tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34159640186259064842024-02-19T07:28:19.600-08:00Edge of the HillsThoughts on ecology and the intersection of science and the humanities from the western hills of OregonJennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-31549980347942900762019-05-16T13:24:00.001-07:002019-05-16T13:26:02.225-07:00Campus animalsThe local<a href="https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/centers-and-initiatives/spring-creek-project" target="_blank"> Spring Creek Project</a> of Oregon State University invited people to write essays about the many life forms that inhabit the campus. People submitted lovely pieces on ants and birds and spiders, drawing their eyes to the smallest among us. I went the other way.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Homo sapiens</i> on Campus</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">H. sapiens </i>is the
largest, most numerous, and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>the least
present of all of the mammals on campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This species blindly scurries between buildings, between classes,
between meetings, oblivious not only to the rest of the living, breathing,
moving, growing, writhing, dying organisms all around it, but even to the
members of its own species jostling along in streams of unconsciousness,
clutching coffee cups whose contents bring no awakening, glassy eyes focused
crystal screens, seeing and hearing only internal, custom-created isolated
little worlds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has created a parallel
external world as well, one with little room for its fellow organisms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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But those other creatures are more at home in our home than
we, spiders aware of the texture of brick, swallows soaring in mathematical
arcs on the thermals rising from a parking lot, squirrels and grosbeaks well-versed
in the uses of exotic tree species with thick bark and plentiful seeds.</div>
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<br /></div>
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What would it take, to bring awareness back to our
species?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should we genetically engineer
saber-toothed tigers to stalk unwary students from the rhododendron thickets, require
all administrators to chant the names of at least thirty species of beetle and
bacteria, have faculty begin classes with intonations of the eight parts of
non-human speech?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Or take the lead from the chickadees, and simply begin using
contact calls as we move through our days, asking, “Are you ok?” </div>
Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-8015072803335195842018-06-13T09:52:00.005-07:002018-06-13T09:52:56.423-07:00Invasions I<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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If I didn’t know better, and I had to bet whether a flaccid
grass could outcompete a blackberry capable of flinging its spine-studded canes
20 feet up into the crowns of trees, I’d have bet on the blackberry. I probably
wouldn’t have thought about either invasive species, honestly, living as I do
in the lush belt of coastal forest in western Oregon, whose understory used to
be dominated by shiny Oregon grape, shaggy ninebark, and the sturdy upflung
arms of the sword fern. But I turned around in the last five years and the
ferns were gone. </div>
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In fact, the grass wins, by exuding chemicals from its roots
that cut off its competition far below the knees. If the enemy of my enemy is
my friend, I should love the grass that overwhelms the blackberry. Instead,
there is an army marching in on the forests of my home, one that might well
bring down even the massive trees. We know that invasive species can utterly
overwhelm native vegetation, change ecosystem dynamics, and thus alter entire
landscapes. They can be plants, insects, fungi, viruses, or even birds or
mammals or snakes. Think kudzu, gypsy months, white-nose syndrome or sudden oak
death, the starling, the wild pig, or the python in the Everglades. It’s the
sort of overwhelming problem that might make you think that somebody,
somewhere, must surely be doing something about it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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By and large, we are not. In fact, we rarely track the
spread of even the most egregious invasive species, as a quick visit to the
various state databases revealed to me. A glance out my window revealed the
gaps, as the mass of invasive ox-eye daisies offered up a white-mouthed hoot of
derision at the scanty occurrence map on my computer. They aren’t even in my
county, according to the Authorities. Yet here they are, drifting thickly
across my pasture. Almost none of the invasive species on my small farm are
documented to be here.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Worse, we know even less about the consequences,
particularly in a world facing climate change as well as the rapidly spreading
army of non-native species. My colleagues and I reviewed hundreds of scientific
papers dealing with climate change and invasive species. Almost none of them
were based on hard experimental data. Instead, they were mostly limited to
computer projections of climate models, themselves subject to considerable
revision as more data are obtained. In sum, we have no idea how climate change
will interact with and affect the rapid spread of invasive plants, animals,
insects, and disease. The little data that do exist suggest that native species
and habitats will not be favored. How this extraordinary, reckless experiment
in shifting biota and climate will play out is not a matter of academic
interest only; everything from food and fiber, fire and rainfall, ecosystem
services from nitrification to pollination, hang in the balance. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Yet our efforts are at best perfunctory, dealing only with
the most egregious invaders in a rear-guard action that can only fail. Boats
carrying zebra mussels are frequently found just before they are lowered down
the boat ramp. You can buy an incredible array of invasive species on the
internet, and release them, undetected, when you tire of them. Entire
neighborhoods of Oregon’s largest city are being subjected to mandatory
chemical treatment for an infestation of Japanese beetles, whose spread was
facilitated by a regrettable cut in funding for monitoring. It goes without
saying that treating the infestation is costing orders of magnitude more than
was saved. Each day, more cargo unloaded from ships and planes that have
traveled from all parts of the globe may carry new invaders. At some point,
we’ll have to ask ourselves just how addicted we are to this high-stakes game
of biological substitution speeding in on the wings of cheap and easy
transportation, globalization, and free trade, unfettered by any considerations
of collateral damage.</div>
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I spent the winter cutting blackberry along the creek. I
uncovered trees and light-starved stands of snowberry, freed the branches of
ninebark and Indian plum. But there were no more ferns, and along the newly
revealed stream banks, the forward scouts of false brome are infiltrating the
cow parsnip. The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy. I can’t begin to know how
all the shifting balance of species and processes will affect even this small
bit of creek bank, let alone what the occupying armies will create out of the
wreckage of the world we knew. But we need to start asking the questions, and
seeking the answers as quickly as we can.</div>
Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-18213846159661144692018-02-07T17:18:00.001-08:002018-02-07T17:18:27.346-08:00Groundhog Day on a Bicycle IIEarly in my career, I worked in Prince William Sound, Alaska in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The memory of the sight and smell of heavily oiled shorelines and slicks out on the water against the most gorgeous, wild backdrop imaginable kept me away from Exxon filling stations forever after. Given my tendency toward tiny, fuel-efficient cars, Exxon surely never felt the sting. But if by the simple act of avoiding one gas station sign even while I still pumped gasoline I would remember the terrible cost of oil, it was well worth the inconvenience to me.<br />
<br />
And I hadn't even heard of global warming or climate change yet.<br />
<br />
I've been a pretty dedicated bicycle commuter now for most of my adult
life. Although my dismay over the impacts of fossil fuels has certainly been part of the motivation, I don't believe in hair shirts. I rode my bicycle because I love to ride, I enjoy the exercise, and over the years the views of sunrises, wildlife, and unexpected encounters with friends both new and old along the way were an enormous added bonus. I also hate driving, which I really don't view as a bad thing as long as I am still able to do it safely and well when I must. There are always days when convenience beckoned, and even days that convenience won out, and I drove rather than rode. It still happens. But the trick to sustained change is making doing the right thing the easy alternative, and ensuring that the best parts of the alternative strategy are enhanced over whatever benefits might be obtained by the default you're trying to change.<br />
<br />
I ride a Trek 520 touring bicycle outfitted with racks, fenders, lights, and a bell. Over the years I've put together quite a good assortment of high-quality rain gear and warm clothing to fend off western Oregon's winter weather. I've learned to maintain my bike and I keep it in excellent working order at all times, partly for safety, but largely because a smoothly operating bicycle is far more fun to ride than one that is not. It isn't always easy to get the bike out of the shed, but I've managed to ride over 30,000 miles on my bicycle to and from work and on errands over the decades. It hasn't replaced or even equaled the miles I've driven, but it still has helped push back against rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.<br />
<br />
I'm not getting any younger, however, and recently the cumulative wear was getting to me on top of swimming to manage the tendinitis in my forearms and walking to keep my dogs happily exercised. I needed a better solution. This was more frustrating that it should have been, because we've had decades to think of better solutions to transport given our current infrastructure, including smarter development patterns. Mostly, they have been wasted decades. I contemplated buying a small electric car, now that more of them are on the market, but that was so much more steel and mass and energy than I need 95% of the time.<br />
<br />
The answer had actually presented itself on a bicycle trip my husband and I took several years ago, when a guy watched us pedal by on our loaded touring bicycles and hopped in his electric-assist trike, and ran us down to show it off. Aha....<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmiFOsVMU4luY-byliB56dztJbjFRDIkB5oY9ReBFJ7dgc1gZ0qOpp7RDqtcN3xZhxDAuMUPG8zxpeIXEYqGO7axza4yP8fpE6AJ8h9qe3j3YNsc5DXQHNs89KTz9d3hZy9TAA2cJ6znjP/s1600/IMG_6727.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmiFOsVMU4luY-byliB56dztJbjFRDIkB5oY9ReBFJ7dgc1gZ0qOpp7RDqtcN3xZhxDAuMUPG8zxpeIXEYqGO7axza4yP8fpE6AJ8h9qe3j3YNsc5DXQHNs89KTz9d3hZy9TAA2cJ6znjP/s320/IMG_6727.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The idea of owning one turned into a reality this January, when a used one popped up in our town. Even used, the ELF ("electric, light, and fun!") by <a href="https://organictransit.com/" target="_blank">Organic Transit </a>isn't the cheapest solution to non-car travel, but there are other considerations, including accounting for the cost of a ruined planet. This one even had a <a href="https://organictransit.com/product/elf-2fr/" target="_blank">small passenger seat</a>. We jumped on it.<br />
<br />
I had buyer's remorse for about five days. It took that long to get used to the fact that this vehicle is not a bicycle in the traditional sense, although legally it certainly is. I had to learn to integrate pedaling with using the electric motor assist (run by a battery that can either charge from the rooftop solar panel or plug in to a standard wall outlet for a couple of hours). One mechanical disc brake screamed incessantly and I had to learn how to service those, and troubleshoot them. There were various modifications needed to deal with the rain. The shell rattles and the electric motor hums and the roof holds in the racket. On the other hand, I don't get wet, I'm more visible to motorized traffic, and I can spontaneously stop in at the grocery store without strategizing about space and weight. Even better, I don't arrive at my destination covered in filthy, soaked rain gear and feeling like I just rode 6.5 miles into a stiff headwind as well as driving rain.<br />
<br />
My biggest enjoyment, however, has been just riding it around and seeing the reactions. I often catch people circling it and peering into it when I've parked it. People honk and give the thumbs-up. They cheer from bus stops and sidewalks. A young guy smoking a cigarette rode up on his poorly maintained bike and eyeballed the ELF at a stop sign. "It even has a solar panel?? That thing is way cool!" he pronounced, then disappeared into the rain.<br />
<br />
We are more hungry for other options than we know. <br />
<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-75426907807003271722018-01-15T17:10:00.001-08:002018-01-17T17:10:08.177-08:00Martin Luther King Day<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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It is Martin Luther King Day, and I just finished reading
the “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” written by Dr. King in response to the
criticism he received from white clergymen over his decision to take nonviolent
action to protest systemic racism. You can find the letter published on the
Washington Post’s website<a href="http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/undecided/630416-019.pdf" target="_blank"> here.</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I read the letter, it struck me that there are parallels
between how we as a society are dealing with racism, and with the threat posed
by climate change. In both cases, broad patterns of facts are disregarded in
favor of intense fighting over specific situations. In both cases, accepting
and confronting those broader patterns of facts require a fundamental
reorganization of how our society works. In both cases, the status quo involves
leaving power and economic structures intact, without disturbing the immediate
comfort of those who benefit at the cost of those who do not. In both cases,
the status quo means not only perpetuating harsh consequences of social and
environmental injustice, but also a deferred but terrible price for those who
currently benefit from the status quo.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Currently, there is sharp debate raging over <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/us/politics/david-perdue-trump-shithole.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news" target="_blank">whether DonaldTrump is a racist</a>. Yet in the same newspapers in recent months, other stories
have reported that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-why" target="_blank">black women are far more likely to suffer from deadly complications during and following childbirth</a>, that <a href="https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/racial-bias-opioid-prescribing/" target="_blank">opioids were far more likely to be prescribed to white patients</a>, that <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/police-brutality-shootings-us/us-police-racism" target="_blank">black men are far more likely to suffer from excessive use of force by police</a>, that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown.../racial-disparities-in-school-suspensions/" target="_blank">young black children are far more likely to be given suspensions</a> from school for misbehavior that earns
white children reprimands.<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/can-doug-jones-get-enough-black-voters-to-win/547574/" target="_blank"> Efforts to “ensure the integrity of the voting system” also systematically disenfranchise large numbers of people of color</a>.
The list goes on. These are all examples of systemic racism.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Does it matter what Donald Trump said in any given instance?
Certainly this administration has made no effort at all to address the terrible
inequities facing American citizens of African descent, or other citizens whose
genetic heritage is not predominantly western European. By extension, the
question then becomes one of how much have the rest of us have resisted, and
responded to these larger patterns of injustice. Perhaps it shouldn’t be just
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/taking-a-knee-national-anthem-nfl-trump-why-meaning-origins-racism-us-colin-kaepernick-a7966961.html" target="_blank">black football players who take the knee</a>, metaphorically or otherwise.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Similarly, the “debate” over global warming centers on large
arguments over small fragments of data. <a href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm" target="_blank">Does the “heat island” effect explain warming?</a>(No, it does not). <a href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm" target="_blank">The last 20 years don’t show warming</a> (that argument limited
itself to data from only the atmosphere, and it isn’t accurate anyway). Arguing
over <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/climategate-revisited-new-theory-explains-tree-ring-controversy-250208" target="_blank">whether tree ring data really fit this or that pattern</a> is ludicrous in
view of the extraordinary<a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/" target="_blank"> range of data that all point to the same conclusion</a>.
Given that, the fact that we haven’t yet quite figured out the role of
low-elevation clouds caused by diesel particles seems rather insignificant. The
larger patterns will speak for themselves, if we pay attention.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This presidential administration has shown itself to be
openly defiant of facts, willfully ignoring data for belief, and has skillfully
used the stories we create about ourselves to inflame denial, hatred and fear.
Stories are indeed a powerful component of the human psyche. Yet, deliberately
overlooking the stories told by broad patterns of facts in the service of
protecting our own little stories is neither worthy of the ideals upon which
this nation was founded, nor an effective strategy to protect ourselves from
the violent changes that denial will bring in the end. We are far better off
choosing the story framed by the ideals of Dr. King than the dark, dystopian
story that has swept over our national discourse over the last two years.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is fitting we have set aside a day to honor one of the
greatest American citizens who ever lived. It is even more fitting when the
conversation today centered on how we move forward to ensure that the facts,
those stubborn things, are recognized, so that we can realistically assess how
far we have yet to go on our journey toward true equality and justice, indeed
our species’ long-term survival. We will all need to face the best version of truth
that we have in order to begin the move toward solutions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-14925724333561229992013-04-17T11:11:00.000-07:002013-04-17T11:45:12.144-07:00The Natural History of Skunk StinkI never knew that fresh skunk spray smells exactly like burning rubber.<br />
<br />
Instead, as my dog leaped into the back porch after his brief pre-dawn potty break in the yard, I thought it was just some new form of particularly odious flatulence. This dog often has gas, and I had not yet had coffee. However, as I bent down to wipe his feet and the odor increased sharply in its intensity, I realized that my dog wasn't directly responsible for the stench. He seemed unconcerned, but he loves stinky odors, and the spray had missed his face.<br />
<br />
There had been strong sulfurous fumes in the back yard for the previous week. It was almost March, and the <a href="http://www.psu.edu/dept/nkbiology/naturetrail/speciespages/stripedskunk.htm" target="_blank">skunks</a> were stirring, looking for food and for love after winter. They are not shy about wandering around outside our house, although because they are normally strictly nocturnal we almost never see them. Skunks will spray predators that threaten them, but a female skunk will also spray persistent males bent on mating if she's really just not in the mood. Skunks aim quite well, so I suspected that my dog had interrupted an unhappy love affair and been splattered by the consequences.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="striped skunk" border="0" src="http://www.nps.gov/tont/naturescience/images/striped.jpg" title="striped skunk" width="280" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Striped skunk, <i>Mephitis mephitis</i>. Photo: NPS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Anal glands are used by many species of mammal as the creators of scent calling cards; when your dog sniffs around another dog's feces, she's most likely focused on the droplets of scent secretion that are released during defecation. <a href="http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/virginia_opossum.htm" target="_blank">Possums</a> also use anal gland secretion as a method of self-defense, but only skunks have the ability to take aim and fire. Skunks' glands are quite large, over an inch or three centimeters long, and each of the pair is equipped with a nipple-like structure called a papilla that acts as a movable nozzle. The glands contract with enough force to send the oily ooze flying ten feet or 3 meters distance. <br />
<br />
Skunks are born blind and helpless, but
their glands contain musk by the end of their first week, and they are
capable of spraying at the age of 17 days, more than two weeks before
their eyes open for the first time. Researchers found that young skunks
were more likely than adults to spray than to run, hide, or charge. I
found no reliable reports of how long it takes for a skunk to refill its
glands after a full discharge. Presumably it takes some energy and
time, because skunks give plenty of warning before firing, and don't
seem willing to use all of their supply in a single encounter unless they must.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="Spotted skunk or civet cat." border="0" height="156" src="http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/species/graphics/t_skunk1.jpg" width="206" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Striped skunks. Image from http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/skunks.html</span></i></div>
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<br />
Elements of the chemical composition of the spray were described as early as
1862 by German chemists, and a fellow German named Dr. O. Low did his best to continue the inquiry during an expedition to Texas in 1872. Low commented on the abundant opportunity to
collect
skunks and their musk during his travels, but
his
companions objected so vigorously to the ensuing odor
that he
was forced to abandon his efforts. He was further stymied from studying
his few skimpy samples by colleagues and students in the college at
which he worked "when the whole college rose in revolt, shouting 'A
skunk, a skunk is here!' I had to abandon the investigation."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
A more thorough treatment of the chemical elements of skunk spray was published in 1896 by Thomas Aldrich of Johns Hopkins University,
who managed to obtain the glands of a number of skunks collected in Maine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I have been more fortunate than my predecessors in being surrounded by
those who, for the cause of science, would endure even the odor of a skunk in
close proximity,” Aldrich wrote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aldrich found that the fluid’s vapors were highly
flammable and gave off sulfur dioxide when burned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also discovered that even humans can sense
the presence of these compounds at concentrations of ten parts per billion.
