Audio
Oral History Interview with Sonny Bass
Transcript
Abstract: In this interview, Sonny Bass speaks about his research with the tern nesting colony at Dry Tortugas National Park. The main goal of the project when it began under Dr. William B. Robertson’s direction was an attempt to gather information about the survival statistics of two bird species: noddy terns and sooty terns. Later in the interview, he explained that the birds act like indicator species in the environment. In 1972, as the study progressed, the banding techniques used to track the birds became more advanced, using a combination of specialized colors and numbers to identify specific birds and parents. In 1997, Bass technically took over the project, with continued guidance from Robertson. However, after Robertson’s death, Bass continued the color band project and beginning a nest census. In 2009, Bass ended the color band project, expecting that it would not be continued following his retirement. Instead, Bass redirected efforts to look at migratory patterns of the birds utilizing the new technologies available. In each of these project phases, Robertson and Bass included graduate students in the field experiences as a collaborative effort. Finally, Bass spoke about finding funding and resources to continue the research.
BONNIE CIOLINO: This is Bonnie Ciolino, Archivist for the South Florida Collections Management Center in Everglades National Park. I’m speaking today, June 7th, 2013, with Sonny Bass. We are conducting this interview over the telephone, so if there’s any background noise it’s due to the speaker phone. Today I’m going to be asking Sonny some questions related to the long-term research study conducted on the, uh, Tern nesting colony at the Dry Tortugas. This was research that was started by Dr. William B. Robertson and continued by Sonny Bass. Um, so, Sonny, most of the questions that I have are specifically related to the records, uh, that Dr. Bill created, um, because we have some of your records but not everything as yet since you’re still doing that work.
SONNY BASS: Right.
CIOLINO: Um, so what I was trying to get kind of clear in my mind in order to establish, uh, an appropriate hierarchy for these records, um, was the significance of the data. Uh, basically trying to figure out what the data that we have from Bill is and, um, how does it relate to the overall project. Um, from what I can see, it seems like there are a number different types of data. Um, it—I was interpreting it as, um, data that was collected when the birds were originally banded, data that was, um, established when the birds were recaptured, um, and data associated with the color banding and the observations on the plots. Um, is that accurate or is—am I missing something significant?
BASS: Well, no, um, I think, you know, as far as that went, it’s—it’s accurate.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Bonnie, the, um, I guess the best way to describe that is that, um, Bill started the work in 19—.
CIOLINO: Sonny, you just cut out a second there. Can you say it again, please?
BASS: Bill started the work—I’m sorry, somebody was beeping in.
CIOLINO: Oh, I’m sorry.
BASS: No, no, no, I’m not going to take the call.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: It’s—when it’s a 1-800 number I’m sure they’re trying to sell me something.
CIOLINO: Yeah, probably.
BASS: That I’m not in the market to buy. So, Bill started in 1959.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: And the initial thing was to begin work on the Sootys and really to follow up on some work that was started earlier in the—in the ‘30s.
CIOLINO: ’37; right?
BASS: Yeah.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: By Russ Mason and Florida Autobahn.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And—and they were doing some mass banding.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [Yes].
BASS: So, Bill picked up on that.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And, um, the program expanded from that. At first it was, you know, band as many adults you could, you know, lay your hands on and write down the, you know, the typical information like—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: —a lot of time it would be weights and measures and things.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [Yes].
BASS: You know, pretty standard stuff. And—and I know that’s in the file.
CIOLINO: Yep.
BASS: And then it kind of grew from that and, you know, and it started to—to do some banding of the chicks, mass banding of chicks.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And most all of that continued up through—at least the mass banding of the chicks and all continued up through about ’84.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Um, and at that time, they—they—that was stopped but they did continue on with some other projects that I’ll get to in a minute.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: But what spun out of that was—the primary thing was to try to get some sense of the—the—trying to build, um, survivorship, uh, uh, information on these birds.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And it’s really kind of a lot of basic information on—on—on this very, um, unique colony.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And so, um, you know, a lot of effort went into, uh, just capturing as many birds as they can get.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And then after that, um, you know, it just kind of—kind of moved on in other directions because there was so many collaborators working with Bill.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Glen Woolfenden happened to be one of them.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Would be his primary one. And he foster a lot of work with—with students doing all kinds of projects.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And a lot of this would be looking at social behavior of—of the Terns.
CIOLINO: Yep.
