Failing Science, Eating Salamanders, and Seahawk Fever vs. Avian Flu

We’re not going to change the world, for the better we hope, if we don’t use best available science. And let’s not consider endangered species as delicacies for fat cat palates. And, oh, go ‘Hawks but wash your hands.

Nope, nobody’s going to change the world for the better as long as there’s this big difference between how scientists and citizens see science and society. A Pew Research Center poll finds scientists highly esteemed by citizens but that scientists and citizens hold differing views on genetically modified foods, pesticide use, nuclear power, evolution, overpopulation, childhood vaccinations, and human-causes of global warming. According to almost all scientist polled, there’s a problem: people don’t know what they’re talking about.

On the food front, add to the plight of the white rhino, the wolf and the elephant, the rare Chinese giant salamander. The BBC reports that that senior security officials ate a critically endangered giant salamander, also considered a

delicacy, at a lavish banquet. The salamander, which can grow to nearly six feet, was allegedly feasted on in the southern city of Shenzhen. Photographers taking pictures of the attendees were reportedly beaten by police.

Seahawk fever reaches its peak on Super Bowl Sunday and backyard poultry growers around Agnew on the Olympic Peninsula can rest easy that their flocks tested negative for the spreading avian flu virus. There are several subtypes infecting commercial and wild bird populations, including the subtype A(H7N9) which

has infected two people in British Columbia. The virus passes from bird-to-bird much easier than to humans and human-to-human transmittal doesn’t happen easily. Call the health department if you find dead birds. Meanwhile, go ‘Hawks.

--Mike Sato

What Kind of God Creates Tent Caterpillars?

Tent caterpillars (KOMO)

‘Tis the season to ask the ultimate questions about divine design when the tent caterpillars swarm, the carpenter ants emerge, the mosquitoes buzz and the slugs begin chomping down in the garden.

If your world view requires there be some kind of purpose or point to all this swarming, emerging, buzzing and chomping this time of year, you might be hard-pressed when the trees in the yard are covered in webs and out of those webs emerge those wriggling, squirming caterpillars leaving black flecks of poop all over the branches and leaves they’ve denuded.

Why are there tent caterpillars? Because they show up in annual cycles and we’re in one of those cycles this late spring. Editors sent reporters out before and during the long weekend and everyone was writing and showing caterpillar stories. See? “Tent caterpillars: What's their story, what do the moths look like?” by Jessi Loerch and “Pesky Western caterpillars are back and busily munching on Whatcom County trees” by Kie Relyea. You can even see what KING reporter Gary Chittim looked like in 2002 in his story, “Tent caterpillars set up camp in Western Washington.”

But really, if you were to look for purpose, it would be hard to find one in tent caterpillars or mosquitoes. You will need to show me a bird eating one of those hairy things is you want me to believe they actually provide sustenance for others. That’s like saying the purpose of the plague of locusts was to provide something for Utah seagulls to eat. Oh, some say that— and go on to say the whole point was about the divine and the Mormans.

With tent caterpillars, like with much of the natural and human-wrought disasters in the world, the default regarding divine purpose is that it cannot be understood by mortals. A simpler explanation is because there is no purpose, no point. Did it just happen, thrown together, random, chance? No, there are circumstances out of which everything arises and most of the time we can try to understand the circumstances out of which tent caterpillars and the moths appear: There’s an environment that’s not too hot or cold or wet or dry, food that’s available, no predators. Change some or one of those circumstances and maybe the tent caterpillars will be gone and we’d have yellow-bottom stink beetles falling on our heads instead.

Looked at this way, we humans can be seen to occupy an ecological niche no different than niches occupied by all the rest of the flora and fauna around us. Except we happen to be able to adapt and modify our circumstances and prevail through our short history— thus far— and create world views that include a purpose or a point to existing.

Some might take this the wrong way and get angry or despondent thinking about being just like a tent caterpillar, a bedbug, a mosquito, a yellow jacket wasp. Don’t. It’s still about you but it’s just not all about you. I find it both humbling and comforting to look around and see that we-- me and the tent caterpillars-- are sharing this world.

