Category Archives: Uncategorized

04/5/11

Vanishing Bees

If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.
—Albert Einstein*

Courtesy of Maine Department of Agriculture

Did you know that honey bees are vanishing worldwide? Like frogs, they are being decimated by disease. While frogs are dying because of a fungus, bees are dying from a fungus combined with a virus.

Bees are responsible for pollinating 90 percent of the world’s commercial plants, from fruits and vegetables to coffee and cotton. Over the past few years, more than one in three honey bee colonies has died nationwide, posing a serious risk to our natural food supply in a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). When a hive experiences CCD, the honey bees desert their hive and die. CCD symptoms have been recorded in over 35 states across the U.S. and in many other countries worldwide.

Why are Bees so Vulnerable to Disease?

Some of the possible causes for weakening the bees’ immune systems, include pesticides, inbreeding, monoculture (planting one crop only), and the possible effects of genetically-modified crops.

To learn more about this problem, you might want to check out a new documentary called Vanishing of the Bees that is coming out this month, narrated by actor Ellen Page. The film is being screened in selected towns and cities nationwide.  Here is a link to Bill Maher’s recent interview with Ellen Page.

And to help the bees, you might want to consider planting bee-friendly flowers or putting a bee house in your garden, and limiting your use of pesticides and herbicides. Buy organic honey from local bee keepers, or even consider becoming a beekeeper yourself. Please see the Honey Bee Conservancy for more ideas about how you can help bees.

The parallel between the plight of the frogs and the plight of the bees has an eerie similarity, although the specific issues involved are quite different. While scientists might have some clues about what is killing the bees and frogs, the underlying cause for why they are so are vulnerable to disease is still unknown. As one commenter on a NY Times blog wrote,“People should be aware of how fragile are the links in the eco-system, how interdependent all life is, and how simple, small things can quickly create major threats to all we take for granted.”

*As quoted by Bill Maher in his interview with Ellen Page

03/23/11

Spring to Life: From Tadpole to Frog

It’s finally Spring, and in our part of the world, we’re ecstatic. We’ve had a rough winter—we had snow and ice on our city streets every day for about 40 days in a row! The crocuses are blooming in my backyard, and outside the city, frogs are springing to life.

In a way, Spring is a good time to think about our “inner amphibian.” After all, mammals are descended from animals that moved from aquatic environments onto the land over three million years ago. As embryos, our heads in the early stages of development look remarkably similar to shark embryos—with gill arches and all. The metamorphosis of frogs is a process that’s not all that different from what all vertebrates go through, but the difference is that most of the development of birds, reptiles, and mammals—such as the growth of the lungs and limbs—takes place inside an egg or inside the mother instead.*

FROM EGG TO TADPOLE

A female frog first lays eggs underwater, sometimes hundreds of eggs, which form into a jelly-like clump called frogspawn, which floats on the water. Most of these eggs become food for other pond life, but some survive.

Tadpoles developing in eggs. © Dan L. Perlman/EcoLibrary.org

The tiny animal inside the egg grows for about a month, then hatches out of the egg. It looks like a small black fish and breathes underwater with feathery gills on each side of its head.

The tadpole’s tail begins to grow; it wiggles its tail to swim. Tadpoles are also called polliwogs. (The word “polliwog” is from Middle English polwygle. Pol means “head” and wiglen means to “to wiggle”). The tadpole eats algae and other plants that grow underwater.

Tadpole. Photo from Wikipedia.

FROM TADPOLE TO FROGLET

After several weeks, tadpoles begin their metamorphosis. Two tiny bumps appear near the tadpole’s tail—these will grow into back legs.

Two more bumps appear near the frog’s head—these will grow into front legs. Lungs begin to grow inside the tadpole’s body and the feathery gills disappear so that the tadpole will be able to breathe air.

The tadpole now has legs for hopping and walking, lungs for breathing air, but its long tail is awkward on land. Until the tail shrinks and is absorbed into its body, the froglet stays in or near the water.

Froglet with tail. Photo courtesy of www.scienceprojectlab.com

FROGLET TO FROG

When the tail is gone, the frog has completed its metamorphosis. The young frog will now feed on small insects, caught with their long, sticky tongues. It will eventually move away from the pond and find a safe place to grow.

This Spring, take some time to visit a nearby pond or swamp and see this process yourself. And check out the poster below that Susan designed for Earth Day, inspired by a photo by FROGS ARE GREEN photographer friend Joe Furman. All proceeds go to help our amphibian friends.

