Whoops!

You say you have a horror story about an airplane ride?  Oh, really?  I bet you were never grounded and then caged up for a month in Fulton County, Alabama, now were you?  I think I have you beat, then.

Let me explain, I’m a whooping crane, known to your scientists as a Grus americana.  You probably haven’t ever seen me or heard my early-morning bugle call, since there are so few of my kind left, only about 400 now in 2012.  Think that’s a low number?  In the 1940’s there were only fifteen (correct, 15) of us left at one point; every living whooper today is descended from those 15.  Sort of our George and Martha Washington, Thomas and Martha Jefferson, (I guess Martha was pretty high on the popular name list in the 1700’s) and perhaps Sally Hemmings was in there also.

You think you have it tough?  Try being 5 feet tall and mostly white, living in the wild.  Who are our predators?  Might be easier to list who isn’t!  Bear, wolf, fox, lynx, eagle, raven and bobcat are often after me or my young.  Teenage boys with raging hormones and access to guns are no friends, either.  Luckily for them, no matter what mayhem they cause, they generally get off with a slap-on-the-wrist fine and probation, even though it is illegal to harm us cranes.  Not so lucky for me.

But hey, I’m an optimist and there is a lot to be optimistic about, once you know my whole story.  Our main flock, now numbering about 300, migrates from Alberta, Canada to the gulf coast of Texas and back each year. You could call us the original snowbirds.  I can easily spiral up on the wind, my black wing tips sticking up and long, black legs trailing behind, and then glide downward.  A whooping crane in flight is poetry in motion, as they say, and we birds know this route by heart.

Smart biologists and ornithologists from both the U.S. and Canada got together to protect cranes and had an aha!moment: why not try to establish new populations on different migratory paths?  Brilliant!  They hatched and reared cranes in isolation in central Wisconsin.  But how to get them to migrate to a new location?  More brilliance: ultralight aircraft were used by the group, called Operation Migration, to lead us on the path to the Florida gulf coast.  This flock, begun in 2001, is now up to about 100 birds.  Once we learn the route, we are good to go.  Pretty smart, huh? 

Anyway, I was proud to be part of this year’s class of nine newborns, hand-picked to follow along and learn the ropes on the 1,300 mile trip.  I do have to say, though it is nice of you, and even inspired, to dress the pilot and plane up to look like us cranes, it is not really necessary.  We are not quite that stupid, we know it is just you crazy (albeit lovable) humans!

We feasted on corn, soybeans and cheese and then started out from Wisconsin in October.  My only disappointment was being told we could not detour to that South of the Border place that’s all over the billboards, it was too far out of the way.  It was smooth sailing, though, for a couple of months.

Suddenly, though, everything came to a grinding halt in Alabama in December.  Seems the Federal Aviation Administration had ruled that our whole migration was illegal!  There’s a law that says ultralight aircraft cannot legally be used for commercial purposes, and guiding whooping cranes apparently qualifies as a commercial enterprise.   Say what?  Can you say, “Bureaucracy in action”?  All nine of us were immediately inspired to change our affiliation to vote Republican and reduce such crazy regulations.

So it was Christmas in Alabama for us, three squares of fish, snails and berries and an occasional hour out of prison to stretch our legs.  The horrors!

This issue was actually debated for about a month.  That’s right, paid members of the FAA put their heads together to consider what could be done.  And you wonder why it is so hard for the government to accomplish anything?  Finally they found a way out of this embarrassment: grant us a special, one-time exemption to complete the trip, but only because we were already en route.  What happens next year is anyone’s guess; the FAA says a more comprehensive, long-term solution is needed, a decade after these flights were started.  What could that solution be, maybe a group rate on first-class flights?  Nah, that would be no fun, and who wants to go through those screeners, anyway?

Well, all’s well that ends well for now and, truly, I have to be thankful just to be alive.  So thank you and your kind for your support.  It is estimated that there were about 1,400 whooping cranes alive in 1860.  Perhaps by 2160 we can get back to that number.  If I had bet on that happening in the ‘40s, probably all 400 of us cranes could retire to crane condos in Boca Raton. 

This story is dedicated to the memory of John T. Ferris.

Editors note: This year’s migration from Wisconsin to Florida could not be completed once the birds refused to follow the ultralight aircraft any longer after their month's respite.  Can you blame them?  The birds are now being transported by truck to the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama.  For up to date information, check the link below.

For up-to-date info on the status of this year's migration, click here.


