September 12, 2007
Wind Power Woes: A Big Blow To Bats
Drive along 580 in the San Francisco Bay area and you can't miss the mountaintop wind turbines, or windmills. One of the earliest wind farms on the planet, the Altamont Pass Wind Farm once produced half the world's wind energy. Over time, the turbines have gotten bigger and more efficient - and less harmful to the environment.
But how can wind be harmful to the environment in the first place?
My husband asked me this a few years ago and it was hard to come up with reasonable concerns and risks. Sound pollution was a concern - the smaller turbines whined like mad - and that alone could disturb people and wildlife, but since many of these wind farms are built in high wind areas (generally not where you want your house) and in fields otherwise used for farming, even that was not a huge deal, from what I could see.
I did wonder if, like any fluid system, if too many wind turbines were clumped together, if they would result in wind blocks, inevitably sending the wind around and altering weather patterns, but that seemed managable through prudent planning and implementation of wind farms.
Still, wind seemed a little bit too good to be true, and this has proven true, to some extent.
The inital smaller turbines did generate a lot of noise and people didn't want to have to look at them. Increasingly, wind farms are being built offshore and there are some concerns about windfarm noise and its effects on marine life, but as far as I know, there are no proven concerns.
On land, the wildlife implications are even more concerning. Birds and bats, especially those using the wind to aid their long migratory paths, are showing up dead beneath wind turbines in disturbing numbers.
Why should you care about bats? Because they are the birds of the night - eating bugs, spreading seeds, and sometimes even pollinating.
...recent evidence shows that certain species of bats are particularly susceptible to mortality from wind turbines. Bats are beneficial consumers of harmful insect pests, and migratory species of bats cross international and interstate boundaries.
Dead bats are turning up beneath wind turbines all over the world, but the mystery of why bats die at turbine sites remains unsolved. Is it a simple case of flying in the wrong place at the wrong time? Are bats attracted to the spinning turbine blades? Why do bats die at turbines in such large numbers? Although these questions remain unanswered, potential clues can be found in the patterns of mortality. Foremost, the majority of bats killed by wind turbines are species that migrate; in fact, peaks in mortality tend to coincide with periods of migratory activity. Bats probably follow corridors of high wind during migration, so the sites considered ideal for wind turbines, such as mountain ridges, could actually be places where bat populations funnel through while migrating.
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Only through further research will we make progress toward minimizing the impact of this new form of sustainable energy on our Nation’s wildlife.
More At: USGS: Bat Mortality and Wind Power: a problem of migration?
Now I'm not saying that wind energy should be discouraged because of its wildlife impact, just that having regulation just like any other energy production method, is essential. After all, the environmental impact of wind energy still beats out most traditional energy producers.
Posted by sorsha at 1:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 29, 2007
Bats Begone!
I thought it was a butterfly.
Ok, a really big butterfly.
Swooping around outside my kitchen window, in the middle of the afternoon.
I went closer to take a look, but it wasn't a butterfly. It was a little bat. Sneaking around the side of the house, I caught sight of it as it landed on the side of the garage and climbed under the trim. A cute little brown bat.
Living in my house, or at least on it.
Given all the other critters we keep finding since this house has been unoccupied for so long, I wasn't particularly surprised. But now I've started thinking all the little chirps and squeaks I hear in the afternoon and evening aren't birds after all. I thought hummingbird, but now I'm pretty sure its the bats.
I wasn't pleased they were living on the house, but I do like bats. They can eat hundreds of mosquitoes a hour and so I want to encourage them, just not in my house. I've read up on how to move a colony and I plan to get a bat box and train them into it instead, eventually. I need help so I have to wait for some human reenforcements.
Still, it was a cute little brown bat and I waited til that evening to share the news with Shane. He was working late so I was on Instant Messenger chatting with him about the cute little bat I saw outside when another freaking bat swooped down and buzzed me.
In my freaking kitchen.
Need I say I was surprised? I was talking about a bat and a bat appeared in my living room/kitchen. Flapping in circles over my head.
It was upset. Confused.
I was also upset. Upset enough to smash the keyboard with a few bat-oriented freakout terms to Shane and then I high-tailed it up into the safety of my bedroom to call him.
To make him google how I get a bat out of my living room. I called my dad but he just laughed at me for having all these wildlife issues.
Once I felt ready, I put on my armour. Long sleeve hoody, work gloves. Shoes. Jeans. Hat. I got the broom, which of course was not very long. More like a dust mop. I closed all the room doors I could to keep it contained, opened the outside doors and windows. Unfortunately, our entire downstairs is basically one big room. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out where the bat was, on the wall in the corner of the room. I tried to sweep it up and it took a few tries before it started flying around the room again, ignoring the exits I tried to keep open for it. Instead, it landed on the brick wall on the other side of the room. One thing Shane did find out online is that when they are flying around, its best to stand in a corner. This definately helped, since I could generally see where it was most of the time. I went over to it again, and swept it into the air. As it buzzed me again, I ducked, and when came back up, it was gone.
Unfortunately, I don't think it left. It was nowhere near a door.
Which means its still here.
