Urban Wildlife in the News

The subject of urban wildlife has always been near and dear to my heart because of my own experiences with various birds, mammals, herps, and invertebrates in the various cities where I have lived. I am delighted that more focus is being directed to our wild neighbors lately, as evidenced by a couple of articles brought to my attention recently by friends on Facebook.

Dr. Douglas Tallamy, a professor at the University of Delaware, made ”A Call For Backyard Biodiversity” in a recent issue of American Forests. The article is a condensed version of Tallamy’s brilliant book, Bringing Nature Home, where he makes the case for landscaping with native plants. He then articulates a strategy for creating wildlife corridors by linking backyard habitats.

Another recent article in the New York Times highlights the surprising diversity of mammals and birds to be found in both urban areas and natural forests. The surprising subject of this study is the Fisher, a large mammal in the weasel family that had for decades been on the decline due to excessive trapping and conversion of its habitat to agriculture and subdivisions. A secretive predator, it is apparently now adapting to human presence and reclaiming some of its historical distribution patterns.

All this causes me to reminisce about the days when I was part of a volunteer team at the Audubon Society of Portland (Oregon) that worked together to publish a quarterly magazine called The Urban Naturalist. I joined the effort in about 1984 at the invitation of the editor, Mike Houck. Mike was already a friend and mentor, so I welcomed the chance to contribute to what became an award-winning journal. I wrote and illustrated articles on insects, and occasionally short pieces on a specific park or greenspace.

The Urban Naturalist frequently had themes for a particular issue, so I wasn’t always able to get a story in, but I always felt respected and welcomed at editorial meetings. Eventually the “staff” all went our separate ways and the publication ceased to exist. It was not soon to be forgotten, though.

In the late 1990s, the Oregon Historical Society approached us with the idea of compiling some of our best essays in a book. Wild in the City: A Guide to Portland’s Natural Areas was published in 2000. I was honored to have several of my stories included, and also some new illustrations to complement articles authored by other people.

At some point I will be sharing some of those old stories in this blog and my “Bug Eric” blog. I also hope to make available species lists for insects and arachnids I have observed and collected in Portland, Cincinnati, and Tucson. I encourage my readers to do the same. Your observations over time can be of great significance. The National Phenology Network can certainly make good use of them.

Men, Women, and Breasts

The other night I received a call from a breast cancer awareness organization asking for a monetary donation. I did not comply, though I have donated to this cause in the past and will certainly do so again when I feel I have a more sound footing as far as my personal finances go. It got me thinking, though, that I don’t see many, if any, appeals by breast cancer foundations directed toward men.

Let’s face it: Men like breasts. Men like women. Men have money they too often spend more freely on lingerie, pornography, and other indulgences of a sexual nature that don’t benefit their female partners, let alone women in general. We really are idiots in this regard. We need to take responsibility for our carnal desires in many ways, but supporting women’s health should be at the top of the priority list.

I think there are several ways to go about achieving this goal.

• Create a Valentine’s Day fundraising campaign whereby men can donate various amounts in the name of loved one’s to breast cancer research, prevention, and treatment.
• Every Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show from here on in will have the models sporting pink ribbons (….somewhere) with a hotline number at the bottom of the television screen that ogling men can call to pledge a donation for breast health education and cancer research and treatment.
• Implement a “Pornography Tax” on all forms of porn, plus sex toys and the like, the proceeds of which will go to a variety of causes, including research and treatment of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, sexually-transmitted diseases, and the prevention of sexual violence, prostitution, sex-trafficking, and other intolerable conditions affecting women.
• The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue will now include all models wearing pink ribbons (….somewhere), plus heavy public service advertising for breast cancer awareness.
• Playboy gets some balls (sorry) and puts a pink ribbon around the neck of its bunny logo. It also devotes more ad space to breast cancer awareness and sexual responsibility in general. This should be a relatively easy sell since there are women in positions of power at Playboy Enterprises.
• Require Clear Channel and other billboard advertising corporations to provide one month of free public service advertising to breast cancer awareness and/or women’s health issues in general.

Come on, guys, you probably have even more ideas for fundraising and education. We all have mothers, lovers, wives, sisters, and other women in our lives. What better way to honor them than to support causes that can improve the lives of women everywhere?

NOTE: Image courtesy of ”BingeAndPurge”. Thank you.

The Downside of "Citizen Science"

I realize that what I am about to write will probably offend even some of my most loyal followers, but it needs to be said. Natural history museums, zoos, nature centers, parks, and other public and private institutions have come to rely too heavily on volunteers to accomplish their missions, especially in management of specimen collections.

Case in point: Today one of my Facebook friends posted this recruiting announcement. I was all excited until I saw it was for volunteers. Do you really want non-professionals handling specimens? The time and expense to properly train them really outweighs hiring a professional? You can’t contract for this kind of work?