BASS: Some of it would look at, uh, even things as—such as band wear.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: There was a Master’s student that worked on band wearing—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — and things like that. And so, it—and then food habit studies and—
CIOLINO: Yep.
BASS: — and—and development and all of that.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And then in ’92 they started looking at, um, they started what—what’s now affectionately known as the color band plot. And what they did was, they gridded off an area and they captured all of the nesting birds that were—or tried to attempt to capture all the nesting birds that were on the colony.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: So that way you color band them uniquely so you know that plus you got, a, you know, the banding lab so they got a number on it, but you got a unique color combination and that way you could see these birds when they’re on the colony.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: On their site, you can look at them. Well, what that helped us do is, one, you could look at, uh, the site, uh, how faithful these birds were coming back to a particular area to nest.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And you could get a sense of how frequent they nest. Did they every year, every other year. And—and you can kind of look at the longevity of that.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: So there—.
CIOLINO: And it’s remarkable.
BASS: And that data sets in there, too.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: And the other thing you can do was you can look at the chicks and you can identify who—what chick belonged to what, um, parents and by doing that in, as Bill found out through his long term, uh, um, banding, was you can find out when these birds came back.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And they came back in about five years to nest.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: And so, you can look and see if those birds should—you know, because that was their natal site if they came back to it.
CIOLINO: That is just wonderful.
BASS: Okay, so that—so that kind of progressed and that kept going and then when Bill retired in ’97—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — um, obviously he and Betty wanted to keep this, uh, going to a degree. Um, but of course, Bill was retired, and Bill came to me, and I worked on the projected starting in ’76—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — with Bill off and on on aspects of it and we had a discussion about, um, my, you know, taking over the project and running it, um, in the sense of as a park representative on the project.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And it’s always good to have that.
CIOLINO: Sure.
BASS: For obvious reasons.
CIOLINO: Right. You’re right.
BASS: But it was important.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And so, we, you know, we—we kept that going and then—then of course, as you know Bill and—well Betty died in August of 1999 and Bill died in January of 2000.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: And then—then I kept that going.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: I kept the color band work plus we had a started a nest census after Bill’s death, although Bill was pretty much aware of it.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And, um, so we established points on—in the colony and we would, um, every year we would survey this point, census this point and determine a number of birds that were in there. And then we could get an estimate overall nesting effort so.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And then we kept the color band plot work going on until 2009.
CIOLINO: Oh okay.
BASS: And then in 2009 I, uh, for a number of reasons, we—we stopped that. Uh, one of things we looked at, too, was as you know I was—I was approaching my time to—to—that’s obviously a mower in the background. I guess I’ll try to find—.
CIOLINO: You’re fine, Sonny, stay there. It’s okay.
BASS: Okay. All right. So, um, what—what I’d done at that time and we—I’d started collaboration with Stuart Pimm—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — on this and we were trying to get students to look at various—we were going to start analyzing various aspects of this huge data set that was there.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: And, um, and then in 2009, um, the color band plot, like I said, I stopped it that year because I didn’t see that—that—that would be followed upon my retirement.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And besides, it was shifting a little bit in our, um, there had been a number of things that had taken place, the hurricanes in 2005.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: It changed the area dramatically. There hadn’t been much return in it and, um, quite honestly, our focus was starting to shift back to looking at movement patterns within these birds and using the technology that’s available now.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: So that’s what we were doing.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And so that’s kind of, you know, brings us really kind of up to date on it.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And, you know, and that—that’s pretty much it with both that and Noddys, because the Noddys follow a little bit in that. I mean, uh, there have been students that worked on Noddys, we’ve banded Noddys, uh, so it kind of follows in that kind of same, uh, and—and also, we count them in the nest census work so. And that kind of continues on, really for both of those species.
CIOLINO: Okay. Um, okay. Well, you have, uh, hit on most of the questions I had here, um, but there’s a couple that—things that I wanted to clarify.
BASS: Okay.
CIOLINO: Um, I think that you said that the color banding started, um, in ’92.
BASS: ’72.
CIOLINO: ’72, okay.
BASS: I’m sorry, if I said ’72 [sic] I misspoken.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: No, 1972.
CIOLINO: Okay. And that’s in keeping with the records that I have in the collection. I just wanted to clarify that for the record.
BASS: Okay. I hope so.