To see a video of whooping cranes in the wild, click here.


For more info on cranes and the efforts to help them, click here.

Move Over, Lion King!

The scene: a fancy office at the William Morris Talent Agency in Hollywood, California.

Mr. Lazar, Highly Successful and Powerful Agent:  Thanks for coming in today, Ms. Ah….

Binturong: Bindy.  Call me Bindy.  Actually, I just go by the one name.  Like all the great ones.  My formal scientific name is arctcitis binturong, but I only use that on contracts. 

Mr. Lazar: Sure, Bindy, well, I know you’ve come a long way, …

Binturong:  All the way from Southeast Asia, actually.

Mr. Lazar: …but I don’t have a lot of time today, you say you have a screenplay?

Binturong:  I sure do. (Drops sheath of stapled papers onto desk.)  It’s called, “The Poop that Saved the Rain Forest”.

Mr. Lazar: Wow, the Poop that Saved the Rain Forest, is that a comedy?  I don’t rep comedies…

Binturong:  Comedy?  No, my goodness, this is a gripping drama, adventure, action, heroism, everything you would want in a movie.

Mr. Lazar: You’d better explain.

Binturong: Sure.  In my rain forest, light is at a premium, because of dense plant growth.  A tree called the Strangler Fig is very successful there, because I drop its seeds in crevasses on existing trees when I poop, and its roots grow downward, “strangling” the existing tree.  I can travel from tree to tree, without ever going down to the ground. 

I’m the only animal with stomach enzymes that can soften the seed coat of the Strangler Fig.  Without me, Strangler Fig seeds wouldn’t get spread around, and the rain forest wouldn’t have its high canopy of trees.  They call me a keystone species.  

I should probably tell you that us female binturongs are actually the dominant sex, being about 20% bigger than males.  We are also one of the few mammals that can experience “delayed implantation”, meaning that we can choose the time of the birth of our young, if conditions are right.  Neat, huh?

Mr. Lazar:  Fascinating, I could never even make that kind of stuff up, but, is there really a movie plot in there somewhere?

Binturong:  Sure is.  See, a lot of circumstances have been combining to decrease my population.  Deforestation to increase farm land kills off my habitat.  In many areas where I live the population is poor, so I get hunted for meat and to supply a demand for materials used in Asian medicines.  I’m even in demand as pets now in the U.S. – you can go online right now and buy one of me for $6,000 to $10,000!  For that kind of money, I guess you can understand why there is a high price on my life.

Mr. Lazar:  People want wild binturongs as pets?  Who?

Binturong: Probably the same people who want cute tiger cubs as pets, only to see them grow up quickly into 500 pound carnivores.  But I digress.

So, the less of me there are, the less the Strangler Fig seeds are spread, and the decline of the rain forest continues in a vicious cycle.  It’s estimated that the binturong population has declined by at least 30% in the last 30 years.

Mr. Lazar: Sad.  I’m starting to see the plot, but not the happy ending.  Every movie like this has to have a happy ending.

Binturong:  That’s where you come in.  There’s no easy solutions.  But I heard you also have some great writers as clients.  Can you help me out?

What I thought was, the movie itself could be the happy ending!  See, I’m cute, even cuter than those lame Ewoks.  People will love me, there will be stuffed animals, product placements in fast food restaurants, coloring books, all kinds of money makers.  And, of course, an outpouring of support for me and my kind and the rain forest as well.  Can you make it happen?

Mr. Lazar:  Well, I know some people at Disney.  “The Poop that Saved the Rain Forest”, I guess it’s as good a working title as any.  Memorable, for sure.  Let me make some calls.  Hmmm, I wonder if we could get Jon Lovitz, he is due for a comeback. 

Binturong: I just want to be loved, is that so wrong?

Mr. Lazar: Gee, sorry, I never offered you any refreshment.  Care for some coffee, tea, a muffin?

Binturong: I can’t take the caffeine, but do you happen to have any Strangler Figs?  I was wondering if California wanted to start a new forest….


To find out more about the binturong and threats to the rainforest, click here.


To see a video clip of a binturong up close and personal, click here.

The Pelican, Briefly

I used to envy humans for their great anchovy pizzas, and pity them for their lack of wings, but now I just fear them since it seems like you are always cooking up new ways to kill my kind.

Let me explain, I’m a pelican.  More specifically, a brown pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis, as your scientists would say.  I can be found all around the east, west and gulf coasts.  Other species of pelican are found all over the world, except for Antartica.

