nature conservation
gregladen | August 22, 2009Don't forget to make use of the Nature Blog Network's blog, which recently posted a list of new nature blogs, and a community bulletin board. Also on NBN you'll find a list of upcoming carnivals and an interview/highlight of a featured blog (currently, Southern Fried Science).
gregladen | August 10, 2009New Wildlife Blog
There is a new blog that looks pretty darn good called "All About Wildlife" and focusing on threatened habitat and endangered species. It is called "All About Wildlife" and it is located here. I'd say this is one for the RSS feed.
Musings on Nature Blogging ... in Nature Blog Networking: The Halls of Academia N8 (that's, like "nate" fyi) talks about the new Nature Blog Networks categories, and discusses what a nature blog really is and is not. In which my blog is nicely defended. Thanks, Nate.
gregladen | August 9, 2009Continued...
For this final installation of How the Loon Terns, I'd like to very briefly address four different items of "common knowledge."
Loons are driven off lakes by boaters.
Loons use nursery pools.
Loon are "ancient birds"
"Loons winter in Mexico (or wherever)."
I've already discussed the first of these, and would simply like to restate the idea. During the 1970s or 1980s, depending on where one looked, loons were seemingly getting driven away from their native habitats by boating activity. Then, the loons seemed to start to grow somewhat accustom to boats, and this trend may…
gregladen | August 4, 2009This has come up a couple of times recently, so I thought I'd summarize the information here.
The distribution of water on Earth in cubic kilometers
Salt water:
1,318,062,462
Glaciers:
28,005,430
Groundwater:
12,270,210
Lakes:
106,396
Swamps:
13,452
Rivers:
2,446
Vapor:
13,000
Biological:
1,120
(Biological means like your spit and guts and all the juicy parts of worms and tree saps and water in bacteria and stuff.)
USGS
Wikipedia
What happens if all that glacial ice melts and ends up in the ocean?
Play with this for a while to get an idea. The maximum rise in sea…
gregladen | August 3, 2009And now, for another installment in our series: How The Loon Terns, an exercise in skeptical thinking using Loons as a waterbird touchstone. (In case you missed it, the previous installment was here.)
Common Knowledge: Loons are driven off lakes by boaters. The literature from the 1970s and 1980s makes it clear that there was a reduction in loon populations on lakes that were previously more isolated, and have become more accessible, and suffered greater amounts of boat traffic. Boats cause several problems for loons, including a damaging wake, and presumably it is bad if a loon is run…
gregladen | August 2, 2009This is the continuation of a discussion of loons, skeptically viewed. I am not skeptical about loons themselves. I know they exist. In fact, I just spent the last half hour watching Mom and Dad loon (whom I cannot tell apart, by the way) feeding Junior I and Junior II (whom I also cannot tell apart) what I have determined to be mostly crayfish, but also the occasional minnow.
In this installment of How the Loon Terns we will look at breeding success.
In this installment of How the Loon Terns we will look at breeding success.
Common Knowledge: When a pair of loons fails to breed, it…
gregladen | August 1, 2009I've been thinking about loons lately. This is not hard do do because every time I turn around there is a loon either watching me fish, yodeling off in the distance, flying overhead, or feeding its babies just off to my right as I sit here writing stuff. This year, the pair of loons that lives in front of the cabin seems to be producing two offspring ... the young ones grew quickly to near adult size and seem fit and healthy as far as one can tell. Last year, the pair living here produced zero offspring.
I had thought the other day of writing something about loons in winter, in part…
gregladen | July 16, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
And, a bonus shark story:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
gregladen | July 16, 2009Professional snipers have been brought in to guard a vulnerable colony of penguins in Australia.
Potograph source
The deployment follows the mysterious deaths of nine of the flightless birds over the last two weeks.
The mutilated bodies of the animals, known as fairy penguins, were found in a national park near Sydney harbour.
The main suspects are dogs and foxes. At 40cm tall, the world's smallest penguin species is clearly no match for such aggressive enemies.
I am shocked. SHOCKED! That the Fairy Penguin (aka the "little penguin, Eudyptula minor) is the smallest species of penguin. I…
gregladen | July 16, 2009Dear Reader. The following letter was written by Randy Repass and Sally-Christine Rodgers and it concerns you and the planet earth. The publication of this letter is happening in numerous blogs at the same time, coordinated by Sheril Kirshenbaum.