--Mike Sato

On The Subject of Frogs

From the film: "Kung Fu Hustle"

I’m still sad thinking about the frog populations crashing, as described by Elizabeth Kobert in the opening chapter of The Sixth Extinction. But on spring nights that have finally arrived, it’s heartening to hear the frogs croaking away in the retention pond across the way.

Laurie MacBride in her Eye on Environment blog treats us to a photo and some observations about the Pacific Chorus frogs (aka Pacific Tree frogs) that serenade her at her British Columbia home. She provides a link for those who might live in and amongst concrete to experience what the frogs sound like.

On the Big Island of Hawaii, friends asked me to wait until dark to get the full experience of hearing the cacophony of the coqui frogs which have invaded the islands of Hawaii and Maui and now are considered invasive pests. Here’s how one looks and sounds like which seems innocuous enough but can achieve a din when magnified by the tens of hundreds. The irritation comes from the randomness of the calls, the arhythmic din which never approaches soothing chirps but have been known to drive calm people to conduct nighttime extermination hunts and to sell houses and return to where concrete prevails.

These last few weeks have put frogs for various reasons in the pages of the local news.

As described in an article in The Herald, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is working with organizations to restore native Oregon spotted frogs, listed as an endangered species in this state since 1997. The agency collects egg masses, and the partners raise the tadpoles to adult frogs in a safe environment before they are released. (A helping hand for endangered frogs)

Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail reports that municipal officials in and around Victoria are warned to be ready for American bullfrogs, “dinner-plate-sized” invaders with mouths nearly as wide as their bodies who will gobble down anything they can, including bugs, birds and fish. (Brace for amphibian predator invasion, B.C. warned)

That last item brought a comment from Helen Engle who recalls:

“... during the ’great depression’ people hunted down bullfrogs and cooked and ate their muscular parts as quite a delicacy. Is my memory correct on that? Are they still being eaten by humans? That animal is a menace in most wetland places (including gardens) — he eats everything that moves with an appetite that would scare one.”

And a comment by Tony Angell who wrote:

“Bull Frogs? With all the focus on celebrity chefs (Tom Douglas ad nausea) and our indulgent duty to eat while "Rome Burns" why not send out a recipe for frog legs? I was whoppin them (you had to knock them out rather than spear them) in the lakes of Michigan in the late l940s and they have a season on them there. We ate frog legs for dinner night after night and they were delicious. Who knows, with the revenue from bull frog harvesting licenses we might restore a wetland for waterfowl and perch.”

And now we sing: “Frog went a-courtin' and he did ride, uh-huh...”

--Mike Sato

Animals as Friends, Animals as Wild Creatures

Monk seal at Sandy Beach (V. Eleganza)

A few weeks ago our loyal and good friend Joe Spike the Dog was suffering in his infirmities too much and I made the hard decision to say good-bye and having him euthanized.

Losing a good animal friend might have made me a bit more sensitive to animal news and encounters these last few weeks— and made me reflect on how we humans stand in relation to animals and to the wild.

There’s been a happy conclusion to the plight of an orphaned baby seal crying for a couple of days which prompted a shoreside resident to demand some kind of rescue effort. The NOAA Fisheries advised against any human “rescue” of a marine mammal and the baby seal ended up nursed by an adoptive mother.  (Seal pup finds a mother's love)

A notable exception to the “no rescue” rule was the rehabilitation of the orphan whale Springer and reuniting her with her Northern resident pod ten years ago. Last month, we learned that Springer gave birth, adding to Northern resident numbers. (Springer the orca is a new mom)

On the other hand, Luna, separated from the Southern resident L-pod seven years ago, was not “rescued” and died after being hit by a boat in Vancouver Island’s Nootka Sound. (Luna’s legacy of love and loss)

As a lover of animals of most kinds, I don’t think I’m much different from most folks who are moved by stories of animals in jeopardy and have an impulse to do something to help.

