From Cosmic Quandaries with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Hat tip to the most excellent Southern Fried Science, where you can watch the entire Cosmic Quandaries panel discussion as well as the following excerpt:




As the man says, "You can't be a scientist if you're uncomfortable with ignorance, because we live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe."

June 6th 1806

"[T]he red has the appearance of being laid over a ground of yellow": Western Tanager by Phae on Flickr.

In what is now Lewis County, Idaho:

This morning Frazier returned having been in quest of some roots and bread which had left at the lodg of the Twisted hair when on his way to the fishery on Lewis's river. the Twisted hair came with him but I was unable to converse with him for the want of an interpreter, Drewyer being absent with Capt. C. This Cheif left me in the evening and returned to his village. Capt C. Visited the Broken Arm today agreeably to his promise; he took with him Drewyer and several others. they were received in a friendly manner. The Broken Arm informed Capt C. that the nation would not pass the mountain untill the latter end of the summer, and that with rispect to the young men whom we had requested should accompany us to the falls of the Missouri, were not yet scelected for that purpose nor could they be so untill there was a meeting of the nation in counsil. that this would happen in the course of ten or twelve days as the whole of the lodges were about to remove to the head of the Commeâp Creek in the plain near Lewis's river, that when they had assembled themselves they would hold a council and scelect the young men. that if we set out previously to that period the men would follow us. we therefore do not calculate on any assistance from them as guides, but depend more upon engageing some of the Ootlashshoots in the neighborhood of Travellers rest C. for that purpose. The broken arm gave Capt. C. a few dryed Quawmas roots as a great present, but in our estimation those of cows are much better, I am confident they are much more healthy. The men who were with Capt. C. obtained a good store of roots and bread in exchange for a number of little notions, using the Yanke phrase, with which their own enginuity had principally furnished them. on examination we find that our whole party have an ample store of bread and roots for our voyage, a circumstance not unpleasing. They retuned at 5 P. M. shortly after which we were visited by Hohâstillpilp the two young Cheifs who gave us the horses in behalf of the nation some time since and several others, who remained all night. The Kooskooske is about 150 Yds. wide at this place and discharges a vast body of water; notwithstanding it high state the water remains nearly transparent, and it's temperature appeas to be quite as cold as that of our best springs.

Western Tanager by The.Rain.Man on Flickr.

we meet with a beautifull little bird in this neighbourhood about the size and somewhat the shape of the large sparrow. it is reather longer in proportion to it's bulk than the sparrow. it measures 7 inches from the extremity of the beek to that of the tail, the latter occupying 2½ inches. the beak is reather more than half an inch in length, and is formed much like the virginia nitingale; it is thick and large for a bird of it's size; wide at the base, both chaps convex, and pointed, the uper exceeds the under chap a little is somewhat curved and of a brown colour; the lower chap of a greenish yellow. the eye full reather large and of a black colour both puple and iris. the plumage is remarkably delicate; that of the neck and head is of a fine orrange yellow and red, the latter predominates on the top of the head and arround the base of the beak from whence it graduly deminishes & towards the lower part of the neck, the orrange yellow prevails most; the red has the appearance of being laid over a ground of yellow. the breast, the sides, rump and some long feathers which lie between the legs and extend underneath the tail are of a fine orrange yellow. the tail, back and wings are black, ecept a small stripe of yellow on the outer part of the middle joint of the wing, ¼ of an inch wide and an inch in length. the tail is composed of twelve feathers of which those in the center are reather shortest, and the plumage of all the feathers of the tail is longest on that side of the quill next the center of the tail. the legs and feet are black, nails long and sharp; it has four toes on each foot, of which three are forward and one behind; that behind is as long as the two outer of the three toes in front.

Observed equal altitudes of the sun with Sextant.

The first description for science of my heart bird, the Western Tanager, written by Captain Meriwether Lewis. You can read the journals of his expedition here.

H/T: Idaho Birding Blog.

Jonah 2010

Found this at Aquafornia, where you can watch the wide-screen version and be even more depressed impressed.

Now with "Spillcam"

Related:

Gulf oil spill: 'Top kill' procedure begins

Live feeds from remotely operated vehicles

Snowy

White bird in an orange tree.

This albino House Sparrow has been in and around the yard since May 12. In the photos her eyes look black — after looking at her through binoculars I'd say those eyes are very dark red. I think she's quite beautiful.

She does stand out, though. I hope some predator doesn't finish her off before she's had a chance to enjoy a bit of the world, if House Sparrows can be said to do such a thing.

Rose Red on the left, Snow White on the right, with sparrow and finch kids in between. Click for big.

Related:

Plumage variations: Albinism or Leucism?

