Aug 13, 2020
Ten years ago, oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days. Hunters and anglers in Louisiana are still experiencing the aftermath of the BP oil spill. At the same time, they're grappling with a shocking rate of coastal land loss. This week on the show we're joined by two Louisiana women -- Erin Brown from Vanishing Paradise, and Albertine Kimble (aka Albertine the Duck Queen), a fourth-generation hunter and angler for whom the marsh is home.
1:30 - 2010: Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Gulf of Mexico
2:00 - Erin Brown from Vanishing Paradise, another NWF program. Erin grew up in a family of biologists, where Louisiana's land-loss crisis was on everyone's minds. Louisiana is pretty rockin' waterfowl and fishing country.
3:00 - Since 1930 Louisiana has lost about 2,000 square miles of coastal areas
5:00 - Albertine is fourth-generation on her family's place, from a family of hunters and anglers. She's retired from local government as a coastal program’s manager, which oversaw resource extraction protocols in the area
9:30 How many people know the exact date of their best day hunting?
10:00 Red fingernail polish looks darn good against a green-winged teal
11:00 "You can't get ducks if you're sleeping." True words!
11:30 How to cook a teal? Take about six birds, stuff them with apples, orange, garlic and onion. Sear the birds on the outside until they're brown all the way around. Then add water a little bit at a time over about three hours to steam them. Then in the last 30 minutes put orange wine and Grand Marnier on them to give them a caramelized coating that drips into your rice.
12:30 Albertine's choice of duck gun is a Browning Belgium 20-ga. But in the field? It's good to have two guns in case something happens to one.
17:00 Flashback: The Deep Horizon oil of April 2010, the well was uncapped for 87 days, 11 men died on the rig, and more than 100 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Sixty-four percent of Louisiana's coastal areas were oiled. Settlement money from the spill is going to coastal habitat restoration.
20:00 Local impacts were stark. Fisheries and oyster harvest were shut down. For a local parish known as "sportsman's paradise," it was a big loss
23:00 Ten years after the spill, there are still scars on the landscape. It's hard as a sportswoman to wonder if you'll ever catch a trout the size of what you used to catch.
28:00 Before extensive levees were built on the Mississippi, the river would naturally deposit sediment to extend coastlines. Restoration projects sometimes try to replicate that process.
30:00 No wetlands = no people
36:00 Each generation of sportsmen/women has a different baseline for what's normal in terms of game abundance and habitat health
38:00 VanishingParadise.org; on Insta @VanishingParadise; Facebook - Vanishing Paradise
40:00 Hunting is a way of life and a heritage... and if we treasure it that way, conservation is an absolute must
42:00 Also check out Restore the Mississippi River Delta Coalition, Baton Rouge River Center
43:00 Smithsonian video "The Duck Queen of Plaquemines Parish"
45:00 Five-part docuseries, "Last Call for the Bayou"
51:00 Retired with a working boyfriend: You can always go without him!