The place between spring and the winter that wasn’t

Escaping the morning deliberations about the presidential primaries, I head out for a brisk early morning walk.  There is a light film of frost on the car windows, but given the forecast of 60⁰C for today, those ice crystals won’t last long.  I find this Wednesday to be much more super than the alleged Super Tuesday of yesterday.  A day characterized by a flawless blue sky and a sun that is rising higher and earlier than of late.  Having a prominent view of the Kittatinny Ridge—a part of the Appalachians—helps us judge the angle of the rising sun, although, in the deep of astronomical winter, it obscures our sunlight such that our photoperiod is even less than experienced in the flat farming areas over yonder.  This year, only day length provided clues that it was actually winter.

Ah, but now the perfect azure sky is sprinkled with flocks of geese—both Canada and Snow— trying to form perfect “V’s” but never quite succeeding.  10, 20, 30, 100, 200, 300 – oh there is another flock and I lose count.  Countless flocks are heard, but many cannot be seen with the glare of the rising sun.  The birds are flying very high, so this is not the early morning ascent from the ponds in search of food in a dormant corn field as has been the case for the past few months.  These birds are heading north; they are on a mission.   Countless flocks containing an even greater countless number of members.  Just how do geese choose which club to join?

As I head into the woods, I hear the drumming of a woodpecker, most likely one of our resident Pileateds.  There are turkeys gobbling down along the south slope.  Directly overhead, a pair of raspy croaking ravens gives me a look; it is unusual that they fly so low, barely missing the treetops.  I hear the song of the solitary White-throated Sparrow; he, too, will soon be following the path of the Canada geese.  Everywhere it seems, I hear the incessant calls of titmice, each individual testing a different pitch.  It is as if they have to practice until they once again remember their proper “Peter, Peter, Peter”, the song that will attract the perfect mate in the not too distant future.

As I return from the woods, I spy the thirty plus robins that have returned to our lawn – seemingly from nowhere this morning.  They peck at the ground which surprisingly is not frozen as it normally is this time of year.  I wonder how far down the worms are hiding.  Did they anticipate this morning’s onslaught of hungry red-breasted predators?  The mourning doves too have returned – not my favorite bird for reasons I can’t quite explain.  I don’t particularly like their cooing, although I am outnumbered on that sentiment in this family.  I gather the bird feeders to fill, and by the time I return from the barn, a White-breasted Nuthatch is running impatiently up and down the tree trunk waiting for me to return the feeder, full, of course.  A Downy Woodpecker is pecking at the deck railing; he too wants some seed until the insects come out for the day.

Although not quite a spring dawn chorus yet (that comes with the return of the neotropical migrants), it is a noisy morning today – a bit like orchestra members tuning and warming up before a performance.  It is in stark contrast to the bird quiet of winter – interrupted from time to time with crows and blue jays mostly.  Several people noted this year that the number of birds at their feeders was lower than usual, perhaps because it was mild and the winter feeder visitors instead found sufficient food in the cover of the woods.  The fruit on the invasive shrubs was excessive last fall, and oddly enough, we saw insects around during much of the winter.  This winter, if you can call it that, was not normal.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA for short), the period between November 2011 and January 2012 was ranked 112 – just five shy of number 117 in terms of the warmest for the lower 48 in the years of collected records.  In Pennsylvania, we came in at 114 of 117.  In the area where I live, December, January, and February ranged from 4.8 to 5.5⁰F above the average for the 1981 and 2010 time period.  (And remember, those decades were warmer than the previous ones.)  Snow cover extent during January, NOAA tells us, was the third smallest in a 46 year period, 329,000 square miles below average.  That is an area bigger than Texas, about three times bigger than New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania combined, and about the size of 8 of the 10 states that had primaries on Super Tuesday (excluding Idaho and Alaska).  Climate change doesn’t care if a state is red or blue. 

A winter without snow is not as quiet as the hush that exists when a white blanket covers the earth and all sleeping under it.  A winter without snow is gray and tan and somewhat ugly unless you appreciate the fractal patterns seen amongst the silhouettes of tree branches.

