Wander With Wild Things

A Moment's Respite

2010-08-07T22:52:00.000-04:00

Field season and the associated exhaustion have left this blog sadly without update. My apologies.

But I had to pop in and share a rather triumphant bit of news, should anyone actually read it.

If you followed the stories about the plight of the grey wolf, I am ridiculously overjoyed to tell you that the court ruled, and rightfully so, that the delisting actions taken by the US Fish & Wildlife Service in regards to the wolf populations in the Northern Rockies were UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

All packs are now returned to full endangered status. And all small-minded misinformed trigger-happy jerks can crawl back under whatever rock they emerged from and LEAVE THE WOLVES ALONE!

Thank you, NRDC, DOW, and all others who fought the good fight and who refused to let might triumph over right. Carry on, carry on.

Imagine A Dark Night At The Pond

2010-05-23T17:30:00.000-04:00

You are minding your own business, sipping a nice cold beverage, when suddenly, you hear...

Caring Sucks

2010-05-16T21:01:00.003-04:00

I know, I told you I would have posts for you and they have yet to materialize. They are in my head, I swear!

I have found it hard to write this blog -- because I care about the subject matter so much. I spend all day living and breathing this topic at work and the hugeness of the problems facing the natural world leave me often overwhelmed such that I have to flip the off switch when I walk out the office door. It's a self-preservation thing.

Then when I begin writing posts, I find I want to explain EVERYTHING carefully so it is clear and I want to make sure subjects are appropriately placed in context. The result is an entry so long, I don't think anyone would read it and I give up, daunted again.

But I still believe in the project and I hope I have not lost all of you as I try to figure this out! There is so much going on that I want to write about. There are also things going on that I won't write about. I'm not even going to try to elaborate much on the giant oil plumes spewing about the Gulf of Mexico at the moment because I have no words for either my anger or my lack of surprise.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill. -Helen Keller

Speaking of feathers...

I will share with you today though, some simply exquisite pieces of wildlife art that I covet with the depths of my soul. I am quite sure that I could not even afford half of one, but that does not stop me from drooling over them. Each is painted on a feather by Idaho artist Deb Otterstein. She has somehow captured the magic of these wild animals on a medium that is so fitting in its delicacy and grace. If you ever want to just buy me a present, you know, cause who wouldn't buy an extravagent present for a random internet person, you are free to mail me one of these!!

Sometimes Feeling Blue Is Great!

2010-04-30T16:23:00.001-04:00

Friday Fun Fact is back!

There is a special little bird that I can hear outside my office window right now, so today, the little creature that never fails to make me smile just by appearing gets to be the center of WWWT attention.

You've probably seen the unfailingly charming eastern bluebird and even heard its distinctive song without knowing it. Its cheerful burble is hard to miss once you know it and these dapper little birds are often found perching on fence and power lines at dusk, watching for the perfect moment to swoop out and grab an insect meal.

They are dedicated parents, spending as many as 20 days carefully raising their chicks after hatching. Bluebirds also exhibit what is called philopatry, where one chick may remain with the parents after fledging and help to raise the next brood of chicks in an admirable show of sibling support.

In the late 70's, these little gems were declared a rare species; their populations were demolished by a combination of several harsh winters, pesticide use to curtail fire ants, and competition from invasive species. Bluebirds require a cavity to nest in; given that they are not a woodpecker, they cannot excavate their own and thus must rely on the available holes in their territory. Non-native invaders like house sparrows and starlings will fight and even kill a bluebird to steal away a lucrative nest site and as a result, our azure native's reproductive success plummeted.

Campaigns to encourage the installation of bluebird boxes across this animal's range have resulted in a population rebound throughout much of its former habitat. Bring a smile to your backyard today by hanging one in YOUR habitat. You can build your own or order from many sources, including this deluxe edition from Amazon.com (OH! I WANT it!). Here are some great directions on how to install it for maximum benefit to the birds.

Back To Business

2010-04-14T08:45:00.001-04:00

I have been remiss, wanderers, but I have not forgotten you. However, spring is here and with it comes the increased demands of field work. I shall be back with more posts for you, I promise, but in the meantime, several action items to keep you busy:

Sign the petition asking Discovery Networks not to run a travesty of a show called "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Defenders of Wildlife is only 9,000 signatures away from its goal of 200,000. Nothing about Palin's death wish for wildlife belongs on a channel that is SUPPOSED to educate the public about conservation and the miracle of the natural world. Her Alaska would be one devoid of native ecosystems and covered in oil wells -- no place I'd like to visit!

Do not spend a single dollar of your money at the major outdoor retailer, Cabela's. They have decided to be a corporate sponsor for grey wolf-killing derbies in the northern Rockies. No company that supports misinformed and propaganda-fueled slaughter should be allowed to profit. You can read past posts on wolves and their plight and their role as scapegoats of the west here.

Matters Of Size

2010-03-19T15:55:00.000-04:00

Friday Fun Fact! I am deeply sorry I missed your fun fact last week, but I was stricken, nay pounded down by a horrid flu virus. But this week, I bring you things which make you go, "OMFG, that's huge!"

The Atlantic Giant Squid's eye can be as large as 15.75 inches wide. All the better to watch you with, my dear.

The largest flying animal was the pterosaur which lived 70 million years ago. This reptile had a wing span of 39 feet and weighed 190-250 pounds. That's like a flying black bear!

The tentacles of the giant Arctic jellyfish can reach 120 feet in length. There is no cookie shelf too high for baked goods safety!

In a full grown rye plant, the total length of fine root hairs may reach 6600 miles. That would cross the US. Twice.

The world's largest amphibian is the giant Japanese salamander (left). It can grow up to 5 ft. in length. A salamander that can eat your leg is just...cool.

Fly So High

2010-03-05T13:58:00.003-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

You are already experts on counter-current exchange and the way in which it allows efficient exchange of heat from veins to arteries. It also allows animals which operate in a low-oxygen environment to maximize the amount of oxygen in the blood using the same principle of running oxygen rich blood in parallel and opposite to oxygen poor blood in order to exchange the gas across vessel walls.

This is a really big deal if you are, say, a migrating bar-headed goose (right). These striking birds fly at 29,000 feet, confidently flapping over the peaks of the Himalayas. We're talking an altitude where the air is so thin, helicopters can't even fly. They need these special physiological adaptations just to get to the other side of that inconveniently placed mountain range.

While these geese are certainly the trophy-winners at altitude, they are not the only high flyers out there. An airliner once struck a mallard at 21,000 feet above Nevada. Evidence of pintail ducks and black-tailed godwits have been found at 16,400 feet on a Himalayan glacier. Even the tiny, delicate Monarch butterfly has been sighted at 11,000 feet up in the air.

Next time you see migrating critters passing overhead, take a moment to appreciate what it takes to get them there and the astounding achievements of which they are capable without even flinching.

When Fishheads Unite

2010-02-25T21:56:00.000-05:00

No Friday Fun Fact for you! I will be away all weekend, ~~drinking~~ working hard at an aquatic conservation conference. And debating my latest puzzle: why does science insist we write in the driest, most boring fashion imaginable? Do they deliberately try to create a body of literature so inaccessible to any person with a spark of imagination? Every time I try to slip in the smallest of colourful adjectives, I am slapped down by the mighty hand of the Personality Police. God forbid someone might actually have an emotion, or even worse, smile, while reading a report. For we must maintain the harmonic, transparent, joyous relationship that science currently has with the public and within its own ranks. By the way, yes, that clanking sound you hear IS in fact my eyes rolling all the way back in my skull at that last...

You Can't Drink And Drive

2010-02-19T17:00:00.002-05:00

But it's ok to drink and fly. Friday Fun Fact!

We already know that ants always fall to the right when they are drunk. The logical next step is to fund further research into "when animals behave like frat boys." I can almost see the giggling researchers sitting around the table, having finally found a sponsor who will apparently fund ANYthing. "Oh, oh, how about bats? Let's see if we can get them drunk enough to crash into things when they fly."

Oh yes, it's a real study.

And lo and behold, at least in the Western hemisphere, drunk bats are still able to fly just fine, thank you, as well as operate heavy machinery and avoid drunk dialing ex-cavemates.

If only we could all be so evolved. I need to find out who is funding all this critical research...

I Have To Say It....

2010-02-16T16:32:00.004-05:00

Maybe someday I will have the energy to go the whole topic in depth, although I'm not sure there's really a point. But I have to say one thing about this whole climate change business:

WEATHER IS NOT THE SAME THING AS CLIMATE!!

Weather = (noun) the state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc. This refers to a LOCALIZED area. I.e. the weather in any place you happen to be

Climate = (noun) the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years.

Therefore, just because it happens to be quite cold where you are right now, does NOT mean that global AVERAGE temperature is not increasing. There's a tricky little thing about hemispheres: it may be damn cold in Maryland right now but it's close to 100 degrees in Darwin, Australia at the moment. So someone there is sweating their tail off wondering why the world is so damn HOT.

The top ten hottest years on record include 2009, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 1998, and 1997 and the past decade was the hottest in recorded history. A dump of snow on a fraction of one continent does not affect this.

I am also instituting a new rule in society: if you do not know how to perform analytical statistical tests on a data set or correctly interpret a logistic or logarithmic plot, you do not get to have an opinion about climate change data and its veracity.

*stomps out of room grumbling*

A Cold Fish Stays Warm

2010-02-12T10:26:00.005-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

One simplistic way to divide up the animal kingdom is to split it into "warm-blooded" (capable of regulating their internal body temperature, i.e. mammals) and "cold-blooded" (reliant on external conditions to warm or cool the body, i.e. reptiles). However, like seemingly every categorical system ever devised on earth, black and white are interspersed with shades of grey.

Like oceanic tuna. In this group, bluefin tuna have been most successful in the art of keeping one's core muscles warm for high-speed swimming in cold ocean currents. So how does an animal with no true thermoregulatory mechanism achieve this? By the sleek and efficient workings of counter-current exhange.

This relies on a simple principle of physics: that heat always travels from warmer places to colder places. You experience this every day in a thousand different ways. For example, get cold then climb into a hot bath. The heat from the water will travel into your body and the surrounding cool air. Your body gets warmer, but the water in the tub gets steadily cooler.

Bluefins use this to great advantage. All of their arteries are set up so they flow from the core of the body out towards the skin and extremeties while all the veins flow from the outside in. The two sets of blood vessels run in parallel and lie close to each other. As a result, as warm arterial blood (heated by muscle activity and food metabolism) passes cool venous blood, heat leaves the arterial blood and is transferred to the venous blood. Heat exchange is greatest when the difference in temperature between the two vessels is greatest, so when the arterial blood has 100% of its warmth and it is next to venous blood that has 0% of its warmth, a lot of heat will be transferred. It looks a lot like this:

So what you get is blood steadily losing warmth as it runs out of the core. Blood traveling back into the core is steadily gaining warmth. Net result: the warmth stays close to the core and is not lost to the surrounding, heat-sucking water.

It's a life-saver. Cool muscles are slow to respond to demands for movement so if you keep your muscles warm, you have a better chance of escaping things that want to eat you and you can swim farther and faster in search of food in a giant ocean. Birds use the same system to reduce heat loss though their long skinny legs and to keep oxygen levels in their lungs and flight muscles high at altitude.

A certain song keeps popping into my head: "AH-AH-AH-AH, stayin' alive, stayin' alive..."

An Award??!

2010-02-11T11:08:00.005-05:00

Wow, so WWWT has been humbled by the granting of the "Happy 101" award from the great new blog, Anything Fits A Naked Man (which I was relieved to discover had nothing to do with naked men). I am not sure this technically counts as an award for any particular type of excellence, but I certainly do appreciate being included on someone's list of noteworthiness! So thank you so much to AFANM and all of my, like, four readers!

Here's the rules:
Copy award pic and add to your post.
List 10 things that make you happy.
Tag 10 bloggers who brighten your day and notify them of their win.
Link back to the blogger who gave you the award in your post.
Link to the new award winners.

10 things that make me happy:

1. Looking at my horse. Petting him, breathing the scent of his neck, riding him, sharing a long gaze with him. He is peace, patience, generosity of spirit, courage, and freedom.

2. Walking in the woods and hearing nothing but birdsong and the rustle of leaves at my feet.

3. Watching animals eat. I don't know why this entrances me so, but there is something of fulfillment and contentment in watching a creature eat its meal and the many interesting behaviours that go along with it.

4. Really bad silly jokes. One of my favourites: Two muffins were sitting in an oven. One said to the other, "Man, is it just me or is it getting hot in here?" The other one turned and said, "OMG, TALKING MUFFIN!!!!"

5. Wildflowers. Random and exuberant splashes of colour, even in the most unexpected places.

6. The call of migrating cranes. Something about their high, wild warble always makes me smile. It's such a unique sound -- you can hear some sandhill crane calls here.

7. Bluebirds. I always smile at bluebirds too. I can't explain why, it's another gut feeling of happiness when I see them.

8. Really good music. I don't mean the kind you hear on the radio. I mean real MUSIC. The kind that composers make for movies and orchestras. Swelling crescendos that fill up your whole body.

9. Baby animals. So cliche, but so true. I can't see one, not even ugly babies like vultures or koalas, and NOT laugh with their joy and play.

10. A really good book that I can relish and mentally roll around in.

And ten blogs that give me great pleasure to read, in no particular order:
1. TNC's Cool Green Science
2. Along Life's Highway
3. The Mugwump Chronicles
4. The Literary Horse
5. I Is Roxie
6. Eventing Nation
7. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
8. I Can Has Cheezburger
9. When Lillies Fly
10. National Geographic Blogs

I Have Enormous Power!

2010-02-08T10:19:00.003-05:00

Once again, I summoned something with this blog!!!! Yes, view it, my first crocus bud, sprung just this weekend in the yard!!

That's right, that means hope hope hope, for spring is creeping near!! I wonder if my powers extend to other realms besides seasonal and celebrity summons...

Let me tell you about this crazy meteorological phenomenon in which sacks of money fall from the sky and land right on people's porches! It's a little known happening, but I have heard the next one is predicted for the American Southeast....

Fingers crossed, wanderers!

Wishing Makes It So

2010-02-05T09:34:00.004-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Ok, it may actually be rainsnowsleeting here right now, BUT my horse is shedding and there are buds on my wisteria so I firmly believe that spring is on its way!! So in honor of that and in hope of encouraging its onset, todays FFF is about my favourite little harbingers of spring: crocuses.

