August 27, 2008
Close Encounter With Bighorn
Close Encounter With Bighorn, originally uploaded by perlgurl.org.
What is it with us and wildlife encounters? Here's another lesson in what NOT to do...
So, we're in Jasper National Park, in the Canadian Rockies, along a major highway. This was our third sighting of a herd of bighorn for the evening and by the time we spotted them, there were way too many people clustered around them.
We parked our open-topped miata a ways down the road in order to avoid boxing the herd in and bothering them. No one else seemed to care that the bighorn is very easily bothered by close proximity to people.
Further, we cut the car engine and set up to take a few pictures. We have nice, long lenses, we don't need to get close. Apparantly, we are non-threatening, because about 10 bighorn proceeded to trot right down the road and surround our convertible.
We were way too close.
They were way too close.
In a very short time, we were on display, and cars were surrounding US, too.
We didn't want to startle the bighorn herd by starting the car, so we stayed still and talked quietly.
They didn't leave. In fact, the big ram came right up to my passenger side window and I had to keep the camera in front of me to avoid being nibbled on. Meanwhile, this lesser bighorn went behind the car and started licking it, likely because of the salty roads.
It was an odd encounter. We were not comfortable. We were not planning on such close proximity.
Eventually, the bighorn got bored with us and moved away, but then some foolish people scared them back to us. They had us basically surrounded. Finally, they moved off to the side and we started the car and carefully moved on.
All this time, unobservant people flew by on the 2-lane highway at high speed, just inches from these endangered animals.
Posted by sorsha at 12:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 17, 2008
Roadtrip Report: Herd of Endangered Bighorn Sheep
Hello, all!
I'm just back from a roadtrip up the Pacific Coast, through California, Oregon, Washington and across the Trans-Canadian highway!
Along the way, we got to see some amazing wildlife which I plan to tell you about soon. Some of the highlights included:
- A Raft of Sea Otters in Monterey Bay, California
- A Colony of Harbor Seals in Shelter Cove, California
- Lots of roadside Ravens in the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia, Canada
- Three herds of Bighorn Sheep and some elk in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada
- A lonely Bison in Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada
- Prairie Dogs and huge amounts of ducks in Saskatchewan, Canada
- Two white-tailed deer fawns in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, Canada
- Pair of courting Sandhill Cranes along the Great Lakes in Ontario, Canada
- Canadian Geese in Quebec, Canada
- A Woodchuck & a White-tailed Deer fawn in Northern Vermont
- A Black Bear in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire
I am getting settled in and hope to write about my Canadian roadtrip in the coming weeks.
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May 29, 2008
Woes at Wolong Panda Center: Earthquake Relief
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the pandas at the Wolong Panda Center. The earthquake in China earlier this month has dealt a terrible blow to the reserve, and therefore the future of pandas.
When disaster strikes, we have to think about people first. But sometimes with the loss of life and property, we forget that other losses also occur, often of the precious and irreplaceable kind like the panda refuge at Wolong. The center is the top breeding facility for pandas in the world, is a source of much pride, brings tourists to the province, and helps support the local economy there, providing a livelihood for many of the locals both directly and indirectly.
You can donate to the Wolong Panda Center Earthquake Relief Fund through the San Diego Zoo website or by check (made out to Zoological Society of San Diego) to:
San Diego Zoo
Wolong Panda Center Earthquake Relief
P.O. Box 120271
San Diego, CA 92112
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April 20, 2008
Wolong's Plentiful Pandas
Atlantic Magazine writer James Fallows and his wife travelled to the panda reserve at Wolong Nature Reserve in China's Sichuan province. In his article, Among The Pandas, he makes some great points about how the cuteness of pandas affects our perception of them, what it's like to spend time up close and personal with captive pandas, and how Wolong differs from many other panda reserves by showing people the entire panda lifecycle and plentiful pandas instead of just a glimpse in the day of your average lonely panda you might see leased to a foreign zoo. Check out the accompanying panda slideshow, especially the "herd" of yearling pandas, it's narrated by the author.
Posted by sorsha at 4:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 16, 2007
Creature Countdown: Ticking Down To Extinction
This Conservation International website is really disturbing me. I don't know what else to say...
Update:
Conservation International has launched their Season’s Greenings campaign – an alternative to traditional gift giving and an opportunity for all of us to make a “green” difference this holiday season. You could give the gift of saving a lemur, keeping freshwater flowing or preserving a whale birthing ground. There are lots and lots of options.