CIOLINO: Yeah, I was like wait a second, that’s not what I was seeing. That’s a big gap. Um, okay. Let’s see now. All right, so the banding beta cards—
BASS: Right.
CIOLINO: — you and I’ve discussed that ad nauseam I think that last time we tackled this thing. Um, and in terms of the work that you’re doing now, you—you mentioned, um, the movement patterns. I see that Bill had done a radio tracking study around between like ’76 or ’78.
BASS: That’s right, with Dan Stoneberger.
CIOLINO: Okay. Was that kind of a discrete project or was that related to the—the article that he published?
BASS: Yes. It was—well, I mean the article came out as a result of that.
CIOLINO: As a result of that, okay.
BASS: But what it was—that’s when telemetry was really getting down to the size where you can do that on—on these birds.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: And it really was—it was a, uh, a test project just to see if this could be done.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And Dan Stoneberger, who was in the regional office at the park service at the time, came down and fitted the birds and then they followed them around for a while and figured out where they were going and—and the like.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And so—and then that was very short time—
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: — unfortunately.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: Because there just wasn’t any funding, um, and so that—and then what resulted of it was the one paper that came out.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And that was the end of that.
CIOLINO: Okay. Okay. I was trying to decide if I should tie that data to the paper as—as one specific project and I wasn’t seeing really—.
BASS: There’s—there’s nothing wrong with doing that. Sure.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Because that produced it.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: I think it was just to determine that’s what it was and then the paper was a result of that work.
CIOLINO: Okay. That’s great. That’s great. I’m really glad to have that clarified, thank you.
BASS: No, no—yeah, I would do it that way if it were me.
CIOLINO: Okay. Good, good, good. Um, let’s see now. So, do, do, do, do, do, okay, one question that—that Nancy had, um, when she had folks working on the panther project.
BASS: Right.
CIOLINO: Um, one thing that was—that came out during conversations with you was that the panther records, um, the project, was kind of generated over the course of like three stages. Is there anything like this, um, amongst these records because what I’m seeing is kind of like, uh, a long-term data collection and specific projects that stemmed from that? And—and you touched on some of those, um, in terms of the band wear, um, the food habitat and some of the others I noticed—
BASS: Right, yes, they were—
CIOLINO: — the behaviors.
BASS: — just off shoots of the main one.
CIOLINO: Off shoots. Okay. Good. Okay.
BASS: Yeah.
CIOLINO: Um, and that’s how I have this represented; I just wanted to make sure that was accurate.
BASS: Yeah. And—and then I think the way to look at it, too is, you know, that was built up until, um, you know, 2000 when we started—
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: — when we started doing the—and now, and like I said the—the continuation from ’97 to 2009—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — would be my continuation of it as the, uh, as the color band work.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: And that went on just as Bill and Betty had done it previously and so it would have been like, if you want to look it from that point, it would have been like ’72 to ’97 and then ’97 to 2009.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: But the only thing that changes is just the PI—
CIOLINO: Just the PI.
BASS: — at the time.
CIOLINO: Okay. So, you became the PI in ’97 even though Bill—
BASS: Yeah, kind of.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Yeah, kind of the—I was the PI on paper.
CIOLINO: On paper.
BASS: Bill was it until Bill’s death in 2000.
CIOLINO: And that’s why I—I said to Nancy, I was concerned that there wasn’t a really clean division because I had gotten the impression that you were kind of taking on some of those, um, kind of technical—that technical role but—but—but Bill was still kind of overseeing things in the field.
BASS: Yeah, Bill was—Bill—yeah.
CIOLINO: So, in terms of like an acting, if anybody—
BASS: Yeah, well Bill and Betty both were—well, the way it went, Bill and Betty and I remember this specifically in 1997—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — we were sitting down there, Bill and Betty and I and—and they looked at me and said well, I think you still probably got 15 good years left in you. We want you to do it. No, those were her words to me. I remember explicitly and I thought wow, okay, yeah, me too, I hope I do. And—and—you know—
CIOLINO: God Bless her.
BASS: — and we would like for you to take it over.
CIOLINO: That’s great.
BASS: And it helped us in securing, uh, support with me being still in the park service.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: You know, you got to remember at that time, Bill was retired but Bill was retired from BRD. He wasn’t retired from the park service.
CIOLINO: Oh.
BASS: So that’s an important thing.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: While we all always thought Bill was that.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: I think he did. I mean if you want to look at the technical aspect of it which, you know, some people do but, you know, I always looked at it as that was always Bill’s project up until the time Bill decided—well, up until Bill’s death.