These cheerful little flowers were brought to the US by settlers from Europe. There are around 80 different crocus species, native to southern Europe, the Middle East, north Africa, and western China.

The flowers and leaves have a special waxy coating which allows them to thrive even when pushing through snow and ice.

Crocuses have a long and colourful history; it is said that the Greek deities Zeus and Hera loved each other so passionately that crocuses burst forth in profusion across all the land. In the 1560s, the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador to the Sublime Porte (can you think of an awesomer job title?!) brough back crocus bulbs from Constantinople. Some of these were sent to a botanical garden and within 60 years, garden varieties had sprung into being. Today, they sprout merrily in my yard at the end of winter, assuring me that rescue from grey doldrums is imminent!

Let The Spirit Triumph

2010-01-22T10:25:00.003-05:00

Today is technically Friday Fun Fact day. But I am not going to give you a Friday Fun Fact. Because I am mean. You will have to sustain yourself on the penguin facts from the previous post.

Why such cold heartlessness? I stumbled across a thought that resonated in so many different ways with me.

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.
-Albert Einstein (1875-1955), Theoretical Physicist, Philosopher, Nobel Prize Winner

How perfectly this sums up so much of the debate going on, not only today, but throughout the history of our society. And not only in conservation, but any arena you can think of. People fear change, they fear what they don't understand, they fear fear itself. In some sort of ingrained response, generally this fear leads to the shutting down of any ability for thought and the parroting of anything that reinforces that simple fear of change. In general, the population accepts the status quo as "the way things are and should be." When you decide the status quo sucks and stand up bring about change to improve things, sadly, the first thing that hits you in the face is this violent opposition. Reason, logic, and truth seem to have no bearing in these gales of noise and panic.

Oh, Mr. Einstein, could you not have given us the solution to this problem?

Think Formal

2010-01-20T14:03:00.003-05:00

Put on that tux! It's National Penguin Awareness Day! No, really, it is, I swear. Have no idea what to do to celebrate? Don't worry, eHow never leaves a person hanging, even in the most uncertain of social situations. And 123greetings.com has ALL your NPAD greeting card needs covered! Whew, I know, feel the relief, right?

So why are penguins so kickass that they garner their own holiday?? Well --

They can swim in Antarctic waters (enough said, right??)!
Some species spend as much as 75% of their lives at sea.
They have as many as 70 feathers per square inch to insulate them underwater.
Some species can go from 0 to 16 mph in less than a second when leaping into the water.
They can hold their breath for as long as 15-20 minutes.
Penguins have been around for 60 million years.
They can dive as deep as 1800 feet.

What I want to know is, why don't I get the day off for this important holiday?? My penguin heritage is deeply offended.

A Breath Of Life

2010-01-15T15:00:00.004-05:00

I know I'm supposed to give you a Friday Fun Fact today, but I figured since the point of FFF is to make you go, "wow!" then this will do just as well.

This has got to be up there on the list of one of the most amazing things I have EVER seen. I have always been entranced by elephants and firmly believe there is far more behind their wise eyes than they are given credit for. Watch as a female in Bali gives birth to a stillborn calf. And then gives it CPR. I'm not kidding. Animals are completely and totally awesome.

Bali Elephant Birth

Father Fail Or Win?

2010-01-08T11:33:00.003-05:00

Friday Fun Fact is back!

Pipefish, upright seahorse cousins who live in warm oceans, are nursed to adulthood by their fathers. After fertilization, the female passes all her embryos to dad's pouch so he can protect and feed the young until they are ready to live on their own.

Sweet father, right?

There's a catch.

Many times, dear old dad will actually reabsorb some or all of the embryos into his own body for nutrition, perhaps because food supplies are scarce.

Kids driving you crazy? On your ever last nerve? Taking too much time or resources? No problem, just eat them, it's nature's way! Tastes like chicken...

Piercing The Darkness

2010-01-03T21:21:00.006-05:00

When I was in high school, I had a very interesting English teacher for two years. One of the books that we read that snagged and caught in my memory was Joseph Conrad's psychological morass, Heart of Darkness. The message stuck with me all these years: that deep within, every person has a dark core, a capacity for malfeasance, for black deeds and dark ways. What creates a moral person is one who recognizes, embraces, and controls this, thereby gaining the upper hand over the devil inside.

In the book, the journey into the netherworld of the human spirit is a steamy cruise on a paddleboat through the Congo's tropical jungle. In life, it is a quest of the mind, if you will, to realize what left Conrad's Marlow gasping in horror: that evil capacity is in every human being and the choice to be ruled by it or to rise above it is up to each of us.

Why dwell on such shadowy things, you wonder? Let life be light and air and happiness!

As is repeated to us in a thousand different media, light cannot exist without the contrast presented by darkness. And we cannot recognize good except by comparing it to that which is not good.

The point of all this is the heart of why I think it is important to talk about, to think about things which may not be all pleasantness and joy. Because I don't believe we can be truly alive without seeing, without knowing the full breadth of human existence. If we go through life shutting out awareness of the suffering of other lives, without not only contemplating, but taking action where we can related to situations created by man's ill-doing, then we only half-live. We become only shells, nothing more than creatures of thoughtless consumption and existence without consequence.

There is much wonder in the world, and much cause for the spirit to soar. But in order for it to persist, we must step forward and look boldly into the eye of that dim place in the soul and by our choices, stoke its corners with our own small candles that together, will illuminate the shadow. By doing so, we then become wholly alive and wholly participant in living and the light is that much brighter and more fulfilling for having recognized and beaten back the heart of darkness.

Because It's Christmas

2009-12-25T21:31:00.002-05:00

Make an animal's day great today. It's easy, fast and free.

Go click the big purple button at theanimalrescuesite.com.

They deserve a present today too.

It's Not Too Late To Do Something That Really Matters

2009-12-23T20:22:00.006-05:00

Still looking for that last minute holiday gift? Look no further. Click here to go to Heifer International and make a donation in honor of anyone you choose. This holiday season, give a gift that will truly make a difference and may not only change, but save, someone's life. Instead of investing in the self-serving pattern of consumption that is a retailers wet dream, step up and take action that matters and be part of a pattern that makes the world a better place.

With gifts of livestock and training, we help families improve their nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. We refer to the animals as “living loans” because in exchange for their livestock and training, families agree to give one of its animal’s offspring to another family in need. It’s called Passing on the Gift – a cornerstone of our mission that creates an ever-expanding network of hope and peace.
-Heifer International

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut

2009-12-18T14:35:00.004-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

In Indonesia, the veined octopus has recently been discovered collecting coconut hulls and assembling them into underwater shelters. Octopuses (because it's more fun to say then "octopi") have long been known for their incredible intelligence, including differentiating shapes, colours, playing, and learning by observation, but this level of tool use is a first, not only for this group but the entirety of the diversity of invertebrate fauna.

All I'm saying is, when you've finished that pina colada on a serene Indonesian beach, do an octo-friend a favour and hurl it into the surf!

"I've got a love-ly bunch of coconuts..."

Now you see me, now you...snap!

Is It Spring Yet?

2009-12-17T15:30:00.002-05:00

Every winter,
When the great sun has turned his face away,
The earth goes down into a vale of grief,
And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,
Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay--
Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.

--Charles Kingsley
Saint's Tragedy (act III, sc. 1)

Underwater Architects

2009-12-11T13:29:00.005-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Yup, I let Darwin choose your fun fact topic for this week: the largest living structures on the planet -- corals. What you see as a coral reef is actually a skeleton of calcium carbonate which is built by millions of tiny polyps. Polyps vary in shape, size, and colour (example at right), but each is an individual animal, working with its neighbours to build the rock hard foundations on which they sit.

No doubt you have heard about the vanishing coral reefs of the world, thanks to pollution, warming oceans, and direct destruction. Fact is 70% could be gone by 2050, only 40 short years from now. "Oh well," many think, "it's not like I need a coral reef to get through my life."

You might.

Reefs have provided treatments for cancer, HIV, cardiovascular disease and uclers. The calcium carbonate coral skeletons have been used for bone grafts. Boy, when you need it, I'll bet you'll be thinking coral reefs are THE most important thing in the world.

In addition, even though reefs only cover about 1% of the planet's surface, they provide a home for over 25% of marine fish species. And food and livelihoods for 500 million people. Let me say that again -- 500 MILLION PEOPLE. $375 billion (yes, BILLION) of goods and services EACH YEAR exist thanks to coral reefs.

So, Mr. Darwin, your mighty little architects are indeed not to be lightly dismissed. The industrious polypus has gifts to offer each of us, upon which our lives might one day depend.

To learn about how you can help coral reefs every day, click here.

A True Wandering Wonderer

2009-12-05T19:40:00.007-05:00

I know, I know, my head is hanging in shame that I missed your Friday Fun Fact this week, but I offer a new look at an old friend as compensation.

We all think we know him, but I have recently discovered that there is much more than I ever thought to the man who stood biology and society on its head. Yep, this week was the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin's legendary epistle on evolution of species via natural selection. Now being a biologist, one would think that I have pored over the pages of this particular tome, but in truth, I had managed to reach this point in my life without ever cracking the cover.

Feeling a bit out of the loop, I figured I should read SOMETHING he wrote, seeing as he gets the credit (or blame if you happen to be some crazy right wing nut in sheer denial of reality, but then, I'd guess if you were, my blog is not exactly on your Favourites Toolbar anyway) for the founding theory of my field (even though credit should be fully shared with his gifted contemporary, Alfred Russell Wallace). I didn't really want to drag my toes through Origin itself, I confess that as much I love to read, it just seemed too much like a text book and too much like, well, work! So I picked up a copy of The Voyage of the Beagle instead and began following a young Darwin on mule treks through South America, hikes across Australian bushland, banquets in Tahiti and all the other things that I had no idea he ever did!

Turns out Charles Darwin was a lot more than a naturalist. He had an objective curiosity about the world and EVERYTHING in it. Every where, why, how, and when, he pondered possible answers. He had a keen eye for details and patterns that led him, unbeknownst to him, to ideas decades ahead of his time. Every place he went, he also turned his hand to rudimentary anthropology and tells story after story of both the native peoples and the (mostly Spanish) colonizers, both good and bad that cross his path. I also discovered he had a very dry wit about him and even in the most dismal circumstances, could bring an unexpectedly humourous turn of phrase to a story, such as a recounting of his guides hurling a cooking pot from the summit of a mountain in the belief that it was cursed after having failed to cook their potatoes (even though Darwin himself tried to explain to them that water boils at a reduced temperature at high elevations). In Tierra del Fuego, he tells of scaling a mountain.

During the first two hours I gave over all hopes of reaching the summit. So thick was the wood,...every landmark, though in a mountainous country, was completely shut out...So gloomy, cold, and wet was every part, that not even the fungi, mosses, or ferns could flourish...one's course was often arrested by sinking knee deep into the rotten wood;...we did not stay long on the top of the mountain. Our descent was not quite so laborious as our ascent, for the weight of the body forced a passage, and all the slips and falls were in the right direction.

The Beagle's route around the world

In short, though it's taken me forever to read it, it's a wonderful book and I LOVE it. I feel as though I am sitting at the knee of the legend himself while he recounts his stories. Each story of each day wanders in the tracks of his thought and you never know where the road will leave you. It is no great leap for his curious mind to go from observing a crawling insect to philosophizing on fate of mankind or the world. At times, I even felt a bit like a cheering teacher, watching his theories develop and with my own knowledge of modern biology, seeing where he is completely off course and then a few moments later, postulating ground-breaking truth. To appreciate how far out on a scientific limb Darwin's theories really were, one must understand that the current accepted theory in the scientific community of his time was that God had created each species individually and these species would continue, unchanging forever and were unrelated to each other.

It's fascinating, entertaining, amusing, and educational, all in one. There is sadness at the treatment of indiginous peoples, at the rapacious waste of resources newly found, but at the same time, wonder that fairly oozes from every line as he discovers people and places and creatures unknown to his world. I would like to have met him, to have basked in that passion, in that eagerness to explore and to question and to experience every moment and detail life has to offer. But since I can't, I shall have to suffice with this journal of his voyage which really did change the world.

I will leave you with one of his more beautiful passages revealing his deep love and wonder for the animals he spent his life pursuing and watching, written as he gazed upon waves pounding the shore of the coral atoll islands in the Malay archipelago.

It is impossible to behold these waves without feeling a conviction that an island, though built of the hardest rock...would ultimately yield and be demolished by such an irresistable power. Yet these low, insignificant coral-islets stand and are victorious: for here another power, as an antagonist, takes part in the contest...Let the hurricane tear up its thousand huge fragments; yet what will that tell against the accumulated labor of myriads of architects at work night and day, month after month? Thus do we see the soft and gelatious body of a polypus, [I interject: here he refers to the corals themselves, living animals who build the hard structure of the reefs and islands] through the agency of the vital laws, conquering the great mechanical power of the waves of an ocean which neither the art of man nor the inanimate works of nature could successfully resist.

Changing Their Futures

2009-12-01T10:58:00.004-05:00

I just finished reading this article in last month's National Geographic. If you haven't figured it out yet, yes, I unashamedly love that magazine. In short, we are introduced to a program called the Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR), who works with villages in India to reclaim their land by reshaping their watersheds and capturing the rain on which their life depends.

India, like most of the world, including the US, has fallen victim to the fatal combination of changing climate patterns, development, and associated human over-exploitation of resources. Most villages rely on farming, which in turn, relies on water, in order to survive. However, as water is sucked up by development in cities and water tables are drained while less rain falls due to climate change, wells dry up, crops fail, land parches, and hope withers and blows away on the dusty wind.

From the article: "Our lives are wrapped up in the rain," explained a woman named Anusayabai Pawar... "When it comes, we have everything. When it doesn't, we have nothing."

WOTR works with villages, getting everyone invested by requiring that all parties, including women, lower caste members, and children contribute to the work of planting vegetation, digging ditches, capturing runoff, everything that slows down the monsoon rainwater and allows it to soak into the soil, replenshing wells and reviving both the land and the people's futures.

