As an ornithologist, I mostly read bird books that are technical or scientific. So I had not read Laura Erickson’s 101 Ways to Help Birds. I ran into Laura at a recent conference, and she gave me a copy. I’m sorry I did not pick this book up sooner, as it is extremely well done, thorough, accurate, practical, and relevant.

I’m a huge fan of books that are well-organized and demonstrate linear thinking. This book is arranged topically in five sections, each with three to six chapters. In turn, these chapters are often broken up with sub-topics or bullet points. In short, it is very easy to find and digest the information, and this is one of the book’s most appealing features.

Although it contains the expected tips such as providing water and how to set up feeding stations, this is no cheesy list of shopworn advice. An example would be her first chapter, “In the Kitchen,” Many bird lovers know that a host of North American migrant birds winter in tropical coffee farms, so choosing shade-grown coffee helps preserve habitat for them (for those who don’t know this, she explains it clearly and well). But fewer people might connect their other eating habits with bird conservation. Her advice regarding ethical food choices offers succinct information on things that include indirect, but no less important, effects on birds such as water depletion, pesticides on animal food crops, and fishing methods that endanger water birds.

There are sections on wide-ranging topics such as managing backyard habitat, preventing disease at feeders (and the signs and symptoms of many illnesses), lawn treatments and their impacts on birds, making chimneys “swift friendly,” and birding ethics.  All the entries are detailed without being overly wordy or officious, and all are accurate and well-researched.

This means that 101 Ways to Help Birds is an excellent resource for bird lovers of all levels, whether a person simply needs to know how to handle a wild bird emergency, wishes to become more proactive helping birds around home, or is interested in volunteer work or political action. I am frequently asked questions that are covered in this book, and it will be great to have it at hand to quickly reference concise answers. I’ll also be recommending it as a great holiday gift. If more people followed even some of the advice presented here, birds — and the environment in general — would be far better off.

You can read more about the book at Laura’s web site. She is diligently compiling additional information, links, resources, and photos on all her topics, which makes this publication dynamic and increases its value. Here’s an example on the shade coffee chapter, complete with new research and some excellent links.

I had never met Laura before running into her at the meeting, and I did not spend enough time with her there to get to know her. But it is clear from this book that she has both solid knowledge and a deep passion for birds and their welfare. As she says, we all have a job to do. Pick up a copy of 101 Ways to Help Birds, roll up your sleeves, and get to work!

Sophie, the cute one.

Apparently nobody got a really bad rash last year, because today is the second annual World Naked Gardening Day. The web site has some suggestions for every type of in-the-buff horticulture enthusiast:

An elderly lady in a Manhattan apartment can plant new annuals in her
window box. Families can rake leaves in their back yard. Freehikers can
pull invasive weeds along their favorite stretch of trail. More daring
groups can make rapid clothes-free sorties into public parks to do
community-friendly stealth cleanups.

In honor of this, today I engaged in naked coffee making, naked floor sweeping, and yes, I went outside naked and pulled a weed. After all, I’m all for an event that supports pulling invasive weeds.  Jenn, are you participating?

Another very interesting paper [1] has come out on the impacts of non-native earthworms on forests, which I wrote about a year ago. As you recall, much of northern North America has no native earthworms, and microbes are primarily responsible for recycling leaf litter and thus controlling nutrient availability in northern forests. The rate of decomposition of leaf litter and nutrient cycling is crucial, because the forest floor is the physical foundation for all the native plants and trees of the forest community.

These communities evolved without earthworms.  European earthworms have been introduced into northern North America in large part through their use as fishing bait. Earthworms are detritivores, which means they eat and process this leaf litter, and have the ability to completely alter the physical, chemical, and biotic characteristics of the forest floor and upper soil horizons, notes the paper.

This study took place in Minnesota over four years, comparing vegetation in plots that had no earthworms to that in plots which had a suite of non-native earthworms.  Findings include:

• As total earthworm biomass increased, density and abundance of herbaceous plants in half the study sites decreased, and the density and abundance of tree seedlings decreased in 75% of the study sites.
• Regardless of biomass, sites with the most species of earthworms had the lowest plant diversity.
• This could be due to a synergistic relationship between certain worms. Worms of the genus Aporrectodea did not appear to consume leaf litter until it was partly processed by other species.  Then they could quickly go about removing forest floor.
• The species with the most impact was Lumbricus rubellus (often called redworms or red wigglers, and used not only as bait, but in vermicomposting). Where the biomass of L. rubellus was high, the herbaceous plant community was either absent or dominated by a common sedge and jack-in-the-pulpit.