This is <a href="http://extoxnet.orst.edu/tibs/partperm.htm" target="_blank">equivalent to</a> tasting a pinch of salt distributed across one ton of potato chips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><img alt="Striped skunk." border="0" height="156" src="http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/species/graphics/t_skunk.jpg" width="192" /> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Spotted skunk, <i>Spirogale gracilis </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Image from </i></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/skunks.html</span> </i></span></div>
<br />
The composition of the musk is astonishing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Over 150 compounds containing sulfur have been isolated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even more interestingly, each species of
skunk has its own chemical signature. The striped skunk’s musk contains seven
major volatile compounds, including three <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiol" target="_blank">thiols</a>, three thioacetate derivatives, and an alkaloid compound, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinaldine" target="_blank">2-methylquinoline</a>,
which is also used in pharmaceuticals including anti-malarial drugs.<br />
<br />
The recurring skunky smell of a previously
sprayed dog who seemed odor-free until the dry fur is dampened results from the reaction between water and one of the thioacetate derivatives
remaining in the fur, creating one of the more volatile and smelly thiol
compounds. I found nothing in the literature regarding that first stench of burning rubber, but the odor had morphed into the sickening, familiar sulfur smell by breakfast time. The highly volatile chemicals responsible for the first overwhelming impression must have already begun breaking down in the presence of water and oxygen in the air.<br />
<br />
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<br />
To get rid of the odor, the thiols need to be converted to other, less
objectionable chemicals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exposure to
oxygen will lead to their conversion to sulfonic acids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tomato juice or other acids do not accomplish this critical piece of chemistry,
although a <a href="http://users.humboldt.edu/wfwood/deodorize.shtml" target="_blank">properly prepared solution of hydrogen peroxide</a> will do the
trick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Regarding the well-established folklore regarding tomato juice, the authors of the book <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520211995" target="_blank">Land Mammals of Oregon </a>commented, "</span>Don’t waste good tomato juice- add a little vodka and drink it; it won’t
reduce the odor, but the odor won’t bother you so much!”<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><br />
I didn't have any tomato juice or vodka on hand, only a bottle of doggy shampoo. I went to work at once, and by dawn, the dog was still stinking with sulfur, but now had undertones of green tea and lavender. At least he was clean. Fortunately, olfactory fatigue had set in, and we stopped noticing the stench unless we left the house for a while.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure my dog has learned his lesson. I'll pay more attention to the atmosphere of early morning next year, making sure that no bad love is in the air before flinging open the door. Or at least, I'll make coffee first.<br />
<br />
<b>References</b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Aldrich, Thomas B. 1896. A chemical study of the secretion of the anal glands of Mephitis mephitica (common skunk), with remarks on the physiological properties of this secretion. Journal of Experimental Medicine 1:323-340.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Anderson, K. K., D. T. Bernstein, R. L. Caret, and L. J. Romanczyk, Jr. 1982. Chemical constituents of the defensive secretion of the striped skunk (<i>Mephitis mephitis</i>). Tetrahedron 38:1965-1970.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Medill, S.A., A. Renard, and S. Larivie. 2001. Onogeny of antipredator behavior in striped skunks, Mephitis mephitis. Ethology, Ecology & Evolution 23(1):41-48.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Verts, B. J., and L. N. Carraway. 1998. Land Mammals of Oregon. University of California Press, Berkeley, California. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Wood, W. F. 1989. New components in defensive secretion of the striped skunk, Mephitis mephitis. Journal of Chemical Ecology 16:2057-2065.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Wood, W. F. 1999. The history of skunk defensive secretion research. Chemical educator 4:44-50.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Wood, W. F., B. G. Sollers, G. A. Dragoo, and J. W. Dragoo. 2002. Volatile components in defensive spray of the hooded skunk, Mephitis macroura. Journal of Chemical Ecology 28:1865-1870.</span>Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-58839319326988370942013-01-16T16:25:00.000-08:002013-01-16T16:25:21.294-08:00Possum Soup<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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The racket had gone on for quite some time, and it was getting hard to
ignore. I was up in my attic room, studying during the days of
coursework for my master's degree in wildlife science. The rattle of pots had gone from a
brief shimmy of sound that you might think you really hadn't heard to a steady
clatter. I had a hypothesis. A few days before, a rat had come in
from the dairy barns, and chewed up a wooden spoon I'd used to make jam.
A repeat visit appeared to be underway. I wasn't interested in facing
down a rat in the cupboard, but the call to some kind of confrontation became
unavoidable. Reluctantly, I headed down the stairs.<br />
<br />
I'm often told by people who want to become wildlife biologists that they
are motivated by their love of animals and of being outside. I try not to
tell them that most biologist spend an obscene amount of time tied to a
computer keyboard, because a few of us manage to escape that fate. Who am
I to accidentally discourage the next extraordinary naturalist-ecologist? For
myself, however, some of my best wildlife encounters have occurred when I've
been off-duty, although admittedly nearly always when I'm away from my desk.<br />
<br />
That evening, I left my makeshift desk and climbed down the attic
stairs. Grabbing the broom as some means of self-defense, I flipped on
the light switch and cautiously opened the cupboard door. A sharp face
decorated with glistening button eyes and spiky hair gazed back at me.
Not a rat. A young possum sat in a saucepan, its tail arching up into a
question mark, punctuating perfectly the look of bemused confusion on its face.<br />
<br />
Much better than a rat, but if I left the possum there, I would get none of
my work done, and I doubted that staying in the cupboard was what the possum
had in mind for the evening's agenda. The saucepan handle was angled
toward me. I cautiously extended a hand toward it, thinking the easiest
solution was simply to carry the pan to the door and unceremoniously dump the
possum into the bushes off the porch.<br />
<br />
The possum froze for a moment, and hissed. The hiss was almost
exploratory, as if the possum had not yet had to do this before and wasn't
quite sure of the etiquette of self-defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Despite its uncertainty, the impressive teeth were on full display.
I decided that this was not the time for experiential education, and withdrew
my hand.<br />
<br />
The possum then seemed to realize that it was in a compromising
position. It scrambled out of the saucepan and retreated to the back
corner of the shelf, still facing me. I thought about trying to prod it
out with the broom, but playing broom hockey in the tight quarters of the
kitchen with an upset possum wasn’t the resolution I was looking for.
Then as I squatted, staring into the dark recess of the cabinet and wondering
what to do, I could have sworn the possum was shrinking.<br />
<br />
After a moment or two, there was no doubt about it- there was much less
possum left on the top shelf. The shelf had been poorly cut, leaving a
large gap in the corner chosen. The possum's backside had started to
descend through the gap, the back legs and tail hanging down into the lower
shelf space, the front legs and paws now pinned to the side of its head as it sank still
further.<br />
<br />
I grabbed the largest kettle, and positioned it under the possum's dangling
backside. I coaxed the rest of the animal through by tapping gently on
its head with the broom, and finally gravity brought the possum down into the
kettle with an audible plop. Moving quickly, before the possum could
regain its composure, I slipped the lid onto the kettle and carried it outside,
the possum scrabbling impotently against its enameled prison. The
possum's vague uncertainty about the whole misadventure prompted me to simply
tip the kettle on its side rather than flinging the contents out into the
blackberry thicket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stood and watched
as the possum ambled out, blinked a few times, and then unhurriedly slipped off
the edge of the deck and disappeared into the darkness. Equilibrium was
restored.<br />
<br />
I wished the young possum well, and returned to my attic and the theoretical
study of wildlife. My housemate later admitted he'd left the door open
all morning, and had even heard a faint scrabbling that must have been the
possum settling into the cabinet to get out of the unwelcome early daylight.
The noise then stopped, so he did not bother to investigate. He laughed
when I told him of our visitor, and I've never had such a good look at a live
possum since.<br />
<br />
I'd much rather encounter the natural world on its terms rather than my own,
and watch what unfolds without the need to capture, tag, measure, or otherwise
harass whatever it is I'm studying. We can learn a lot from ecological
research when we design it properly and all goes well. It is an important
kind of information. But I'm convinced that we can learn just as much by
being more attentive to the everyday interactions we have with the lives of all
of those around us, no educational degrees required.<br />
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<![endif]-->Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-32577036473903596142012-12-21T15:21:00.001-08:002012-12-21T15:21:20.904-08:00Black Ice<br />
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One year, the cold came quickly, brutally, and without wind. The ice
that formed in the stillness was black ice, so clear it was as if you stepped
out on a layer of glass over the water. Most ice traps tiny air bubbles
as it freezes, causing the transparency of water to transform into translucent
gray-blue. This ice was terrifying in both its slickness and in its
transparency. I stood stiff-legged and looked down between my feet at
vegetation on the bottom undulating gently in the slight current that wound
through the pond. <br />
<br />
My dog would not follow me. She clearly did not like the
transparency, and when after much coaxing she put her front paws cautiously on
the strange surface, she slipped and fell. Enough. If my
sixteen-year-old self thought that this strange ice was safe, it was my
affair. She whined and paced from the banks as I slithered carefully
around the pond's surface, tracing the underwater pathways of the beaver, studying
logs and stumps and drowned debris, the aquatic plants rooted on the mucky
bottom. I skirted the standing snags around which the ice would not be as
strong, but otherwise went at will over the translucent surface. It was a
unique and extraordinary look into the inner workings of the pond, and I have
never seen such ice since.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Shoup Glacier, Prince William Sound, Alaska, 1990 </span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
I’ve had other extraordinary encounters with ice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I lived under the cold stare of a tidewater
glacier in Alaska one summer, always on edge for a calving that might send up a
shock wave of frigid water rocking up the shallow beach into our camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We maneuvered zodiacs among the glacial
bergs, ever watchful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once I sat
admiring the graceful stillness of an ice tower floating silently on the calm
water when without warning, the ice rolled over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tower became a potentially deadly arm
striking the water before submerging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The newly exposed keel bobbed gently for a moment or two, then all
motion ceased and the morning continued as if nothing had ever changed.<br />
<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Two towers calved from the Columbia Glacier, Prince William Sound, Alaska 1990. Note the main berg floating just below the water's surface. </span></i></div>
<br />
Once we took ice for granted. It still seems cheap and easy, dumped into glasses
of water no one intends to drink, casually spilled onto the grass when a cooler
is empty of picnic goodies and no longer needed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ice on water was also once a given, and the
lakes of the Maine of my childhood sprouted small forests of ice-fishing shacks
for the winter months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Frozen ponds and
lakes made expedient run-outs from sledding hills, and easy shortcuts on skis if
you didn’t mind the wind.<br />
<br />
Then the ice began to melt, or never formed at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are now winters when the northern lakes remain as open water. We’ve already added enough carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere to warm the planet’s surface so that the average temperature
across the United States in 2012 was <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/11" target="_blank">over 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer</a> than the
average for the twentieth century. Worldwide, it is enough to melt an <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-376&cid=release_2012-376" target="_blank">average of 142 gigatons of ice from the Greenland ice sheet each year since 1992</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enough
so that there <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/05/799761/death-spiral-watch-experts-warn-near-ice-free-arctic-in-summer-in-a-decade-volume-trends-continue/" target="_blank">may no longer be Arctic ice in summer by 2050</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not even one hundred fifty years after the
first European reached the North Pole, there may be no ice left there.<br />
<br />
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<br />
I have dozens of slides of glacial ice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That summer, we fished it out of the shallows and used it in the
field-camp coolers, and once we lugged it up to a wood-fired hot tub to cool
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</span>We marveled at the surreal colors and shapes and sounds, but not at the
change that even then was washing away the permanence of ice, and the cultures
and biota that depend on it.<br />
<br />
I have dozens of slides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was young,
and broke, and used cheap film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
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disappeared. The glacier is gone, retreating far up the valley and far from the
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vegetation gives any hint of how recently things were very different.<br />
<br />
How fast does change have to occur before it breaks the illusion of ice-like
stillness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We stand on a lens of
black-ice denial, thinking we’re separate from the processes changing the earth
right beneath our feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be a
deadly illusion in a world of melting ice.<br />
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<![endif]-->Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-26068281773383294832012-10-31T16:28:00.001-07:002012-10-31T16:30:14.087-07:00All Hallowed EarthMy friend was double-digging a garden bed next to her house when she dug up the bones of the rabbit. She had lived in the house for nearly a decade and had never owned such a pet herself, so spirit and skeleton had long since separated. Someone had loved the rabbit enough to bury its body in the garden. Maybe it had been a child's first real grief, or possibly a loss less heartrending, but it had been a loss nonetheless. She dug a deeper hole, and reburied the bones.<br />
<br />
Some months later, her old cat died. She buried him next to the rabbit, spreading fresh flowers over both of their graves.<br />
<br />
I didn't mark the grave of my sweet orange cat. He had lived indoors all his life, and so I buried him in the rough meadow beyond the fence, near a wild rosebush, not far from the creek. His spirit can do what his body never could, and terrorize the rodents living in the woodpiles, stalk the snakes in the old stone wall, slip unseen through the grasses.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimHFJDrWUwUZ9bSaLPwbPJynCdNKkm_9x7WLgOjqWrCpXFYrjabg_mw9SFcd_rYx75KVPJb6DpeVg31b8BTEeYBx4wsLwTo3Ig_3GeiQRVkCCKX2Mm55ywGQKKBgb6oYY6ay0kFr7EXcvm/s1600/wildMErose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimHFJDrWUwUZ9bSaLPwbPJynCdNKkm_9x7WLgOjqWrCpXFYrjabg_mw9SFcd_rYx75KVPJb6DpeVg31b8BTEeYBx4wsLwTo3Ig_3GeiQRVkCCKX2Mm55ywGQKKBgb6oYY6ay0kFr7EXcvm/s320/wildMErose.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I didn't mark his grave. Instead sometimes I still call his musical name out the back door after dark, into the rain. He is nowhere and everywhere in the meadow now, part of the soil, part of the rosebush, part of the worms and the birds and the mice and all of the other beings who together make up that living web I call the meadow.<br />
<br />
So it has ever been, and so may it ever be.<br />
<br />
Somewhere on the flanks of a hill nearby, the last of the native peoples buried their dead and tended the graves. The site is no longer public knowledge. I think about this as I walk the paths that encircle the hill, now forested with thick stands of Douglas fir that are overtopping the oaks. It's been well over a hundred years since the last burial there. Likely even the bones are gone now, dissolved and picked up again by the tangled mat of roots that makes up the top layers of the ground. The original place of burial is now moot. <br />
<br />
By this way of thinking, both the forest and the meadow are sacred ground. By this way of thinking, all ground is sacred, for through the ages every inch of it has received the bodies of the dead and the dying, received back the carbon, the nitrogen, bone and hair and nails and teeth, skin and water and calcium, received it back and mixed it in the guts of earthworms and bacteria, made it ready for root and shoot to offer again the same stuff of life for the next round. In the soil, past and future generations lie together beneath the blanket of leaves and grass, joined by the arc of those now living in that brief space between.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinTfDnnZbwiwibQ2Q3ZI1ZTBPUPE3QEgArVyUrsr-TrVdl_NSgT0jjF7wZz4ulOJZv3gFzfGSP2HTFOajW1HNsiOw77rYkRPKxjgsETRQTNDbMv7UcptRVPEC2ktClO0aDInECF_d1wWdd/s1600/torrylinn_cairn.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinTfDnnZbwiwibQ2Q3ZI1ZTBPUPE3QEgArVyUrsr-TrVdl_NSgT0jjF7wZz4ulOJZv3gFzfGSP2HTFOajW1HNsiOw77rYkRPKxjgsETRQTNDbMv7UcptRVPEC2ktClO0aDInECF_d1wWdd/s320/torrylinn_cairn.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So it has ever been, and so may it ever be.<br />
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<br />
If we remembered this, if we remembered how we are beholden to the sacred
ground, would we be so quick to treat soil like dirt?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would we bury our dead embalmed in steel boxes lowered into concrete crypts, as if to cheat them of that final journey of renewal? Would we think that burying toxic waste in
the ground is a travesty?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could we bring
ourselves to dig strip mines, pave parking lots, strip land bare and leave it
naked under the staring sky?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all,
we wouldn’t think of digging up the bones of our own ancestors, grasping at grave goods
with hands of careless greed? But we have done even this.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Why do we think it is only one day of the year that the spirits of the dead
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<br />
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<br />
Better to take a picnic to share among the stones engraved with the names of
those mostly forgotten, remember that they too once knew the warmth of sun on
skin, the feel of a kiss, how good it is to be alive on an autumn morning as
the leaves go down with one last flash of gold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Better to spread flowers over the earth,
offer compassion for forgotten grief, call the names of those we have loved