Leucistic birds, from Stokes Birding Blog

White albino swallow sets twitchers a-flutter

Albinism in birds

Love your mother

Snowy Plover, by Jim Urbach for Audubon. [Click for big, and get the screensaver here.] In its report Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Ten Animals at Risk, National Geographic writes that the Snowy Plover "has been identified by the National Audubon Society as one of the species most vulnerable to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Snowy plovers risk not only direct contact with the oil but might also be poisoned by eating small invertebrates and oysters tainted with oil."

Updates on the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico:
Workers on Oil Rig Recall a Terrible Night of Blasts

BP suffers setback in attempts to stem Gulf of Mexico oil flow. “I wouldn’t say it has failed yet,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, said at a news conference in Robert, La. “What we attempted to do last night hasn’t worked.”

Learning to Love the Sea, Then Torn From It. The Gulf oil spill "has stalled, and possibly ruined, the livelihoods of thousands."

Regulator Deferred to Oil Industry on Rig Safety

Gulf Coast Fishermen Fear That They Will Be Left With 'Crippled Industry'

Sabotage! Conspiracy! And Other Ways to Spin the Oil Spill. I laugh to keep from crying.


Happy Mother's Day!

"The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is seen from a helicopter." Photo by Rick Loomis for the Los Angeles Times.

International Migratory Bird Day

Above: Cerulean Warbler, Rufous Hummingbird, American Redstart. Below left: Wood Duck, American Oystercatcher, Puffin, Whooping Crane. All by Robert Petty for EFTA's Bird Day 2010.

Truth be told: every day is bird day here in Southern California. OK, every day is [or should be] bird day everywhere, but especially here. From the mountains to the sea [as a SoCal news icon used to say each evening] there are beautiful local birds and cool migratory birds everywhere you look.

International Migratory Bird Day "highlights and celebrates the migration of nearly 350 species of migratory birds between nesting habitats in North America and non-breeding grounds in Latin America, Mexico, and the Caribbean," and to quote from the essay Coming together to protect birds, "IMBD is not only a day to foster appreciation for wild birds and to celebrate and support migratory bird conservation; it is also is a call to action." We celebrate Bird Day [every day] by working toward:

• Protecting and managing green space.

• Landscaping with native plants in backyards and parks.

• Adopting architecture and lighting systems that reduce collisions.

• Making our communities hospitable to breeding, wintering and migrating birds that seek safe places to spend time and find food.

"Birds can save the world," writes Dr. John Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell:

[B]irds represent our most accessible and sensitive indicator of environmental health and ecological change. Today, thanks especially to the Internet, individual citizens have unprecedented opportunities to provide real data that answer important questions about bird populations at continental scales. Humans literally are beginning to serve as worldwide biosphere sensors. The question is, do we also have the will to self-correct? Birds present us with numerous motivations to do so, and an excellent barometer for measuring our successes and failures.

The real data Dr. Fitzpatrick is talking about can be viewed and explored at eBird, which is quite possibly the coolest data-gathering program of all time [and I'm not just saying that because I'm one of this year's top 100 eBirders in my county. Though I am]. To see just one example of eBird's citizen scientists at work, check out the eBird Gulf Coast Oil Spill Bird Tracker. The gadget displays recent sightings of ten focal species — data provided by a dedicated army of eBirders, citizen scientists providing "a real-time snapshot of the region’s birdlife, helping conservationists and researchers understand where, when, and how many of each species are currently occurring on local beaches and wetlands."

Wild birds embody the wonder and beauty of nature, its mystery and its miracles. The challenges wild birds face are challenges that sooner or later will confront us all. We owe it to ourselves, if not to the life of the skies, to celebrate Bird Day as if our future depended on it — because odds are, it does.

Related:
George Divoky's Planet. "This is a story about global warming and a scientist named George Divoky, who studies a colony of Arctic seabirds on a remote barrier island off the northern coast of Alaska. I mention all this at the start because a reader might like to come to the point, and what could be more urgent than the very health and durability of this planet we call Earth? However, before George can pursue his inquiry into worldwide climate change; before he can puzzle out the connections between a bunch of penguinesque birds on a flat, snow-covered, icebound island and the escalating threat of droughts, floods and rising global temperatures, he must first mount a defense -- his only defense in this frozen, godforsaken place -- against the possibility of being consumed, down to the last toenail, by a polar bear while he sleeps. He must first build a fence." A hands-down, must-read classic, even more important now than when it was first published back in 2002.

Media helicopters force Gulf birds to abandon nests. Holy crap, news people.

The know-how and materials already exist. We need to do the right thing

Efforts under way to douse nighttime lights on downtown Cleveland skyscrapers, saving millions of migrating songbirds


H/T to Mike McDowell for the JSOnline link.

News Flash

Click for big.

