East \ West Jersey Map

The Sign on North Lakeshore

This is the road as it approaches Turtle Log Bridge. The sign was just before this bridge.

The Sign Read:

Let No Man Say And Say With Shame
That All Was Beauty Here
Before You Came

That was what the old wood sign read, posted on the polls in the little park in front of the bench on north lakeshore drive, just across the Lakeshore drive road from Jack Gillespie’s house on Mirror Lake in Browns Mills (NJ).

Jack’s a story himself, but he must have had to look at that sign every day, while I only saw it when I was taking a ride around the lake. I don’t know how long it was there but I remember reading the sign for the first time when I was a kid in the back seat during an after dinner pop sickle ride into town.

But it wasn’t there one day, and when somebody else mentioned it, we promised each other that we would have it replaced, as the two wood poles were still there, it was just the sign that was missing.

TT found an old photo of the sign and somebody posted it on the Facebook page – You must be from Browns Mills if you remember....the sign that isn’t there anymore.

Muscovy Ducks

While I took this photo a few years ago, the same group of Muscovys that live near the first lagoon on South Lake Shore Drive in Browns Mills just had another brood - in late November.


Muscovy Duck (Cairina moschata) is a large duck which is native to Mexico and Central and South America. A small wild population reaches into the United States in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. There also are feral breeding populations in North America in and around public parks in nearly every state of the USA and in the Canadian provinces; feral populations also exist in Europe. Although the Muscovy Duck is a tropical bird, it adapts to icy and snowy conditions down to –12°C (10°F) and below without ill effects.[2][3] In general, "Barbary Duck" is the usual term for C. moschata in a culinary context.


All Muscovy Ducks have long claws on their feet and a wide flat tail. In the domestic drake (male), length is about 86 cm (34 in) and weight is 4.6–6.8 kg (10–15 lb), while the domestic hen (female) is much smaller, at 64 cm (25 in) in length and 2.7–3.6 kg (6.0–7.9 lb) in weight. Large domesticated males often weigh up to 8 kg (18 lb), and large domesticated females up to 5 kg (11 lb). One male of an Australian breed weighed about 10 kg (22 lb).[4]
The true wild Muscovy Duck, from which all domesticated Muscovys originated, is blackish, with large white wing patches. Length can range from 66 to 84 cm (26 to 33 in), wingspan from 137 to 152 cm (54 to 60 in) and weight from 1.1–4.1 kg (2.4–9.0 lb) in wild Muscovys. On the head, the wild male has short crest on the nape. The bill is black with a speckling of pale pink. A blackish or dark red knob can be seen at the bill base, and the bare skin of the face is similar to that in color. The eyes are yellowish-brown. The legs and webbed feet are blackish. The wild female is similar in plumage, but is also much smaller, and she has feathered face and lacks the prominent knob. The juvenile is duller overall, with little or no white on the upperwing.[5] Domesticated birds may look similar; most are dark brown or black mixed with white, particularly on the head.[6] Other colors such as lavender or all-white are also seen. Both sexes have a nude black-and-red or all-red face; the drake also has pronounced caruncles at the base of the bill and a low erectile crest of feathers.[3]
C. moschata ducklings are mostly yellow with buff-brown markings on the tail and wings. Some domesticated ducklings have a dark head and blue eyes, others a light brown crown and dark markings on their nape. They are agile and speedy precocial birds.
The drake has a low breathy call, and the hen a quiet trilling coo.
The karyotype of the Muscovy Duck is 2n=80, consisting of three pairs of macrochromosomes, 36 pairs of microchromosomes, and a pair of sex chromosomes. The two largest macrochromosome pairs are submetacentric, while all other chromosomes are acrocentric or (for the smallest microchromosomes) probably telocentric. The submetacentric chromosomes and the Z (female) chromosome show rather little constitutive heterochromatin (C bands), while the W chromosomes are at least two-thirds heterochromatin.[7]
Male Muscovy Ducks have spiralled penises which can become erect to 20 cm in one third of a second. Females have cloacas that spiral in the opposite direction to try to limit forced copulation by males.[8]


The term "Muscovy" means "from the Moscow region", but these ducks are neither native there nor were they introduced there before they became known in Western Europe. It is not quite clear how the term came about; it very likely originated between 1550 and 1600, but did not become widespread until somewhat later.

