The Grey Wolf (Canis lupus), almost hunted to near extinction in the lower forty-eight states, once again can be legally killed.  This has come about after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the wolf off the endangered species list last May and will allow Idaho and Montana to reduce the wolf population down to 150 per state.  This will allow about two thirds of the area’s wolves to be killed.  Over 11,000 tags  ($11.75 apiece) have been sold, but Tony McDermott, fish and game commisioner of the Panhandle area, estimated as many as 70,000 might be sold.  As of now two wolves have been killed today. 

     Listening to the reports on the radio and reading the accounts concerning this issue, I was struck by the vehemence exhibited by the hunters.  It was if they were on a holy mission.  Here are some of their remarks:

1.  Wolves kill elk wantonly and leave the meat to rot.  They are depleting the elk and deer herds. 

2.   Apparently some of these intense feelings against the wolves originate in fear.  Some fear that they need to be protected against a predator:  ”They’re running down the middle of the road in Lowman in the winter.”  Others indicate that now they won’t have to worry about their kids at the bus stop, or their pets, and that now they can go for a walk without carrying a gun.   

Are wolves really as dangerous as these people claim?  Are their fears justified?  Here’s the conclusion of two studies:

“The Linnell and McNay reports show that wolf attacks on people are very rare. The records they examined indicate that wolves have wounded and killed several hundreds of people, but given these attacks were over a period of centuries and throughout the northern hemisphere, wolf attacks are sparse and meagre. Only 17 cases of people killed by wolves were found in the last 50 or so years in the whole of North America, Europe and Russia - 17 people in a human population of roughly a billion people.”

Here is another person’s perspective commenting on these reports: 

“See this in perspective. About fifteen people are killed on average per year in horse riding accidents in England and Wales alone (Office for National Statistics). Horses are more dangerous than wolves.

Again, almost all the wolves in the US outside Alaska live in Minnesota. These 2,500 wolves have killed no one. Yet one or two people are killed each year in that state by the rarity of lightning strike (NOAA). Lightning is more dangerous than wolves.”   The writer goes on to claim that live stock depredation is greatly exaggerated, and that wolves can often live close to people with few problems.

Here is a conservationist’s viewpoint:

“The scheduled wolf hunts would cripple the regional wolf population by isolating wolves into disconnected subgroups incapable of genetic or ecological sustainability. The wolf hunts would also allow the killing of the breeding alpha male and female wolves, thereby disrupting the social group, leaving pups more vulnerable.”

No other endangered species has ever been delisted at such a low population level and then immediately hunted to even lower unsustainable levels.

The decision to hunt wolves comes as Yellowstone National Park wolves declined by 27 percent last year – one of the largest declines reported since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995. The northern Rockies wolf population also has not achieved a level of connectivity between the greater Yellowstone, central Idaho, and northwest Montana areas that is essential to wolves’ long-term survival.

Wolves are still under federal protection in Wyoming because a federal court previously ruled that Wyoming’s hostile wolf-management scheme leaves wolves in “serious jeopardy.” The Fish and Wildlife Service in the recent past held that a state-by-state approach to delisting wolves was not permitted under the Endangered Species Act, but the federal government flip flopped on its earlier position and this year took wolves in Idaho and Montana off the endangered species list while leaving those in Wyoming on the list.

In addition to Wyoming, the states of Idaho and Montana have refused to make enforceable commitments to maintain viable wolf populations within their borders.”

Lots of hysterical claims have been made by those advocating the wolf hunts.  Personally I believe that they need to present more hard data to support their claims.

    I was recently watching this TV program on black holes.  As usual when I contemplate such things, I became slightly depressed.

    When a star which is about three times or more the mass of our sun reaches the end of its life, it collapses and in the process blows out a great mass of matter and energy creating a supernova.  What is left behind is so incredibly dense that the gravitational field that it creates traps even light itself from escaping—the black hole.

     Black holes come in many sizes.  Sometimes they coalesce, creating even larger black holes.  The evidence is pretty conclusive that the center of most galaxies is occupied by massive black holes.

