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March 30, 2007
Northern Elephant Seals: A Weaner Wonderland
The mating season of the Northern Elephant Seal is coming to a close.
The last big males have been defending their harems for the past three months without food or water. They have lost more than a third of their body weight and look rather deflated. The last females have weaned their pups and lost about half of their weight in 28 days. They mate with the alpha bull of the harem and take off to the waters north of Hawaii to feed again. Nothing left for the males to mate with, so they have left as well.
What's left is what the Año Nuevo park rangers affectionately call "A Weaner Wonderland".
The ugly looking image below is a ridiculously sloppy panorama I made from 24 individual images of weaners playing in the tidepools during an exceptionally low tide that occured last week. If you click on the panorama, it links to a somewhat larger version (14mp, about 7000x2000 pixels) which you can explore more and see what the individual weaners are up to.
Posted by sorsha at 10:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 23, 2007
In The Heart of Borneo: Top Cat Categorized
There's a new species of leopard out there. Yeah, we knew where it lived, but spots are spots, right? DNA says not and now we have a new species, native only to Borneo and Sumatra - the Bornean Clouded Leopard.
Based on their general physical appearance, all clouded leopards were considered to belong to a single species. However, recent genetic analysis has shown that the ones found on Borneo are so different that they are best regarded as a separate species. DNA tests highlighted around 40 nucleotide differences between the two species. This is comparable to differences between the large Panthera species. Lions and leopards, for instance, have 56 nucleotide differences. The combined results of DNA analysis point to a 1–3 million years difference in separation, while the accepted distance of species is 1–2 million years.
More At: WWF Newsroom: Borneo's clouded leopard identified as new cat species
Interesting. Finally some technical info on how species are differentiated. You're a different enough if you've got at least a million years living as seperate species. For some perspective, it's thought that chimps and humans split between 4.5 and 7.5 million years ago, depending on your calculation method. Lately we've been hearing a lot about the molecular clock, which is a method of determining how long ago two species split by examining how much mutation as occured, since the rate of change of any specified protein is thought to be relatively constant.
Why was this cat not spotted before? Well, it was... spotted, that is. It's just that the cat was thought to be the same as the mainland Clouded Leopard prowling the rainforests from southern China across Southeast Asia to India. It turns out, the complex coloring of this cat is subtly different from that of the leopards of Borneo.
You can see a great picture of a Bornean Clouded Leopard at National Geographic.
What Big Teeth You Have
The Bornean Clouded Leopard, which eats monkeys, wild pigs, and antelope, has the longest canines of any cat. I guess every feline species has to have something to boast about. It's also the largest predator in Borneo, which happens to be the third largest island in the world.
This is good news for the Heart of Borneo rainforest that was protected by the three Bornean governments - Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia, earlier this year. The Heart of Borneo, which is primarily equatorial rainforest, covers almost one third of the island (220,000km2). Tens of thousands of plant and animal species live on the island, many of which are endemic (live nowhere else). Some of these animals include the pygmy elephant, 13 Sumatran Rhino, a species of forest-walking catfishand other mysterious creatures.
The designation of the Heart of Borneo came only after more than half of the native forests had disappeared due to logging. More than 52 new species have been discovered in Borneo in the last year and many more can be expected as research continues.
Between at least 8,000 Bornean Clouded Leopards, and possibly as many as 18,000, are thought to live in designated rainforest, and they are largest, apex predator of the area.
Posted by sorsha at 4:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 22, 2007
The World's Water Woes
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People & Cattle at a Waterhole |
Here in the US, we give our babies frequent baths. As they grow up and become mobile, we let them crawl around and then wipe them down with wetwipes to get rid of the germs. We spray them with Off to keep the bugs away and then we let them play in sanitized sandboxes and laugh at how cute they look with their little dirt smudges. Finally, we have them run through the garden hose to clean them up.
Most of the world doesn't have these luxuries we consider such simple pleasures. Frankly, most people would be horrified by the conditions in which many people live in the third world. The charity commercials you see on television show a very cleansed version for our delicate sensibilities. We've seen countless children playing in areas that make our landfills look clean, looking at us with huge smiles, batting the flies from their soulful eyes. The children form little packs, the older ones (like 5 or 6 year olds) often watching over the younger ones. Their parents nowhere to be seen.
How dare their parents leave them alone, you're thinking. What kind of negligence is this?
All over Africa and Asia, we witnessed local women and teenage girls walking for miles along roadsides to and from murky waterholes to fetch water. 
They share these waterholes with the local wildlife and their cattle and goats. They spent their days hauling water back and forth to their families. You ask where the mothers are; this is where you'll find them. Not in schools. Not with their children, except for the newborns strapped to their backs. They are wearing long dirt paths along the roads, hauling heavy containers of water, much of it is untreated but they have little choice in the matter.
When aid workers set up in a new village, perhaps the first issue addressed is providing people with convenient access to water. Very little else can be achieved until clean water is available. Think about it: cooking, cleaning, hygiene, farming... they all depend on water. All plans to provide education and such have to be tabled until these basic human needs are met. Many villages throughout the world still lack these basic building blocks of healthy life.
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Woman Walking To The Water |
The world water crisis is one of the largest public health issues of our time. Nearly 1.1 billion people (roughly 20% of the world’s population) lack access to safe drinking water. The lack of clean, safe drinking water is estimated to kill almost 4,500 children per day. In fact, out of the 2.2 million unsafe drinking water deaths in 2004, 90% were children under the age of five. Water is essential to the treatment of diseases, something especially critical for children.
More At: World Water Day: March 22, 2007
Today is the 15th annual World Water Day, and it's focus is the Scarcity of Water and to promote the fulfillment of clean water initiatives by 2015.
Some of the most amazing scenes of cultural significance that we witnessed in Africa took place at the clean water pumps. Villagers would come from miles around to get their water and they would meet each other and socialize while their children played in the mud puddles.