In one suggestion, it has been claimed that the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands traded these ducks to Europe occasionally after 1550;[9] this chartered company became eventually known as the Muscovy Company or "Muscovite Company" so the ducks might thus have come to be called "Muscovite Ducks" or "Muscovy Ducks" in keeping with the common practice of attaching the importer's name to the products they sold.[9] But while the Muscovite Company initiated vigorous trade with Russia, they hardly, if at all, traded produce from the Americas; thus they are unlikely to have traded C. moschata to a significant extent.

Alternatively – just as in the "turkey" bird (which is also from America), or the "guineafowl" (which are not limited to Guinea) – "Muscovy" might be simply a generic term for a hard-to-reach and exotic place, in reference to the singular appearance of these birds. This is evidenced by other names suggesting the species came from lands where it is not actually native, but from where much "outlandish" produce was imported at that time (see below). A more recent parallel is the "Persian" cat, which resembles cats from Greater Khorasan and Ankara, but was actually bred in England.[10]

Yet another view – not incompatible with either of those discussed above – connects the species with the Muisca, a Native American nation in today's Colombia. The duck is native to these lands too, and it is likely that it was kept by the Muisca as a domestic animal to some extent. It is conceivable that a term like "Muisca duck", hard to comprehend for the average European of those times, would be corrupted into something more familiar.
The Miskito Indians of the Miskito Coast in Nicaragua and Honduras relied heavily on this domestic species. The ducks may have been named after this region.

The species was first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 edition of Systema Naturae as Anas moschata,[11] literally meaning "musk duck". His description only consists of a curt but entirely unequivocal [Anas] facie nuda papillosa ("A duck with a naked and carunculated face"), and his primary reference is his earlier work Fauna Svecica.[12] But Linnaeus refers also to older sources, and therein much information on the origin of the common name is found.
Conrad Gessner is given by Linnaeus as a source, but the Historiae animalium mentions the Muscovy Duck only in passing.[13] Ulisse Aldrovandi[14] discusses the species in detail, referring to the wild birds and its domestic breeds variously as anas cairina, anas indica or anas libyca – "Duck from Cairo", "Indian Duck" (in reference to the West Indies) or "Libyan Duck". But his anas indica (based, like Gessner's brief discussion, ultimately on the reports of Christopher Columbus's travels) also seems to have included another species,[15] perhaps a whistling-duck (Dendrocygna). Already however the species is tied to some more or less nondescript "exotic" locality – "Libya" could still refer to any place in Northern Africa at that time – where it did not natively occur. Francis Willughby[16] discusses "The Muscovy Duck" as anas moschata and expresses his belief that Aldrovandi's and Gessner's anas cairina, anas indica and anas libyca (which he calls "The Guiny Duck", adding another mistaken place of origin to the list) refer to the very same species. Finally, John Ray clears up much of the misunderstanding by providing a contemporary explanation for the bird's etymology:
"In English, it is called The Muscovy-Duck, though this is not transferred from Muscovia [the New Latin name of Muscovy], but from the rather strong musk odour it exudes."[17]
Linnaeus came to witness the birds' "gamey" aroma first-hand, as he attests in the Fauna Svecica and again in the travelogue of this 1746 Västergötland excursion.[18] Similarly, the Russia

name of this species, muskusnaya utka (Мускусная утка), means "musk duck" – without any reference to Moscow – as do the Bokmål moskusand, Dutch muskuseend, Finnish myskisorsa, French canard musqué, German Moschusente, Italian anatra muschiata, Spanish pato almizclado and Swedish myskand. In English however, Musk Duck refers to the Australian species Biziura lobata.