The forest floor gets literally eaten out from under native plant communities.  Those with small seeds that can germinate on thin forest substrate (like Garlic Mustard) will have an advantage over native species with complex seed dormancy needs, and the root zones of plants that have chemical compounds that deter herbivory (such as jack-in-the-pulpit) are also sometimes avoided by worms.

In the conclusion, the authors stated:

“Although local control of invasions may be possible in some situations, the magnitude and regional scale of earthworm invasions seem to suggest that in the next few decades a majority of hardwood forest will be impacted to some degree by earthworms.”

It was mentioned that because of their disproportionate impact, introductions of L. rubellus should be prevented even in areas already infested by other species.  This is a species sold to people who use them to compost food and yard waste. These worms would eventually end up in the garden, so maybe it’s a good idea, if you live in a northern state or province, to be careful about what type of worms you have.  There is a cool key to Canadian worms at WormWatch (or you can print this one out).

A fascinating — and well-written — paper.

[1] Hale, C.M., L. E. Frelich, and P.B. Reich.  2006.  Changes in hardwood forest understory plant communities in response to European earthworm invasions.  Ecology 87:1637-1649.

Well, I haven't done this in awhile, so here is another installment in the Idiotic Google Searches series. More actual search strings that brought people to bootstrap…

• robot chicken farmers
• natural human popping sounds
• elder bug secrets
• news background scratching her crotch picture
• hairy aquarium parasites
• what kind of stuff can be found in ears after ear candling
• digiscoping for idiots
• mute chicken
• random invertebrates
• symptoms of cracked toilet commode
• hantavirus and poem
• head lice highlighter
• Howard Stern's robospanker
• finding your hair whorl
• silly radiation worker photos
• ancient dildo
• listerine native photos

And I must add a non-bootstrap search, one to my work web site.  Someone was searching for information on the introduced bird species Streptopelia decaocto, and plugged in "collard dove."

Previous installments can be found here, here, and here.

Late last year, I did a series of posts on the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler, with an emphasis on the pros and cons of using cowbird control as an open-ended management technique (posts in the series listed after the jump).  One point I made is that trapping cowbirds as a long-term management tool is not a great idea, and one reason is that it prevents the warblers from developing defenses against the brood parasitism of the cowbirds.

In the July-September 2006 issue of Conservation in Practice, a magazine published by the Society for Conservation Biology, there is an article [1] by Scott Norris entitled “Evolutionary Tinkering.” Norris began by envisioning what species would have survived the current wave of extinctions by the year 2303: it would be a world of biological survivors. He summarized a growing concept in the conservation world — that we need to use active intervention in evolutionary trajectories as a conservation strategy.

This idea is built on these points:

• Major drivers of extinction today are also drivers of evolutionary change,
• Natural selection acting on wild populations can produce big changes in short periods of time, known as “contemporary evolution,”
• Endangerment is a function of both environmental change and adaptive response — or lack thereof,
• For threats that are not going away any time soon, endangered species management approaches that are based solely on impact reduction or mitigation are break-even propositions at best.

Some ecologists are increasingly concluding that in some cases, management efforts may be getting in the way of evolutionary progress.  Norris notes:

“One of the most jarring lessons of contemporary evolution is how often conservation itself is a significant selective force, altering evolutionary trajectories even as it tries to maintain the status quo.”

One researcher that did careful work on this theme is Marm Kilpatrick, who looked at a major threat to some native Hawaiian birds: avian malaria. These birds have been forced into cooler high elevation zones where malaria-carrying mosquitoes do not occur.  But these zones will disappear due to global climate change, and the only way for these species to persist will be if they are allowed to develop resistance against malaria [2]. Norris discussed this approach with Kilpatrick regarding the Kirtland’s Warbler:

“In a sense, the approach argues for letting go of the species a little bit so it can respond to the stressor and selective pressure,” Kilpatrick says. “For Kirtland’s Warbler, it would mean letting some cowbirds parasitize warbler nests — which would result in some nest failures.”  This may be too great a risk, Kilpatrick concedes, if the population is already very small. But there is another kind of risk — management dependency that has no stopping point. “In my mind the advantage of facilitated evolution is that it offers a way to let the species take care of itself in the long run.”