But unlike a dog who, for whatever reasons, may choose to live by my side and give to me what he will in exchange for what I may provide him, these are wild animals and our relationship to the wildness of animals is much more complicated.

We can “save” them by leaving them alone. Giant Pacific octopus will remain wild in the state’s Puget Sound marine reserves and not end up as sport or on anyone’s dinner plate.  (After diver kills octopus, new rules in Puget Sound)

But there are wild animals in our zoos and aquariums. There are wild orcas and other marine mammals who are trained to perform for our entertainment. Maybe we won’t be as entertained after seeing the movie, Blackfish and Tokitae will be set free--but really, there’s no accounting for taste. (Do Six-Ton Captives Dream of Freedom? ‘Blackfish,’ a Documentary, Looks Critically at SeaWorld)

In our wilds, there are now only 82 orca whales in our three Southern Resident pods (Where Are The Whales?) and, while NOAA Fisheries recently reaffirmed their distinct genetic status that justifies their protection under the Endangered Species Act, the requirement to effect the orca’s recovery by recovering salmon prey and reducing toxic contamination has not moved beyond the easier requirements of minimizing human contact. (Orcas still ‘endangered’ as next steps contemplated) As Fred Felleman once said, the point isn’t to list them as endangered but to recover the species.

While orcas and seals and sea lions have not been traditionally the fisherman’s friend, both now stand on the short side of the equation: no fish, no blackfish; no fish, no fishermen. On the other side of the equation: our civilization with its toxic chemicals, bulldozers and cement.

And bullets.

The recovery of the Hawaiian monk seal, described by NOAA Fisheries as “one of the rarest marine mammals in the world,” is especially complex and frustrating, as recounted in Jon Mooallem’s detailed New York Times Magazine article, “Who Would Kill a Monk Seal?”  The species is endangered, declining at a rate of about four percent annually and is down to about 1200 individuals. Those individuals who frequent the main Hawaiian islands encounter more human competitors for fish resources as well as non-traditional allies in their recovery.

The recovery of the honu, the Hawaiian green sea turtle, seems to be going much better and on Oahu’s North Shore’s Laniakea Beach there are often more folks on the beach looking than turtles resting and the real danger is the roadside traffic rather than endangering behavior.

We can get close but not touch the honu, respect the red tape set up around the resting monk seal, and establish 200-yard, no-go viewing zones around the orcas but we have a hard time doing real important things like reducing toxic pollutants and protecting and restoring critical habitats for their real recovery and survival.

They’re wild; they are not our friends and we are not their friends. We’re fellow creatures sharing with them a world, an ecosystem, of limited resources. And unfortunately we’re not doing a very good job of sharing.

--Mike Sato

Adventures in Bunnyland

It’s the first of July and in years past the wild rabbits have been eaten by the coyotes that howl in the woods at night. This year the coyotes have been silent and the rabbits are still around, living in the bushes and behind the woodpile, emerging in the morning and the evening to eat the yard’s clover and the planted beds’ succulent shoots.

Rabbits’ Guy says these are wild cottontails and that the rabbit-coyote populations fluctuate back and forth. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on their Living With Wildlife website says these were introduced in the 1930s as a game animal. They begin breeding— like rabbits— from mid-February through the summer with a 30-day gestation period. On any given morning or evening there are big ones and little ones in the yard and around the neighborhood and one can probably surmise what the others are doing in the bushes.

My old dog knows he can’t play the catch-me-if-you-can game: the last time he chased one he came back limping so now he chases after those pellets they poop on the lawn and gets yelled at. The neighbors call them “bunnies” because they look cute. Cuteness is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve read Richard Adams’s Watership Down and watched the killer rabbit segment of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. These are not wild animals to be trifled with, despite “bunny” being an American colloquialism deriving from the Scottish bun for buttocks. Heh, heh, the neighbors said, “Bunny.”

The first summer I lived on Lopez in the early ‘70s, the roads at night were filled with the Belgian hares that had been introduced in the islands at the start of the century. Jim Lawrence in his book Callused Hands, Hungry Heart writes about the blessing of “road kill stews” bestowed on the young, poor and hungry during those days on San Juan Island.