In some regions the name Barbary Duck is used for domesticated and "Muscovy Duck" for wild birds; in other places "Barbary Duck" refers specifically to the dressed carcass, while "Muscovy Duck" applies to living C. moschata, regardless of whether they are wild or domesticated. In general, "Barbary Duck" is the usual term for C. moschata in a culinary context.

This species was formerly placed into the paraphyletic "perching duck" assemblage, but subsequently moved to the dabbling duck subfamily (Anatinae). Analysis of the mtDNA sequences of the cytochrome b and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 genes,[19] however, indicates that it might be closer to the genus Aix and better placed in the shelduck subfamily Tadorninae. In addition, the other species of Cairina, the rare White-winged Duck (C. scutulata), seems to belong into a distinct genus. The generic name Cairina, meanwhile, traces its origin to Aldr
Aldrovandi, and ultimately to the mistaken belief that the birds came from Egypt: translated, the current scientific name of the Muscovy Duck means "the musky one from Cairo".

[edit]Ecology

This non-migratory species normally inhabits forested swamps, lakes, streams and nearby grassland and farm crops,[20] and often roosts in trees at night. The Muscovy Duck's diet consists of plant material obtained by grazing or dabbling in shallow water, and small fish, amphibians, reptiles, crustaceans, insects, and millipedes. [21] This is a somewhat aggressive duck; males often fight over food, territory or mates. The females fight with each other less often. Some adults will peck at the ducklings if they are eating at the same food source.
The Muscovy Duck has benefited from nest boxes in Mexico, but is somewhat uncommon in much of the east of its range due to excessive hunting. It is not considered a globally threatened species by the IUCN however, as it is widely distributed.[22]

[edit]Reproduction
This species, like the Mallard, does not form stable pairs. They will mate on land or in water (note the submerged female in the image below). Domesticated Muscovy Ducks can breed up to three times each year.

The hen lays a clutch of 8-16 white eggs, usually in a tree hole or hollow, which are incubated for 35 days. The sitting hen will leave the nest once a day from 20 minutes to one and a half hours, and will then defecate, drink water, eat and sometimes bathe. Once the eggs begin to hatch it may take 24 hours for all the chicks to break through their shells. When feral chicks are born they usually stay with their mother for about 10–12 weeks. Their bodies cannot produce all the heat they need, especially in temperate regions, so they will stay close to the mother especially at night.

Often, the drake will stay in close contact with the brood for several weeks. The male will walk with the young during their normal travels in search for food, providing protection. Anecdotal evidence from East Anglia, UK suggests that, in response to different environmental conditions, other adults assist in protecting chicks and providing warmth at night. It has been suggested that this is in response to local efforts to cull the eggs, which has led to an atypical distribution of males and females as well as young and mature birds.

For the first few weeks of their lives, Muscovy duckling feed on grains, corn, grass, insects, and almost anything that moves. Their mother instructs them at an early age how to feed.

Feral Muscovy Ducks can breed near urban and suburban lakes and on farms, nesting in tree cavities or on the ground, under shrubs in yards, on condominium balconies, or under roof overhangs. Some feral populations, such as that in Florida, have a reputation of becoming nuisance pests on occasion.[23] At night they often sleep at water, if there is a water source available, to flee quickly from predators if awoken. A small population of Muscovy Ducks can also be found in Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK, where they are considered a pest and culled by the local council.

In the US, Muscovy Duccks are considered an invasive species. An owner may raise them for food production only (not for hunting). Similarly, if the ducks have no owner, 50CFR Part 21 allows the removal or destruction of the Muscovy ducks, their eggs and nests anywhere in the United States outside of Hidalgo, Starr, and Zapata counties in Texas where they are considered indigenous. The population in southern Florida is considered, with a population in the several thousands, to established there enough be is considered "countable" for bird watchers.[24]

Legal methods to restrict breeding include not feeding these ducks, deterring them with noise or by chasing, and finding nests and vigorously shaking the eggs to render them non-viable. Returning the eggs to the nest will avoid re-laying as the female would if the clutch were removed.
Recent legislation in the USA prohibits trading of Muscovy Ducks and plans for eradication are in order to solve nuisance problems.[21]

Veterans Day in Browns Mills

Do you recognize anyone in this photo?