If you are thinking, "Oh, this is India, they just have lots of poor hungry people, and deserts, I am just fine in my snug suburban home in my western nation," think again. We are not unspeakably far from a similar predicament in the US. Our water tables are dropping steadily as it is impossible for rainfall to replace the massive quantities we suck out for ridiculous things like golf greens and car washes. Wells must be drilled deeper and even then, they are frequently in danger of contamination or drying up in droughts, which we are beginning to see more of. Full on legal wars broke out all over the country during our most recent dry-up in 2007 pitting state against state in a battle over a scarce resource.

We don't do a good job of using water wisely, as I discussed here. We don't do a good job of keeping the water we drink clean (here and here). But that doesn't mean we can't change. That doesn't mean we can't take a hint from WOTR and from some hardworking villagers in India who have discovered that not only does taking care of your watershed benefit you directly by ensuring that you have water to use, it builds your community via people working together, talking to each other, and enterprising new solutions for a better, brighter future.

You Are What You Eat

2009-11-27T11:18:00.002-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

And a turkey fact it is, of course!

Adult turkeys have between 5,000 and 6,000 feathers (oh poor student who had to count these, how I pity you.). These feathers allow them to fly up to 55 mph, unless they have the misfortune of being born a domesticated turkey, which cannot fly at all. Even if they are on the ground though, don't take a turkey on in a foot race as they can easily pass you at 25 mph in a dead run.

Turkeys may be goofy looking, but they are very intelligent and posses keen eyesight. Which was why Benjamin Franklin chose the wild turkey as the US national bird. Unfortunately, the turkey was ousted by the showy bald eagle -- which is somewhat more appropriate, as eagles are known for their scavenging, bully ways; they much prefer to beat up smaller birds and take their food rather than hunt on their own, a piece of poetic irony I just love.

You Are Getting Verrrrrrry Sleeeeeeeeepy...

2009-11-20T11:25:00.004-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

There still a few bronze leaves twirling to the ground in the wind outside my window. But the chill in the air leaves no doubt: it is time to gorge myself, curl up in a warm dark hole, and sleep till spring like Lil' Ms Dormouse on the right.

Winter makes food and water deathly scarce for wildlife the world over (plus it's just damn cold and no fun at all). In a rather miraculous feat of survival, many species opt to sleep it out, either in full hibernation or a lighter nap known as torpor.

True hibernation involves the near-shutting down of an animal's metabolism. Average mammalian body temp is around 99 degress, but they will drop it down to an average of 43 degrees. Heart rate can plummet to 10 beats per minute.

Some, like bears, den up alone and may even give birth to cubs without waking up (how about that for a relaxing childbirth experience?!). Others, like bats, snakes and ladybugs, will snuggle together in one giant spoon-fest to share collective body heat. So closely rationed are body resources that bats, for example, if awakened during winter in their hibernacular caves, can die as a result. The unexpected waking event will burn too much energy and they will run out of resources before spring and renewed food supplies arrive (spelunk quietly and with care in the winter and try to stay out of hibernaculars!).

A bear is often thought of as a classic hibernator, but in actuality, they practice torpor. Their body temperatures do not drop as low and they may rouse several times to track down a snack or two. Amphibians and reptiles are better examples of true hibernators -- they sleep solidly through the worst of the seasons, encased in a cave, den, or dried mud until seasonal cues coerce them slowly back to life (Noooooooooooo!).

I Have Super Powers!

2009-11-14T22:11:00.003-05:00

That's right, I can summon famous people to appear with this blog! I bet you had no idea WWWT was so omniscient, eh?

Guess who appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this week right after my post about her?

Jane Goodall on The Daily Show

That's right -- Dr. Jane Goodall. And sorry, Jon, I love ya, but you were sorely outclassed by this woman!

Now, let's see if I can focus my blogging powers and make Daniel Craig appear in my living room...ohhhhhmmmmm......

A Day For The Proverbial Wet Noodle

2009-11-13T15:39:00.003-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Here in the Southeastern United States, it pretty much feels like it's been raining for the past decade. Ok, so it's only been three days. But I'm keeping my eyes peeled for an ark -- we've garnered well over six inches in the last 48 hours.

It could be worse, I suppose. I could live in Cherrapunji, India, home of the world's heaviest average rain fall (about 430 inches). I hope residents have webbed feet and gills because they can get as much as 87 FEET of rain in a single year.

Of course, we are no stranger to wet and wild places. Our wettest state is Louisiana, which soaks in 56 inches (a little over 4 feet) of rainfall per year. But if you want to spread it all out evenly, go stand on the summit of Mt. Waialeale in Kauai, Hawaii, which drowns during up to 350 rainy days every year.

Pulling out that umbrella at the thought and wondering why it never seems to keep you dry enough? Well, that's because the umbrella was originally invented for protection from the blazing sun of Egypt; wind was not really an issue there. And if THAT idea makes you feel too warm, remember that all rain starts out at cloud level as snow and ice; what form it hits the ground in depends on temperatures on the way down.

The most important thing to remember, of course, is that all rain started out as water in a river or stream (or is it that all streams started out as rain???) so whatever we put in one rains down upon our heads from the other. So think of it this way: what do you want in your hair today?

We Can't Forget The Hope

2009-11-10T09:19:00.007-05:00

Jane Goodall is a name that many know. Ever since I read one of her books years ago, she's been one of my personal heroes. The book was Reason For Hope and much of it brought tears to my eyes. Dr. Goodall is a soft-spoken, compassionate, patient and open person with a core of incredible strength and perserverence that I can only hope to approach. This woman started out as a grad student watching the chimpanzees at Gombe and now she changes the world one person at a time. She has done so much for conservation and continues to be a peerless ambassador for those who have no human voice. I don't think I can name many other women (or even people!) who I find so truly beautiful and awe-inspiring.

In hopes that no one will mind (and I would fall over dead of awe if Dr. Goodall ever stumbled upon my blog anyway), I want to share an essay of hers that is also posted on her site. Working in conservation, it is so easy for me to become disheartened, but reading these words, I almost feel as if she is patting me on the head, saying, "It will be ok. Never forget that there are many reasons to have hope." It makes me want to sit down and weep in both relief and a desperate desire to trust that her world travel means that she has seen much more than I and has seen that there is indeed much hope out there.

Without further ado:
Jane's Reasons for Hope

"It is easy to be overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness as we look around the world. We are losing species at a terrible rate, the balance of nature is disturbed, and we are destroying our beautiful planet. We have fear about water supplies, where future energy will come from – and most recently the developed world has been mired in an economic crisis. But in spite of all this I do have hope. And my hope is based on four factors.

The Human Brain
Firstly, we have at last begun to understand and face up to the problems that threaten us and the survival of life on Earth as we know it. Surely we can use our problem-solving abilities, our brains, to find ways to live in harmony with nature. Many companies have begun "greening" their operations, and millions of people worldwide are beginning to realize that each of us has a responsibility to the environment and our descendants. Everywhere I go, I see people making wiser choices, and more responsible ones.

The Indomitable Human Spirit
My second reason for hope lies in the indomitable nature of the human spirit. There are so many people who have dreamed seemingly unattainable dreams and, because they never gave up, achieved their goals against all the odds, or blazed a path along which others could follow. The recent presidential election in the US is one example. As I travel around the world I meet so many incredible and amazing human beings. They inspire me. They inspire those around them.

The Resilience of Nature
My third reason for hope is the incredible resilience of nature. I have visited Nagasaki, site of the second atomic bomb that ended World War II. Scientists had predicted that nothing could grow there for at least 30 years. But, amazingly, greenery grew very quickly. One sapling actually managed to survive the bombing, and today it is a large tree, with great cracks and fissures, all black inside; but that tree still produces leaves. I carry one of those leaves with me as a powerful symbol of hope. I have seen such renewals time and again, including animal species brought back from the brink of extinction.

The Determination of Young People
My final reason for hope lies in the tremendous energy, enthusiasm and commitment of young people around the world. As they find out about the environmental and social problems that are now part of their heritage, they want to right the wrongs. Of course they do -- they have a vested interest in this, for it will be their world tomorrow. They will be moving into leadership positions, into the workforce, becoming parents themselves. Young people, when informed and empowered, when they realize that what they do truly makes a difference, can indeed change the world. We should never underestimate the power of determined young people.

I meet many young people with shining eyes who want to tell Dr. Jane what they've been doing, how they are making a difference in their communities. Whether it's something simple like recycling or collecting trash, something that requires a lot of effort, like restoring a wetland or a prairie, or whether it's raising money for the local dog shelter, they are a continual source of inspiration. My greatest reason for hope is the spirit and determination of young people, once they know what the problems are and have the tools to take action.

So let’s move forward in this new millennium with hope, for without it all we can do is eat and drink the last of our resources as we watch our planet slowly die. Let’s have faith in ourselves, in our intellect, in our staunch spirit and in our young people. And let’s do the work that needs to be done, with love and compassion."

--Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE

Falling For Fall

2009-11-06T09:32:00.004-05:00

Friday Fun Fact!

It's a favourite time of year for many -- fall, autumn, that magical time when green swaths of forest turn red, orange, yellow, gold, magenta, even purple, as trees prepare for winter. But how and why do all these changes happen?

Leaves have a broad, thin surface and are vulnerable to freezing and subsequent damage, so in order to survive, the tree must ditch the weak links. The tree seals off the end of the branch near the leaf stem and the leaf is dropped like yesterday's paper.

Beginning in mid-June, days begin to shorten and this signals to the trees that it is time to start the Great Preparation for winter dormancy. Many brilliant colours are always there, but hidden by the deep green of the chlorophyll. As chlorophyll production slows and stops, the green fades and the colours emerge in full dazzling array.

Brown colors in oaks and elms come from a waste product called tannin. Orange comes from carotene. The yellows are due to xanthophyll and are seen blazing on birches, tulip poplars, redbud and hickory, who exclusively show this color, never red.

Bright red & purple colors found in sugar maple, dogwood, sweet gum, black gum and sourwood come from anthocyanin pigments, formed from trapped glucose. This pigment is not produced until chlorophyll starts breaking down in late summer. Anthocyanins lower the freezing point of the leaves, allowing them to stay on the tree longer and buying time to maximize the amount of nutrients the tree can pull out before releasing the leaves to the wind.

Every form of life, be it fauna OR flora, has a unique and specialized way of surviving the seasonal changes that life hurls at it. Here in the Eastern US, one of the best places in the world to view the changing colours of autumn, we are lucky enough to be surrounded by trees who choose to do so in a rainbow salute to the dying of summer before settling into a grey sleep, awaiting spring and green rebirth.

A Treehouse For Height-O-Phobes

2009-11-05T15:18:00.004-05:00

I always wanted a treehouse. My very own little den nestled in the branches of a backyard sugar maple, where I could sequester myself next to wrens and squirrels and leaves and breezes. On the other hand, I have always been afraid of heights -- I would climb trees, but only the really easy ones with nice big stout branches and plenty of wide forks in which to sit. I was forever caught between my desire to reside in a cave of wood and air and light and my aversion to being suspended above the ground.

Well, I am caught no more!

A Wisconsin architect has been building stunningly beautiful houses out of whole trees. While he does still kill some trees, he uses smaller trees than are conventionally logged, opening up spaces in the forest for understory plants to flourish, and he also uses a lot of deadfall wood. The whole trees are stronger than cut lumber as well as cheaper to use (no sawmill required!). As a bonus, by not cutting into the tree, the carbon sequestered in the wood is kept in, instead of released by the lumbering process.

In the end, of course, you also get a home that is not only beautiful, but unique, strong, and full of character and natural grace, as well as the knowledge that you have used a process that is better for the forest, better for the atmosphere, and better for you. This kind of innovative thinking and creative engineering is what is going to change us for the better and it's what we need a lot more of!

Where can I send my order?

Unfair Share

2009-10-30T13:55:00.003-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

If you divided all the water in the world equally among everyone, each person would get 2.5 gallons of their own.

The average American uses 400 gallons.

Yes, something is very very wrong with this picture! Contrary to popular belief, water is NOT an infinite resource that will just magically keep coming out of the tap after you turn it on. We MUST get better at using water wisely and stop assuming that fairy magic will clean it and return it to us after we use it. Why? Because even in the US, our freshwater supplies are imperiled; already there are lawsuits and other fights across the country. If we want to continue to have access to clean, safe drinking water, each of us are going to have to take steps to make that happen.

Need ideas? Try 100 ways to conserve water; that should give you plenty to work on!

The Magic Number

2009-10-26T11:28:00.005-04:00

So I am back from some more travel! My apologies once again for missing your Friday Fun Fact, it could not be helped.

Today I want to share a fun and important campaign from the Center for Biological Diversity called 350 Reasons We Need To Get To 350. In short, 350 species that will be in big trouble if we cannot get atmospheric carbon levels to 350 parts per million.

You can check out the regional map to find out species in your area that have made the list, sign the petition asking the Obama administration to follow the clear science, join the cause on Facebook, read the science behind the number, follow the campaign on Twitter, or even submit your own photo to be part of the 350 exhibit which will travel to Copenhagen.

Sometimes Updates Are Sad

2009-10-20T08:44:00.005-04:00

Around 100 wolves have already been killed in the Montana and Idaho wolf slaughter (previous posts here). The famous and much studied Yellowstone Cottonwood pack has been wiped out, leaving only pups who will starve without the support of the adults. These wolves did nothing to earn their fate. They never preyed on livestock or harrassed anyone. They were helping increase the health of elk herds and native vegetation communities through the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Their thanks is a bullet.

Science? Ignored. Predator-prey dynamics? Dismissed. Ecosystem function? Unvalued. Thousands of years of evolution and history? Trashed.

Propaganda? Saluted. Untruths and misleading fearmongering? Rampant. Selective reasoning? Celebrated.

Call. Write. Be heard.

Find your senators and representatives here. At the same website, you can also find out how to contact the governors and representatives from Montana and Idaho, who have purposely targeted wilderness and backcountry wolves, quite the opposite of what the proponed to do.

Tell Secretary of the Interior (ex-rancher) Ken Salazar exactly what you think of his actions selling out to the ranching lobby and backwards thinking, ill-informed state governments.

Ken Salazar
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240
202-208-3100
feedback@ios.doi.gov

Support Defenders of Wildlife any way you can, they are pulling out all the stops and have already garnered 80,000 signatures on a petition to Secretary Salazar in just a few days.