So go green this holiday season!
Posted by sorsha at 3:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 8, 2007
Siding With The Shark: Fuming On A Fish's Behalf
As a long time resident of the Monterey Bay and a marine enthusiast, I got really excited when I saw that the TODAY Show was doing a piece on an incident with a great white shark in Monterey Bay. It's always interesting when our area makes the news, but I was hoping for a fresh perspective.
Not necessarily that they'd ask difficult questions like: Surfer, what were you thinking swimming where half the great white shark attacks in the world occur? Didn't you read the signs? Anyone who lives around the bay already knows the answers to these questions. We all know how far some will go for the perfect wave. I'm cool with Monterey Bay surfers doing what they do - just don't blame the sharks for taking a nibble when these wave-catchers in their neoprene seal costumes hit the beaches.
White shark occurrences happen pretty often here. The Red Triangle (north of San Francisco to the Farallon Islands to south of Monterey) has the highest concentration of the great white shark in the world – and it happens to be endangered and an apex predator.
They're here for the good eating: the Northern Elephant Seal rookeries like Año Nuevo, various seal and sea lion colonies, not to mention fish and whales. In point of fact, nearly all Monterey's beaches have signs that warn against swimming.
The TODAY Show story, which could have been an exciting tale of survival as well as informative about the area it happened, fell way short. The surfer, Todd Endris, was cool. He told his story, about how he was surfing, got attacked by a white shark (called a monster in the write-up but frankly, 12-15 feet long is average in these waters), fought his way free, and was rescued by a pod of dolphins and his surfer buddy. It was the TODAY Show interviewer,Natalie Morales, who pushed for gruesome details.
While the gorey details were revealed, what did the TODAY Show do? They showed stock footage of the Monterey Bay Aquarium great white shark on exhibit. That is a juvenile great white in the Outer Bay Exhibit and Monterey Bay Aquarium proudly boasts the ONLY great white sharks successfully held in captivity. They did not identify the footage as being from this amazing and unique exhibit, only as a backdrop to the gruesome details of the incident.
It would have been so easy to turn this news item into something a bit more informative and a bit less sensational without detracting from the amazing story of survival being told. But the TODAY show chose not to.
Shame on them. Shark PR is already bad enough. They need more support, not less. Even the late Peter Benchley, author of Jaws, regretted how his work influenced people's view on sharks.
If there's one thing that his research in Australia and off the coast of South Africa taught him, it's that he could not write "Jaws" today.
"I could not posit the situation now that I posited then - sort of a rogue shark that came around and wouldn't go away because it had found a steady diet of human beings," Benchley said in an inter-view over a seafood lunch (crab, not shark).
Scientists have learned that much of the shark behavior they used to ascribe to aggression is simply curiosity.
"I attributed to them a kind of marauding monsterism that became what 'Jaws' was," he said. "Now we know that sharks do not attack boats. The way they decide what to eat is by biting it."
More At: Peter Benchley: Jaws Today
Posted by sorsha at 10:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 10, 2007
He Sleeps With The Fishes: Another Juvenile Great White Shark On Exhibit In Monterey
I believe implicitly that every young man in the world is fascinated with either sharks or dinosaurs.
- Peter Benchley
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has successfully put a young great white shark on exhibit for the third time in history. Earlier in the fall, the young male shark was put into the 1.2 million gallon Outer Bay exhibit, where the public can watch him at their leisure. And he can watch them.
I enjoy going to watch the behavior of the white sharks the aquarium has displayed almost as much as I like watching the people who are there to see the shark. Most of the time, parents seem to be telling their kids that one of the Giant Bluefin Tuna is the great white shark. Or one of the scalloped hammerheads. Another favorite is thinking the dolphinfish (mahi-mahi) is the great white.
Luckily, most kids can tell a great white from a mile away, just like they can ID a brontosaurus. Still, this is the only chance most people will ever have at encountering a live great white shark.
The other fish species in the tank clearly know what the apex predator is. They give him a very wide berth. Executing sharp turns to avoid him within the giant tank. Anyone who has seen the tank behavior enough without the shark can tell there's a certain layer of tension amongst the other fish and turtles when they have a white on exhibit.
He arrived on August 28, and will remain in the million-gallon exhibit as long as he's in good health and hasn't grown too large for us to return safely to the wild.