But today, as the sun hits the tops of the trees, I see the red of buds of the maples beginning to swell, the orange yellow now present in the dangling branches of the willows, and the emerging breeding plumage colors of the male goldfinches.  I don’t think that it is my imagination that the house finches appear to have more red on their heads and breasts now.  Reds and golds against the brilliant blue perfect sky.  As I type this, I can still hear the honks of geese migrating north.  My son comes in to report that a Killdeer flew over calling and that he heard (and photographed as evidence) an Eastern Meadowlark.  

Indeed spring has emerged.  I am just not sure when we had winter.

Happiness

Sometimes prose is unnecessary.

Photo by Corey Husic

On wood floors and forests

As I vacuum the pine floors of our pre-Civil War home, I wonder who else has walked across these random planks in the past 150 years.  Their bourbon color is rich, unlike any of the wood stain colors on shelves of a DIY store.  They bear the scars of past visitors and their old edges are worn.  Think of all the conversations that these floors have been witness to.  And just how many paws and mice and children have scampered over them?

These were floors built to last, unlike the rapidly grown unnaturally soft oak in the parts of the house that are newer and trampled by fewer footprints.  The spaces between the pine boards have grown wide and now serve largely as troughs for gathering dust.  But sometimes while cleaning, the vacuum excavates an old hat pin or tack, and I ponder their stories.

Where did the pine come from?  If the walnut furniture left behind by previous owners or the chestnut beams in the barn are any indication, it was likely from the back forty.  There still is forest there, but it is an aged and unhealthy one.  Nowadays, these woods are overrun by invasive plants and Hayscented Fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) – signs of human disturbance and too many browsing deer.

Our windows and doors are framed by rough-hewn cherry boards.  The cherry trees of Pennsylvania are dying out now; the Prunus descendents have grown old and afflicted with disease and changing climate.  The gypsy moths and acid rain have taken their toll too; just ask any of the old oaks.  Some still stand majestically like Tolkien’s ents; others are favorite hunting grounds of the Pileated Woodpeckers, Dryocopus pileatus.  Still others are losing their large limbs, a slow, but certain death.  These insect-laden logs will not be turned into floor boards.

A few black walnuts are still around, and there are white pines, but they are relatively small in girth, nowhere close to the size needed to produce the planks in our house.  The chestnuts are, of course, long gone.  I love to lean against the chestnut beams in the barn, laden with holes from powder post beetles, but still as strong as steel.  I try to imagine the forests that once covered these ridges of the Appalachians providing chestnuts and acorns and cherries for all of the wildlife.  And, for this moment, I try not to think of the changes that are yet to come.

On the fierce green fire - one for Big T

Last night, I came to understand the famous Leopold line “the fierce green fire dying in her eyes...” in a most peculiar way. 

Ten days ago, we were wondering if it was time to put my horse down, and friends who knew more than I said "When it is time, you will know." He responded to our care, and I learned more about the bond of trust between an animal and human than in all of my 50 plus years of pet ownership over those next several days. (I will spare you the details.) By this past weekend, he was back out to pasture and while thin and certainly an old horse, I began to think that he might have another spring season left in him.

In 2009, a paper published in the journal Science reported that new archeological findings provided evidence that the horse (Equus ferus caballus) was likely domesticated about 1,000 years earlier than once thought.  The researchers traced the domestication back to the Botai Culture of Kazakhstan circa 5,500 years ago and their findings strongly suggest that horses were originally domesticated, not just for riding, but also to provide food, including milk.

Then in March, 2010, the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities began site survey and exploration at a newly discovered archeological site known as Al-Magar.[1] The 9000 year old culture is named al-Maqar after the site’s location.  Amongst the artifacts found were various stone figurines of horses causing some to hypothesize that equine domestication goes back even further in time.

The dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is believed to be first animal to be domesticated with some estimates ranging back as far as 30,000 B.C.  The first domesticated livestock came after the domestication of grains -- with sheep (Ovis orientalis aries) probably being first in the timeframe of 11,000 and 9,000 B.C.   Pigs (Sus scrofa domestica), goats (Capra aegagrus hircus), and cows (Bos primigenius Taurus – don’t you just love Latin names) likely joined the herds of our early ancestors around 8,000 B.C.  I wonder if those early pastoralists and farmers noted any changes in the eyes of the animals that became their possessions.  Did they learn anything new that had previously been known only to the animal and the mountain or the desert or the rainforest?  Or were our ancestors from long ago still wild themselves with fire in their eyes?