Climate change is [hello, Congress] still real. California's essential water/politics blogger Emily Green reported this week that 255 of the country’s leading scientists, including 11 Nobel laureates, are doing what they can to get the message across:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Read:
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE INTEGRITY OF SCIENCE [pdf]
Lead Letter Published in Science magazine, May 7, 2010
From 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences

In related news, California has some of the greediest and most dangerous initiative-pushers on earth. Rule by initiative is the first two or three thousand reasons my poor state is in such bad shape these days.


Image above: Carbon Dioxide Concentration [screen grab] from NASA's Global Climate Change website.

"a commentary on our own culpability"

canary 2, 2008, by Kate McDowell.

Artist Kate McDowell's statement about her work begins:

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. – C.S. Lewis.

In my work this romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment. These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops. They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones.

You can view Kate McDowell's portfolio here. Her work, as she says, is "a painstaking record of endangered natural forms and a commentary on our own culpability."

Cuckoo. [In case it's needed, here is some context.]

Related:
Urgency increases as oil spill grows
How oil affects birds
Birds, Sharks, Whales, Sea Turtles, and Other Wildlife Threatened By Oil Slick Nearing Coast -- with information on "some of the birds and other wildlife experts are most concerned about."

Midnight links: rabies/vaccines/titers

Austin - stream of bats at sundown. Photo by Wordyeti on Flickr. "A single little brown bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquito-sized insects in a single hour, while a pregnant or lactating female bat typically eats the equivalent of her entire body weight in insects each night." [Source: Bat Conservation International.]

It all started when the most excellent Julie Zickefoose rescued a young bat. And then another bat. Julie has forgotten more about nature and about wildlife than most of us will ever know, and she took all the standard precautions and figured the rabies risk was smaller than negligible.

Then things got complicated. There are bat strains of rabies as well as canine strains, and scientists don't know much about the bat strains. "Certainly these kinds of viruses, under the right conditions, can establish very persistent latent infections. I personally don't agree that we know that an asymptomatic bat cannot transmit the disease."

Good news: the bat turned out not to be rabid. Sad news: in order to test the bat for rabies the little creature had to be killed. Super-helpful news: Julie was thoughtful enough to share all kinds of bat and rabies information with her readers. A good thing, since I'd like to sign up for this.


Vaccines are a special area of interest and concern for dog people, and on Thursday Pet Connection's Kim Campbell Thornton reported on the latest vaccine news from the Rabies Challenge fundraiser in San Diego.

In light of which, I'll quote Julie Z:

The deal with the [rabies pre-exposure] shots is you get your titer checked every two years (about $40), and if the rabies antibodies are still high, you're OK. One woman I know says hers has held for 15 years and counting.

15 years! Nice to know, if you're interested in safely extending the required interval for canine rabies boosters [and I am]. Thanks to Julie for the great blog posts, and may her pre-exposure vaccinations not hurt a bit.

Tonight: new wildlife series from the BBC, Discovery Channel

"African straw-coloured fruit bats in flight, Kasanka National Park, Zambia." Photo by Kieran Dodds for Discovery Channel / BBC.

This Sunday, from 8-10pm ET/PT on the Discovery Channel, catch the premiere episode of Life.

From the NY Times review:

Fans of programs like “Nature” on PBS are already aware of just how exquisite the best wildlife filmmaking is these days, thanks to ultraportable gear and high-definition video, but the wealth and variety of material in “Life” may surprise even those viewers. (“Life” was made in partnership with the BBC, as was an earlier series, “Planet Earth.”)

The scale is among the most striking things. We’ve long been used to seeing big cats run down antelopes, and there are plenty of large animals here. But there are also insects, hummingbirds, fingernail-size amphibians. Who shot the rollicking images of an inchlong pebble toad rolling like a small stone down a mountainside in Venezuela? Someone with a heck of a lot of patience, that’s who.

Honestly, what kind of person is following inch-long pebble toads as they go rollicking down mountainsides in Venezuela? Funny you should ask. Here's a NY Times profile of The Calm Men Who Bring You Exotic Animals.

My spring-fu is strong

No more winter browns. American Goldfinches are going through the closets, doing some spring cleaning, getting rid of the old stuff. [My local Goldfinches are a tad further along than this.] Photo by Doug Greenberg on Flickr.

What the well-dressed male Goldfinch will be wearing in a few weeks. Photo by Eric Bégin on Flickr.

Western Bluebird [and House Finches] by jek in the box on Flickr.

And they say we don't have seasons!

It went from wet and cold and dark to warm and sunny overnight. Birdsong everywhere, bazillions of birds, everything insanely green and sunny and beautiful. Hawks are nesting, turkey vultures are soaring, owl chicks are growing [owlets will be banded tomorrow [March 20] at 3:00 PM Pacific Time, webcam fans], and life is good.

