Getting to Know the Neighbors

More accurately this post is about the neighbors getting to know me...

As my regular reader (hi, mom!) knows my main gardening area is in the front yard.  This means that every neighbor who regularly walks their dog, their kid or themselves has at least said hi to me.  Often they stop to chat.  This is a blessing and a curse.  A blessing because it's a great way to get to know the neighbors.  A curse because it can slow down my work in the garden when every person walking by stops to chat.

The street I live on has a very low turn over rate.  Most of the people have been here for years or decades.  So when they see me in the garden they ask lots of questions about who we are, where we work, where we're from.  I can't remember what everyone else does but it seems to have sunk in to the neighborhood consciousness that I am a Biologist.

I'm starting to get biology questions.

Don't get me wrong - I love being the Neighborhood Biologist.  I was a bit of a know-it-all as a kid and I never quite outgrow that.  I love learning new things and assume that other people do as well (what?  You aren't interested in the mating habits of slugs?  Seriously?  But it's COOL!).

I'm starting to have neighbors come to my door and call my name...  There's a snake...  I found an injured bird...  I think a rabbit got hit by a car...

Amazingly (to them) I actually DO know what to do about all of these events.  Snake?  Leave it alone or if it's in a bad spot I'll move it for you.  Injured bird?  There's a vet about 20 minutes from here who'll take injured wildlife.  Rabbit hit by car?  Sorry, by the time I got there it was too late.  Yes, it's sad.  Poor thing.  At least it didn't suffer.

Best of all is because I have years of experience dealing with wild animals I can help them.  The snake can be safely moved with minimum handling, reducing it's stress level.  The bird can be caught quickly and transported in a dark, quiet box to the vet.  The rabbit.  Well, I was just too late to do anything.

More importantly I can hopefully prevent human caused problems. 

If you store your bird food in a metal bin the mice can't get into it and if the mouse population goes down you'll have fewer snakes.

No, that's a fledgling bird.  It's normal for them to not be able to fly well.  The parents are around - you can just leave it be.

The skunk keeps visiting your yard because you feed your dogs outside and they leave food in their bowls.

Now if I can just find a neighborhood expert on plumbing...

Pretty picture of Coreopsis Zagreb for the heck of it.

Oil Spill - what you can do to help wildlife

As the spill in the gulf continues to decimate the environment oiled animals are being picked up and helped by two important organizations.

The International Bird Rescue and Research Center has mobilized to the Gulf area and is dealing with oiled birds.  Oiled birds CAN be treated and released - the mortality rate is significant but a good percentage can be saved.  These people are very experienced with this sort of catastrophe.  Their work has helped to create procedures that save avian lives.  Click on their name to visit their site.

The Oiled Wildlife Care Network has set up at least four facilities in the gulf area to deal with oiled sea turtles, dolphins, manatees and other marine mammals.  OWCN works out of the University of California at Davis Veterinary College.  You can tell by the name that they specialize in this sort of work.  This is the group that gets called out no matter where in the world an oil spill has occurred.

The OWCN has information about volunteering on their front page, as well as a blog site.  If the oiled sea turtle numbers increase as expected the blog will probably not be kept up.

So far more birds have been affected by the oil spill but the OWCN is planning to start aerial and boat based searches primarily for the endangered sea turtles (such at the Kemp's Ridley).  The head veterinarian from Boston's New England Aquarium recently flew down to help. The NE Aquarium has a significant sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation program so Dr. Innis has had a lot of experience with sea turtles.

• Pick one (or both!) of the organizations above and help fund the rescue efforts in the gulf. 
• Contact your Senators and Representative and tell them to change the rules so this doesn't happen again (drilling CAN be done safer).
• Reduce, reduce, reduce your use of oil.  Switch to a more fuel efficient car, take up bike riding (my bike has great saddlebags that can be used for trips to the grocery store or the drug store), or use public transportation (where available)

• Oh, and feel free to boycott BP (too many website to link, just Google "boycott BP" if you want more information)

Soon back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Whales in Captivity

This is not a gardening post.  It is a post about the recent death of a Killer Whale trainer at the jaws of a whale she probably loved and had worked with for years.  This piece includes opinions that might not agree with yours but they are well thought out, intelligent, informed and therefore completely correct.

I have not worked with Killer Whales.  In fact my experience with live marine mammals has been quite limited.  I picked up a few injured and sick seals and sea lions when I lived in California but I then transported them to another facility for care.  Recently I've worked with deceased cetaceans, doing necropsies (autopsies) on stranded individuals.  [This is the least likely to be offensive image.]

Yes, that is a small whale under the sheet and I'm setting up my "bench" to take tissue samples

 

I have, however, worked with a wide range of wild and exotic animals in a wide range of situations.  I've worked with injured and orphaned wildlife (including coyotes, bobcats, a wide range of birds)

This bobcat had to be anesthetized for a veterinary examination and for attachment of a radio collar.  She had eaten one or more poisoned rats and gotten secondary poisoning.  She survived with treatment and went on to have at least one litter of cubs in a hollow tree at a golf course.

I've worked with exotic carnivores that were former "pets" or from other captive situations that needed a long term home (this is not a good position to be in with a tiger but I've known this individual since he was two weeks old and he's a nice cat.  He's also still a cub in this photo.  This is the last time I went into a cage with him.).

One of the tigers behind us is the one pictured in the cub shot. further down.  Freya has been frisky since she was born and is now a very, very dangerous cat.   She thinks it's fun to watch people jump.

 

I don't have pictures of it but I've also worked in a zoo situation.  I wanted to see for myself how the animals are treated before I decided if zoos are a good thing or a bad thing.

