Holy Carp, Wolfman!

"I'm shocked!"

Asian Carp keep showing up in the news because they keep showing up in more rivers and lakes. They are not wanted. They eat, grow into giants, and displace other species. They could disrupt a 7 million dollar plus fishery business in the upper Midwest. But how to keep them out? In Minnesota, a plan to put electric barriers between the Mississippi River and the "wild and scenic" St. Croix has stalled, partly because of territorial issues. Does the other river bank--Wisconsin--have to be involved? What agency oversees a plan, and will the plan be effective?
A Star Tribune story of September 18th narrates how a $5 million dollar initiative to erect "an underwater sound barrier" got washed away. It seems the state's Department of Natural Resources thought the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would take over at some point, because that's what the Corps tends to do. "We were surprised to hear they couldn't work with us on the project," Steve Hirsch, the DNR's director of ecological and water resources, told the Star Tribune. Hirsch added that the Corps claimed "they weren't authorized or funded to work on it."In short, there are turf wars and a lack of communication among politicians who voted for the funding, the DNR, the two states, and the Army Corps. As the carp says, "I'm shocked!"
Complicating the issues is a debate about the effectiveness of barriers against hungry carp.  But here the Army Corps recently offered "new evidence that a series of barriers in the Chicago River waterway system have been 'very effective,'" and increased voltage might improve that further.
For some, there's way too much government entanglement with Big-Mouth Carp, and they want private industry (with grant help from somewhere, and often that somewhere is a gov't) to sell the Carp back to Asia as food. Eat the crappy carp!
"We're in uncharted waters here," according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokesman Chris McCloud in Thursday's Chicago Tribune. "Why remove them and put them into a landfill when you can take them and use them for good? If we can get past the name 'carp' and the perception ... we can prove this is going to be a highly nutritious, cheap meal." It tastes, according to promoters, like a cross between scallops and crabmeat, if you can get past the barrier of numerous bones. Carp are low in mercury and high in Omega 3 fatty acids, so let's call carp "silverfin" (Patagonian toothfish was re-imaged as pricey Chilean sea bass) and get it on the menu. A Chicago chef already has a recipe for "Carp-accio."
Well, let them eat carp!
There are those who take offense at the terms of the discussion with "invasive" species pitted against "native." One problem is that such terms don't account for "natural" or adaptive biological changes over the eons and for changes caused by climate and geographical events. Other reasons for concern include a problematic analogy with human migration issues. For example, are illegal immigrants (or any immigrants) from other countries a threat to U.S. "natives"? It has also been pointed out that summarily applying "illegal" to children and infants just doesn't sound right. This is an area where human/animal comparisons fall apart: humans have the advanced cultural skills (we hope) to deal with global interchanges. Also, what does "native" mean when applied to U.S. residents? They're actually Asiatic but crossed an Alaskan land bridge in Prehistory? They were already here when the Mayflower landed? They came on the Mayflower? They fled a potato famine? They fled the Nazis and arrived with advanced degrees in physics? Complicate that with the travels of European or American "natives" in the era of colonialism and currently with globalization.? Is Coca-Cola a dangerous invasive species?
The Random Animal will leave these questions for presidential debates. There's also the point that being a species native to the North American Continent insures acceptance and protection. Take the case of the wolf, again. As noted in the blog of August 24th, Montana and Idaho will have hunting seasons for the re-introduced wolf. Apparently, withdrawing the wolf from the endangered species list was part of a federal budget deal--the wheeling and dealing that happens to pass legislation or tuck in a special interest item. All this is explained on a recent PBS Newshour report. Many ranchers still hate wolves, though wolves were in the area first. Since their reintroduction in 1995 to Yellowstone National Park, wolves have spread outside those boundaries and have killed about 4500 cattle and sheep. (It is difficult to find out if specific herds are particularly beset or how many livestock roamed the areas.) One rancher interviewed couldn't see the point of anyone wanting such a successful predator around. Another ranch family addresses the risk of wolf attach by keeping cattle grouped within movable fencing, mimicking the protective circle buffalo create. It takes more time and money, but they have not had wolf problems. And problem wolves have been shot regularly, under gov't oversight, and they are not part of the hunt count. The scientist involved with the wolves' return is not against hunting them. It's the numbers that are upsetting. As the Newshour reports, Montana has about 600 wolves and will permit the taking of 220. The Idaho plan is to reduce the state's 1000 wolves to 150. That's pretty close to the definition of "decimation." The argument for wolves? They are a "cash cow" for the Park, drawing in observers, photographers, amateur naturalists. They have reduced elk herds in the region, so plant growth has revived, preserving more plant species, keeping the rivers healthier, and supporting more small wildlife including songbirds.
Maybe "native" and "alien" are misleading terms for carp and wolves. It's a matter of viable bio-diversity. Add too many carp, and that's damaged. Take away too many wolves, and that's damaged.
If only the wolf's main food source was carp.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Melville's Moby Dick and Jon Stewart's Daily Show