Two days later, I am still walking around carefully, talking to the stupid little brown bat. Scrutinizing every knot, every burl in my wood paneling, I am careful before I turn on the ceiling fans I rely on to keep me comfortable here. I am considering taking everything out of the pantry to see if its in there.
My mother says I'm going to find a dead bat in a couple of days, but I don't have cats or anything. What I want is to see a bat-sized chew-hole in one of my screens, because I am not going to leave the windows open continually in case. I will only get more bats.
Because its baby bat season, you see. Late august is when all the babies born during the summer start learning to fly. And they get lost. Confused. They end up in houses.
They end up in my living room.
I see now I made a mistake trying to get it to fly around and find its own way out. It totally let me approach it. I should have just put a box over it and taken it outside myself. I was just a little too freaked at the time. It was a cute little bat, I just hadn't been expecting it in my living room.
BTW, the bat in the picture was not my bat. That's a zoo bat I took a picture of. My bat is tiny, a little brown bat, that looks like a little fuzzy brown mouse with wings. Sorry I didn't have time to take its picture while I was trying to chase it out of the house.
Posted by sorsha at 3:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 23, 2007
A Week Of Wildlife - Wherever You Are
We wanted to move to the country to be closer to the wildlife. However, I've been so busy working on painting and flooring and weeding that I haven't been able to give as much time to tracking down the local wildlife.
Luckily, it comes to me.
For the first few weeks, I didn't seem to encounter anything here. Whether I was too tired from all the housework to notice or perhaps residing in an house long-vacant, I had scared away the local critters. Regardless, I saw very little outside the house during the initial days despite being in the woods.
However, there has been a change this week. Every critter seems to be out and about lately. So I decided to play a little game with myself and keep track of all wildlife sightings for this week. No matter where you are - city or country - you can do this, too. I'd be very curious to see what your lists look like so please post them below if you get the chance! The more you look, the more you'll see. Trust me.
Laurie's Wildlife Listing for the Week of August 16th-23rd in New Hampshire, and mostly in the yard. It all started with...
- A Stripped Skunk - Running across the road towards Wal-Mart (big surprise)
- A Flock of Ten Blue Jays - Flew into the yard today. Hung out for a bit.
- A Black Bear - Sniffing around the side yard at 5 am. I happened to be up.
- A Flock of Wild Turkeys - tromped through the yard. Really homely birds.
- Numerous Woodhouse's Toads - All over the garden. Don't tell Shannon.
- An Eastern Chipmunk - We have a resident one living on a garden rock.
- Various Red Squirrels - Around, but no longer living in our attic.
- Numerous Northern Ravens - All over the local roads
- A White-Tailed Deer with Twin Fawns - Sighted on a local road
- Several Turkey vultures - On the local roads
- The backsides of several unidentified duck species - Drove by pond
- A hunting heron - Driving by a bog, didn't stop to identify it
- Numerous American Beaver Dams - Nearby bog, was looking for moose...
- Various bugs including caterpillars, beetles, bees and ants. One ladybug. One locust. Various monarch butterflies in the garden.
I wish I could say I saw a moose this week. Unfortunately, I didn't. However, my dad did when he was driving to my house, so that sortof counts. It was a young, ungangly one with no antlers yet.
Anyway, that's my list. What's yours?
Posted by sorsha at 8:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 7, 2007
Critter Cake
We celebrated my 30th birthday on Cinco de Mayo this past weekend. I decided to try my hand at cake decorating, and of course I wanted something ridiculously advanced - an Amazing Amazon Cake. I know this has little to do with wildlife photography, but this is my blog, so I'm posting about my cake. It's also the reason I haven't posted here all week. It took that long to make the cake!
Inside the Cake
The filling was a moist carrot cake from Mich Turner's cake book Spectacular Cakes. It was made from mostly organic ingredients including coconut, walnuts, carrots, rum-soaked golden raisins, orange and lemon juice, flour and sugar. I got the recipe from a cake cookbook - the recipe was once used for Pierce Brosnan's wedding cake. Then the cake was split and frosted with a layer of orange buttercream frosting, covered with home-made marzipan to seal it for freshness and frosted again with orange buttercream.
Decorating the Cake
After that, I had to decorate the cake. With my short attention span, I knew I had to break up the work over a couple of days or I would start getting lazy and sloppy. Even tackling it this way, it was a lot of work each day. So after reviewing everything I needed to do, I planned my individual tasks:
Day 1: Buy remaining fresh ingredients
Day 2: Weigh fondant (sugar dough), flavor and color portions, ziplock
Day 3: Bake cakes, Cool, split and ice layers in orange buttercream
Day 4: Make marzipan, cover cakes, allow day to set. Sculpt animals
Day 5: Ice w/buttercream, assemble cake. Photos. Eat cake.
Sculpting the animals, including the elephant, lion, tiger, zebra and monkey (arguably a bear), took several hours alone. Each was about 5 inches high. We modified the plans to include tusks on the elephant and various other little touches. The fondant sugar paste is edible, but not very tasty. The only person interested in eating one was our young elementary school friend Jarod, who claimed the monkey.