Like our first shark in 2004, he was caught accidentally in commercial fishing gear. Like our second shark in 2006, he's a young male: just 4-feet, 9-inches long and weighing 67 ½ pounds. As with both of the other young white sharks, he was kept in an ocean holding pen off Malibu in Southern California until we observed him feeding and navigating well in the confines of the pen.
Our first shark was with us for 6 ½ months; our second, for 4 ½ months. Both were successfully returned to the wild, and the tracking tags they carried documented their journeys back in the ocean. We've tagged 10 other young sharks in the wild in Southern California waters as part of our white shark field project, and support research to track the migrations of adult white sharks tagged off the Farallon Islands and Point Año Nuevo on California's central coast.
More At: Monterey Bay Aquarium White Shark Exhibit
The aquarium has been able to do a lot of behavioral research on young whites, of which very little is known, and has successfully returned the previous juvenile great whites to the wild and tracked them.
Posted by sorsha at 9:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 16, 2007
Condors: Carrion Claws & Clutches
Sometimes mistaken for a distant airplane, the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) with an average wingspan of almost 3 meters, once ruled the skies along the Pacific coastline.
Natural declines in population, combined with slow maturity and complex breeding habits, made these large birds vulnerable when the huge rush of people arrived in the West in the 1800's. Ranchers assumed that if a condor was eating a dead cow, it must have killed it, and they were often shot on sight. Add to this that when a condor found a hunting carcass, it would also suffer from lead poisoning when it ingested the bullets. Soon the California Condor's numbers dwindled to 22, all of which lived in captivity.
Had the ranchers looked closer, they would have seen that the condor does not have sharp claws like a bird of prey and eats carrion almost exclusively. Instead, the condors have blunt, straight claws with an elongated middle toe meant for ripping through the tough hides of dead animals - something other birds of prey cannot do with much efficiency.
Weighing in at up to 30lbs, the condor prefers larger kills. They will travel long distances - in the hundreds of miles - in order to eat each day, homing in on a kill by watching where other birds have gathered for the feast instead of using scent. The California coastline, with its many seal and sea lion rookeries, provided a substantial food source for these birds.
In the past two decades, Condor breeding programs like the one at the San Diego Zoo have helped reestablish a wild population of California Condors. Today there are about 300 condors in the world, about a third living wild in California, the Grand Canyon, and Baja, Mexico.
While condor experts have managed to breed captive condors, breeding in the wild is a tougher problem. Condors mate for life, and though the pickings are slim, juvenile condors won't necessarily choose one another as mates.
Luckily, there has been quite a few positive signs recently that the wild condor programs are working. There's been some nesting activity in Big Sur since last year, as well as some evidence that the condors have been somewhat social, hanging out around a Gray Whale carcass. At least one chick has survived in Big Sur and is now at least 2 years old. Then this month, there was some great news from another condor hotspot - Baja.
This week biologists working with the California Condor Recovery Program discovered the first California condor egg laid in Baja California, Mexico since their reintroduction to the Sierra San Pedro de Martír National Park in 2002.
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Condors #217, a 7-year-old female, and #261, a 6-year-old male, were introduced as juveniles and have only recently entered breeding age. “We had been suspicious of nesting activity over the past month and after repeated attempts we finally located the nest 800 feet (250 meters) off the canyon floor,” said Dr. Wallace. “It is situated in a deserted golden eagle nest. They made an excellent and spectacular choice.”
More At: CRES: Free-flying Condors in Mexico Reach Historic Milestone; Pair Lays Project's First Egg
This is not the first time that condors have had chicks in the wild, but it is the first documented case in the Baja condor range since almost a century ago.
Posted by sorsha at 12:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 11, 2007
California Sea Otters: Haul Out On Land
The best, not to mention the most dangerous, aspect of nature photography, is that wildlife will always surprise you.
I've found that animals in the wild rarely display your "typical" behavior. National Geographic knows this very well, just look at the recent April 2007 article called Lessons Of The Hunt, where a young leopard kills her first baboon only to adopt its infant temporarily. Certainly not what you'd expect would happen, especially to a young leopard afraid of baboons.
My current special project, the California Sea Otters, is an excellent example of how wildlife doesn't always act as you'd expect. Everytime I go down to visit the otters, I see something I'd never read about before.
Bigger Rafts
The first time I visited Moss Landing, there was a raft of about 50-60 otters hanging out together. I had read that you might see packs of up to 10 together and that they segregated themselves by gender. I will occassionally see a small group of otters, often the younger ones, break off from the main group and play in another part of the slough, but for the most part, the main group stays together.