“There was so much protein crossing the country roads in little bunny suits, it was always just a matter of time before you or the car in front of you knocked one in the head without destroying the flesh. With a quick swerve to the side of the road, I’d lean out the driver’s door and throw the limp carcass behind the front seat, only to cook it for dinner a few hours later. Saved a 22 bullet.”

My mother tells the story of my uncle serving fried rabbit without telling his niece, who thought it was chicken. “What’s up, doc?” he said to her— repeatedly— until she figured out what he was getting at. He stopped preparing rabbit, however, after one had its front paws up, trembling, before he killed it. “It looked like it was praying,” he said.

Ruth Reichl tells Michael Pollan a story in the article “No Reservations” in the June issue of Smithsonian about publishing a profile in Gourmet Magazine about chef Thomas Keller killing a rabbit:

“So there’s this scene where Keller wanted to make rabbits and kill them himself. And he does a really inept job. He manages to break this rabbit’s leg as he’s trying to kill it and he says rabbits scream really loud. It’s gruesome.And we thought long and hard about whether we were going to put this in the story. And I said: ‘It’s going in because he concludes that if he’s alone in the kitchen and he’s finally killed this rabbit, it’s going to be the best rabbit anybody ever ate because he finally understood in that kitchen with this screaming rabbit that meat was life itself.’”

So, here’s to life itself hopping around in my yard.

--Mike Sato

‘Tis the Season of Profligate Fecundity

Guests spent a few days in my cabin in the Lopez woods last week and reported that once the cabin got warm, the big black ants swarmed out of the woodwork.

Not quite so dramatic were the little winged ants in our bedroom last weekend coming from and going into the heater vent.

Outside, closing off the holes under the fence to keep the bunnies out of the garden made me feel like Elmer Fudd.

And I spent this past weekend picking tent caterpillars off the flame bush hedge and berry bushes. The trees and bushes will be fine; however, the little apple tree in the no man’s land between the road and the neighboring properties will be fortunate if it survives.

I love to hear accounts of the rivers being so full of salmon that you could walk across the waters on their backs. Of the skies being dark for an hour or two as the flocks of passenger pigeons flew over.

When the night waters in Hawaii used to turn red with the schooling ‘aweoweo (bigeye), the Hawaiians said royalty will die. We’d go down to the harbor with lanterns to fish and they’d even bite an empty, shiny hook.

I like fish and I like birds (although an hour of birds passing overhead would be a bit much for me). Insects? Not so much.

I was stunned when watching Samuel Orr’s short movie-in-the-works about the 17-year cyclic return of the cicadas in New England. Watch it and you’ll see what nature’s profligate fecundity is. OK, it’s about insects, lots of them, but it’s an amazing piece of work in progress: Return of the Cicadas

And our tent caterpillars? WSU Extension says that there’s a tachinid fly which parasitizes the larvae by depositing white eggs on the caterpillar's body. (I looked for any caterpillars with white eggs on their bodies and would have let them be if I had found any.)

In the next stage, I should be looking for cocoons in and around the plants. “The adult moths emerge in approximately 7 to 10 days. The moths are stout-bodied and light brown. They often fly in clusters around street or porch lights on summer evenings. After the moths mate, the females lay 100 to 350 eggs in a froth-covered band around small twigs or branches of host trees. The eggs mature in 3 weeks but do not hatch until the following spring.”

Now you know what I’ll be doing for the next couple of weeks.

--Mike Sato 

In Praise of the Blue-Spaced “Wows!” in Aquariums

"Wow!" Baltimore Aquarium Shark (George Graff)

One of the 12 Sound Resolutions promoted in 1991 by the now-extinct People For Puget Sound included visiting an aquarium, zoo or museum to learn more about the Sound and its critters.

A critic complained that attending aquariums and zoos should not be encouraged because they were bad places where wild animals were kept in captivity against their wills; wild animals should be allowed to be wild. “Thank you for calling and sharing your concerns” was the only way to end that call.