Eating the Cake
This cake tasted nothing like a store-bought carrot cake. It was built more like a fruit cake, but since I hate fruitcake, its hard to explain why it was good. It was very moist from the citrus syrup you pour on it after you cook the cake, and then sealing it with marzipan. All the flavors - the cake, the syrup, the marzipan and the icing all mingled so well together, you didn't need to serve it with ice cream, etc. The cake recipe is for a wedding-like cake, and it looked and tasted like one.
Yum!
Posted by sorsha at 3:51 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 30, 2007
Gripes About Stripes: Stripes Do Not A Tiger Make...
How Many Prongs Does A Fork Have?
Most people, when asked, will not hesitate to say four. I, on the other hand, want more information.
What kind of fork are we talking about here? A tuning fork, for example, has two prongs, whereas my mother has cocktail forks with three prongs, and dinner forks with four. I've never seen a 5-prong fork, but with the wonders of the world wide web I find that there is a five-prong manure fork for cleaning out farm stalls. I won't be forgetting about this use case anytime soon.
I have always valued this quirk of how my brain works. It makes for interesting conversations and, I like to think, has made me more receptive to change. I am less likely to believe that there is only one "single" answer, the only correct one. Lucky for me, I also learned early to tune my answers to what the poser of the question wants to hear - a lesson that allowed me to do well on standardized tests and such, despite thinking that many of the questions were foolishly narrow.
When I am the one posing the questions, I am often greatly dismayed by the lack of creativity shown in the answers. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, assuming they know of the other possible answers, but choose the one most likely to appease. However, when I follow up with asking for additional answers, what I get are blank looks.
So, what does this have to do with animals? Well, several times in the past few months, I've had frustrating conversations with people about animals.
I was sitting in a fabric store the other day when a fellow patron came up to me with a giant bolt of black and white striped fake fur.
"Do you think this looks like tiger fur?" she asks.
The fur is clearly meant to be zebra. It even says Zebra on it. I think to myself, well, it could be a white tiger, the cross-breed made famous by Siegfried & Roy, but I ask what it's for.
"My daughter's going to be a tiger in the school play," the mother says.
Now I know I cannot recommend this zebra fabric to this woman. It has to be stereotypical tiger stripes or the audience will be confused...Unless the audience is truly unaware of what a tiger looks like. Yes, it sounds unlikely, but then two other recent discussions pop into my head.
The other day, I was down watching the sea otters again when a family including three children (~13, ~10 and ~8 yrs old, with their mother) walk up to one of the otters sleeping on the beach. I'm sitting there glaring at them and shaking my head as they approach, but they ignore me. After scaring the otter back into the water by shouting at it and trying to touch it, they walk back by me (now rather pissed off) and my husband and I catch their conversation. They thought the otter was a seal. A seal??? How one can mistake a fluffed up otter for a seal, I don't know, but all four of them thought that's what it was. I kept hoping the nearby ranger would bust them, but she didn't. I had foolishly expected the mother to keep her kids in line, and by then it was too late to intervene.
Another friend, a mother of two young children, often looks at my pictures. Recently she told me that she loves my tiger pictures and mentioned how cute the tiger cubs are. I start racking my brain, when did I put up any tiger cub pictures? I don't think I have posted any of those recently... only to realize she's talking about my African lion shots from Kenya. The first time I corrected her, I felt like a hypocrite, telling her that the easy way to tell was that lions don't have spots or stripes and tigers have spots. Cheetahs and leopards have spots. Something easy so she learns a bit about telling big cats apart. I would have forgiven her for confusing leopards and cheetah, but lions and tigers? Even with habitats a continent apart, people still get confused??
Sometimes, these mistakes are charming. I get a little chuckle from the grade school kids who write me about where to find out more about the tusks of the elephant seals and such. Other times, like the otter-seal incident, I am shocked. Still, I'm cannot help but think to myself: young lions DO have spots and stripes. They fade as they grow to adulthood.
Posted by sorsha at 4:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 16, 2007
Limb-Loving Lizards: Crocodile Bites Off Hand But...
I was browsing through National Geographics week in pictures over the weekend when I suddenly stopped and my jaw dropped. Behind me, my husband stopped talking and started gawking at my screen.
The amazing picture of a big crocodile with a bloody fist in its mouth looked surreal. It took me a good few seconds of staring at it before my husband nudged me to look at the follow-up picture of the smiling vet waving at the camera after his hand was reattached hours later.
Veterinarian Chang Po-yu was reaching through iron bars to remove tranquilizer darts before treating the 440-pound (200-kilogram) reptile when the inadequately sedated animal bit the vet's forearm off.
But for the vet, it wasn't quite a farewell to arm.
After being shot at twice, but apparently unhit, the croc dropped the arm. After seven hours of surgery, doctors successfully reattached the appendage...
More At: National Geographic Week In Photos: Croc Bites Off Hand
That's some amazing surgery. I hope they meant shot with a tranq, not killed, but somehow I doubt it.
Find out more about Nile Crocodiles in our African Field Notes.
Posted by sorsha at 10:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Grass Guzzlers: White Rhinos For Sale
Your average cow might need about 25lbs of grass per day to eat, while a white rhino needs more like 100lb of grazing material daily. This translates to about 23 acres of bermuda grass to feed a single rhino for a year. Hippos also eat about 100lbs of grass per evening.