Posted by sorsha at 1:13 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 20, 2007
Nefarious Porpoises: Military Marine Mammals
I think it was the summer before eighth grade when I decided to read all the books on the summer reading list. I plowed through the usual suspects like the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, To Kill a Mockingbird, Call of the Wild and White Fang (or as I like to call it, Call of the Wild in reverse), All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Catcher in the Rye. I've still got my meaningfully marked up versions of Brave New World and 1984.
Somehow I stumbled across a lesser known novel with a similar theme to the Manchurian Candidate. The book, by Robert Merle, was called Day of the Dolphin and it was about a scientist who had trained two dolphins to understand English. They had then been stolen and used for nefarious purposes to try to assassinate the President. The book was later made into a movie, starring George C. Scott. It had a good soundtrack.
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Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) |
It sounds like something out of the X-Files but it has some basis in fact. While we may not have bridged the communication gap with dolphins completely, both the Americans and the Russians have had programs to train dolphins and other marine mammals like sea lions for military purposes in the Cold War era.
Since the late 1950s, the U.S. and other nations have experimented with using dolphins and other marine mammals, such as sea lions, for military purposes. Part of the interest stems from figuring out how these animals can swim so fast and dive so deep and perhaps borrow their secrets to build better submarines and ships. But military planners have also been interested in using the animals to undertake risky or difficult missions, such as underwater mine detection, retrieving objects from the ocean floor, or sea guard duty.
Dolphins have proved adept at such tasks. They are smart and relatively easy to train, and in its heyday, the Navy's dolphin program boasted more than 100 animals. They weren't used widely, but many did see service in the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War. More recently, several Navy dolphins helped find, mark, and clear mines from a key port during the war in Iraq.
In such operations, the animals use their sensitive sonar to spot the mines, then signal handlers in a nearby boat that they've found something by placing one of two special disks in the boat. "They don't miss anything," a Navy spokesman told reporters. "If a mine is there, they will find it. Nothing gets by them."
More At: Nature: Dolphins At War
While the Russian program supposedly closed about 15 years ago, the San Diego-based U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program is still in operation today and dolphins are actively used.
The US facility in San Diego has had a captive breeding program since the late 1980's, so they do not take dolphins from the wild or other zoos. The five marine mammal teams are made up of dolphins and sea lions. Each group is trained to do something very specific, like finding mines or finding areas without mines for troops to land on shore safely. The teams can be deployed with very little notice (like 3 days).
The Russians sold their dolphins to Iran back in 2000, when their trainer could no longer afford to care for them properly. Most of the dolphins had supposedly been trained to attack enemy divers, run kamikaze missions to place mines on ships, etc.
In total, 27 animals, including walruses, sea lions, seals, and a white beluga whale, were loaded with the dolphins into a Russian transport aircraft for the journey from Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula, in the Black Sea, to the Persian Gulf.
Three cormorants were also among the cargo.
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Mr Zhurid remained vague on the role he and the animals would play, but he said: "I am prepared to go to Allah, or even to the devil, as long as my animals will be OK there."
More At: BBC News: Iran buys kamikaze dolphins
 | The United States has denied any offensive training methods, just rescue and reconnaissance. However, one can see that it is certainly feasible that these dolphins could be taught such things. |
Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) |
Some sources say US dolphins were fitted with toxic dart guns, whereas the Russian dolphins just had these big spears to poke divers with (no hands to fire weapons). There was also more recent story of a bunch of US military dolphins possibly getting loose during Hurricane Katrina but it has remained unsubstantiated. There was an oceanarium in New Orleans that was flooded and its dolphins escaped and some were later saved. I think most of the hubbub arose when the military insisted on examining the rescued dolphins, which led to speculation that they were looking for dolphins. At the time, the newspapers called these animals "Firing Flippers".
Now keep in mind, animals in warfare are not a new concept. Humans have used them from the almost the very beginning. Cavalry horses and elephants. War pigs to scare the elephants into trampling their own soldiers. Beasts of burden like mules and oxen to carry military supplies and equipment. Camels in the desert. Hawks and messenger pigeons carrying other gifts like missile homing beacons. Russian war dogs used as anti-tank measures. The list goes on and on. And it gets weirder and weirder. For example, why use burning arrows when you can set monkeys on fire?
...monkeys were used, in the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, in a battle between rebels of the Yanzhou province, and chinese imperial army led by Zhao Yu. The monkeys were used as live Incendiary device. The animals were clothed with straw, dipped in oil and set fire to. They were set loose into the enemy's camp, thus setting the tents on fire, and driving the whole camp into chaos.
More At: Wikipedia: Military Animals
Well, at least dolphins don't have to worry about being set on fire, just blown up, either purposefully or accidentally. I suppose for many people, they'd rather it was a dolphin than a military diver. I certainly understand that, but I also feel quite uncomfortable with that and I'm trying to pinpoint exactly why. Partly, the diver has free will and the dolphin doesn't, but also, the diver has some idea what the ramifications of his/her actions are, whereas the dolphin knows it will "get treat". I cannot really say I don't think the program to help clear mines and rescue people isn't a good one, but putting animals on the front line offensive is another matter entirely.
Unfortunately, since marine mammals are sometimes used for spying and reconnaissance, they are more likely to be under suspicion when they appear, whether they are on a mission, or just your average civilian critter, minding its own business. Some worry that nations will develop a practice like shooting dolphins, whether they are military or native, just to avoid the dangers of being spied on.
Lastly, porpoises are closely related to dolphins, but are in a different family (Phocoenidae). This hasn't stopped sailors from calling dolphins porpoises over the years, though. You can tell the difference because dolphins have cone-shaped teeth and porpoises have flatter teeth.