out over the hills, and tend all as carefully as we would our own grave.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-28475659097022819722012-10-17T14:34:00.002-07:002012-10-17T14:34:18.969-07:00ApplesWhen European settlers first arrived in this region nearly two centuries ago, they planted fruit trees. I don't know if this is the first thing they did, but the trees are the last signs of those early settlements. A trained eye knows where to look for the remnants of an old homestead by identifying the trees the settlers planted. Hauling young fruit trees along the Applegate Trail took an act of imagination, a belief that the new life could have some of the same comforts of the familiar, even in a new land very far away. The reward of that hope comes due every fall, when the woods are full of wild apples.<br />
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We went for a walk along the creek above us the other day, spotting feral fruit trees as we went. There is an old row of apple trees along the road, continuous across current property lines. Possibly once this whole section was tended by a single landowner. Near the end of the paved road, the achingly red fruit of a forgotten tree hang like bright holiday ornaments. Although the tree doesn't look like one of the original settler trees, it appears to have escaped the notice of the people who own the property. It isn't visible from their house, but it is separated from the road by a deer fence, discouraging trespass and sampling of those gloriously bright apples. A pity. I'm tempted to knock on the door, but we have an abundance of apples ourselves.<br />
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Farther along upstream, signs of an old orchard exist in a number of battered old apple trees, and we also found a pear tree and a stand of plum trees that were first pointed out to me by my dog, who loves the soft golden fruit that falls to the ground. <br />
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The old fruit trees kept growing, fighting for sunlight against the swift-growing, light-greedy Douglas firs and the bigleaf maples that quickly overtop them. They've remained even after the pastures have grown back into forest and the buildings completely rotted away, leaving only faint traces that the small farms ever existed here. In fact, the strongest signature of former human habitation in these woods is the presence of these fruit trees, now the oldest in this section of forest. They've woven themselves into the ecology of the place, offering habitat and food and hanging on to the patch of soil they were first given by the people who planted them.<br />
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Our land supports a few old trees as well, possibly planted at the same time as the apples up the road. A young beaver moving through the area girdled one last fall, but somehow the tree survived the horrific damage and even produced a few apples this year. The other trees are more like thickets because of the root suckers and bent, dragging branches, creating hidden lairs for the bobcat who comes along the creek now and then, visiting in hopes of a chicken dinner. <br />
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When we finished building the house, we planted an orchard. It contains pears, plums, cherries, a peach tree planted as a whim and a wild hope because peaches often do poorly here. We also planted three apple trees, carefully planning out a long season of fresh fruit with a Williams' Pride, producing apples in August, a Liberty, whose crop comes in late September, and a Gold Rush, whose golden fruits blushed with rose ripen a month after that. "Mature fruit trees" seems a selling point in real estate, even though most of the time the fruit is never used. It seems an almost instinctive desire to have some apple trees all the same. Perhaps it's just another way of putting down roots in a place, tying ourselves back to the land we live on.<br />
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The impact of our activities is so pervasive now it is hard to quantify, in the sense that no spot on our planet is unaffected by our species. Often we think of this only in the negative, and to some extent, perhaps we should. But the apple trees bear witness to another kind of influence, where we weave our lives into an evolving landscape, not always harmoniously, but managing nonetheless to create a complex story where our own points of view are present but not dominant. After all, the Earth is our home, and we are as much creatures of this world as the deer. In a more enlightened world, let this be the knowledge brought to us in the fruits of the woods and fields. If this were so, perhaps we'd take better care of them.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-51622868464456695892012-09-30T08:56:00.001-07:002012-09-30T09:00:29.901-07:00Silver Trees and Long OddsThe silver trees twist up out of the rock, binding together red earth and blue sky. The thick fingers reach up as if to catch quick whips of cloud, or grasp at the wings of the ravens. These trees have clenched the rim of the caldera for many hundreds of years, bearing witness to changing seasons and ultimately, a changing climate. They are beautiful, and many of them are dead.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Whitebark pine on the caldera rim, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></i></div>
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The <a href="http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/plants/whitebarkpine/" target="_blank">whitebark pine</a>, <i>Pinus albicaulus</i> to its most serious-minded friends, lives at the highest elevations of <a href="http://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm" target="_blank">Crater Lake National Park </a>in Oregon, and in high elevations throughout western North America. The species has long contended with atrocious weather, swinging between violent storms and forty or more feet of snow each winter at Crater Lake, and then a prolonged summer drought that breaks with the next year's snowfall. These trees don't even begin to produce seeds until they are in their sixth decade, and only after their first century do they begin producing cones packed with large nuts in any quantity. Not surprisingly, they grow slowly and are capable of living a long time, at least in the world they knew. Unfortunately for them, the ground rules have changed in the game of survival.<br />
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One of the wild cards that we're gambling with in warming the global climate is the ranges of species. As conditions shift, some species find themselves unable to adapt or move quickly enough to escape newly hostile conditions. However, some species are finding themselves unbound, capable of spreading where they've never been before, and often the conditions or other species that kept them in check do not spread with them. Epidemiologists are already finding evidence of the spread of <a href="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5883/asian-tiger-mosquito-spreading-disease-through-europe" target="_blank">disease-carrying mosquitoes</a> in many countries, which are putting new human populations at risk of diseases that not long ago were safely limited by biological boundaries. But it isn't just people who stand to face new and devastating challenges as organisms break free of traditional limits.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Whitebark pine cone and seeds, which feed many species of birds and mammals. Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></i></div>
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Whitebark pines are susceptible to a small and unassuming beetle, the mountain pine beetle, known as <i>Dendroctonus ponderosae</i> to entomologists; it is not clear if this beetle has many friends. The tiny beetles overcome trees by flash mobbing their target, burrowing beneath the bark in great numbers all at once and overwhelming the tree's defenses. They then let other beetles know that the flash mob has done its work by emitting a chemical signal, called a <a href="http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/24531" target="_blank">verbenone</a>, essentially saying the party is over. <i>Been here, done that</i>. The flash-mob beetles then lay their eggs beneath the bark of their victim. When the larvae hatch, their tunneling and voracious appetite for the tree's inmost bark is so great they can kill a large tree in a few weeks by cutting off water and nutrient flow between branch and root.<br />
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Beetles have a weakness; they don't like cold weather much, and low temperatures used to hold them at bay from the high country throughout the mountains of western North America. However, winters aren't what they were, particularly with regard to temperature, and the beetles have surged up slope to attack new targets. They've discovered whitebark pine, and they like it.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/clarks_nutcracker/lifehistory" target="_blank">Clark's nutcracker</a>, which depends heavily on whitebark pine seeds. The birds cache the seeds under several inches of soil, and forgotten caches produce new trees. Photo: J. A. Gervais </span></i></div>
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Humans have dealt a doubly bad hand to the whitebark pine. A century ago, nursery trees from France were shipped to British Columbia. They carried an undetected stowaway, the fungus <a href="http://www.forestpathology.org/dis_wpbr.html" target="_blank"><i>Cronartium ribicola</i></a>, which almost certainly has no friends at all. The fungus attacks pines, and kills them within a short span of years with a disease called white pine blister rust. It has finally arrived at Crater Lake. The fungus kills many trees, and weakens others, making them even less able to withstand the beetles. Botanists in the park estimate that a quarter of the whitebark pines within the park boundaries are dead, another quarter are dying, and the remaining half face a very uncertain future.<br />
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The botanists are doing their very best. They've been collecting and growing seeds from marked trees and when the seedlings are a few years old, the botanists expose them to the fungus to see which trees have genetic resistance. They're slowly identifying the very small number of trees who carry the right genes, so that these trees' offspring can be planted and protected to increase this rare type.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A flash mob of mountain pine beetles claimed the tree on the left. Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></i></div>
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Unfortunately, fate holds some of the most important cards. First, the genetic resistance to fungus means nothing at all to the mountain pine beetle. Trees resistant to the fungus can still be flash mobbed and killed. Second, the botanists must beat the wildlife to the resistant trees' cones in the first place, lest the <a href="http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/clarks_nutcracker/lifehistory" target="_blank">Clark's nutcrackers</a>, grouse, squirrels, and bears make off with them first. On top of that, there is little money to do the work, as is too often the case. A scant hundred trees have been tested so far for fungal resistance. Many of these have failed the challenge. Only a few hundred seedlings have been planted to replace the tens of thousands of dead and dying trees.<br />
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The botanists aren't giving up, even if the odds are long and the numbers small. They're busy continuing to test<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_genetics" target="_blank"> genotypes</a> of trees, identifying as many as they can that might offer the fungus some fight. They're protecting these trees from the beetle essentially with a bluff: stapling little bags of verbenone to the trunks of those special trees, to fool the beetles into thinking a flash mob has already invaded. It seems to work at least some of the time. Those same trees sport bags of netting around the cones on their branches, which will at least keep the birds at bay. You have to play your cards the best you can, even when the deck is stacked against you.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdI_LWAxWDrqllIH5m0Q_zw5QGGyFKxFFmES9Ikr-gI8ucXjC-nnowwlImTyyfrVtC6dhv0Pi_nT6LeLBainNan_9j_HEn51SX2ZgP-IyOtdGPBw39mZZzONDrpQ38D38zFaui_vQI1HqR/s1600/desperate+measures.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdI_LWAxWDrqllIH5m0Q_zw5QGGyFKxFFmES9Ikr-gI8ucXjC-nnowwlImTyyfrVtC6dhv0Pi_nT6LeLBainNan_9j_HEn51SX2ZgP-IyOtdGPBw39mZZzONDrpQ38D38zFaui_vQI1HqR/s320/desperate+measures.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Whitebark pine with packets of mountain pine beetle verbenone stapled to its bark to repel the beetles, and net bags to prevent animals from eating the cones before botanists can collect them. Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></i><br />
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Whether it will be enough to win this round in the game is another matter; the odds are probably longer than getting dealt a royal flush, but it beats simply folding and losing this elder species without even mourning it, letting the sudden unbending of boundaries wash away so much that is beautiful, unique, and irreplaceable. May we all be so inspired by the botanists' example that we find whatever ways we can to play our own cards, because in the game to slow global climate change, every move we make to reduce the damage in any way each of us can increases the odds for our own long-term survival.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Note: much of the information in this essay is from "Can we stop the decline of the whitebark pine?" Crater Lake Reflections Visitor Guide, Summer/Fall 2012.</i></span>Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-27054464850701187802012-09-18T15:28:00.001-07:002012-09-19T08:44:57.985-07:00Magic of Mare's EggsThe suggestion came at the end of the email detailing things of interest in the area, received just as we were loading the car for the trip. Almost as an afterthought, our friend had typed, "oh, and the "mare's eggs" Nostoc colonies are in the creek next to a roadside turn out." She then gave us full directions to find them.<br />
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It seemed we were supposed to know what a Nostoc colony was. Fair enough, we're biologists, we of all people should know these things. We didn't have time to do our homework as we were literally on our way out the door. But we thought that anything as weird as a mare's egg, whatever it was, should be immediately identifiable, at least as the thing we didn't recognize. We pulled into the indicated turnout and followed the path down to yet another beautiful spring-watered pool, which are abundant in the Klamath Basin region of southern Oregon.<br />
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It looked ordinary enough as gorgeous spring-watered pools go. The vegetation surrounding the pool was typical, and there was an enormous beaver lodge, suggesting that water chemistry certainly wasn't outstandingly odd. The water looked clear and felt tooth-shatteringly cold, also typical of these springs.<br />
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It wasn't long before we noticed the rounded grey-green shapes the size of golf balls to baseballs scattered across the sandy bottom of the spring, and realized that they were not stones. A few of them were close to the spring's banks, and when we scooped one of the odd things up, we found that it was not a hard object at all, but a gelatinous mass with a hollow center. We carefully replaced it, feeling as if reaching through the surface of the water had suddenly led to a space-time shift, and we'd somehow left the familiar world we thought we knew. We had innocently wandered down a woodland path to a perfectly ordinary spring on a lovely early fall day, and found ourselves surrounded by organisms that looked like they more properly belonged to a much earlier epoch in planetary history, if not a science fiction movie.<br />
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Truth is stranger than science fiction. Nostoc is a genus of <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/cyanointro.html" target="_blank">cyanobacteria</a> or so-called blue-green algae, although cyanobacteria are neither algae nor blue-green. Cyanobacteria did start the process of<a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/cyanointro.html" target="_blank"> putting oxygen into our atmosphere</a>, however, essentially making a whole new world in the process. Species within the genus Nostoc live in a wide variety of habitats, from temperate springs to <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012EGUGA..14.6607W" target="_blank">arid environments</a> to the <a href="http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/b94-119" target="_blank">Arctic</a> and <a href="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/blogs/Antarcticcyanobacteria/tags/nostoc?fromGateway=true" target="_blank">Antarctic</a>. They can lie dormant and undetected for long periods, abruptly gearing up and becoming metabolically active when water becomes available. They have earned themselves a variety of colorful folk names for this, including witch's jelly and troll jelly, because people couldn't figure out where these gooey blackish-grayish-reddish gobs had come from. It therefore had to be magical. This was before the era of science fiction.<br />
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Nostoc species are able to fix atmospheric nitrogen, a boon both to the bacteria and the environments in which they live. These skills make them desirable partners, and they may move in with other organisms, forming symbiotic relationships with lichens, ferns, and mosses. Species of <a href="http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/pubs/pdf/pub1334.pdf" target="_blank">midges</a> appear to have a symbiotic relationship with one species of Nostoc as well. The midges lay their eggs on the colonies, which support the larvae until emergence. The colonies actually change their shape when the larvae move in, which increases the Nostoc's ability to photosynthesize. This in turn adds more nitrogen to streams that often are nitrogen limited. Bug makes the shape and metabolism of gooey mass change, which benefits both bug and gooey mass. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein" target="_blank">Robert Heinlein</a>, did you know about mare's eggs?<br />
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Despite the fact that people couldn't figure out where these weird beings were coming from, they ate them anyway. Or maybe that's exactly why they ate them. Suffice to say that the Chinese have traditionally enjoyed one species of Nostoc as a special New Year holiday dish, and contributed to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/813254.stm" target="_blank">desertification</a> of the Gobi as a result. Peruvians collect Nostoc from the mountain lakes, and eat them or trade them for other food. Toxicologists are unsure about the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18495396" target="_blank">benefits</a> of this. Although Nostoc species have been used in folk <a href="http://grad.uic.edu/cms/?pid=1001071" target="_blank">medicine</a> for thousands of years, it appears that they <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15466511" target="_blank">contain a highly toxic compound</a> that can melt your liver. <br />
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Ironically, the genus was <a href="http://ijs.sgmjournals.org/content/47/2/584.full.pdf" target="_blank">named </a>by none other than the Father of Toxicology himself. <a href="http://www.egs.edu/library/paracelsus/biography/" target="_blank">Paracelsus</a> is remembered as a rather difficult character who openly expressed his disdain of the ideas of his peers and colleagues. Although he emphasized experimentation and direct observation as the pathways to better medicine, he also consulted astrology. <a href="http://ijs.sgmjournals.org/content/47/2/584.full.pdf" target="_blank">Nostoc might be loosely translated</a> as "star snot."<br />
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The species we found in the spring was <i>Nostoc pruniforme</i>, which is both endemic and apparently quite rare in the Klamath region. This species has done one of the the most amazing things of all: it prompted the Bureau of Reclamation to build a<a href="http://www.aquadam.net/Media/Mares_Egg.html" target="_blank"> temporary dam</a> to prevent water from one of the few known occupied pools from draining away. The Bureau of Reclamation likes to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Bureau_of_Reclamation_dams" target="_blank">build dams</a>, usually to provide water and electricity or just because that's what they do. I have never heard of them building one at the potential expense of agriculture, all to save balls of star snot. Maybe they'd heard that mare's eggs were magical.<br />
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Long may we be amazed by the other beings who share our planetary home!<br />
<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-50136910234824101112012-08-31T10:39:00.001-07:002012-08-31T10:41:02.684-07:00Backyard BoaBillie appeared at my doorstep in the heat of the afternoon, her hands cupped firmly together and held against her body. "I've got a boa," she said. "It came out of a weedy area I was mowing, and I don't want it to get into the road. Can we release it in your rock wall?"<br />