Clearly quite a bit larger than my backyard, bummer. There goes my idea of getting a pet hippo or a pet rhino. Still, zoos and game farms buy excess wildlife from parks like the South Africa's Kruger National Park each year. This legitimate wildlife trade keeps parks from becoming overpopulated and overgrazed, as well as enhancing the genetic diversity and range of species.
South African National Parks is selling as many as 100 white rhinoceroses from Kruger National Park to the general public. The rhinos will cost from $9,000 to $37,000 each, depending on sex. Females are most expensive and are sold with their young so as not to separate mother and calf.
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There are an estimated 13,000 white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) in South Africa, where they are endemic. Kruger is home to as many as 7,000 of the endangered herbivores, accounting for roughly half of the worldwide population. Sales of various animal species, including elephants, antelope, and buffalo, generated about $1 million for SANParks last year.
More At: National Geographic News: Your Own Pet Rhinoceros?
You can find out more about African rhinos in our African Field Notes.
Posted by sorsha at 4:58 PM | Comments (6) | 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
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
May 2, 2006
Hawaii: The Cat Conundrum
On our recent trip to Maui, Hawaii, Shane and I hiked up to 'Iao Needle in 'Iao Valley State Park. It was really more of a walk up a couple flights of stairs (133 steps) than a hike, but it was quite pretty. Still, it took longer to find a parking spot than it did to climb to the top of the trail and view the needle, a natural rock pinnacle standing 2,250-feet tall, surrounded by the walls of the Pu'u Kukui Crater.
Long ago, the 'Iao Needle was called by its traditional name, Kuka'emoku. The peak is known as the phallic stone of Kanaloa, the Hawaiian god of the ocean. During the late 15th century, the valley became a burial area for the rulers of Maui and O‘ahu. The remains of the chiefs were buried in secret hiding places within the valley. Later, the high peak, which has a view of Kahului harbor, was used by warriors as a lookout point.
During the Battle of Kepaniwai in 1790, Maui warriors retreated from the forces of King Kamehameha I. Kamehameha defeated King Kalanikupule and conquered the Maui army in order to unify the Hawaiian Islands. The battle was said to be so bloody that dead bodies blocked the 'Iao Stream, damming it.
After a nice picnic on the rocks above 'Iao Stream (it was nice and clear now), we were checking out the Hawaiian gardens of taro, mango, papaya, and bananas when we saw a cute little tabby cat hunting in the lush undergrowth. I pointed it out and said I thought it was a feral cat. Shane said it was probably a house cat from a nearby house. We got sidetracked checking out a bright yellow spider and promptly forgot about the cat until we headed back to parking lot.
There I noticed about nine cats were just laying on the grass, watching the parking lot. Later we even saw a cat hanging out with a pair of feral fowl. Evidently, feral cats are a serious problem in the Hawaiian Islands. According to this map of Alien Species, feral cats have invaded every major island.
Domestic cats where probably introduced back in the 1700's when ships first began arriving on the islands. Cats were often kept onboard to keep the rats under control. Once on the islands, cats thrived, feeding on the many bird species of the islands. According to the Hawaii Cat Foundation, free roaming cats are incredibly prolific. A single female can have up to 18 kittens a year. Feral kittens have a high mortality rate, but those that survive can reproduce from as young as four months of age. In other words, they reproduce like rabbits!
Today, feral cats are one of the major threats to endangered bird species of the Hawaiian Islands, second only to the Indian Mongoose.
The federally endangered Palila, a Hawaiian honeycreeper, is threatened by feral cats in their protected, but limited habitat of mamane and mamane-naio forest on Mauna Kea. Biologists have been monitoring the Palila population for years and have found that since 1998, 8 to 11 percent of monitored Palila nests were depredated annually by cats. Cat predation inhibits efforts to restore the Palila population.
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The 'Alala or Hawaiian Crow, is highly endangered. Endemic to the island of Hawaii, this crow was once abundant in the lower forests on the western and southern sides of the island. However, by the early 1990's, 'Alala could only be found in the Kona Forest Unit of Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge. By October 1999, there were only three individuals left in the wild. A captive-breeding program was started in the 1970s, and by 1998, 24 birds had been released. However, 18 died and the rest were recaptured to protect them and preserve genetic diversity.
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The following federally threatened and endangered native birds in Hawaii are also known to be preyed on by domestic cats: Hawai'i Creeper, Hawaiian Dark-rumped Petrel, Hawaiian Duck, Hawaiian Goose, Hawaiian Hawk, Hawaiian Stilt, Newell's Shearwater, Nuku pu'u, Large Kaua'i Thrush, and Small Kaua'i Thrush.
More At: American Bird Conservancy: Domestic Cat Predation In Hawaii
How to solve the cat conundrum is an ongoing debate. Some feel that the cat is not a native species and trapped feral cats should therefore be euthanized. Others feel that managed cat colonies of cats that are trapped, neutered and released (TNR programs) are more humane.