I can't believe the Project FeederWatch season is almost over.

I looked out the kitchen window this afternoon and saw a big crowd bellying up to the birdbath: a flock of maybe 30 Cedar Waxwings, half a dozen Western Bluebirds, a Robin, some American Goldfinches, a warbler or two, all at the same time, everyone banking and landing, or drinking, or diving in and splashing. It was beautiful. All photos from Flickr/Creative Commons, because I don't digiscope. Yet.

Cedar Waxwing by ru 24 real on Flickr.

Cedar Waxwings by drewweber on Flickr.

American Robin. Beautiful photo by cruadinx on Flickr.

Proud parents of a small egg

California Condor country: Sunset at the Pinnacles National Monument, by StefanB on Flickr.

This story is great, and the headline rocks: Calif condor couple lays first egg at Pinnacles National Monument in more than a century. Congratulations to the happy couple!

A female released in 2004 in the Central California park and a male released the same year 30 miles west at Big Sur had been observed engaged in courtship behavior earlier this year, park spokesman Carl Brenner said.

"They are now the proud parents of a small egg," Brenner said.

Biologists confirmed the presence of the egg after hiking to the site on Friday.

In 1982, the last 22 California condors were placed in a captive breeding program. Today, there are 348 in the world, with about 180 flying free at three locations in California and at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Another dozen are in Baja California.

The goal is to have 450 birds in three distinct populations, with 15 breeding pairs in each group.

Read it all here.

Above left: Condor buddies, by Doug Greenberg on Flickr.

Monday's big box o' links

Musher Sebastian Schnuelle [first in the 2009 Yukon Quest, 2nd in the 2009 Iditarod] rocks the earflaps-up look at the Iditarod restart in Wasilla. ADN photo by Bill Roth.

The official Iditarod site is awful, and not just because of a certain inescapable quitter. So ditch the official site, race addicts, and click on this link for awesome Iditarod coverage courtesy of the Anchorage Daily News. Feature stories, a blog, tweets, interactive maps: ADN wins it in a walk. I'm cheering for DeeDee Jonrowe [and her mom] and Colleen Robertia:

Several dogs in Robertia's Rogues Gallery Kennel — mostly "runts, rejects, retirees or rescues," she said — were rescued from the Kenai Animal Shelter and Alaska's Extended Life Animal Sanctuary in Nikiski. Others weren't wanted or needed by area mushers.

"I think they ended up taking two or three dogs from us," Tim Colbath, founder of the sanctuary, said of the Robertias.

"I hope she can finish it. To be able to take the time and knowledge to go through the rescues and get them to work together like that is just phenomenal." [Source: ADN.]

Penny, Colleen's lead dog, weighs a whopping 29 pounds — all of it heart. [That's Penny, top left, from the ADN.] Go, Colleen and Penny!

A few fave photos from the ADN:
The dangerous Mr. Mackey
Team Jonrowe
OMG, this is begging for a caption
Karen Ramstead's gorgeous Siberians

*************

Have an elderly Rottweiler? Dr. David J. Waters [pdf] really wants to meet you. Actually, he wants to meet your Rottie. Dr. Waters is traveling from coast to coast in order to see as many geriatric Rottweilers as he can:

The complete itinerary of the tour includes: March 11, Harrisburg, Pa.; March 12, Holliston, Mass.; March 13, Philadelphia; March 15, Keysville, Va.; March 16, Columbia, Tenn.; March 19, Cambridge, Wis.; March 20, Riverside, Iowa; March 21, Alma, Kan.; March 23, Red Oak, Texas; March 24, Castle Rock, Colo.; March 27, Colorado Springs, Colo.; March 28, Tijeras, N.M.; March 29, Waddell, Ariz.; March 30, San Diego; April 1, Pacific Palisades, Calif.; and April 3, Seattle.

Waters leads a research team that studies aging and cancer in pet dogs. The research includes the study of exceptionally long-lived Rottweilers - individuals that have lived to at least 13 years, which is equivalent to a human living to 100.

"These exceptional dogs have lived at least 30 percent longer than average for their breed," Waters said. "They have dodged cancer and other life-threatening diseases of aging. We believe studying them can shed light on what it takes to live well."

Over the years, Waters and his team have tracked the lives of more than 140 long-lived Rottweilers. Today, however, their database is down to just 15, hence the tour to meet these exceptionally aged canines.

"From questionnaires completed by owners and veterinarians, my team has validated dates of birth and collected a mountain of information about these dogs, including medical history, diet and dietary supplement usage, and parents' longevity," said Waters, who is also associate director of Purdue's Center on Aging and the Life Course and professor in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences.

At each stop, he will perform a physical examination, collect DNA samples, and record measurements such as height and chest and belly circumference. He will observe each dog in its home environment and query owners on what makes their dog exceptional.