~~

As I was taking care of my big ol’ grey gelding Tusker (named after a Kenyan beer with an elephant as the company logo), I thought of domestication and of our responsibility to care for the animals that we have been entrusted with.  Late nights in a cold barn do weird things to you.  Animals have given us food, clothing, protection, modes of travel, and companionship for thousands of years.  We now even share pathogens and new diseases with each other.  For all of this, we have a responsibility to take care of not only our pets and livestock, but to protect the habitat and well-being of all the other animals that we have not managed to tame (thank goodness).  It is the least we can do in return for all that we have been given on this planet.

Last night, when we came home, Tusker was down in his stall and I knew it was time.  I don't know what happened since he was fine in the morning when we left.  We called the vet and I went into the stall to give him some calming head and ear rubs -- something he loved.  He strugged to raise his head to nuzzle me; he did, and then he fell back.  He tried to stand, especially when he heard Corey and my voices, but couldn't.  

Then I saw the flash of light leave his eyes.  There was a strange glaze that I had never seen before and I knew that he was leaving us.  He died before the vet could get there.  I can't explain it, but I swear that he waited on dying until we got home so that we could all say our goodbyes. 

The human-animal bond is strong and basically unexplainable in terms of the science that I am most familiar with.  But it doesn't really matter, does it?  Regardless of whether horses and humans forged that bond 16 or 5000 or 9000 years ago, the union is deep and real and quite a gift.

---

[1] See http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/08/2011/domestication-of-horses-may-stretch-back-9000-years .
   

Tusker - the Big "T"

Ponderings on Conservation

A series of recent events and two blog posts by my friend Gerry Ellis (see 
http://greatapediaries.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/save-the-apes-and-you-save-the-forests/
and
http://greatapediaries.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/conservation-eventually-it-must-all-be-local/)
got me thinking.  So tonight, I put these thoughts in writing.

Gerry, I am so glad that you are calling attention to the importance of habitat as well as the wonderful animals that live there.  Saving habitat does seem like a "no-brainer", but apparently, that is not always the case.  I have met plenty of people who don’t understand the most basic of ecological principles, in part, because they tuned out science at a very young age.  For these people, the charismatic mega-fauna are especially important so as to tug at heart strings and some inner DNA sequence deep within our cells that still connects us to that which is wild.

I am relatively new to the conservation circles, but admit to being most surprised that some who are not new to the field don’t seem to grasp this fundamental principle of habitat either.  I find myself sitting through too many meetings where the focus is on developing conservation models and strategies using fancy software or the time is spent arguing about what should be the best indicator species for forest health, climate change impacts, or a measure of success of the conservation outcomes.  For the work I am involved with, it is often a bird species.  That makes sense; we know about the canary-in-the-coal-mine sensitivity of birds.  But sometimes the mega-fauna icon of interest is a game species (i.e. of economic/recreation importance).  I guess that makes sense.  Unlike many neotropical migrant songbirds, however, I suspect that the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) and the omnipresent white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are quite good at adapting to most anything we humans inflict on them.  (Interestingly though, the microscopic infectious proteins-gone-wild known as prions can bring down herds of deer causing Chronic Wasting Disease otherwise known in the scientific world as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.)

For the stretch of the Appalachian Mountains where I work, the habitat is forest – the mixed deciduous woodlands that represent the southernmost reach of some northern species and the northward expanding boundary of some southern varieties.  Do these people not see the proverbial forest through the trees?  A satellite image of forest cover does not tell you if the stand is healthy.  It doesn’t tell you if this truly represents a priority parcel to target for a conservation easement.  It tells you if there is tree cover.  A simple walk through the woods tells a very different story -- a tale of the damage caused by decades of acid deposition, gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) outbreaks (and the rapidly approaching Emerald Ash Borer or Agrilus planipennis ), unsustainable deer populations that have destroyed all the understory, except where invasive Japanese exotic shrubs are rapidly filling in the bare spaces.  And climate change “adaptation” is creating a remix of species – both in terms of habitat and inhabitants.

In many cases, those constructing the models haven’t actually walked the ridge they are trying to protect.  I am reminded of your recent post entitled “Conservation – Eventually It Must All Be Local”.  How true.  Computer models have their role (I have spent many years doing either protein or climate change modeling), but in conservation, it cannot be in isolation from "boots on the ground" assessments.  How else will we truly know the state of the habitat with its ever important soil type and structure, primary producers, and the truly unglamorous decomposers?