These are your resources and my resources, they are not the property of the states or the ranchers or the small-minded, testosterone-driven hunters. Don't let this illegal and unethical activity continue unchecked.

The Long Road South

2009-10-16T13:56:00.005-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

It's migration season, the time of year when animal species around the world complete ming-boggling feats of endurance and determination. Best known of these journeys are those completed by feathered denizens of the sky.

Some warblers (a common local one here is the prothonotary warbler, pictured) complete their journeys, as many birds do, with no stopovers. It's a single, all-out flight from summer to winter feeding grounds. And they cover as much as 1,900 miles in just three days. That's like you driving from San Francisco to the Mississippi River. Only you weigh two pounds and can only use your tiny flapping wings to get there.

Makes me tired just thinking about it...

So help out a songbird or two in fall and spring. Feeders and water can go a long way towards helping out an exhausted bunting or oriole or warbler as many places they would normally obtain food and water along their route have been destroyed by development. Seeing them able to rest and fly off refreshed is a colourful thank you salute.

What's The Point?

2009-10-14T14:25:00.003-04:00

I recently stumbled upon this post on one of my favourite blogs, Cool Green Science (although I can't keep up with it, it moves so fast!).

It hits on an important issue: most people DON'T understand why conservation is important. We, as conservationists, are not vocal enough, not clear enough, with the most vital part of the message: that the well-being of the natural world is indeed critical to human survival and well-being. No plants, no animals, no water = no people, no society. But few are getting that message.

The author, Jeff Opperman, a fellow freshwater conservation biologist, talks about several good points, stating that

Expecting nature to always pay its way, in a strict sense, would be no different than suggesting that the National Gallery should sell its most valued paintings to private collectors because the most economically efficient use of those hundreds of millions of dollars would be to reinvest them in health care or education.

And not only does the natural world provide us emotional and spiritual well-being, but it also provides us with the means to stay alive. Worldwide, people depend on natural ecosystems for jobs, food, and energy and there is often a direct relationship between the health of resources and the health of the inhabitants.

As biologists, we are behind the scenes, under the radar. We snuggle up with the Man Behind The Curtain, although he never lets us pull the control levers. We need to step into full view and in exchange, we need the populace to open their minds to the idea that man cannot live on prime time TV alone...

Mr. Fuzzy Lies

2009-10-06T13:32:00.004-04:00

In order to address a very pressing issue brought up in yesterday's comments, I had to delve deep into the research files to answer a critical question:

Can woolly worm caterpillars indeed predict the severity of winter?

Drum roll.......

No. Research indicates that there is no correlation between the width of the 'pillars' brown stripes and winter weather. Raising broods of woolly worms in identical conditions reveals that variations in colour pattern are simply that -- natural variations among individual 'pillars.

Bummer. But that doesn't mean you can't still enjoy the annual Woolly Worm Festival in Banner Elk, NC during the third weekend of October! Bring your best racing stock, as "Saturday’s winning Woolly Worm holds the esteemed honor of predicting the winter weather season and the Woolly Worm wins prize monies of $1000, which we hope the winning worm shares with its owner."

No one likes a selfish caterpillar.

Fall Is In The Air

2009-10-05T16:21:00.004-04:00

It's grey out, and damp, that damp that tells the trees it's time to slowly retreat into dormancy. I'm worn out from field season, which is why my posts have been sporadic at best. My apologies. I even missed your Friday Fun Fact last week, sigh. I have trouble facing myself...

Long awaited vacation begins this week and I hold out hope of achieving some level of refreshment, drinking the wind and watching the bobbing motion of shorebirds on a barrier island. It is many moons overdue (and I laughed at I actually typed many moons in a sentence).

Drink deep that fall air, wanderers. Watch the wildlife around you prepare for the hard times ahead, when food and water can be scare and survival questionable. Just this morning, I sighted a plump groundhog digging for snacks on a highway median and I hoped that he would keep to the median and not the blacktop! More often now, I hear the sad song of the Canada geese as they salute my roof with southbound wingtips. I always wished I could fly along with them, just to know what it was like to follow the compass needle within to the safety of winter food and habitat.

Because "You're An Idiot" Is Generally Ineffective

2009-09-28T08:46:00.006-04:00

For some ridiculous and endlessly disappointing reason due to a combination of staunch denial of personal responsibility, obstinance, ignorance and god knows what else, there are still people out there who claim that climate change is a "hoax" or it's "natural" or some other such nonsense. Of course, almost all of them are people who know virtually nothing about the scientific process themselves and generally haven't even viewed the data but suddenly consider themselves experts on global climate, one of the most complex systems on earth. For some reason they are completely oblivious to the fact that stating such backwards things pretty much makes them look and sounds, well, like an idiot.

I'm not going to write out all the reasons they are wrong, other than to say the data is overwhelming -- I've seen it, I've talked to climatologists, I've read very critically the literature. And there's no room for argument in there, it's so obvious that even a monkey could see it. Because it's not just about change, change in and of itself IS natural. It's about the RATE of change and that is what we in our infinite short-sightedness and self-destructiveness have accelerated to a disasterous point.

Should you run into one of these misguided souls, Grist has put together a phenomenal page called How To Talk To A Climate Skeptic. Very well laid out into clearly defined sections, it addresses all of the commonly heard excuses folks use to try and avoid accepting responsibility for their actions. You can now have the perfect response to that moron (bless their heart, right?) whining, "Scientists don't agree" or "But it's cold today!" or "The models don't agree" (this last is my personal favourite because it's usually from someone who couldn't build or even define a mathmatical model if their life depended on it).

Most likely, the result of using this page will cause the blustering denier to stick their fingers in their ears screaming "I can't hear you!" in a desperate attempt to maintain that their uninformed statements based on nothing more than hope and fantasy are right.

Oh well, the truth hurts.

What A Dickhead!

2009-09-25T10:22:00.005-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

A new species of chimaera has just been named after years of languishing unknown in museum collections. Chimaeras are related to sharks and are the oldest living group of fish in the world, haunting deep oceans for hundreds of millions of years. This new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark, flies through watery darkness, thousands of feet beneath the waves off North America's Baja Peninsula.

A distinctive chimaera feature is the retractable sex organ males wear on their heads. Club-shaped and spiked on the end, scientists hypotheisize that the fellows use it to stimulate females or draw them in for mating.

Hey, some girls like it rough.

Why Ask Why?

2009-09-21T14:06:00.004-04:00

Why don't people care about resources, like water, that are so clearly linked to survival?

Why are they convinced that it will just magically keep appearing when they need it?

Why does everyone know that actions have consequences yet remain convinced that there are no meaningful consequences for THEIR actions?

Why is a basic compassion for living things lacking everywhere, even among my co-workers in the conservation field?

Why is it ok to forever decimate a natural area with no real demonstrated benefit, but if we want to PRESERVE said area, we must prove concrete benefits?

Why can each person only think of their own benefit and not the costs to other people or other lives?

Why are people incapable of thinking in the long term?

Why, as a species, is humanity totally incapable of altruism?

Why are contributions to resource consumption celebrated but choices conserving resources derided?

Why is no value given to anything outside of self?

Why are atrocities permitted "as long as I can't see them?"

Why do we allow our own breath, our future to be ripped away, trampled down, paved over for a short term gain that does not even benefit us? We even applaud while it is happening.

Why are people proud of themselves for being short-sighted and narrow-minded?

Answers welcome...

What's Seven Feet Long And Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

2009-09-18T10:27:00.004-04:00

Friday Fun Fact! (Yes, that IS all I'm good for these days -- I promise, real posts shall return, I am slowly gathering my energy. But I'm trying to at least keep up with your Friday entertainment!)

The Humboldt squid is not the world's largest squid, but it's not exactly a pushover either. They can easily grow up to 7 feet long and weigh 100 lbs. They belong to a group called cephalopods, which includes octopus, squids, and cuttlefish. These are highly intelligent animals, and like cuttlefish, squid communicate and camoflage themselves using a system of rapidly changing color pigments in their skin. For example, watch the dark colour bands rippling on this fellow below (not a Humboldt) -- the complexity and speed at which they can control these pigments are startling!

They usually reside between 600 and 2300 feet deep in the darkness of the ocean, but at night, they will rise to the surface to hunt in packs. Ah yes, nothing says wilderness like the haunting sound of a squid pack in full cry...

A Tall Drink of Water

2009-09-11T11:28:00.003-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

In the winter, glaciers store about 75% of the world's freshwater supply. Be nice to glaciers or else they will spit it out into the ocean and then it will be too salty to drink!

How much water is that exactly???

The entire world has 1.4 million cubic kilometers of water. For those of you who are not Canadians excellent at visualizing that particular quantity, that is 3.69...umm, what comes after trillion -- gajillion? -- or 3,690,000,000,000,000 gallons of water. A LOT.

Well dang! Why do we have water shortages then? Oh, because less than 1% of that is available as drinking water. And of that, very very little is readily available for use (i.e. in streams and rivers).

So think carefully next time you turn on the tap or the hose because that resource supply is tiny and finite! And it's on the brink of being too contaminated for use.

Progress? Or Empty Words?

2009-09-10T10:40:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, a federal judge agreed with the case of these twelve filers:

Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, Wildlands Project

The suit asserted that the delisting of the Northern Rockies population of grey wolves was illegal (which it was) and demanded an injuntion on the wolf hunt in Idaho and several other states, including helicopter-rifle-hunting in Oregon.

Bad news: The injunction was denied on the grounds that the filers could not provide "sufficient" proof for irreparable harm to grey wolves. Apparently science is not good enough for courts. I'd say death and population collapse qualify as irreparable harm, wouldn't you??

Good news: The judge agreed that the claim of illegal action under the Endangered Species act was legit, which means that prospects improve that the courts will rule for the relisting of this wolf population.

I'm trying really hard to be happy about that but it's hard when I can see guffawing rednecks with rifles putting wolves in their crosshairs right this very minute. I can only hope for a disproportionately high number of misfires...

Sometimes All You Can Do Is Weep. And Hope. And Keep Trying.

2009-09-08T18:45:00.004-04:00

I've been following the fight to protect grey wolves closely for you. This is an endangered species, reintroduced into the northern US and still working towards meeting recovery goals as framed under the Endangered Species Act.

Today is the 8th day of the open season on grey wolves in Idaho. You can read more here.

Personally, I am so angry that I really have no words. There is simply no way to plumb the depths of outrage and of sorrow for the selfishness, no, the wrongness of these events. The "justification" giving for the slaughter of these wolves is based on nothing but fiction. One look at the science will tell you that the only thing overpopulated is human ego.

Please call, email, write, click anywhere you can find. Talk to legislators, the media, let them know that this is not acceptable. Emotions aside, this is bad wildlife management at its worst and a state that believes it can bully its way past the rest of us while destroying resources that are in the trust of the ENTIRE North American public.

It's cliche but I cannot say it better than this right now: JUST SAY NO! Speak loudly, because the voices of the wolves themselves, the song in which the notes of this pup are only part of the rich melody, the language of the ecosystem in which the wolf plays a vital and irreplaceable role -- that is being ignored.

That's A Big Damn Rock

2009-09-04T10:19:00.013-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

The photo in the previous post is one I took several years ago, the last time I was in Yosemite National Park. "Spectacular" is an understatement for that place, it is truly magical and like no other place I have visited in this wide world. The Sierras in general are rather mind-blowingly awesome and once in the Yosemite Valley itself, you pretty much have to be dragged out kicking and screaming. So I thought I'd share a couple fun facts (and my photos of course!) about this wonderland...

El Capitan, that famous rock face that draws climbers from all over the world, is the biggest granite rock in the world. It's 4,000 foot high face is rather impressive to stand in front of; you can see its imposing breadth to the left in a view from Taft Point, with the Merced River winding at its feet.

Yosemite Falls is the 5th tallest waterfall in the world (Angel Falls in Venezuela maintains the top spot at 3,212 feet) with a total of around 2,400 feet. It's fed primarily by snowmelt and in the spring, can easily blow boulders out of place.

The valley itself was carved by uplift and glaciers over 50 million years. That's right, 50,000,000 years. The sheer granite faces, especially the distinctive, clean slice of Half Dome (right) belie the cutting force of millions of tons of ice and water and time.

Add all that to the towering 3,000 year old redwoods in Mariposa Grove, bustling black bears and golden eagles and mountain lions, glacier lakes nestled high in the thin cold air (like Tanaya Lake, below), and beauty of contrast and scale that is enough to break your heart with the majesty of it all and you end up with a place that will touch your soul. This park has been connected to my family for generations, so its story is part of my story too. And I can promise you, if you ever get a chance to emerge from a certain highway tunnel that leads into the park itself and witness the allure of this ancient valley, it will take your breath away.

A Cloudy Day

2009-09-02T11:42:00.003-04:00

I'm reading the quote from Sunday. Even though I've read it probably 50 times between then and now, it still leaves me thoughtful, even on this somewhat grey day and in my current mood of upset, perturbed (that's just a good word), and something else I can't put my finger on.

What is peace? Where do you find it?

To me, peace is that inner stillness, a quiet calm that feels as if a balm was spread on the tumult within. A slow, soothing breath pulling in a clean slate and letting out the suffocating noise of unrest.

It's as simple as a cliche walk in the woods, feet crunching a leaf or two, a chickadee leading the way with his chick-a-dee-dee-dee call. I will stop and crouch down and just let the space bring me that calm. I will look at leaves, 27 different shapes and sizes, at ferns and flowers on the floor, at fungus in a slow, inexorable procession around a log. Even the business of an ant doing his thing brings me closer to peace: he is so intent on his job and so focused, so in his world that there is reassurance in his resoluteness.

It's five minutes standing with a stream, letting the flow of the water fill me to the brim with the certainty that it will keep going. Knowing the clarity of the lives beneath its surface never falter as they go through their day.

It's standing for a moment on my porch after dark, drinking in the starlight above the trees across the street. Confident that up there, there is perfection because those stars are the one thing I can see that we can't touch, can't sully or claim or kill or dim no matter how hard the effort.

That peace is out there and I think right now, I may go for a little walk down to the lake and remember how to breathe.

Promises, Promises

2009-08-30T21:38:00.006-04:00

I hope to have a new post for you by mid-week if not before, but until then, I leave you with some true wisdom from Albert Schweitzer, theologian, musician, physicist, philosopher (how's that for a resume!):

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,
man will not himself find peace.