These were exactly the points I made in my posts as well as in private conversations I’ve had with people involved in the Kirtland’s Warbler recovery. Kilpatrick notes in his paper that for species impacted by multiple stressors — as is Kirtland’s Warbler — reducing the impact of one factor and encouraging evolutionary change that allows a species to deal with other stresses may allow long-term recovery.  Increasing the specialized habitat of Kirtland’s Warblers has been very successful — once again, the 2006 census has broken records, and the warbler population is the highest ever officially recorded. It may be time to set the wheels in motion to model various management strategies and explore allowing some subpopulations of the warbler to be exposed to cowbirds.

There is another curve ball in the ultimate survival of Kirtland’s Warbler, and that is global warming.  The warblers rely exclusively on jack pines for nesting.  While jack pines have a range that extends into Canada, the warblers typically only nest in trees that grow in a particular type of soil, which is only found on the southern edge of the trees’ range. This is likely because the birds nest low or on the ground, and require fast-draining substrate. Some models have predicted the elimination of jack pines on these soils within 60 years due to climate change (as they are very sensitive to temperature and soil moisture).

This means that we must also be considering developing heat- and drought resistant jack pines.  This statement probably raises no hackles at all, since humans have used selective breeding in plants to develop food and cash crops throughout much of our history. Of course, we have done the same with animals, and many people probably never think twice about the origins of the majority of our companion animals, dairy cows, or broiler chickens. This is not new and revolutionary methodology, and using these skills to save endangered species is a logical next step, offering hope for the future of our dramatically changing world.

Here are links to the original posts:

• Are Kirtland’s Warblers really in jeopardy? — An introduction.
• Cowbirds 101 — Defining brood parasitism, cowbird life history, myths, and misconceptions.
• Responses to comments on Cowbirds 101 — discourse and clarifications.
• Problems with cowbird control — how cowbirds are controlled for endangered species management, and the downside to doing so.
• Kirtland’s Warbler 101 — life history, population declines, endangered species management timelines.
• The future of Kirtland’s Warbler — a wrap-up, with references used in series.

[1] Norris, S.  2006.  Evolutionary tinkering.  Conservation in Practice 7(3):28-34.

[2] Kilpatrick, A.M. 2006.  Facilitating the evolution of resistance to avian malaria in Hawaiian birds.  Biological Conservation 128:475-485.

I once again thank Bryan Pfeiffer at Wings Photography for use of his stunning Kirtland’s Warbler photo…so good, I’m rerunning it here.  Cowbird photo from istockphoto.

What does it mean to be “carbon neutral”?
There is a lot of talk lately about going “carbon neutral” by purchasing carbon offsets.  You calculate (via various formulas available online) how many tons of carbon you are responsible for, based on your consumption of electicity, gasoline, etc. Then you make a contribution to offset those emissions — a contribution that invests in some sort of renewable energy or a reforestation project, for example.  The cost for each metric ton of CO2 you offset is between about US$6 – $30. The goal is to neutralize one’s impact on global climate change.

This is an intuitively appealing idea.  Does it hold up under analysis?

Is wind power the most ecologically-friendly offset?
Wind farms are bar far the most frequent projects supported by carbon offset marketers.  Wind energy is a great, clean, renewable resource. However, it is not without environmental consequences, namely disturbance or mortality to wildlife, especially birds.

Properly sited wind farms are of little risk to birds, as far as we know at this time. The March 2006 issue of Ibis, the journal of the British Ornithological Union,  was devoted to papers on renewable energy and birds. One excellent paper [1] provided an overview of the four main risks to birds: collision, displacement due to disturbance, barrier effects and habitat loss.  The authors made three recommendations on where NOT to place wind farms:

1) Where there is a high density of wintering or migratory waterfowl.
2) Where there is a high level of raptor activity.
3) Where there are breeding, wintering, or migratory populations of less abundant species or those of conservation concern.

The paper also notes that not enough research has really been done about some of the less obvious impacts of wind turbines on birds (no pun intended), evaluation methods have not been refined and take at least a full year to provide a complete picture, but that there are ways to mitigate effects, including emerging technology.

Therefore I wondered if, in the rush to build these farms in the U.S., how many and which ones were wildlife-friendly.  I started to look for and examine the environmental impact statements of individual projects offered as offsets by various marketers.  I was not encouraged by what I saw, and obviously this was a very tedious process.  So I decided to look at other ways to offset my carbon emissions.

What about reforestation?
What person who is striving towards a green lifestyle doesn’t like the idea of planting trees?  In the carbon-neutral scheme, carbon is sequestered in trees, which act as sinks, because about 50% of the dry biomass of a tree is carbon.

