How are you spending New Year's Eve?
* Curled up inside our warm house with our cats, new fluffy maroon blanket and raspberry tea. Thankful that we are so blessed and have such good fortune.
* Thinking of resolutions. I usually avoid making them, but this year it's necessary. A few things became very clear to me after my first semester of grad school.
* Reconsidering my thesis. There is so much to think about! I should do this kind of thinking over hot chocolate, don't you think? ;)
* Playing my violin. Yes, I play. I might also do some artsy stuff with my watercolor set. And I may call my grad school friend E, who plays viola. We found some Russian folk music that we can play as a team.
* Thinking of my Vox friends, who mean the world to me. Happy New Year, all. I love you guys.
Arctic fox. Treats prey like buried treasure, trespasses alone into a frozen world, bravely follows behind the hunting polar bear to scavange the remains of their prey, dies young and vanishes like a genuine ghost of the North Pole.
These small creatures are the only native mammal of Iceland. Other varieties of Arctic fox inhabit the cold areas of Ursa Major. These little guys have the warmest fur of any mammal on Earth, and can survive temperatures below -67 degrees Fahrenheit.
Arctic foxes have several strategies for surviving the cold: a small surface area, i.e. short body parts to trap in heat, a thick layer of fat and something called countercurrent heat exchange. And oh yeah, furry paws. Arctic foxes are carnivorous and primarily eat collared lemmings, goose eggs, and to a lesser extent, baby seals, fish, reptiles, amphibians and whatever other limited life forms live with it in the Arctic. When times are tough, Arctic foxes will bury a food supply deep in the ground as a long-term survival strategy.
A 2006 study in the Journal of Animal Ecology demonstrated that when lemmings are abundant, the foxes hide enough goose eggs to provide just 28% of their diets. But when lemmings are in short supply, the foxes hide enough eggs to provide up to 73% of their diets. Hey, who says animals can't plan ahead? Speaking of that, the study also showed that they used the eggs up to a year later, whereas almost all other carnivores will use their cached supply within just a few days.
At the end of the last ice age, the Arctic fox became the only mammal to inhabit Iceland when it managed to walk across the frozen sea and settle down into the frozen land there. Indeed, a 2007 study published in the journal Molecular Ecology showed that the islands of the Arctic seas are different from the islands of the oceanic seas; "the occurance of sea ice predicts 40 to 60% of the genetic distance between populations"; that means that in the presence of a frozen ocean produces new species. The same study found that the Arctic foxes living on Commander and Pribilof islands were genetically unique, meaning that they may have been an unidentified new species. In the absence of sea ice, and in the presence of global warming, these species would not have occured.
The Arctic fox was almost hunted to extinction in the 1900s for its fur. Having recovered, the Scandanavian populations are facing new threats. A 2005 article in Biodiversity and Conservation showed that the overhunting of reindeer was reducing the amount of scavaging available to the Arctic fox, and that when gray wolves were hunted to extinction, the population of red foxes exploded and are now outcompeting the Arctic foxes. It is estimated that the Fennoscandia population of Arctic foxes is down to 120.
Thus is my very first post using my newly acquired access to free science articles through my grad program! A very clunky beginning, but I hope it will add some spark to my wildlife posts!!
****Anything we do to reduce global warming, will help to protect the wonderful Arctic fox!
A HAPPY, HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE TO MY BELOVED VOX FRIENDS.
Peace, warmth, lots of colorful lights and good wishes. Love you all. I shall take great advantage of my winter break to visit!
Kisses.
Here's to my fellow New Englanders, stay warm, my friends!! It's been a brutal month....and might I add, I love it.
Show us your favorite thing about this time of year.
Two words: SEASONS and REINDEER.
Okay, so my reindeer obsession is a bit out of control this year. But you HAVE to check this out. Instead of the Gregorian calendar, this is a collection of long sheets that represent each season. The year of this calendar runs from Winter Solstice 2007 to Winter Solstice 2008.
It's supremely cool. It has the proportional amount of daylight to darkness each day, moon cycles, which constellations are visible each week, Earth processes, and tides. On top of that, it's gorgeous. Wait until you see the Winter section. So sweet.
If you like mammals, Northern places, mystical forests, astonomy, lunar happenings, or anything else romantic, Earthy or cozy, this is for you! Geez I should be paid for this endorsement. Seriously, the best gift I got this Solstice.
I don't know why I love reindeer so much - maybe because I grew up around horses, snow, mystical folks, who knows. But I love anything that talks about winter or the seasons in general. And as Pax said, hot chocolate!
Well, I'm officially on Xmas break. I have so much to tell everyone about graduate school, but that will come later.
Right now I want to give out some good news for once. Japanese whaling fleets had planned to kill 50 humpback whales. Thanks to pressure from the IWC, Japan has decided to leave them alone.
Although they will still be hunting other whales, this is a step in the right direction, and a huge surprise to me. Japanese whaling fleets do not back down easily. It's a good sign!
You can read about it here.
The IWC was acting upon pressure from countries like Australia and others. Australia and others were acting upon pressure from its citizens. Citizens like Geology Byotch. She has spoken out many, many times for the whales. Word spreads. And it works.
And on that note, I want to thank "B". Check out her blog if you haven't yet. Her passion, her humor, her world-shaking posts are not to be missed. Happy Solstice, B. You are a remarkable woman.
Hello Voxters!!
Have I mentioned recently that I love Winter Solstice? How about the fact that I love my Voxter friends and miss them? Oh, and I love reindeer also.