Those institutions that do offer paying opportunities sometimes have unrealistic expectations, desiring PhD- or Masters-level candidates when a Bachelor’s degree, or even experience in lieu of a degree, would be more than enough to execute the requirements of the position. Increasingly, work in collections management in particular has become grant-dependent, for a limited amount of time, and still heavily reliant on volunteers being managed by the person hired for the project. This only serves to set up a destructive cycle of neglect of collections followed by salvaging of specimens years later, followed by another period of neglect and so on.

I freely admit that I take all of this as a personal insult to my previous professional experience and current abilities to work in a museum setting and advance the goals of whatever department I’m working in. I don’t think I am necessarily “better” than any other person in this field, but I certainly have better qualifications than a volunteer or docent off the street. Museums deserve better than that as well. I don’t need to make a fortune, either, but I need to be able to pay the rent, afford health care if I need it, pay for my own continuing education, and save for increasingly frequent stretches of unemployment when I don’t have any income.

That leads to another point I believe is not being considered: The failure of investments that retirees were counting on for income has left them looking for paying work as well. The volunteer pool will be steadily shrinking in coming decades. Better to address this now, and reward good work with a paycheck instead of just a pat on the back or a plaque.

The continuing devaluation of professional personnel in the natural sciences, from museum collections to field work and public education must cease. We owe it to current generations, as well as future generations, to deliver the high quality services that only experienced professionals can provide. Could it be that the trend toward “anti-scientifism” is one result of such a heavy reliance on non-scientists to do scientific work and deliver science education? I’m just sayin’.

Risk

Living on Earth is a risky business. The planet is full of natural hazards, and manmade hazards pose even more threats to life and limb. Unfortunately, American culture seems to approach the concept of risk without one wit of rationality. The results include a ridiculously litigious society, proliferation of gambling establishments, and increasingly poor management of parks. We desperately need a re-assessment of what defines risk, liability, and responsibility.

It may help to categorize different types of risks. I have taken the liberty of making up my own categories simply to illustrate important points about each type. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Stupid Risk. These are risks that each individual has a choice in making, and most are what one could call “recreational” in nature. Examples might include extreme sports, gambling (from casino games to bingo to the state lottery), and investment in the stock market. Astonishingly, American culture glorifies this type of behavior. We even televise the “Winter X Games” and Jackass. States not only participate in multi-state lottery games, but actively advertise them. At least some advertisements for investment firms include disclaimers when it comes to their guarantees of success.
• Imposed Risk. This is the kind of risk that I find most offensive. It encompasses mostly corporate activity whereby the risks are largely borne by the people least likely to be able to comprehend and fight them. It also imposes risks to the environment. Mining and hazardous waste disposal are two obvious examples of this kind of risk. Factory farming may be another. Some might consider genetically modified organisms (especially food crops) to be in this category. Wendell Berry has consistently made eloquent arguments for why we should be intolerant to such practices, citing in his many essays the problem of “absentee ownership” of land by corporations. The impact of a coal mine, for example, is felt at the site, by the rural population that lives there, not by the corporate executives in far-off urban locales.
• Insurable Risk. These are the risks with which we are perhaps most familiar, at least at a personal level. It applies to life, health, property, and vehicles, as well as to potential disasters such as fire, theft, and flooding. Ok, maybe not flooding these days. We can get “coverage” to be able to recoup our losses in the event of some kind of traumatic event. It mostly applies to material goods you will notice, and you might not be able to get insurance for your own health should you have a “pre-existing condition.” Such cases are usually beyond one’s control, determined generations prior through genes. Wonderful.
• Legal Risk. This kind of risk is largely defined by the question “Can I be sued for that?” We are collectively intolerant of the most improbable of potential accidents; and conversely eager to file a lawsuit over event outcomes for which we abdicate our own responsibility. We apparently agree that “stupid risks” are completely acceptable, even to be encouraged, whereas “legal risks” are totally unacceptable and must be prevented from occurring at all costs, literally and figuratively.

Our entire society appears to be liability-driven these days. I see the effects of this in the changing landscape of our urban parks. Here in Tucson, Arizona, we frequently use agave plants in landscaping along roadsides, on college campuses, and other public areas. These succulents are also known as “century plants” because they bloom so infrequently. When they do, they send up a very tall, dense flower spike crowned with glorious golden blossoms that make the long wait for the floral fireworks worthwhile. The bigger the plant, the taller and more spectacular the central spike. Unfortunately, the taller the spike, the more potentially top-heavy it can be. Guess what. At the first hint of instability, the landscapers hack down the spike. Frequently they uproot the entire plant. This is happening in an increasingly pre-emptive fashion whereby the plant doesn’t even get the chance to bloom beyond green buds.