While growing up, I’d been to some pretty sad zoos and aquariums but I haven’t felt that way recently. Especially not when returning today to visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore and hearing the first “Wow!” from the kid standing next to me upon reaching the first level viewing area exhibit, “Maryland: Mountains to the Sea.”

That “Wow!” and the excitement of parents and adults brought back to me the article by Michael Roberts in Outside about marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols (The Touchy-Feely (But Totally Scientific!) Methods of Wallace J. Nichols ):

“THE PHILIPPINE coral reef tank inside the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco is 25 feet deep and holds 212,000 gallons of water, making it one of the largest exhibits of living coral anywhere in the world. It is the centerpiece of the academy’s Steinhart Aquarium and hosts hundreds of coral species, a couple thousand colorful fish, plus sharks, stingrays, and numerous smaller creatures, like sea anemones and snails. There are five windows affording looks inside, the biggest of which, at 16 and a half feet tall and almost 30 feet wide, makes a sweeping arc in front of a dimly lit standing area backed by several rows of benches. It was designed to offer visitors a panoramic, theater-like view of life in the tank and is among the museum’s most popular attractions. It’s Wallace J. Nichols’s favorite spot in the building....

“Whether it’s a 92-year-old or a two-year-old, when they come into that blue space, something happens,” Nichols says. They grow quiet and calm, but there’s more to it than that. When couples walk in, they frequently start holding hands. He says that if you ask people here what they’re feeling, they’ll struggle for words. Nichols finds this fascinating. He also believes that if we can understand what really happens to us in the presence of the ocean—which brain processes underlie our emotional reactions—it could bring about a radical shift in conservation efforts. If we learn precisely why we love the ocean, his thinking goes, we’ll have an immensely powerful new tool to protect it.”

I’ve been to the Steinhart, too, and I didn’t go quiet. For me it was, “Wow!”, the same as that kid standing next to me in Baltimore. And it was “Wow!” in Monterey. And “Wow!” standing before the Seattle Aquarium’s big tank display in the lobby.

These are magnificent exhibits and in many ways they work hard to present the conservation message in the context of the “Wow!” but I don’t think we’ve come very far in understanding, as J. Nichols hopes, “why we love the ocean” and discovering any new tools to protect it.

Today, we watched the Giant Pacific Octopus with fascination, looked for birds and monkeys while walking up the levels of the tropical rain forest in the heavy mist, and spiraled down the levels of the Atlantic reef tank until reaching the sharks cruising the bottom below. But it’s hard to get a sense of what’s at the crux of conservation: that it’s the relationship of the land and the waters, that it’s the relationship of what goes on on the land that affects the critters of the waters, that it’s what goes on in our hearts and minds that determines the conservation of the oceans and its critters.

Until that “Wow!” comes with understanding that relationship, we’re doomed to lose much of what today might prompt our “Wows!” in our aquariums, zoos and museums.

It’s been fun exploring in the other Washington the American Indian Museum, the Air and Space Museum and the Hirshhorn, and finishing yesterday there at the U.S. Botanic Garden (but no monkeys in their tropical rain forest.) Not as many “Wows!” there as in the few hours today at the Baltimore National Aquarium but, after all, I was visiting from the Salish Sea.

--Mike Sato

They Eat Horses, Don’t They?

When I lived in Portland, Oregon, in the ‘60s, I bought horse meat at what I am trying to recall was called “The Horse Meat Market” downtown near the “The Buttermilk Corner.”

I hadn’t thought about that all these years— until last week’s breaking news that horse meat was found in European countries in what was had been thought to be mixtures of beef and pork. And —is nothing sacred?-- found in Ikea meatballs.

One can’t necessarily vouch for the veracity of anything recalled about the ‘60s but I do recall buying a “round steak,” absolutely red, with absolutely no fat. At the Horse Meat Market. I cooked it and ate it. As my father used to ask me: do you do things because you want to save money or because you want to go back a hundred years? I think I bought horse meat because it was cheap and because — if I were going to eat red meat — I heard it was good for me.