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By all means. The elusive<a href="http://www.zoo.org/page.aspx?pid=527" target="_blank"> rubber boa</a>, <i>Charina bottae</i>, is one of those common and utterly overlooked creatures that echos greater things. It is the small and nearly invisible cousin of the impressive <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/green-anaconda/" target="_blank">anacondas</a>, <a href="http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-python.html" target="_blank">pythons</a>, and <a href="http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Boa_constrictor.html" target="_blank">boa constrictors</a>, massive snakes large enough to eat small deer and peccaries. The boa family line has some unusual characteristics among snakes. The members carry two lungs, rather than the single lung considered adequate by most snake species, and boas retain their eggs in their bodies, giving birth to fully-formed young rather than laying the eggs like many other snakes do. For the uninitiated, boas hunt by lunging out at unwary animals, encircling their prey in coils of their thick, smooth bodies, and strangling their dinner.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rubber boa. Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></i> </div>
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But the boa family is probably most noteworthy for another reason: they are snakes with legs. They still retain the tiny nubs of what were once fully functional limbs. Both sexes carry small spurs
placed along their sides above the vent, used primarily by the males in
courtship. <br />
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The northernmost branch of the family ranges into North America in the form of two species, the <a href="http://www.sdnhm.org/archive/fieldguide/herps/lich-tri.html" target="_blank">rosy boa</a> and the rubber boa, which extends up into British Columbia. These are the poor cousins of the spectacularly patterned and impressively sized South American relatives. The rosy boa boasts some <a href="http://srelherp.uga.edu/jd/jdweb/Herps/species/USsnakes/Lictri.htm" target="_blank">handsome stripes</a> but its northern cousin, the rubber boa, is notable for its plainness and the fact they occur in a wide variety of habitats although they are rarely noticed. The body is olive or brown or pinkish, the belly lighter and possibly more shaded with yellow, and there are no lovely patterns of brown or black or green, no rings or stripes or spots or really anything of interest at all. Their scales are small and very smooth and hardly offer any texture to break the monotony of their skin. All in all, they are spectacularly uninteresting, other than the chance to see those relict legs that are now reduced to small spurs.<br />
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Except for two things: rubber boas have tiny eyes. And they have thick, knobby tails that are as large as their heads. With the very fine scales and tiny eyes, you might mistake one for a large fat worm. The legs are pretty surprising, but they're easy to overlook.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Rubber boa head. Photo: J. A. Gervais</i></span></div>
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Rubber boas spend much of their time underground, haunting rodent burrows and cracks in the earth, sheltering under appropriate human junk. They seem to do much of their hunting at night, and they are the scourge of the cozy nests of mice, shrews, and other small mammals. The snake will eat all of the babies if it can, holding the mother at bay with that thick, knobbed tail. One report also documents a snake consuming both a mother ensatina salamander and her clutch of eggs, which the salamanders brood until hatching. These snakes are the real cradle-robbing monsters of nightmares.<br />
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However, the boas themselves are often heavily scarred, and some voles and mice will counter-attack repeatedly to defend their offspring. They may even kill the attacking snake if the snake is a small one. Bigger boas will also eat birds if they can catch them, and smaller snakes feed on the eggs of other reptiles. There are reports of big boas trying to eat smaller ones, although these incidents were seen in captivity. There's a lot of tabloid-style drama going on out in the fields that we never notice.<br />
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Billie put out her hands and slowly opened them so I could see the boa. It was olive in color, with a yellowy underside, about two feet long, and much more interested in hiding its head and presenting its tail to us than escaping. The rubber boa is also one of the most docile of snakes, moving slowly and nearly impossible to provoke into biting. They are far more likely to release musk from their vent to deter rough handling, and need to be harassed to do even that.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Down a mouse hole. Photo: J. A. Gervais</i></span></div>
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Rubber boas in the northwest breed in early spring. The spurs are part of the courtship ritual, used primarily by the male snakes, whose spurs are more mobile. Females' spurs are also more conical in shape, where the male snakes have spurs shaped like hooks. Adult females are larger than males, with shorter tails, and more tail scarring, possibly because the demands of producing young require more hunting. Females may not eat the entire summer that they are carrying their young. Instead they seem to spend as much time as they can keeping their body temperature as high as possible to speed the babies' development and birth. They will be born in August, not long before temperatures drop and all of the snakes must find sites to spend the winter.<br />
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Rubber boas are homebodies, frequently caught over and over in the same
small area year after year. They are also impressively long-lived,
perhaps reaching a half-century even in the wild. Their habit of rarely
showing themselves in
the open keeps them safely off the roads that take the
lives of so many garter and gopher snakes, and helps ensure their
reputation as the boa you never knew about living right in your
backyard.<br />
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We looked the snake over closely but missed seeing the spurs, which I
didn't know about at the time. The snake might well have been a female,
whose spurs are hardly larger than her scales and may not even be
visible. We released it in the grass not far from the half-buried line of concrete rubble that runs along the edge of our yard, the remains of an old barn foundation we had recycled into snake habitat. There are too many mouse droppings in the bike shed. I hope this snake sticks around.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>References:</b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Dorcas, M. E., and C. E. Peterson. 1998. Daily temperature variation in free-ranging rubber boas. Herpetologica 54(1):88-103.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hoyer, R. F. 1974. Description of a rubber boa (<i>Charina bottae</i>) population from western Oregon. Herpetologica 30(3):275-283.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hoyer, R. F., and G. F. Stewart. 2000. Biology of the rubber boa (<i>Charina bottae</i>) with emphasis on C. b. umbratica. Part I: capture, size, sexual dimorphism, and reproduction. Journal of Herpetology 34(3):348-354.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hoyer, R. F., and G. R. Stewart. 2000. Biology of the rubber boa (<i>Charina bottae</i>) with emphasis on C. b. umbratica. Part II: diet, antagonists, and predators. Journal of Herpetologica 34(3):354-360.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Macey, R. M. 1983. Charina bottae food. Herpetological Review 14(1):19.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Peabody, R. B., J. A. Johnson, and E. D. Brodie, Jr. 1975. Intraspecific escape from ingestion of the rubber boa, <i>Charina bottae</i>. Journal of Herpetology 9(2):237.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rodriguez-Robles, J. A., C. J. Bell, and H. W. Greene. 1999. Gape size and evolution of diet in snakes: feeding ecology of erycine boas. Journal of Zoology 248(1):49-58.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-5725957413092123202012-08-15T18:08:00.001-07:002012-08-15T18:08:02.886-07:00Groundhog Day on a BicycleI've been pretty committed to reducing my carbon footprint for a few years now, spurred by the scientific evidence that suggests that global warming is bringing about severe changes to the planet's climate even faster than we had expected. I'm not someone who still needs convincing. But I still find that the gap between intention and action can be persistent and pervasive, requiring a large reserve of daily resolve to bridge.<br />
<br />
I ride my bicycle to town to my office, and for many of my errands. I have decided not to be dogmatic about it, allowing trips at night and trips to pick up heavy bags of dog food, livestock feed, or kitty litter to be made in the car. But I continually challenge myself to leave the car in the driveway, and take the bike instead.<br />
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I've made it easy on myself by riding a good bicycle, a touring bike outfitted for commuting with fenders, lights, and reflectors. I've got good bike bags, and a nice rain jacket. My commute is really a lovely short tour for much of the way if I choose a longer route, and bike lanes or bike paths exist on all but the first three-quarters of a mile of my journey. The shortest distance to my office is just over five miles, and my office has great secure, dry bicycle parking and a place to hang wet clothing. In sum, I've got the optimal situation for bicycle commuting.<br />
<br />
Still, I find the walk from the front door to the bike shed past the car to be one of the most challenging twenty-five yards I've ever traveled. The battle goes like this: I'm already behind schedule. It's raining. It's hot. It's cold. I'm really tired today. I might be coming down with something. If I drove, I could do this errand that is not feasible by bicycle. Everybody else drives. Maybe I'm just a freak for caring so much. Why don't I give myself a break today, and I'm sure I can come up with a reason why I deserve one. Meanwhile I'm trudging to the shed, pumping up the tires, and resolutely rolling my bike up the driveway. Fortunately, I live at the top of a hill, because that easy launch helps overcome the last resistance, and off I go.<br />
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I've been surprised at the continual inner battle, despite what I know about the science, the consequences of continuing to carelessly emit carbon into the atmosphere, and the fact that I really do enjoy riding my bicycle. It helps me realize how much greater the challenge must seem to someone who doesn't have such an ideal commuting situation, or whose job is less amenable to arriving at the office wet or sweaty, and needing to change, can't safely ride at all, or who perhaps doesn't see global warming as an immediate threat.<br />
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The daily inner battle has also taught me that I need lots of different arguments to help me push the bike out of the shed. Sometimes, but not often, pure guilt is a motivator. It typically doesn't work two days in a row. Who wants to feel guilty? Of all emotions, I think we're best at managing to avoid this one. I consider it a tool of last resort.<br />
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Sometimes I can get myself going by reminding myself of how much I usually enjoy the ride in to town. This is true, but the trouble is that I remember plenty of rides I didn't enjoy, when either bad weather, a negative interaction with a motorist, or too many dead deer carcasses on the side of the road ruined the fun. Still, on the ride to town and back I have enjoyed some spectacular sunrises, encounters with friends, surprise wildlife sightings, and even fresh blackberries in season. I almost always feel better after exercising. This motivator works more often than any other.<br />
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I've also found I'm pretty reward motivated, and I'm not above personal bribery. I keep a package of homemade chocolate biscotti in the freezer at work. All right, I tell myself, biking burns calories. Ride in today, carrying all of your gear and with full intention of stopping at the store to buy groceries on the ride home, and you can have TWO cookies on your coffee break. On a bad day I might need three cookies. I can always promise myself I'll pedal harder to make up for it.<br />
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The final motivator is highly personal, and I don't use this one if I'm already in a difficult mood. I can remind myself of the latest rash of scientific papers filling in the lines of what we're in for as our atmosphere changes. The danger here is this can make me angry, and too resentful of other people who don't seem to be spending their free time perusing the latest issue of <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a> or following <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/" target="_blank">Skeptical Science</a>, <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/" target="_blank">RealClimate</a>, or <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/" target="_blank">Climate Progress</a>, but who might be driving their dog to the forest as I bicycle past them. This is generally counter-productive. First, resentment gets you nowhere. Second, being angry at cars while you're riding a bicycle is very dangerous.<br />
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Instead, I have to apply all of this knowledge to view global warming as a direct threat to something I care very deeply about, something I don't want to lose or see destroyed. I think of the glaciers I've seen that my nieces and nephews never will, or the high mountain forests now under threat from bark beetles and fire. I think of my nieces' and nephews' future, which won't have the glorious biodiversity and take-it-for-granted planetary life support systems I enjoyed when I was their age. Most often, I think of a small dune of sand that arcs up just above the waves in the far northwestern Hawaiian Islands.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Hawaiian monk seal and pup, Laysan Island 1991. Photo: J.A. Gervais</i></span><br />
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It hurts to think of all that is going to be lost, parrotfish and monk seals, tropic birds and albatrosses and sea turtles. I can at least act to prevent more damage, however mundane and humble and small that action might be. This will get me on my bicycle even in very cold wind and rain. However, it is also quite dangerous to ride a bicycle if you are upset. I try the cookie motivator first. <br />
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The little daily battle in the war on global warming has me thinking that although the action is happening in the atmosphere, the front lines are drawn by our smallest actions, held firm by whatever resolve we can muster. There won't be a conclusive confrontation, some great climax that once and for all ends the war. It's going to be a lot more like the movie "Groundhog Day" than D-Day.<br />
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I'll continue to engage in the fight with the daily trudge up the driveway, one small act of defiance over and over against too much loss to bear.<br />
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Chocolate Biscotti (origin of recipe unknown)<br />
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Mix and set aside:<br />
2 cups flour<br />
0.5 cup cocoa powder<br />
1 teaspoon baking soda<br />
1 teaspoon salt<br />
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Cream together 1 cup sugar with 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) of butter. Add two large eggs, beat together well. Add 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1 cup chopped walnuts.<br />
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Combine sugar-butter-egg mix with the flour mix. Divide the batter and pat each half into a log, roughly 2 inches wide, 1 inch high and 12 inches long. Bake on greased cookie sheet for 35 minutes at 350 degrees F. Let cool on wire rack completely. Cut into 3/4" slices and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes. <br />
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Make cookies while baking some other item to get the most from the electricity needed.<br />
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<a href="http://www.jsward.com/cooking/conversion.shtml" target="_blank">Metric version</a>:<br />
240 g flour<br />
55 g cocoa powder<br />
5 ml baking soda<br />
5 ml salt<br />
200 g granulated sugar<br />
100 g butter<br />
<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-76414147084574637732012-07-27T12:45:00.002-07:002012-07-27T12:47:19.368-07:00The Baloney Detection KitHave you ever read a book that had been published years before you read it, but you find it strikes a chord with you as if the author was writing it for the present you're in? I just had that experience reading<a href="http://www.carlsagan.com/" target="_blank"> Carl Sagan</a>'s last book, <i><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World" target="_blank">The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark</a></b> </i>(Random House, NY).<i><br /></i><br />
I had not even known Sagan had written it until recently, although it was published in 1995, the year before he died. I had been enthralled by the television series "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Personal_Voyage" target="_blank">Cosmos</a>" and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_%28book%29" target="_blank">book</a> was given to me as a Christmas gift from my parents. I still have it, tattered and well-traveled, on the shelf reserved for the favorites. Sagan's ability to communicate the wonder and challenge of science remains unequaled. Having worked as a science communicator myself for the <a href="http://npic.orst.edu/" target="_blank">National Pesticide Information Center</a>, I know how difficult, and how important, communicating science to the general public can be. <br />
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<i>The Demon-Haunted World</i> has many prescient chapters that ring even more true today than they did sixteen years ago; I won't spoil your personal discovery. But in an election year of unparalleled hyperbole, in a time marked by highly organized, very well-funded anti-science campaigns, a few pages of this book need to be widely distributed. These pages constitute Sagan's <b>Baloney Detection Kit</b>.<br />
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<b>To quote the book, "What's in the kit? Tools for skeptical thinking."</b><br />
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They include the <b>ground rules that every practicing scientist should have memorized by heart</b>. Information must be independently confirmed to be true. Authorities have no special standing, only experts do. However, the experts had better be prepared to defend their views in vigorous, open debate, which should be strongly encouraged. The validity of ideas is independent of the rank or status of the person presenting them. Scientists should maintain at least a small herd of alternative hypotheses that may explain a phenomenon to avoid unreasonable attachment to any one idea. All hypotheses need to be able to be falsified in order to be useful. If faced with two equally plausible explanations, choose the simpler of the two. <br />
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In addition, included for all of us is a list of fallacies to be recognized and called out for the bad practices they represent. Among the most relevant of these:<br />
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<b>Confusing causation for correlation</b>. Just because two phenomena occur together doesn't mean that one causes the other. Weight gain and baldness are both associated with aging in men. However, gaining weight does not induce baldness.<br />
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<b>The false dichotomy (also known as the excluded middle)</b>. Either you're for something, or you're against it. If all parts of the genome haven't been shaped by evolution, then evolution isn't valid. <b>The slippery slope</b> is a special case of the excluded middle. Another special case is <b>the short-term versus the long-term argument</b>. We need the jobs mining and transporting coal will provide, so we can't afford to pay attention to future environmental or human health costs.<br />
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<b>The non sequitur</b>, which literally means "it doesn't follow". This is the derailing of the logical argument. For example, the claim that teaching human reproductive biology in school will lead to sexual promiscuity is a non sequitur. <br />
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<b>Misunderstanding of statistics and probability</b>. This is a hard one for folks without much math background, but Sagan offers an example that illustrates the extreme: President Eisenhower was purportedly alarmed to learn that fully half of all Americans were below average intelligence.<br />