A Man With A Vision...And A Pen

2009-08-26T13:20:00.006-04:00

Looking at the picture in yesterday's post, I am reminded that the the conflict between agriculture and habitat is nothing new. Neither is the demand for people with the passion and conviction to stand in the face of the status quo.

"Ding" Darling (1876-1962) is a name most of us in wildlife biology are familiar with but one that I think the rest of society has missed out on. He was a gifted editorial artist (his cartoons grace this post), which garnered him two Pulitzers. But even more important was his skill and dedication for conservation education. He founded the National Wildlife Federation as well as the US Duck Stamp program, just to name two of his lasting legacies.

Leadership and education like his are priceless in our rapidly changing world. People are bombarded with information and MISinformation from every direction at once on a daily basis. The long term consequences are lost among the trees of the short term gain. More than ever we need voices of reason and compassion, like Darling's to cut through the noise of the everyday.

It is at once hopeful and heartbreaking that even then, over 50 years ago, Darling and others like him saw that without our natural resources, we are nothing. Without clean water and air, without the richness of our global fauna, our future is lost. Darling also understood, in a way so beautifully illustrated in the cartoon above, that conservation and economic development are NOT mutually exclusive. It's not all or nothing, either or, as the naysayers would have you believe. All it takes is some thoughtfulness, common sense, planning and a dash of love to hold on to our invaluable "natural capital" on which our lives are built.

If we can just do that, we can avoid ending up with this:

Money Still Talks

2009-08-24T09:21:00.004-04:00

Brazilian rainforest, incredibly rich and globally important, is still under relentless attack. The latest threat is expansion of South American soybean fields. And much of this expansion is funded and encouraged by US-based agribusinesses. Soy is included to some extent in almost every food group these days, it feels like. There are many claims that all this soy is "American soy" -- but all too often that is only a half truth. It may be American OWNED soy, but it was NOT grown on US soil. Instead, it grew on land in Brazil that used to be lush rainforest, vital carbon sink, irreplacable wildlife habitat and source of dazzling biodiversity. Many major agribusinesses claim they will not have soy grown on cleared rainforest but law enforcement in Brazil is sparse and underfunded so actual follow-through is scarce.

A new effort has begun to pay Brazilian farmers and landowners to leave the forests standing. Many residents do not want to see their forest razed, but when faced with the choice of feeding their family or starving, well...it is not fair to expect them to choose the latter in the interests of conservation. I've said it before and I'll say it again: HUNGRY PEOPLE DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT ENDANGERED SPECIES. We have to give them a better option than short term "boom and bust" payoffs that are a result of typical rainforest clearing.

Cleared land can sell for about $1300 an acre (yes, these landowners are getting robbed considering the profits that the agribusinesses are making). If you had 100 acres, this would net you $130,000. That's still a hell of a lot of money if you happen to live in rural Brazil. A local environmental group is offering $12 per acre per year to leave the forest in place. For your same 100 acres, that is $1200 per year. You'd have to live 108 years to make your $130,000. We're going to have to do better than that. If they could get $50 an acre, that interval would go down to 26 years, a much more realistic time frame.

What can we do about it? Well, money even talks to rich agribusiness companies -- don't spend your money there. Try and avoid soy-based products when you can. Soybean oil is often used to make "biofuels", particularly biodiesel as well. Just say no. Reducing demand is key, as is pushing for increased support of the conservation process. If you cannot support conservation financially, push your representatives and media sources to recognize and take action in the process. Be the squeaky wheel, wanderers, and demand the Right Thing!

Free Water Filtration -- And It Already Exists!

2009-08-21T11:12:00.008-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Native freshwater mussels play a variety of important roles in any ecosystem, but perhaps the most important is water filtration. Mussels are filter feeders, that is, they get all of their food and oxygen from the flow over water over their internal gills, much like a fish. And they are REALLY REALLY GOOD AT IT - they can filter, on average, a gallon of water every hour. Observe a simple demonstration set up streamside:

Two small tanks filled with water from the stream in the background. Sediment has been stirred up, as would occur with stormwater flow or someone walking or driving across a stream. The tank on the right has about a dozen native mussels, the one on the left has nothing but water and substrate.

Elapsed time: 10 minutes

20 minutes

30 minutes

35 minutes

The difference is pretty dramatic. These animals are helping to keep your water clean by feeding on algae and bacteria that I'd prefer NOT to be in my glass of water! How effective are they in a large body of water? Take Chesapeake Bay for example: before we buggered it up, that particular gigantic estuary was FULL of oysters, a mussel relative, also a filter feeder. Those oysters kept that water crystal clear, filtering every single drop about every 2 days. In the whole estuary. Just to give you an idea, that's about 19 trillion gallons of water in that particular bay. 19,000,000,000,000 gallons. More than we can comprehend. In two days.

However, there is limit to their "mad filtering skillz." If the water has any toxic chemicals in it (for example, mussels are VERY sensitive to chlorine and ammonia, both commonly found in wastewater outfalls draining into streams and rivers), they cannot survive and typically, fatal levels of these chemicals are far lower than water quality standards set by states. Also, sediment can quickly smother a mussel if the source is ongoing. Think of it this way: if you make a cup of coffee and it has a few grounds in it, you will probably still drink it. However, if it's chockablock full of grounds, you will clam up (haha) and abstain. Same thing for mussels: they can filter out small amounts of sediment but if there is too much, they will be unable to breathe and they will die. Yet another reason to control sediment input into water, which I discussed here.

Mama's Got A Brand New Groove

2009-08-18T15:08:00.002-04:00

I'm playing with some new looks here on WWWT -- if you like what you see, let me know. I'm trying to step outside the standard Blogger templates but have no desire or energy to code an entire one myself, so am working to reach a happy medium. It's not exactly easy to switch back and forth, but I do have one other I'd like to try if this one wears out its welcome. You may now return to perusing the pictures below...

My Bubbles!

2009-08-18T08:49:00.004-04:00

Helloooooooooo from Lake Waccamaw, wanderers! As promised I have lots of pictures from one of my favourite places in this lovely state. I am still working on sorting and uploading, but thought I would post this very silly little video of me saying hullo from my office. Bloggers are often shy of posting pictures of themselves for fear of IRL identification, but I have decided to just let 'er rip. ;-P

I will continue with my picture sorting, oh, I mean WORK and post more later today.

Ready or not, here they come....

This lake is one of our TWO natural lakes in North Carolina. The rest are all manmade reservoirs, i.e. dammed sections of rivers, a process that destroys the native life in the river and causes endless problems for the system. As a result, we almost never work in lakes (since we deal with native species and habitats, there is no point in working in reservoirs given that they are such heavily altered environments) so it's a unique experience to swim around in this one.

This type of lake is called a Carolina bay, named historically for the bay trees that line the shores of many of them. Carolina bays actually rarely have water in them year round, Waccamaw is the exception rather than the rule. About 1/3 of the shoreline is state park (easy to identify, it's the nice part NOT dotted with a bazillion houses and a thousand ugly docks and boathouses) and it is drop dead gorgeous. Sandy shores lines with beautiful cypress trees dripping with Spanish moss.

Here my boss searches for broadtail madtoms, a rare species in the catfish family.

We never did find any, but we DID find one tadpole madtom (Noturus gyrinus), a fiesty cousin found in the signature habitat of madtoms:

And he enjoys opera: "La...la...LAAAAAAAA!" Madtoms are just freakin' cute.

Waccamaw is also home to several endemic species (found no where else in the world!). One makes its home in maiden cane beds near the lake shore like this one (the cane is the grassy stuff).

It's the Waccamaw darter (Etheostoma perlongum) and you can see they are perfectly adapted to their habitat -- can you find the one in the first picture??

We wrangled other endemics that day including the Waccamaw killifish (Fundulus waccamensis), a lovely little tiger-striped fish,

...and the federally threatened Waccamaw silverside (Menidia extensa; yes, the folks down there ARE the most uncreative species namers in the world).

Another reason I LOVE working in this lake is that it is one of the few places left in the state where you can still find a LOT of native freshwater mussels. A LOT. As in, I can't take a step without landing on two or three of them. A LOT. I hope to put together a post just about mussels for you soon -- they are fascinating creatures with surprising levels of complexity to their lifestyle, definitely having more to them than meets the eye. When you are in the water, this what a mussel looks like, you can just see the water siphons they use to breathe and feed resembling a row of eyelashes.

Once you pull them out of the bottom, you can get a better look at them to identify them. This is my favourite species there, the rayed pink fatmucket (Lampsilis splendida; now THAT'S a good name!).

All in all, I spent two weeks down there, surveying for fish and mussels. We were happy to discover that many species are doing very well in the lake these days and populations are healthy. Now, if we can just find those pesky madtoms....we may have to start a campaign to get people to throw their empty bottles and cans into the water (I'm not kidding, these fish LOVE to hide in those things!) -- they've done too good a job picking up their trash!

I will leave you with this excited and curious school of coastal shiners (Notropis petersoni) who were intent on investigating me while I searched for darters. Wander in wonder!!

Bats: Radar AND Gay-dar!

2009-08-14T15:01:00.003-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Male fruit bats have the highest propensity for homosexuality in the entire animal kingdom. That includes humans.

I wonder if their caves are cleaner and more tastefully decorated than those of straight bats?

All In A Day's Work

2009-08-12T19:46:00.005-04:00

Sunset cuts across the lake surface. The water slapped the hull of my boat in two foot swells earlier today, but this evening it is smooth as glass after a 2:00 pm thunderstorm. An osprey circles overhead in air that smells renewed, cleared of humidity and rinsed by a breeze between soft evening clouds. I cut the motor and set up a pair of light traps to lower over the side. These traps are simple plexiglass boxes with carnival glow-sticks hung inside. They attract fish at night into a mesh net at the bottom, where they will be (hopefully!) held for us until tomorrow morning when we return to lift the traps and identify our prize. Before heading back to the dock, I pause for a moment, take a deep breath and can't help but smile in thanks to the universe, because I'm damn lucky that this is my office.

We are monitoring several imperiled endemic species in this lake -- they are found nowhere else in the world and so I feel priveledged to handle hundreds of them in a single day. Each is treated gently and released quickly to minimize stress so that they can return to their busy fishy lives no worse for wear. This lake is one of only two natural lakes in a state full of manmade reservoirs and as a result is chockablock full of unique fauna swimming, flying, crawling, and hopping all over the place.

These kinds of monitoring project sound routine, but they are really very important. Knowledge really IS power -- by learning about which areas and resources are most important to these fish, and others, and how population numbers change over time, we also learn which areas are most important to protect and thus get the most "bang for the buck." This data shapes a lot of decisions on a daily basis and can sometimes mean life or death for a population or even, in this particular location, an entire species.

Tomorrow, I dive into a blackwater river in hopes of collecting some baseline data about the types of freshwater mussels that live there. I hope this weekend or next week to have some pictures to share with you, wanderers -- this is an amazing place! Today's picture is from last year, one of the blackwater side canals near the boat ramp.

Lakes and Critters and Travel

2009-08-09T08:24:00.001-04:00

Yup, that's what I am doing these days and that is why my blogging stinks right now. So I have to simply post another promise of posts to come. It's hard to be insightful and entertaining after a 60 hour week!

We DO have a new winner in the category "weirdest thing found in a body of water." Plucked out of a stream -- a hot pink dildo. I was simultaneously struck with two questions. (1) How on earth did it end up under a log in a stream??? (2) Why hot pink? Hopefully both will remain forever unanswered.

Totally Wild

2009-07-31T12:09:00.003-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Perhaps better called "Fun Fish" today -- the ocean's depths continue to produce animals both bizarre and fascinating. I am hard pressed to say anything about this one: the barreleye (Macropinna microstoma). I am too busy staring at the picture and video with my mouth open.

Those things that look like eyes? Those are nostrils; the eyes are those green globby bits under the dome on its head. You can read more about it here. While you do, I will continue sitting here staring it trying to force myself to believe that it is not just some artist's rendering of a crazy cartoon alien being.

Surely our imaginations will never surpass nor encompass the wonder and variety that is the natural world.

Speaking of Monkeys

2009-07-28T15:34:00.003-04:00

"GEORGE! I TOLD you we needed a padlock on the roof rack! I JUST bought that nightie!"

The Tip of the Iceberg

2009-07-27T15:22:00.004-04:00

Now that your life is positively empty because of a missing Friday Fun Fact (can you find it in your hearts to forgive me?), I return but let this article do most of the talking.

We are caught at the intersection of two trend lines. Species are disappearing off the face of the earth faster than we can even give them a name. At the same time, in the last four years, we have discovered about 400 new species just among the mammals, like the spectacular monkey at left, found in the Brazilian Amazon. MAMMALS -- not tiny little insects that live only in one flower at the top of a volcano.

Current estimates say that we have only described (the process by which a species becomes offically named by science) about 15% of life on this planet. So let's say there's 10 million species out there. That means there are 8.5 million critters and plants that we don't even have names for yet (and by we, I mean the scientific community and thus, society at large. These animals, of which many are invertebrates, may very well be named and known intimately to secretive indiginous cultures who don't generally publish in scientific journals or grant interviews with New York Times columnists.).

The article is well and thoughtfully written, I encourage a read. It also brings up an interesting point: perhaps the reason we are finding all these new species is that places that were previously inaccessible are now noticeably not so, what with logging and building roads and whatnot. Sadly, what this means is that if the researchers can get there, so can those who have only short term greed and destruction in mind.

Even the animals we HAVE named, we still do not know well. Looking at the big picture, we understand so little about them, yet arrogantly assume that we are the masters of their fate. So many questions we still cannot answer, despite decades of study, of watching and measuring and photographing and testing. How many of those answers could change our own lives and how many of those undiscovered species could teach us a better way live?

New Posts Are On Their Way

2009-07-24T13:32:00.000-04:00

I am just recovering from several weeks of hardcore field work, but am working on a couple new posts. I am sorry for the lapse, wanderers, but I promise I will be back to entertain you soon!!

One Ping Only, Vasily*

2009-07-17T18:01:00.003-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Bats, as you probably know, are echolocators -- they navigate and find food by emitting high-pitched squeaks and listening as the squeaks bounce of obstacles in front of them, just like a dolphin or, say, a Russian nuclear submarine.* Sucks if you are a tasty little moth flitting around and reflecting these squeaks, for you are destined to be dinner.