This seems straightfoward enough. Except that initially, carbon sequestration is very slow in a young tree.  It gains as the tree matures, but most trees do not reach maturity for 40 to 80 years. Different tree species sequester carbon at different rates, depending on how fast they grow, with trees in the tropics growing faster, and temperate and boreal species growing slower.  And of course, the whole effect is only temporary — one the tree dies or is burned, the carbon is released into the atmosphere.  Many experts do not see forest carbon sinks as viable offsets, for these and a host of other reasons (more resources below the fold).

Does buying carbon offsets really make sense?
I began to get a little discouraged.  I realized that “additionality” was one of the most important aspects of carbon offsets overall — that the project supported would not otherwise have happened.  This was not always easy to determine.  I found that there was also criticism of  the trading in carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange.  Then I came across a piece by economist Charles Komanoff on Gristmill :

“When you stop and think about it, the whole idea of driving a car, paying money into a green kitty to offset the CO2 from burning the gas, and then calling the car trip carbon-neutral, is ludicrous.”

Crediting me…with climate neutrality for financing green energy, while the actual implementer — a wind developer here, an insulation installer or a mass transit builder there — also takes credit, is double-counting. But it’s worse than padding the books. Carbon offsets are disturbingly redolent of the sale of indulgences in the Middle Ages, by which the wealthy could expiate their sins without prayer or good works by greasing the palms of the Church hierarchy.”

Supporting the implementation of renewable energy projects or the restoration of forests is a great idea, and I encourage it.  But it is not the solution to curbing global climate change, and shouldn’t be used as an excuse to drive a Hummer.  What we should be spending our $30 on — rather than buying a ton or two of carbon emissions — is compact fluorescent lightbulbs.  Or better home insulation.  Or any number of other means by which we can reduce our own carbon emissions.

Below the fold, resources on going “low carb” and reducing your carbon footprint, carbon offset marketers that offer solar and renewable energy projects, and other resources.

Update: In Jan 2007, Enviroblog summed up a UK Independent article on whether or not carbon offsetting really works. A few days later, the New York Times published a piece noting that recent research indicates that planting trees outside of the tropics does little to help global warming, and may instead contribute to it. All are worth reading.

Going low carb

Some carbon offset marketers with projects other than wind or reforestation:

• NativeEnergy — Mostly wind projects, but you can also choose to offset via ReMooable energy (methane generators in the Mid-Atlantic states).
• Carbonfund.org — allows you to choose between renewable energy projects (8 projects: 4 wind, 2 solar, 1 biomass digester, 1 methane processor).

Resources on carbon sinks, sequestration, and reforestation offset projects:

• Sinkswatch — initiative of the World Rainforest Movement, tracks carbon sequestration projects highlighting their threats to forests and other ecosystems, to forest peoples as well as to the climate.
• The carbon shop: planting new problems — World Rainforest Movement.

Etc.:

• Pros and cons of trading in carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange.
• New link — Paying off our global warming sins — Salon.  Pros and cons of carbon offsets. (I think that if you use Firefox and have the Web Marker extension installed, you will be able to see portions of the article I highlighted on page 3. Let me know if this works!)

[1] Drewitt, A. L. and R. H. W. Langston,  2006. Assessing the impacts of wind farms on birds. Ibis 148: 29-42.

I recall as a child getting my tetanus shot.  I just could not wait to run out and play amongst garbage and sharp objects, with no worry my contaminated wounds would cause lockjaw. And along with that hepatitis B shot my public school also required, I could not only step on dirty needles, I could share them! I was rarin' to go.

Of course, this is bullshit.

So is the notion from conservative religious groups who oppose mandatory immunization of the recently approved human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine because they feel it might encourage promiscuity. The vaccine is 100% effective against the two strains of HPV, 16 and 18, that cause around 70% of cervical cancers in the U.S. Cervical cancer is the second or third most common cancer in women. The vaccine is administered in three doses over six months, and is proposed for girls between the ages of 9 and 26, as it is most effective as a preventative measure.  Since HPV is a very common sexually-transmitted virus, the goal is to vaccinate girls (and eventually boys) prior to them becoming sexually active.

