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Let's be clear:
Apr. 27th, 2011 10:27 amFree-roaming cats are harmful to the environment. Period. Full stop. The fact that other things are too does not mitigate that fact.
For Badnoodles: Some amphibians
Feb. 12th, 2011 08:03 am
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badnoodles donated in order to see a picture of an amphibian. As it happens, there is a whole row of exhibits next to each other in Children's Zoo, so I tried a few shots. I can't guarantee for everyone that I'll get 6 species for your 5 dollar donation, but this was fun!Above you see a wood frog, a native North American amphibian, and the species found further north than any other. They prefer to breed in vernal pools, and during the breeding season their quacking calls make you think there are invisible ducks in the pond. When I worked at Drumlin Farm I encountered them frequently.
( more amphibians )
If you would like me to take a picture of one of Zoo New England's animals, please donate $5.00 to the New England Chapter of the American Association of Zoo Keepers! I'll even send you a sticker.
Still forthcoming: Pictures of prairie dogs and something large (donor specified elephant, rhino, hippo or giraffe).
Smoke not from barbecues.
May. 31st, 2010 01:42 pmWe just took the dogs on a walk, and there's a weird haze throughout an otherwise sunny day. At Ward's Pond, it looked almost like a fog was settling on the kettle. It turns out that it's smoke from a Canadian forest fire. Or rather, fromt eh more than 50 fires burning in Quebec.
It makes me think about the connectedness of places we think of as far away. It makes me worry about the Gulf.
Edited to add: The article above reports 5 mile visibility in Boston, it's gotten to be much worse than that. Can't see the Citgo sign through the haze, which is only 3 miles away or less. Saw a lady in the store with a surgical mask on.
Edited further to add: Here's what it looks like from right by my house. @universalhub twitter feed is calling it #SmokeMonsieur. Another friend is calling it #BurnQuebecBurn.
It makes me think about the connectedness of places we think of as far away. It makes me worry about the Gulf.
Edited to add: The article above reports 5 mile visibility in Boston, it's gotten to be much worse than that. Can't see the Citgo sign through the haze, which is only 3 miles away or less. Saw a lady in the store with a surgical mask on.
Edited further to add: Here's what it looks like from right by my house. @universalhub twitter feed is calling it #SmokeMonsieur. Another friend is calling it #BurnQuebecBurn.
Links for you
Mar. 3rd, 2010 06:52 amIn case you don't spend as much on the internet as Roger Ebert does (NO ONE does--the guy is turning into a character from Snowcrash) or don't subscribe to the National Geographic twitter feed (you should--much less annoying than getting the magazine sent to you in a plastic bag) here's some stuff I found interesting lately:
Not to be outdone, the Atlantic Ocean has it's own giant plastic trash gyre. It's mostly invisible, composed of tiny flecks that look delicious to animals that eat tiny flecks of translucent floating debris. I assume they are mostly fragments of plastic bags, like the kind National Geographic sends their magazines in.
Anyone who has kept mice or rats in a tiny cage knows that they get overweight in no time. Unfortunately for the body of knowledge we've been building up based on them, it screws up the results.
By now you know that the Chile earthquake shortened the length of the day and knocked the planet off its axis, but have you seen the tsunami pictures?
Using the worst headline I've ever seen on a zoo website, San Diego Zoo tells us that kangaroo rats will nest in sand that smells of mountain lion urine, because smaller predators treat it like plutonium.
One Facebook friend keeps pressuring me to like Neko Case, but I don't see it happening. I heard the Carolina Chocolate Drops on Fresh Air, however, and I like them.
And finally, I often hear from people wondering why they have to endure ticks and mosquitoes and other parasitic organisms. This abstract from a paper on the subject says it beautifully:
"Taking into account that most of the known living organisms are parasites and that they exert a strong influence on the functioning of ecosystems, we can consider parasitism as a successful strategy for life. Because of the harm that parasites can inflict on man and domesticated animals, which can be expressed as economic loss, many parasites become pests. In natural ecosystems, parasites contribute to the prevention of continuous exponential growth of populations and, therefore, they also need to be conserved."
Not to be outdone, the Atlantic Ocean has it's own giant plastic trash gyre. It's mostly invisible, composed of tiny flecks that look delicious to animals that eat tiny flecks of translucent floating debris. I assume they are mostly fragments of plastic bags, like the kind National Geographic sends their magazines in.
Anyone who has kept mice or rats in a tiny cage knows that they get overweight in no time. Unfortunately for the body of knowledge we've been building up based on them, it screws up the results.
By now you know that the Chile earthquake shortened the length of the day and knocked the planet off its axis, but have you seen the tsunami pictures?
Using the worst headline I've ever seen on a zoo website, San Diego Zoo tells us that kangaroo rats will nest in sand that smells of mountain lion urine, because smaller predators treat it like plutonium.
One Facebook friend keeps pressuring me to like Neko Case, but I don't see it happening. I heard the Carolina Chocolate Drops on Fresh Air, however, and I like them.
And finally, I often hear from people wondering why they have to endure ticks and mosquitoes and other parasitic organisms. This abstract from a paper on the subject says it beautifully:
"Taking into account that most of the known living organisms are parasites and that they exert a strong influence on the functioning of ecosystems, we can consider parasitism as a successful strategy for life. Because of the harm that parasites can inflict on man and domesticated animals, which can be expressed as economic loss, many parasites become pests. In natural ecosystems, parasites contribute to the prevention of continuous exponential growth of populations and, therefore, they also need to be conserved."