Photo from Community News.

If you do, please contact me at Billkelly3@gmail.com

White Deer Fawn Sir Phineas Pinkerton aka Finn

Rose Shields/staff photographer

Assistant rehab manager Sara Walsh gets kisses from Finn, a male fawn that is recuperating at the Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge

While we have many photos of white deer in the wild from around these parts, this is the first picture we've seen of a white deer in captivity. It is being cared for at the Woodfore Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge in Medford.

Posted: Wednesday, October 12, 2011
By Gail Boatman Special to the BCT |

http://www.phillyburbs.com/my_town/medford/a-day-in-the-life-animal-rehabilitation/article_ad3d0e6f-3561-5a78-9e72-2beebb94470e.html

MEDFORD — The arrival of injured and abandoned animals is not unusual at the Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge. Four thousand hurting creatures find their way to the refuge’s doorstep every year.

But this one was different.

One morning last month, a white fawn with blue eyes and pink hooves arrived, delivered by a concerned resident who had spotted him in her backyard. He was about 2 weeks old and had apparently been abandoned by his mother.

The woman who first saw him watched and waited for two days, hoping the herd would return for him. Finally, she called Cedar Run.

“She told us he was bleating and crying and couldn’t feed himself,’’ said Jeanne Gural, Cedar Run’s executive director.

The staff named him Sir Phineas Pinkerton, or Finn for short. Most fawns are born in the spring and have ample time to grow strong before winter sets in with its cold winds and scarce food supply.

This late-season fawn would not be so lucky.

Despite his coloring, Finn is not an albino, according to Gural.

“We know this because of his blue eyes,’’ she said.

But he lacks brown pigment, a condition that approximately one in 500 deer are born with.

The refuge’s policy is to return animals to the wild if there is a reasonable possibility they can survive.

“We’re good, but their mothers are better,’’ Gural said.

Finn’s chances of surviving were close to zero.

The coloring that makes him so exotic, almost mythic in appearance, also would make him a prized target for hunters.

And there is another factor.

Fawns quickly become accustomed to being around humans, a trait that would not serve Finn well in the wild. So, eventually he will become a resident of the 174-acre refuge.

“We will gradually integrate him with three other deer who live here,’’ said Sara Walsh, an animal rehabilitator and the assistant manager of the refuge’s hospital. “That’s so he will understand he’s a deer.’’

Until then, Finn is living in an enclosed area in the hospital and, as much as possible, being kept away from people.

Walsh and hospital manager Stephanie Stewart are involved in his day-to-day care, a schedule that many new mothers may recognize: feeding, sleeping and playing.

Walsh helps to bottle-feed him five times a day with a nutritious formula especially concocted for fawns. Finn is teething now, she said, and has been introduced to solid foods, apples and vegetables. He also is fond of the diamond-shaped leaves on a sassafras tree.

“It’s what he would eat in the wild,’’ Walsh said.

At first, Finn slept all day, but now, at nearly 6 weeks old, he is becoming more and more active. Last week, lured by the surrounding trees, he began to venture outside, wearing a secure harness.At about one year, Finn will begin to develop his antlers. Already there are small spots on his head where they will form.

Working hours for both women are 9 to 5, but they live on the premises and can be called in the middle of the night for an emergency.

Their days begin with food preparation for all the resident animals, about 20 now.

In summer, when that number can jump to 50 or 60, feeding can take up to half the day. Volunteers help, and during the summer months, three interns work with the women.

Walsh, a native of Colorado, started at Cedar Run as an intern after studying wildlife management at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, Pa.

Most of the animals and birds that arrive at Cedar Run, injured or sick, eventually are released back into the wild.

They are prepared gradually, learning how to fend for themselves in the safety of the refuge before being released.

That is the moment Walsh and her colleagues look forward to.