Shy or Not?
Most of the otters are pretty skittish, unless they're busy eating. When boats approach too close, they all dive and move to another part of the slough. Still, some otters are less shy than others.
Take this past Monday, for example. I had staked out this great spot to photograph the Moss Landing wildlife. It was low tide and I positioned myself at the end of the jetty, down at the waterline. Here, the seals, otters and shorebirds cruised in from the ocean and were almost on top of me before they noticed me. This made for some great seal and bird shots and the main group of otters drifted closer and closer. I was watching a Western Grebe, with its beady red eyes, fish under the water at my feet and so I didn't notice the little otter come zooming around the jetty within 10 feet of me. This otter, whom I've dubbed Baby because it had one pink and one blue tag on its flippers, swam right up to me and made to jump up on the rock next to me. I was so surprised, I took a quick step backward, away from the otter, and so Baby decided to stay in the water and look at me instead. Movement or talking on my part did not phase Baby, who floated so close the long lens of my camera could barely focus. After about 10 minutes, the otter rejoined the main group about 20 meters away.
How Close Is Too Close?
Getting close to wildlife is always a bit art and a bit luck. Stealth helps, too. You're stalking these wild creatures, and putting yourself in amongst them, hopefully without upseting them or causing yourself harm. I generally use the following rules: start with the Marine Mammal Protection Act and stay back 25-30 feet, but stay back even further if the animal seems wary or bothered by your presence.
Sometimes, you have to use a bit of stealth and underhandedness. I was able to sneak up amongst a large group of notoriously shy harbor seals the other day by using the fact that some idiots were scaring them from another direction and they weren't watching me. I couldn't stop the guys from bothering the seals, so I used the distraction to my advantage, placing myself between two groups. I also have found that as long as you do not directly approach a seal, but instead zigzag back and forth closer, they do not panic and enter the water. Once in position, I get down close to the ground and look small and non-threatening. This way, the seals can relax and I can relax and take their pictures.
I know I'm doing it right when the seals resume their original activities and the shorebirds start approaching and fishing within a few feet of me. When its time to go, I slowly rise and back away, never approaching any of the animals. I walk backwards to keep an eye on the animals, and pause if they seem troubled.
When Too Close Happens
This brings me to what happened two days ago. I'm still riding on a high of my immense good luck at the experience, but at first it was a bit unsettling because I got trapped using my own rules, which leads me to another good piece of advice: Always have a secondary escape route.
I had positioned myself at the base of a seacliff, in the afternoon shade with the sun setting behind me. The otters were right in front of me, frollicking in the sun. They were well lit, but I wasn't, and there was a pretty strong wind. In retrospect, my position hunkered down on the beach was really too good - they couldn't smell me and the sun blinded them from seeing me well. Some of them did know I was there, they would come up to within about 10 feet of shore, look at me, and swim away.
A couple of otters had been teasing me like this for about two hours, and I was getting some great shots, intently focused on the otters right in front of me. I do try to be aware of my surroundings, but the beach was only 20 feet wide and my back was to the cliff, so I didn't check my left, right or behind very often. So because of this, I had missed a rather large otter standing in about an inch of water up the beach from me, and in the other direction, another one was looking like it was doing the same.
Now comes the weird part. First one otter, then another, and another, come crawling out of the water around me. They blocked off my way off the beach without walking by them. The first large otter hauled out and curled up smack in the middle of the 20 foot beach, forcing me to skirt around it with very little room to spare. This otter, Sleepy (my husband named her), went straight to sleep on the beach, and wasn't the slightest bit upset by my setting up the camera about 30 feet away from her.
As I sat there watching her, another otter hauled out, came up to her and poked her with its nose. She opened her eyes, rolled over, and went back to sleep. The other otter went back into the water to play. Some young boys came along while I went to the car and tried to poke it and pet it and feed it crab legs, but I explained they shouldn't bug it like that (they were tourists and barey spoke English and didn't know it was an otter).
I went back and took more pictures of Sleepy and told my husband to come down to the beach and see this, because we hadn't known that sea otters ever came on land. Its not that they're not capable, but they are really quite graceless on land. They walk along on their front flippers and drag their wet back end out of the surf. When he arrived, it was almost sunset. We watched more and more otters haul out. We counted 12 otters on our short stretch of beach. Seven of which had hauled out together and were running around on the beach, doing that hop-like ferret walk. At least thirty more otters still floated in the shallows nearby. We got some video footage and I'll post it on the podcast feed later this month.