credit to LukeSurl.com

No, this is not a set-up for a bad joke. I've been slowly re-reading Moby-Dick (don't remember the first reading) and should be finished in time for the 2016 elections. It takes a long time to reach actual discussion of The Whale; and the blubber-thick book of wind-driven ships, Quakers, and harpooners seems wildly distant from current crises of international debt defaults, climate change, and twittering politicians. The novel resides in that unreachable ocean, The Past.
Then again, in the opening chapter,  narrator Ishmael imagines the front page of a newspaper announcing his whaling voyage sandwiched between these headlines: "Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States" and "Bloody Battle in Afghanistan." Herman Melville and a writer of the next generation, Mark Twain, might have been shocked and dismayed by Bernie Madoff  Ponzi schemes, but they would not have been surprised. Confidence men--the Con--have prominent places in their fictions and apparently in the American fabric. Both writers recognized the ability of people to con others and that most frequent trick, to con themselves. A nation of self-conners.
And while those with a recollection of American Lit. think of Moby-Dick's tale (sorry) as tragic, involving Death and Ahab, Ishmael offers a wry running commentary on the strangeness of human beings and their business. There's snark. He could be Jon Stewart or John Oliver, an extremely well-read and less crude version, bemused by pretension and folly in all he sees. A landlady, concerned about the doings or the having done of a boarder locked in his room, exclaims "He's killed himself ... It's unfort'nate Stiggs done over again--there goes another counterpane." To save bed covering counterpanes she dispatches a servant: "Go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with--'no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor.'"
O.K., Ishmael's (or rather Melville's) sentences are extremely layered, and as with Hawthorne and Thoreau a plethora of deep meanings are implied but not necessarily revealed and validated. There's an undeniable quest for meanings that, in the end, remain inscrutable or absent. After reflecting on how there's "all the difference in the world between paying and being paid," a point brought home by the current recession, Ishmael speculates on an "invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way." (This 160 years before phone tapping and Rupert Murdoch--an Ahab after a story). Phrases, allusions,  vocab, and foreshadowing throughout the book (Fate, Providence, Monster, superior natural force, ponderous heart, reality or a dream) send undergrads scrambling for the Code Book offered by internet versions of Cliff Notes.
Despite the aggregation of footnotes--blubber valuable or not--attending the text, the book is deemed by certain sources as appropriate for grades 5 (a precocious grade 5) and up. There are no sex scenes or bad words (depending about how you consider "sperm" as in "sperm whale), while the violence, mostly against animals, is quite acceptable. Certainly in the last decades of the 20th century, Ishmael's lack of obscenity and sexual encounters, along with his apparent acquiescence to authority, seem very innocent. That's until you get to the Gay Marriage part. Or the bonding with non-Christians.
It's not really same-sex marriage, but early on Ishmael shares a bed with the purply heathen Queequeg, who sounds like a cross between a giant Aborigine and a Smurf.