While TNR programs work well in the continental United States, they don't work particularly well in the Hawaiian Islands where so many endangered bird species live. Neutered cats still kill native wildlife.
Managed cat colonies are fed outdoors, attracting more cats, as well as rats and other predators, resulting in public health threats due to disease. Domestic cats can be disease vectors, from rabies to cat-scratch fever. They also carry parasites like toxoplasmosis, roundworm, and hookworm. In 2001, a woman walking her dog was attacked by a pack of feral cats in Honolulu and the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus children's center had to shut down temporarily to deal with an outbreak of fleas from a nearby feral cat colony.
Check out our Maui, Hawaii podcast - a video program that highlights this beautiful place!
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April 1, 2006
Flora & Fauna For Fools
Ahh, April Fool's Day, a favorite of pranksters and children alike. I cannot tell you how upset I was to find that Desktop USB Fondue Set was vaporware.
I thought this year, instead of tricking you, I'd share some nature-related April Fool's hoaxes throughout history. Some of these are beyond anything reasonable, but others are amusing in that they may actually come true some day. Either way, I hope you enjoy!
A Vermonter's Nightmare: The Exploding Maple Trees (2005)
NPR's All Things Considered followed how the declining maple syrup industry of the North East had lead to untapped maples exploding from an excess of sap. They had a great interview with a farmer and Vermonters got a good laugh at the nation's expense. As a former Norwich, VT, resident myself, I found it all greatly amusing. You can listen to it here.
Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer (1995)
Discover Magazine reported on a new Antarctic species called the Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer. A bony growth on its head, fed by blood vessels, allowed the animal to melt holes in the ice in order to hunt for prey, like penguins. Supposedly, the magazine received more mail about this article than any other in their history.
Mountus Eruptus: Mount Edgecumbe (1974)
The residents of Sitka, Alaska were used to living along the Ring of Fire, but they had been under the impression that their particular volcano, Mount Edgecumbe, was a dormant one. However chaos ensued when they woke up to black smoke billowing from it's cone. The town clown, a Mr. Porky Bickar, was later found burning tires up on the summit.
Tender But Juicy: Whistling Carrots (2002)
Tesco, a Brit supermarket, published an advert for the genetically enhanced whistling carrot. The carrots had natural airholes, which caused the veggie to whistle when they were properly cooked.
Swarms and Swarms of Em! (1949 & 1994)
No one likes bug storms, after all. Back in 1949, a New Zealand DJ announced that a huge mile-wide swarm of wasps was approaching. He urged listeners to protect themselves by wearing their socks over their trousers to leave honey traps outside their doors. Hundreds of people dutifully heeded his advice. About 45 years later, in 1994, Arizona residents woke to find bright fliers posted around town warning of "Operation Killer Bees" and the aerial spraying later that day to eradicate a killer bee population. On the bottom of the flier the name of the sponsoring agency: Arizona Pest Removal Information Line (For Outside Operations Listings), the acronym being "April Fool", but few people noticed.
The Michigan Freshwater Shark Experiment (1981)
The Herald News reported that a government study of fresh-water sharks was underway in three nearby lakes. Two thousand sharks, including blues, hammerheads and a few great whites, had been released into the lakes for the study despite safety concerns of local public officials.The fish were also to be protected, and fishermen could not catch them.
Don't Disturb the Squirrels (1993)
A German radio station Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), Europe’s biggest broadcaster, reported that Cologne passed a new city regulation requiring park joggers to run no faster than 6 mph in order to avoid disturbing the mating squirrels.
Tasmanian Mock Walrus or TMW (1984)
Floridian pet owners were featured in the Orlando Sentinel hoax about the Tasmanian Mock Walrus, TMW for short. The cute little four inch long mini-walrus purred like a cat and had the cuddly temperment of a hamster. Even better, it was easily house-trainable and liked to eat cockroaches - a serious problem in Florida. The clincher was that while several TMW's had been smuggled into the country, local exterminators were pressuring the government not to allow the animal for fear of losing profits. This caused quite a few people to search out their own TMW before it was too late. The picture was actually that of a naked mole rat.
Surrogate Mother Elephants for Woolly Mammoths (1984)
The Technology Review reported the efforts of some Soviet scientists attempting to bring back the woolly mammoth from the ice age by inserting its DNA into elephant cells. The cells were then placed in elephant mothers. Interestingly, this might actually happen someday, since according to the February 9th, 2006 edition of Nature, the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Mammuthus primagenius has been determined.
White Lions Need Washing More Often (1860)
In late March, Londoners began receiving invitations to view the annual washing of the White Lions at the Tower of London. In centuries past, the Tower had housed the Royal Menagerie. The crowd gathered at the White Gate at the appropriate time, but nothing ever happened and so people slunk away. This particular joke was a long-standing one often played on unsuspecting visitors to the cit, even so far back as the late 1600's!
Dino-Dragons: Smaugia Volans (1998)
Nature Magazine reported the discovery of "a near-complete skeleton of a theropod dinosaur in North Dakota." The newly discovered dinosaur, aptly named Smaugia volans, was special because researchers believed the dinosaur could have flown. Smaug was the name of the dragon in JJR Tolkein's The Hobbit.