I cannot find much of anything online about sea otters hauling out on land. It's a very rare event, and to see so many is really amazing. I've contacted the Monterey Bay Aquarium to ask about this behavior. I read that mothers often beach their babies while they hunt, but there were no babies here. These were resting otters and some younger ones playing and running around.
I would never have anticipated that the otters would have come up on the beach. If I had, I would have been paying more attention to my flanks while I was shooting. Luckily, Sleepy was just that, and she wasn't bothered when I had to sneak by her, she just kept on snoozing.
Posted by sorsha at 9:24 AM | Comments (13) | 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
January 11, 2007
Island Isolation And Dad-Less Dragons
Growing to almost 10 feet long, Komodo Dragons are the largest lizards on earth, nowadays, anyway. Found exclusively in Indonesia, these carnivorous reptiles are endangered. According to Wikipedia, there are approximately 6000 living dragons, but the main concern is that there may be as few as 350 breeding females.
With a population of 6000, why so few breeding females? Some recent behavior in captive dragons at Chester Zoo may shed some light. It's like a story out of Jurassic Park - Nature finds a way...
Flora the Komodo dragon ... has laid fertile eggs despite never having had a mate.
DNA tests confirmed Flora was the sole parent
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Flora, along with another female Komodo dragon from the London Zoo, represent the first known cases of virgin birth in the world's largest lizard, according to researchers.
The two reptiles are examples of a process called parthenogenesis, in which offspring are produced without fertilization by a male, according to a report in the current issue of the journal Nature.
Single-parent reproduction is hardly ever seen in such complex animals, having been documented in just 0.1 percent of vertebrates, the study team says.
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The reptiles are native to islands in Indonesia, where female castaways could have need to start new colonies on their own, the researchers say.
"If a female gets swept off her desert island to a new desert island where there are no other dragons, then she can reproduce parthenogenetically," Gibson said.
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Parthenogenesis has been found in a number of other unexpected animals in recent years, he added.
"It was recorded in a python a couple of years ago," he said. "Turkeys can do it, and it's also happened in fish."
More at: National Geographic: Virgin Birth Expected at Christmas -- By Komodo Dragon
In the process of parthenogenesis, unfertilized eggs develop into embryos using two sets of the female chromosomes instead of one set of the mother's and one of the father's. The resulting baby dragons are always male and once they reach sexual maturity, the mothers can mate normally again. Still, this two-stage inbreeding means that genes from different dragon populations are not mixing and diversifying for at least two generations.
So why so few breeding females in the wild? The Komodo Dragons' numbers have been dwindling for some time. What if they have been reproducing in the wild using parthenogenesis for a generation or so - then one would expect there would be significantly more young males running around. Komodos can live for several decades, and it is somewhat unclear when they reach sexual maturity - one source claims that females mature after 9 years and males after 10 years.
The bad news is that the true breeding population may be much smaller and more fragile than the population numbers reflect. The good news here is that the dwindling dragon population may have a way of recovering itself.
Posted by sorsha at 3:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 30, 2006
The Mirror Has Two Tusks
It appears that elephants have now joined the short list of animal species that are considered "self-aware". Until now, this behavior has been limited to chimps and, of course, most humans.
While it doesn't surprise me in the least that elephants have the kind of smarts needed to be classified as animals of a higher order of intelligence, I have to wonder how many other species out there are truly self-aware, but we humans have just not figured out how to properly test for it. Most mammals walk on four legs, so touching their faces while gazing at themselves in the mirror isn't likely behavior. I know our rabbits react to the mirror, but there's no way to tell what they're thinking.
...a 34-year-old female Asian elephant in the Bronx Zoo showed researchers that pachyderms can recognize themselves in a mirror — complex behavior observed in only a few other species.
The test results suggest elephants — or at least Happy — are self-aware.
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In a 2005 experiment, Happy faced her reflection in an 8-by-8-foot mirror and repeatedly used her trunk to touch an "X" painted above her eye. The elephant could not have seen the mark except in her reflection. Furthermore, Happy ignored a similar mark, made on the opposite side of her head in paint of an identical smell and texture, that was invisible unless seen under black light.