Thanks to Rockwell Kent and Pop Culture

 

It was not uncommon for boarders in an inn, particularly the poor ones, to share beds, and the landlord thinks it quite amusing to pair the vulnerable young Ishmael with a tattooed "cannibal" who's been out trying to sell a shrunken head. After some initial awkwardness involving a tomahawk, the two settle down to sleep, and Ishmael awakens the next morning with "Queequeg's arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife." There's certainly no talk of sexual attraction, and during following days the men focus on getting an assignment on a whaling ship. But their camaraderie deepens. In the chapter "A Bosom Friend," Ishmael concludes, "there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till near morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg--a cosy, loving pair."
How this passage would fare on FOX network discussions I don't want to know. The 5th grade teacher who dares to impose such dense prose on young students could well focus on the emotional intimacy, which lacks eroticism. Melville himself was married in a traditional way, and in a traditional way it went badly. Let's guess that Melville was difficult and moody. Then his sea-tale popularity, dragging his income along, started to make a frightening dive, rather like that of an incumbent president's during a recession. That might drive any wife to nagging or retreat.
Back to the bonding of Ishmael and Queequeg--probably shocking in 1851 was the intimacy between a very white Christian and a dark tattooed Pacific islander who worships a black wooden totem. Many of the early encounters between the two and other whalers revolve around Ishmael defending Queequeg's character--"see how elastic our stiff prejudices become when love comes to bend them." (And we are being set up for end events, which are far from cozy liaisons.) The plot moves forward when Ishmael convinces the managers of the Pequod, self-righteous and cheap Captain Bildad and blustery Captain Peleg, to sign up himself and Queequeg. "Queequeg here is a born member of the First Congregational Church," Ishmael protests, and when the pious Bildad pushes for explanation, Ishmael expounds that "every mother's son and soul of us belong" to the "great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world." Bildad hesitates at that ecumenical inclusion, but Peleg accepts Queequeg's faith upon seeing his "wild sort of" accuracy with a harpoon: "Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, we'll give you the ninetieth lay [a portion of profits far larger than Ishmael's], and that's more than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket."
And that brings us to the Corporate Business of Whaling in the 19th and the 21st century--more on that to come.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Last Heron of Summer

The nights are cool, the afternoons hot. The monarchs are moving south, but some migratory species still find time to bask in ultra-marine skies. This great blue heron found his pedestal,

Then he spoke,

And then fanned his wings to the sun.

The Random Animal will be traveling for a few days and will return with some book reviews.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Wanted: Beavers, not Horses

Photo by Mary Beth Atwood from krqe.com

Texas is on fire. About 120,000 acres are burned or burning, about 700 homes have been lost thus far. According to the Texas Forest Service website, fire fighters spent the labor day holiday responding to 22 new fires.
Like the "megafires" described in a recent Audubon Magazine article (and discussed in an earlier blog here), these conflagrations degrade ecosystems and cause human suffering. When people suffer, animals suffer. That includes species often privileged or idealized, like horses. The two-year drought in Texas has turned grass and hay into kindling. Animals do not have enough to eat; farmers and ranchers have nothing to harvest and store. Hay is imported from states like Iowa, but that's not the same as having adequate grass growing where the animals live. More and more bone-thin horses are left with rescue groups, as  reported by ABC news earlier this summer. The same circumstances that lead to horse abandonment or surrender also inhibit adoption or horses restored to health. Some rescue groups, like Brighter Days near San Antonio, fear that they cannot take in any more animals.
While Texas and the nation struggle with immediate responses to fire and drought, other long-term solutions are up for consideration.
Some ranchers in rain-starved regions would like to see beaver return. This may seem like an odd longing, especially since beaver are often seen as pests whose constructions block trout streams, boating channels, or drainage lines.

"I know you want me."