Pilling a Pelican is no easy task.

What do I think?  I think on the whole a well run zoo is a good thing for animals.  I believe that people have a hard time loving that which they do not know.  While talking the kids to the zoo doesn't get them to know the  individual animals it does get them interested.  And interested people will try to save the few remaining wild places for those animals.  And that is a good thing for all of us.  Life is so much richer with wilderness out there, even if we don't visit it regularly.

That scruffy little thing is a coyote puppy.  It was later released into the wild, after we taught it to hunt.

 

I also think that some animals should not be in captivity.  I'm pleased to hear that zoos are changing the way they handle elephants.  Elephants need large enclosures, stable social situations and lots of mental stimulation.  I'd like to see them change the way they handle bears.  Bears need large enclosures and lots of mental stimulation.  I have worked with zoo bears and they were very hard to keep stimulated and sane.

I have no problem with the big cats in captivity.  I've worked with them and they really don't need as much space per body size as you would expect.  Big cats, like house cats, sleep a lot.  If you've every been to Africa you have seen lions in the wild doing the same thing, sleeping.  Under the tour buses if they can sneak under there without the driver starting the engine.

 Freya tiger the first time she met people.  She already knew she didn't like us.

Birds in captivity can be tricky.  Some do well, some do not.  I like the large aviaries with lots of room to fly or the outdoor areas for cranes, ducks and geese.  They need a lot of space because they are so messy.

    That's me sticking a pill down the throat of a barn owl.

 

Finally on to Killer Whales.  Based on research I've done on the issue I believe they should not be in captivity.  Most of the Killer Whales who have been in captivity have been wild caught and have had a very, very short life span once in the captive situation.  Killer Whales are extremely dangerous to work with and have killed quite a few trainers (and at least one idiot who climbed the fence at night).  The whale in this week's incident has been involved in THREE human deaths.  

But what about Bottle Nosed dolphins?  There I'm less sure of myself.  The ones I have seen in captivity all seemed happy and thriving.  I know there are places in Florida that let their dolphins out when hurricanes are coming so they can get into deep water where it's safer.  The dolphins come back.  That tells me that they appreciate the free meal and can't be too unhappy with the situation.  I suspect with them it's a case of how good is the facility and the staff.

So there's my $0.05 (inflation, thoughts used to cost $0.02 but everything is more expensive now. I wonder if I should charge more because of my vast experience and highly over educated brain?). I'm not surprised by the incident.  I seldom am when a captive wild animal kills a person.  It's so easy to forget that these are wild animals and they will not behave the same way domesticated animals do.  Thousands of years of evolution shape the behavior of your dog and cat so that they are significantly less likely to hurt you than a wolf or a serval.  They'll enjoy your company more, too.

Zaynah Serval getting a whiff of a scent filled pizza box.  One of her favorite forms of enrichment.

 

Thanks for reading.  It was a great excuse to post some of my favorite pictures of myself.

Necropsy work was done with the New England Aquarium.

Wild animals were handled when I was on staff at the California Wildlife Center

Tigers were born to a mother who had been confiscated by the USDA and arrived at the Conservators' Center already pregnant (believe me they didn't need more tigers).  Zaynah Serval was a former pet who also found a permanent home there.  There are more exotic cats that need placement than sanctuaries or zoos for them to live in.  Please, please don't get an exotic animal as a pet, see your local animal shelter instead!

Night Sounds

Now that late summer is here I am hearing lots of nocturnal noises from the woods behind my house (and from in my yard!). I've heard the soft po po po po and whinny of the Eastern Screech Owl every night for the past week. I hear the buzzing calls of cicadas. I've heard something that woke me up at 4 a.m. and that I think was an owl but it wasn't one of the standard calls. Owls can make some weird noises and with my years of experience handling birds of all kinds I'm familiar with quite a lot of weird owl sounds. I think these noises came from a Barred Owl but I won't swear by it.

Summer evenings are often filled with a chorus of singing grasshoppers, crickets, katydids and cicadas. These long-legged insects will sing from the trees, from bushes, even from the grass or flower beds. The calls of crickets are familiar to most people, as are the calls of katy-did, she didn't, she did. I haven't been hearing many of these and, now that I think about it, I haven't noticed any grasshoppers in the yard. I'll bet this is a side affect of the chemicals poured on the lawn to maintain a perfect, golf-course look by the previous owner. Hopefully some grasshoppers and crickets will find their way into my pesticide-free sanctuary. That is if they can get past the lawns across the street and next door that continue to pour poisons into the environment.

Fortunately we do seem to have a healthy population of cicadas living in the trees behind our house. These insects buzz and whirr the evening away, looking for love in the tree tops. Cicadas are possibly best known for the 13-year and 17-year life cycle broods. These species spend 13 or 17 years underground and then emerge en mass to quickly breed and produce the next generation. The idea behind this is that a large population emerging at once will overwhelm the predators and so some will breed, and the prime number year cycle prevents the predators from synchronizing their own breeding cycle to take advantage of the feast.

The 13 and 17 year broods have less famous relatives who emerge every year in the late summer. You may find their molted larval casing clinging, lifeless, to a tree trunk but the adults have molted and headed up. Just like the 13 and 17 year cicadas, the yearly cicadas spend most of their lifecycle underground, emerging for a brief period to sing and breed.

While I have some nice katydid photos they are still packed up (did you read my first post? I've moved in the past year) and I couldn't find one to post. You'll just have to Google katydids and cicadas. Be sure to look for the colorful katydids, they can come in green (the most common color), white or even pink!