I still try to save money and I still try to eat wisely but I haven’t seen horse meat on the butcher racks since the ‘60s. Why not?

According to Eric Niler, writing on “Why Are Americans Squeamish About Horse Meat?”, “Mongolians love it. So do Bulgarians, Swiss, Belgians and French. But Americans -- no way. Eating horse meat is a culinary taboo that started early in our nation's history and continues today. Food experts say it's a distaste that is part emotional and part economic: we love our horses and even if we didn't, we're a wealthy country that can afford to eat choicer cuts of meat.”

Is it hard to think about eating or to actually eat Mr. Ed, Black Beauty, Silver, Trigger...? I’m sure some people have the same problem with Bugs, Daffy, Donald, Porky and Bambi.

Back to horse meat: According to Wikipedia, Mexico was or is the second largest producer of horse meat in the world.

There is a thriving horse meat business in Quebec, and horse meat found in Vancouver, B.C., was described by a Time Magazine reviewer as “sweet, rich, superlean, oddly soft meat, closer to beef than venison."

In Japan, order it as basashi, thinly sliced raw pieces dipped in soy sauce with ginger and onions.

And in England, Alex Renton in The Guardian blogs on “How Britain got a taste for horsemeat”:

“Restaurants and pubs up and down the country are serving up horse steaks. So where should you go for yours? Could horse catch on? It is half the price of beef and undeniably delicious. I went to a steak tasting at Edinburgh's L'Escargot Bleu bistro at the height of the scandal. Chef and patron Fred Berkmillar had packed in 12 Scottish foodies, cooks and meat suppliers and gave us rump steaks to try. One was the best 30-day-aged Orkney beef, the other Comtois horse, farmed in the Dordogne.

“You could have confused the horse with beef, but its steak – juicy, tender, just slightly gamey – won the fry-off by 12 votes to none. And we were all the better for it: horse has lots of  iron, little fat and lots of omega-3. It is healthier than beef, so long as you're not eating an old steeplechaser laced with phenylbutazone. It is not true, by the way, that "bute" is one of those horse painkillers with recreational possibilities.”

I was going to go on about d-o-g but Joe Spike my d-o-g sitting next to me is growling so I’ll stop with horse.

-- Mike Sato

Waiting For Mr. Mole

Since the ground thawed from the last hard freeze, Mr. Mole has been busy along the edge of the cement walkway building his mountains of soil. The only time I’ve seen a mole was an unpleasant encounter when I trapped one a long time ago in a garden in Oregon. This one in our yard I’ve never seen but the dog sure smells him.

If Mr. Mole happens to put in an appearance tomorrow like Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog is expected to, I’ll let you know if he sees his shadow.  I doubt there will be much of a shadow. But I’ll bet there will be a few more molehills.

We don’t have groundhogs to fool with in the Northwest but we do have gophers, most notably the Mazama pocket gopher proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act. These gophers, not to be confused with moles, are also burrowing critters and they do put in appearances above ground in the shrinking habitat of South Puget Sound prairies.

Maybe the town of Littlerock, the gateway to some remaining prairie lands, will hold a Gopher Day when Littlerock Lil makes an annual appearance.

In the meantime, I’ll just consider Mr. Mole one of my unseen neighbors. While waiting for him to show himself one of these days, I’ll contemplate his appearance in The Wind in the Willows and wonder why he has so many other manifestations in addition to his role as muldvarp-- as in muld (dirt) and varp (toss)-- or “dirt tosser.”

Mole: a growth on the human skin
Mole: a large rock structure on a shore serving as pier or breakwater
Mole: a boring machine used to tunnel through rock
Mole: a spy who operates from within an organization
Mole: an abnormal mass of tissue in a uterus
Mole: a spicy Mexican sauce made with chili peppers and chocolate

--Mike Sato

Travel Notes: Tropic Living Below Nature’s Chirping

There are seven, some say eight, types of geckos living in Hawaii. Since being introduced in the 1940s, the Common House Gecko ( Hemidactylus frenatus ) has pretty much taken over.