As reported by a recent Wall Street Journal article, "in many states, it's legal to shoot a beaver on private land." However, the same article explains that beavers are excellent restorers of wetlands. As one conservancy director explains, "We can spend $200,000 putting wood into a stream, cabling down logs. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Put in a colony of beavers and it always works." So ranchers in places like Wyoming and Washington want to bring beavers back to places where they had been banished. What beaver dams retain can mitigate the impact of a dry season and provide drinking water for cattle and wildlife, and the subsurface water table fluctuates less. So now beavers are live-trapped elsewhere to be transferred to ranch lands that have some water source. Other species, from cougar and moose in the North and songbirds about anywhere, seem to rebound where beavers have created wetlands.
Texas is not currently in a situation where beavers can save the day. But the re-evaluation of beavers suggests that holistic approaches to ecosystems are not just for the dreams of abstract nature-lovers but for those who make a living from the land.

Dam, it's gone!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Of Monarchs and Men

Bound for Mexico?

Two to three, then three to four, then twenty or so flitted above the trees and across the path to the prairie. Over the acres of prairie, there were more, settling onto rough blazing star, a favorite, or goldenrods, sunflowers, lobelia. Monarchs are hard to count (and harder to photograph I found) because they are more skittish than birds, they disappear into an infinity of grass, and they collapse into a barely visible line when they turn and close their wings.

While summer heat can still top 80 degrees, some maple trees have decided to break the news that fall is coming with branches tinged red. The monarchs I saw in the prairie reserve may have been hatched there--milkweed, the pablum of the caterpillar, is abundant. Or maybe they had already traveled from Canada. Unlike the butterflies who saw birth, metamorphosis and death in the spring, in early summer, in midsummer, these may have a life span not of two weeks, but like their great-grandparents, of long winter months. And they won't just flutter from milkweed to blossom--they will travel over 2,000 miles to the high altitude fir forests of Mexico,  a pilgrimage to the oyamel--the Abies religiosa  or Sacred Fir.
Yes, Monarchs are migrants. While their border crossings may appear apolitical, their shifting states of residence become entangled with economic and diplomatic issues. Monarchs draw tourists to Mexico to see the tens of millions turning a tree from a thing of needles to a thick drapery of wings. But habitat all along the way is threatened. Milk"weed" is more welcome than it once was, because it's become more widely known that it is the sole nursery for monarch eggs. As with just about everything, global warming plays a role, altering what plants thrive or die where and when. As always, there's human development.
The Audubon Society warns that deforestation linked to population growth eats away at Monarchs' winter retreat: "Aerial photographs of the region 30 years ago show a forest of nearly 2,000 square miles. Today, only a tenth of it remains. The largest tract today is 20 square miles, five times smaller than the largest tract 15 years ago." Population growth, according to this analysis, has contributed to use and destruction of forests, though there have been advances in this area. "The good news is that because of an aggressive family planning program, the fertility rate of Mexico has dropped from 6.1 in 1970 to 2.7 today and Mexico's population is 32 million lower than predicted 30 years ago." Then the other shoe drops: "The bad news is that demographic momentum is still expected to carry Mexico past the 135 million mark over the course of the next 30 years."
Meanwhile, human and animal lives are recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Irene's unusual course. It's hard to imagine a time in the past when  "Hurricane" and "Vermont" appeared in the same sentence. The Midwest sunflowers, however, rise oblivious to trees and plants and people fallen and swept away elsewhere. They wisely turn their faces to light and warmth.

  Maybe our human responses to change seem more complicated, though it's hard to comprehend how after 3 intermediary generations, a monarch can trace her ancestor's route from a prairie by a silty stream to mountains far south. A poet well aware of such complications is Amy Clampitt. The following is an excerpt from her tribute to her dead brother, "Urn-Burial and the Butterfly Migration":

an urn of breathing jade, its

          gilt-embossed exterior the

          intact foreboding of a future

          intricately contained, jet-

          veined, spangle-margined,

          birth-wet russet of the air-

          traveling monarch emerging

          from a torpid chrysalis. Oh,

          we know nothing



          of the universe we move through!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Death, Taxes, and Wolves

Where are the piggies?