CIOLINO: Yeah. Okay.
BASS: And even if—I mean I would have got him to go along with the—with the nest census work I would have done it, but it would have been—how to say this. Bill—Bill was always my mentor.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: Bill would have been it.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: Technically yes, ’97 on, I was the project manager because—
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: — I would have been the person that if anything would went wrong would have been held responsible for it.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: Or good, they would come to me because I’m the official— I was the official park service person.
CIOLINO: Right. But—but—
BASS: That’s the reason.
CIOLINO: But there’s so much.
BASS: So, there’s the—the official thing and then the, uh, uh, whatever you want to call it.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: The scientific ethics part of it.
CIOLINO: I think that in terms of documenting and representing the records, um, I can—I can describe what you’ve just said in terms of the official transfer but what I’m seeing in Bill’s papers is—is records that he created up through 2000, so.
BASS: That’s right.
CIOLINO: Yeah. Okay. Good.
BASS: That’s right. That’s right.
CIOLINO: Good.
BASS: But which is, there’s nothing, you know, he would—I don’t know how you want to do it, co-PI, how’s that? There’s a way to do—I mean that’s the way to do it.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: I mean just because the people—I know what you’re doing because when people look at this down the road—
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: — they want to see how that—and that would have been it. ’97 I would have taken over as the official park service PI. I think Bill would have the co-op PI as a volunteer.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Or whatever you want to call it.
CIOLINO: Good.
BASS: Or research associate or whatever. And then when Bill died then it, you know, I kept—I—well from ’97 to 2009—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: I—I ran the, uh, uh—
CIOLINO: The color banding.
BASS: — the color banding stations.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: And then in 2009 I ceased that.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And then in 2000 really it was we—we initiated in 2000—put the plots in and we sampled the first time in 2001 was an essence of stuff which continues till today.
CIOLINO: And what does that involve? I’m not really familiar with that at this point?
BASS: Well, it’s I—because you don’t have those records yet.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: And you will be getting those records. In fact, they’re sitting in my office right now.
CIOLINO: Ah, ha.
BASS: Now, now be careful now.
CIOLINO: I know. I know.
BASS: But—and there’s a proposal in there and you’ll see what it is because, I mean, if you need to put a placeholder in your thing you can just say in essence.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And it was a collaborative effort between us and the state.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: The—the FWC, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. And—and because of something they were trying to do but we carried on because they—they dropped out of it some years ago.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: But it’s a continuation of a way of us monitoring the nesting effort of that colony.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: That—that kind of sums it up. So that continues plus we’ve also had as a result of that, we’ve had some—and you’ll—you’ll see that when I turn the stuff over, there’s going to be some follow up stuff like some papers that were produced as a result of that.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: The stuff that we’ve done with, uh, uh, with Stuart.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And some of that stuff is continuing on.
CIOLINO: Yep.
BASS: And so that stuff, I, you know, over the next, uh, uh, probably four to five months, I’m working through that to get that stuff to you.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Because right now you’ve got, I think everything, in fact, I know you do.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: You’ve got everything except this last section.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: That I have.
CIOLINO: Yep.
BASS: And—and I want to see that that gets in there.
CIOLINO: Yeah. Okay.
BASS: Pretty soon, Bonnie.
CIOLINO: Good.
BASS: In fact, it maybe sooner than that.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: I just have to take some time to spend in there to go through that stuff and make sure—
CIOLINO: Whenever you’re ready.
BASS: — it makes sense.
CIOLINO: Yeah. Nope, no rush.
BASS: And then that—you’ll see that, and you’ll see the shifts in there.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And then you’ll know and that just then falls as, you know, as my response—well, obviously my responsibility on from ’97 on for it.
CIOLINO: Right. Okay. Can you talk a little bit more—you—you—you’ve touched on the Brown Noddy Terns and just how their—
BASS: Right.
CIOLINO: They kind of—it seems like they kind of just kind of blip in here and there and it seems they’re included but they’re kind of their own thing.
BASS: Yeah. Yeah.
CIOLINO: What’s—what’s going on there?
BASS: Well—.
CIOLINO: Are they—do they nest among the—the Sootys?