You can read more about dolphins on this blog:
Sonar Strandings & Dolphin Deaths
Saving Poster-Friendly Species: Perhaps More Strategic Than We Think
From Vampiric Spiders To Owl Engineering
Posted by sorsha at 6:04 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 19, 2007
The Reptile Rollover: The Crocodile Death Roll
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Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus Niloticus) |
There's this great old horror movie called Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). This movie is absolutely terrible, but the leeches (you can see the costume zippers) make a cool clucking noise and the locals keep blaming the swamp gators for killing everyone. I think this is the first time I ever heard of the "death roll" that a gator or croc could do to subdue it's prey.
Basically, after catching its meal, the gator or croc starts rolling under the water to disorient and drown its prey. This allows a croc or gator to feast on large animals at its own pace and they may even store the kill for later consumption if its really big. It's quite amazing to watch. The late Steve Irwin was quick to say, "The crocodile death roll is potentially the most powerful killing mechanism on earth." You can see the step by step process of a crocodile death roll experiment at Brilliant Creatures.
We were watching Nature on PBS the other night, and they had this great piece on Yala National Park in island nation of Sri Lanka. BBC was there to study the leopards, since the park has the highest concentration in the world, but it was this night footage of a leopard kill being taken over by crocodiles that really caught our attention.
The setup: A leopard kills a large boar. Night falls and the leopard returns to eat. The scent of death attracts other predators and soon the leopard encounters a large croc, but the leopard doesn't give up the kill. She bickers with the larger croc, staying out of its jaws but trying to get the corpse away. Soon, two other young leopards show up, and they also eat what they can, but the crocodile is not going to give up. Soon the kill is surrounded by crocodiles and the cats are forced out. Now about a dozen large crocodiles swarm on the dead pig. This all takes place on land in the dry season.
At which point, we noted a couple of things. While the leopards yanked and dragged the corpse along, the crocs throw it around like a toy. The heavy body is flung amongst them effortlessly. Each powerful croc, fanned around the kill like rays of the sun, grabs a bite of the pig and begins to...
You guessed it! These huge crocs all started spinning in the death roll on land. It very effectively twisted a piece of the meat off, so they could swallow it whole before the pig is completely devoured by the other crocs. The crocs even used each other to hold the kill down so they could twist their portion off without flipping the pig over at the same time. According to Wikipedia, nile crocs like the one pictured above will even wedge their prey into something stationary in order to hold the kill still before they roll.
What a fascinating gruesome scene!
Posted by sorsha at 9:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
In-N-Out: A Fast Food Meal With Integrity
Back in the day when gas prices didn't rival our monthly mortgage, Shane and I used to roadtrip a lot.
Ideally, we had our Trader Joe's snacks like fruits and nuts and we camped, but when we wanted to cover large distances in a short amount of time, we sometimes resorted to prepared food. We would splurge by trying to find the places "the locals went". You know, that one restaurant in the tiny town whose parking lot is always full. Nipa's thai food in Alturas, CA, was like that. So was The Old Saloon outside of Yellowstone National Park in Emigrant, Montana.
Still, we couldn't always avoid the fast food and we would generally get salads and some chicken McNuggets. That is, until we saw Super Size Me. That one animated scene on how chicken nuggets are made changed all that. You don't see us near the golden arches much anymore.
I haven't been through a drive-thru in ages, with one notable exception. I cannot give up my In-N-Out Burger. Sure, I only get to one a couple times a year, but I outright refuse to give them up entirely. It's not just their secret menu, the food just tastes that good. The people who work there are always friendly and the prices good. Plus, the food is "real", or at least, more real than all the rest. Real beef. Fries made from piles of potatoes you can see, real ice cream milk shakes. Real iced tea with real lemons.
So you can imagine I was delighted this morning when I was listening to a Sierra Club Radio interview with Fast Food Nation author, Eric Schlosser, and I heard him say:
(forgive my bad transcripting skills, this was a Sierra Club podcast interview)
There is a fast food chain I will admit I do go to occasionally. It's in California and it's In-N-Out Burger. They're not getting organic beef but they are treating their workers really well and they're paying good wages and the food isn't heavily processed and it's a fast food meal with integrity and I'm not a paid spokesman for it.
Fantastic! The Drive-Thru Detester, whose work has helped expose the dark side of the fast-food industry, has given In-N-Out Burger a reprieve, and me one as well. For now, I can eat my Protein Style Burger with Animal Fries with only a normal serving of caloric guilt.
Posted by sorsha at 1:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 18, 2007
Año Nuevo Birds: Shore Bird Bonanza
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Brown Pelicans & gulls |
Monterey Bay has lots of different kinds of shore birds. Some, like the Brown Pelican and the Snowy Plover, nest here. Other birds, like the loons, grebes and terns, migrate through.
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Heermann's Gull (Larus heermanni) |
You'll often see the shore birds splashing in the freshwater in the morning, washing the salt from their wings. The pelicans and cormorants like to nest in great colonies on the high cliffs overlooking the ocean.
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Western Gull (Larus occidentalis) |
Not all gulls are created equal. There are many different types. It's often confusing to identify them, since their coloring changes from when they are young, to adolescent, to adult.
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Sanderlings(Calidris alba) |
Sanderlings are known to hang out along the surf feeding. They are fun to watch as they running down to the water during the ebb of a wave, and then when the surf comes back up on the beach, the sanderlings run back up along with it.
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Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) |
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Pelican Roost |
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Sandpiper, Most Likely A Marbled Godwit (Limosa Fedoa) |
I am clearly the most pitiful bird identifier, because even after pouring over Sibley's Field Guide To Birds of Western North America, I cannot positively identify exactly which member of the Sanderlings group this bird belongs to! Admittedly, the book does state that, because of the closeness of species, sanderlings are rather difficult to ID... so at least I'm not the only one who thinks so.
 | Another similar-looking bird, the Snowy Plover, is an endangered species. In the habitats remaining for the snowy plover, human activity is a key factor adversely affecting coastal breeding sites and breeding populations. |
Sanderling (Calidris alba) |
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California Gull (Larus Californicus) |
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California Gull (Larus Californicus) |
Posted by sorsha at 9:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2007
Año Nuevo Birds: Heaven for Hummingbirds
The Northern Elephant Seal mating season is coming to an end, and so this week I thought I would try to be more sensitive to the birds in the area. It seemed its peak time for hummingbirds. I couldn't walk more than a few feet without hearing the telltale chirping, inevitably finding a hummingbird at a top branch of the scrub. From most angles, they just look like normal little birds. Then suddenly, they turn slightly and their bright iridescent feathers flash.