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Still, two other zoo elephants, Maxine and Patty, failed to touch either the visible or invisible "X" marks on their heads in two runs of the experiment. But all three adult female elephants at the zoo behaved while in front of the jumbo mirror in ways that suggested they recognized themselves,
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Maxine, for instance, used the tip of her trunk to probe the inside of her mouth while facing the mirror. She also used her trunk to slowly pull one ear toward the mirror, as if she were using the reflection to investigate herself. The researchers reported not seeing that type of behavior at any other time.
More At: MSNBC: Mirror test suggests elephants are self-aware
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August 8, 2006
Moss Landing State Beach: Southern Sea Otters
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A Raft Of Otters |
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Playing In The Water |
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Keep Your Distance |
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Hanging In Kelp Beds |
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Just Floating Around |
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Floating Around |
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Grooming |
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Thick Coats |
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Mother & Young Otter |
Posted by sorsha at 8:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Moss Landing State Beach: Otter Research & Tagging
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Tagged! |
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Tags Are Pesky |
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Posted by sorsha at 8:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Moss Landing State Beach: Otters & Their Young
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Mother and Child |
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Mother and Child |
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Mother and Child |
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Mother and Child |
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Posted by sorsha at 8:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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It's great news for condors this week. For the first time in 101 years, California Condors (Gymnogyps californianus) have nested in the Big Sur redwoods, not fifty miles from here! A giant opportunistic predator who once fed on seals and... Read More Here
Did You Know? Darwin Ate Armadillos
Did you know that Darwin made evolutionary breakthroughs while eating armadillos? You Can't Think On An Empty Stomach It's interesting how often breakthroughs happen by making observations while doing mundane, everyday things like having breakfast. Charles Darwin did just that... Read More Here
Plight of the Polar Bear
Keeping with our discussion on changing weather trends and the melting ice of the poles, there's been a bit of good news this week about polar bears. The Fish and Wildlife Service has announced it will look into whether or... Read More Here
Recycle Your Mobile Phone: The Gorillas Will Thank You
Here we have yet another example of how something so seemingly trivial as buying a new cell phone can have long-reaching effects on an endangered species. By perpetuating the demand for a certain metallic ore used in your phone, you... Read More Here
The Virunga National Park Dung Drought
29,000: The number of hippos in Virunga National Park 25 years ago 850: The number of hippos in Virunga National Park today Hippos were once considered common in Africa, rather like bulfrogs congregate around ponds in the rural United States.... Read More Here
Plight of the Prairie Dog
I have always envisioned that the cowboy phrase "Git Along, Little Dogies" pertained to little prairie dogs scurrying under the horses' hooves. Can't you just see that visual? Like little lemmings... Of course, I was wrong. A dogie is a... Read More Here
Where Will The Buffalo Roam?
When my little brother and I were younger, let's say about 10 and 6 years old, we had a dream. We would grow up and live together and adopt lots of puppies and kittens from shelters, to give them all... Read More Here
ESA: Yellowstone Bears Get Bumped
It is with bittersweet feelings that I write up this bit of news. The current administration has decided that the grizzlies that live in the wilderness around Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming are living in healthy enough populations to delist... Read More Here
California Condor Craving Coastal Carrion
Long, long ago.. although not so very far away... The latest ice age had chased away many of the massive-winged condor's natural prey, and so they looked to the coastal waters of California for new sources of food. Here, the... Read More Here
Biting Back Against Invasive Species
I consider myself a pretty adventurous eater. I wasn't always, you know. But sometime in my early adult life, I came to the realization that being a picky eater was making me miss out on a whole range of experiences,... Read More Here
Sudden Oak Death & The Invasion of the Mud Snails
It seems like every time I go to a state or national park lately, I encounter some sort of warning about some invasive species threatening the area - directly or as vectors. Sometimes it's a disease that kills off ancient... Read More Here
Peaceful Mountain: A Baby Panda Gets A Name
It is Chinese tradition for a panda to be named on its 100th day of life. Perhaps this came about because captive pandas rarely survive more than a few weeks, but regardless, it's a day of celebration. Today, the National... Read More Here
Freakish Frog's Fate Foreboding
"The frog does not jump in the daytime without reason." -Nigerian Proverb Bigger is better, right? Unfortunately, this is not true for the Goliath Frog. Yes, you heard me right, there's a frog by that name, and it can be... Read More Here
Canis Africanus
Everyone knows about the big cats of Africa - the lion, the leopard, the cheetah. The canine species are less well known, and yet most of the canine species of Africa are much more threatened than the big cats. Canidae... Read More Here
Two More Weeks Til Baby Panda Cub Gets A Name
The National Zoo has had a rough time recently, what with rat poison scandals and such. Now finally, we've had soon good news. Giant panda Mei Xiang had a male cub earlier this summer, and he's doing really well. They... Read More Here
Tigers In Trouble
Remember what I said about the international agreement that protects endangered plants and wildlife (CITES)? Their policies are enforced by the individual countries that have signed the agreement. So right now, there's a problem. Despite being on the critically endangered... Read More Here
The Asian Cheetah
I've talked about cheetah's before, like in He Wants To See The Cheetahs, but those were mostly African cheetahs. There is also the Asian cheetah, which is basically considered extinct, with less than a hundred animals thought to be left... Read More Here
Muppet Mommies For Baby Hornbills
The South African Ground Hornbills look like giant black turkeys. When we were in Kruger, we saw quite a few of them wandering around on the ground as well as in dead trees. One thing we didn't see was any... Read More Here
Hard Decisions: Koala Killing - A Kindness?