Is the United States the only nation where large numbers of literate people don't believe in man-made climate change? I believe in man-made disbelief of science, which is almost as scary as large-scale famine caused by droughts and floods. I did meet a nice Australian lady on my trip to Greenland who had her doubts about man-made climate change, and I wondered if the fact that her husband worked for the mining industry had informed those doubts.
If we are the only country that has a large influential population of climate change deniers, I think a little national shame is in order.
Speaking of which, human rights watchers may raise an eyebrow at Denmark, which has passed laws essentially allowing the arrest and detention of protesters who LOOK like they might start trouble.
If we are the only country that has a large influential population of climate change deniers, I think a little national shame is in order.
Speaking of which, human rights watchers may raise an eyebrow at Denmark, which has passed laws essentially allowing the arrest and detention of protesters who LOOK like they might start trouble.
Links links links links links
Aug. 31st, 2009 05:00 pmThis coming Saturday is International Vulture Awareness Day. I feel like I should have found out earlier, but I don't really know how to celebrate, either. Carrion birds are some of my favorite, and I'm glad the conservation community has given them an awareness day.
Vultures do face some weird conservation challenges, including veterinary drugs (one of which is now banned due to its deleterious effects on vultures) and idiot tourists (wishing to see the nesting vultures move, tourists have been spooking them; without the right wind conditions, the vultures plunge to their doom.)
Another life form I like are the slime molds. They move and eat like animals, but reproduce like fungi. One species solved a maze. Some scientists are exploiting this species to act as a kind of micro-beast of burden. They're calling it a "Plasmobot." The article hails it as "the first ever biological robot using mould." That's science journalism for you.
Vultures do face some weird conservation challenges, including veterinary drugs (one of which is now banned due to its deleterious effects on vultures) and idiot tourists (wishing to see the nesting vultures move, tourists have been spooking them; without the right wind conditions, the vultures plunge to their doom.)
Another life form I like are the slime molds. They move and eat like animals, but reproduce like fungi. One species solved a maze. Some scientists are exploiting this species to act as a kind of micro-beast of burden. They're calling it a "Plasmobot." The article hails it as "the first ever biological robot using mould." That's science journalism for you.
Muddy River Silt
Aug. 6th, 2009 08:23 pm
The Muddy's worst problem is that storm drains empty into it. This is the most visible example I've seen of silt from the streets polluting the river.
Transgendered animals on the increase
Dec. 10th, 2008 05:46 amFrom anais2
A variety of different chemicals are found to disrupt hormones in vertebrates, affecting mostly male animals:
"Half the male fish in British lowland rivers have been found to be developing eggs in their testes..."
"...Research at the University of Florida earlier this year found that 40 per cent of the male cane toads ... had become hermaphrodites in a heavily farmed part of the state..."
"...Two-thirds of male Sitka black-tailed deer in Alaska have been found to have undescended testes and deformed antler growth..."
"It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone."
(I didn't think I'd ever get to use my "transgendered animals" tag again."
anais2A variety of different chemicals are found to disrupt hormones in vertebrates, affecting mostly male animals:
"Half the male fish in British lowland rivers have been found to be developing eggs in their testes..."
"...Research at the University of Florida earlier this year found that 40 per cent of the male cane toads ... had become hermaphrodites in a heavily farmed part of the state..."
"...Two-thirds of male Sitka black-tailed deer in Alaska have been found to have undescended testes and deformed antler growth..."
"It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone."
(I didn't think I'd ever get to use my "transgendered animals" tag again."
Now why would a Republican administration try to interfere with a STATE'S RIGHT to make it's own fuel efficiency standards?
Early spring?
May. 9th, 2006 07:44 amWhile on some levels it seemed like spring took forever to get here (maybe that's because I was trying to find a new species every day on the bleak landscape) once May arrived, it seems like it's in a tremendous hurry. The trees have leafed out in a matter of days. Last year at this time they were still kind of spare, so you could look up into the canopy on a mid-May warbler walk, and actually see the birds. I wondered, is it just this year, with the mild winter? Or is it global climate change? At least I'm not the only one who noticed: http://www.livescience.com/environment/060503_warming_birds.html
Rural Nature Lover Paradox
Jul. 31st, 2005 03:01 pmPeople who love Nature (in my most optimistic moments I imagine that this includes a majority of people) of course like to be surrounded by it. Often nature lovers are repelled by cities, and take effort to instead live in the countryside or surrounded by wilderness.
But living outside of the city causes a greater environmental impact: Trees must be cut down, roads must be built, and resources are sent out through diffuse networks. Rural people use more energy heating and cooling their homes, getting to and from work as well as running simple errands. As the population increases, whole non-urban communities are created, paving over wilderness and paving the way for more cars, more houses, more development.
In order to live where you are surrounded by natural beauty, one must participate in a system (development of rural areas) that is slowly and surely destroying that beauty.
Discuss.
But living outside of the city causes a greater environmental impact: Trees must be cut down, roads must be built, and resources are sent out through diffuse networks. Rural people use more energy heating and cooling their homes, getting to and from work as well as running simple errands. As the population increases, whole non-urban communities are created, paving over wilderness and paving the way for more cars, more houses, more development.
In order to live where you are surrounded by natural beauty, one must participate in a system (development of rural areas) that is slowly and surely destroying that beauty.
Discuss.