“We watch them being wild animals,’’ she said.

Weapons of Mass Destruction in My Backyard

WMD IN MY BACKYARD –

The search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq may have come up empty, but from where I’m sitting in the middle of New Jersey, it seems that there’s plenty of WMD right here in my backyard. It seems that I don’t have to go far to find such WMD as missing mice infected with biological warfare diseases, unaccounted for vials of liquid anthrax, nuke missile meltdowns and nuclear warheads missing offshore. It’s all right here. I couldn’t make this up, and we don’t need no terrorist to do it to us, it seems we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Not long ago, as detailed in the news, vials of anthrax are missing, along with three bubonic plague infested mice. Then there’s the BOMARC missile meltdown, complete with nuclear warheads, what they call a “Broken Arrow” incident that occurred at Fort Dix/McGuire AFB, which polluted the nearby ground and water. And there's also the two nuke warheads off the Coast of Cape May.

Know any terrorists looking for some nuclear warheads? There’s two in the water a few miles off Cape May, New Jersey, jetsoned during an emergency from a military plane out of Dover AFB in Delaware, and never recovered. Just like Ian Fleming’s fictional 007 adventure “Thunderball,” in which two nuclear bombs are hijacked by the terrorist organization SPECTRE – Special Executive for Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, for blackmail purposes.

Missing mice and anthrax, missile meltdown, nuke warheads lost offshore, we got it all. And each case study is a lesson in accidents that can get out of control. The most recent are the stories of the missing mice and anthrax.

MISSING INFECTED MICE AND ANTHRAX

Three bubonic plague infested mice went missing from a government lab in Newark in September, 2005, and not long after two-two inch tubes of liquid anthrax bacteria were reported unaccounted for at the New Jersey Public Health Environmental Laboratory in Trenton.

According to the Associated Press (Wayne Parry, Aril 26, 2006), “The mice were never located, and officials said the rodents might have been stolen, eaten by other lab animals or just misplaced in a paperwork error.” The three toxic mice were absent from their Newark lab affiliated with the University of Medicine and Denistry, where a scandal even more pressing than the missing mice forced the resignation of the director and sparked a federal financial probe.

“The Newark lab that lost track of the plague-infested mice conducts bioterrorism research for the federal government,” Wayne Parry Reported. “After the incident, the facility improved its video surveillance and stopped using contracted animal handlers. Before the incident, the center relied on a single security guard.”

The anthrax, kept at a more secure facility, was discovered missing during an inventory of more than 19,000 samples stored in a state laboratory, prior to their being relocated to an even more secure facility. 350 of 352 positive anthrax samples are accounted for.

According to Lauren O. Kidd of the Gannett newspapers, “The state is obliged by the FBI to store the positive samples as potential evidence if a suspect is charged in connection to the unsolved anthrax attacks that killed five and harmed at least 17 in October 2001. The U.S. Postal Service requires the state to store the thousands of negative samples as well, officials said.”

“In both cases, authorities say they think the items in question weren’t actually lost, but were simply unaccounted for due to clerical errors,” wrote Parry.

“It is likely that the discrepancy is an inventory or clerical error and not truly missing samples,” said state epidemiologist Eddy Bresnitz.

Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright said, “The fact that they don’t know the answer means they’re not running a properly secured facility. The odds are that it was an accounting error, but it is very possible that one of the persons with access to the lab has removed the material.”

Of the 300 institutions in the country capable of safely handling such materials, 16,500 individuals are certified and cleared to handle and possess deadly bio-agents, and only eleven people have such clearance at the Trenton lab where the anthrax was stored. All were questioned and cleared.

“The Trenton lab has multiple levels of security,” writes Parry, “including a padlocked containment area requiring two different sets of identification for access,…video monitoring and 24-hour security guards.”

“Samples of anthrax have been stored at a Trenton lab since shortly after the October 2001 anthrax mailings that went through a Hamilton (N.J.) post office, killing four people across the country and sickening 17.”