We have a presentation tomorrow in Community Ecology. Our group studied ten acres of a nature sanctuary. Our ten acres spans 3 communities: riparian, upland and swamp. We present our findings tomorrow in our last class of the semester!
Even more exciting, the sanctuary manager has asked us to present our findings at a conference in March.
More exciting yet, my classmate told the sanctuary manager about my corridor study, and he mentioned that there is a corridor between the sanctuary and an open area of land across a major road to the East. Apparently the sanctuary is trying to prevent an industrial park from being built there; the industrial park could destroy the corridor and harm wildlife. This may be a stepping stone for my thesis, folks! And I would get to play in the snow - how cool would that be?
Happy Early Solstice, friends!
I really really want to post about my newest favorite creature from Madagascar, but sadly it will have to wait. I'm trying to identify a pinnately lobed flower I found in the forest yesterday. That alone could take me the rest of my life......
Anyway, I don't have time for a wildlife post right now, but I do have time for one of those cheesy "things you don't know about me" posts. Hope you go for that kind of thing. Okay, today's confession: I have a thing for reindeer. BIG TIME.
Reindeer are, in a sense, domesticated caribou. I say in a sense because, for one thing, reindeer are the oldest domesticated animal, so I cannot be sure they have not diverged in an evolutionary sense. In any event, these gorgeous creatures are at the very least very closely related to caribou, and there are many conservation concerns over them.
Here's the amusing part: most of the year, these animals are brushed off as just another boring deer, so I must get my fix by painting watercolors of them, looking at photos, figurines, and generally daydreaming of a trip to Finland or Canada. But then, December hits. REINDEER - EVERYWHERE! Suddenly I'm surrounded by these dreamy animals. I'm not at all opposed to the cheesy ornaments that result from the fame of Comet and Dancer.
So this is indeed my favorite holiday, Winter Solstice. I hope to stick around and do some special posts for my Vox neighbors to make up for my absence.
Okay, everyone. I want to use this time to first thank ALL of you for giving me such great advice on what my thesis should be. Each one of you would be surprised at how much of an influence you've had on my future career!
It took a great deal of thought and some mistakes along the way, but here is my thesis:
The Spatial Ecology of Non-Aquatic Mammals in Corridors Between Lakes.
Okay, here it is in English - I am going to find two lakes in Western Massachusetts and study the corridor that connects them, and how native mammals use that connecting space.
** I should add this thought: I had planned on studying several different species. However, my advisor said that there is no way - my sample sizes will be too low. (It can take months to tag just ten or so wild animals, depending on the species, and that does not lend itself well to statistical tests).So I may have to choose just one mammal. Which one will it be? Foxes, river otters, blue herons? It may be a tough choice!
When I told my advisor, he was thrilled. Corridors are a really hot topic these days. The idea is that, while we may have intact ecosystems, what may be even more important is the corridors that connect the two ecosystems. Anyway, more details later - I'm just getting started!
Any thoughts?
My, I do believe we have some serendipity going here. Both GB and Pax this week have posted about the oceans. I shall complete the trilogy and do a mini-post about coral reefs, because they are facinating animals.
Yes, that's right. I said animals. The coral reefs are not animals, but the corals themselves are.
Coral polyps are cnidarians - they are related to anemones and jellyfish! The word cnidaria comes from the Greek word cnidos, which means stinging nettle for the little stingers these guys have.
Corals live in great colonies in warm, shallow waters, like those near Hawaii and Florida. They are found 30 degrees north and south of the equator. The little guys live as "individuals", but they are genetically identical and depend on their colony. When corals die, they leave behind a skeleton of calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate skeleton builds upon itself to form a colossal structure called a coral reef.
Coral reefs are one of the most important supporting areas of biodiversity on Earth. Coral reefs support more animals than any rainforest. Over 1 million marine animals use coral reefs, including 4,000 fish species. Native peoples also depend on the fishing that the reef supports. Coral reefs are very efficient; they use a process called nutrient cycling; this means that they live in nutrient-poor waters but they "recycle" the nutrients in a way that provides all the coral-dependent animals with nourishment using very few resources.
Of course, you know what I'm going to say next, right? Yes, we're killing them. Coral reefs are being "bleached", which means they are dying. There are an incredible number of coral reef stressors. But for right now, I will focus on three major problems that all of us can begin to solve!
Global Warming: as the oceans get warmer, toxins accumulate in the tissues of the corals, killing them.
CO2 Pollution: CO2 lowers the Ph of the oceans, causing ocean waters to become more acidic. This causes the coral's calcium carbonate to dissolve.
Pet Stores: To obtain the pretty exotic fish that are sold in pet stores, fishermen practice a lovely method called "cyanide fishing".
They dive down to the coral reefs and spray cyanide among the corals, flushing out the tropical fish to be sold in pet stores. This is obviously terrible for any living marine animal, and hardly surprising, it kills most of the corals and the life around them. Incidentally, if you must have exotic pets, some animal shelters and online places have "homeless" fish and other animals who have been given up by their owners. This is the only good place to buy an exotic pet!!
Ah, but now, a reason for hope. Governments in these areas are just realizing that the fishing industry, as well as eco-tourism depends on these coral reefs and the life they support. Thus they may be granted protection in the future.
But will it be in time? It is estimated that 10 percent of all corals species are extinct, and a whopping 80 percent are endangered. Will they survive? That's up to us. Here's what we can do:
1. Reduce global warming. C'mon, folks! I know we can do it.
2. Don't support the live pet store industry.
3. Protect the oceans!
