ENVIRONMENTAL crusaders are an impassioned lot, but few go so far as to put their lives on the line in order to defend an endangered species.
One man willing to do just that -- though he is practically alone in denying the danger -- is Matthew Male, a 39-year-old restorer of museum-grade Victorian furniture who is attempting to establish a colony of endangered terns on a one-and-a-half-acre islet called Gardiners Point, off the East End.
The island sits a mile and a half north of Gardiners Island, to which it was attached 100 years ago; storms have separated it since. More often referred to by East Enders as Fort Tyler or the Ruins (because it contains the remnants of the Spanish-American-War-era Fort Tyler and is designated on nautical charts as simply ''ruins''), the spit was used by the Navy as a bombing and strafing practice site from 1940 into the 1970's and bristles with unexploded bombs and warheads.
It is in this potentially explosive setting that Matthew Male has worked to establish a haven for terns.
So far, he has succeeded, gloriously. Starting with a tern population of zero in 1982 (after an unknown gunman exterminated the island's entire colony with a .22-caliber rifle), he set out 100 decoys to attract new terns. This year the island appears headed for a record in chick production.Continue reading the main story
''Preliminary tallies suggest that 1998 will end up with 294 productive nests and approximately 529 chicks,'' he said. The previous record, set in 1995, was 160 productive nests. But, after a promising start that year, Mr. Male said, relatively few chicks survived, because of predation by black herons and gulls, still potential threats.
Terns at Gardiners Point consist of two species, both at risk of vanishing. The first is the common tern, declared by New York State as threatened. The second is the roseate tern, listed by the Federal Government as endangered and thus at even greater risk. Mr. Male says this year's breeding pairs of terns at Gardiners Point consist of 248 common and 46 roseate.
Charts of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, widely used by mariners, still call the island the U.S. Naval Aircraft Gardiners Point Target. The charts declare the vicinity of the island a danger area, warning boaters that the island is rife with ''live, undetonated explosives'' and ordering them to steer clear of the island and the waters within 300 yards.
Mr. Male, who spends a half-day a week on the island counting nests, banding chicks and observing older banded birds, dismisses the warnings. ''The bombs and bullets have been exposed to corrosive salt water for years and probably are rusty and inoperative by now,'' he says.
But the Navy differs. Petty Officer First Class John L. Atherton, an aviation munitions expert at Earle Naval Weapons Station in Monmouth County, N.J., led a five-man disposal team across the island twice last year and says he discovered ''a lot of active charges, consisting of practice bombs, rocket warheads, a 100-pound World War II bomb and 250-pound Navy 82A high-explosive bomb capable of demolishing a medium-size building. We detonated many of the bombs at the site and their blasts proved that they were live and lethal.''
''What's more,'' he adds, ''the island will never be completely safe. Its beach and shoreline are constantly shifting, revealing previously undiscovered ordnance.''
Mr. Male does admit to one scary moment. ''Back in April 1979, as I was placing protective shelter over roseate tern nest sites, from out of the blue a Navy jet came diving down toward the island. It seemed to be aiming directly at me. As it approached, its screeching kept getting louder and louder. Then, at the last moment, the jet pulled up, walloped me with its backwash, and climbed back into the sky. It repeated the maneuver, then swooped off and disappeared. The incident unnerved me but, mercifully, did no damage to the bird nesting sites.''
Ultimately, the threat to the survival of terns stems from the population explosion of humans. Terns have been driven off much of their natural breeding habitat by people seeking beachfront property. If it weren't for the banishment of humans from Gardiners Point, its turf, too, might not be available to terns.
Even the predation of tern chicks by gulls is caused, indirectly, by humans. As the amount of human-generated garbage grows, it attracts increasing numbers of gulls seeking food. The garbage has even expanded gulls' range northward, into tern territory. And with the availability of garbage year round, many gulls no longer fly south in winter and thus maintain permanent possession of turf, thwarting terns when they arrive in spring seeking nesting sites.
A concern for birds came naturally to Matthew Male, born in New Haven, educated at Southern Connecticut State University (as a biologist) and now a resident of North Haven, Conn. His parents and four brothers are expert birders.
One brother, Michael, four years older, is a noted wildlife filmmaker whose first full-length documentary, ''Tern Watch,'' concerned Gardiners Point. He made it in 1974 and, in asking Matthew to come out and assist him, introduced the 12-year-old to the isolated cay. Matthew's interest in protecting terns was intensified when, as a high school and college student, he spent summers as an intern at Great Gull Island, five miles to the east of Gardiners Point.
He worked with Helen Hays, the American Museum of Natural History's legendary ornithologist, who in 35 years of toil established the world's largest breeding colony of endangered and threatened sea birds on Great Gull. ''Matthew Male was one of my richest finds ever,'' she said. The Great Gull project now supplies Mr. Male with $3,000 a year toward expenses.
It was also at Great Gull that Matthew met Anne Rubega, an intern from Groton, Conn. ''She was part of a group of about 20 teen-agers who had come over from the mainland for a couple of days to clear weeds from the island's sod,'' Matthew said. ''Terns will not nest on turf that is heavily overgrown. Each day, after just an hour's work, the other kids would start goofing off. But Anne, I noticed, kept ripping up vegetation all day long. 'That's the girl for me,' I thought.''
The two were married in 1986. Anne is Matthew's partner in all of his tern conservation endeavors; it was her idea to convert Gardiners Point into a ternery.
Anne is on leave this year from work at Gardiners Point in order to stay home with their three daughters, aged 3, 5 and 7. She is not so sanguine as her husband about the dangers on the island, admitting that she worries whenever he goes out there. The one time the couple took their children to Gardiners Point, she made sure they stuck close to their parents. The family will be back next year, with a new, larger boat that Matthew has just acquired (a surplus Navy tender).
Despite all the Males' efforts, the terns have not gained much ground in the face of the growing human population. Don Riepe, a biologist with the National Park Service at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, said, ''Despite extensive efforts to increase the number of roseate tern nesting sites since the bird was placed on the endangered species list 10 years ago, their numbers have not increased meaningfully.''
A wildlife photographer recently confronted Mrs. Male with a painful question. ''Aren't you and your husband really fighting a losing battle? Is there some point at which you and your husband will acknowledge the hopelessness of your efforts and throw in the towel?''
Mrs. Male thought for a moment, then replied: ''Yes, there is. When the last breeding pair of roseate or common terns is gone.''Continue reading the main story