Just like the elephant seals, hummingbirds (Family Trochilidae) display traits of sexual dimorphism, or sexual differentiation. Much like peafowl, the males are the colorful ones and the females aren't so much. There are about 330 species of hummingbirds in the world, and they are all in North and South America. Many of the species exist only in the tropics and the Cuban Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is the world's smallest bird.
The bee hummingbird is the world's smallest homeothermic [warm-blooded] vertebrate. When flying, its wings beat 80 times per second, up to 200 times per second during courtship displays. Its heart rate is the second fastest of all animals. Bee hummingbirds also have the fewest feathers of all birds. Their body temperature is 40 °C (104 °F), the highest of all birds
More At: Wikipedia: Bee Hummingbird
And talk about a sugar high, these tony, ultralight birds can consume up to half their body weight in sweet nectar every day! This helps them beat their wings more than 100 times per second and fly at speeds of up to 60mph. Still, they are preyed upon by birds of prey as well as domestic and feral cats.
Some hummingbird species migrate hundreds of miles yearly, over land and open ocean. The Rufous Hummingbird can migrate 2000 miles from Mexico to Canada and Alaska, but not Hawaii. So why are they only found in the New World? Unfortunately, the fossil record isn't much help in terms of hummingbirds.
...these little birds are durable only in life. In death their delicate, hollow bones almost never fossilize. This was one reason for the astonishment that greeted the recent discovery of a jumble of 30-million-year-old fossil bird remains that may include an ancestral hummingbird. Like modern hummers, the fossil specimens had long, slender bills and shortened upper wing bones topped by a knob that may have let them rotate in the shoulder socket for hovering flight.
The other surprise was where the fossils were found: in southern Germany, far from modern hummingbird territory. To some scientists, the discovery shows that hummingbirds once existed outside the Americas, then went extinct. Or maybe the fossils weren't true hummingbirds. Skeptics, including Schuchmann, argue that other groups of birds evolved hummingbird-like characteristics many times through the eons. True hummingbirds, says Schuchmann, evolved in Brazil's eastern forests, where they competed with insects for flower nectar.
More At: National Geographic: Hummingbirds - Flight of Fancy
And again like elephant seals, hummingbirds are extremely territorial. They fight over food and territory but are rarely injured in these displays. Funny how such different species can be display such similar behaviors!
Posted by sorsha at 8:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 14, 2007
Hairy Question Untangled By Lice
I cannot say I have ever pondered when we, as former apes, dispensed with the body hair. I guess I assumed it must be at some point after we had either solved the body warmth & protection problems ourselves (through living arrangements or the invention of fashion) thus making body hair obsolete, or if the problems didn't exist because we were living in such a warm habitat that it was a detriment (if so, why didn't other species change at a similar time?). Still, had I decided to ponder this question, it has some interesting problems associated with it. Hair, skin and cloth are not particularly durable or long-lasting materials like fossils. Over time, they deteriorate and our evidentiary support disappears.
Luckily some clever scientists out there came up with a very interesting way of dating when we shed our body hair for good without the need for evidence. They untangled this puzzle by looking not at humans, but at the evolution of another species that was intimately linked with them. You got it, those lovely little lice!
Stoneking, an evolutionary anthropologist, had a hunch that he could calculate when body lice evolved from head lice by comparing the two varieties' DNA, which accumulates changes at a regular rate. (It's like calculating how long it took a typist to produce a document if you know he makes six typos per minute.) That fork in the louse's family tree, he and colleagues at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology concluded, occurred no more than 114,000 years ago. Since new kinds of creatures tend to appear when a new habitat does, that's when human ancestors must have lost their body hair for good—and made up for it with clothing that, besides keeping them warm, provided a home for the newly evolved louse.
If you had asked paleoanthropologists a generation ago what lice DNA might reveal about how we became human, they would have laughed you out of the room. But research into our origins and evolution has come a long way.
More At: Newsweek: Beyond Stones & Bones
The article above is certainly about more than just this lousy discovery, but I thought that was the most eye-opening. This critical look at inter-species relationships, symbiotic or otherwise, and how scientists are using them to help determine events of evolutionary importance in a species is fascinating. Think of all the stuff living in us, on us, around us. The bacteria alone could answer much, if we can just figure out what questions to ask.
Posted by sorsha at 11:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 13, 2007
Año Nuevo Birds: Tracking The Northern Harrier
There's a certain paradoxical quality to watching wildlife. Animals can be both predictable and extremely unpredictable.
I've taken many walks in Año Nuevo State Reserve. I like to show up early, and be the first one on the trail, brushing the night's spider webs from the path. The earlier the better, for the school trips that show up later in the morning scare much of the wildlife from the trails.
Just before the ranger station, I enter a great field where inevitably, the male and female Northern Harriers or Marsh Hawks, will be waiting. If I'm lucky, a harrier will still be perched close to the ground and I'll get to watch as it takes off and soars over the fields, looking for breakfast.
I see them every single morning I walk there, but I can never predict where they will be or what they will be doing. Every day is different.
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Considered one of the most agile raptors on the continent, the Northern Harrier range extends from Alaska to the Baja coastline. Once common, the species was listed on Audubon's American Birds' Blue List during the 1970's due to habitat loss and the use of pesticides like DDT which had caused especially acute reproductive failure in the species. Basically, DDT caused bird egg shells to be too thin, and the effects of the pesticide were magnified by each level in the food chain, so apex predators like birds of prey were accumulating the largest amounts of the chemicals.