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<b>Observational selection</b>: we consciously or unconsciously winnow our recognition of events to support our cherished viewpoints. For example, only the failures are enumerated, not the successes. <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/solyndra/index.html" target="_blank">Solyndra went bankrupt</a>, so there is obviously no point in supporting companies developing alternative energy technologies. We are also prone to forgetting failures. In both cases, we're not going to be able to learn from what we've tried before if we choose not to remember it.<br />
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<b>The straw man</b>: the straw man is built from a gross oversimplification of a position to make it easier to attack. If global warming is actually occurring, how come it snowed so much in some places last winter? Straw men often turn up as jokes, but in this case both sides have to appreciate the caricature for the joke it is meant to be. Otherwise it isn't funny at all.<br />
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<b>Ad hominem</b>: Latin for "to the man", this is similar to shooting the messenger. It involves attempting to discredit the source so no one will believe them, even if there is abundant support for what they're saying. Think character assassination. Unfortunately it has become an increasingly common strategy in public discourse in general and for the climate change denialist movement in particular. Deniers are now seeking to discredit the scientists themselves, in hopes that the public will be fooled into thinking that if the scientist is a jerk, his or her work will not be worth anything. <b><br /></b><br />
<b>Inconsistency</b>: this one is miserably pervasive, which is a sad comment on all of us because it's also one of the easiest ones to spot and call out. You might also refer to this one as<b> the pot calling the kettle black</b>, and in the case of ethical positions, the word "hypocrisy" might apply. <br />
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Sagan points out that all tools, even a baloney detection kit, may fail or be misused. However, it still seems worth investing in developing a good one to better recognize what's being served up in the media and public discourse. In fact, maintaining a healthy, fully functioning democracy requires that all citizens be so equipped.<br />
<br />
Sagan makes an eloquent argument for remembering what science really is: a universal pursuit whose revelations are independent of religion, nationality, language, or political persuasion. These are truths unaffected by whether or not we exist to recognize them. Science exists independently of its discoverers.<b> </b>It is up to us to wisely use and apply the discoveries, making sure that we all engage in open, skeptical, and reasoned debate that acknowledges the potential risks and benefits. <br />
<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-74622802207378338912012-06-16T16:54:00.000-07:002012-06-18T08:15:44.478-07:00View from the RoofIt was one of the first summer mornings we've had this year, but like too many summer mornings, there were always chores to do. The solar hot water system has been on the blink for some months now, thanks to an unreliable sensor, and although Dan had finally obtained the necessary parts and even rigged a temporary repair, the fix needed to be made more permanent.<br />
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This required another trip up to the highest roof of the house. The living room juts out from the main wall, so getting to the rooftop panels means hauling a ladder to the top of the living room's first-floor roof, then setting it up to reach the roof over the second story, the uppermost roof of the house. Good sense seemed to require a spotter at the base of the ladder, so repairing the sensor became an all-hands-on-roof affair. The dogs offered moral support from the grass below.<br />
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The second-floor windows on the south side of the house are set just above this first-floor roof. The view from my desk is essentially the same as the one I obtained by sitting on the roof with my back against the exterior wall, waiting until I was needed. However, there wasn't much else I could do but sit and watch a summer morning unfolding on our small corner of the world. This is something I confess I absolutely do not spend enough time doing. There may be days, very bad days, when I hardly look out the home office window at all. Instead, my existence is shaped by the computer, by proposal deadlines or the text of a report, the dead words on the electrified screen blocking out the living world outside.<br />
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This morning, there was no window, only open air filled with the ruckus of two house wren families, both with newly fledged young, bouncing from fencepost to wire and back, squabbling and begging without any sense of propriety. Young chickadees were working the riparian edge, noticeably less careful than their parents about popping out of the foliage into plain sight for long stretches at a time. The swallows flashed like feathered sabers, slicing up the sky in search of prey to bring their still box-bound baby. Far less graceful, our four big red hens and the little flock of young hens rambled about the pasture, the unruffled dignity of the older hens a striking contrast to the gawky, awkward cliquishness of the young girls, who are still quite unsure of themselves.<br />
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The goats had already had a good graze and had retired to their platform play structure to chew their cud and dangle their feet in the morning breeze. The old ram eventually came to join them. A massive beast, he's pretty gentle, and has been seen putting up with the indignity of having lambs and even the goats climb up on his back as if he were nothing more than an old stump. When he's had enough, he heaves to his feet, standing in an Eeyore posture of gloomy stubbornness until his tormentors find something else to do. This morning, he seeks out the small patch of shade under the goat platform, or maybe he's just seeking their company. It's a nice morning to share.<br />
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The reverie broke when a small roll of electrical tape came wheeling out
over the edge of the gutter and launched into the atmosphere, arcing
out over the grass below. Would you mind getting that, a disembodied
voice cried. In through the window, down the stairs, pause to plug in
the coffee pot, search the long grass until the errant tape is located,
another pause to pour the coffee and grab a book I've been wanting to read, back up
the stairs and through the window. The tape delivered, I spend another
forty minutes reading, enjoying my coffee, the sounds of the creek and
the birds, and wishing that all house chores were similarly demanding.<br />
<br />
More than that, I wish I were better at simply stopping, remembering to stand in awe of a green and feathered early summer morning, one among billions, but one of the few in which I am alive and privileged enough to witness. The book I read on the roof offered up a prescient quote by Marvin Bell:<br />
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"Of all animals, only Man has to remind himself that he possesses life."</div>
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<br /></div>Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-37891733172412248082012-05-29T20:11:00.001-07:002012-06-09T13:15:01.814-07:00The Ecology of FearWolves are back in the far west. They are not exactly universally welcomed, showing a sharp divide between ecological science and a human-centric world view. During a recent academic interview, the candidate from the intermountain region lost his cool at the very end of the required seminar presentation, when he suddenly announced in a heated voice that wolves were a very serious issue, and those of us who had not yet experienced the real wolf on our doorstep had no idea how dangerous these animals were. "You wait, it will be a bigger issue than salmon!"<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Traveling wolf. Photo: MacNeil Lyons</span></i></div>
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In the Pacific Northwest, that seems at first hard to believe. Salmon, after all, have spawned savage political water wars at a national level and extreme controversy over removal of dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Salmon long shaped the biological, cultural, and economic landscapes of this region. They fertilized the coastal forests that surround the spawning streams, supported a rich variety of indigenous cultures, and bore a major fishing industry. Now many of the salmon runs along this coastline are headed to extinction. They are leaving only echoes of their legacy in a world made poorer by their absence in a myriad of ways. Their absence is revealing the size of the role they once played. Wolves have some pretty big fins to fill. They may well be up to the part.<br />
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We've learned a lot about the role of wolves in ecosystems since they reappeared along the continental spine. Wolves have been credited with bringing back the riparian forests in Yellowstone, no less, and increasing the pronghorn herd. We've also learned that they're every bit as controversial as they've ever been. It is very easy to find someone with strong feelings about wolves. They just don't happen to all agree with each other.<br />
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That is the understatement of the century.<br />
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Wolves in Yellowstone have revealed not only just how complex ecosystem linkages are, but how we have ignored the importance of the behavior of individual animals in understanding system function. There are more aspen in Yellowstone because there are wolves. True, more wolves has meant less elk, because wolves like to have elk for dinner. An even bigger factor, though, is the fact that the elk are very much aware that wolves like to eat them. And they are afraid.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgVpzbOJamA92BXNQn5UkaYclV5iMom0IFhpvuXixX9aOcvzZBTjGa2r6Uj75uhJH-_6X67WBiXARLhMppCQMBUMqqpMXiVcd7K5qnYRUc5CHsYwmlwwsW3AIcqzuPiJ9kiz9p-LUb0iDA/s1600/wolves+elk+doug+smith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgVpzbOJamA92BXNQn5UkaYclV5iMom0IFhpvuXixX9aOcvzZBTjGa2r6Uj75uhJH-_6X67WBiXARLhMppCQMBUMqqpMXiVcd7K5qnYRUc5CHsYwmlwwsW3AIcqzuPiJ9kiz9p-LUb0iDA/s200/wolves+elk+doug+smith.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<i>Wolves hunting an elk in Yellowstone. Photo by <a href="http://www.nps.gov/yell/photosmultimedia/Wolves-of-Yellowstone.htm" target="_blank">Doug Smith</a>.</i></div>
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The ecology of fear has undergone a recent renaissance in ecology. The basic idea is that prey animals will behave in a manner to balance the risk of being eaten with the need to eat themselves, and they will moderate their behavior according to how they perceive that risk. With the wolves gone, elk and moose in Yellowstone were free to go anywhere they wanted, and feed there uninterrupted. Their populations grew, and hordes of hungry, careless elk browsed the riparian areas in Yellowstone into stubble. Along the way, beaver, birds, and amphibians all suffered the consequences, and the very hydrology of these streams was altered. The elk had simply gotten out of hand.<br />
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Enter wolves stage right, some fifty years after their extirpation. So many years had passed without wolves in Yellowstone that when the wolves returned, the moose did not even recognize them as a threat. The word got around quickly, however, and the elk found that the rough, low-visibility terrain of the riparian systems was too risky a neighborhood for loitering, even without many shrubs or trees. Exit elk, stage left. They are still around, never fear, along with much wiser moose. Enter beaver and rare wetland plants and small birds. Wolves also suppress the smaller predators, who wreak havoc on prey that wolves would ordinary not bother with. Pronghorn fawns suffered fewer losses to the jaws of coyotes after the wolves returned. Enter more fawns and small mammals.<br />
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So, wolves are busy, letting trees grow, birds sing, and pronghorn fawns romp across the landscape. There may indeed be fewer elk out there, but there are still elk, and there are a lot more of other native species, which is a good thing all around. At least it is from an ecological point of view.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPUhojIY_av5w3LNCxRrKcKJ3PK468y5QhZ_h6f10QpjwcGfKtpbEqxo13tSRjuc9nOivwF4sNcMBc2nVib2lIlmL2a7ho13XFNPl9IsfeQ4zFWtCARrJcZ4kDqvBqsNYGro9vRgH0HkUy/s1600/Aspen+Recruitment+Gap+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPUhojIY_av5w3LNCxRrKcKJ3PK468y5QhZ_h6f10QpjwcGfKtpbEqxo13tSRjuc9nOivwF4sNcMBc2nVib2lIlmL2a7ho13XFNPl9IsfeQ4zFWtCARrJcZ4kDqvBqsNYGro9vRgH0HkUy/s320/Aspen+Recruitment+Gap+1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>North fork of the Flathead River near Glacier National
Park. Note the lack of medium-sized aspen and the distinct browse
line. Wolves have begun returning to this area. Photo courtesy of Randy and Pam Comeleo.</i></span></div>
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The wolf howl is heard, out of the darkest reaches of backstage. For a century and some, we've been able to pretend that the entire western landscape was ours to do with whatever we wanted, facing no worse threats than occasional severe weather or accident. Mountain lions reasserted themselves as something to pay attention to in some areas, but they have not proven to be the stuff of nightmares. Our livestock grazed at will throughout this vast region, and we collectively gave little thought to the welfare or existence of any native species. Until the wolf howled beyond the borders of our national parks.<br />
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Enter the fear of the wolf, center stage. The ecology of fear is proving itself a potent force to reshape landscapes once again, as ranchers declare that wolves will be the utter undoing of an entire industry and a traditional way of life. It really isn't about the losses of a few dozen cattle each year. The carnage will not be absolute, or unchecked. That may not be said of the rage arising from the challenge to the perceived human hegemony. Will we choose to de-wolf the west once again, or will we learn to live within complex landscapes shaped by the interactions of many species, even the ones we fear? Will we learn to live among a web of competing visions and values shaped by our own species?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhIUxSG8Iuyj88vFWYstNzLT41Iyaiopmc2CKxtmvj07gKzPk1IJfBLb_Co8_PDlKsasqi6JzjPJ-GBYEVwZ_SVbZQ9hloNnhVPlo3sfn-BQI-uFqhU9W1gxFpRrbWT4Z8p0saZROC9Bud/s1600/wolf+moon+USFWS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhIUxSG8Iuyj88vFWYstNzLT41Iyaiopmc2CKxtmvj07gKzPk1IJfBLb_Co8_PDlKsasqi6JzjPJ-GBYEVwZ_SVbZQ9hloNnhVPlo3sfn-BQI-uFqhU9W1gxFpRrbWT4Z8p0saZROC9Bud/s320/wolf+moon+USFWS.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: USFWS</span></i></div>
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We've viewed the place as utterly our own for a long time in our own minds, although not even two centuries have passed since we've begun the great ecological unraveling of the west. The howl we need to attend to is the one coming from ourselves. Do we really think that we are the supreme masters of our environment, subject to no limits, beholden to no ecological laws? Even among ourselves, whose vision should direct the action?<br />
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The real wolf here isn't the large, predatory canid. It is our own outsized, arrogant, egotistical view that only our needs matter. Even if our needs were the only ones that did matter, we can't get along without all the rest of the biosphere. Let's hope we're wise enough to speak to the real issue, not the shadow-play of an outdated view of our own place on the stage.<br />
<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-58855909309177190322012-05-13T18:27:00.000-07:002012-05-13T18:27:42.738-07:00Grossbeak ConventionThe male <a href="http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Evening_Grosbeak/id" target="_blank">evening grossbeak</a> may be one of the most brightly colored birds we overlook right in plain sight. At least, I always think this in the last week of April and the first two weeks in May, when flocks composed of hundreds of individuals suddenly descend on the center of Oregon State University's campus and spill over into the tall trees in the historic downtown area. To be fair, the evening grossbeaks stay high in the trees, and their green, black, and yellow plumage, which seems so bright, blends in astonishingly well with the new leaves against a startling sunny sky. It is as if suddenly someone turned on the color after a long monochrome winter, and all that green and yellow is too overwhelming to pick apart into individual components. <br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></i></div>
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Evening grossbeaks aren't wallflowers. They are big, they are loud, and they are mobile. But they do like the upper parts of the canopies of the tallest trees, making them somewhat difficult to see. Binoculars help. Watching the flocks of grossbeaks inevitably invites watching the crowds of people thronging the campus between classes, to see who else is paying attention, and if anyone else is craning their neck to see the treetop show.<br />
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It's hard to tell who actually notices the loud clear calls and buzzy whistles and the rain of empty seed pods wafting down from the heights, but isn't actually trying to look. There are schedules, after all. The grossbeaks keep them too, arriving on campus typically in mid-morning, having flown in from the hills northwest of town. In the late afternoon, they filter back up into those hills, apparently refusing to spend the night in town. I hear their morning commute while walking the dogs before I commute to town myself. They fly over in tight flocks, urging each other on with hurry-up calls. I have no idea if anyone is taking attendance.<br />
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I've asked people on campus if they'd like to borrow my binoculars on occasion, if they don't have their eyes fixed to the pavement while moving at warp speed, and if their ears are clear of electronic devices. Most people have been shyly curious, and delighted when they finally get a glimpse of the handsome males. These birds look like they belong on the tropics, not on campus with the drab sparrows and juncos that students might ordinarily glimpse on the way to class. Suddenly there are brighter possibilities afoot, the campus a lot more interesting- People start to notice the trees and the birds again, if only for a little while. I take this as a hopeful sign.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRi1yVlY_ly-dd68kCmESaWyZkiT72SGX2EJl3CVj0FAn7JAWyi_2zk3dGBmRpxv8PBS_nuZQQgK7hEf13dBQq4jmNPvgMqbDke7GmUm2QQrfUqDOU4yXsF8cBPfycEqWzXu7IR_rnxnO/s1600/evening+grosbeak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRi1yVlY_ly-dd68kCmESaWyZkiT72SGX2EJl3CVj0FAn7JAWyi_2zk3dGBmRpxv8PBS_nuZQQgK7hEf13dBQq4jmNPvgMqbDke7GmUm2QQrfUqDOU4yXsF8cBPfycEqWzXu7IR_rnxnO/s320/evening+grosbeak.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Evening Grossbeak, </i>Coccothraustes vespertinus<i>. Photo: <a href="http://www.fws.gov/northdakotafieldoffice/bhotline/nd_birding_hotline_rep_dec08.htm" target="_blank">USFWS</a></i></span></div>
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Grossbeaks are nomadic, known for their wanderings far out of their typical haunts if good seed years are followed by very bad ones, so that there are too many hungry grossbeaks and a mass exodus ensues. The flocks around campus come every year with adamant regularity, however, and spend these few weeks frantically eating and courting. When the speed dating session is over, they disperse; presumably, they're heading into the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4163682?uid=3739856&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21100797879161" target="_blank">Coast Range</a> and the Cascade Range to get down to the business of breeding. <br />
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How they all know to come through Corvallis, Oregon at this time of year to feed on the seeds of the elms around campus and around town is an open question. Presumably the juveniles learn by following the older birds, and now there's some kind of tradition- "Let's meet on campus!" followed by, "See you next year!" <br />
Just as suddenly as they arrived, the grossbeaks leave, the banquet over. I'll still hear solitary, plaintive raspy contact calls in the woods above our farm for a few more weeks, before those too go silent for another year. Probably the local little brown birds breathe a big sigh of relief to be rid of the big noisy showboats from out of town.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb5wH4uhozArCJeQnooOM9WC-uO61ErbKIHix8J1suaZD3jNPJhmzEAyy32gpBLl7ooSYhld4uqIT8GWKrqLWL_vP7oFtLaXHWbC1H_3cGazouTWxYEIQqW_OSXHa4fCrIBNaRhgRFFtki/s1600/IMG_2795.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb5wH4uhozArCJeQnooOM9WC-uO61ErbKIHix8J1suaZD3jNPJhmzEAyy32gpBLl7ooSYhld4uqIT8GWKrqLWL_vP7oFtLaXHWbC1H_3cGazouTWxYEIQqW_OSXHa4fCrIBNaRhgRFFtki/s320/IMG_2795.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The menu. Photo: J. A. Gervais</i></span></div>