We are both lifelong boaters. What we have learned from sailing across the Pacific over the past 6 years, and especially from scientists focused on marine conservation, is startling. Whether you spend time on the water or not, Ocean Acidification affects all of us and is something we believe you will want to know about.
What would you do if…
gregladen | July 9, 2009 It has become virtually axiomatic that as climate shifts or other potential insults to the ecology of a given area occur, plants and animals enclosed in parks bounded by "impermeable" landscapes are at great risk. Instead of the extreme ranges of a plant or animal moving north or south, or across a gradient of rainfall, or up or down in elevation, organisms that are protected in parks are also stuck in the parks and risk local extinction when change happens or disease becomes endemic, or poaching uncontrolled or fire more common or .... well, we can go on and on.
In a new study on "The…
gregladen | July 3, 2009Several years ago, I was at a going away party for Bruno. Bruno was a hard core scientist who was being brought into the Biosphere project down in Arizona to get it straightened out after a long period of bad press.
One of the folks at the party was an archaeology graduate student, Ben, who had a very dry sense of humor. As Ben was leaving that evening, he turned to Bruno to wish him well.
"Bruno, see you around! And good luck with the terrarium!"
....
Sorry, that's my only Biosphere story. Here's a Ted Talk on it:
Jane Poynter tells her story of living two years and 20 minutes in…
gregladen | June 23, 2009Background:
The Finding Coral expedition set sail June 8th in search of deep sea corals on in Hecate Strait and the Queen Charlotte Basin. Two Deep Worker manned submarines will be piloted by our blue ribbon science team, traveling to depths up to 500 metres to document evidence of corals, associated species, and damage from human impacts.
The Finding Coral Expedition is the first of its kind in B.C.: an expedition specifically designed to study deep water corals and document threats to their well being.
Day 10 video:
Day 12 video:
The Finding Coral Website is Here
gregladen | June 19, 2009You really must give up seafood from the ocean. Or at least, there is an argument that says this, and you can read it here.
Wolverines. I once saw a wolverine in a state that was known to not have wolverines anymore. That was a long time ago and I think they are recognized as having returned to those forests. Now, we have wolverines in Colorado for the first time since 1919. I am shocked and amazed that wolverines had been extirpated from Colorado.
All ivory is bad. Antique, modern, you name it. If you buy ivory, you are poaching an African Elephant. I assume you knew this already,…
gregladen | June 12, 2009I just read this, and it made me want to see this:
and I'm asking you to look at this, but also this.
gregladen | May 14, 2009Or, putting it another way,
"Why does our energy system face security and environmental challenges?"
Please visit ScienceBlog's new blog, The Energy Grid, which is one of those shorter term issue-driven blogs we do at Sb nwo and then.
This particular iteration is moderated by Jonas Meckling, from the Belfer Center, and hosted by James Hrynyshyn, who I got to know a bit at the conference last winter, and Coby Beck, both of Scienceblogs Dot Com, and a few other rather impressive looking people.
So, please go and help them save the world. Seriously. Let's get a great discussion going here…
gregladen | May 10, 2009
Costly Superfund dredging set for Hudson River
(AP) -- People look funny at David Mathis when he takes a dip off his dock in the Hudson River. Health officials have long warned people not to eat fish caught from this slow-flowing stretch south of the Adirondacks and swimming here is unthinkable to many.
I worked for a year or so in an early 19th century "gas house" (where gas was made from coal) that was situated in a back yard of a home on the Hudson River. The elder gentleman who lived in that house, the father of the man who owned the land and rented us the gas house (which we used as…
gregladen | May 10, 2009Nice going, mom! Right whales break birth record
(AP) -- Right whales have plenty to celebrate this Mother's Day - the sea moms gave birth to a record 39 calves this spring.
Considering that there are only a few hundred of these whales left, this is good news. The "right whales" were originally called that because back in the old days when our oil supply came mainly from fellow mammals, they were identified as the "right whale" to hunt down and kill for the oil. The term "Right Whale" refers to several different species, but the one being discussed here is the North Atlantic right whale,…
gregladen | April 22, 2009I remember my first Earth Day, which was also The first Earth Day. There was a big lead up to it. Our teachers had us make poster size drawings appropriate for Earth Day. I have no recollection of what I did. But, I do remember putting an air quality measuring device in my back yard and turning it in at the firehouse and getting the building next door busted for burning bad heating oil. I was also armed that summer with a plastic card that I could use to measure smoke quality. I'd wear the card around my neck and go around the city, and whenever I saw a smoke stack belching smoke I'd hold…