02/24/11

Gasland: The Dangers of Fracking to People and Wildlife

The Oscars are coming on Sunday, and one of the movies up for best documentary, Gasland, has a scene in which a woman goes down to her local creek and discovers that after fracking wells had been dug on her land, animals, including rabbits, birds, frogs, began dying. She is horrified and keeps the animals in her freezer as evidence, but no one takes her seriously.

What is fracking?

I hadn’t even heard of fracking until we received our annual holiday letter from a friend in Pennsylvania who spoke about how her town is being invaded—not by an army, but by the gas and oil industry. Her family has lived in the same farmhouse for generations, but now her way of life is threatened because of fracking.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a means of natural gas extraction used in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that allow natural gas to flow more freely out of the well. Fracking uses a mixture of hundreds of chemicals and millions of gallons of water per frack. This water then becomes contaminated and must be cleaned and disposed of.

Fracking is being touted as an alternative energy source that has few environmental consequences and as a means of employment for people in depressed areas. That’s all fine and good, except there are huge problems with fracking, namely that it may taint drinking water, its waste water potentially harms both people and wildlife, and it causes innumerable other problems, including possible health issues for people who live near the wells.

Here are just a few of the problems of fracking, from the Gasland site:

–For each frack, 80-300 tons of chemicals may be used. Presently, the natural gas industry does not have to disclose the chemicals used, but scientists have identified volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.

–In 2005, the Bush/ Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It exempts companies from disclosing the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing. Essentially, the provision took the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) off the job. It is now commonly referred to as the Halliburton Loophole.

–The average well is up to 8,000 feet deep. The depth of drinking water aquifers is about 1,000 feet. The problems typically stem from poor cement well casings that leak natural gas as well as fracking fluid into water wells.

The Halliburton Loophole

The filmmaker Josh Fox interviewed people all over the country, people who were desperate to get help, but couldn’t. Why couldn’t they get help? Because of the Halliburton Loophole, people are powerless because the gas and oil industry is not obligated to report which chemicals have been used in fracking. Therefore, they aren’t responsible for any possible health or environmental problems associated with fracking.

For me, the saddest interview was one with a rancher whose way of life for generations is threatened by fracking. He’s trying to raise cattle in the old-fashioned way on a small family-owned ranch, but he is worried that the water the cattle drink and the grass they eat is now tainted and he might have to leave his land.

The filmmaker visited fracking sites where the waste water had collected near the wells, a virtual petri dish of toxic chemicals, which wildlife, including, of course, frogs, could easily have access to. What surprised us was how widespread fracking has become. It isn’t just in a few places here or there, but in hundreds of places across the country.  Click here to see the areas of the U.S. where fracking is occurring.

The oil and gas industry is so powerful in this country that it actually tried to have the Academy of Arts and Sciences retract the Oscar nomination from Josh Fox. Luckily the issue is starting to get some publicity. The actor, Mark Ruffalo, for example, has taken up the anti-fracking cause.

We highly recommend seeing this film (it’s easily available; we rented it from Netflix). The film trailer from HBO is below.

02/18/11

Bye Bye Blackbirds – Poison Program of the USDA

A few weeks ago, we wrote a post about the unusual mass die-offs of animals that have been occurring since the beginning of this year. While writing this post, we had to wade through a lot of strange stories to try and get to the truth, including a few conspiracy stories about how Vladimir Putin might be involved, and so on.

So when I saw a story with the headline, Bye Bye Blackbird: USDA Acknowledges a Hand in One Mass Bird Death, I didn’t take it too seriously. Yet this story, a repost of a Christian Science Monitor article on the Truthout website, turns out to be true. Evidently the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken responsibility for the death of hundreds of starlings, found frozen on the ground and in the trees in a park in Yankton, South Dakota, in late January. A farmer contracted the government to poison the starlings, that were causing problems in a cattle feedlot, eating the feed and leaving waste on both the feed and equipment.

It turns out that the USDA has been providing this service to farmers since the 1960s, in a program called Bye Bye Blackbird, using an avicide called DCR-1339 to kill the birds. In 2009 alone, according to the Christian Science Monitor article, USDA agents have euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles. In addition to the USDA program,

…a so-called depredation order from the US Fish and Wildlife Service allows blackbirds, grackles, and starlings to be killed by anyone who says they pose health risks or cause economic damage. Though a permit is needed in some instances, the order is largely intended to cut through red tape for farmers, who often employ private contractors to kill the birds and do not need to report their bird culls to any authority.

