Wild Secrets III – PARKING LOT CALLING CARD

[Image: Coyote, Canis latrans, in a tree snag. Source: Professor Zembal.]

“Traversing the Admin Parking Lot to the office yesterday morning, I came upon a mammalian marker in a warm, fresh heap just shy of the sidewalk. Bio-detective at work: who left it; when; and why there? Many larger native mammals are territorial, particularly the carnivores. There’s only so much local food and the more abundant and intimidating the sign left by clan members, the less likely an intruder will linger to consume resources claimed by the local pack. Bits of bone and fur in the droppings told of a rabbit that had lost its final race, likely corralled against the building or a fence. Size and the presence of pomegranate seeds meant the marker was left by a coyote, not a cat; like people, native dogs are omnivorous. The pile was left on the pavement less than an hour before found, possibly in response to human disturbance, an early employee, Andre?

Native dog visitation to the OCWD campus is common. There is a bit of local food, water, and cover here. There’s also a canid highway between the mountains and ocean right next door, our river system. In those few wee hours when vehicular travel is light, the road/sidewalk network draws the urban animals of the night. The smaller, local animals tend to habituate to a smaller area; the coyotes may run miles one-way in a single night and a road is often the most direct route. Coyotes are common in Orange County’s remaining open spaces and increasingly in the adjoining neighborhoods. Long-eared and legged, sharp faced, bushy tailed, and rangy, they are readily distinguished from domestic dogs, closest in build to a German shepherd. Typical coat colors are ashy brown above with grey to black flecks and lighter underneath, even white particularly around the muzzle. The typical OC animal looks scrawny, 40 pounds or less but unusually large individuals can exceed 70 pounds. Our only other local native dog, the Grey Fox is much smaller, less often seen, and not as well adapted to life amongst humans.

Coyotes play a critical ecological role by keeping balance in the food web. Today, they are the native top carnivore in the remaining wilds of OC. They regulate and control the numbers of smaller predators by influence of their abundance, behavior, and selective consumption. Isolated patches of open space can lose coyote visitation and smaller predator populations therein explode, a phenomenon known as mesopredator release. Even very large patches of several hundred acres are vulnerable to this if not connected by viable wildlife corridors to thousands of open space acres. Coyotes exert critical control over the number of bobcats, raccoons, foxes, skunks, opossums, and feral cats. In patches of habitat isolated by housing these smaller predators abound, eat everything living in the patch, invade the neighborhood, and eventually decline in the patch as food becomes scarce; then follows the invasion of the patch by non-natives from the houses and their landscape, house mice, rats, ivy and the like.

The most common encounter with a coyote involves the animal sitting silently, unseen, watching you pass by; closer encounters usually result in the animal trotting off quickly out of sight. I saw them people-spying many times, firsthand while following radio-collared coyotes around OC in the 1990s. Unfortunately, today many more close encounters are reported, some involving aggressive animals. That is really not too difficult to understand, they are opportunistic dogs. If presented with an easy meal, they will take advantage and stick around until the food source is depleted.

Coyotes are native dogs; trainable like the domestic version, they can be taught by us to associate people with easy food, leading to problems. We need coyotes for the important role they play in the natural world. If you are fortunate enough to live near or to spend time in our remaining natural lands, help protect our wild dogs and us by reinforcing their innate wariness toward people. Only you can prevent more escapades from yet another ‘bad dog’.” – Professor Zembal

[ Image above: Coyote, Canis latrans, in a wetland habitat. Source: Professor Zembal.]

 

Thank you to Professor Zembal for the awesome photos!