Have you seen me?  I’m pretty distinctive, with my long bill and webbed feet.  I’ve been told I put on a great show.  With my wide wingspan I love to soar through the air, then dive for fish in shallow waters.  What a major rush!  I have to surface and let the water drain out of my pouch so I can swallow my favorite anchovies.  How do you guys cope just walking around on land?  Boring!

Male pelicans have the life!  Each spring we start building a nest, then puff out our chests, strut our stuff and wait for a suitable female to come along and pick us.  Much simpler than Match.com, no muss, no fuss, no outdated photos.   Me and my partner later take turns standing on our eggs to incubate them for a month or so.

We pelicans have had it pretty good for the last 30 million years or so.  Humans came along with little fanfare 3 or 4 million years ago.  That DDT stuff you cooked up recently almost did my kind in completely during the ‘60s.  How would you like to eat fish contaminated with DDT?  Oh, wait, you and me both were probably unknowingly doing this during that decade, and since then as well.  DDT becomes more concentrated as it moves up the food chain, and its “half-life” in the ocean is 150 years.  Yeah, maybe that crop spraying with DDT was not the best human idea ever – some of the runoff must still be out there.

Just when I was on the brink, when it was proven that DDT caused my eggshells to be too thin to support an embryo, you banned it in 1972.  Thanks, Rachel Carson!  I started coming back strong after that.

Now Ogden Nash, there’s another great human.  A genius.  I thought he did more for pelicans in five lines than you’d think would be humanly possible, so to speak.  Now I’m told that someone named Dixon Merritt, a newspaper editor, is the real author of my favorite limerick.  You can be the judge, I’ll repeat it here for you:

A wonderful bird is a pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week;
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

You gotta admit, that’s a classic.  I still chuckle whenever I hear it.

So just when I thought all was good again, a new threat emerges: mysterious pelican killings.  What’s that about?

The last several years, hundreds of pelicans have been gruesomely killed in Texas and North Carolina.  Who’s behind it?  Well, in Texas, ninety (you read that right: nine zero) were admittedly killed by a fish farmer who was tired of us sampling his fish.  Hey, what can I say, it was a pretty easy mistake to make.  He didn’t have any signs up warning us off the property!  Lucky stiff got off with probation and a fine.  We pelicans are a protected species and anyone who harms us is violating Federal law.

In North Carolina, along the Outer Banks, there’s no proof, just a lot of carcasses washing ashore, causing suspicions and frustration.  Originally, people finding dead pelicans with broken wings or necks were so shocked they thought that someone must have shot or strangled them.  Autopsies performed recently don’t show that; they categorize the cause of death as “blunt force trauma”.  That covers a wide range of possibilities from contact with electrical wires and towers to entanglements with fishing gear to being hit by a baseball bat.  Somehow human related, in my mind, but please, feel free to prove me wrong.

And now for the good news: a group of volunteers is taking turns walking Topsail Beach, looking for evidence, scanning for birds in distress, taking pictures, hoping to find something that will fill in the pieces of the puzzle in order to solve this mystery.  Called the ‘Seanetters’, they are my new heroes, and the hope of pelicans everywhere.  There’s a $8,500.00 reward being offered for information about these killings and I hope one of you humans earns it soon. 

Have you heard of the use of gill nets by commercial fishermen?  This technique has been banned in many states, although not in North Carolina.  It’s very effective, maybe too effective.  When the fish try to swim through mesh openings, they get stuck and then can’t back out because their gills get caught.  It’s so effective that it can also trap sea turtles, ducks and my kind, too.  They call us “bycatch”.   Another word for “bycatch” would be “dead”.

So I’m here to offer you a truce:  you let me take a few farm fish, limit and monitor the use of gill nets in fishing, and keep your eyes pealed for signs of trouble.  I’ll stick around, keep the great air and aquatic shows coming, and alert you the next time you are about to destroy another habitat, or poison the planet beyond recognition, by actually dying if I have to.  It’s a tough job, but I guess someone has to do it.

Do we have a deal?

Well you’ve been patient with me so I will leave you with a tribute of my own to the late, great Mssrs. Nash and Merritt.   Enjoy!

A strange animal is the human

He acts crazily just because he can

He may think some great thoughts

But doesn’t always connect all the dots

From his brain all the way to his hand.

To view a video of a pelican in flight, click here.


For more info on endangered sea birds and Seanet, click here.


For more info on the effects of gill net fishing, and/or to take action, click here.

Are you fracking kidding me?