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I hope the little brown birds continue to be so overwhelmed every spring, as<a href="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/News/EvegrosProbability02.htm" target="_blank"> many parts of the country</a> are seeing <a href="http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/0208disappearact.pdf" target="_blank">declines </a>in these gorgeous finches. It isn't <a href="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/News/EveningGrosbeaks07-08.htm" target="_blank">entirely clear what's going on</a>, because evening grossbeaks get around and don't mind showing up in new places where they may be entirely unexpected. Their stubborn predictability here is a treat.Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-64457924170313053762012-04-30T08:27:00.001-07:002012-04-30T15:57:26.518-07:00ImagineWe were trying to herd the sheep into their small three-sided shelter one evening recently, so we could worm the ewes and trim hooves. It always amazes me how good animals are at reading human body language; they often seem to know what we're up to before we even know ourselves. Somehow, when the order of business switches from feeding them to moving them around, the sheep recognize it instantly, and they are not always on board with the agenda. They weren't on board this time, behaving as if we were driving them into a dragon's den.<br />
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Part of the problem is that sheep really don't like going from bright light into a dark space where they can't see well. Individually, they enter this shelter on their own all the time, but being pushed as a group made a significant difference in their willingness to enter when we were pressuring them. Time and again we almost got the lead ewe through the wooden gate, and at the last second she dodged aside, the younger ewes and the lambs quickly following her lead to the far end of the field. This went on until the light softened with the setting sun, reducing the contrast of the dark interior of the shed. The old ewe finally decided that it wasn't so frightening in there after all, and led the flock inside.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></i></div>
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Taking the risk of going forward isn't always easy, even if you're a human.</div>
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We're facing an unprecedented global environmental crisis because we've modified the atmospheric chemistry enough to begin raising global temperature. The science behind this fact is well established; the devil is, as usual, in the details. We don't know precisely at what point increasing carbon dioxide concentrations may begin to force positive feedback loops, whereby the rate of warming is increased still faster. We do know that this could happen when the frozen methane hydrates in the high-latitude ocean sediments and in the tundra's permafrost begin to melt, releasing large volumes of methane. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. <br />
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We know that even the deep ocean is warming rapidly. We don't understand how exactly that will alter ocean currents, or how quickly warmer water will begin releasing the frozen methane in marine sediments, or breaking the ice dams that have stabilized some of the world's largest ice sheets by slowing their entry into the seas. We don't know at what point melting ice sheets will reach a point of no return, where nothing we do could stop the enormous volume of glacial water from pouring into the oceans. We know from the paleoclimate record that sea level has risen in the past as much as a meter in a quarter century. We just don't quite understand the exact conditions that would be needed to trigger an event like that again.<br />
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But we can guess that we may be getting close.<br />
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These are enormous facts, dark facts, rooted in a past most of us cannot imagine and extending into a future that we cannot see, even though that future may be only a few decades away. Facts fail to resonate with most of us, leaving them in the realm of simply facts, hard-edged, immutable, and seemingly irrelevant to the impulses and instincts that drive most of our behavior. What does it take to make these inert facts part of our living consciousness?<br />
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I wonder if part of the problem is that we don't run forward into the utter unknown very well. For the vast majority of our evolutionary history, not launching off into the abyss was probably very wise; you take those sorts of risks only when going back or staying where you are is absolutely untenable. Pushed hard enough, the unknown ahead is less horrific than what you know is behind you, and then you jump. The trick is recognizing when you are truly at the point of jumping or being pushed, that instant between having some mastery over your fate and losing any hope of control.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Photo: Jeff Gervais</i></span></div>
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We may actually be at one of those tipping points, where we could manage to make our planet's climate very difficult for human civilization to persist, at least as we've known it for the last few centuries. Are we able to perceive that we may have no choice but to accept the fact that the way of life we know now cannot continue, and we can choose, or not choose, to consciously guide its transformation?<br />
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Beyond any other species that has ever existed on Earth, we have the capacity to imagine future states and plan out the actions needed to achieve them. I wonder if our apparent inertia in the face of an increasingly dire body of scientific evidence isn't rooted in two paradoxes. The first is that although we are intelligent enough to create civilizations that ultimately threaten our own life-support systems, and even to realize it, we seem unable to emotionally grasp and process the enormity of the danger we collectively face. Rational choice requires emotional roots. Can an incipient catastrophe carry sufficient emotional weight, or do we have to live through it first?<br />
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The second paradox lies in the fact that despite our technological prowess and extraordinary cultural and social diversity as a species, we appear unable to imagine any other world, any other set of human societies, than the ones we currently know. So we are caught, unable to emotionally respond to the danger that our current position threatens, and unable to imagine a future different from the present, one that is worth risking the unknown to achieve. Both block proactive planning and execution of those plans.<br />
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Imagine first the world you would like to live in, or the one you would like to bequeath to those who follow you. What things and beings, tangible or intangible, would this world have in it? If you listed them all out, how many of them deal with the roots of survival and of happiness, versus the trappings of our civilized lives that bring as much stress or ambivalence as they do real value? What aspects of our society are most necessary to achieve those core needs? If no one steps forward to lead us all, how can each of us fill that leadership void, in our own communities, in our own individual way? How will we break the impasse, and will we manage to get in front of the wave of changes we've unleashed, or allow it to utterly overwhelm us?<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Photo: Jeff Gervais </i></span></div>
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<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-1343574716212120472012-04-18T16:32:00.003-07:002012-04-19T09:23:55.076-07:00Reciprocal FlowsThere has been a traditional divide between the worlds of water and dry land in ecology and management, one that has greatly impeded our understanding of the linkages between the two, and long prevented us from realizing, once again, that the artificial divisions we place upon our perception of the world in an attempt to make it easier for us to understand or manage are just that- artificial. I realized this more fully when I first began to work with the land we owned along the creek north of town. At first it seemed straightforward enough. There was creek, and there was upland, and there was only a narrow ragged remnant of forest running along the banks.<br />
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It is a fairly short creek, only a few miles from headwaters to its confluence with a small river. The source is on the major ridge to the north of us. From there, the creek cuts quickly downslope until it reaches the valley floor not far upstream from us. The creek slows down a bit there, taking the time to begin to meander, and it supports a nice riparian woodland of bigleaf maple, pacific ninebark and Indian plum, and wildflowers such as delphinium and trillium. By this point, the creek is big enough to throw a good temper tantrum during a winter storm, and of maintaining a base flow during the summer drought. Both are important not only to the life of the creek, but to the life of the forest as well.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The riparian zone upstream. Photo: J. A. Gervais</i></span></div>
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The water doesn't just come from the channel coming down from the north. There are numerous seeps along this section of the valley, places where suddenly sedges bristle up, where you can sink a tractor up to its axle before you can blink (we've done that). Fencepost holes sometimes filled with groundwater within minutes, making us rethink the placement of fence lines. This water is coming from the ridges that run to the west and east, traveling below the surface for perhaps a kilometer or more before bubbling back up into daylight. Some of it likely comes up right in the creek bed. This is known as hyporheic flow. It means there's more to the creek than the channel, and that wearing mud boots is generally a good idea even in the meadow.<br />
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I've been slowly bridging the divide in my formal education, reading more about just how much a mix of upland and aquatic worlds a riparian zone really is. Large woody debris slows the flow of water, allows sediments to settle, and provides pools. There isn’t any large wood in our section of creek, because there haven’t been large trees to provide it for many years, and it probably was dragged out if it had fallen in. There isn’t much of a floodplain here anymore either, because the creek has cut a channel too deep to climb out of in all but the worst floods. The end result is a truncated system, created from historical misuse. The floods this past January, however, began to pile up debris and created side channels, the first signs of returning complexity in our section of creek. Maybe we're getting somewhere, reestablishing the connections between aquatic and terrestrial, past and present.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Creek bed after the floods rearranged it. Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></i></div>
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This patch of land has been farmed for decades. The last people who lived here rescued abused horses, and fenced in a broad wedge that included the creek. The horses, over a dozen of them, trampled the banks and stripped the trees, until only a thin, wavering line of vegetation remained. When the horses left, invasive blackberry thickets grew to over ten feet in height, choking out any hope for new native trees and shrubs. But this creek has been designated a possible salmon stream, and landowners along the length of it have been encouraged to restore the riparian forest that once graced the length of its banks.<br />
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The forests along waterways support the life in the water, which in turns provides resources to the life on land. Hatches of aquatic insects such as mayflies don’t just feed the fish, but they also support the birds and bats and spiders living along the banks. In turn, terrestrial insects and plant matter falling into streams and rivers provide major sources of nutrients and energy to the aquatic community. In fact, one study suggested that nearly half of the annual diet of rainbow trout was made of insects that fell into the stream. The terrestrial insects are strongly affected by the vegetation along the waterway. If we wanted to see salmon return, we needed to plant trees. I had just plunged across the terrestrial/aquatic divide.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Future ash swale, four years after planting. Photo: J. A. Gervais</i></span></div>
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We mowed down the blackberry and with a good number of friends, planted over a thousand native trees and shrubs into the two acres along our section of creek. Things are looking up. The planted trees and shrubs have done pretty well, especially the willow. Even more encouraging, a number of tough volunteers have sprung up from the areas once smothered by blackberry. We’ve found banana slugs and rough-skinned newts on our property. We’ve heard frogs in the seeps along its banks and seen fish and invertebrates in the water. We’re not back to the conditions that existed a hundred and fifty years ago, but they're probably better now than in any point during the past three quarters of a century. We hope the trend continues beyond our ownership.<br />
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Although you can’t stand in the same river twice, the continuum of history and geography shapes the water flowing around your legs. There is still old farm junk caught in the creek bed, sheets of sediment twisting and crumpling against the bits of rooted rusting iron. The fence line is new, barely five years built. When we put the fence in, it was set far enough back that there was easy safe distance from the wire to water. The creek has looped toward the fence since then, maybe wanting to add more metal debris to its collection. The creek already reclaimed the lower pasture corner during that violent storm last January, jumping out of its bed and sweeping an arm across the grass, depositing silt from the high ridge. Remember what's happened before, what came and went, where proud accomplishments failed.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> The tenuous boundaries between terrestrial and aquatic systems. Photo: J. A. Gervais</i></span></div>
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What we do on the banks of a river affects what happens between those banks, but it’s all pretty temporary in the lifespan of moving water. In the end, erosion will wear down the divides.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Resources:</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Baxter, C. V., K. D. Fausch, and W. C. Saunders. 2005. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2427.2004.01328.x/abstract;jsessionid=B6C2617D9972DA5E724BC64E3AEA0B98.d02t04?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=" target="_blank">Tangled webs: reciprocal flows of invertebrate prey link streams and riparian zones</a>. Freshwater Biology 50:201-220.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gregory, S.V., F. J. Swanson, W. A. McKee, and K. W. Cummins. 1991. <a href="http://www.ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.us/documents/pln/2001_smp_reference2/gregory_sv_an_ecosystem_perspective_of_riparian_zones.pdf" target="_blank">An ecosystem perspective of riparian zones</a>. Bioscience 41(8):540-551.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Iwata, T., S. Nakano, and M. Murakami. 2003. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0587.2003.03355.x/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=" target="_blank">Stream meanders increase insectivorous bird abundance in riparian deciduous forests</a>. Ecography 26:325-337.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kawaguchi, Y. and S. Nakano. 2001. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2427.2001.00667.x/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=" target="_blank">Contribution of terrestrial invertebrates to the annual resource budget for salmonids in forst and grassland reaches of a headwater stream</a>. Freshwater Biology 46:303-316.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kawaguchi, Y., Y. Taniguchi, and S. Nakano. 2003. <a href="http://www.mendeley.com/research/terrestrial-invertebrate-inputs-determine-the-local-abundance-of-stream-fishes-in-a-forested-stream/" target="_blank">Terrestrial invertebrate inputs determine the local abundance of stream fishes in a forested stream</a>. Ecology 84(3):701-708.</span></li>
</ul>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Laeser, S. R., C. V. Baxter, and K. D. Fausch. 2005. <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/h5840520597j5423/" target="_blank">Riparian vegetation loss, stream channelization, and web-weaving spiders in northern Japan</a>. Ecological Research 20:646-651.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Nakano, S., and M. Muraami. 2001. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/98/1/166" target="_blank">Reciprocal subsidies: dynamic interdependence between terrestrial and aquatic food webs</a>. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98(1):166-170.</span></li>
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<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-89355332091079374972012-03-30T12:22:00.000-07:002012-03-30T15:01:39.180-07:00Red Hens and Wooden EggsWe had chickens once before, until a persistent weasel and an interstate move together conspired to eliminate that first flock. Starting another flock has been on the projects list ever since, and this spring Dan managed to borrow all the equipment necessary for starting chicks. This led to the building of a sturdy little coop so all would be ready for the moment the as-yet unpurchased chicks grew large enough to need it. The coop led our neighbor to help us acquire six yearling <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_%28chicken%29" target="_blank">New Hampshire Red</a> hens that had reached the end of their lives as research subjects at the local university's poultry program. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Dan's not-quite-finished coop. Photo: D. K. Rosenberg.</em></span></div>
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Why wait five months for your chicks to mature just in time to stop laying as winter sets in? We thought these hens would likely be solidly at the peak of their egg production, and the idea of rescue appealed to us as well. New Hampshire Reds are known to be hardy birds with a proclivity for brooding. This is handy if you have a rooster and a desire to keep your flock growing with some new broods of chicks occasionally. A few days later six refugee hens came home in an assortment of cat and dog transport crates to begin new lives on our little farm.<br />
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The university raises chickens according to industry standards. This means each hen had spent her days in a small cage just big enough for her to turn around in, with a sloped wire floor. When an egg is laid, it rolls down into a collection chute. It is possible that these hens never get to inspect an egg up close. They also don't get to give their wings a good stretch, scratch and peck on the ground, perch, or engage in a lot of other typical chicken behaviors. We wondered how they would adapt to a barnyard.<br />
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We kept the hens confined to the coop for several days to adjust to their new life as real, live chickens rather than industrial egg production machines. Our coop is small but it was still much more space than they'd had for most of their lives, and included a window with a view of the sheep pasture, branches to perch on, nest boxes, and a layer of shavings to scratch in. It must have been a staggering change.<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">A whole new world... Photo: D. K. Rosenberg</span></em></div>
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Instinct, that knowledge we hold without thought or learning, is a powerful force. A hen kept her entire life in an indoor facility under artificial lighting in a small cage still knows what to do when she's presented with a patch of dirt and grass. The first day we opened the door, the chickens learned to navigate the ladder to the ground, and soon all were pecking, scratching, clucking, and interacting as if they had never been anywhere else. Except for one crucial detail: they did not recognize their own eggs.<br />