I’m sure these birds are pests to farmers, and might pose a health risk if they gather near feedlots, but it seems like such an extreme measure to poison the birds, possibly introducing yet more toxins into the environment that might harm other local wildlife. I wasn’t able to find out much about DCR-1339, the chemical used, except that it has a “low toxicity” risk to other animals. That is has any toxicity risk at all to wildlife should concern people.

Animal Control—Without Poison

Are there other ways to protect the grain without killing the birds? I checked a Canadian pest control website, which offered lots of solutions to bird control, none of which involved poison. Here are just a few:

Netting

Netting is an excellent method of reducing bird roosting, nesting and feeding, which is not subject to bird acclimation (i.e. they can’t “get used to it”). It is economically feasible over life of netting; neighbors prefer it to other bird scaring methods.

Sound devices

Propane cannons, whistling or pyrotechnic pistols, predator mimicking sound generators can be effective for dispersing birds.

Visual scare devices

Streamers, flashtape, and scare-eye balloons are some of the devices that can be effective on some species and are cheap and relatively easy to install.

Flashing lights and mirrors

These are effective against starlings; solar powered units are available that require little maintenance besides frequent moving around.

Falconry

This is an effective control if there is sustained activity in a large area. Birds of prey are not pets and require significant investment in time and training for falconers.  If hiring a service, a long-term commitment is necessary and can be expensive.

I found it interesting that this Canadian website included the following warning:

It is illegal to use poison and adhesives to kill, injure, or capture wildlife.

The U.S. government’s Bye Bye Blackbird poison program is a relic of another, less environmentally-friendly time. We hope the government will consider other, greener ways to help farmers deal with the bird problem.

02/9/11

Frogs Help Scientists Understand Childhood Heart Disease

We recently came across a fascinating article in Nature News, “Frogs and Humans Are Kissing Cousins.” You might be surprised to learn that you have a whole lot more in common with frogs than you thought—at a genetic level, anyway. The gene order of the Western Clawed Frog (Xenopus tropicalis) shows surprising similarity to that of mammals. This frog joins a list of sequenced model organisms, including the mouse, zebrafish, nematode, and fruit fly. This amphibian’s genome closely resembles that of the mouse and the human, with large sections of frog DNA on several chromosomes having genes arranged in the same order as in that in mammals. Yet this close genomic relationship doesn’t hold true for some other vertebrates.

Because of this similarity in genome sequence, the frog can be used as a human disease model. Within conserved sequences in the Western Clawed Frog, the researchers found genes that are similar to 80% of human genes known to be associated with diseases. As quoted in the article, Frank Conlon, a geneticist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said,”It’s going to make genetic screens in Xenopus immediately more useful.”

courtesy of AnMed Health (www.anmedhealth.org)

As reported recently in an article, “Frogs Help Scientists Combat Childhood Heart Disease,” in the Yale Daily News, for example, a study by Yale cardiology researchers has found a number of genes that can be used to diagnose and treat children who have a birth defect called heterotaxy, which causes the heart to be severely malformed. Their findings, published in late January, suggest that certain genes that affect human embryonic development can cause abnormalities leading to congenital heart disease.

One percent of all newborns develop congenital heart disease, and most patients need surgery to survive. But even with a procedure, outcomes can often be poor and patients may require constant medical supervision over the years.

In children who have heterotaxy, the body cannot properly place the organs on the left or right sides, which causes problems because normal human hearts sit on the left side of our bodies. The left and right side of the heart also perform very different functions: the right side pumps blood to lungs, while the left pumps blood to the body,  so correct placement of the heart in the body is extremely important.

But this study will help scientists better understand what causes congenital heart disease and will give researchers some idea of which genes lead to better or worse outcomes. As quoted in the article, Mustafa Khohka, assistant professor of pediatrics and genetics at Yale, and a co-author of the paper, said, “We also hope to improve our understanding of the genes that affect left-right [axis] development and the mechanisms involved in determining your left side from your right side.”

Frogs make a good model for studying heterotaxy in human embryos, he explained, because the left-right axis develops the same way in both humans and frogs. By examining the number of genetic copy variations in frogs, the scientists were able to identify genes that cause left-right axis mutations. Unfortunately, the findings may not benefit children with heterotaxy for some time.

“Patients with heterotaxy defects include some of the most severely affected individuals we see,” said Dr. Anne M. Murphy, professor of pediatric cardiology at Johns Hopkins University, as quoted in the article. “While discovery of the root causes of the disorder will not immediately translate into better care, there are already emerging examples in our field where understanding the molecular pathways of disease affecting the heart could offer new therapies.”

The researchers were recently awarded a grant by the National Institutes of Health which will fund their studies for the next five years. The group plans to identify more patients with congenital heart disease and the mutations that may have caused it.

We think this study is just one more reason to kiss a frog today!