The Blue List tried to provide an early warning of those North American bird species undergoing population or range reductions. The idea was to watch for declines and identify them before species reached endangered status, when it was often too late. The Blue List was published from 1971-1986 in the Audubon Society's American Birds magazine. Flaws in the Blue List certainly existed, and the Audubon Society eventually came up with it's current WatchList system.
The severe population declines noted for Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls in the late 1970s was attributed to the extensive alteration and loss of grassland habitats throughout the Midwest. Interestingly, although Harrier numbers began to increase in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Short-eared Owl numbers continued to decline. During this same period, there was a substantially large increase in the amount of available grassland habitat due to the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Consequently, Northern Harriers appear to benefit from CRP land, while Shorteared Owls may not.
More At: Audubon Society: American Birds - The 102nd Christmas Bird Count
The Northern Harrier population has since begun to recover and is considered stable globally, although some specific populations, especially in New England, remain listed as endangered or threatened at the state level. Still, the Northern Harriers face threats.
A ground nesting bird, the Northern Harrier needs nice marsh to build its nest. Invasive plants like pepperweed threaten this habitat. Native to southern Europe and Western Asia, pepperweed competes with native flora, posing a serious threat to native wetlands and wetland restoration projects. Willows and Cottonwood trees, for example, suffer because they cannot compete effectively against dense stands of pepperweed. Native marsh birds, like the Harrier, therefore do not have the nesting materials needed nor can they nest in the invasive weeds. Research is just beginning on how to protect wetlands from invasives like pepperweed, and a lot of questions remain unanswered.
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Northern Harrier |
Posted by sorsha at 7:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 12, 2007
Déjà Viper: I've Seen This Snake Before...
Have you ever learned a new word and then had it start cropping up in everything you read? This happened to me recently.
I saw a disturbing National Geographic documentary about the very deadly viper, the fer-de-lance, and how it has been coming into contact with people more and more as they settle in the wilds of Costa Rica.
Incidentally, there is an amusing side story about how they got the snake to strike right into the camera by using the cameraman's 9-Volt batteries to trigger its heat sensors, which the snake uses to detect prey. I don't know that much about snakes and I'd never heard of a fer-de-lance, but the next night I started reading a book which opened with the heroine, who is sleeping in a hammock in the jungle, waking to find a fer-de-lance hissing in her face. She promptly shoots its head off and the adventure continues. What are the chances of this snake entering my life twice in as many days?
Sorry guys, but I didn't have a picture of a Fer-De-Lance (I'd never heard of one!) so I used this picture of another pit viper instead since it's coloring was similar, although it's head is not. I'm pretty sure this picture is of a Gaboon Viper, which is the world's heaviest viper, has the longest fangs and the highest venom yield of any venomous snake (according to Wikipedia). I took this picture a couple years ago at the San Diego Zoo in the Reptile House.
Posted by sorsha at 10:29 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
An Avian Admirer
As I've mentioned before, I'm not much of a birder, but the more I take pictures of them, the more aware I become of what differentiates one from another.
Size, feather coloring, beak shape, habitat, coloring of talons... Just knowing what details to mentally (or physically) record help a lot in identifying it later.
Still, I'm a take-a-picture-first-before-it-flies-away-while-I'm-trying-to-unpack-Sibley's kind of girl. I'll ID the bird later, at home. Or I'll let my long-suffering assistant (aka my husband Shane) do it while I'm shooting.
Nowadays, I've actually come to like birds enough that I even have a favorite group (actually a Suborder: Alcedines) - the Kingfishers. This cute little guy is an African Pygmy-Kingfisher (Ispidina picta) and I took this picture just outside our tent at Finch Hatton's Safari Camp in Tsavo National Park, Kenya.
Posted by sorsha at 10:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Grizzlies Go For Gristle
As you may have guessed by now, one of my goals in life is to get some of my photography published in National Geographic. Someday.
So as my photography has improved over time, I've come to the realizaton that a good photo alone is not going to be enough to attract the NGS's attention. No, the photo has to have something no one else has captured. Something unique. Illustrative. I was reminded of this fact earlier this week when I saw this National Geographic video of wild grizzly bears feasting on a bloated whale carcass.
Kodiak brown bears aren't sticklers for presentation when it comes to a scavenged meal. It's quantity not quality that matters here!
National Geographic Video: Bear Rubs on Dead Whale
I mean, how often do you see several tons of grizzly bears jumping up and down and rolling around on a very dead whale?
It wasn't pretty, but it was certainly unique.
Posted by sorsha at 8:24 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Egypt Revisited
My husband Shane and I visited Cairo and Giza in Egypt on our trip around the world last fall. You might remember that I posted a couple photos from our trip back in September, including a visit to The Saladin Citadel and The Great Pyramids.
Shane is now reliving his experiences on his blog, and talking about the lasting impressions of the trip. His candor often makes me chuckle, as I am reminded of his worldliness from before I met him (he had never left the time zone).
Within the Citadel, I happened across the filthiest restroom I'd ever seen. It was also probably the oldest. Scary, too, was the fact that locals were filling up their water bottles. From the looks of it, it would have been safer to fill up a water bottle from a puddle in an overcrowded cow pasture.
...
The last impression was the absolute chaos at the airport on the way out. I wrote about that before, so I won't go in to much detail now. Suffice it to say, if there had been a panic from real or a false threat, people would have died.
Read More At Shane's Blog: Egypt: In Retrospect
Reading his post on Egypt has reminded me of my own experiences in Cairo. As Americans, we were very much not welcomed, as we learned when we first arrived. We had, perhaps stupidly, not arranged for transport from the airport to Giza in advance, wanting to do things on our own. The chaos that greeted us made us very uncomfortable and we kept being followed around (get used to it). We eventually brokered a not-terribly-overpriced taxi ride to our hotel by vetting it with a third party, a woman at one of the hotel desks, who vouched for the individual offering us a ride.