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A challenge in backyard chicken husbandry is to prevent your chickens from ever learning what good food eggs can be. If the shell cracks and a hen takes an exploratory peck, she'll enthusiastically eat the whole thing, shell and all. <a href="http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/library/lvstk2/ep70.pdf" target="_blank">Once she sees an egg in this light</a>, there seems to be no going back. We quickly discovered that our six hens had no idea what to do with eggs, laying them carelessly around the coop and outside in the mud. Very soon after that, despite our constant checks to remove the eggs as quickly as possible after they were laid, at least one chicken took an exploratory whack. We haven't gotten an egg since.<br />
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I tried to break the habit or at least prevent all the hens from learning it by stocking the coop with some wooden eggs I acquired from a craft store selling Easter supplies. Unfortunately, the reward of hitting a real egg seemed too great to discourage a hen who simply came up with a jarring thud when she explored the possibilities of one of the wooden ones. Dan watched one hen attack a decoy egg so savagely that she pushed it halfway around the coop. Motherhood was clearly not in her future, nor in any other hen's future if the infanticidal chicken remained part of the flock.<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wooden eggs. Photo: D. K. Rosenberg</span></em></div>
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Of all the instincts that constrictive captivity had broken, it was the one most critical to the long-term survival of the species: thou shalt not eat thine own children. The drive to reproduce is so strong that many animals risk their lives to mate or defend their young, or push themselves to the point of starvation to provide for them. It is sobering to think that we have managed to subvert the basic wiring of being a chicken to the point it cannot recognize its egg as its own.<br />
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This isn't the worst we've done. Meat chickens are bred to grow so quickly that their legs sometimes become unable to bear their weight. The feeding of corn to beef cattle during the final stage before slaughter is a carefully managed balance between initial weight gain on this highly unsuitable diet, and weight loss once the acidity of the rumen caused by the corn begins to dissolve the rumen lining. <a href="http://www.epa.gov/region07/water/cafo/index.htm" target="_blank">Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations</a>, or CAFOs, are notorious for the conditions in which individual pigs and other animals are kept, not to mention the significant issues of air and water pollution from the staggering amount of waste you get when you keep tens of thousands of animals in a very small space.<br />
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What do we owe the livestock we rely on for meat, milk, and eggs?<br />
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The backyard food movement is certainly driven at least in part by peoples' desire to take more control over how their food is produced. This is a good thing in a culture that has become increasingly alienated from the life forces that sustain our own, even if the motivation is only rarely the welfare of the soil, plants, and animals. In an increasingly crowded world, however, not everyone will have the luxury of space, good soil, and clean water plentiful enough to raise food of any sort. We're still going to need large, efficient farms at some scale.<br />
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All the same, awareness will at least keep us honest in our obligations to the animals that feed us, to keep them fed, sheltered, and provide them with the opportunity to express the most basic essence of what they are: living beings. At what price to our own humanity do we want cheap bacon?<br />
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Five hens still scratch and peck underneath the new coop, ignoring the sheep who come by every evening to take a look at them. They may yet complete the transition into a hardy little productive flock for us; we'll give them more time to settle in to their new world. Whether they provide us with eggs or meat, we'll be grateful for the gifts of their lives, sustaining ours.<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: D. K. Rosenberg</span></em></div>
<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-48407260041282445232012-03-18T20:16:00.000-07:002012-03-21T11:09:21.476-07:00The various contrivances of orchidsI joined the local orchid society this winter. The months of soggy dark require unusual coping measures at times; the displays of blooming <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchidaceae" target="_blank">orchids</a> on the "show and tell" table at the monthly meetings alone are worth the membership. My own little collection isn't doing too badly. My <a href="http://www.aos.org/Default.aspx?id=217" target="_blank">phalaenopsis</a> and <a href="http://www.aos.org/Default.aspx?id=216" target="_blank">paphilopedilum</a> are blooming, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygopetalum" target="_blank">zygopetalum</a>'s buds are swelling steadily. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Phalaenopsis, known as the moth orchid. Photo: J. A. Gervais</em></span></div>
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Orchids make up the largest plant family on the planet, with about 24,000 species. They live in a staggering array of environments, from the tropical rainforests most of us associate with them to tundra environments, in the deep shade and out in the open sun, perched in trees or on the ground. They are united, however, in their extraordinary biology, making use of an incredible array of other organisms to help them through their life cycle.<br />
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The local orchid society has about thirty members, small enough that guests are immediately recognized as such and welcomed with enthusiastic delight. How do you not join a group of people who love to talk about flowers? The skill level ranges from experts who hone their skills cultivating the most challenging plants, to people like me who can kill just about any orchid effortlessly. I suspect the experienced growers look on us neophytes as a great way to clean out the clutter of their greenhouses: giving an extra orchid to someone who at least admires it seems less heartless than throwing it straight on the compost heap. I view it as a type of symbiosis, although the plants may not.<br />
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Orchids have developed trans-species interrelationships to a remarkable degree on several fronts. The seeds require the services of a mycorrhyzal fungus in order to germinate, relying on the fungus to make up for their lack of endocarp. Many species are epiphytes, perching on the trunks and branches of larger plants. The pseudobulbs of other orchids harbor ferocious ants that offer protection to their hosts. Most noteworthy, some orchids have developed extraordinary coevolutionary relationships for pollination. <br />
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<a href="http://copepodo.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/dia-de-darwin-2008-la-polinizacion-de-las-orquideas/" target="_blank"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Anagraecum sesquipedale</span></em></a>. <span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Charles Darwin hypothesized that this magnificent orchid is pollinated by a hawk moth. The moth, </em></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthopan_morgani" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Xanthopan morganii</em></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>, wasn't discovered for another 41 years, and proof of pollination services had to wait 130 years after Darwin's insight</em></span>.</div>
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Although many flowering plants have built relationships with animals for the purposes of both pollen delivery and seed dispersal, orchids have gone to extremes. The pollen of the vast majority of plant species is released as a dust of individual grains, but in nearly all orchids pollen is wadded up into two to twelve waxy balls, called pollinia. It's a high-risk strategy, because each flower on the plant (and many produce only a single flower) has exactly that many chances to fertilize another plant's flowers for seeds. It's a twist on putting all of one's eggs in a very few baskets.<br />
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The pollinia are designed for long-distance transit. Pollinia on hawk moths in the wild have remained stuck in place and ready for deposit for over three weeks. Insects, birds, and moths that visit orchids may have multiple pollinia stuck to their heads, beaks, and proboscuses like yellow bunny ears. Different species of orchids place their pollinia in slightly different positions on the pollinator, ensuring correct delivery when the animal visits the appropriate orchid species again. <br />
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This trait can be quite useful for someone interested in propagating orchids, and in creating new hybrids. It isn't hard to use a pencil or other pointed object to lift the pollinia free of the flower column; they will quickly bind tightly to the object and orient themselves for maximum contact with the receiving flower's stigma. It is a system easily manipulated by people. In fact, we're the only mammal that pollinates orchids. Once fertilized, the flowers quickly wilt. This, announced my high school biology teacher with a wicked grin, opens up interesting possibilities if you don't like the prom date to whom you are expected to offer an expensive orchid corsage.<br />
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The flowers are all about sex, as all flowers are, but for some orchids it's a double entendre. The sneakiest orchids are those whose flower parts have evolved to resemble female insects, complete with a release of chemicals that mimic the insects' own pheromones. The strategy is known as pseudocopulation, as the befuddled male insect attempts to copulate with the flowers, and gets tagged with a pollinium for his pains. Presumably he either doesn't learn, forgets quickly enough, or becomes desperate enough to visit another orchid of the same species before he dies. The odds are long, and because of that the flowers remain intact for many weeks. This is, of course, one of the characteristics that makes them so irresistable to humans bent on romance. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>The aptly named bee orchid,</em> Ophrys apifera<em>. It is pollinated by male bumblebees and is an example of pseudocopulation. </em></span><a href="http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/plantstrategies/mimicry.shtml" target="_blank"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo</span></em></a><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Nancy Cottner</span></em></div>
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Not all orchids try to forgo paying the pollinators for their services through deceit. Many offer nectar, which varies in sugar concentration depending on the pollinator. Specialized avian pollinators such as sunbirds earn the highest reward; hawk-moth-pollinated flowers offer a somewhat lower sugar level, and the least concentrated nectar is payment to the least-specialized pollinators from the more generalist orchids. Within the flower, the most concentrated nectar is the farthest in, encouraging a good push to obtain the reward, and maximum contact with the pollinia. Other orchids offer scents or waxes and resins that are gathered by their pollinators.<br />
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My fellow orchid enthusiasts range from generalists who do not seem to have ever met an orchid they didn't like, to those who specialize on one small subgroup. Some folks seem taken up entirely by the challenge of the cultivation of the most exacting varieties, whereas others of us are unapologetic fans of the lowest-maintenance plants that reliably produce bright, interesting blooms with the least amount of fuss. We're all in it for the flowers. </div>
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For all their trickery and bribes, less than one in five tropical orchids typically achieves fruit set in the wild. Pollination is generally thought to be the limiting factor for reproduction in wild orchids, even with their absolute dependence on fungi for seed germination. Wild orchids are perhaps most amazing in the fact they exist at all, let alone having successfully woven themselves into the ecological fabric of so many places.<br />
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The orchids on the monthly show and tell table are often so hybridized by human breeders that the names of the crosses don't always fit on the plants' tags. These are organisms of the greenhouse and windowsill, depending on the passion, space, and financial allocations of the owners. I asked one of my fellow club members how many plants he had. "Seven hundred, I think," he answered. "I have two greenhouses now. We all started with a few orchids on a windowsill." Orchids have been amazingly successful at bending yet another species to the task of continuing their existence. <br />
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I swear my little collection isn't going to need more space than my windowsills. Soon, after the peas have sent up tendrils and the lambs have all been born, I'll be out in the woods hunting for my favorite orchid: <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calypso_bulbosa" target="_blank">Calypso bulbosa</a></em>, which grows in heavily shaded understory, and tricks bumblebees into pollinating it. I don't have to do anything at all, except admire it and the extraordinary ecological relationships that sustain it. I don't think, however, that either the club members or their orchid masters have given up on me.<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Calypso bulbosa. Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></em></div>
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Sources:</div>
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Boyden, T. C. 1982. The pollination biology of <em>Calypso bulbosa</em> var <em>Americana</em> (Orchidacea): initial deception of bumblebee visitors. <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/x77h31634k8837g5/" target="_blank">Oecologia 55(2):178-184</a>.</div>
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Cozzolino, S., and A. Widmer. 2005. Orchid diversity: an evolutionary consequence of deception? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20(9):487-494.</div>
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Darwin, C. 1882. <a href="http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F803&viewtype=text&pageseq=1" target="_blank">The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilized by insects</a>. 2nd Edition, Revised. London: John Murray.</div>
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Micheneau, C., S. D. Johnson and M. F. Fay. 2009. Orchid pollination: from Darwin to the present day. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8339.2009.00995.x/abstract;jsessionid=4D0FC9F9F96510642288F0FB59E83955.d01t02?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=" target="_blank">Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 161:1-19</a>.</div>
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Tremblay, R. L., J. D. Ackerman, J. K. Zimmerman, and R. N. Calvo. 2005. Variation in sexual reproduction in orchids and its evolutionary consequences: a spasmodic journey to diversification. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2004.00400.x/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=" target="_blank">Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 84: 1-54</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-29172079658934562152012-02-26T17:52:00.000-08:002012-02-26T17:52:50.630-08:00The Balance of VolesThe barn owls will be nesting very soon. They've already started the process of dating, the males bringing Valentine's gifts of dead voles to their prospective mates and spending the daylight hours together tucked safely away in a dark corner somewhere. If the female likes the gifts and the company, she'll soon begin laying her white eggs, counting on the male to provide all the food for her and then the entire family for weeks to come. Hundreds of voles will be consumed in the process.<br />
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Some years ago, I provided some dark corners in the form of nest boxes to see if barn owls might help the local farmers with the ebb and flow of wild voles, which can cause thousands of dollars per farm in crop damage in a peak year. I put out eighty boxes spread between two counties, in strings of three to five boxes per fence row. The study finished several years ago, the funding gone, the results inconclusive, but the boxes are still standing. To help out both the owls and the farmers who gave me access to their lands, I go out each December and maintain the boxes.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Barn owl nest box. Photo: J. A. Gervais</em></span></div>
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Farming must be the most difficult form of legalized gambling, where those who farm have to work very hard, in often physically demanding and dangerous conditions, in hopes of producing a crop that can then be sold at a profit. Almost nothing in this process seems to be in the farmer's control beyond the calculated decision of what to plant. More so than any other livelihood directly linked to natural resources, farming is a long-term gamble, a balance of good weather and not too many pests, then favorable market conditions.<br />
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Barn owls rely on small rodents for their living. The females will lay up to thirteen eggs, although the average clutch is closer to five eggs. They hedge their bets by incubating during laying, so the eggs hatch over several days and the young owlets range in size. The biggest owlets eat first. In a pinch, they'll eat their younger siblings if the parents do not bring enough voles. In the best of years, the adults will raise a second brood.<br />
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The farmers I work with like wildlife, and do what they can to accommodate the owls while they also pursue a precarious living. Far more than most professions, farming reminds us that nature is ultimately in control, and we all rely on good weather, healthy soil, and clean water far more than most of us remember. For a farmer, it is each year's bottom line, the balance between inputs and outputs tipping precariously on the edge of the appetites of voles. Unfortunately, the appetites of owls are not great enough to swing the balance on the bad years, but they help. Barn owls nesting in a barn make a mess but are usually tolerated. Barn owls in a nest box are universally welcomed.<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cleaning out a nest box. Photo: J. A. Gervais</span></em></div>
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The necessary maintenance of a barn owl box requires cleaning out the detritus of the past year, occasionally making repairs to the flap, or reinforcing the connection point between box and post. Although natural cavities may fill with nesting material and prey remains over the years without much problem, the weight of all that material in a box that leaks a bit is much too great to be allowed to build up over time. Armed with a gardening hand rake and a face shield, I open the flap, reach inside, and haul out all manner of rubbish into the dim December light. It is a messy act of renewal.<br />
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My assistants are frequently showered with starling nests, great wads of sticks and straw that nearly fill the generous cavity. It is usually raining, so the rain gear we wear serves a dual purpose. Other unknown inhabitants bring bits of lichen and moss, or a few strands of grass. Kestrels leave almost no traces of their nests, and a box used as a roost by barn owls may give no hint of its sometime occupants. In a year with abundant voles, sometimes a vole carcass or two comes cascading out of the box, often with little else; we put those back, as they were put there by someone as a hedge against hard times. Sometimes deer mice take up residence, bringing a light fluffy mass of shredded bark and leaves inside. Others are empty except for a the abandoned comb of the paper wasp. A barn owl nest, however, is an entirely different story.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Inside a barn owl nest box. Last year's abandoned egg sits on the remains</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> of hundreds of voles. Photo: D. K. Rosenberg.</span></div>
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For those, I whack away with my hand rake at the thick, compacted mat of fur and bones and nameless dried goo, cemented in layers if the box is in the lee of some trees, a wet sodden mass if the rain can get inside. Sometimes we find the remains of a young owl that did not survive the nestling period, or an unhatched egg now dessicated and filthy. There is some satisfaction to getting all that mess out of the living quarters, leaving things ready for another year's accumulation. Farmers, meanwhile, maintain tractors and other equipment, and soon they too will be getting down to the business of the year in the fields.<br />