“The chance that these two positive specimens are somewhere outside of the laboratory is very small,” said Bresnitz, noting the missing anthrax is, “not in a mode that we think could be used as weapons. The spores would have to be put into an aerosol form to be used as a weapon, which would take a high level of technical sophistication.”

Well, we know who has a high level of technical sophistication. As Rutgers professor Ebright says, “If an adversary of the United States, such as al-Quada, wanted to obtain this material, the most effective, simple procedure to do so is to plant a person in one of those numerous institutions that the administration has put in place working with this material. Because the number of those institutions has increased and because it happened without an increase in effective security, the risk to the United States has dramatically increased.”

Not rare in New Jersey, we apparently have an abundance of anthrax, as New Jersey’s Homeland Security director Richard Canas said, “I think the genesis was that they were inundated with samples. What I would like to see is bringing this number down. Let’s at least cull these down into something more manageable.”

Indeed. And if you see three lose mice running around that glow in the dark, please notify the office of Homeland Security that you found their missing rodents.

Then there’s the nuke missile meltdown, a “Broken Arrow” event.

BOMARC Missile Meltdown. June 7, 1960

The United States was in the mist of the Cold War in early June, 1960, when major cities and military bases were surrounded by batteries of anti-missile missiles, poised to be launched to defend the country against jet bomber or missile attack with thermonuclear weapons.

The BOMARC – was one such anti-missile system, and a battery of them were set up on the east edge of McGuire Air Force base in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Surrounded by scub pine forests, a public nature preserve was just across the two lane blacktop highway from the line of missiles nestled in the woods. The idea behind shooting a nuclear warhead as a defensive weapon depended upon an advance notice being given to launch the anti-missiles so they could detonate high in the atmosphere and take out the incoming bombers and missiles with them.

Set to be launched on two minutes notice, the BOMARC missiles were poised skyward, set in a row a few hundred yards apart. On June 7, 1960, a helium tank under high presure exploded, rupturing the fuel tank that caught fire.

It is what they call a “Broken Arrow” event, or “any accidental or unauthorized incident involving a possible detonation of a nuclear weapon by U.S. Forces (other than war risk); the non-nuclear detonation or burning of a nuclear weapon; radioactive contamination; the seizure, theft or loss of a nuclear weapon or component (including jettisoning); Public hazard, actual or implied.”

While McGuire AFB is now the home base to the state of New Jersey’s nuclear response strike team, they were a little less sophisticated in 1960.

The local, mainly volunteer fire and rescue squads from nearby town of New Egypt, in Ocean County, responded to the explosion, and fought the fire with traditional firefighting weapons – high pressure water.

With the rocket’s fuel feeding the fire, which burned out of control for awhile, the nuclear tipped missile burned completely, and while there was no nuclear explosion, the fire melted the nuclear materials, which combined with the water runoff and contaminated the ground and the ground water below, which fed into a local creek.

One official report reads: Table 5-1: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents, 1950-1980
June 7, 1960 / BOMARC / McGuire AFB, New Jersey (p. 228).


“A BOMARC air defense missile in ready storage condition (permitting launch in two minutes) was destroyed by explosion and fire after a high-pressure helium tank exploded and ruptured the missile’s fuel tanks. The warhead was also destroyed by the fire although the high explosives did not detonate. Nuclear safety devices acted as designed. Contamination was restricted to an area immediately beneath the weapon and an adjacent elongated area approximately 100 feet long, caused by drain off of firefighting water.’

Another source is: U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History, by Chuck Hansen (Orion Books, New York, N.Y., 10003, 1988.

Also see: “The Greenpeace Book of the Nuclear Age: The Hidden History, The Human Cost” by John May, (Pantheon Books, NY, NY, 1989)

While the event took place in 1960, on July 29, 1999 it was announced from McGuire AFB that, “Officials at McGure AFB say they have hired a South Carolina firm to clean up radioacative plutonium that leaked during a 1960 fire at a nuclear missile site. The Trentonian reported that the cleanup was announced a day after federal authorities added other McGuire dump areas to the Superfund list….but not the missile site in Plumstead Township, which was abandoned in 1972.”