When I lived in Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1990s, I found the same approach to dead standing timber. God forbid that one of these boles might topple over onto a hiker, or, worse yet, somebody’s vehicle. Too bad that cutting down the potential Tree Trunk of Doom renders homeless cavity-nesting birds, countless insects, mushrooms and other fungi, mosses, and other organisms essential to forest ecosystem health. How about filling in the *$#@! Groundhog holes instead?

The warning sign pictured at the top of this post is in the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area just north of Tucson where mountain lions are seen with some degree of regularity. The increasing pressure of urban development from the south met the devastation of the Aspen fire from the north back in 2003. There was suddenly nowhere for far-ranging mountain lions to go, and three cats were frequenting Sabino Canyon a year later (see this link for more). Last time I checked, nobody was forced to go hiking, jogging, running, or site-seeing in Sabino Canyon, yet the improbable risk of a mountain lion attack was deemed unacceptable. The first suggested course of action was to kill the cats. This was met with such hostility that Arizona Game & Fish officials had to quickly retract the plan. The Recreation Area was subsequently closed for a brief time and at least one cat was captured and turned over to a wildlife rehabilitation center near Phoenix.

We must ask ourselves what is truly unacceptable risk, and learn to start tolerating random acts of nature that are beyond our control. Don’t venture out if it isn’t worth the risk to you, but don’t punish the rest of us. I’ll happily sign a waiver for the chance to brave prowling pumas at Sabino Canyon.

Gun Control

The commentary on the shooting spree in Tucson earlier this month has naturally led to a debate about stricter gun control. My personal opinion is that I am far more afraid of some members of my own species than I am any of the venomous, predatory creatures I may encounter on a hike in an Arizona canyon, or on an African safari. That is not even counting weaponry that makes the exercise of lethal force even more possible for Homo sapiens. I think we need to remember that we are animals ourselves, but that we also have the capacity for foresight, personal responsibility, self-control, and honest communication.

I don’t see the abolishment of personal firearms coming any time soon, but I am also not understanding why people are so up in arms about the Second Amendment at this point in our nation’s history. We already have well-armed militias, they just happen to be mostly racist survivalists. Don’t you feel safer now?

Why do we feel the need to obtain a gun on a moment’s notice? We want a waiting period before a woman undergoes an abortion, but you should be able to get a gun instantaneously? Forgive me, but this is the scenario I see playing out too often:

Gun Shop Owner: “Ok, I see from the background check you haven’t committed any crimes…”
Customer (to himself): “No, this will be my first offense.”

We cannot assume that lack of a prior crime means the person is not preparing to commit one, be it suicide, homicide, or some other act of violence. Purchasing a weapon can be a highly impulsive action, and it should not be accommodated so readily when the consequences could literally be so grave.

Psychiatric evaluation should be mandatory for anyone wanting to purchase a firearm. The more time allowed for intervention, anger management, and prescribed medication, the better. Stress, real or imagined, is arguably at an all-time high, and the answer is not putting guns in the hands of the angry and frustrated.

But if everyone was able to defend themselves (with a gun), then crimes like the Tucson shooting would not take such a heavy toll. Someone would have shot the bad guy already. Sure, but a citizen “hero” could just as easily kill another innocent bystander. We have a trained constabulary to kill innocent Black people….I mean….apprehend criminals. Sorry, I spent eleven years in Cincinnati….

Further, the overwhelming impression I get from gun advocates is that they want guns to allow them to protect the rest of their “stuff.” You won’t hear that argument from the gun lobby, though, because it sounds too selfish. Well, we are selfish, for crying out loud. Every animal is selfish, we just go to great lengths to disguise our selfishness. This dishonesty, I believe, is at the root of most social issues in the world today. We want our way, but can’t bring ourselves to say so in the most honest, straightforward manner.

Do you remember the Y2K scare? It was going to be a manmade disaster with all the computers crashing and causing total chaos. Even some people I truly admire were talking about stocking up and arming themselves “just in case.” Why? We don’t react that way to a natural disaster like a tornado, hurricane, or earthquake. Heck, we put down our guns, and pick up shovels and sandbags instead. What is the difference? You lose “stuff” in any kind of catastrophe!

The bottom line as I see it is that we need mostly to admit our selfishness. I want fewer guns because I’m sick of good people getting murdered and maimed, and I really don’t see an upside to more weapons. I am also seeing less merit in the accumulation of material wealth all the time. We need to share more, possess less. Above all we need to re-establish trust in one another. Where do you stand? Please comment. The only thing I ask is that you be honest.

It Really is a Jungle in There

Note: I originally wrote this piece for the newsletter that goes to our volunteers in the Butterfly Magic exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.