BASS: Well, a couple of things. One, they’re not as many Noddys as there are Sootys.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And the primary focus was on the Sootys.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: But if you want to call it ancillary to or whatever.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: They—the Noddy Terns were banded so we could start looking at that.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Now that information, which is in the thing, has never been—we’ve never—that’s not been analyzed.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: But there were various students that worked on various sections of that and it—and you’ll see that in those records when you go through there.
CIOLINO: Yes, I see that. Yes.
BASS: Okay. But as far as anything other than, um, right now, the nest census work on it and where we give them the estimate, that’s the only thing that’s done on Noddys.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: In other words, I get—I do census every year to give some sense of nesting efforts by Noddys but nothing more detail than that right now.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: On Noddys.
CIOLINO: All right.
BASS: All of our focus is on Sootys as far as detailed work with this movement pattern and all this stuff we’re working on now.
CIOLINO: Okay. Um, what kind of technology are you using for the, uh, for monitoring the equipment?
BASS: Right now we’re using—well, and I got two back this year and two last year, we got these geo locators.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Which are these data loggers.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: But, um, just recently in my discussion with the people down there, when I was down there a month ago, um, it looks like we’re going to get money to do the telemetry work so really what I’m going to do is pick up on what Stoneberger did. But this is going to be way different because these are—I mean the sophistication now is lights years ahead of that.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: I mean these are going to be on the adults and we’re going to look at movement patterns both at the colony and away from the colony.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: What this allows us to do is these are solar powered units, and these things are, uh, um, satellite transmitters so they can be tracked constantly.
CIOLINO: It’s really exciting.
BASS: Yeah, it really is. It really is. I’m—I’m anxious for this work.
CIOLINO: Awesome.
BASS: So.
CIOLINO: And can you talk a little bit about the significance of the—the longevity of this study in terms of, um, uh, the relation to how you guys are trying to demonstrate impact of, um, how—how global warming is—is impacting the resource down at Dry Tortugas?
BASS: Well—you know, I should say that when this was started there was no concern of global warming—
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: — to any extent. But what—but what—it’s probably better to—to place it in sense of looking at it as this is what long term data collection on a species or a group of species or an environment can give you—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — in the long term with something like global warming comes to the forefront as a potential problem and—and you can maybe look at terns and see how they are being affected by it which is—which we have—we have done so. You will see some of that. We have attempted that. We just haven’t been terribly successful yet at it which there’s a lot of reasons for that. That’s kind of hard to say but, you know, what—what this long-term work has been able to do is, you know, this is a really important resource for the park.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: You know, it’s uniqueness as the only colony in—in—you know, in the United States and in, uh, in the continental US and the like. And, um, and because it—you know, this bird feeds on the fishes in the area so it’s kind of is a representative of a barometer, if you like to use that term.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Of what’s going on out there—you know, like there’s good years, there’s been bad years and there’s been some shifts that have taken place.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: So long term, when you look at something that’s long term, now you got to stop and think, seabirds are a long-life birds. This bird—our oldest bird is 33 years I believe.
CIOLINO: Was its birthday June 17th, 1980?
BASS: Yeah.
CIOLINO: Because that’s my birthday.
BASS: Yeah. So that’s how—oh, that’s right. And that’s how—that means—that’s how long these birds can live.
CIOLINO: Wow, that’s—.
BASS: And they probably live longer than that.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: But a lot of those birds that are breeding, you know, they don’t start breeding until they’re about five years old.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And they probably—most of the members in that colony out there are probably anywhere from 15 to 25 years old and, you know, they don’t go into senescence. They don’t get to a point where, you know, they don’t go through menopause or anything like that where they stop breeding.
CIOLINO: Really.
BASS: No, they continue—all indications are is they continue to breed or have the capability of producing. Now the frequency may change, though. They may not nest every year, but they can, at least at this point, it’s been shown that they give all indications that they can continue breeding up until the time that they die.
CIOLINO: Wow.
BASS: Now, like I said, the frequency at which they nest may change. In other words, they—they may reach a peak at some point, you know, let’s say, you know, their peak productivity is for like ten years in the middle.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: You know, where they—they can breed every year and then that tails off that maybe they only breed every fifth year or something like that but—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: So, you know, you build up the stuff and—and that’s really important and then you look at, you know, all these birds come back to this colony. Now, sure, we’ve had birds show up in other colonies but most of these birds, you know, these birds are—are—they’re homebodies. They—they come back to this colony every year. They travel, you know, from the work that we just got back on our first set of geo locators, the adults go down through the, uh, around the, um, uh, Yucatan through that, between Yucatan, you know, the Yucatan Channel and Cuba, out down south through the—through the Lesser Antilles and out off of—off of the coast of Brazil, halfway to Africa.