The stupidity of opposing vaccination on these grounds has been thoroughly discussed (e.g., here, here, and here).  Bad enough these groups have considerable influence within the U.S.  I can't help but wonder if this political pull will also extend to thwarting financial support to other countries which have high HPV rates and problems with social taboos when it comes to screening for HPV, in the same way conservatives oppose funding for condom distribution for AIDS prevention overseas.

In an editorial in the July 21 issue of Science, editor Donald Kennedy goes a step further from other opinions I've read, pointing out that a policy of voluntary vaccination places society as a whole at risk.  I leave you with his concluding words:

If there is to be significant progress in reducing the incidence of cervical cancer, the HPV vaccine should be made part of a mandatory preschool immunization package. In the present situation, in which participation is voluntary, the girl who says no to vaccination and yes to Focus on the Family's advice to elect abstinence creates two risks. One is to herself: Numerous studies have shown that abstinence often fails; and even if it succeeds, it will eventually be displaced by either marriage or romance — with a partner who may have HPV. The second risk is to society: By declining vaccination, the refusenik becomes a free rider. The objective of vaccination programs is to reduce the overall probability of infection by creating herd immunity — that is, by making a large majority of the population immune. Those who won't participate in the vaccination program are thereby spreading a small risk to the rest of society. "Freedom of choice" is an argument favored by the abstinence advocates. But that slogan ignores a serious ethical consequence: If the choice entails spreading harm to other people, can it really be called "free"?

Awhile back, I asked readers to choose the next book review they’d like to see.  What We Believe But Cannot Prove inched out Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent. (For a review of that book, see John’s thoughts and links to other reviews at A DC Birding Blog.  John had reservations  on Pilgrim similar to my own, although mine were a little more strident, as I found the author’s wandering asides and “precious” writing frankly annoying. But I digress…)

What We Believe is a compilation of answers to the question: What do you believe even though you cannot prove it?  According to the cover blurb, these are the “very best answers from the most distinguished contributors.”

Let’s stop right there for a moment.  There are 107 of these “leading thinkers” in the book by my count.  Yet only 14 are female. Around 19% are physicists of some ilk, and another 24% specialize, at least in part, in the field of psychology. Another chunk is made up of computer or technology experts, along with a batch of writers. My expectation of a book of this sort would be that it practice a little gender balance, and sample across a wide range of disciplines.  Instead, most are men from a fairly restricted number of fields. Are there not more distinguished women? No brilliant agronomists, English literature experts, attorneys, pastry chefs, or sanitation workers?

The essays are not formally grouped, but there does seem to be some flow of loosely-related themes.  The book starts out with answers related to evolution and human origins and moves on to matters of faith. Then there are a slew of essays on human cognition, consciousness, and behavior; and it sort of winds up on the nature of the universe.  A minority of great thinkers answered the question with various other beliefs scattered throughout, but over half the essays fall into these categories.  This also seemed a bit limited to me.

Not that I didn’t enjoy some of the pieces. Neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski pondered how one could remember things from 50 years ago when brain molecules are constantly being replaced (he believes old memories are stored in extracellular space). Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey believes human consciousness has evolved to bolster human self-confidence and self-importance. Biologist Donald I. Williamson believes he can explain the Cambrian explosion. I found a handful of the essays, such as these, stimulating.  Others, such as those on string theory or quantum mechanics, I found dense and well, high-falutin’.

The essays are short, generally a few paragraphs to a few pages.  I wish more of the contributors had been stylistically succinct, stating their thesis in the first or last paragraph of their essay.  Not infrequently the authors that did not do so tended to be obtuse; in a few essays, it was too much effort for me to figure out what the hell they believed.  There are a few that wrote about beliefs that seemed to me to be provable.  Anthropologist Robert Trivers, for instance, believes that deceit and self-deception play an important role in human-generated disasters, the underdevelopment of the social sciences, and limiting individual achievement. Couldn’t some metasurvey “prove” this, at least statistically?  I suppose we need to agree on what we mean by proof…which was exactly the topic of mathematician Keith Devlin’s piece.  Leave it to a mathematician to point out uncertainties in the idea of “proof,” while pointing out that “mathematical proof is generally regarded as the most certain form of proof there is.”

So, there were some obvious biases in the making of this book.  While we could conclude that most of the leading minds of today are male physicists, shrinks, and computer nerds, and the most widely unprovable beliefs center around the meaning of life and what it is to be human, I suspect that really isn’t the case. Even if it is, I believe the book would have
been more readable and thought-provoking if there had been a wider variety of great minds and great thoughts.  But you can’t prove it by me.  I’m just a female ecologist.