Read more here, from Jennifer Viegas at Discover News: Oldest Rottweilers Inspire 'The Old Grey Muzzle Tour'.

*************

Keep. your dog. on a damn. leash. [H/T: DeltaBluez Stockdogs.] Heather points out that a little training wouldn't hurt, either. Speaking as one who has owned sheep: most people who say their unleashed dog has a reliable recall are either delusional or lying.

*************

Videos:
Canadian dude needs some viral help for a worthy cause. You got it, dude.
I love Local Commercials salutes Butt Drugs of Corydon, Indiana.
OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version. Yes, 20 billion people have seen it already, but maybe you missed it. I'm here to help.
A journey through Asia. Moving and beautiful.

*************

What an 8.8 [and the ensuing tsunami] can do, from The Big Picture.

• Conception, Chile, shifted 10 feet to the west.
• Santiago, Chile’s capital, was displaced about 11 inches to the west-southwest.
• Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, moved about 1 inch to the west.

Sure am glad a 7.5 is the most we can expect in these parts! [See A Faults (pdf).] Oh, yeah, nothing to worry about here.

Seriously folks, those of us along the southern [strike-slip fault] San Andreas will never experience the kind of subduction zone thrust-faulting they have in Chile [and in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest]. San Andreas — big-ass quakes. Subduction zones — frikkin' humongous quakes.

*************

Last, but not least — if you plan to be in the San Diego area in late March, you might want to attend Safer Pet Vaccination and Health Care: An Educational Seminar and Benefit. You'll spend the day with pet vaccination experts Drs. W. Jean Dodds and Ronald D. Schultz, and proceeds will go to the Rabies Challenge Fund. The seminar/benefit will be held at the Del Mar Hilton [across from the Del Mar Fairgrounds and Racetrack] on Sunday, March 28, 2010.

Amarok

Random news articles from the RSS feed:

Idaho hunter takes 180-pound wolf, via The Oudoor Pressroom. Head and skin to the left, from an image by Shawn Gust for the Coeur d'Alene Press.

Sea Wolves are not Sea Dogs, by Heather Houlahan over at her Raised by Wolves blog: hands down the best thing I expect to read on the trainer-killed-by-orca tragedy.

As they say, read it and weep.

Great Backyard Bird Count

The guaranteed-to-make-you-gasp-out-loud-when-the-sun-hits-him-just-right Costa's Hummingbird. Photo by bcsing on Flickr, taken 1-08-10 on the Lower Colorado River.

Feeders filled — check. Binocs — check. Regional checklist — check. Perfect 74F weather — big giant check. [Sorry, snowpocalypse people.] This weekend it's all about The Great Backyard Bird Count, "an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent."

Why participate? Aside from the fact that it's hella fun, the GBBC helps birds. And birds, as the great Canadian writer Margaret Atwood explains in this wonderful essay, are not merely beautiful and fascinating. Birds are the canaries of Coal Mine Earth.

[T]imes change, and we're heading back towards an older way of reading the birds. It's Fates of Nations time again, and ill omens seen through birds in flight – or the absence of them - and deadly prices to be paid for getting what you want. The birds have something to tell us again, and the truths are not comfortable ones.

Recording your counts this weekend during the GBBC is one way to help birds. Another way to help is by making birdhouses for them. The most excellent Birdchick shows us what a well-designed birdhouse should look like:

Want some drug-resistant germs with that pork chop?

From the five-part AP series When Drugs Stop Working:

[T]he overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year - more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs went to pigs, chickens and cows.

Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza are the excellent reporters who wrote When Drugs Stop Working, and if you missed it in December, you can read the complete series here. [The articles are in pdf.] The fifth article, Solution to killer superbug found in Norway, shows how MRSA [Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] can be controlled. Norway's solution? Cut [human] antibiotic use way, way back:

A spate of new studies from around the world prove that Norway's model can be replicated with extraordinary success, and public health experts are saying [MRSA] deaths - 19,000 in the U.S. each year alone, more than from AIDS - are unnecessary.

But what about the 24.5 million pounds of antibiotics fed to livestock in the U.S. each year? [So glad you asked.] Over at Civil Eats, you can watch this week's CBS Special Report on Antibiotics and Animal Agriculture:

In the report, [Katie] Couric visits a confinement pig operation, where she speaks to a farmer who believes using antibiotics is necessary. She talks to victims of MRSA, a bacteria infection that is resistant to antibiotics. And she visits similar hog confinement operations in Denmark that are taking care of their animals without the use of antibiotics. The Danish are proud to have transitioned, and scientists go on the record to talk about the decrease in antibiotic resistance in humans since the ban in that country.