I tend to think of the tropical greenhouse at the Tucson Botanical Gardens as home to the tropical plants and butterflies we propagate and import here, but something happened a few weeks ago to remind me again that we don’t always determine what lives and grows inside that hothouse.

I noticed a butterfly sitting awkwardly on that artificial tree in the center of the room. At first I thought it was a female Postman longwing laying eggs. There was what appeared to be a cluster of pale objects beneath her. On closer inspection it became clear that a little jumping spider had caught the colorful butterfly. I had figured that given their size, jumping spiders (family Salticidae) were rather benign predators in the greenhouse, and were providing mobile pest control services by nabbing flies, small cockroaches, and other nuisance bugs. I should have known better.

Jumping spiders have perhaps the keenest vision of all land invertebrates, and strength to match. I have seen them literally tackle flies that were larger than they were. Jumpers hunt “on foot” instead of spinning webs, actively stalking potential prey then pouncing. That jumper with the butterfly would be about equal to you hanging by your heels while holding a sofa.

Jumping spiders are not the only uninvited guests in our butterfly exhibit. I have seen these other organisms as well:

• Acrobat Ants, genus Crematogaster
• American Cockroach, Periplaneta Americana (boo!)
• Cockroach Egg Parasitoid Wasp, Evania appendigaster (yay!)
• Greenhouse Millipede, Oxidus gracilis
• Marbled Cellar Spider, Holocnemus pluchei
• Cobweb weaver spider, Theridion sp. (“sp.” means “species” when the species is unknown)
• Feather-legged spider, Uloborus diversus (or a close kin, top picture above)
• Woodlouse, Armadillidium vulgare (aka “Roly-poly” or “Pillbug”)
• Yellow Fever Mosquito, Aedes aegypti (for an authentic jungle experience!)
• Tropical House Cricket, Gryllodes sigillatus (pictured below)
• Long-tailed Mealybug, Pseudococcus longispinus (most likely species anyway)
• Pomace Fly, Drosophila melanogaster (aka “Laboratory Fruit Fly”)
• Brown Garden Snail, Cornu aspersum
• Webspinner, Oligotoma nigra

There are some creatures we still haven’t seen, but that we know inhabit the place. Take for example the “mystery creature” that for awhile was taking bites out of the giant hibiscus buds just prior to their blooming. Now it would appear the little rascal has switched to lapping up the honey water out of the butterfly feeders (and leaving its poop behind. How thoughtful).

All of this illustrates several principles we should take home with us: We can’t control or even “manage” nature, much as we would like to think we can. All creatures have their place, and while we might not like all of them we need to acknowledge their presence and accept their role as predator, herbivore, or decomposer. Life is abundant and diverse, and the more we practice patience, and hone our powers of observation, the more of it we can see.

What's your sign (now)?

Ironically, I learned of the new zodiac sign (Ophiuchus) on my birthday last week. Suddenly, I was no longer a Capricorn, but a Sagittarius. It was pretty much the icing on the cake of an awful day. Subsequently, it was interesting to follow the threads of conversation on the “status posts” of my Facebook friends concerning this new bit of trivial information.

Some people are very indignant, or even downright angry, at the change in the zodiac calendar. Others wonder aloud what all the fuss is about, communicating their opinion in a rather condescending manner that suggests anyone who follows astrology is beneath them. I strongly suspect most of the people I know fall squarely in the middle: astrology is a pleasant and occasional diversion not to be taken too seriously, but that helps remind one to take stock of their life now and then.

Belief in astrology is almost beside the point as I see it. The zodiac is, or was, like death and taxes: something predictable and common to all people. It is part of our social fabric, dependable even in its frivolity. It can stimulate a conversation, much like “What weather we’re having!” or “How ‘bout them (insert sports team here)?” The zodiac calendar has boundaries, rules, and suddenly all of that has been thrown out of whack.

I will readily admit reading my horoscope, usually when I blunder into it while reading a newspaper like our local alternative paper, the Tucson Weekly. I find the “Free Will Astrology” column by Rob Brezsny to be entertaining but also thought-provoking on a personal level. I may rarely take any action recommended in his horoscopes, but I feel at least a little more self-aware and introspective as a result of reading them.

Interestingly, Brezsny calls the recent announcement of the new sign a “scam” that resurfaces almost annually based on the assumption that astrology is associated with the constantly changing positions of stars in distant constellations. Not so, says Brezsny, who points out that (here on planet Earth, at least) astrology revolves around the position of the sun and planets in our own solar system. The zodiac signs were named for constellations, but are no longer tied to them.

It is probably only human nature to cling to things we feel are constant because so much of the world around us changes continually, ever faster. We seek philosophies, religions, and other institutions to ground us in these times of uncertainty. I generally find my horoscope neither positive nor negative, but empowering. It reminds me I always have the opportunity to change, to adapt, to ground myself in….myself.