I had a series of emails this week from a resident of the mountain and self-taught ecologist expressing concerns about some “restoration” work that is happening on a stretch of the mountain that sadly, is part of a Superfund site.  The “experts” (not local) seem to have forgotten some basic ecological principles but that is another long story for another time.  But to make matters worse, they are disturbing a rather large stretch along the Appalachian Trail to access the site that will undergo restoration.  So to reiterate:  New habitat fragmentation along an important hiking trail that runs through a unique scrub habitat/native savannah to do some reforestation work at a neighboring site where there is no topsoil, vegetation, or decomposers, but a lot of heavy metal contamination.  Right.  No-brainer.  They have now created an ATV trail on the AT.

But here are the words of the resident that provided a spark of hope for the future of the conservation work along the ridge:

 "I am not a butterflier, real birder, or botanist, but I do love this mountain...No matter what the long range plan for the plant community is though certainly I would not like it to be known as "the road most taken".......by anything other than foot.”

Yes, indeed.  All conservation should really be local.

Prosperity ≠ Fossil Fuels

One day last summer at the Wildbranch Writing Workshop, Sandra Steingraber had those studying with her use a zip code for a place important in our lives and the Toxic Release Inventory[1] as starting points for a writing assignment. We were to examine the selected location through a new lens and react to the toxic secrets that may belie that special place.  As someone trained as a chemist, I am by no means a chemophobe.  In fact, I am often frustrated by those who call for a chemical-free world as it is simply not possible.  But having run through this exercise several times now for places in the state of Michigan where I grew up (this is starting to become an obsession), I am having to come to grips with some very dark stories about the Upper Midwestern places I still call home, even though I moved to Pennsylvania in 1986.  I am wrestling with new truths about places that I long thought of as pristine retreats, places that seem wilderness-like compared to the East Coast, the Mid-Atlantic region.  I now have a series of draft reactions to the hidden legacies of the mining, agriculture, and chemical industries historically important to Michigan, some yet too painful to publicly reveal.  And some are still in too raw form; the writing comes slowly as I struggle with the sense of deceit I feel when delving further into these chemical realities.  Below is my most recent exploration, preliminary thoughts spawned by all the media coverage of tar sands oil and my growing frustration that that we have become a nation of addicts  -- fossil fuel junkies who will stop at nothing to get the next fix.

~~

In the summer of 2010, thousands of gallons of oil from tar sands spilled into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River and surrounding wetlands in Michigan.  The accounts vary, but numbers as high as 840,000 gallons have been reported.[2]  This spill, caused by a burst in an Enbridge Energy pipeline, likely didn’t catch the eye of the public – maybe because we were more focused on the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that occurred earlier that year just months after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig went into action.  Maybe the media coverage was scant in areas outside of Michigan.  Or maybe, given that there is already a Superfund Site on the Kalamazoo River[3] people figured it really didn’t matter anymore.  Nevertheless, this incident foreshadows what could happen if the Keystone XL pipeline is built. 

A year later, the waterway was still closed to the public and residents claim that there have been significant health impacts.[4] 

Perhaps even more troubling to me, as someone who spent almost three decades living in Michigan including my formative years as a child, is the fact that this oil spill was not an isolated event.  According to a 2010 report entitled Assault on America: A Decade of Petroleum Company Disaster, Pollution, and Profit, the state of Michigan ranks in the top 10 states with the most pipeline accidents.  And who thinks of this as an oil state?

Besides the risk of such nasty spills that destroy habitat, kill wildlife, and very likely sicken humans, the production and refining of sands oil is energy-and water intensive.  And, of course, burning of the refined product releases significant amounts of greenhouse gases.  A “game-over proposition for climate change” according to James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute and a world renowned climate scientist speaking of the Keystone XL pipeline project to bring Alberta tar sands oil to Texas.

If you are a climate change skeptic, then think of the less-abstract-than-climate-change toxic implications.  The refining and burning of fuels from tar sand oils release poisonous mercury and arsenic at higher levels compared to conventional oil.  To put a human face to the impact of these contaminants, read some of the stories of people living the legacy of tar sand processing in Detroit.[5]  Multiple diagnoses and deaths of cancer.  Environmental injustices.  Nose bleeds, asthma, emphysema, hypertension, sleep apnea.