One species of tiger moth, however, isn't taking this one lying down (OR flying around!). They emit some clicks of their own which effectively jam the bats' radar, confusing the bats and giving the moths a chance to find safer airspace.

Or maybe the moths are just announcing their desire to defect to the bats' sovereign nation??*

*Should you have no idea what these refer to, may I express my sorrow at your gap in totally awesome movie knowledge. Bonus points if someone can name the movie.

Concrete Environmental Solutions

2009-07-13T21:01:00.006-04:00

You stand on it, live in it, work in it, play on it, anchor things with it, and drive on it. It's concrete and it's ubiquitous and unavoidable. Its production also puts out more carbon dioxide (CO2) than the whole of the aviation industry. Ouch. That hurts even more than stubbing your toe on a block of it...

Why is it so gassy? Well, it's made from clay and limestone, both of which are usually strip mined. So you have emissions from heavy mining equipment, plus the abysmal destruction associated with strip and open pit mining, then transport to the concrete production facility. There, these materials are heated up to hellacious temperatures, producing even more CO2 during combustion.

Each ton of concrete CAUSES EMISSIONS OF 1.4 tons of CO2

That's not an equation we should accept. But getting rid of concrete...well, not such a realistic goal at the moment. Or any time in the foreseeable future.

Happily, some engineers in London jumped on the problem and came up with a new way to make concrete using some non-carbon-based materials. Not only that, but these can be processed much cooler and so require less energy to become the concrete itself.

New equation:
One ton of concrete SOAKS UP 1.1 tons of CO2

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.................that is my sigh of contentment -- are we producing this stuff worldwide yet?? Hurry up already!

Check it out at the creators' website.

Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, MUSHROOM!

2009-07-10T09:30:00.003-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

This week, a German badger ate one too many overripe, rather fermented cherries. The inebriated mammal stumbled into the road and passed out (damn, I hate it when that happens in public). He was called in as roadkill, but when the authorities showed up, they found him quite alive, just rather intoxicated. True story!!

My question: how long must a badger stay in the drunk tank before he is allowed to return home?

Badgers are the fastest digging mammal on earth and with their skilled paws can easily outstrip a man with a shovel. They can dig deep enough to cover themselves in less than a minute. If you can send a video of yourself accomplishing that feat, I will send you $20.

If you don't get the title of this post, well, you have apparently been living under a rock, but I am happy to enlighten you (make sure your speakers are on!):

Out Of Sight Does Not Mean Out Of Mind

2009-07-06T17:24:00.005-04:00

Ok, I work in rivers and streams, this much we know. To get into said bodies of water, there are not always nice easy access points like ramps or trails. So the default method of accessing a stream without trespassing is to enter at a bridge crossing, since the land under and directly around it is owned by the state Department of Transportation, we are legally able to cross that land.

What I have learned from bridge crossings is that people remain lazy, messy, and are terrible spellers to a one. Apparently in the human psyche, a bridge over a stream is synonymous to a landfill entrance. Any particular item you no longer have a use for or would just like to be rid of can just be tossed over the edge of the bridge, either from a moving vehicle or by driving down the embankment. Of course, while you are there, it is also necessary to spray paint your lasting wisdom onto a bridge support. It is best to open yourself up and share your innermost beliefs in these messages. For example, "I love marijuana" or "Tommy Hanson sux" (any intimations towards Tommy Hansons alive or dead are purely accidental) are excellent ways to show the world the depth of your character.

After you have finished this message, you may then feel free to leave your empty fried chicken box and used condom tucked away next to a pylon. That way we will know the exact composition of that enormous turd you left for us in the middle of the trail (Please! Is it that hard to walk 6 feet into the woods when nature calls??!).

Apologies if I have now appalled you, wanderers, but I do not exaggerate. And this is not just one or two bridges we have visited. No, I'm afraid this is a standard issue road crossing.

Other things we have found hurled from bridges (and most of these are relatively common):

Bowling pins
Dead dogs
Dead ducks (that one was a mystery -- maybe they were poached?)
Televisions
Air conditioners
Refrigerators
Cars (this is a KY specialty -- why pay expensive wrecker fees when old Bessie quits on you?)
Cell phones (she meant it when she told you to get OFF the phone or it was going out the window)
CD's
Shopping carts
Shoes (and it's always just one)
Enough coke bottles to replicate Buckingham Palace
Bicycles
More tires than NASCAR uses in a year
Lawn chairs
Clothes
Diapers
Coolers
Mattresses
Basketballs
Street signs

I could go on, but I think we've found just about anything you can think of at least once with the except of perhaps dead people. And that one is just a matter of time, I think! And before you have a mental urge to try to pin this on one particular demographic or another, I can promise you that in the many many hours I have spent at these charming intersections between man and nature, I have seen ALL social classes and types guilty of said hurling. Sometimes furtively, sometimes...not so much. It's both fascinating and depressing -- the former because it appears to be lost on all the hurlers that they are throwing this always-nasty, sometimes-toxic stuff into their own water supply, a poetic twist at which I can only be sadly amused.

I wish I got a quarter every time I found one of those stupid plastic worm cups from the bait stores, I would never have to work again!

Next time you are tempted by euphoric visions of humanity as a noble species, I beg of you, drive to a bridge and keep it real.

I Am Busy Wandering

2009-07-04T10:48:00.002-04:00

My apologies for leaving you destitute without your Friday Fun Fact. I shall return home Sunday evening and head back out on the river chasing fish on Monday. Somewhere in there I shall write you something amazing.

Wander in wonder...

Sh-"heron" The Morning

2009-07-02T09:56:00.003-04:00

As usual, time is nonexistent during field season, but I wanted to share a couple images from this week in the river. We were searching for freshwater mussels below a large hydropower dam. Local birdlife has learned that when the dam is turned off in the mornings, water is low and food is abundant and pickings are easy. Great blue herons gather by the handful and sort through the water willow for tasty treats stranded by low water. I wish I had had my proper camera with me, but these shots from our little work camera will have to do. Click on the image for a full-size view.

A Hard-Won Victory

2009-06-29T13:06:00.003-04:00

In the ongoing fight to keep grey wolves protected (I talked about it in these posts), today brought us a new partial victory. The Great Lakes wolves in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin are now once more protected.

The northern Rockies wolves though, are still unprotected and vulnerable to slaughter from trophy hunters, which in my mind are equivalent to the worst kind of human being. Conservation groups have a case in court battling hard to protect these incredible animals who are still at risk for extinction if their numbers are reduced yet again by illegal delisting actions pushed through by the ranching lobby and a powerful minority group of predjudiced and fearful people. You can go to my January 16th post in the list linked above to find a link to the Natural Resources Defense Council, who along with Defenders of Wildlife are fighting to help these animals regain protection. Any support you can offer will be invaluable, calling or emailing your representative or sending financial support. Normally, I don't endorse giving money, but both of these organizations are well-run and do excellent work, spending that money to realize on the ground change.

Fur Real??

2009-06-26T20:06:00.004-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

They're cute, heinously soft and I seem unable to pass by one without threatening to succumb to an overwhelming urge to cuddle it. Resistance is futile...

The suspect: the chinchilla. Most often viewed as a charming but not overly talented pet, these uber-strokable rodents nonetheless possess some amazing survival abilities that belie those seemingly helpless eyes.

These animals have the highest fur density in the world, with 20,000 hairs per square centimeter and up to fifty hairs growing from a single follicle (we humans can only muster one lousy hair per follicle). This crazy dense coat is esstential in their homeland, the chilly heights of the South American Andes. So thick is their fur that should any skin parasite, like a flea, attempt invasion, it will suffocate in the hairy depths. Combine this with the ability of the chinchilla to jump five feet in the air from a standstill and you have an animal who is a master of survival in an often-hostile environment.

Tough things sometimes come in a very soft, innocent packages...

Rollin' Down The River

2009-06-23T21:21:00.005-04:00

Out all week in the canoe doing river habitat surveys, so my ability to write deeply insightful and hilarious posts (c'mon, just lie, it will make me feel better) is slightly handicapped. I just don't think I can pick up a wireless signal in mid-channel...

On the plus side, I am getting to explore paddle stroke by paddle stroke a beautiful river. Gliding under heron nests, we are surprised by a muskrat nose right next to the bow. Apparently, so was the yellow-bellied slider who shot off in the dusky water next to me! Today, a little blue heron popped out of an ancient sycamore in front of us much to the distress of a prothonotary warbler (right), who hollered his mighty protest from a neighbouring tree trunk. Musk turtles seem to plop off logs every 30 feet and great blue herons, great egrets, and ospreys escort us with measured wingflaps down the river corridor. It's impossible not to wonder how I ever got lucky enough to get paid for this. Of course, then I remember that that pay is merely a pittance and there is still the thicket of poison ivy to trudge through at the takeout!

Life is full of tradeoffs, but this is one that today I am willing to make. Spending the day in liquid silence broken only by the sigh of a canoe's bow wave and the wildlife that surrounds you...it is therapy for the soul and I prescribe it to every human being. I think it would make us all better people and at the very least, it would remind us that we only need open our eyes and ears for a moment to see the wonder around us. To hear the soft pump of wings, the hiss of waves on shore, and the breath of a breeze on summer leaves is to be reminded the rhythm of our heartbeat and in it, the core of our being.

Sad But True

2009-06-20T11:20:00.003-04:00

If it seems so obvious that surely EVERYONE would know it...

They probably don't.

Facts don't really seem to factor in to many people's arguments. At all. I am constantly flabbergasted (isn't that a great word?) by the lack of excruciatingly basic biological literacy. I mean that stuff that 4th graders know. I used to teach university undergraduate biology labs and on a quiz, as a "gimme" question, I asked "What is a tadpole?" Not exactly rocket science. Answers included "A fish that hatches out of a frog egg and turns back into a frog later" and my very favourite, "A baby lizard."

*beats head against desk*

Why why why does this occur? How are adults so disconnected from the world? When glazed-over eyes fix on "Britney's Beach Cellulite Captured on Film" and the new primetime series "24 Hours Until The CSI Team Breaks Out Of Prison On A Lost Island", is all useful knowledge sucked out and vaporized???

True story: I was at the Kansas City Zoo (which contains some appallingly poor animal keeping practices by the way, never go there) watching a sea lion show. A sea lion was up on a rock, walking around and catching frisbees in its mouth (apparently zoo staff felt that sea lions were simply aquatic Border Collies?). Let me emphasize: walking around on a rock. A kid and mom walk up behind me and the kid says, "Wow, mom, what is that?" Mom says, "Dolphins, honey." *sound of my palm hitting my face* DOLPHINS CAN'T WALK, YOU IDIOT. God only knows how that poor child is going to get through life with an educational example like that.

Once again, Patrick McDonnell captures the phenomenon with his usual mix of laughter and poignant truth:

I'm Not Cool With That. Period.

2009-06-19T10:22:00.003-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Humans, primates, bats, and shrews are the only animals who have a true menstrual cycle.

Whee, lucky us. I'm sorry, did I not sound overly enthusiastic? Did it seem as if I'd rather be related to say, bears or giraffes or zebras or pretty much any mammal that DIDN'T have a period?

Ooo, can you imagine if we had descended from giraffes? (artwork courtesy of a very talented Saudi artist named Ashley Alexander) Wow, we might all be 11 feet tall! And we could live on leaves! What a lovely dent that would make in my grocery bill....

If you are still back there wondering what happens to all the other uterine linings in all those lucky little bastards of animals who don't have periods, the linings are reabsorbed by the body, a rather neat little trick that I am now going to work the rest of my life trying to master.

I CAN Take The Heat But That Doesn't Mean I Want To

2009-06-18T14:12:00.004-04:00

Too much rain to do field work. Rivers and streams are turbid from sediment-laden runoff, the colour of chocolate milk. Pointless to go out in these conditions -- you couldn't see a fish if it was an inch away from you. But at least too much rain is good for the animals. Groundwater levels come up, streams are full, vegetation takes off, ditches flush energy in the form of nutritious bits of leaves and sticks into river channels. Bugs go crazy gorging themselves on this new bonanza. Fish go crazy gorging on bugs distracted by the buffet. And it all provides a nice buffer against the drought which is sure to strike again.

For now, my dog lies dreaming on my office floor, paws a-twitching in some dream of a Great Squirrel Hunt. I am happy to look out my window and see all things green and vibrant, not the crushing, somber brown of two years ago. Groundhog children play in the yard while their turkey neighbour eyes them warily. "Keep those noisy whippersnappers to yourself!" he tells their parent. Five-lined skinks skirt blooming blue hydrangea bushes in search of unwary insects. I hope everyone takes a good long drink of all this water-driven goodness before tomorrow when the thermometer hovers at 100 F. If life is kind, at that point I will be hiding inside this nice cool building typing out your Friday Fun Fact for you!

Till then, wander in wonder...

Food For Thought

2009-06-15T08:30:00.005-04:00

So I've talked about the criminal scam that is corn-based ethanol here.

And I touched briefly on the effects of world hunger here.

Now I want to talk about cause and effect. We are rapidly spiraling into a global food shortage at the present. World stockpiles are at an all time low because, very simply, there are now more people on the planet than there is food to feed them. If you are reading (or writing) this blog, you are probably a person who pretty much takes food for granted -- you go to the grocery store and food is there for the taking. We, however, are in the minority and actions we take here DO affect what happens in the rest of the world.

Here is the heart of this particular travesty: the amount of corn used to produce ONE 25-gallon tank of ethanol could feed a person for a year. Can you please justify that to the family on the right? In 2008, 30% of the US corn harvest was used for this insanely inefficient fuel source that DOESN'T save energy and DOESN'T save fossil fuels. A THIRD OF THE CORN WE PRODUCED. If I had been eating ground up roots for a year just trying to stay alive, I believe I might be pushed into a murderous rage by that news.

The fact is, it's just wrong. It IS a crime, and even crueler, it is a crime that affects only the people suffering because of it. The perpetrators see no evil, hear no evil. Not only does it take food from the mouths of those who can least afford it, it also causes large amounts of resource destruction in countries where food is lacking. Put bluntly, hungry people don't give a shit about endangered species. And I can't blame them -- if you have to wonder if you will get your one meal of rice paste for the day, you are not going to spend one thought on the availability of natural resources that surround you. Even though those very resources directly affect the availability of neccessities like clean water, when one is struggling day to day to just SURVIVE, it is impossibile to consider the long term.