Under “Completed Actions,” the DOD report notes that, “Following the explosion that occurred in 1960, paint was applied to the shelter and concrete was poured over the most heavily plutonium-contaminated portions of the asphalt apron and floor area of the shelter. An asphalt cover was placed in the drainage ditch that leads from the shelter to the nearby stream to impede erosion of contaminated soil. Access to the accident area is restricted by a 6 foot chain link fence topped with barb wire.”

The nearby Colliers Mill Wildlife Management Area, a nature park just across the highway from the accident site, is a popular public camping and recreational park.

A huge underground water drainage pipe was replaced in the 1970s and even though is highly contaminated, it has not been located.

From what I understand, having talked with residents of the area, a local piney with a truck was hired to haul some of the contaminated dirt and melted and contaminated metal away from the site.

And that's exactly what happened. In 2011 the Trentonian newspaper reported that they had located a living witness, a former Air Force enlisted man who said that he followed the contaminated metal that was taken away from the site and delivered to a West Trenton junk and scrap metal yard.

An extensive Public Health Assessment by the Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center – of the “Broken Arrow” event at the McGuire Missile, New Egypt, Ocean County, New Jersey, concluded, “No apparent health hazards are associated with an explosion and fire at the BOMARC site in 1960, which released radionuclides to the environment via smoke, dust and water runoff from fire-fighting efforts. Workers responding to the accident, downwind at the time of the accident, or involved in cleanup may have breathed in alpha radiation when they inhaled radionuclides, primarily plutonium, carried on smoke or attached to resuspended soil, or they could have been exposed to small amounts of external gamma radiation.”

The report continues, “Given the lack of information about the exposure conditions at the time of the accident, it is challenging to accurately assess workers intake and does. Conservative estimates, however, suggest that radiation dose received during or after the accident are not expected to cause harmful long term effects or cancer.”

NUKE WARHEADS MISSING OFFSHORE

JULY 28, 1957 – C-124 Globemaster Jettisons Cargo – 2 Plutonium-239 atomic warheads – within an area 100 miles southeast of the Naval Air Station, Pomona.

The Department of Defense has officially reported thirty-two serious accidents involving nuclear weapons, three of which occurred while transporting weapons from one place to another, using the C-124 “Globemaster” transport.

Destination Europe, the C-124 with three weapons aboard took off from Dover AFB in Delaware, but immediately began experiencing engine trouble. In order to avoid crashing into the water, the crew jettisoned two of the weapons into the water.

According to a 1981 report by the Center for Defense Information

[ Washington, D.C. #0195-6450 The Defense Monitor (Vol. X. Number 5) U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents: Danger In Our Midst – republished by MILNET – http://www.milnet.com/cdiart.htm ]

“On July 28, 1957, a C-124 jettisoned two weapons from a C-124 aircraft. There were three weapons and one nuclear capsule on board the aircraft, though nuclear components were not installed in the weapons. Enroute from Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, “a loss of power from number one and number two engines [of four a major problem for this aircraft when carrying extremely heavy atomic bombs of this era ] was experienced.

Maximum power was applied to the remaining engines; however, level flight could not be maintained. At this point, the decision was made to jettison cargo in the interest of safety of the aircraft and crew. The first weapon was jettisoned at approximately 2,500 feet altitude. No detonation occurred from either weapon. Both weapons are presumed to have been damaged from impact with the ocean surface. Both weapons are presumed to have submerged almost instantly. The ocean varies in depth in the area of the jettisonings. The C-124 landed at an airfield in the vicinity of Atlantic City, New Jersey, with the remaining weapon and the nuclear capsule aboard. A search for the weapons or debris had negative results.”

[See: http://www.milnet.com/cdiart.html]

“The weapons were jettisoned within an area 100 miles southeast of the Naval Air Station, Pomona, N.J., where the aircraft landed,” the MILNET report notes. “The two weapons are still presumably in the area, somewhere east of Rehobeth Beach Delaware, Cape May and Wildwood, N.J.”