02/4/11

Frogs & Football: The Horned Frogs

At this time of the year, while frogs and toads are deep in hibernation (in our part of the world anyway), our Google alerts for frog news are full of stories about Horned Frogs, not the frog species, but rather the sports teams. Not being much of a sports fan, I always ignore these stories. But this year, we finally decided it was time to learn a little about these Horned Frogs.

It turns out that the Horned Frogs are the 18 varsity athletic teams that represent Texas Christian University. The Horned Frog mascot first appeared in 1897, and by 1915, it appeared on the TCU seal. During the post-WWII years, the Horned Frog mascot was in costume, on stationery, class rings, and the band’s bass drum. In 1979 the mascot was renamed from Addy the All-American Frog to Super Frog.

The women’s teams are known as the Lady Frogs. TCU once had a bumper sticker that said “My Princess Turned into a Frog.”

But This Horned Frog is Actually a Lizard!

It turns out, however, that the “horned frog” nickname and mascot refers to the Texas horned lizard, also known as the “horned frog.” The popular name comes from the lizard’s rounded body and blunt snout, which gives it a toad- or frog-like appearance. The Texas horned lizard, along with at least three other species of horned lizard, has the ability to squirt an stream of blood from the corners of the eyes and sometimes from its mouth for a distance of up to 5 ft (1.5 m).

Texas Horned Lizard (photo from Wikipedia)

Some Native American peoples regard horned lizards as sacred—the animal is a common motif in Native American art of the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico. The Texas horned lizard is also the state reptile of Texas.

Go Frogs!

So before the football season is officially over this Sunday, we thought we’d introduce you to one of the TCU teams, the Horned Frogs football team. It competes as a member of the Mountain West Conference, but is due to move to the Big East Conference for the 2012 season. The Frogs have won two national championships and 15 conference championships. Legendary players include Bob Lilly, Sammy Baugh, Davey O’Brien, and LaDainian Tomlinson.

The Horned Frogs won the 2011 Rose Bowl, beating Wisconsin, 21-19.

And if you’d like to learn about the real Horned Frogs (the amphibians, not the lizards), check out our 10 Weirdest and Most Unusual Frogs post, which introduces the Ornate Horned Frog. We were so entranced with this frog that Susan created a poster about it (proceeds to benefit amphibian conservation).

 
 

© 2011 Frogs Are GreenPhotograph by Richard D. Bartlett

Enjoy Super Bowl Sunday!

01/26/11

Brookstone to Discontinue Frog-O-Sphere kits

We were happy to learn that Brookstone has decided to remove the Frog-O-Sphere kit from its shelves.

In previous posts we’ve blogged about why we were against this product. Others have protested against the kits as well, most notably PETA, which organized thousands of calls and e-mails to Brooksone, as well as appearances of a giant frog outside the Brookstone headquarters to protest the kits. After 18 months of protests, Brookstone has decided to discontinue the Frog-O-Sphere kit.

Photo courtesy of PETA

Brookstone joins Magic Beans, Target, and other retailers that have stopped selling these kits, but according to PETA, Coach House Gifts is still selling frogs in “EcoAquariums.”

Why did we think these kits were so bad? Unfortunately, the promise of a true ecosystem was their selling point, but this promise was overstated. The kit was meant to more or less take care of itself, the snail eating the algae, and so on. But the snails frequently died so a key part of the “ecosystem” fell apart. As with any pet, it takes more than a simple gimmick, and usually a lot of work, to keep the pet healthy and flourishing. In many cases these frog kits were bought as decorations for offices or as spontaneous gifts for a child. Once the novelty wore off, the frogs languished. Of course, this can happen with any pet, but because the frogs were not bought in pet stores, buyers did not receive instructions on the proper care of the frogs. In addition, many frogs died on the store shelves or while being shipped across the country.

We haven’t kept frogs as pets and generally don’t recommend it. In some cases, the frogs may be collected from wild populations (not the case with African Dwarf frogs). Pet frogs, especially from these types of kits, may be “let free,” which often happens at the end of a school year for a classroom frog grown from a kit,  or when a child gets bored with it. These “free” frogs can wreak havoc on native frog populations by spreading disease.

If you purchased a Frog-O-Sphere, we highly recommend you learn about how to take care of your frog properly. We’ve included some links below. If you are experienced in the care of African dwarf frogs, please help us out by sharing tips in the comments.

Care of African Dwarf Frogs

Keeping African Clawed frogs and African Dwarf frogs

African Dwarf Frogs Housing and Feeding

Frog World: African Dwarf Frog

Book from Amazon: Your Happy Healthy Pet: Frogs and Toads