HERALD-NEWS (West Paterson, New Jersey) 20 August 07 Origin of reptiles remains a mystery (Samantha Henry)
A week after a group of Buddhists released hundreds of live eels, frogs and turtles into the Passaic River as part of a religious ritual, environmental experts said it may be difficult to ever definitively determine their origin.
A Buddhist group from New York City that practices the Amitabha, or "Pure Land" form of the religion, conducted a ritual Aug. 12 in which members released animals purchased in the fish markets of Chinatown into the river at Paterson's Westside Park.
The Amitabha, who believe in the sanctity of all living creatures, perform the annual rite with animals being sold for food, and thus destined for unnatural death. Releasing these animals back into nature, they believe, gives the creatures a chance to get back on the proper karmic lifecycle.
Members of the group said during the ceremony they had chosen the Passaic because it was the nearest freshwater body to New York City and a place the animals would have a chance to survive.
But just how good a chance they'll have at survival -- and their potential effect on the river's ecosystem -- are issues raising both public concern and the ire of New Jersey environmental officials.
Capt. Jim Cussen of the law enforcement arm of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is leading the investigation into the incident and working with New York City authorities to track down the group and try to get answers.
"It's a major concern, although the damage is already done," Cussen said. "We want to determine who they are and make sure it doesn't happen again, but there's absolutely no way we can go out into the wild and remove them (the animals) at this point."
Cussen said the species release was done without any permits -- a civil offense finable up to $1,000 -- and that a permit would probably not have been issued for such a practice. He said animal control specialists were sent out to the scene the day after the ceremony was reported in the press but were unable to locate any species that looked out of place.
"The Passaic River is a difficult place to work because it's murky, and there's not a lot of access," Cussen said. "At this point, to be able to say that: 'This is one they released,' versus one that was already there, is difficult."
A visit by the Herald News to the banks of the river a few days after the creatures were released turned up several frogs and turtles that matched those in photographs taken during the ceremony. A large snapping turtle with identifiable markings -- visible in a photo of it being released into the river during the ceremony -- was found dead and floating in weeds along the riverbank. But biologists and reptile experts said it was unusual that such a hearty turtle would perish, and that the creature may have been sick to begin with.
Analyzing photographs taken during the ceremony, several experts said the turtles appeared to be snapping turtles and Eastern painted turtles, both native species already found in the Passaic. The frogs were believed to be bullfrogs -- also native to the Passaic River -- although different scientists looking at the same photographs did not agree on their origin. The species of eels that were released were more difficult to determine without examining them under a microscope, experts said.
Jay Westerveld, a naturalist, and his childhood friend, Mike Mallon, an environmental sciences teacher, both from Sugar Loaf, N.Y., led a Herald News reporter and photographer on a tour of the markets of Chinatown on Friday in attempts to find species matching those in the photographs of the ceremony.
The two frequently monitor the species of reptiles and fish they say are often sold illegally in Chinatown, where barrels of live bullfrogs, similar to those released during the ceremony, were on sale for $3.49 per pound.
"Typically, it looks like a lot are infected," Westerveld said. "It's in the invisible pathogens, the microscopic stuff -- that is scarier than the animals themselves."
Westerveld and Mallon said that regardless of the origin of the reptiles, the fungus or bacteria they can pick up from being shipped in crates, or from being piled on top of one another in standing water in a market, can pose a threat to a river's ecosystem or to other species.
Both men said the frogs and turtles probably had a good chance at survival in the Passaic, but their interactions with other animals would be hard to predict. The outcome for the eels would depend on if they are a species accustomed to the cold winters of the Northeast.
The Passaic River, once so polluted that the fish population dwindled to just three species, has been cleaned up in recent years and seen more than 27 kinds of native fish come back, according to the Passaic River Coalition. The river is fresh water above the Great Falls, but eventually mixes with salt water in the lower Passaic, leaving the fate of animals that travel that far unknown.
Although a large number of reptiles and eels were released into the Passaic during the ceremony, several environmental experts said the impact would not necessarily be widely felt, due to the size of the river. They emphasized that the public should not be unduly alarmed, but that the potential threat of invasive species was a very real and growing concern.
"I'm not trying to blow this out of proportion -- it's not the most catastrophic thing that's ever occurred -- but it's not a good ecological practice," said Matthew McCort, a herpetologist and wildlife ecologist with Herpetological Associates Inc., an environmental consulting firm in Jackson. "It's a horrible practice, any time you're introducing anything back into the wild that doesn't come from there. Say those frogs come from Florida, and you're putting them in New Jersey; they can disrupt things even if they're the same species."
Attempts to contact the Amitabha group to try to find out the origins of the animals purchased for the ceremony were unsuccessful. No one answered the door at their Chinatown offices, and calls to several of their temples were answered by people who said they were not aware of the New Jersey ceremony.
Richard Fox Young, a professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary, said Amitabha Buddhism was not well known in the U.S. but practiced widely throughout China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.
"Americans know next to nothing about Buddhism," Young said. "There is so much variety in it."
Young said in Buddhist thought, nirvana, or enlightenment, is an escape from human suffering. Central to this particular sect's belief is the worship of a deity called Amitabha -- revered for vowing not to attain nirvana until all other living beings have attained it first. To do so, a person first must be reborn in the "pure land," which can be loosely compared to the Christian concept of heaven, Young said.
Members of the group told the Herald News during their ceremony that they believed those who had sinned as humans were reincarnated as reptiles as punishment. Giving them a chance at karmic redemption would allow them to come back as good human beings the next time around.
A spokesperson for the DEP said the investigation into the Westside Park incident was ongoing.
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