    The program showed computer simulations of galactic collisons and close encounters that spanned eons (see here for some simulations).  The billions of stars in each galaxy in these simulations resembled dust motes that swirled and rotated about each other creating fantastic shapes before settling down to some sort of stable configuration.  Here is one interesting quote concerning the movement of galaxies:

It is speculated that a feeding frenzy occurs when large galaxies collide resulting in even more massive black holes.   It is believed that hundreds of thousands of smaller stellar black holes swarm about the massive galactic black hole subjecting the nearby star systems to a destruction derby which causes some stars to leave the galaxy entirely or causes it to fall into the massive center.

     Although our own Milky Way Galaxy has probably not consumed any large galaxies (smaller ones, yes :burp:), in about two billion years, Andromeda, our nearest large galaxy, and ours will begin to collide.  The massive black holes of each galaxy will coalesce to form one large super black hole that will consume incredible amounts of matter, igniting a new quasar.

   Now the thought of all this is totally fascinating in some respects.  The idea of billions of galaxies  inexorably following the laws of physics…matter and energy interacting in such spectacular ways fascinates and enthralls one’s imagination.

   But then my imagination swerves off on a tangent.  I think of the crowded galactic center, probably having large numbers of older stars than what is found out near the rim.  Many of these older solar systems very likely have life forms on their planets.  A certain small percentage, amounting to thousands when we consider these large numbers, very possibly supports intelligent life forms.

    I think of these intelligent beings contemplating their fate, watching their own star system begin it’s inexorable slide toward the maw of the great ravening beast at the galactic center.  I think of the panic, the frantic plans to save the race, possibly sending out colony ships.  I think of those left behind perhaps having the time to develop a philosophy of resignation to prepare themselves for the inevitible end. 

    I think of this happening thousands of times over the millions and billions of years that is involved in the process.   I think of these civilizations, unique in their outlook and philosophies…lost forever.

     And if this isn’t bad enough, I think of the implications.  I think of sentient beings living on  infitesimal motes of dust, coming into being, surviving and ultimately wending their way to extinction in a blind, uncaring universe of interacting energy and matter.

      Sometimes this is disturbing when I ponder upon it.  

     Then I begin to think of the relative nature of it all.  The life of man compared to the 14 billion year age of our universe, the almost four billion years that have passed since the origins of life on earth, the gradual evolution of life eventually resulting in me pondering such things.  

     And then moments like this morning as I walked through fog and mist, my face upturned, feeling the cool droplets on my face, listening to the foghorns and the sound of small birds in the forest through which I passed. 

     Perhaps we create our own caring, our own warm little niche in this universal howling wilderness.

    Thank the good Lord for  small things, I think…to heck with the long view.

              About 12,900 years ago, most of the large megafauna of the New World disappeared.  This included the Mammoth, Mastodons, giant ground sloths, saber tooth tigers, camels, horses and many others.  This happened very rapidly and has been a source of speculation amongst scientists.  Most of the speculation has fallen into one of the following categories:

A. Climatic Change: Apparently at this time there was a period of intense cold which some say could have initiated the extinctions.  Others say that since this was at the end of the last glaciation, the warming temperatures could have caused the extinctions.  Others say that the climate became more “continentalized” with colder winters and hotter summers. However these same fauna survived previous interglacials without the large extinctions, so something doesn’t seem quite right about this hypothesis.

  B. Human overkill: Some say (I think Paul Martin popularized this hypothesis) that the extinctions coincided with one of the large human migrations into the area.  They point to other extinctions in other parts of the world (e.g. Australia) where extinctions coincided with the advent of humans into the area.

    This is succinctly summarized thus: “1- animals go extinct soon after the introduction of humans and 2- extinctions are greatest where humans have arrived last – the New World – and are least where humans were first – Africa. This is based on the reasoning that in Africa animals learned and evolved as H. sapiens developed new hunting techniques. The animals of new territories were naive about hunting and were more vulnerable – there was a greater gap between the ability of the hunter to kill and the ability of the animal to evade being killed. This predicts that the later H. sapiens entered a territory the more animals will be killed. “    For a fun, informative site that explores these questions see here.

