Talk:West Sister Island

Rabbits
I removed the paragraph about the legendary rabbits on West Sister. It is contradicted by this article, where it says the last lighthousekeeper raised turkeys. PKT 17:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the comment about rabbits did not "contradict" that article at all. The article you cited does not say that Mr. Haynes was the "last" keeper of the lighthouse, only that he was a replacement keeper for the unfortunate Mr. Edson. Given that the tragedy that killed Mr. Edson took place in 1867, I sort of doubt that Mr. Haynes lived to be the "last" keeper of the lighthouse, since the last keeper would have left in 1937. That's 70 years...had Mr. Haynes been the last keeper of the light, he would have to have been at least 90-100 years old.

It is possible (and even probable) that both Turkeys and Rabbits were raised on that island over the decades by different inhabitants. Given the nature of a somewhat mysterious subject such as this island, there are bound to be legends and stories that, while perhaps not immediately verifiable, should not be thrown on the scrapheap without CAREFUL scrutiny. There has not been a whole lot of actual, verifiable, official things written about the cultural history of this island, therefore many of the things you'll read in a place like the Wikipedia entry is bound to be these types of comments that cannot necessarily be cross-referenced on the web. Unless there was a solid reason to believe that the Rabbit story was bogus, it should not have been removed.

I should also point out that, while Lighthousefriends is a fine site, their articles are generally based on other articles which, in subjects like these, are often based on the unverified testimonies and recollections of "old-timers" (for lack of a better term) who have some connection to the landmark in question. Notice that it does not give Mr. Haynes's daughter's name, age, current whereabouts (as of the writing or writing cited), or indication of who she told this anecdote to or under what circumstances (most likely the 1929 Toledo Blade article cited, but who knows?)

I notice that there are several items in the article that do not cite sources, which is not good...I am looking all over to try and find sources to link them to. I grew up in the Toledo area, and have been hearing the rum runner/Hoffa/Rabbit stories my whole life, so I know that they are at least legitimate legends (whether they are true or not). I just wish there were citations to keep everything legit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ncope1230 (talk • contribs) 00:50, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

What birds
What birds are vomiting down from the trees? From my experience, Ardeidae make a likely candidate - both as it fulfils their habitat requirements, and because... well let's say the German term for these is Reiher, cognate with a vernacular for puking reihern and that's not without reason... Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 13:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You may be right; although I'm pretty surethe birds that do the vomiting on West Sister are the Cormorants. When I was a kid, we used to fish very close to the island, and during the summer a lots of people would anchor near the lighthouse and swim (even though it was illegal). The Cormorants would fly over and vomit dead fish on people to try and scare them away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ncope1230 (talk • contribs) 20:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)