. But in last year's championships, a boatload of impudent Aussies shocked everyone by dusting the Hawaiians in their home waters. Accustomed to calm seas, the Australians prevailed largely because the 41-mile Kaiwi Channel, one of the roughest straits on earth, was in an inexplicably benign mood. This year, Irvine and his nine-man team hope the Kaiwi will be back to its usual pugnacious, inhospitable self: 15-foot waves, claw-hammer chop, and a relentless, five-knot current that can leave paddlers fibrillating with fatigue. Asked how he feels about an encounter with the real Kaiwi, coach Brad Kane of the Outrigger Canoe Club of Australia made no effort to beat around the bush. "What do I think? I think, 'Oh, shit!'"

Safety First! Well, How About a Strong Second?
Though it's ominous enough to have served as the location for the filming of Florida's Wakulla Springs cave is, according to Bill Stone, a beast that science can tame. On the first of this month, the Maryland caver-engineer and 10 teammates will plunge into Wakulla's labyrinth to create the first 3-D sonar map of the vast, murky system. Sustaining them will be a pair of electronic rebreathers — devices that reprocess exhaled gases, and that Stone is convinced will "show the way all life support will go in the future." Revolutionary? You bet. But some outsiders are troubled by his team, a group of veteran cave divers who have only limited experience working together. Indeed, by the time they enter the system, Stone's squad will have had no more than 60 days of practice as a unit — an unusual situation in a field where teams are typically built over a period of years, not months. "They are all good cave divers," notes Lamar Hires, former chairman of the cave-diving section of the National Speleological Society. "But my concern is the seasoning of the team. You can't train a commando unit overnight."

Gar‡on, Kindly Wipe the Muck Off That Bottle Before You Pour
The anticipation was downright intoxicating when enologist Duncan McEuen filled his flute from a bottle of 1907 Heidsieck & Co., sniffed, sipped, and to the relief of awaiting divers ... smiled. The bottle was one of 2,700 originally destined for the Russian army during World War I. Sunk by a German sub, ship and champagne spent 82 years in cold storage on the floor of the Baltic Sea before Swedish salvagers discovered them this summer. When they go on the auction block this month, the bottles could fetch $3,000 apiece — and may perhaps revolutionize the science of sparkling-wine storage. "This could prompt people to experiment with new methods," notes champagne connoisseur Jean-Louis Carbonnier. "But it's not terribly convenient if you have to put on a wetsuit every time you want a bottle."