C.  Disease:  A third hypothesis suggests that the invading humans brought some sort of pathogen with them that wiped out the megafauna.

Up until now the previous three hypotheses or combinations thereof were the only serious reasons put forth for these extinctions at this time.  However, I just saw a NOVA program which presents a fourth hypothesis:

D. Extraterrestrial body impact with the earth as shown on Nova’s program, The Last Extinction.   This program gave tantalizing evidence that a comet or asteroid impacted the earth approximately 13,900 years ago and which could have contributed to the extinctions.  The idea can be summarized thus:

• There is a dark band of material separating the strata at this age.  Before this band the megafauna was widespread in North America, and after the band the megafauna was basically extinct.  This “black mat” made up of cinders and burnt plant remains has been examined at over fifty sites in North America.
• There is a high amount of Iridium in this layer.  Iridium is found in high concentrations in meterors and comets, but not that common in the earth.  Louis Alvarez found a similar high concentration of Iridium at the Cretaceous/Tertiary border which indicated that an asteroid impact probably was a factor in the extinction of dinosaurs.
• Investigation of the Greenland ice layers also showed a high amount of Iridium in the ice of this time.
• In this black mat was also found nanodiamonds of a hexagonal crystaline structure which is formed only under high impact situations.
• Upon examining the Greenland ice layers of the same age, they found the same hexagonal nanodiamonds.  Both the Iridium and nanodiamonds were not found in layers just before (older) and just after (younger) than the layers of 13,900 years ago.
• They hypothesize that if the comet fell onto the ice or into the sea and if it was comprised of a group of small bodies instead of one large one, then there would be no impact crater.  One is reminded of the Tunguska Siberian Comet impact of 1908 which devastated a large area but left no impact crater. 
• It seems highly likely that a large extraterrestrial body hit the earth 13,900 years ago.
• This could have had an impact upon the sudden disappearance of the megafauna.

   They didn’t really address the impact upon the human population.  I wonder if there’s any evidence of this?   I know they said that the Clovis Culture was present before the “black mat” layer, but not after.  Oops!  I just found this site which discusses this same subject!  It also lists some objections as follows:

    “However, it is not clear why megafaunal extinctions caused by an impact event in northern North America would have extended all the way across northern Eurasia and down to the southern tip of South America (presuming a single primary cause for these similar and roughly contemporaneous regional extinctions), while sparing some of the small, isolated (and thus potentially most vulnerable) megafaunal populations on nearby islands. In the cases of the wooly mammoths of Wrangel Island or St. Paul Island, the Steller’s sea cows of the Commander Islands, and the ground sloths of the Antilles, the island populations survived for thousands of years after related populations on nearby continental land masses died out.”

   If  you get a chance watch this Nova program.  It is absolutely fascinating.

“…And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

  Can you imagine a world that contained no Siberian Tigers?  No cheetahs?  No Blue Whales?  No elephants? What about the Golden Toad or some other more obscure amphibian?    In the future such creatures may be forever gone from this Earth…never to return.  Or, at best, they may be found only in preserves, or perhaps only their germ plasm may be frozen. Have you heard of the Tasmanian Tiger, the Golden Toad, the Rodriquez Tortoise all recently gone?  Should we care?  Why should we care?  What can we do about it even if we do care? Why is genetic diversity or biodiversity so important?

     We can look at extinction from different viewpoints.

1.  We can look at it from a vantage point of self interest.  It is in our best interest to maintain the genetic diversity of the world’s ecosystems.  A diverse ecosystem tends to be a stable and productive ecosystem.  Also, one could go on and on about the various pharmaceuticals (25% from rainforests) and other riches of the disappearing rainforests.

2. We can look at extinction from a moral or ethical viewpoint.  Do we have the right to cause the utter ending of forms of life that are the end result of four billion years of evolution?   Do we have the right to snuff out these unique life forms for no good reason?  Do we have the right through greed or simple inattention and ignorance to snuff out forever species that will never be seen again in any heaven or earth?  Gone forever…

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,

To what do we owe this unfortunate series of events?  Why is the genetic diversity of the world disappearing at an unprecedented rate?  Some say there is one major factor in these extinctions–man.