 

Hi, it’s me again, Wally, your favorite, not-so-friendly alligator mississippiensis and self-appointed liaison for humans to the gator community.  Hey, I got a good joke for you:

Q: Why did the human cross the road?

A: His GPS told him to!

Haw, haw!  I just about laughed myself sick when my buddy told me that one.

Anyway, I’ve been on the road, touring around, seeing the sights.  Thought I would pop up to North Carolina and check out the barbecue.  Now that’s something I can really sink my teeth into (and I have over 80 teeth).  I can settle your debate between Western and Eastern NC barbecue lovers here right now: it is all good!

And there is another controversial topic I am hearing people talking about here: hydraulic fracturing.  “Fracking” is a process to extract natural gas by injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure deep underground.  Isn’t science wonderful?  Well, maybe yes, and maybe no.   Exactly what are these chemicals being used and can they somehow poison our water?  There‘s no requirement for full disclosure of what those chemicals are, and many of you human types are nervous.

Here’s a recap of what I’ve been hearing and my own two lizard licks, for what it’s worth.

1)      Oil and gas companies are pushing to use fracking in order to bring cheap, clean energy to the masses.  Oh, my goodness!  If you believe that one, I have some swamp land down in the ‘Glades I’d like to sell to you (I really do have this land, although it is more under water than some of your human mortgages).  The main concern of oil and gas companies is to make a bazillion dollars this year, and next year, and the year after that.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, so why not just admit it?  Making energy cheaper for you can happen but it’s pretty far down on their priority list, like about the length of Three Mile Island far down.

2)      The fracking process is safe, or can be made safe.  Oh, I wouldn’t bet the farm on that one!  More human humor for you there.  Get it, I wouldn’t bet the alligator’s farm on it.  Never mind, sorry, sometimes I just crack myself up.

There’s no lack of reports detailing problems out there.  And it is not just the number of reports, it is the variety of issues.  Spills and water contamination in Colorado and Wyoming.  Asthma rates three times higher than normal for children in Texas who live in counties where there is gas drilling.  Cattle dropping dead in Louisiana after drinking fluid adjacent to a gas drilling rig.  Nasty chemicals like benzene, thought to cause leukemia, seeping into water supplies at drilling sites in New Mexico. 

Fracking has caused earthquakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.  Yes, you read that right, fracking causes earthquakes.  Hundreds in Arkansas and other states, mostly small ones.  A 4.0 quake actually shook Youngstown, Ohio recently and was blamed on the pumping of fracking waste water underground.  The Washington Post newspaper seems to think that is just fine, that job creation and carbon savings justify inevitable, unexpected and possibly unattractive consequences, as they put it.  Say what?   I’ll tell you what would also create jobs: if an earthquake levels a city, there will be more work to rebuild it, after burying all the dead bodies.

My personal favorite report, one that could easily be made into a B-grade horror movie:  a Colorado emergency room nurse named Cathy Behr nearly died of organ failure after she handled the clothes of a drilling worker who had been splashed in a fracking fluid spill.  Ms. Behr recovered, without much thanks to the chemical manufacturer who delayed providing her doctors with the makeup of the fluid.  If you can keep your breakfast down after reading some of these reports, you have a stronger stomach than I do, and I’ve eaten an entire deer before. 

3)      Alternative energy processes are a failure and may never be cost effective.  Are you fracking kidding me?  If you believe that, me and my kind will be taking back this country sooner than I thought.  Life then will be just like back in our glory days of the Cretaceous period.

You gotta give it some time and effort, folks.  And more than that, cashola.  Your government gave out $72 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industries from 2002-2008, but less than one-half that amount, only $29 billion, to green energy companies over the same period.  The discrepancy worldwide is even greater.  Which kind of raises another question, why would you still be providing subsidies to the overwhelmingly successful fossil fuels industries?  It wouldn’t be because they spend oodles on political lobbying ($175 million in the U.S. in 2009), would it?   I’m just sayin’.

Fracking, geez, I’d think about hitting the pause button.  Or even the rewind button.  Hey, maybe you can’t live without oil and gas now but, you also just might want to seriously consider the path by which that would be possible in the future.  It really is all going to run out someday, anyway (unless we do go back to the Cretaceous and bury some more dinosaurs, but I think that is just my own personal dream, however).  I know I can live without it right now, but I can’t do without clean water.  Just the thought sends shivers down my six-foot spine.