Australians are struggling with the delicate problem of how do deal with the uncontrollable overpopulation of some island koalas. The cuddly-looking marsupials have few natural predators (dingos, dogs and mostly humans), and their numbers have grown such that they are... Read More Here
Saving Poster-Friendly Species: Perhaps More Strategic Than We Think
It's a fact that making the public aware of threatened and endangered species is very much a PR problem. Conservation is not just about responsible behaviors like careful development and recycling and such, it also requires political and economic support... Read More Here
Endangered Species Act Could Become Extinct
Some days it's hard to be a Californian. It's bad enough that we have to live with everyone laughing at us about our Hollywood governors who have trouble with the English language and presidents who star in movies with chimps... Read More Here
Little Big Things: The Discovery of the Pygmy Elephant
I'll admit, I was first attracted to the story of the pygmy elephant primarily because of the irony of its name (little big-thing?). Funny enough, the pygmy elephant species was only “discovered” about two years ago, although the subtle differences... Read More Here
The Bear-Human Conflict: Part II
The more I think about the Bear-Human Conflict, the more I think that it's important to understand the frequency at which these events occur. I remember before I went to Africa for the first time, a friend who had gone... Read More Here
The Bear-Human Conflict
Just like plane crashes, animal attacks always seem to make the news. Usually these are about underestimated guard dogs or exotic pets like lions and tigers. Only occasionally do you hear about an animal in the wild harming someone, usually... Read More Here
The Crocodile Comeback?
Its a bittersweet story when a near-extinct creature makes a tiny comeback in the eyes of the people. A couple of baby Siamese crocodiles have been discovered, implying that the animals are not completely extinct in the region, and are... Read More Here
He Wants To See The Cheetahs
So I asked Shane if there was anything he particularly wanted to do on our East African honeymoon. He thought about it for a minute and then said: "I want to see the cheetahs." That was all he said. Cheetahs... Read More Here
The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans
You may remember last week when I wrote about the The Earth's Last Wildernesses. In particular, I mentioned the Sundarbans of Bangladesh, with it's man-eating tigers. You might remember that I suggested further reading on this subject... The Man-Eating Tigers... Read More Here
Uninvited Guests - The Effects Of Wildlife Encroachment
Suburban wildlife encounters are on the rise, says one expert. This isn't news to me. My parents live in rural Vermont. They've seen all manner of wildlife in their backyard - bears, moose, deer, raccoons. Wildlife encounters in Vermont are... Read More Here
Interspecies Surrogacy - From Feral Children to Tigers Suckled By Dogs
How much of who we are and what we become is due to our genes and how much is due to how we are raised? This is the essence of the nature/nuture debate. It's interesting how far we've come with... Read More Here
Mountain Gorilla Habitat Under Attack
Shane and I are planning to go gorilla trekking as part of our honeymoon. I am always looking for more information on the region, especially considering the fact that you go with an armed escort - and it's not to... Read More Here
The Tainted Food Chain Of The Arctic
Sadly, there doesn't appear to be any such thing as pristine wilderness anymore. Even in the far reaches of the Arctic, the pollution we make is having a serious impact on the wildlife and the people. It's also interesting to... Read More Here
Puggles - The Baby Platypus
They've got webbed feet, a duck bill, and they lay eggs... but they're not a bird. The duck-billed platypus is one of the most interesting mammals around. It defies many of the "rules" originally put forth to define a mammal,... Read More Here