Here's one and . . .

Here's more, thanks to cartoonist Kahlil Bendib

Taxes and wolves have much in common. Both are demonized as scourges of humankind. Both can play beneficial roles in sustaining a community--providing social services and protecting landscapes from destruction by ungulates. Republicans (and a number of Democrats) in certain states rail against both.
We'll return to taxes later--they never disappear for long. Current wolf controversy in the greater Midwest centers around the possible "delisting" of wolves as an "Endangered Species" deserving special protections under U.S. federal law. In Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where wolves roam northern forests, the population is about 4,000. In Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, the number is about 1700, and many of those descended from wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s. One ecologist who studies the Yellowstone wolves and hails from another wolf state--Dan MacNulty at the University of Minnesota, believes that the millions of federal dollars (a big number but a drop in the gov't budget) could be better directed toward species in more dire circumstances. (See "Wolf Pact" in Audubon Magazine.)
So why not follow the law and delist the wolves? Because there's resistance by conversation and wildlife groups to state management proposals, and the state proposals sound anything but wolf-friendly. In the Rocky Mountain/Yellowstone region, according to The Economist, the wolves "are a snaggletoothed symbol of big government gone mad." But it's the locals who are mad enough to shoot. As The Economist reports, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission authorized a lupine hunting season. A contingent of animal defenders are against all hunting, but many wildlife biologists have long thought that hunting--of deer, Canada geese, even predators--can deter animals from feeling too cozy in human presence and work in favor of ecological balance. However, wildlife principles lose out to varmit-killing in these debates. The Idaho proposal would allow the killing of 85% of the state's population of 1,000. A cousin to that proposal in Montana would permit a take of nearly half that state's wolves.  With these sorts of proposals, you get a debt-ceiling type stalemate where certain organizations say no taxes, oops, "no wolves," and others say don't touch the wolves' entitlements.
Oh, there are complications. Wolves do kill livestock--cows, sheep, horses--and good luck finding accurate numbers there. (Conservationists claim ranchers overestimate depredation; however, it is hard to prove wolf damage when one comes across a carcass on the open range.) Yes, wolves receive the benefit of tax dollars. So do Western ranchers, through the public lands grazing programs.
The Federal Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, a department you generally don't hear about unless they're accused of screwing up, manages the grazing permits and fees. Are the fees reasonable or do they amount to a federal subsidy for ranchers? Another hot debate. Speaking of hot, through the BLM website, you can sign up to fight wildfires, and the wildfires have been hot, hot, hot lately.
According to Daniel Glick, in Audubon Magazine again, climate warming in the Western states has fostered the conditions for "megafires": "The western fire season is now 205 days, 78 days longer than in 1986. What's more, there have been four times as many fires that wiped out more than 1,000 acres than there were in the 1970-1986 period, and six times as much acreage burned." In part, protecting ourselves against fires has, well, backfired. Natural fuels of grasses, shrubs, and forest debris build up. For this reason, some areas have prescribed burns to keep the fire danger lower and to reset a biological cycle. Where fires occur that are NOT superhot like the mega ones that sterilize soils, kill of wildlife in a large area, and damage water sources, Glick explains, the ash adds soil nutrients and diverse plant growth begins, while species from woodpeckers to morel mushrooms return. Like wolves and taxes, fires are part of a system that sets up a cycle of renewal that keeps a community moving forward rather than collapsing under the weight of a too-dominant presence, from elk herds to dead wood to social stagnation.
Regenerative fire, like roaming wolves and tax increases, sounds great if it occurs far away from where you are. It's easy to be sanguine about fire and wolf attack when you're in a low-fire danger, wolf-free, middle-class neighborhood. A fire historian at Arizona State University, Steven Pyne, tells Glick that the Australians are much better at protecting property from fire hazards. That's important knowledge, because more people are moving into Western fire zones in the U.S. (and into cougar territory, by the way). Taxes and fees can play a role in managing the kinds of development, much of it resort or second home residences, that moves into wild scenery. Glick takes aim at the sacred mortgage interest tax deduction: "Changing laws to eliminate a mortgage tax deduction for second homes or charging developers the full cost of public services (like putting out rural fires) would go a long way." If this reform were to occur, those who insist on having a second home despite the loss of a tax break could then debate where those federal dollars should go--to a mediation program between wolves and ranchers?