PETA's Tournament of Sleeping Fish (2000)
Even the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has a sense of humor. PETA warned that would sabotage the bass fishing tournament in East Texas's Lake Palestine by putting tranquilizers in the lake before event, thus putting the fish to sleep.In their words, "this year, the fish will be napping, not nibbling." The feds took this threat seriously and dispatched a number of rangers to guard the fishes.
And Going and Going: Viagra for Hamsters (2000)
The Independent reported that a Viagra-like pill called Feralmone had been designed to treat sexually frustrated pets, including hamsters, since there are few things as sad as a pet suffering from feelings of sexual inadequacy sitting idly in its cage. Hamster owners were instructed to sprinkle the drug into pet food and also advised them to lay down some newsprint on the floor of the cage for once the pills began to take effect.
You can read about quite a few of these hoaxes and others at the Museum of Hoaxes: The Top 100 April Fools Day Hoaxes of All Time.
Posted by sorsha at 9:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 14, 2006
Want a Bunny? Buy the Chocolate Kind
Brace yourselves, it's time for my annual Don't Buy A Rabbit For Your Kid speech.
Many people buy cute little baby bunnies on Easter, and it's hard to not do so... they are precious. But you've got to know what you're getting into: a healthy bunny can live almost as long as a dog or cat. You'll still have vet bills, you'll still have to clean up after them, and their care and feeding frankly, isn't much cheaper than any other pet. And if you only have one rabbit, you need to socialize it and give it a lot of love and care. And if you don't spend time with your rabbit, then it won't be a good companion to your family. It will likely be terrified of you, and nip and defend itself when bothered. Rabbits aren't dumb - they are, in fact, very smart. They can be house-trained and have very distinct personalities.
I got my first pet rabbit when I was 2 years old - as an Easter present. In fact, I named it Easter Bunny. It was just a little white bunny when I first got it, but it grew and grew until it was so big, I couldn't hold it. Not that I wanted to, it had a tendency to nip and bite and I was terrified of the thing. When my mother would clean its cage, I was responsible for sitting on top of the overturned laundry basket under which Easter Bunny sat. And I would cry and cry, thinking it would bite me, until my mother finished. Easter Bunny lived with us in Switzerland until we moved back to the States. It was given to my kindergarten class back in Zürich and I remember little else. My family didn't dare get another pet until almost 5 years later - this time it was a puppy.
I did not have another pet rabbit until I was done with college. My fiance and I had thought we'd adopt a kitten, but when we went to the shelter, they had rabbits instead. We picked out a mated pair (all our rabbits get fixed, there are more than enough baby rabbits in the world). They had been abused, but they were in a loving foster home and we liked the idea of two rabbits keeping each other company. Matched pairs live longer, happier lives. They take care of each other. Although they showed a bit of aggression from their prior circumstances, we were adults and decided we wanted them. We named them Bit and Nibble and bought all the House Rabbit handbooks we could find. The shelter showed us how to clip their nails and we took them home. We've spoiled them ever since. It's now been many years since either has nipped one of us and they are now almost 12 years old. You can check out some pictures of our various pet rabbits: Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere! and HOW-TO: Photographing Your Pet Indoors.
There was even a time, when they were younger, that they would hop up into bed with us early in the morning. Bit liked to jump over her baby-fence and come into our room and jump onto our sleeping bodies for some petting. But she'd do this at like 4am, and we'd jump up in bed, startled. She'd then get freaked and leap down off the bed, run down the hall, and we'd hear the crashing as she jumped back into her cage in her bedroom. (Yes, our rabbits have their own room). So we had to stop that, since we were afraid somebody was going to end up hurt.
A pet rabbit is a big responsibility, and don't be fooled by the fact that rabbits are quiet. Rabbits are the ultimate quiet sufferer. You need to pay special attention to make sure you don't miss the subtle signals they give you when something is wrong. Over the years, we've taken in other rabbits who needed special care, often stolen from their mothers before they were weaned, because they were the right size to sell for Easter baskets. Others were the leavings after the Easter season, when no one wanted a rabbit anymore, certainly not an adolescent who was tortured in the pet store but never bought, and ended up aggressive.
Rabbits are not good pets for kids. They need a lot of attention and you need to be always gentle with them. They also like quiet. So if your kid wants a rabbit, get a stuffed one, or a chocolate one. Or go to a petting zoo.
Many of the Easter rabbits given as pets end up abandoned. These rabbits are not wild, and they will often die. Those that don't end up feral, causing all sorts of problems in county parks and the like. Several years ago, a band of feral pet rabbits terrorized the gardens of upscale Los Gatos, California. Seattle's Woodland Park has to do an annual rabbit-catch in order to keep the rabbit-related problems in the park from escalating - property damage has been significant and native species are being pushed out.
Find out more about not owning a rabbit at “Make Mine Chocolate!™”, a campaign to educate the public about the responsibilities of owning a rabbit, in hopes that it will result in fewer cases of mistreatment and abandonment. If you're still set on having a real live rabbit, then I highly recommend the House Rabbit Society, a publically supported non-profit organization dedicated to all things rabbity and the best online rabbit website around.