CIOLINO: Geez.
BASS: And they feed around there and then come back here.
CIOLINO: Wow.
BASS: You know, come back to—so a bird like that is a good indicator because one, I mean, this bird depends on—on the park but is at the mercy of hurricanes and everything else, once it leaves there and goes to sea—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: So, it just, uh, you know, uh, sea birds are really good indicators of what’s going on in—in the ocean as far as changes that are taking place out there. Whether they’re related to—well, I mean and most of it would be related to something like global climate change.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Whether it’s a frequency increase in hurricanes or severity.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Or frequencies and things like that which can, uh, you know, which we are showing have a direct impact or mortality impact on them and can take out maybe 25 percent of them at a time.
CIOLINO: Wow.
BASS: But—you know, you got a long life bird so—you know, you can kind of understand this. And this is what you get from long term data basis.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: That you can’t get from a two-year study or five-year study.
CIOLINO: Right. Right.
BASS: And whether it’s this or eagles that we’ve worked on or panthers or wading birds or sparrows or anything like that.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And truth—truthfully, the longer the better because what that helps you do is work through the science and ask the next question and next question and the next question so you could put it all together and get you a better sense of what’s taking place.
CIOLINO: Well, that actually leads me to—to another question that I had. Um, from earlier conversations that we’ve had, um, you’d indicated that, uh, Dr. Bell and Betty had contributed a—a considerable amount of their own personal financial resources.
BASS: Yep.
CIOLINO: Not only their time commitment and their family’s time commitment.
BASS: No, they—they supported it by money.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: Yeah.
CIOLINO: So how has—is it still a struggle after all this time to obtain funding to support this research or has it kind of become just something that management is—is supportive of—
BASS: Well—.
CIOLINO: — because it has the significance as a long term study?
BASS: Yeah. It—I think it has evolved in it, um, uh, we’ve had, um, managers and resource people that have—that are, uh, attune to listening to things like this so I think they—they when explained to them, I think they see the value in it.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: So, there’s support—I should tell you there’s not—financially, there’s not much support for it other than the personnel time.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Which can be huge.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: And the logistical support.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Because there’s not, I mean, as far as, you know, I’ve been fighting for five years—well, no longer than that, uh, seven, eight, nine years to get those geo locators and I’ve got them two years ago.
CIOLINO: Oh wow.
BASS: Because—you know, I just had to show this to them and—and now with the results we’re getting, they see it and now, uh, in my discussions with the new manager down there—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — and laying out what we were doing and the need to continue this and get these radio transmitters on these, satellite transmitters on them, he was very supportive of that.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And so, I think understanding this long term has helped a lot and so, you know, potentially yeah, we’ve had an increase in funding for this project, uh, in spurts. I mean, we’ve had little blips here and there, but I mean, if you plotted it, would definitely be, uh, better than it was, let’s say back in the ‘80s.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And—and early ‘90s.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Absolutely. It—it—the project seemed to have fallen out of favor or—and I don’t think it was that. I think it wasn’t understood.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And—you know, I don’t know how you go about that, Bonnie, I mean, you know, why that was, I don’t know.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: You know, was it because Bill, uh, you never knew Bill, but Bill was kind of a, um, Bill could be moody and—and, uh, uh, not responsive sometimes but sometimes he was over—I mean he would do anything.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: So, and I think it just depends on how he was felling and how he was being—how he felt like he was being treated is—.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: — at the time. And in all honesty, he was treated like, um, no, I won’t say that on tape. He was not treated well for that period of time.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And—but Bill didn’t give up on it.
CIOLINO: Okay. Um—.
BASS: And, um, I admired that in him. Um, he—and he instilled in me this—this whole, uh, sense of long term—
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: — monitoring and research which is so important.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Especially to agencies like ours.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: It’s hugely important to us. Um, I—I think a lot of people have realized that now and I hope it continues.
CIOLINO: Well, it certainly, from what I—I see, it sounds like when Bill was first launching this program, he relied heavily upon volunteers to come out.
BASS: Oh yeah.
CIOLINO: And it sounds like that’s something that’s still going on; is that correct?