Related articles [all from USC's ReportingonHealth]:
Q&A with the AP's Martha Mendoza
Covering outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant infections
Useful Resources: MRSA

Pork Magazine responds to the CBS report

From this blog:
"Taking the Lambs to Market"
Factory farmed pork safer than free range? In a pig's eye
Some Pigs

Boss Hog. Excerpt:

Smithfield's pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around[...] There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth.
[...]
The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.

From Smithfield's point of view, the problem with this lifestyle is immunological. Taken together, the immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs' immune systems. They become susceptible to infection, and in such dense quarters microbes or parasites or fungi, once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population. Accordingly, factory pigs are infused with a huge range of antibiotics and vaccines[...]

Read it and weep. If you still can't bear the thought of life without bacon, call a farmer with pasture-raised pigs. Or try "free-range, grass-fed, organic, locally produced, locally harvested, sustainable, native, low-stress, low-impact, humanely slaughtered meat" — which is to say, the kind you hunt. Whatever you do, though, please don't trot out the old "factory farms keep prices down for the consumer" lame-O excuse. Because no amount of savings justifies the cruelty inflicted on factory-farmed livestock.

Cats in court

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes: Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga, 1788. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Talk about a controversial story with next-to-zero coverage in the local news: a Los Angeles Superior Court judge "has banned Los Angeles animal shelters from encouraging feral cat colonies pending an environmental review."

The Urban Wildlands Group, Endangered Habitats League, Los Angeles Audubon Society, Palos Verdes/South Bay Audubon Society, Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society, and the American Bird Conservancy were plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and the L.A. Department of Animal Services. Here is the ABC's statement on the ruling. Excerpt:

A superior court judge has ruled in favor of a coalition of conservation groups, including American Bird Conservancy (ABC), to halt the controversial practice of Trap, Neuter, and Release (TNR) of feral cats in the City of Los Angeles, pending environmental review.

The court determined that the City and its Department of Animal Services had been “secretly and unofficially” promoting the practice of releasing feral cats to roam free in the city after they have been trapped and neutered or spayed, even though they were obliged by law to first conduct a review of the program under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
[...]
Despite denials by the City that an official TNR program existed, the judge ruled that “implementation of the program is pervasive, albeit informal and unspoken,” and ordered them to halt their actions and complete the necessary environmental reviews.

In June 2005, the Los Angeles Board of Animal Services Commissioners adopted TNR as the “preferred method of dealing with feral cat populations.” Under the CEQA, an analysis of the impacts of the program on the environment should have been completed, but never was. Yet the Department went forward in supporting TNR operations, including discounting spay/neuter operations for TNR cats, helping establish new TNR colonies on city property, and helping promote TNR programs, while refusing to accept feral cats at city animal shelters or issue permits to trap feral cats that were not going to be subsequently released.

The City must now implement the CEQA process, which includes full scientific review, assessment of alternatives, and potential mitigation measures. The public will have the opportunity to engage in the process and ensure an open, science-based approach to the issue of free-roaming cats in Los Angeles.

And speaking of science, this article from the September-October issue of Audubon is a must-read. [Related blog discussion here.] Also check out Critical Assessment of Claims Regarding Management of Feral Cats by Trap–Neuter–Return [pdf].

Related:
Birds 1, Feral Cats 0 -- Court Orders LA To Stop Controversial Feral Cat Program

Liveblogging No More Homeless Pets Conference: Opening
Liveblogging No More Homeless Pets: What’s new in feral cats?
[Honestly, when I hear someone say, "Don’t give them a chance to argue with you. There’s only one solution, and that’s to let the cats live; proceed from there," I ask myself, Did I miss that election? The one that made feral cat colonies more important than wild birds, sea mammals, the environment, public health...? Because that position is insane, and I like cats.]

Here are three posts from Ed Muzika's L.A. Animal Watch:

Urban Wildlife Wins Lawsuit Against City; TNR illegal Until CEQA Done

Longcore Refuses to Respond to My Charge That His Call for Cat Sanctuary Is a Cynical Cover For His Death Recommendations

Longcore Attacks Every Measure on Proposed Beverly Hills TNR Ordinance--A Sample

And an oldie from the NY Times: Kill the Cat that Kills the Bird?

Bird sounds

"Out of the mockingbird's throat, the musical shuttle" [Photo by larry wfu on Flickr.]

Remember Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs? One of the finest things the Onion has ever produced, if you ask me. Turns out Aves may be another group to keep an eye on.

If you watched the terrific video on parrot intelligence [H/T Heckled by Parrots, via Pet Connection], you probably caught a glimpse of a scientist in a lab. He was on screen for just a few seconds, at 5:44 in the vid. That's Erich Jarvis. Here's his Duke U. faculty page. From the NOVA site:

Erich Jarvis is a neurobiologist at Duke University Medical Center. He heads a team of researchers in the field of vocal communication. The Jarvis Lab's research of songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds sheds light on how the brain is able to learn the behavior of sound. Jarvis's work on bird brains may have applications to the treatment speech problems in humans, such as stuttering. In October 2005, Dr. Jarvis won the National Institutes of Health's Director's Pioneer Award, which provides $500,000 per year for five years to researchers pursuing innovative approaches to biomedical research.