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It is hard to leave a warm house on a cold, wet December morning before dawn to spend the day plodding along the fence lines in the rain carrying a ladder for miles. There are compensations. Sometimes we're given beautiful views of light and cloud, the song of a flock of swans, the calls of killdeer or snipe, and occasionally, the silent explosion of a white and fawn barn owl, as it exits the box just as I raise the flap. There's time for the owl to get over the fright before the decision of where to lay must be made. There is still time to plan out the new year, room for hoping for a good harvest and the right balance between voles and owls and people, all counting on the green grass in the fields.<br />
<br />Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-21050173746836538412012-02-16T09:16:00.000-08:002012-02-16T09:16:03.646-08:00Of Love and DancingThe albatrosses began to return in late October. One day I looked out from our cook tent and there were perhaps a half-dozen of the huge white birds standing serenely on the sand, looking both grave and comical with the stark, sharp beauty of sea-gray wings folded crisply across their backs. They waddled uncertainly over the dunes to just the right spot, <em>there, that's the nest, right there</em>. A few days later, there were hundreds, and a week later, thousands. Their season on the tiny speck of sand in the middle of the Pacific had begun.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjty4F_wtN4Dtp26Q7oGcmuusW4WpKcYxAMzryUjLFHh9OVrzmCMPl07E5g0aZp7dcZE2BnyJXrCsQJ9C9SujKUY3Ah9fpQtq-EOebjbGtDTugZbxMGcE2wFjXzwH_d26ZsyYovr0ift3IR/s1600/LAAL_pair_blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjty4F_wtN4Dtp26Q7oGcmuusW4WpKcYxAMzryUjLFHh9OVrzmCMPl07E5g0aZp7dcZE2BnyJXrCsQJ9C9SujKUY3Ah9fpQtq-EOebjbGtDTugZbxMGcE2wFjXzwH_d26ZsyYovr0ift3IR/s320/LAAL_pair_blog.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Laysan albatrosse pair on Laysan Island. Photo: J. A. Gervais, 1992</span></em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
You can find Laysan Island on most world maps, although it is only about a mile and a half long, a mile wide, and cradles a large super salty lagoon. Essentially it is nothing more than a large sand dune perched on a remnant volcano. There isn't much else out in this part of the world, a thousand miles northwest of Honolulu, and Laysan is the second largest of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. For a few years over a century ago, it was inhabited, briefly, by humans, who mined the guano, harvested the albatrosses' eggs, and killed the birds for their feathers. It has belonged to the birds for many thousands of years.<br />
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Land is a rare commodity in the middle of the ocean, and all seabirds are tied to it for breeding. The birds of Laysan do a time-share, where different species come in from the far reaches of their wanderings and breed at different seasons. Winter belongs to the <a href="http://www.fws.gov/midway/bope.html" target="_blank">bonin petrels</a>, the <a href="http://www.fws.gov/midway/bfal.html" target="_blank">black-footed</a> albatrosses, and <a href="http://www.fws.gov/kilaueapoint/laal.html" target="_blank">Laysan albatrosses</a>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4jrsA3EuxqXpoctv58tbjXVfdsE4ptTAQIUiUF1TTT3VjQrrmovmeeD7nEenaImRDwXOSG_mo0-YIZSkj83HFq0UUkwFcTG9TsT5Bu7jq8AiExFv42li4z4C6krM6sJDWS2bGSEscCAnX/s1600/BFAL_dance4_blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4jrsA3EuxqXpoctv58tbjXVfdsE4ptTAQIUiUF1TTT3VjQrrmovmeeD7nEenaImRDwXOSG_mo0-YIZSkj83HFq0UUkwFcTG9TsT5Bu7jq8AiExFv42li4z4C6krM6sJDWS2bGSEscCAnX/s320/BFAL_dance4_blog.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Blackfooted albatrosses dancing, Laysan Island. Photo: J. A. Gervais, 1992.</span></em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
The albatrosses were mostly quiet at first. It must be very strange, to land on unyielding ground for the first time in nine months, and the newest arrivals seemed to suffer from the same "sea leg" syndrome that people do. They wobbled around and studied the clumps of bunchgrass and their neighbors in silence. But as the few birds swelled to thousands, the singing and dancing began in earnest.<br />
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Albatrosses dance. These are spectacular dances, involving wild bows and snapping beaks, with some individuals becoming so excited they gape and scream, whipping their heads back and forth. They whinny and moo and clap that huge beak. Sometimes they throw themselves up on tiptoe and point skyward, with a soulful moan at the apex. The black-footed albatrosses have a different dance than the Laysan albatrosses, but both dances are exotic, energetic, and incredibly noisy. Living on a colony numbering tens of thousands of pairs is like being in the middle of a demented barnyard.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7v_Hg0YAeZFvHldrfgGEQTm5Njpn6sNTdhGMJ57RNVUk119__2l1dJc60wrfG3JzHWpVaqRpLBSalgBeOT3lRtOZfo-jkxqsh2PFbK6-wtwvjk57rbCj6W_Du1oKJc3xn4lPmzdpucGIu/s1600/LAAL_skypoint_blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7v_Hg0YAeZFvHldrfgGEQTm5Njpn6sNTdhGMJ57RNVUk119__2l1dJc60wrfG3JzHWpVaqRpLBSalgBeOT3lRtOZfo-jkxqsh2PFbK6-wtwvjk57rbCj6W_Du1oKJc3xn4lPmzdpucGIu/s320/LAAL_skypoint_blog.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Laysan albatross skypointing. Photo: J. A. Gervais, 1992.</span></em></div><br />
We quickly learned that young albatrosses were so anxious to get going with their adult lives that they would throw themselves into a frenzied performance if we just waved two fingers back and forth in front of them, mimicking the first moves of the dance. When we failed to deliver the correct response partway into the performance, they would retreat hastily, looking flustered.<br />
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I tried coaxing a few of the pairs who settled into spots right around my tent into a cross-species tango. These birds' mates had already arrived, and after a few passionate rounds of dancing it seemed that old ties were renewed well enough to get down to the business of breeding. Waving fingers in front of these birds elicited a sidelong look. The albatross would draw in its chin, that huge, hooked beak held down along its neck, and waddle emphatically away. Sometimes interspecies communication is shatteringly clear.<br />
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Every now and then, a Laysan albatross and a black-footed albatross mate, and raise a chick. The chick, however, is doomed to be completely unlucky in love, because its dance is stuck halfway between the species. Nobody seems to want a partner who can't do all the right moves. The vast majority of birds belong to one species or the other, however. Nearly all find a partner and stay together for many years, renewing the relationship each autumn with the ritual of the dance.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihhIjPoJdz2DWjZxWLu3HCls-mGUw_Qa1PN7i2CM_gQ2JiCcOok7crfONmBHyK3d_QukIbmW8x2HYiesZJ0924tt0CAH-O72ICXGUIKJ61MMtO4UlvOJ78IjV6Fwyi7r8piUShqTrFUHwD/s1600/BFAL_dance1_blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihhIjPoJdz2DWjZxWLu3HCls-mGUw_Qa1PN7i2CM_gQ2JiCcOok7crfONmBHyK3d_QukIbmW8x2HYiesZJ0924tt0CAH-O72ICXGUIKJ61MMtO4UlvOJ78IjV6Fwyi7r8piUShqTrFUHwD/s320/BFAL_dance1_blog.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Blackfooted albatross dance on Laysan Island. Photo: J. A. Gervais, 1992.</span></em></div><br />
I worked on Laysan for a magical four months, picking away at invasive grass that provided shelter for none of the birds, but crowded out the native bunchgrass that nearly all of them need. Although the work was far from special, sneaking by sea turtles and monk seals, admiring the antics of boobies and albatrosses, and watching tropicbirds and frigatebirds engage in aerial warfare made even plodding over sand dunes carrying backpack sprayers full of herbicide the best job I ever had.<br />
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I left Laysan Island on a November morning nearly twenty years ago, and I still dream sometimes of the intense color of the sea, the enormity of the sky, and the noise of all those birds. It was an early love, one you don't forget, even if you go on to fall in love with many other places.Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-85106099596749931082012-01-29T19:13:00.000-08:002012-01-29T19:13:12.784-08:00Do we need the wild?A friend threw out a question she was pondering, which in turn had been posed to her by another friend. "Do we need the wild?" <br />
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At first pass, I thought the real question is why we ask this question, because my immediate answer was absolutely yes. We can only ask this question if we see ourselves as somehow separate from "wild", however we define it. At its worst, the question betrays the extraordinary level of artificial separation a small percentage of humanity has been able to create, on borrowed time and stolen resources, from the natural systems that sustain us. We can maintain it only briefly and at increasing environmental, social, and economic cost. When viewed from this angle, the real question is how long can we keep up the charade.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Hn_ZBjRZk3Mc1F5bVF2HWmTUW6_l9YhzW2USE1bPCNPFuokI5RsBSFLNyMrZeOSABLUMXsLzKkVFYaOTHLGvwRXY2YSanzWbqthCeUI2SjmtwhEFI7O0usHQOGGr5oOdUKamlqGToB2i/s1600/standing_stones_3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0YGvcSTzV99mdn29fJZedEZ9rnYsmx8GFYI5MYs1MiINLjMxQhdq3SjDv-4R11NNtsG9DusB-spE_pPBTYmgr0urxREDwkq2f0dfdcvSBzWXdZOxzCDJ48L6WYkEuwE7qbrHGV5Ul7dFY/s1600/the+scream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" gda="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0YGvcSTzV99mdn29fJZedEZ9rnYsmx8GFYI5MYs1MiINLjMxQhdq3SjDv-4R11NNtsG9DusB-spE_pPBTYmgr0urxREDwkq2f0dfdcvSBzWXdZOxzCDJ48L6WYkEuwE7qbrHGV5Ul7dFY/s320/the+scream.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Petroglyph, Olympic National Park, WA. Photo: J.A. Gervais</em></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div align="center"></div>However, the question becomes far more interesting and far more complex on further reflection. The Wild is the world beyond the comfortable circle of light thrown around the campfire ring, the impenetrable and sometimes terrifying world that harbors gods, demons, and other spirits that are beyond our control and often deaf to our supplication. We are a part of this Wild, certainly, but more as stepchildren watching deep rituals beyond our capacity to master or to understand. This Wild is one we fear and venerate, the one we approach with intermediaries and sacrifices held out as flimsy shields to protect ourselves even as we seek it.<br />
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This Wild has largely been forgotten in a human world whose cultures are increasingly dominated by materialism and gratifying any immediate whims, where the idea of something larger, something out beyond our self-imposed fence of goods and gratification, has been exiled like some sort of childhood legend for which we have no further need. Most of the time, until some catastrophe slips out of the darkness and across the circle of self-imposed limit, laying bare the belief that we are all we need. War, natural disasters, sickness, and loss of those we love to things that have no purpose are windows back into the dark and dangerous world we cannot control.<br />
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<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Hn_ZBjRZk3Mc1F5bVF2HWmTUW6_l9YhzW2USE1bPCNPFuokI5RsBSFLNyMrZeOSABLUMXsLzKkVFYaOTHLGvwRXY2YSanzWbqthCeUI2SjmtwhEFI7O0usHQOGGr5oOdUKamlqGToB2i/s1600/standing_stones_3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" gda="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Hn_ZBjRZk3Mc1F5bVF2HWmTUW6_l9YhzW2USE1bPCNPFuokI5RsBSFLNyMrZeOSABLUMXsLzKkVFYaOTHLGvwRXY2YSanzWbqthCeUI2SjmtwhEFI7O0usHQOGGr5oOdUKamlqGToB2i/s320/standing_stones_3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Stone circle, Island of Arran, Scotland. Photo: J.A. Gervais</em></span></div><br />
What draws us outside of ourselves, calls us to any higher purpose or holds us to any greater standards that might require us to act directly against our own immediate interests? What guides us to see ourselves as taking our place within the larger mystery, which holds both the inanimate earth and all of the life forces within it?<br />
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This is the realm of the spiritual. Arguably, we need to acknowledge our ties to this dimension of our world just as much as we need to acknowledge our dependence on fertile soil, fresh air, clean water, and the other inhabitants of land and ocean. We may find echos of the spiritual Wild in a church, or a temple, or out in the woods; what resonates within each of us is a function of our culture, our upbringing, our experiences, and is deeply personal.<br />
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Do we need the wild? Do we need souls and the spiritual, the belief in something greater and more durable than ourselves? The two questions are really one and the same.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuhyphenhyphen-6z01cGxjY4IYWWgldK6Qb544YsHGhTOyYYa6l61CKr7YO3Q0jZFtFJyHkRhR5RrOKiOsenPBcXQ7LCt59_OcL1qaGM0f6TCCEyo_HyfkE0llbKMtFjo_4gCxdDDZ2Fgc-K82pA-UW/s1600/storm+coming.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" gda="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuhyphenhyphen-6z01cGxjY4IYWWgldK6Qb544YsHGhTOyYYa6l61CKr7YO3Q0jZFtFJyHkRhR5RrOKiOsenPBcXQ7LCt59_OcL1qaGM0f6TCCEyo_HyfkE0llbKMtFjo_4gCxdDDZ2Fgc-K82pA-UW/s320/storm+coming.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Olympic mountains, WA. Photo: J.A. Gervais</em></span></div>Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3415964018625906484.post-35450522906832567272012-01-12T07:49:00.000-08:002012-01-12T07:49:20.929-08:00Road KillThere are two more dead deer lying along the road that ends just a few miles from town. One is a doe, probably pregnant, the other a young buck just out of rut. Someone has stopped and sawn off the antlers of the buck but both carcasses remain in the ditch, apparently inaccessible to scavengers. They are hardly visible from a car, and possible to overlook even from a bicycle, as the cold weather has prevented the usual tell-tale smell.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn-y6KiQx1t5W6wYv_Nfx0XYxahA8Q9vcFzpW3VEPZpQ8596cZsSkKtoyit-oJpOI9tDy3gmY6RvR-ZJg_he1tKmKrhf1dASVvqnleOwcuOAt0RFID4p20w8CcCSEoh_FlLi07uo1WHMos/s1600/deer+body.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn-y6KiQx1t5W6wYv_Nfx0XYxahA8Q9vcFzpW3VEPZpQ8596cZsSkKtoyit-oJpOI9tDy3gmY6RvR-ZJg_he1tKmKrhf1dASVvqnleOwcuOAt0RFID4p20w8CcCSEoh_FlLi07uo1WHMos/s320/deer+body.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
We think of roads as opportunities for our own rapid movement and convenience, if we think about them at all, not the ribbons of death that wind through the home ranges or migration routes of many animals. Stand at a rest stop along a busy interstate and see how many seconds pass in which there are breaks in traffic from one side of the highway across all lanes to the other side. Not surprisingly, research has shown that roads can be major obstacles to animal movement.<br />
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How much roads cut off movement depends on not only the traffic load but the animals themselves. Some animals such as urban gray squirrels seem almost oblivious to the traffic despite the risk and frequent near-misses. There are video clips of urban wildlife using crossroads and even apparently waiting for lights to change before they cross. They include deer, gray squirrels, coyotes, and Japanese crows. The crows, of course, can easily fly over the traffic, but it seems that some of them have figured out that if <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0" target="_blank">they drop nuts into the crosswalks</a>, cars will run over them, and the cracked nuts can be retrieved when the light changes. These animals have adapted to live in the new world we've created for them.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwe1SHSdciDhIY-k_6wFbp7ZG5r_dROpDvxsedsLCY6h4_aBn_oELN-OUJCdcSc8ueSI-ZK7_40DN_-UbNTkJor5XSmkZNsJ7HGRkTVSo_OkOvIMch0_tRViSWkfbjHCJgpHl9CD7z6Pk/s1600/Deer+crossing1.jpg.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwe1SHSdciDhIY-k_6wFbp7ZG5r_dROpDvxsedsLCY6h4_aBn_oELN-OUJCdcSc8ueSI-ZK7_40DN_-UbNTkJor5XSmkZNsJ7HGRkTVSo_OkOvIMch0_tRViSWkfbjHCJgpHl9CD7z6Pk/s320/Deer+crossing1.jpg.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
But the vast majority haven't adapted. Desert bighorn sheep populations are <a href="http://fw.oregonstate.edu/labs/epps/pdfs/Epps%20et%20al%20EcolLett2005%20with%20Appendices.pdf" target="_blank">already showing reduced genetic diversity</a> in just four decades after interstate highways threaded among them, raising the risks of extinction for the now-isolated populations. <a href="http://www.fws.gov/filedownloads/ftp_verobeach/Habitat%20Conservation%20Planning/2010%20Orig/2/20091019_release_FWS%20to%20CSWFL/Dickson%20et%20al%202005.pdf" target="_blank">Cougars avoided two-lane paved roads</a> although dirt roads did not deter them. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ecologyandsociety.org%2Fvol16%2Fiss3%2Fart16%2FES-2011-4251.pdf&ei=Sp8LT_WDE4XXiQKq4LCMBA&usg=AFQjCNEXxdQC3xZgEOhZHi5vj24JyGwDPw&sig2=TVbS6lVvqMFXElN77VR4Tg" target="_blank">Both wolves and elk in the Canadian Rockies</a> avoided roads and trails in national parks as their traffic increased, but elk were less repelled and actually used the areas near moderately busy trails as predator-free zones because the wolves appeared more sensitive to the disturbance. There are gradients in responses, and consequences.<br />
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At the other end of the spectrum, freshwater turtles don't seem to recognize the danger. Turtles <a href="http://apps.webofknowledge.com.proxy.library.oregonstate.edu/full_record.do?product=WOS&search_mode=GeneralSearch&qid=1&SID=2DmPJEgDpI2Ca62C4lp&page=1&doc=3" target="_blank">moving between two wetlands in Florida</a> were willing to attempt to clamber over a barrier made of plastic netting to cross the busy highway separating the wetlands; nearly all those that succeeded were killed. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-1795.2006.00032.x/abstract" target="_blank">Populations of turtles</a> near roads have a sex ratio skewed towards males relative to populations away from roads. More dead female turtles are found on roads than males because the females are driven to leave the safety of water to find nesting sites.<br />
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The biggest issue may not be just the body counts, as staggering as they may be (<a href="http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08034/04.cfm" target="_blank">upwards of 350 million wildlife deaths per year</a> in the United States). The worst thing about road kill may be what it reveals about our own fundamental thoughtlessness. We are the one species that seems able to contemplate killing in an abstract way, evaluating the moral and ethical consequences of taking another's life. The vast majority of us would not describe ourselves as careless killers, and would claim to avoid causing senseless death when possible. Then we get into our cars.<br />
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The speed limit on the road with the dead deer is fifty miles an hour. Every branch of this winding road ends a few miles farther into the hills, serving an exurban bedroom-community development. People claim to like living in the country because they enjoy nature, but nature had better not get in the way of easy access to town. Of course, very few wildlife-vehicle collisions occur on purpose; after all, people are often also victims of severe injuries or death when large animals like moose are involved. But <a href="http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08034/04.cfm" target="_blank">nearly all animals that are hit die</a>.<br />
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When animals die of natural causes besides predation, they tend to die in places where scavengers can get to them, so that the occasion of death is also an occasion for the continuation of other life. One of the elements of roadkill is its wastefulness, because the traffic may prevent scavengers from at least cleaning up after our carelessness. Worse, other animals may be attracted to the bounty then also die in traffic. This is only one aspect of the particularly repugnant facets of road kill. Another facet is its anonymity, with neither killer or victim aware of the other. It is the ultimate in thoughtless take.<br />
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</div>The vast majority of victims are not ever seen before being hit, especially if they are low to the ground and cryptic, like snakes, lizards, or salamanders. It is easy to ignore the carnage if you never see it, easy to believe that you don't contribute to it, easy not to think about it at all. What if we did think about it? What if seeing a dead animal, even a snake or a slug, required a moment of reflection and grief? We would have to slow down enough to see the corpses. If we slowed down, there would be far fewer of them. That would be one benefit. The process of acknowledging the losses might have a far greater benefit, that of helping us recognize our own place in the scheme of life, the first critical step to salvaging our planetary home.Jennifer Gervaishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18162195699953055714noreply@blogger.com1