We all can think more about the results of the choices we make. Of course, perfection is impossible, we all make an impact and use resources just by existing. But each time a person chooses the ethical and the responsible, that DOES make a difference. People say money talks and it does. Where and how you spend your money shapes the flow of goods and services. So wanderers, let's shape it into a better place, shall we?

Dory Was A Liar

2009-06-12T11:28:00.003-04:00

Friday Fun Fact! I bet you've heard this "fact" before: goldfish have a memory span of only three seconds because their brains are very...oh, hi, did you have a question? I have a "fact" I bet you've heard before: goldfish have a memory span...

Ok, ok, I'll stop, but I don't care who you are, that there's FUNNY! BUT, it's also not true. Researchers at Plymouth University have in fact discovered that Dory's cousin, Goldie, can remember things as long as three months, tell time, feel pain when hooked, and recognize school-mates.

Moral: be kind to your goldfish. Because he's counting the hours until you go to sleep...

Sometimes You Just Get To See Badass Wildlife Pictures

2009-06-11T16:08:00.005-04:00

Check out this series from Kevin Schafer, courtesy of National Geographic. Here are a few samples below. He photographed the little-known Amazon River dolphins, who are descended from sea-faring ancestors. You can read more about them in his slideshow at the link above. I am in awe of Schafer's captures of the rich colours in this tannin-stained water, his use of perspective, and the pure delight of watching an aquatic animal fully in its element. I love to mess around with cameras, but am positively sick with desire for the opportunity (and equipment!) to make exposures like this. Do wander over and peruse his work, leave me here to drool...

A Honey Of A Project

2009-06-08T13:06:00.003-04:00

After the most recent Friday Fun Fact, one reader asked how to set up a beehive in her own backyard. Given near total losses in my state and many others of honeybee populations, we are well-served to do all we can to help these important insects to thrive.

There are actually options available depending on the level of involvement you are seeking. First of course, you can build your own hive, order bees, and maintain it yourself. Not only can you produce up to 60 lbs of honey a year (tasty!!), but you will also see your garden flourish as well as bolstering the health of plants within your bees foraging range.

Resources:
An excellent page put together by the University of Georgia.
Step by step from eHow.
A "hive" of information from bees-on-the-net.com

Another way to get all the benefits with none of the work is to contact a local beekeeper. Often, they are willing to maintain a hive on your property and all you have to do is sit back and let the bees do their thing. The beekeeper may then just stop by once a month or so and take care of the hive.

You will have to do a bit of your own Google work to find this one. There is a list of beekeepers by state on bees-on-the-net (above). If you live in NC, the NC State Beekeepers Association website has all you need to know!

On a side note, if you want something even easier than honeybees, look into providing a home for orchard mason bees. You can build a simple house for them (right) as they do not live in hives. They are a very mild-mannered bee and also pollinate flowers, fruits and vegetables.

Think about it seriously, wanderers, as we depend on these animals for our food supply and, in relation, economic wellbeing. Plus, all your neighbours will be so jealous of your incredible gardens -- and really, who DOESN'T want to make their neigbours jealous of your mad skills???

Buzzworthy

2009-06-05T13:59:00.004-04:00

Yeah! Friday Fun Fact!

Thirty percent of all food resources used by humans come from plants pollinated by bees.

The USDA estimates that the average person eats 4.7 lbs of food per day. That means 1.4 pounds of that is available to you thanks to the hard work of honeybees. 1.4 pounds is several sandwiches worth of food, so we are talking significant chunks here.

In my state, wild honeybees are completely extinct. All of our bees are residents of privately kept hives. Our wild bees have been wiped out by disease and predators. As you can imagine, this causes quite a ripple impact through the agricultural industry. There are already large groves and farms who must employ people to hand pollinate plants with dusters because there are not enough bees left to do the job. This has major economic impacts, not only to the producers of the food, but to us consumers who will have to absorb this extra cost of production which was once provided free by nature.

Of course, this doesn't include the other services they provide, including making honey (which is not only a natural preservative, but an excellent antibiotic and can fend off allergies) and beeswax, which is used human pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, furniture polish, art materials, and candles. Even bee venom is used to treat arthritis, neuralgia, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and multiple sclerosis.

So next time you chow down on a piece of fruit or bread or vegetable, you should "bee" very grateful (I know, I know, I'm hilarious). If we lose these fascinating little insects, we will be not only hungry, but broke. Have a little extra room in your yard? Set up a hive and start a bee colony of your own (no, they will not chase or attack you, they don't want to sting you any more than you want to be stung). Even providing flowering plants where bees can forage will help these critters survive increasing pressure from urbanization.

Spread some positive buzz about honeybees as you go about your next week. After all, if you are what you eat, a sweeter little animal surely cannot exist!

Recovery

2009-06-03T10:38:00.003-04:00

A brutal few days doing field work. All day, 90+ degrees, catching, counting, measuring, weighing fish who would really rather not be handled. And who do their damndest to stick their spiny fin rays into my skin at every possible opportunity despite my insistence that I am not going to hurt them. As a result, my brain is fried and my hands are pincushions today. I am relishing the cool air of the office for a day or two before striking out in search of more critters great and small.

But the results of these recent labours are promising -- we are seeing a marked increase in numbers and population health of an endangered fish species that lives in the river. They are found nowhere else in the world. They appear to have had several years of successful reproduction and individuals of all sizes are found throughout our sampling sites, which is a sign that things are looking up for this beautiful little fish! Thanks to the removal of an old hydropower dam four years ago, their habitat is restored and their future is getting brighter every day!

Just The Facts

2009-05-29T14:17:00.003-04:00

We need to talk about oil. Because there are two MASSIVE untruths about oil floating around out there that I hear almost on a daily basis. Each time, one of my eyes twitches and I think a blood vessel bursts in my head somewhere. That muffled gulping sound heard every time ones of these statements is made is my stifled scream of agony.

UNTRUTH ONE:
The Middle East controls our oil supply.

FACT:
Very little of our oil comes from the Middle East. Our supply can be broken down as following (illustrated on chart as well) --
Domestically produced (i.e. drilled in the US of A): 41%
Our lovely northern neighbours (Canada): 9%
Saudi Arabia: 8%
Venezula: 8%
Mexico: 7%
Nigeria: 5%
Iraq: a whopping 4%

The rest of it comes from Norway, Angola, Columbia, and other nations (all less than 2%).

So. Iraq and Saudi Arabia combined contribute only 12% of our oil supply. Hell, even CANADA beats out the Saudis. Apparently we should be invading ourselves if we really want to control supplies. Although that doesn't make nearly as exciting a target for demonization than a completely different culture.

UNTRUTH TWO:
If we would only do more domestic drilling, we would have more oil available and gas prices would go down.

FACT:
There is no promise anywhere that oil drilled in the US STAYS in the US. The US is actually the largest producer of oil in the world, even today (not surprisingly, we are also the largest consumer -- does that make us oil cannibals??). We do export a lot of oil as well, and many new oil drilling projects include plans to SELL that oil, most often to China and other growing Asian markets. So sorry, no oil for you, no matter how loud you chant "Drill, baby, drill." The chant more appropriately should would be "Suck out our natural resources for cut rates and then sell them abroad for personal profit, oil companies!"

Also, oil supply in the US right now is at the highest level it's been for decades in terms of what we have on hand, in barrels, ready to refine into fuels or plastics. There are literally tankers full of oil sitting around off the coast just waiting to be used. Yet gas prices rise -- NOT because supply here is low, but because prices and the amount of gas coming out of refineries is controlled by the refining companies, by speculators and by OPEC. Guess what: global economics is NOT as simple as the "supply and demand" principle that you learned in 5th grade.

So PLEASE, before folks make inflammatory statements, or whine about how the Middle East has all this power over us or, I don't know, invade countries, GET YOUR DAMN FACTS STRAIGHT! Otherwise, I have no respect for your arguments. Please let the agony stop.

And sorry, this is not a Friday Fun Fact, but it's been gnawing at me and I have to get it out...

It Must Be Something In The Air

2009-05-27T14:08:00.002-04:00

A new study reported at National Geographic News shows that inhaling polluted air (like that normally encountered in cities, that grey haze we have all witnessed) can mutate your DNA in as little as 3 days. This can lead to cancer and other respiratory and cardiac problems.

Awesome.

You could just hold your breath. But then, chances are, asphyxiation will take a lot less than 3 days. So, breathe we must then.

Folic acid (vitamin B9, found in leafy vegetables such as spinach, turnip greens, lettuces, dried/fresh beans and peas, fortified cereal products, sunflower seeds and certain other fruits and vegetable) has promise, showing that it slows down the damage done by pollutants, so keep that one in your diet.

More importantly, we need to put our foot down and demand that air pollution is reduced. Less driving, stricter emissions rules, cleaner energy sources -- be noisy and be noisy often. It is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, so you, wanderers, need to squeak at your elected officials in counties, cities, states, and in Washington to make these issues a priority.

Fare Thee Well

2009-05-21T21:12:00.002-04:00

Well, you got a Friday Fun Fact in the last post, so I'm going to let that one count. Yes, it's cheating, but zombie ants are still damn cool. I will be gone for the holiday weekend to someplace green and hopefully quiet. So find a cool place to wander and see if you can find a critter to appreciate. Watch it going about its life and let yourself feel that little thrill of getting a glimpse into a whole 'nother world. Extra credit if you share the story here!

See you next week, wanderers!

The Living Dead Walk Among Us

2009-05-19T10:32:00.006-04:00

So, in my efforts to waste time by labeling my posts, I created the label "zombies" because, hell, it's funny and it actually applied to one whole post. Never did I dream I would get to use it again. Guess what, I get to use it again.

I worked in Gulf Coast Texas for a while. It's somewhat like living in America's armpit and part of the pleasure is dealing with invasive fire ants. Why can't THEY be endangered?? These ants can skeletonize a trapped small animal in 12 hours and can make a calm person rip off all their clothes and run screaming across the prairie. They are steadily spreading their range across the US and have made it as far north as at least Virginia. They are murder on ground nesting birds like quail and prairie chickens and can even do serious damage to fawns and other mammals who may not be able to rise and run quickly away. Hopes of eradication: slim to none.

But there is one critter who may subdue these rapacious little invaders. Phorid flies (left, hovering above fire ant) have been released with some succes in FL and now TX. These defenders of the realm inject their eggs into the ants and the larvae move to the ant's head as they develop. There, they devour its brain and then gain control of the body (I swear this is true, nature is freaking awesome). They make the body walk away from the other ants into a dark, damp location where they can then pop the ant's head off without fear of attack (right) and emerge.

While this will not make fire ants go away, the ants live in holy terror of having their heads drop off. Thus their activites are much subdued (wouldn't yours be??) and they are far more inclined to stay underground and leave things the $*@& alone.

So I say hooray for zombie-making flies -- I don't know about you, but I've been swarmed by fire ants and it is NOT an experience I care to repeat. I believe that new curse words were invented at that time. I don't condone enjoyment in animal pain or suffering, but you know what? I'd pay money to watch the heads of fire ants pop off after their brains are devoured. So there.

Picture Perfect

2009-05-17T13:48:00.004-04:00

I suppose I'm a cliche but I love spring because THINGS BLOOM. And I'm a bloom addict. It's like discovering treasure every time I see a new flower emerge from its tightly curled bud. I've also been working hard to put as many blooming NATIVE things in my yard as I can afford (and as will survive...). Sadly, especially in the big box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot, native plants can be hard to come by and they seem to have no qualms about STILL selling highly invasive plants like privet and English ivy, both of which are heavily documented taking over native forests and strangling plants that provide important habitat and food for wildlife. Why it is still even legal to sell them I have no idea. Especially when there are so many beautiful native options! Want a hedge? In my region, wax myrtles are cheap, insanely fast growing, hardy, and attractive. Like most native plants, they require less water and attention than exotics, which means you get to spend more time admiring your garden and less time cursing at weeds and maintaining it. I don't know about you, but I'm SO into the admiring and so NOT into the maintenance. It takes a little initial hunting, but google your local native plant society and you can find nurseries which sell native plants. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the riches there! Without further ado, I wanted to share some photos I've taken of what blooms in my yard to give you a taste of these gems.

Top: Foxglove on a rainy day.
Middle and Bottom: Native wisteria (different from the Asian kind you commonly see growing wild)

Butterfly daffodills

Top: Forsythia
Bottom: Purple phlox

Crocuses -- the first to bloom signaling winter's end

Top: My favourite -- lily of the valley
Bottom: Wild coreopsis

Verbena and the giant bumblebee moths that love them

Top: Fuschias (ok, I actually don't think this is native, but it was contained in a hanging basket and it is not invasive*)
Middle and Bottom: Another that I LOVE -- lantana

Day lilies

And my little mistake -- I thought this one was a native magnolia when I bought it. Sadly, it has turned out to be a Japanese magnolia, much to my chagrin. Like the fuschias though, they are not invasive* and it made a cool picture.

*Exotic = "ain't from around here"
Invasive = "ain't from around here and kills/crowds out the important stuff that IS from around here"

Talk About Clingy...

2009-05-15T14:56:00.004-04:00

Friday Fun Fact!

Angler fish. These little "beauties" live their mysterious lives mostly out of sight of humankind (lucky them!). They can be found in the ocean anywhere from our continental shelf to the deep, dark seafloor. Presumably, with all that swimming around in the dark, it's hard to find a good mate. And once you do, well, no one likes to give up on that! But male angler fish take this to an extreme.

When he finds a female, he bites on to her back and his mouth then dissolves, as does her skin in the area of the bite. Their circulatory systems fuse and the male's entire body then slowly dissolves until he is nothing more than a pair of gonads living off of the female's labours.

Sounds like a lot of relationships I know...

Compassion in Unlikely Places

2009-05-14T21:50:00.003-04:00

No good deed goes unnoticed. Today I was driving behind a semi down a two-lane rural highway. All of a sudden, semi swerves radically into the other lane traveling about 55 mph. I am perplexed and alarmed -- and then I see that he has swerved to avoid a fat groundhog dashing across the road to its burrow.