Posted by sorsha at 2:01 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 11, 2006
Cryptids or Circus Critters?
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Mistaken Identity? |
Let's take a moment to thank the franciscan friar William of Ockham (c. 1285–1349) for the following six little Latin words:
Numquam ponenda est pluritas sine necessitate.
In English, it's basically means don't include unnecessary stuff in an explanation. In the world, it's known as the principle of Occam's Razor - the simplest explanation is usually the right one.
So when palentologist Neil Clark noted some striking similarities between a swimming elephant and the infamous Surgeon's photography of the Loch Ness Monster, he began to look deeper. Could this lake legacy really be no more than a circus critter taking a dip? Why not, since his theory seems to explain things pretty well to me.
Paleontologist and painter Neil Clark says the monster was perhaps a paddling pachyderm.
Clark noticed similarities in the hump-and-trunk silhouettes of swimming Indian elephants and the serpentine shapes of 1930s Nessie descriptions and photographs...
Why would an elephant be swimming in a chilly Scottish lake? "The reason why we see elephants in Loch Ness is that circuses used to go along the road to Inverness and have a little rest at the side of the loch and allow the animals to go and have a little swim around," Clark told CBS News.
And there's one more wrinkle in this elephantine mystery. In 1933 a circus promoter in the area—acting perhaps on inside information that the monster was really a big top beast—offered a rich reward for Nessie's capture...
Compare Clark's painting and the Famous Loch Ness Photography at: National Geographic News: Loch Ness Monster Was an Elephant?
Wikipedia has a great list of Notable cryptids, broken down by primates, sea creatures, reptiles and those of questionable classification. It even covers the specific regions, like lakes and mountain ranges, where these supposed critters lurk.
And FYI, the picture above isn't even an elephant. It's an elephant seal.
Posted by sorsha at 6:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 10, 2006
Coevolution: Let's Mutate Together
Biologically speaking, evolution is the process by genetic variations or mutations in individuals become dominant through natural selection, thereby passing those traits to future generations and ultimately resulting in the development of new species. But while many people see evolutionary change as something that takes thousands, millions or billions of years, we often forget that, in reality, change is happening constantly.
When I think of evolution and the genetic mutations, I often envision the process as completely random. Some little bit in the genes gets flipped and if the resulting trait works and helps the host live, then the trait is likely to stick around. If not, the host has no added advantage and therefore its mutation is not likely to stick around. But what is interesting is that while the biochemistry of genetic mutation may very well be random, the selection of advantageous traits is anything but random. Put another way, the how is random (new traits through chance and mutation), but the what (those smart traits that survive) are not random at all.
One should also consider that evolutionary traits compound by nature over time. Once a trait exists, its fair game for further mutations in the future. For example, coloring might become less subtle or venom might become more potent over successive iterations of genetic mutation.
For example, let's look at snow hares - you know, the ones that are brown in summer months and white in the winter? This trait is considered an adaptation for camouflage against predators. Now, it's not outside the realm of possibility that some very fortunate brown hare just happened to get some weird mutation that made her brown in summer and white in winter, all in one go. Perhaps she wasn't eaten and made lots of baby bunnies just like her, solidifiying her trait in future generations. I'm sure that this kind of extreme mutation has happened, but how likely is it, really? Instead, what if the mutation was just a subtle lightening in color in winter, which helped the hare survive. Now the "lighter fur in winter" trait exists... and future cycles of mutation may adjust it as needed. As the hare's prey become accustomed to the coloring change (perhaps by their own mutations for better eyesight or whatever), the hare in turn must adapt again, perhaps its fur lightens further to help it blend in to its environment.
Two species interacting in this fashion, causing mutual evolutionary changes, is called co-evolution. The two species put selective pressures on the other, thereby affecting each others' evolution. One great example of this was covered in an article in Spring 2006's UC Santa Cruz Review Magazine:
In the creeks and woodlands around San Francisco Bay, garter snakes and newts are engaged in a biological arms race—the snakes eat newts, the newts produce a potent neurotoxin in their skin, the snakes evolve resistance to the toxin, the newts evolve to produce more toxin, and so on. While the newts still fall prey to toxin-resistant snakes, even a resistant garter snake may be incapacitated for hours after eating a highly toxic newt.
This situation has evolved over time as a result of “tit for tat” evolutionary changes driven by natural selection—a classic example of the coevolution of two interacting species.
Coevolution shapes all kinds of interactions between species—not only the antagonistic interactions of predators and prey or parasites and their hosts, but also mutually beneficial partnerships like those of flowering plants and their pollinators. In fact, most plants and animals depend on coevolved interactions with other species in order to survive, says John Thompson, an internationally recognized authority on the subject.
“Much of evolution turns out to be coevolution, and ecological communities are based on these deeply coevolved relationships between species,” says Thompson, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz.
More At: UCSC Review: Coevolution by Tim Stephens.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that coevolution happens at a very local level and can happen over a surprisingly short period of time. Individual populations of the same overall species may coevolve into totally different ways. This is interesting when you start to consider how many similar living things exist which are somewhat genetically different, but all came from the same root species. It helps explain why, at a certain point, some mammals entered the water, while others developed more efficient land abilities. These traits could have occured as a result of the same species, living in different pockets of the world and interacting with different predators, prey and other living things.