Arriving at our hotel with a view of the pyramids (about a 15 minute walk if you don't believe the directions of the camel riders) we had our car bomb sweeped. Like seriously sweeped. We stopped at those moveable bomb blocking cyliders and talked to guys with guns vaguely pointed in our direction. They had dogs, they checked the trunk, they had mirrors and checked under the car. They questioned the driver, and us. Then they let us through and we went to the entryway. We didn't want to leave our bags outside, so Shane checked us in while I watched our bags (1 suitcase plus two carry-ons). The hotel staff kept saying I could go, but I just laughed and stayed. You might think we were being overly cautious. Perhaps, but we never insulted anyone and we tended to make friends instead. Also, we made it through a trip around the world and didn't lose a single thing to slippery fingers, even in some of the most common places for thievery.
When white guests and women went into the hotel, the staff didn't make them go through the metal detectors, but when anyone else did, they made them. I admit, all the bomb stuff made it both interesting and a bit nerve-racking to eat at the cafe in the lobby since the State Department told us to avoid hotel lobbies and such places. We did, for the most part, but if we had totally hid in our rooms, it would have defeated the purpose of the visit, right? Besides, the food there was awesome and we got to see an Egyptian wedding that was held there and do a lot of people watching without having a single person hit us up for something. The day we arrived in Giza, bird flu broke out there. Great! Poultry, one of the staple safe foods when properly cooked is now rather off the menu. Still, the food we had in Egypt was actually really good. Lamb became our primary meat course.
Having a working GPS was a must for us in Cairo. Whenever we got in a taxi, we were able to see whether or not we were headed in generally, the right direction. It was especially useful for the return trips, which were often hailed ourselves. We could see that the driver was following a similar route back to our hotel. We had our concierge write us little notes like "Please take us to the ABC Hotel in Giza" so we didn't have to worry about the language barrier, or even speak English in front of anyone, just work out fees on a calculator and smile and chuckle.
The Khan el-Khalili shopkeepers didn't know what to make of us. We didn't respond to English, so they'd switch to French, Spanish, German... Perhaps I should have covered my hair but I had read that only certain women did so and I did not want to misrepresent myself. Despite attaching myself to Shane in the crowds, I got the worst groping of my life there and while I can safely say the guy regretted it (I elbowed him hard in the gut), it was a bit upsetting. We left the market and went into Old Cairo where people still have careers making brass lamps and baskets. The roads are very narrow and filled with all sorts of vehicles. Here the locals are shopping, and no one bothers us, although we are almost run over on several occasions. I'll never forget the giant rotary where we finally hail a cab home - it's a swirling vortex of buses belching black smoke, honking taxi cabs, people on bikes holding the corners of cars and overloaded donkey carts.
The Citadel was fantastic, a beautiful historical monument with a view the city for miles around it. Pyramids vaguely visible through the heavy haze. We happened to be there for the afternoon prayer call which we got on video. As the sun set, a guard showed us some of the closed-off areas like the prison. We had to stay hydrated and so Shane visited the restroom. As a girl in visiting the third world, you quickly learn to pee standing up. Luckily, backpacking teaches you that, too. Still, after a very brief visit to the airport bathroom early on in the trip (frightening, I think I saw lepers) I decided I would avoid public restrooms in Egypt whenever possible. Going in meant being disconnected from Shane, which was dangerous, and was disgusting in almost all cases anyway.
As Shane described, the Cairo airport scene on our way out was beyond description. A mob scene in which we we initially thought something must be very wrong, and people were trying to leave the country en masse. Of the hundreds of people there, we were the only whites and stood out. Tour groups did not go through this but had a special other entrance. The chaos was balanced with very friendly guards. When we finally got into a line of sorts, we were surrounded by women with large groups of children and even more luggage (like contents of my first apartment). All of which stared at us openly, but wouldn't smile. The women eyed us suspiciously. At one point, a woman's cart had been pushed over by some men pushing to the front to argue with the counter staff (this happened a lot). She was older and had a baby in her arms, so I picked up her cart and righted it for her, fixing her luggage. After that, she nodded regally to me and others nearby murmured, and I felt I'd gotten a reprieve of sorts.
We were screened repeatedly for weapons. All the metal detectors everywhere were going off constantly, but no one was stopped. They just shoved through, sometimes three at a time. Same for the luggage. Finally, at the gate, we were screened again by two guards. Shane and I were wearing the EXACT same gear - our REI hiking boots, light-weight cargo pants and shirts. Yet Shane went through fine and I kept beeping. It must have been underwire. I tried emptying pockets, offered to take off my shoes. They wouldn't wand me, even though I would have been ok with it. I felt bad for making trouble for them. Finally, the guard just decided to ask me if I was carrying weapons and take my word for it.
"Are you carrying any weapons?" the guard looks amused.
"No," I smile.
"Are you carrying any bombs?" the guard laughs.
"No," I chuckle, feeling rather ridiculous.
"Ok, go on through."
And so we were off to Kenya.
Posted by sorsha at 8:04 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Chatting For Cash: Sierra Club & Others Get Your Instant Messaging Ad Revenue
Microsoft Instant Messenger (aka Windows Live™ Messenger) has started a new program with its latest version that allows chatters to apportion a percentage of the ad revenue generated by their conversations (those little ads at the bottom of the window, etc.) to a cause of their choice. All you have to do is put a space and the one of the text codes below in your Instant Messenger Display name and a part of the ad revenue from your conversations will go to the cause of your choice. The program is ongoing and each organization participating is guarateed a minimum donation of $100,000.
i’m is a new initiative from Windows Live™ Messenger. Every time you start a conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world's most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. We've set no cap on the amount we'll donate to each organization. The sky's the limit. There's no charge, so join now and put our money where your mouth is.
