OBITUARY

Gavia immer 2010-2013

Newport, Maine. Gavia immer, 5 years old, left his earthly body on August 9, 2013, his quiet hoots and impressive tremolo forever silenced by a lead sinker left by a careless fisherman in Lake Sebasticook.
Gavia immer was born in Lake Sebasticook, and at the tender age of 6 months, traveled to somewhat warmer climes during the fall of 2010, to spend the winter on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, learning the ways of the salt water world. He returned to Newport and his beloved lake in the summer of 2011 where he frolicked in the waves, swam happily with his other Gavia immer friends, and ate Alewives until he thought he would burst. Such was the life of this handsome boy, the innocent bird that we all admire, love, and strive to protect each summer, the creature we all know as the Common Loon. But this particular Gavia immer was anything but common.
In his infancy, under the watchful eyes of his devoted parents, he beat the odds of being eaten by a turtle, bass, osprey, or eagle to grow into a fine youngster, proudly representing his species. His parents provided a sheltered, loving nest for him on the shores of the lake, and Gavia immer learned to swim, fish and yodel with other baby loons that first summer. Knowing he had a long journey ahead of him, Gavia immer prepared mentally and physically for his trip, practicing his take-offs and landings until he was quite accomplished at them, even though he looked a tad ungainly in the process.
Over the years, Gavia immer not only became a successful fisherman, he also excelled at diving. Between the great Atlantic Ocean where he wintered and Sebasticook Lake where he summered, he learned to swim like a fish. He marveled at the changes, both great and small that occurred on the shores of the lake each summer, and he adapted to the highs and lows of the water level. This year, at the age of 5, he started to think about finding his soul mate and spending the remainder of his long life teaching his own babies how to yodel, hoot, wail and tremolo like his father had taught him. And of course, he looked forward to teaching his own loon babies how to fish.
Unfortunately, Gavia immer’s life’s ambition would not come to pass. One warm, sunny day in this most grand summer of 2013, while fishing for his dinner he somehow ingested a lead sinker. Perhaps it had been attached to some fishing line that became tangled in a reed on the water’s edge, or maybe swallowed by a fish he was eating. Regardless of how the lead sinker got into Gavia immer, it was there nonetheless, and it began to poison our beautiful, unsuspecting boy. Weak from the effects of the lead, after months of agonizing breathlessness, he succumbed to the effects of acute lead poisoning, gasping and writhing in the shallow waters of the lake that he so loved, his birthplace, the lake in Newport that had given him life.
Per his request, there will be no services. In lieu of flowers, please remember Gavia immer, our most heroic Common Loon, every time you open your fishing tackle box, every time you DON’T pull that piece of floating fishing line out of the water that you see near the shore, and every time you are even the slightest bit tempted to use a lead sinker. Please think of those of us who pulled him from the water and delivered him to the biologist for his autopsy, please remember those who work tirelessly to preserve our treasured state and its resources, and please remember to be ever-so-kind to our lake.