BASS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, but to a lesser degree.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: And the only reason is—the only reason is to a lesser degree is that, um, the—is the logistics.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Which have always been tough out there.
CIOLINO: Sure.
BASS: That’s why we’re not doing the huge mass banding programs with chicks like we use to because it would take 25 people. Well, needless to say, getting housing and providing things and everything for that many people, or 20 or 25 was, you know, quite an undertaking.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: So, we’re doing it now on adults but we’re doing it using, uh, Stuart’s students.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: He’s teaching a class.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: A field class and so it’s kind of—you know, it really is, uh, we’re getting a lot of—you know, the park service is getting free labor and getting all this information. Um, Stuart and I are getting the work done that we want to get it done and, you know, getting the papers out so, you know, it we can help benefit management.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes]. And it sounds like the students are benefiting from having the exp—this field experience?
BASS: Absolutely. Absolutely.
CIOLINO: It sounds like a good collaborative effort.
BASS: Everything has benefited students.
CIOLINO: Sure.
BASS: From the time Bill started on this thing it has benefited students.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: Many students had worked on this thing and gotten Masters and PHDs and other works and gone on and, uh, and, you know, had been really—had good careers in this kind of work.
CIOLINO: That’s awesome. Um, what other impacts do you think, um, that this project has had upon the larger management of the park and the surrounding areas? Um, I ask that in the sense of I think you may have actually already answered this but—but is there anything outside of what we’ve already discussed that you could think of in terms of management relationships?
BASS: No, I think it’s what this—this new work, the potential that it has.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: Um, the potential this new work has is to show when those birds are feeding here—I mean when they’re nesting here where they’re feeding in and around this area.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes].
BASS: And the help of that colony is directly related to the amount of food availability that—that—that’s there. And so, what that can help them do is—is look at areas and have some sense of where these birds are feeding because, you know, now we have the, you know, we have the, uh, uh, you know, the marine park around us.
CIOLINO: Right.
BASS: And sanctuaries around us plus that and so I think that helped, that kind of information can help provide guidance to, uh, whatever management, uh, decisions and regulations that need to be, uh, looked at or may come up as it needs. So it’s a—it’s a source to help provide, you know, you know well thought out, uh, and educated, uh, management decisions.
CIOLINO: Uh-huh [yes]. Is that the research natural area that you’re referring to?
BASS: Research natural area but also, um, the, ah—
CIOLINO: The Dry Tortugas—.
BASS: — the surrounding, um—
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: — marine sanctuaries because these birds are—and we’re going to figure that out with this.
CIOLINO: Wow. That’s really exciting, Sonny.
BASS: Yeah. I’m really stoked about it.
CIOLINO: It’s nice to retire to be able to do something that you really love doing, isn’t it?
BASS: Oh God, yeah. Stopped doing that. I just don’t have to put up with all the other stuff now.
CIOLINO: Should I take you off the speaker. Well, those are all the questions—.
BASS: No, I had, uh, I’m incredibly fortunate in my life.
CIOLINO: Yeah.
BASS: And in my career. Um, people would—I know people that would have died to do what I—I did for 36 years so.
CIOLINO: That’s wonderful.
BASS: And continue to do.
CIOLINO: Yeah, yeah.
BASS: Yeah. No, I’m very fortunate. Very fortunate. Very, very fortunate.
CIOLINO: Awesome. Well, I think that you’ve answered the questions I’ve had. Is there anything else that you want to add? I’m sure there will be other conversations when we start getting your records in.
BASS: No, I can’t think of anything.
CIOLINO: Okay.
BASS: If you have any questions just, you know, either call me or email me and, um, you know, either way, um, you know, I’m available so just let me know.
CIOLINO: Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.
BASS: Anytime.
CIOLINO: Have a nice weekend, sir.
BASS: Okay. Take care.
CIOLINO: Bye.
BASS: Bye.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
Description
In this interview, Sonny Bass speaks about his research with the tern nesting colony at Dry Tortugas National Park, a long-term study first started by Dr. William B. Robertson. In 1997, Bass technically took over the project, with continued guidance from Robertson. After Robertson’s death, Bass continued the color band project and beginning a nest census. Bass also speaks about finding funding and resources to continue the research. Interviewed by Bonnie Ciolino on June 7, 2013.
Credit
Dry Tortugas National Park
Date Created
06/07/2013
Copyright and Usage Info