This summer Jarvis gave the keynote address at the annual meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union:

Vocal learners mimic sounds they hear, and then modify them to create new sounds. This may not be as much mindless parroting as we used to think—and here Jarvis singled out Irene Pepperberg in the audience, whose experiments with Alex the African Grey Parrot showed that he understood the semantics of a question like “How many total?” well enough to count and reciprocally communicate to Irene that two beads and four beads made “six.”

As for how vocal learning happens, Jarvis and colleagues reported in a staggering series of publications that while all birds use parts of the brain stem to produce songs, those with learned songs also use parts of the forebrain. Birds that learn their songs may even have more than one pathway controlling their learning. One pathway may promote variability in songs while another pathway produces more consistency, or stereotyping. The proper balance between the two pathways allows for vocal learning.
[...]
Jarvis basically threw out the window the received wisdom that humans’ large brain size and extensive brain folding are the explanation for our complex language. When he and colleagues described in 2005 how bird song and human speech actually make use of the same three forebrain regions, it made a splash. People reportedly called Webster’s and asked them to remove the term “bird brain” from the dictionary. [Source: Round Robin — The Cornell Blog of Ornithology.]

You can read more about the evolution of avian brain structure for vocal learning here, at the Jarvis Lab website.

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Also on the topic of bird communication: in a thoughtful [as in, both gracious and brainy] exchange of blog posts, David Sibley and Nathan Pieplow engage in a "very interesting and, I think, important discussion about a sea change that may be occurring in how birders listen to bird sounds." [That quote is from Pieplow's blog.] Sibley writes:

I learned bird songs decades ago through countless hours of field experience, supplemented by listening to a few recordings, reading detailed descriptions, and talking to other birders. It was a subjective, holistic approach to bird songs that led to a sort of gestalt style of identification – after you hear a sound often enough the identification just becomes second-nature.

Now, it still takes countless hours, but birders have a wealth of technological aids, allowing them to study and compare bird sounds with an ease and immediacy that was never possible before. In the modern world of ipods, sonagrams, and websites like xeno-canto, birders can examine the bird sounds directly, objectively, and in great detail. This may lead (as Nathan Pieplow admits) to a slightly greater emphasis on differences in pattern rather than the more subjective and hard-to-describe differences in tone.

Given how suggestible we are, and how tiny things can influence our perception, the detail-oriented objective approach to bird sound identification is probably better and more accurate.

And Pieplow replies:

[Sibley] learned sounds in the field; I learned them on the floor of my bedroom in South Dakota when I was in high school, playing the Peterson Birding By Ear tapes over and over again. Those tapes (which remain the best resource I’ve ever seen for people who want to learn bird sounds on their own) didn’t take a holistic, all-at-once approach; instead they took an analytic approach, grouping similar sounds together and then pointing out key field marks or “handles” — here a distinctive tone quality, there a distinctive rhythm — to distinguish sounds within the groups.

I’ve used this same basic approach to sound identification ever since: recognize a pattern, then focus on a piece of it. The pattern gets you to the right group; the pieces narrow the identification to species. Tone quality is part of this analysis, but not the most important part.

In fact, in some ways I think I place a pretty low priority on tone quality. For several years now, I have been convinced that tone quality is the slipperiest attribute of sound: the hardest to analyze perceptually, the hardest to describe. And I think tone quality is responsible for most of the disconnect between most descriptions of sounds and the sounds themselves. I de-emphasize it precisely because it is so difficult to categorize. Other attributes of sound are much easier to describe and compare, so those are the ones I focus on.

For the most part, I’m just doing what works for me, but I hope it works for other people as well. I really do believe in the objective, analytic approach.

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So who makes those field recordings of bird songs? Remarkable people like William Belton:

An internationally recognized ornithologist, Mr. Belton was almost single-handedly responsible for the current body of knowledge of the bird life of Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost Brazilian state. His field recordings and specimens from the region are today in the collections of major research institutions. His two-volume study of the birds of the area is widely considered seminal.
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Each [of Belton's recordings] was often the product of hours of standing stock-still in the wild at dawn, with swarms of biting insects for company. But the rewards were considerable: over the years, Mr. Belton captured many bird songs that had never before been documented.
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The bird names alone read like found poetry. Mr. Belton recorded, among others, the variable screech-owl and the southern screamer; the freckle-breasted thornbird, the sooty-fronted spinetail and the rufous-browed peppershrike; the cattle tyrant, the masked yellowthroat and the piratic flycatcher; the squirrel cuckoo, the laughing falcon, the pectoral sandpiper and the gilded sapphire.