More At: Windows Live Messenger: The Causes: Sierra Club
So now all you have to do is choose a cause. Some great causes you could choose are:
*red+u American Red Cross
*bgca Boys & Girls Clubs of America
*naf National AIDS Fund
*mssoc National Multiple Sclerosis Society
*9mil ninemillion.org
*sierra Sierra Club
*help StopGlobalWarming.org
*komen Susan G. Komen for the Cure
*unicef The US fund for UNICEF
E.G. Display Name: Laurie *sierra
Posted by sorsha at 7:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 10, 2007
Año Nuevo: Stalked By A Harbor Seal
When the tide is out a bit, I love to walk along Cove Beach in Año Nuevo Reserve. It's a nice long stretch of probably about half a mile and I'm often the only person on it, especially early in the morning. It's become a loser beach for young male elephant seals who don't establish their dominance and set up harems, as well as young seals just learning to swim.
On more than one occasion, I've been wandering down the beach, looking up at the rocky cliffs or examining something in the sand, and not noticed a large male elephant seal hauling out of the water behind me. It's no big deal, I'm just between him and the nice spot he's picked out to lay in. I just get out of the way. Still, I've learned to keep one eye on the water as I'm walking along, just to avoid that little "EEP!" moment.
Elephant Seals aren't the only marine life around by any means. One morning I was walking along Cove Beach and I glanced out into the ocean, and I saw a little seal. I know the picture above is a bit dark, and a wet seal looks like, well, a wet seal, but this particular one had very splotched coloring and it didn't look like an elephant seal weaner.
Año Nuevo Island and the adjacent mainland beaches make up one of the most important pinniped rookery and resting areas in central and northern California... Harbor seals are much smaller and quite wary and elusive.
...
Harbor seals live on the island all year and breed there in April and May. They can often be seen bobbing in the surf just off the reserve's beaches, with only their heads out of the water. They can also be seen occasionally on offshore rocks where the mottled pattern of their coats is apparent.
More At: Año Nuevo SR: Marine Life
It was a harbor seal, a relatively young one and I was to find it was a very curious one. I looked at her (inquisitive seals are always female). Ok, so that's probably not really true, but I could not examine the seal's unmentionables and it sounded good and I hate calling the seal an "it".
So, anyway, back to my story. I looked at her and she looked right back at me. She was probably about 35 feet away. After a few long moments of eye contact, I turned and continued to walk down the beach. About a handful of steps later, I looked out to sea again. She was still there, right even with me. I was surprised. I walked further and she stayed parallel with me the whole way, never coming closer or putting any distance between us. She tracked me all the way down the beach, for at least a quarter of a mile.
The episode has stuck with me. Really, think how many times you have been followed by an animal. Specifically one that has not been domesticated or one that expects food from you. It doesn't happen very often.
Posted by sorsha at 8:28 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 5, 2007
Ele-Facts: Flexible Fins & Bendable Backbones
Despite looking rather cumbersome on land, elephant seals are quite flexible. The flexible spine and flippers of an elephant seal all it to live both on land and in the sea.
Bendable Backbones
Elephant seals are not especially agile on land, but in water, few creatures can compare. Their flexible backbones allow them to weave through the water at lightning speeds to catch prey and avoid predators.
When they haul out on beaches to mate and to molt, elephant seals haul their immense bodies across the sand using an undulating flop that requires a lot of back strength. When the big bulls fight for dominance, they stand on their front flippers and arch their backs in order to overpower each other.
In fact, an elephant seal can reach any part of its body with its front flippers and can even touch its nose to its tail. They're that flexible!
Flexible Flippers
Elephant seals have two webbed front flippers and two webbed back flippers. Their back flippers are relatively large but not as flexible as their smaller front flippers, which they can rotate and curl. Their front flippers even have nails.
Seals use their flippers for a variety of purposes. In the sea, they use their front flippers to navigate and their back flippers to propel them through the water. On land, they drag their back flippers but use their front flippers for a variety of things like:
To Move
Elephant seals drag themselves around on land, flopping along with the help of their front flippers. You'll see the alpha males use their front flippers alot to keep their heads up, vigilantly watching over their harems.
To Scratch
They've got flexible webbed digits with nails on their front flippers and with the help of their bendable spines, they can scratch anywhere!
To Flip Sand
Scientists aren't sure why the elephant seals flip sand on themselves. Perhaps to cool off, or to avoid sunburn, or because of some parasite. They do it day and night, rain or shine, young or old.
To Hold
Males will often hold the female down while they mate. They do this by biting the female's neck, laying on top of her, and holding her with their front flipper. I've also heard that dominant males may do this as a sign of protection, even going so far as to escort a female of a harem to the waterline after mating.
Posted by sorsha at 1:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 1, 2007
Critter Collectives: Crazy Terms for Animal Groups
You could call them a herd or a school, but those names are boring. Just about every kind of animal has a special name for the group. Many of these names are funky and fun, and often quite apt. So I decided to post some of my favorite animal collective terms for you along with some related pictures and blog posts here on perlgurl.org.
AN ARMY OF ANTS
A Friend For Dinner: Cannibalistic Creatures
Invasive Armies Are A Pestiferous Problem
A SHREWDNESS OF APES
Attacked By Monkeys!
My Coworkers Are Monkeys: I Knew It!
People As Primates
A TROOP OF BABOONS
Podcast: Safari South Africa
African Field Notes: The Baboon
A BATTERY OF BARACUDAS
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Barracuda?
AN OBSTINACY OF BUFFALO
African Field Notes: Cape Buffalo
Interspecies Surrogacy - From Feral Children to Tigers Suckled By Dogs
Where Will The Buffalo Roam?