Wild Secrets – The Western Grebe

[Image: Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis). Credit: Professor Zembal]

“Countless wild creatures thrive in the habitat that grows along the channels and basins OCWD maintains to convey water to the people we serve. One of those creatures is a bird, the Western Grebe that eats fish and attempts to nest in remote OCWD basin nooks. These birds are black and white with a 2-foot wingspan and a croaky trumpeting call that echoes across the Santiago Basins in spring; for me that call is the sound of the wild in the OC. (Our lowland version of the cry of the Loon on a Sierra Lake.) Mated pairs perform a “Rushing Ceremony” that you can watch on U-Tube, with arched necks they run on the water side-by-side, then dive, and mate. They attempt to nest in partly submerged tree limbs along an inlet that passes water from the basin to Santiago Creek during high water conditions. Those conditions generally don’t last long enough and nests fail. OCWD staffs go to great lengths to effectively manage wildlife in permit compliance but occasionally just to accommodate such a beautiful, charismatic species. Staffs have designed and planted little nesting islands that have been used successfully but it’s a work in progress. A new design will soon be deployed; cross your fingers.”

-Professor Zembal 10-11-19.

 

The Confusion Around Plastics

[Image: Flexible Packaging. Source: NPR]

NPR published an interactive guide on what plastic is recyclable, what is trash, and why it is that way. With the amount of confusion on what to do with plastics that you can’t escape, and recycling centers having a major issue with what to do with their recyclables, more information is needed to help everyone make the best choices they can.

“This interactive explores some of the plastics the recycling system was designed to handle and explains why other plastic packaging shouldn’t go in your recycling bin.”

NPR : Plastics- What’s Recyclable, What’s Trash, and Why

Los Angeles Times: As California Recycling Centers Close, Reformers Target Plastics

 

Plant Centered Meals For the Climate

[Image: Cattle farming, shown here in northern Brazil, is emission-intensive and often accompanies large-scale deforestation.Credit: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty. Source: Nature.]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently published a report on climate change and land usage. More than 100 experts from 52 countries worked together for the special report, with topics covering desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and green house gas fluxes on terrestrial ecosystems.

The special report offers information for people to review,  and has a focus on wealthier countries understanding the benefits of reducing their meat consumption for both humans and the climate. Click the links below to learn more.

“The report states with high confidence that balanced diets featuring plant-based and sustainably produced animal-sourced food “present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health”.

By 2050, dietary changes could free up several million square kilometers of land, and reduce global CO₂ emissions by up to eight billion tonnes per year, relative to business as usual, the scientists estimate.” – Nature

 

Nature : UN climate-change report calls for change to human diet

IPCC Press Release: Land is a Critical Resource

The Curiosity of Cuttlefish

[ Above image: Cuttlefish are masters of quick-change camouflage, thanks to skin cells that act as colored pixels. Credit: Pasquale Vassallo/Getty. Nature journal.]

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, developed a fascinating camera based study to capture images that will identify tens of thousands of chromatophores. Chromatophores are cells that act like colored pixels that create the ability for cuttlefish to camouflage. The objective behind this study was to observe the tiny colored cells in connection with the brain and behavior.  Check out the video below to learn more!

“The cuttlefish doesn’t always conjure up an exact match for its background. It can also blanket itself in stripes, rings, mottles or other complex patterns to make itself less noticeable to predators. “On any background, especially a coral reef, it can’t look like a thousand things,” says Roger Hanlon, a cephalopod biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois. “Camouflage is about deceiving the visual system.” – Nature

 

Link: Cuttlefish wear their thoughts on their skin

 

Opportunity – Docent Training

Are you interested in volunteering at the Dana Point Headlands Conservation Area? If so, now is your chance to become involved! This is a wonderful opportunity to learn about the Dana Point Headlands, work with the public, and get experience in the field.

Fun Fact: The Dana Point Headlands is one of three places in the world where the Pacific Pocket Mouse lives. This mouse is a Federally Endangered Species with a population of around 500 left in the wild (Center for Natural Lands Management).

The gift of nature photography

[Above image: Black Tern chick, Klamath Basin, 1905. William Finely. Irene Finley. Herman Bohemian.]

Images of nature and wildlife are an important component of communication for the purpose of conservation. Although today’s cameras can easily fit in the palm of your hand, the ability to get a great image wasn’t as simple before modern technology and required a great deal of dedication and knowledge. As part of the Year of the Bird celebration, Audubon has shared century-old photographs by William and Irene Finely, a famous duo that inspired others for the preservation of bird refugees. Take a look, and if you are interested in more information, click on the link below to view the Oregon Historical Society’s digital collections.