William Belton died in October at the age of 95. As a woman of a certain age, I love that Mr. Belton's ornithological career [of more than 30 years!] began following his retirement.

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A high school student asks Erich Jarvis, "African grey parrots can learn to speak, and they can be taught to tell color, and even to express themselves. And from what I observed on NOVA scienceNOW, some birds are capable of creating simple tools. But what about the other kinds of birds that are incapable of doing things like this? For example, a crow can make tools to obtain food but a pigeon can't. Why? Why is the parrot smarter than the finch? Is it brain size, the way they use their brains, or does the parrot have something the finch doesn't?"

An excerpt from Jarvis's answer:

[A]n argument can be made that having a brain means that you have intelligent behavior, regardless of whether you are a bird, mammal, reptile, or otherwise. But this is not the way many people think. There is something inherent in our human psyche that wants to make nonhumans "lower" in intelligence, and for us to form a scale of intelligence such that some species would be considered not intelligent.
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In fact, it is very difficult or almost impossible to make such a scale. Yes, a crow can make tools, and as far as I know, this has not been observed in pigeons. But pigeons have incredible visual memories and abilities, including the ability to learn how to distinguish different styles of impressionistic paintings. Chickadees, which are a type of songbird, can store over 3,000 seeds in the forest, and during the winter they remember where they put them and retrieve most of them. A parrot so far as I know has not been observed to do this, yet a number of parrot species can imitate some human speech.

Different species have different behavioral capacities that vary in sophistication, Jarvis continues. However, brain size is not the main driving factor behind these complex behaviors. Instead, neural connectivity appears to be the driving force.

And bird brains, as it turns out, are firing on all cylinders.

Coyote news

Coyote at Canyon, by jrtchris on Flickr.

From prairie naturalist Trevor Herriot's Grass Notes comes word that the government of Saskatchewan is offering a $20 bounty on coyotes. An excerpt from Trevor's post:

The provincial Environment department has ecologists who know that this kind of measure does not stop coyotes from eating livestock. Our universities have biologists and ecologists who could explain what happens when bounty hunters start killing a predator like the coyote. As a “k-selected” species, the coyote regulates its population according to food supply and mortality rates.

If there is abundant food but adults are being killed, the survivors, who are also the more successful and wise, immediately increase the brood size and numbers of pregnant females within the pack. Trying to control coyote populations by killing them has been compared to bailing a boat with a sieve.

Then why the bounty? Trevor again:

An interesting sidelight on the coyote bounty: I have heard via the grapevine that some of the loudest complaints have come from sheep farmers north of the Qu’Appelle in the Cupar/Lipton area, where British farmers have moved in recent decades to set up farming [...] They are undoubtedly a welcome addition to the local farm community, but if they come from Scotland or England they arrive with a certain set of expectations and experiences — about wildlife and about the government’s role in making the land safe for farming.

Trevor's post reminds me of the well-known [to border collie people, anyway] description of the shepherd's dog in England, written by Johannes Caius 400 years ago:

Our shepherdes dogge is not huge, vaste, and bigge, but of an indifferent stature and growth, because it hath not to deale with the bloudthyrsty wolf, sythence there be none in England, which happy and fortunate benefite is to be ascribed to the puisaunt Prince Edgar, who to thintent ye the whole countrey myght be evacuated and quite clered from wolfes, charged & commaunded the welshemë (who were pestered with these butcherly beastes above measure) to paye him yearely tribute which was (note the wisedome of the King) three hundred Wolfes. Some there be which write that Ludwall Prince of Wales paide yeerly to King Edgar three hundred wolves in the name of an exaction (as we have sayd before.) And that by the meanes hereof, within the compasse and tearme of foure yeares none of those noysome, and pestilent Beastes were left in the coastes of England and Wales. This Edgar wore the Crown royall, and bare the Scepter imperiall of this kingdome, about the yeare of our Lorde nyne hundred fifty, nyne. Synce which time we reede that no Wolfe hath bene seene in England, bred within the bounds and borders of this countrey, mary there have bene divers brought over from beyonde the seas, for greedynesse of gaine and to make money, for gasing and gaping, staring, and standing to see them, being a straunge beast, rare, and seldom seene in England.

"... about the yeare of our Lorde nyne hundred fifty, nyne. Synce which time we reede that no Wolfe hath bene seene in England." All killed.

It gives me a certain satisfaction to know [with as much certainty as I know anything] that the coyote will escape that fate and dance on Man's grave at the end, bounty or no. Check out Camera Trap Codger's photo of the trickster: Coyote beautiful.

Related:
Coyotes at home and away