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Moose Vs. Deer

How's my brain, Rocky?

You would think moose would win. They're bigger, they can take cold weather, they can team up with flying squirrels. But in Minnesota, Moose seem to be losing to deer.
In the forests of northern Minnesota, moose are dying off. A recent report from the state's Department of Natural Resources notes that in the northwest corner (the aspen/uplands biome), the population has dropped from several thousand to about a hundred. Thousands of moose still seem to be present in the northeast corner of boreal forests. There is also widespread feeding of deer across the North, to build up deer populations for viewing and for hunting. That may be part of the problem, because deer carry parasites that are more dangerous to moose, particularly brainworm.
Yes, brainworm does live in the brain (where it lays eggs), some of the time. For much of its life cycle the worm, actually a nematode if that means something to you, lives in various parts of the deer, moving about through stomach, throat, brain in ways that you'll find fascinating if you're scientifically inclined or attracted to all things gross. At some point, the parasite is deposited by way of fecal matter (that's a euphemism), to be consumed by snails or other gastropods (gastronomers in search of a delicacy?), and then the infected snails are ingested along with plants by white-tail deer, who generally don't seem much affected by the whole process. Moose, elk, or caribou do not show the same tolerance, and neurological disorders begin: the diseased animals circle, they stumble, they tilt their head, they seem to loose vision, and their hindquarters no longer support them. If the condition itself is not always fatal, the afflicted moose is certainly vulnerable to other problems. Since deer are the dominant carriers, it seems that reducing deer numbers might be beneficial to their suffering cousins.
The state wildlife or natural resources departments that seek to protect the moose get much of their income year after year from hunting licenses. So if they cut back on deer numbers, they may be shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak. The big game manager for Minnesota, Lou Cornicelli, feels the pinch (mixing metaphors now). He claims that "If we don't do anything, the end point [for moose] is fairly certain," then says of the desire to feed deer versus ending the practice, "If you want to pick a controversial topic, that's going to be it."
So are there way too many deer and not enough moose?

Unless you move to another state--location, location, location. In Maine, a smaller state but with more wet woodland habitat than Minnesota, the moose population is about 29,000.  There is a moose hunt, with prospective hunters buying lottery tickets in hopes of being among the few thousand who get to hunt the big weed-eater. As for white-tails, their population in Maine has been stressed by hard winters, coyotes, and loss of habitat according to some reports. I've found that a Google search on the Maine deer issue does not quickly yield clear data on deer numbers and, highly debatable, what "optimal" numbers might be--optimal for the deer, for the moose, for the coyotes, for the conifers, for the populated coast, for hunters? Many in that state, like the deer feeders in northern Minnesota, want to see deer numbers go up.  Deer still outnumber moose in Maine, about 9 times more, and the hunting numbers reflect that. About 2,000 moose are "harvested" in a season, while in 2010 over 20,000 deer were taken, an increase of 11% over the previous year. Yet 2011 Maine news stories about deer focus on the desire to increase the population, probably because deer hunting brings about $200 million into the economy annually.
If you want to find a place where deer are thick and people want them gone, go to the suburbs of the Twin Cities, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh. Maybe people there aren't worrying about brainworm nematodes, but there is landscaping to protect, lyme disease to avoid, and car accidents waiting to happen.
 For a more thoughtful read on Moose and the problems of hunting than anything provided above, I recommend Franklin Burroughs' essay which is reprinted in several nature writing anthologies: "Of Moose and a Moose Hunter".

reade more... Résuméabuiyad