“These vivid portraits, and his impassioned writing about key Oregon sites, helped persuade President Theodore Roosevelt to designate Three Arch Rocks, Lower Klamath, and Malheur among the first federal bird refuges in the West.” – Audubon

Link: These Century-Old Photos Inspired Some of the West’s First Bird Refuges

Link: William L. Finley Photographs 1901-1940

Recycling Isn’t Enough

[ Above image: Recycling bins. Scientific American. Credit: Dave and Les Jacobs Getty Images ]

Recycling is an important component of a lifecycle process for raw materials, however, it should not be viewed as the baseline solution to environmental and health impacts from waste.  The cause of the infestation of plastics blanketing our environment is going to require a large-scale effort of consumers rejecting single-use plastics and demanding change at the local and international level. Click on the article below to learn about the real problem of single-use plastics.

“As an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, I have had a disturbing window into the accumulating literature on the hazards of plastic pollution. Scientists have long recognized that plastics biodegrade slowly, if at all, and pose multiple threats to wildlife through entanglement and consumption. More recent reports highlight dangers posed by absorption of toxic chemicals in the water and by plastic odors that mimic some species’ natural food.

Plastics also accumulate up the food chain, and studies now show that we are likely ingesting it ourselves in seafood. If we consumers are to blame, how is it possible that we fail to react when a study reports that there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050? I would argue the simple answer is that it is hard. And the reason why it is hard has an interesting history.” –  Dr. Matt Wilkins, Scientific American

Link: More Recycling Won’t Solve Plastic Pollution

 

If you are wanting to start your journey into the world of alternatives to single-use plastics, here are some links to companies that you can support by opting in with sustainability. (Note: These recommendations are not sponsored. These are simply suggestions based on the experience of the author of this blog post).

https://wildminimalist.com/ – online store for zero waste shopping

https://packagefreeshop.com/ – online store for zero waste shopping

http://www.thezeromarket.com/ – online store for zero watste shopping

https://www.bambuhome.com/ – online store for bamboo straws, utensils, etc.

https://www.stasherbag.com/  – Reusable silicone bags

* Also, don’t forget to check out your local thrift stores to find some great glass, steel, and other reusable materials!

 

 

 

 

Upcycling Denim

This week students at Saddleback College have been donating denim to be upcycled (repurposed) into denim insulation. We have collected over 120 pairs of denim and we will be donating all of it to the Blue Jeans Go Green organization. People have asked about denim insulation instead of donating to a clothing donation center, and the response is that many of these places have too much inventory which results in sending thousands of textiles into landfills.  It is very important to provide clothing to those in need, and an additional opportunity for denim specifically is to have it broken down into its natural cotton state and turn it into fiber insulation for buildings.

Check out the video below. Have denim of your own that you would like to donate? You can send a box to Blue Jeans Go Green directly all year long, or to a local collection store near you!

Link: Blue Jeans Go Green

 

Another Danger Zone for Extinction

[ The courtship dance of a male peacock spider (Maratus speciosus). Certain species have marked differences between the male and female forms — for example, male peacock spiders are strikingly more colourful than their female counterparts. Studying fossilized aquatic creatures called ostracods, Martins et al.¹ investigated whether the degree of difference between male and female forms of a given species affects its risk of extinction. Credit: Adam Fletcher/Getty. Nature image.]

 

“There are striking differences between the male and female forms of some species. A study of marine fossils finds that such differences come at the cost of an increased risk of extinction.

…The importance of this finding for our understanding of evolution makes it of interest to more than just ostracod enthusiasts. Sexual reproduction opens the door for sexual selection, the selection of characteristics that promote successful mating. Therefore, the generation of offspring requires both survival skills and the ability to compete for opportunities to reproduce. This can drive different selection pressures for males and females, and there is a growing appreciation in evolutionary biology that sex differences have the potential to either help or hinder the persistence of entire populations or species.” – Nature Journal

 

Link: When sex differences lead to extinction