Human, this tourista stuff is tiring!  I gotta go find a pond or backyard swimming pool to nap in.  Hopefully one without any benzene in it.  Your hospitality is appreciated!  So I will leave you with a final joke:

Q: Why did the human go out for a drink?

A: His smart phone needed more bars.


For more info on fracking and its potential dangers, click here.


For info on how to contact your elected representative to express your opinion, click here.


For info on other ways to get involved, click here.

It's Wally's World

(How the ancient past may be closer than you think…)

No offense, but I’ve eaten a human before.  Yep, the opportunity just jumped up in front of me and I had to try it once.  Tasted like chicken.  Haw, haw, now that’s funny!  A little “human” humor for you.

Let me explain, I guess we haven’t been properly introduced yet.  I’m an alligator, what your scientists would call an alligator mississippiensis.  Eight-hundred pounds, fifteen feet long, lean and dark green, what’s not to love?  You couldn’t pronounce my real name, so you can call me “Wally”.  Haw, haw, another good one!  You guys anthropomorphize everything, right?  The world revolves around you.

Well here is a little secret for you, some sad and lonely news: it actually doesn’t.  Me and my kind have been around here for some 200 million years, give or take a century.  You, ah, not so much.  I give you some 3 to 4 million years since you crawled up out of the muck.  Barely a flash in the pan, a blink of the eye, as far as I am concerned.  Whooped-di-doo.

200 million years!  Think about that for just a second.  If scales and tails could talk, me and my kind could tell you some stories, for sure.  And you may be the current big Kahuna worldwide but, down here in the Everglades, I rule over everything, as far as my eye can see.

Okay, raise your hand if you think humans will survive to 200 million years.  Seriously.  What kind of odds do you think I could get if I put my money down on that happening?  I’m thinking about a bazillion to one.

Oh, I know, you’ve had some successes.  I give you credit.  The Taj Mahal.  Fine cuisine.  Science fiction.  Indoor plumbing.  I get it, you can do good when you want to.

But it hasn’t all been wine and roses, has it?  No.  The Crusades.  The Holocaust.  Rap music.  Mortgage-backed derivative securities.  That list goes on and on.

See, I think you might sometimes be a little too focused on you for your own greater good.  I’ll give you an example I think you can all relate to.  I call it the “Your Mother doesn’t actually work here syndrome”.  You’re in the office kitchen, heating up your lunch or coffee.  Suddenly you decide that, for whatever reason, your food is really done, so you just open the microwave and take it out, then slam it shut.  Back to the cube!

But do you spend the extra second to hit the “Clear” button on the microwave?  Even if you see that the time remaining is still blinking “00:36”, over and over?  Tell the truth: you don’t, do you?  I didn’t think so.  The next guy has to do it.

I’m telling you, it’s all downhill from there for you guys.  I got two words for you: space travel.  Let’s face it, it’s your only chance.  You know it’s true!  Maybe if you set up enough colonies, one of them will figure it out and survive.

Okay, you’ve been patient listening to me, so I have a fun fact for you.  The sex of baby alligators is determined by the temperature in their nest after the female lays her eggs.  If the incubation temperature is 86 degrees or lower, females will be born; if it is 93 degrees or higher, males will be born. (I guess if it is between 86 and 93 degrees, it’s a toss up).  Isn’t that great!  You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Funny thing, though, it has been warming up in our habitats in the last 20 years or so (I know, not even a blink of the eye!)  Maybe you heard about this global warming thing.  That means more male alligators are being born.  Male alligators tend to be more aggressive, more exploratory, than female alligators.

Also, with the warmer temps, some of our habitats have been drying up.  That means we have to move out.  And there is only one way to go: north.  To South Carolina.  To Georgia.  To Alabama.  To Arkansas.  To Oklahoma.  To Tennessee.  Next stop: who knows?  I always did want to see the sewers of New York City.

So perhaps we will meet on the road one of these days.  It’s about time humans and alligators got to know each other better, isn’t it, after all these millions of years?  I have a heavy body and a slow metabolism, but I’m capable of short bursts of extreme speed and have an exceptionally powerful jaw that can easily crunch bones.  If you are within a 30-foot circle of me, fuhgeddaboudit!  Your arm or leg will be my lunch, done just the way I like it.  No microwave needed.

I do like chicken!

This story was originally published in the News & Observer newspaper of Raleigh on January 7, 2012. 


To see a clip of the Gator Boys, as seen on Animal Planet, catching a gator, click here.


To view a clip of an alligator mating dance, click here.