I am still not fearful of chemicals.  I understand that there are differences between statistical and perceived risk, and that there are precautions one should take when working around hazardous chemicals.  I know how to look up information on Material and Safety Data Sheets, and I am familiar with the Community Right to Know Act -- legislation aimed at protecting the public.  But many people, in fact most of the public, those community members most in need of knowing, do not know these things and have no ability to protect themselves.  They do not know to grab gloves or a mask or respirator; they cannot move to a safer place, if such a place still exists.

As I wrote recently in a Facebook response to an article describing how we are tearing up pristine places to secure fracking sand to blast underground to free natural gas:  We are tearing up the landscape for sand to blast underground only to allow the buried gases to escape into pipelines and water tables.  We blow the tops off mountains to get to coal buried underneath and extract oil from tar in sands in Canada to pipe to wherever.  We are drilling miles below the ocean for a few more drops of oil. Insanity.  But I am not sure we will ever stop defacing and rearranging the planet until it is gone, all gone.

Yes, oil (and the other fossil fuels) have become “the lubricant of the world economy” as was stated in a recent CNN article about Iran threatening to block shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.[6]  But when the industrial profit reports fail to consider the externalities, the costs to human health and welfare, and the damages to nature and our natural resources, things have gone terribly wrong with “the system”.  This is not national prosperity.  This is indeed insanity.

~~

I started down this dismal line of internet searching because I vaguely remembered there being dark, strange looking sands in the Copper Country region of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I wondered if they could possibly be tar sands deposits.  They are not.  These are stamp sands, left over from the processing of ores; in this case, they are from the processes used to purify copper.  These sands typically contain traces of toxic heavy metals.  Reportedly, aquatic life in the Keweenaw Waterway (or Portage Canal) is diminished in the areas of these sands.  Sigh.  That is yet another zip code that I need to look up.

---

[1] http://iaspub.epa.gov/triexplorer/tri_release.chemical

[2] For example, see

http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Policy-Solutions/Drilling-and-Mining/Tar-Sands/Michigan-Oil-Spill.aspx. 

[3] http://www.epa.gov/region5/cleanup/kalproject/index.htm

[4]For example, see  http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/08/study_shows_no_long-term_healt.html

[5] Toxic Tar Sands stories from the state:

http://www.sierraclub.org/dirtyfuels/tar-sands/faces/michigan/default.aspx

[6] http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/28/world/meast/iran-hormuz/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

On Animal Prosperity - a nod to the Great Ape Diaries Project and the work of the MGVP

Gerry Ellis, a renowned photographer, has worked for a number of organizations including the National Audubon Society, BBC Wildlife, New York Times, and National Geographic.  (You can learn more about him at http://gerryellis.net/ellis.html.)  I had the great fortune to meet him through the Audubon TogetherGreen Fellows program (http://www.togethergreen.org/people/fellows.aspx) .  Gerry is currently refocusing his attention on the Great Ape Diaries project (http://greatapediaries.wordpress.com/about/) – a project that he began working on in the early 1990s. 


Like so many charismatic mega fauna, gorillas are highly endangered facing a host of threats.  They have the added bad fortune to live in areas that have a long history of poverty, war, corruption, and genocide.  Recently, media attention has been given to the topic of human rights and “conflict metals” – the technology industry’s equivalent of the blood diamond story (for example, see: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/20/143975840/new-law-aims-to-shine-light-on-conflict-metals).

Last week, a YouTube video about a troop of gorillas entering a camp near Bwindi National Park, Uganda and having close encounters with humans hit the social media circuit through Facebook and other channels.  It went viral due to the “oh wow” factor it had and most likely had a number of people looking into gorilla-sighting tourism opportunities.   Given Gerry’s familiarity with endangered apes, it wasn’t surprising that he would a) know about the video-gone-viral and b) have something to say about it.  What was surprising, to me at least, was the issue of concern was not one that would immediately come to mind – even amongst many conservationists.  You can read his blog post at: http://greatapediaries.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/gorilla-tourism-look-but-dont-touch-or-get-touched/#comment-46.