But this kind of thinking also has serious ramifications when one considers conservation concerns. It seems like when we going about our conservation, we often set aside a single solitary area for the perpetuation of that species. We fence it off and try to keep it as pristine as possible. We might even ship in other populations to this sanctuary. But this subtle but constant evolutionary process is not often taken into account - after all, a grizzly bear is a grizzly bear, regardless of where it was born. They're more or less interchangable within their own species, right? But if you consider that coevolution makes a species more finely tuned for its very specific environment, we could be weakening the genetic strength of the overall species more than we know.
Here's an example of how things might go awry. Yes, it is a hypothetical one. Let's take the orca or killer whale. I've written about the orcas in the past, as they have recently been added to the Endangered Species Listing. If you were to take a resident killer whale and stick him in with a bunch of transient killer whales, you likely wouldn't get very positive results. Despite being the same species, these guys look, act, speak, and eat completely differently. It wouldn't even surprise me if the transients ate the resident killer whale. Not the kind of thing you'd like to see happen with an endangered species.
But it's these kinds of problems you can encounter when you do not take the subtlies of these genetically different populations into account. This could also help explain why relocation of species is often a very high risk enterprise. You might think you're giving the species exactly what it needs to survive, but without taking into account the minute differences in environment, the subject might not be capable of adjusting sufficiently. Research into species must also to take into account diverse populations in order to understand its mysteries.
Posted by sorsha at 5:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 23, 2006
Año Nuevo: A Wildlife Preserve
Less than 60 miles from the seven million people living in the Bay area (and 26.66 miles from my house according to MapQuest) lay a relatively untouched nature preserve on a rocky point overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When Spanish explorers first sailed by in 1603, they named the area Punta de Año Nuevo (New Year's Point).
More than four hundred years later, the point looks much as it did. It has, however, changed hands several times over the course of history.
At the time the Spanish sailed by, the Ohlone Indians lived on the sand dunes. Even today you can see middens, which are mounds of shells, animal bones, and other refuse that indicates the site of a human settlement. They are also believed to contain the remains of the Indians themselves. Later the area became pastureland and finally a private ranch and dairy farm.
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Pigeon Point Lighthouse |
Several ships wrecked on the foggy coast north of Santa Cruz, causing the feds to install a lighthouse at Pigeon Point, and a light tower to be built on the rocks at Año Nuevo Point. Over the years, the sand dunes have blown back into the ocean, disconnecting the light tower from the mainland and forming and island. Less than a hundred years ago, you could walk out to the point at low tide, but now the island is completely disconnected. However in 1948, the house and light tower on the point was replaced by an automatic buoy. Nowadays maritime traffic can avoid the point and shallows using GPS navigation, but even today foolish sailing vessels occasionally venture into the shallows and flounder.
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Great White Shark |
And it's a very bad spot to wreck a ship. The area from Ano Nuevo north to Point Reyes and then out to the Farallon Islands 27 miles offshore forms a region called the Red Triangle. Every year, countless marine mammal species come here to breed and have their young. This activity attracts lots of great white sharks and more attacks occur in this region than anywhere else in the world. The title Red Triangle is a rather gruesome one, likely originating from the blood slicks that often make the ocean run red after a shark attack. And right smack in the middle of this triangle is...? You guessed it! Año Nuevo Point.
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Nature Trail |
Elephant seals, a favorite snack of the great white shark, first appeared at Año Nuevo Island in the 1950's. The first pup was born on the island in 1961, and then in 1975 on the mainland sand dunes.
In 1971, the state bought the ranch. These days the old ranch house, dairy and other historic buildings at Año Nuevo have been restored. The largest barn has become a Visitor Center with a museum showcasing the wildlife, geology, botany, and natural history of the point.
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Northern Elephant Seal Rookery |
Today Año Nuevo State Reserve is a relatively untouched corner of California, protected by the state. It is home to many marine creatures and plants, not to mention the hundreds of species of raptors, shorebirds, and other mainland critters. But what really draws the visitors is the fact that Año Nuevo is now the largest mainland breeding colony in the world for the northern elephant seals.
Check out our Año Nuevo Elephant Seal podcast - a video that features this location!
Posted by sorsha at 1:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
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We roadtripped around Japan a couple of years ago, and spent some time in the Nikko area, where the shrine with the three See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys live. We had stopped at Kegon Falls.... Read More Here
New Monkeys!
New species are just appearing left and right! First there was the new rodent species found in the Southeast Asia market. Now Science has covered the discovery of a previously unknown species of primate. Again, this is another case of... Read More Here
ROUT - Rodents of Unusual Taste?
It's always refreshing and amusing when you hear stories that reenforce how people were pragmatic long before they became analytical and scientific - and really, they still are. So what happens when a bunch of brainy biologists go shopping in... Read More Here
Solution to NPR's Exploding Maple Trees
Today's top story on NPR's All Things Considered followed how the declining maple syrup industry of the North East had lead to untapped maples exploding from an excess of sap. I would like to put forth a solution to this... Read More Here