On one end of the extinction spectrum, we have one species simply evolving into another.  This is the “best” type of extinction since the species is not really lost, but simply changed; it’s genes have just been modified.

However, there have been times of mass extinctions:

1. mid Cambrian
2. at the close of the Cambrian
3. at the close of the  Ordovician
4. near the end of the Devonian
5. at the Permian-Triassic boundary
6. at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary
7. at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary
8. And the so-called “Sixth Extinction” (if you don’t count the Cambrian ones)–the one going on today which may be the greatest thus far.

Figure 1. Extinctions over the past 600 million years – mass extinctions show up as peaks superimposed on a general decline in extinctions (diagonal line). The mass extinction marked as ‘Maastrichtian’ was the death of the dinosaurs. Reference:
Sepkoski, JJ, Jr. 1994. Extinction and the fossil record. Geotimes March 15 – 17

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Figure 2. Changes in Biodiversity in the past 540 years (Phanerozoic). See Wikipedia.

Figure 3. “This figure shows the genus extinction intensity, i.e. the fraction of genera that are present in each interval of time but do not exist in the following interval.”

See Wikipedia

  E.O. Wilson estimated back in 1993 that about 30,000 per year were disappearing, or approximately 3 per hour.  It has gotten worse since. “Experts estimates that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species every single day due to rainforest deforestation. That equates to 50,000 species a year”

 As the Alliance for Zero Extinction has put it so eloquently:

     “Extinction is a natural part of life on Earth, but compelling evidence shows us that human activities have accelerated global extinction rates 100 to 1,000 times over rates typical of preceding millennia. Habitat loss, commercial exploitation, disease, and introduction of exotic species have led to range reductions and increased extinction threat for an expanding proportion of the approximately 26,000 species of terrestrial vertebrates. The 320 vertebrates mentioned above already succumbed to these pressures. What will the 21st century hold for the many more species now clinging to the ledge above extinction’s abyss? Rates of extinction are predicted to rise even faster in the coming years as human populations expand, and more habitat is converted, especially in the tropics and in areas of high species endemism. The spread of the agricultural frontier, the invasion of island biotas by foreign predators, herbivores, and pathogens will make this extinction spasm even greater. Unless we stem the tide, our descendents will inherit a biologically impoverished world, look back with regret, and wonder why didn’t we act more quickly to save an endangered planet.”

What can we do?

1.  Stop habitat destruction, especially in the tropical rainforests.  Set up protected areas and establish programs to reseed cut over areas.  Entire habitats need to be preserved not small plots.

2.  Establish agroforestry–especially in cut over rain forests, various desired species can be grown which will cut back on the indiscriminate cutting and destruction of rain forests.

3.  Establish programs to help indigenous peoples to protect and restore their lands (See Rainforest Action Network with its Protect-an-Acre program).  At the same time they can be encouraged to protect and help in the recuperation of their land.

4. Establishment gene banks–seeds and germ plasm, realizing this is a stop gap measure.

5. Encourage in every way national and international organizations to help do their part in species and habitat preservation.

6. VOTE for politicians that are dedicated to our biotic future!

7. NEVER buy products from endangered species!

8. Do NOT buy exotic pets from stores even those bred in captivity if wild stock must be added to keep them healthy.

9. Lead a conservative life.  Try to use as little of the earth’s resources as possible. Buy from ecologically aware companies.

After writing the above I came across this incredible site discussing the plight of the rainforests.

I remember in the early seventies talking to my friends about starting a movement to set aside a preserve of some sort in the Amazon River valley to save some of the unique rainforest found in that area. This was out of concern created by the recent completion of the trans-Amazonian highway. With the opening up of the remote rain forest, we were certain that there would be massive inroads upon this unique biological jewel, and perhaps something could be done to preserve some of it. Never in my worst nightmares could I have conceived of the rape that followed. I could not have imagined that because of the settling, clearing and burning of the forest due to many misguided policies, that about 20% of the rain forest would be cut down from 1970 to 2006.

