Category: Islands

What is Pollution?

Pollen pollution in the James River
The James River

I prevented our dogs from wading at Jamestown Beach today. The rising tide carried a floating mat of yellow scum. I suspected pollution, which made me wonder about the meaning of the word.

Pollution is as hard to define as when Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was stumped for a precise definition ofpornography. He lamely replied, “I know it when I see it.”

So it’s in the eyes of the beholder. I remember the public outrage when the rock musical Hair came to the English stage from Broadway. The censors allowed it on technical grounds: it wasn’t obscene if the nude male and female actors remained perfectly still. How could they condemn it when Michaelangelo’s sculpture of David stood displaying a full frontal in a museum open to the public?

I asked a park attendant about the yellow scum, not though from idle curiosity. I am a registered River Rat, a volunteer monitoring river health for the James River Association. “You will see bigger slicks of pollen next week,” he said.

Aha! I should have guessed it was from pine and cypress cones shedding gobs of pollen. My weather app reported exceptional levels of pollen. Early next month our cars will have an annual coat of fine yellow dust, but I had never seen so much floating. And only seen in excess did I regard it as pollution, prompting questions.

Is pollution by definition man-made and harmful?

It flashes images of oil pouring from a damaged oil tanker and plastic detritus on the high seas. Only we are to blame! But we aren’t the only species that foul our environment. Gazing at the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth last week I saw the island whitewashed with uric acid excreted by the gannet and gull colonies. The ammoniacal odor of bat guano has taken my breath away in caves and seals have deposited tons of guano on islands, especially the Lobos. It makes a fine fertilizer after dilution but is toxic in its raw state.

You can think of other examples of natural substances that might be called pollution. Of course, those examples don’t mitigate our guilt. No other species has polluted all seven continents and five oceans with myriads of artificial chemicals, some of which will persist for generations to come.

On Islands. #1. Home Rum

Isle of Rum
Isle of Rum, Inner Hebrides

You don’t have to be born on one to love islands, though I have a double reason, born on an island off another island.

A BBC article about a young couple settling on the Isle of Rum brought back fond memories of staying there for a couple of nights some years ago with a family member. It is the largest of the Small Isles in the Inner Hebrides with a northerly view of Skye’s Cuillin Hills.

Alex and Buffy were chosen from a list of applicants to join the community of about 30 residents. They sought a change in life, and what a change from Bristol, England! Roaming for days in wind and rain over 40 square miles you may never meet another soul, though plenty of wildlife. Red deer and feral goats on the boggy land; white-tailed and golden eagles overhead; otters, dolphins and whales from the shoreline.  

Life isn’t so hard as for crofters in the past, who lived in ‘black houses’ until 19th Century landowners turfed them out  for more profitable sheep and deer (so-called Highland Clearances). Not even Rum is off the Net nowadays, though off the Grid. There are compensations for leaving conventional jobs, pubs and supermarkets. Fresh air, exercise, no crime and something new and interesting on every hike. Creature comforts can be enjoyed, nestled in a new ‘eco-house’ with scrumptious home baking according to their Instagram blog.

George Orwell chose a hermit life on the island of Jura to the south for writing his novel 1984, but you don’t need to be a self-employed writer or artist to live on Rum. Paid and voluntary work are available for the tiny community and nature conservation.

My first sight of the island was from camp near Arisaig in 1971. We saw a mountain dome 30 miles out to sea in one of those glorious but rare Highland sunsets. Decades later I stayed on Rum at Kinloch Castle, perhaps the most eccentric stately home I ever visited.

Built by an English industrialist who bought the island for recreation, he rests in a mausoleum modelled on a Greek temple, planted incongruously in wilderness overlooking the ocean . His son built the castle in 1900, creating an opulence he couldn’t afford after the 1929 Crash. It had golf and tennis courts, grew hothouse fruit, and had heated ponds for turtles and alligators. Extensive gardens were cultivated by a gang of men said to be paid to wear kilts. I remember the walls of the dark wainscoted hall where majestic heads of deer hung among portraits of the less handsome Bullough family. Painful to see skins of big cats spread on the floor.

After the folly, the island was sold to the Nature Conservancy around 1957 and is now owned and managed by NatureScot to protect internationally important habitats. Among the natural treasures is the Manx Shearwater colony nesting in holes atop a mountain. Perhaps the largest in the world at 100,000 pairs they are at sea most of the year, and in the breeding season only venture back from fishing to their burrows after dark because they are vulnerable to predators.

I climbed to their redoubt, arriving around 11 pm, an hour before complete darkness at that latitude in midsummer. Nothing stirred until midnight when weird croaks from their catacombs alerted me. Then ghostly birds flapped around silently, even in arm’s reach. With an LED headlight I could get inches away before they flew, fearless as they hadn’t seen humans all year.

Some memories never fade, like the first sight of an isle bathed at sunset or the last sight of a Manxie at midnight.

Next post: Black Vulture

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