*I found this idea in Thomas Marent’s lovely and informative book, FROG.

03/9/11

Love Underground: The Shovel-Nosed Chamber Frog

We never stop being amazed by how amphibians are able to survive in the harshest environments. The Shovel-Nosed Chamber frog (Leptodactylus bufonius), for example, lives in the dry subtropical or tropical shrublands or grasslands of Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil, in areas that have only intermittent freshwater lakes, marshes, and ponds. But this frog has evolved many incredible adaptations for overcoming the challenges of living in these mostly dry conditions.

Going Underground

Unlike most frogs, Shovel-Nosed frogs don’t have ponds or other aquatic areas in which to lay their eggs. They have only the muddy remains of ponds that have dried up. So with their shovel-like noses, they dig a chamber in the mud and then top it with a mud cone. Because no water can penetrate these chambers, the frogs produce a foam nest from the female’s albumin secretions to keep the tadpoles moist. But there is no food in the nest—scientists believe the tadpoles metabolize their own issues for food. Then the frogs wait for a big rainstorm that will wash away the burrow and create a predator-free pond (like a vernal pool) for the tadpoles to grow in. But the story isn’t quite over. After the Shovel-Nosed frogs vacate their burrow, a local toad reuses it as a hiding place.

Take a look at this amazing video of the Shovel-Nosed frog by FROGS ARE GREEN friend Joe Furman. We especially like the frogs’ little mating wiggle!

About the filmmaker:

Joe Furman lives in Houston Texas. He is a lifelong animal photographer and makes wildlife documentaries, mostly about reptiles and amphibians. He is also an artist and cartoonist and father of one.

Like most kids, Joe was attracted to frogs and toads and caught and kept them as pets for awhile, but then would release them back into the wild. He had, and still has, a neverending curiosity about tadpoles and the life cycle of frogs. In his twenties he got the chance to go to Costa Rica to look for the Golden Toads. This event set the course of his life ever since. He has traveled around the world with different organizations to study, film, and photograph reptiles and amphibians, and other wildlife. The kid has never left him. He still love frogs!
03/3/11

Celebrating Spring Peepers! Tiny Frogs with a Mighty Voice

Now that it’s March, it’s almost time for the peepers to usher in spring!

Renowned science writer Carl Safina describes spring peepers so beautifully in his new book The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World. I enjoy reading anything by Safina, who usually writes about the ocean, sea animals, or birds. He’s won many awards for his work, including the MacArthur “genius award.” Safina’s writing reminds me of Rachel Carson’s—very lyrical, yet not sentimental. In this book, he writes mainly about a year he spent in a cabin on Long Island. In the chapter, “March: Out Like a Lamb, ” he writes this about spring peepers:

I open a window to let in the season’s lushest, most delicious sound. It’s from tiny tree frogs that come to water to go a-courting—Spring Peepers. So far, these little amphibians remain abundant. And for as long as they’ve been, and as long as they are, their singing makes the difference between the night of winter and the breath of spring…

Hearing them is easy. Seeing them takes some effort. But even after I step into the shallows as deep as my boots allow, even though I hear calls coming from the half-submerged vegetation right around me—well within the halo of my flashlight—they’re all but invisible. They’re smaller than the tip of your thumb, colored like dead leaves. The majority of my neighbors—even many who were raised here— have never seen one. Many people assume the callers are crickets. But the sound and the season are so different, one might logically assume the moon is just the sun at night.

Safina goes on to describe how as a teenager he taught himself how to find spring peepers by following the sound into the woods at night, but they were very elusive. He finally found one and

…when that tiny movement caught my eye, I saw the littlest frog I’d ever seen, his bubble-gum throat puffed almost as big as his body, calling his heart out. That mighty sound from that tiny body appealed to my teenage sensibilities. His was a strong, clear voice, defiantly undaunted about being so small a soul in so big a world.

Spring peepers Safina writes are a “strong and joyous life-affirming presence” and he would

…gladly suffer a chilly bedroom just to open a window in spring when the peepers are at their peak, and let the exuberant trilling chorus resonate in my chest. “We’re alive,” they seem to say, “and time is short.” No sound in our region is so welcome and welcoming, so revivifying, as peepers in full spring chorus. Or so seemingly unlikely. Out of dust, God is said to have made one man. But here, out of mud, such song!

To celebrate peepers and spring, Susan created a poster for Earth Day 2011, with a wonderful photograph by Richard D. Bartlett. Enjoy!

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.