A CARAVAN OF CAMELS
San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park: Camels
Great Pyramids - Giza, Egypt
A COALITION OF CHEETAHS
Podcast: Safari South Africa
African Field Notes: The Cheetah
The Asian Cheetah
He Wants To See The Cheetahs
A BAND OF COYOTES
Death Valley National Park - Fauna
Año Nuevo State Reserve: Land Critters
Año Nuevo: Scavengers
A BUSHEL OF CRABS
Maui Marine Life
A CONGREGATION OF CROCODILES
African Field Notes: The Crocodile
San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park: Crocodiles
Living With Predators - Crocs
The Crocodile Comeback?
A CONVOCATION OF EAGLES
The Reluctant Bird Buff (Avian Admirer?)
Death Valley National Park - Fauna
AN ARRAY OF EELS
Eating Eels: Am I a Foodie Freak?
Biting Back Against Invasive Species
A PARADE OF ELEPHANTS
Podcast: Safari South Africa
African Field Notes: The African Elephant
Did You Know? Elephant Bites
Little Big Things: The Discovery of the Pygmy Elephant
The Mirror Has Two Tusks
Call of the Wild?
A FLAMBOYANCE OF FLAMINGOES
San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park: Flamingoes
A GAGGLE OF GEESE
Birds As Carriers: From Avian Flu to Toxic Poop
The Mongoose: A Maui Menace
A TOWER OR JOURNEY OF GIRAFFES
Podcast: Safari South Africa
African Field Notes: The Giraffe
San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park: Giraffe Faces
San Francisco Zoo - Reticulated Giraffe
AN IMPLAUSIBILITY OF GNUS
Podcast: Safari South Africa
African Field Notes: The Wildebeest
Kenya Wildlife Highlights - The Great Wildebeest Migration
A BAND OF GORILLAS
Mountain Gorilla Habitat Under Attack...
San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park: Gorillas
King Kong's Island Illusion
Lions, Ligers & Bears - Oh My!
Recycle Your Mobile Phone: The Gorillas Will Thank You
A BLOAT OF HIPPOPOTAMI
Podcast: Episode #9: Frolicking Hippos
Podcast: Kenya Waterhole
African Field Notes: The Hippopotamus
Why Can't I Have A Pet Hippo?
San Francisco Zoo - HippoSan Francisco Zoo - Hippo
Living With Predators - Hippos
The Virunga National Park Dung Drought
A CACKLE OF HYENAS
Podcast: Safari South Africa
African Field Notes: The Spotted Hyena
Canis Africanus
A LEAP OF LEOPARDS
African Field Notes: The Leopard
San Francisco Zoo - Snow Leopard
Kenya Wildlife Highlights - Big Cats
A MOB OF MEERKATS
Millipedes As Meerkat Meals
San Francisco Zoo - Slender-Tailed Meerkat
A RAFT OF OTTERS
Special Assignment: Sea Otters
Otter Says: I Was Here First
San Francisco Zoo - North American River Otter
A PARLIAMENT OF OWLS
From Vampiric Spiders To Owl Engineering
San Francisco Zoo - Birds!
A PANDEMONIUM OF PARROTS
DO NOT TALK TO MY PARROT!!!
Caught On Camera: Stealth Logging In The Rainforest
AN OSTENTATION OR PULCHRITUDE OF PEACOCKS (PEAFOWL!)
Pleasant Pheasants: Peacocks Are A Misnomer Most Fowl
A COLONY OF PENGUINS
Podcast: Jackass Penguin Colony In South Africa
Jackass Penguin Colony - Boulders Beach, South Africa
San Francisco Zoo - Magellanic Penguin
Isolated Ecosystems: The Farallons Are California’s Galapagos
A COVEY OF QUAIL
Año Nuevo State Reserve: It's For The Birds
A RHUMBA OF RATTLESNAKES
Rodent Radiation: Squirrels Get Sassy
AN UNKINDNESS OR MURDER OF RAVENS
Resourceful Ravens
A Friend For Dinner: Cannibalistic Creatures
A CRASH OF RHINOS
Podcast: Safari South Africa
African Field Notes: The Rhinoceros
Tigers In Trouble
A SHIVER OF SHARKS
Podcast: We're Going To Need A Bigger Boat - Great White Sharks
Shark Cage Diving - Sketchy?
Great White Shark Diving - Gansbaai, South Africa
Moss Landing State Beach: Shark Attack
Great White Sharks One of Many Victims In Multi-Billion Dollar Wildlife Black Market
A SCURRY OF SQUIRRELS
Rodent Radiation: Squirrels Get Sassy
Solution to NPR's Exploding Maple Trees
AN AMBUSH OF TIGERS
Lions, Ligers & Bears - Oh My!
The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans
The Earth's Last Wildernesses
Tigers In Trouble
A TURN OF TURTLES
Hawaiian Honu: The Green Sea Turtle
The Turtle With Two Heads
New Orleans - Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve - Barataria Preserve - Turtles
Sea Turtles: Off The Hook
A COMMITTEE OF VULTURES
Podcast: Safari South Africa
California Condor Craving Coastal Carrion
The New Days Of The Condor
Año Nuevo State Reserve: It's For The Birds
A BOOGLE, GANG, OR CONFUSION OF WEASELS
Bunny Binkies & Weasel War Dancing
A ZEAL OF ZEBRAS
African Field Notes: The Zebra
Creepy Creature Camouflage
Kenya Wildlife Highlights - Spots & Stripes
Incidentally, I have yet to find a true collective name for mongooses, and so I have decided to name it myself. A group of mongoose is called a trouble, as in a trouble of mongoose or Where's the trouble?. I figure that the best way to create a new word is to use it, and to encourage its use, until it makes it into the mainstream.
MORE AT:
USGS:Animal Congregations, or What Do You Call a Group of.....?
Hints & Things: Terms for Groups of Animals, Birds and Insects
Enchanted Learning: Names of Males, Females, Babies, and Groups of Animals
Posted by sorsha at 12:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