This incredibly precious treasure of biodiversity, home to thousands of unique plants and animals, many found no other place in the world, an incalculable wealth of irreplaceable species…is disappearing and perhaps can not be saved.

The reasons have always been complex, but at the heart of all the factors lies economics…and the earth’s burgeoning population. However recently a new twist has been added—biofuels.

The new rush for eco-chic alternative fuels may result in the rain forests of the world to disappear at even more alarming rates. An recent article in Time magazine (April 7, 2008), entitled The Clean Energy Scam (by Michael Grunwald), discusses this ongoing catastrophe.

Many people, including me, thought it was a great idea when they heard of alternative fuels such as ethanol produced from plant material which could supplement our fossil fuels. Many scientists extolled the possibility of producing this fuel from corn, sugar cane, soy beans, and other crops. They calculated that growing plants for fuel sucks carbon out of the atmosphere. Of course this would be released back into the atmosphere when it was burned, but it would still result in reducing carbon dioxide output over time.

However, nobody seem to realize that the great demand for these fuels would cause an economic boom resulting in major crop shifts with unimagined effects.  Also it created a huge demand for land which is causing the destruction of forests, grasslands and wetlands which in themselves store a tremendous amount of carbon.

So these lands, covered in rain forests, grasslands, etc. are having their original vegetation removed (along with all the animals) and usually burned…and guess what? All that carbon is released into the atmosphere exacerbating the whole problem of global warming. In fact deforestation accounts for 20% of all carbon emissions!

Malaysia is rapidly cutting their rain forests down and planting palm oil farms. A more subtle chain of occurrences is happening in Brazil. A very little of the rain forest is being destroyed to produce sugar cane, whereas most of the new rain forest destruction is caused by the following chain reaction:

1. U.S. farmers are shifting to growing corn for biofuels (one-fifth of total production of corn) and away from the less pricey soybeans.

2. This decrease in soybean production is causing the rise of soybean prices.

3. The rise in soybean prices is causing farmers in Brazil to use cattle pasture lands to grow soybeans.

4. The cattle ranchers then clear the rain forest for more pasture lands.

5. And the burning of the rain forests is of course releasing tremendous quantities of carbon.

6. This huge release of carbon dioxide is contributing to global warming.  Not to mention accelerating the mass extinctions of unique organisms.

7.  Anybody notice the huge increase in food prices worldwide?

Seems odd that nobody thought of all this…not even the scientists who advocated the alternate use of biofuels.

April 29, 2008, 11:55 pm.

I just came across this extremely informative site on the plight of the rainforests.  If you are concerned about the fate of the rainforests, then please read it.

     There was an article in the paper a few days ago talking about how the common birds of Washington State are diminishing drastically in numbers.  Today they took the American Bald Eagle off the endangered species list, but unfortunately many of these common birds don’t have the glamour nor do they occupy public awareness as does the magnificent Bald Eagle.

     According to annual bird counts and an analysis of breedng records, in the past forty years birds such as the Evening Grosbeak and the Bonapart’s Gull have dropped 97%!  The Purple Finch populations have dropped 87%; the Yellow-Headed Blackbird 72%, and the Western Meadow Lark 60%.  See this and related articles here.  The reason most likely is destruction of habitat.  For example as the prairies and open areas are built up the Meadow Lark has no place to live.  Destruction of forests (see post of two days ago) and other habitats are also responsible.

For example, not only the the forests and prairies are disappearing, in Eastern Washington the shrub steppe prairies, wetlands and grasslands are also rapidly disappearing along with the species that depend upon them.

     Of course the factors involved can be quite complex.  Pollution and global warming no doubt is having an effect.   As species such as the herring and crustacean populations of Puget Sound plumet it has an inevitable effect on the species on the uppper part of the food chain, such as the Bonaparte’s Gull.  The delicate web of life is being torn and shredded with unpredictable effects.

    One of the shocking things is that these are not the already endangered or rare species, but once common species that we see at our bird feeders.  The disappearance of common species will have a much larger effect upon our ecosystems than if the problem involved only rare species.

     Audubon lists some things that everybody can do to help.