Two fat ones are living in the fluorescent light fixture over my mother’s dining room table. When the lights are on, we can see them through the opaque glass, their fat pink bellies and slender tails and lizard feet— along with their poop and remains of insects they’ve fed on.

My mother understandably wants them out and the fixture cleaned out.

“Most homes in Hawaii welcome geckos,” writes Linda Pascatore in The Gecko, "because they eat insects like ants, mosquitos and roaches. Geckos are very vocal creatures. They make a clicking sound that sounds almost like a person saying, “Tsk, tsk, tsk”, which can be heard at night. They also make repeated chirping sounds at times. Another sound heard is the tapping as the gecko holds its prey in its mouth and hits it against the wall, window, or ceiling to kill it. Here in Hawaii, the occasional gecko poop, eggs found stuck inside printers, and strange night sounds are all well worth the service the gecko performs by eating household insects. Geckos also eat fruit, nectar, and pollen. They will lick up juice with their long tongues.”

My mother wants them out of her house. It is unnerving to hear the “tsk, tsk, tsk” called out overhead during dinner.

According to Explore Biodiversity, “Geckos are one of the few reptiles or amphibians that are notorious for colonizing islands. Part of the reason for this is that some geckos have the amazing ability of parthenogenesis. In essence, this means that one gecko, who successfully made it do an island can produce unfertilized eggs that later become a whole clan of female clones!”

These Common House Geckos aren’t, however, parthenogenetic. There are males and females and the males are territorial; they will also eat juvenile geckos of their own species and other species.
The difficulty with getting them out of the house is that there are two of them and they will no doubt leap out of the fixture in opposite directions when I remove the glass . If we’re lucky, maybe they would scurry up a wall, using those special toepads with thousands of tiny spatula-tipped setae which allow them to climb walls and hang from the ceiling.

 On a wall or on the window, there would be half the chance to capture them.


If we’re unlucky (which would most likely be the case), they’d scurry under the furniture or into the kitchen under the refrigerator or into the bedrooms.

My mother wants them out of the house. It’s tough living with Nature chirping overhead.

--Mike Sato

Working Animals, or, Do Animals Work (For Causes)?

The Environmental Priorities Coalition last week sent out an action alert asking activists to tell the state Fish and Wildlife Commission to approve the state’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. Kerry McHugh who sent out the alert said that the response was one of the best she’s seen. “Wolves are a lightening rod,” she said.

Jo Bailey sent a video link this morning showing a humpback whale rescue in the Sea of Cortez. The subject line said: Humpback Whale gives show after being freed. WATCH THIS!!! Of course, I watched it. It was awesome; made me thankful for the Earth Island Institute’s Great Whale Conservancy.

From past experience I’ve seen Facebook posts and Twitter feeds featuring whales, bears and wolves rack up the hits— while links to policy and politics issues languish. Animals, it seems, are no-brainer attention-getters when it comes to getting your advocacy message up front.

Does the polar bear on the Arctic ice floe ‘work’?

Atlantic senior editor Alexis Madrigal raises an thoughtful point in his blog Fighting Climate Change Is Not About Environmentalism   He contended earlier that President Obama should say that stopping global warming isn’t about nature or ‘saving the planet’ because some kinds of plants and animals will survive but it’s human infrastructure that’s at risk. “We’ve built cities predicated on one climate and now those places have a new one. Climactic chaos is expensive,” he wrote. Life survives because ecosystems, even those stressed by rising temperatures, are resilient.

But: “Human-built environments, on the other hand, are very efficient and very brittle. They function best in a very narrow set of temperature and precipitation conditions....Now start fiddling with the climate of the place. Most of the time things are fine, but when you hit an extreme that you don't normally (floods, snow, heat, etc), stuff starts to go haywire. The infrastructure you built is encountering conditions it wasn't designed to withstand. And so it breaks.

“Somehow polar bears became the charismatic emblem of what was wrong with global warming; I think we should have made it a mayor instead.”

-Mike Sato