I doubt the driver will read this -- in fact, I'd be willing to BET he's not one of my four or five readers, LOL, but nonetheless:

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

One tiny, oh-so-simple action of kindness when so many would have simply run the animal down brought tears to these weary eyes. It is heartbreaking that I see so little of this compassion and yet I am overflowing with joy that it does, in fact, still exist. Wherever you are, truck driver man (or chick), I think I love you.

When Its Ok To Combine Cows and Mother's Day

2009-05-11T18:04:00.005-04:00

So I'm a day late, but hey, Sundays are for relaxing! And maybe some of you are as behind the curve as me at times and still need that perfect mother's day gift. I recommend Heifer International. Send a gift to moms around the world in honour of your mom. Yours will get a card and someone in dire need will get a cow, sheep, pigs, chickens, rabbits, goats, camels, water buffalo, or other animal or plant of your choice (even honeybees and trees!) which will allow them to be a little less hungry and a little more independent. Now they can have milk, honey, cheese, wool, feathers, eggs and more. All price ranges are available. Unlike cash gifts, Heifer International gives people real, tangible, lasting gifts they can change their life with. And what mom couldn't be proud about that??

If you are wondering what the heck this has to do with conservation, well, the simplest truth is that hungry people don't give a damn about conservation. They are hungry. And they will do whatever it takes to NOT be hungry, consequences be damned. So, if we can help assure that people's basic needs are covered, THEN we have more people who have a little more breathing room to care about the world around them. In addition, H.I. educates gift recipients on sustainable agriculture, animal care and welfare, and community agribusinesses so that even one cow may in fact create a future.

Who The Hell Knows What Day It Is Anyway?

2009-05-08T13:53:00.002-04:00

My calendar says today I'm supposed to be entertaining you with your Friday Fun Fact.

My brain says I'm supposed to be passed out sleeping for at least the next 14 hours.

Who to choose....?

It's spring. Things are green. The water is getting warmer. For me, it means the work truck is fired up and I am driving all over four very large watersheds searching for animals. Yes, it is Field Season. Spoken of with a mix of excitement and dread.

Excitement because it means visits to streams great and small, measuring and counting and tagging animals swimming and burrowing and crawling.

Dread because it means driving about 15,000 miles in 3.5 months and getting up at an hour in which it should not even be legal to exist.

But it's the life I chose and most of the time, the one that I love. So bear with me wanderers, as post frequency gets a little sporadic. I have plenty more to share with you, I just have to eat enough sugar to approximate the energy to type it up for you in the one or two evenings I can call my own over this already-over-scheduled season. Oh and I must find a couple of toothpicks to prop my eyelids open and then I will........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

A Week of Mourning

2009-05-04T16:11:00.004-04:00

My apologies to you, wanderers, for the break in your edu-tainment here at WWWT. In a horrific and unexpected moment, I lost a dear friend and family member last week and was just unable to bend my will to writing for you.

I want to take a moment (well, frankly, because it's my blog and because I can) and tell you about a very special guy who touched my life so deeply.

He was a dirty little 5-month-old kitten with a respiratory infection when I first saw him at the Bay Area SPCA outside of Houston, TX in 2002. He'd been in that cage for two months after his previous owner dumped him. Then he reached his little paws through his cage bars and stole my heart right. That night, he crawled under the sheets in my bed and curled up next to my chest and did the same thing every night for the next seven years. His name was Nemo -- short for Geronimo, NOT the little orange fish, thankyouverymuch.

He waited behind the door every day for me to come home from work. His greatest pleasure was curling up in my lap and dozing. Each night, he nuzzled up next to my pillow and sang me to sleep with a robust purring motor. And I can't finish this post without tears because I wasn't ready to let him go.

I'll never know for certain what happened. He had a heart murmur from about one year of age on, so I believe he suffered from cardiomyopathy. The best I can tell is that his heart threw a blood clot that burst in his brain. All I can be glad for is that it was over very, very quickly. He is buried beneath the birdfeeder he loved to watch and I just planted a group of caladium bulbs over his head. I miss him terribly every day and always will; I have never known a cat quite like him, I swear he was part dog. He came when you called, fetched toys, and loved pretty much everyone.

In his honor, I decided the best thing that I could do was to help another cat, thereby giving it a happy home AND opening up a space at a good rescue for another cat, a 2-for-1 deal! I had not intended to act on this for a while, but last week, in a somewhat creepy twist of fate, a little 2 year old female who is the SPITTING image of Nemo introduced herself to me. She is so like him that I don't know whether to laugh or cry (I confess to the latter when she too, burrowed under my sheets last night). I'll never get my best boy back, but I am trying to do right by his memory and help other cats who are as needy as he once was.

Please take a second and go donate your "click" here: The Animal Rescue Site. I have blogged about them before here and hope that you can give the purple button a hit to help shelter animals everywhere. Do it for Nemo, a heart so full of love that it wore itself out. Be kind to a kitty today, it takes so little to make their lives better.

I Don't Want No Scrubs

2009-04-24T11:40:00.005-04:00

And if you get that reference, gold star for late-90's music literacy!

Friday Fun Fact!

There is a species of Central/South American leaf-cutter ants (Mycocepurus smithii) in which there are NO male ants (girl power, yeah!). These amazons only reproduce when the queen clones herself. No males have ever been found, but even if they were, the ants could not mate because their "no-no parts" have literally evolved away to nothing.

The colonies live in a symbiotic (translation from bio-geek: both parties benefit) relationship with a particular fungus: the ants clean and feed the fungus, the fungus in return feeds the ants' babies.

I am reminded of a quote from Nicole Hollander:
Can you imagine a world without men? No crime and lots of happy fat women.

Go ahead, my dear lady ants, eat all the chocolate cake you want!

Too Perfect Not To Post

2009-04-21T21:20:00.003-04:00

Or should I say "purr-fect" since it is a creation of the LOL Kittehs. Go take a walk with your "significant otter" or dog or whatever and enjoy the fresh wonder of spring as you wander.

Art With A Message

2009-04-20T11:02:00.011-04:00

Studies suggest that the human mind cannot really comprehend amounts above 1,000. So when we hear about hundreds of thousands or millions, it is difficult for us to grasp the scope of what we are hearing and thus, for many, difficult to relate to and be concerned about the related issues.

Artist Chris Jordan apparently took this as an assignment and created a series of beautiful pieces to help people visualize the scale of threats facing our worlds oceans. A couple of my favourites:

This 11-foot-wide digital collage of photos shows 2.4 million pieces of plastic--the number of pounds of plastic trash that enters the oceans every hour.

A closeup of the trash. This work is part of a series called Running the Numbers II, based on his book, Running the Numbers, which I now totally want to check out!

The most poignant of the group, this contains 270,000 shark teeth, the amount of sharks who are killed by finning for soup daily.

A closeup of some of the teeth used. It makes me weep to think of these animals being finned and tossed in a ghoulish display of greed based on a completely incorrect and archaic "tradition." If you are not familiar with the practice, you can learn more here.

Insects and Inebriation

2009-04-17T09:44:00.006-04:00

You know you tuned in just for your Friday Fun Fact! So here you go!

The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight, and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

This is equivalent to a 150 lb human lifting 7500 lbs and pulling 4500 lbs. That means the Ant-Human can single-handedly bench press a female elephant and drag a female hippopotamus. That makes me tired.....

My question is: who paid for the research that ferreted out which side ants fall on when they are drunk? Did someone follow ants to tiny clandestine pubs or feed them insect-sized cocktails?

I can say with some authority that a human will fall pretty much any which way when intoxicated, but only after asserting that they are in fact NOT intoxicated and don't need any help at all, thank you very much.

Cool Cash for Insightful Innovations

2009-04-14T14:52:00.003-04:00

Have a great idea to help the environment that would work on a community level?

Want to win $20,000 for it?

Then enter the Green Effect contest from National Geographic and SunChips.

I actually think this is a pretty good idea to encourage creative thinking and make conservation fun and feasible. The emphasis is on idea which can be implemented on a local scale, "small steps [that] add up to meaningful progress and positive change."

And who DOESN'T want postiive change these days? I sure do, since the only change I see is the handfull of nickels leftover from my paycheck after I pay the bills. So get those mental wheels turning and who knows, you could end up with a grant to make real change happen!!

Wander Smart

2009-04-13T13:22:00.006-04:00

Traveling this weekend left me thinking about how we can make our trips more effecient and less wasteful without annoying the snot out of ourselves. So here are a few easy tips for getting to and getting around the places you want to be without screwing them up in the process.

*USE taxis, buses, trains, trams. Not only do you save money on fuel, but you reduce your impact AND the amount of time you spend lost in some random place. Even better, walk or ride a bike and get a perspective you would have missed zipping by in a vehicle.

*In hotels, don't have the maid service come in every day. Do you change your sheets and towels at home every day? Yeah right, don't lie, no you don't. This saves a TON of water and energy every time you hang that 'do not disturb' card. Plus, no one that you don't know is entering your hotel room and exposing your belongings to outsiders.

*Hiking? Always stay on trails and paths -- straying increases erosion and you may be unknowingly trampling plants and animals that cannot survive your clodhoppers.

*Reuse water bottles by refilling from a tap or one large central source instead of buying a new bottle of water every time. It's also a great place to stick travel stickers!!

*Turn off all the lights when you leave your hotel room -- the switch is right by the door and is easy to flip on as soon as you get back.

*When eating out, you really don't need to grab 42 napkins when you pick up your food. One or two will do and will cut down on waste.

*Choose your activites carefully. Hike through the forest instead of riding in a Jeep or ATV -- these vehicles do a LOT of damage every time they pass through a habitat and eat fuel as well as squishing plants and animals. Sports like golf hog resources and land, so if you must partake, choose a course that uses recycled water and preserves habitat for wildlife.

*Only grab those brochures or maps if you are really going to use them, and recycle it when you are done.

*If you see trash lying on the ground, pick up at least one piece and dispose of it properly, every little bit helps.

*Don't patronize hotels/resorts/activity providers who do not practice at least basic conservation measures to save water and energy. If a giant resort has been built smack in the middle of pristine forest habitat and is lit up like an alien landing strip and is covered by concrete, you can bet your money is going right towards habitat carnage. Try to choose businesses who support the local community and are pro-active about conservation.

*Don't buy souvenirs like shells, butterflies, meats, wood products or other items which may come from imperiled species or habitats. Take lots of photos (digital, of course, almost unlimited reuse and doesn't consume paper or chemicals) and try to buy directly from the person who makes the craft or item of your choice, should you choose to buy (and always buy local, of course).

*Don't underestimate the great time you can have closer to home -- a local state park or waterway undoubtedly holds adventures all its own and will be cheaper and much more effecient to get to.

Everyone Needs a Vacation...

2009-04-09T20:50:00.001-04:00

And I'm taking mine! At least as close as I can get to one. So no amazing and educational posts for you, my dear wanderers, until I get back. But keep wondering as you wander, because as a great writer once said:

The world shall not perish from want of wonders,
but from want of wonder.

Think You're Smarter Than a Goldfish?

2009-04-03T11:38:00.005-04:00

Ok, maybe that won't be the next new gameshow to blow ratings, but turns out that Goldy just might be smarter than you gave him credit for. Once again, National Geographic News provides me with my handy (and on time!!!) Friday Fun Fact. (article here) Fish can count! Yes, like 3 is more than 2 and less than 4. So they don't just swim around making kissy faces after all. Nature is just cool -- how can anyone argue with that!

Kinda gives the cartoon below a whole new creepy meaning...next they will be saying "we are learning to program your computers to destroy you!"

How To Make My Head Explode

2009-04-02T15:29:00.007-04:00

I wrote about issues surrounding America's grey wolf populations here and here. I had high hopes that the new administration which claimed to value science would actually LOOK at all the good studies out there on apex predators and their vital role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Without a top predator, you cannot HOPE to have healthy prey populations (and healthy prey animals are usually what is desired by both the hunting and viewing public) and by trickle-down effect, healthy plant communities.

Much as I hate to use Yahoo news as a source, this is the first place I saw this AP release about a formal rule released by DOI (Dept of Interior, which the US Fish & Wildlife Service is in) and Secretary of the Interior Salazar. This does nothing more than condone and encourage unjustified slaughter in states whose trigger fingers have been itching for decades. It unethical and illegal, not that either of those has ever stopped Sarah Palin, or should I call her Redneck Barbie. She tries to claim her wolf genocide is "predator control" that will provide more moose and elk for hunters. Which is about the biggest load of bullshit that has ever been dished, as wolves are successful at pulling down large game perhaps 1 out of 20 tries and more often scavenge. On top of that, wolves never attack or kill animals that hunters want to shoot; they always pick the weakest link and as a result, actually stregthen herds, a fact which has been borne out among Yellowstone elk herds. Maybe Palin's gun will misfire and knock her into the ocean somewhere off the coast of Alaska and she will just disappear...

CURSE YOU ALL!!! *shaking fist*

I am too angry to continue right now... If you have the opportunity, write, call, sign petitions, I don't care, just tell Washington that this is UNACCEPTABLE, UNJUSTIFIED, and has ZERO basis in science or ethics.

Whoever Said People Weren't Just Like Animals??

2009-03-28T21:14:00.003-04:00

Maybe I should call it "Saturday Shocking Story" since "Friday Fun Fact" can never seem to come out of me on Friday!

But this one is a gem, reported in National Geographic News last week and it is 100% true, I swear.

Seems like songbird couples and human couples are, well, birds of a feather. Take, for example, the Peruvian warbling antbird (Really? They couldn't come up with a catchier name for it than that? Ah, ornithologists, I expected better!), seen on the right. Monogamy is very rare in the animal kingdom, but it appears these birds do try (Well, at least the girls do. Sound familiar, ladies?). When a male and female (Mr. and Mrs. Antbird if you please) pair is approached by another antbird couple, they sing a harmonic and coordinated territorial song, proclaiming their union and their stake on their choice piece of property.

However, if a single female (young Miss Antbird) approaches, the Mr. continues his melodious song to her, while the Mrs. changes her song to a loud, discordant signal that covers up her mate's attempts to flirt with the would-be homewrecker!

I think, translated into English, it would play out something like this:

Miss: "Hey there, fella, how YOU doin?"
Mr: "Hey baby, you are one fine..."
Mrs: "OH NO YOU DON'T! MISS THANG, YOU BETTA GET YOUR SKANKY LITTLE FEATHERS OUTTA THIS JOINT!"

Some conversations are just universal...