Gerry and I occasionally chat electronically about a range of topics.  I am deeply grateful to the TogetherGreen program for enabling these types of rich, inspiring, and hopefully lasting personal connections.  Anyway, Gerry’s blog posts and Facebook messages often prompt me to send him a message.  Today, his entry motivated me to draft a much longer response that I posted as a comment on his blog site.  But I thought I would also share these thoughts on my own too-often neglected blog.  It makes more sense if you read Gerry’s post first....

Gerry, I am glad that you posted this message of concern and wish there was a way to get the points you raise out to the masses who watched the YouTube video.  As like countless others, I did watch the experience with some awe and pondered what it would be like to see these extraordinary animals in the wild (not necessarily in the camp; I had that experience with a rogue elephant in the Maasai Mara once).  I even envied for a moment, my vet who is currently on a gorilla trek in Uganda.  But I kept thinking about a different sort of risk than you note; these animals are wild and, as such, unpredictable and possibly dangerous.  The person featured in the video might have been “lucky” to have such a close encounter, but he was also lucky that no harm came from it to him.  We don’t know how the apes were impacted.

You quote from the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) report that raises an important dilemma too seldom considered by the mega-fauna adoring public:   “Although human proximity to mountain gorillas is essential for their conservation, also crucial is minimizing the risk for human-to–great ape transmission of respiratory pathogens.”  I teach a course each spring entitled “The Impact of Technology on Diet and Disease”.  We talk about the origins of disease – often through the wild animal/human interface.  Students read pieces from Jared Diamond about the negative impacts of the domestication of animals on human health and from Laurie Garrett (“The Coming Plague”).  But I hadn’t previously discussed this in the reverse direction with these students; that is, the risk we pose to the animal populations.  I suppose if this was one of my conservation courses, I would have thought to do this.  But now I will be sure to call attention to this in this human-focused course too!

So how then, do we raise awareness of the dire need for conservation in general and, in particular, protection of endangered species?  Animals, especially ones that look and act like us or ones that appear too cute to resist, can tug at heartstrings in ways that scientific data cannot.  As a plant scientist, I also know that other species, no matter how beautiful or critical in the ecological web of life, do not have the same sort of power to capture the imagination and interest of the masses in the way that certain large vertebrates do.

I have a strong aversion to zoos, but many animal biologists claim that this is the only exposure to “wildlife” that many people have and thus, can be an important education and conservation tool.  A few years ago in a Conservation Biology course, we had a rather heated discussion about the value of taxidermy animal displays in mega stores like Cabelas.  (I am not opposed to hunting; just trophy hunting.)  And while a trip to Kenya years ago was a childhood dream come true for me, I remember being disgusted by some of the guides/tour companies chasing after animals for their clients, disrupting the animals at rest or in the midst of a hunt just for the rude humans to get a closer look or a better picture -- a trophy of a different sorts.  [I was pleased that on the game drive on my recent trip to South Africa (a Christmas present for my son who also attended COP17), the guide had the utmost respect for the animals and started by saying that we were going into their territory and had to remember to respect that.  No chasing but rather viewing with reverence in quiet, and often from a distance.  No radio calls to other vehicles. No rude interruptions.]

Ecotourism can be good for conservation, but too often caters to the elite, adventure-seeking people and doesn’t put habitat and wildlife protection as the top priority.  Game preserves in Africa can be well-intended, but humans will be humans!  I simply don’t have the answer to this one.  As someone who dislikes the propaganda that PETA uses, I doubt that we want to start showing videos of animals dying of human-transmitted diseases as an awareness campaign strategy!

I don’t know if you have heard of the play entitled “Tooth and Claw” by Pennsylvania playwright Michael Hollinger.  If you ever get a chance to see it – do so.  Set on the Galapagos Islands, the script is filled with environmental science and conservation biology (accurately described), and raises many complex questions including that of which species (including humans) are most important to protect. There is a wonderful debate about removing the "invasive" goats from the islands in order to save the Giant Tortoise from both the perspective of the scientists and the inhabitants of the islands who could describe all sorts of uses for goats, but no practical ones for the tortoise.  They also point out that everything on the island was an "immigrant" including the people. The descriptions of natural selection, species gone extinct, and the tributes to Darwin were beautifully worded.  The author weaves together themes of exploitation of ocean fisheries, poverty, extinction, culling populations, abortion, biodiversity, and the too often unheard voice of the people without power or money.  Ah, but I digress.

I must now go make a donation to MGVP!