Even though this incident took place in 1957, you can be sure that bombs are still there. “Plutonium-239, an isotope used to fuel atomic bombs,” the report dryly notes, “has a half-life of 24,400 years and remains poisonous for at least half a million years.”
The problem is – who is looking for these lost nukes? Nobody. If we don’t keep looking for them until they are found, then the terrorists will one day most certainly go looking for them.

Nor do we know what long-term effects of these nuclear accidents if we don’t find out what happened to them and monitor the affected environment.

Under the DOD definition of a nuclear accident, the jettisoning of nuclear warheads is a “Broken Arrow” event #4 – “Seizure, theft, or loss of a nuclear weapon or component (including jettisoning);” a “Public hazard,” whether “actual or implied.”

The DOD report on nuclear weapons accidents concludes “the increased numbers of nuclear weapons suggest that more accidents and perhaps more serious accidents will occur in the future.”

William Kelly – billkelly3@gmail.com

White Deer Photos

Many thanks to Renae SunMoon for the photos.


THE STORY OF THE WHITE DEER

One night a few years ago I was driving home after visiting some friends on the other side of Mirror Lake from where I live.

Instead of going back to the damn I went around the far end of the lake, as I had done many times over the years.

As I was making a hard turn near the end of the lake, I came across a half dozen white deer that were standing in the middle of the road, forcing me to break hard and come to a complete stop in order to avoid hitting them. There was one big buck and four or five other smaller ones, but they were all white as sheets. The big one just stood there and looked at me as the others ran off and then meandeared into the woods behind them.

The next day at JC's, the local bar, I mentioned the herd of white deer I had seen the night before and everyone knew all about them. There were more, probably over a dozen all together, and a few mixed, brown and whites.

Not albinos, they are white deer.

I looked up white deer on the internet and found that there were a few out west, and a larger, protected herd of white deer on a military reservation in upstate New York. Still, they are a rarity.

Later on I went for a drive to the same area I had seen them before, just before the curve at the far southwest end of Mirror Lake, and about one block off Lakeshore Drive I saw what I thought was a white doberman standing on a sideroad. I stopped, backed up and sure enough, it was a small white doe. I drove up and it scooted off into the woods, but only about ten or fifteen yards and stopped to eat some more. I drove up to about twenty yards of it and it never ran off, just took its time eating some schrubs, so they are very used to people.

One of the regulars at JC's, Tommy, said his mom lives right along there and sees the white deer all the time in her back yard. She has pictures that Tommy let me make copies of that I'll post as soon as I figure out how to post pictures.

Then I found one photo already posted online at Roger Beckwith's wwwroadhousereport.com.

Roger lives in the same neighborhood and sees the white deer all the time too.

If you scroll down the Roadhouse pictures past the Asbury Park scenes, Billy and Roger at the Stone Poney, you come to a white deer in Roger's backyard.

http://www.angelfire.com/nj/Roadhouse51/pictures.html

Come last November, hunting season, and local hunter and JC regular Michael, was proud of the fact he bagged a white buck, as did his son, whose name is Hunter.

Both of these white deer were from a different herd that is located near 4 Mile Circle, about ten or fifteen miles away, but not that far.

Michael said that some hunters around 4 Mile told him that the white deer came from an overturned truck that crashed near the circle. The white deer, they said, came from China and were being transferred to a zoo somewhere when they were released in the accident.

Although I have yet to find any record of such a truck accident, I did Google White Deer China and came up with the White Deer Academy, an ancient school in China where white deer are legend.

Located in the Five Old Men Peak, the White-Deer Cave Academy is one of the earliest institutions of higher learning, and was named after Li Bo, who raised a white deer during his study here. Li later served as the Regional Chief of Jiangzhou (Jiujiang today). The academy is one of the four famous academies in China, along with Shigu in Yunnan, Suiyang in Henan, and Yulu in Hunan.