Cicadas & elephants . . . & New Jersey’s black bears

                                                        Wikipedia pic

“Cicadas are coming! Cicadas are coming!”  Hmmmm. . . .  That doesn’t sound as scary as “The British are coming!” does it?  But with or without Brits, we’re bound to  get to know cicadas this summer.  And hear them – by the billions!

“Brood X” will emerge any time now after 17 years in waiting, and they’re desperately in love.  To attract mates, the cicadas will climb trees and make a big racket – some calls can reach more than 100 decibels.  Each.

Their ardor, and noise, will continue for up to six weeks, till they mate and lay eggs that hatch into nymphs who then burrow back into the ground for another 17 years.  That’s it.  

Cicadas don’t bite, sting or damage fields or gardens.  They’re not interested in humans or food -- just starting “families.”  In fact, they themselves serve as food for foxes, birds and raccoons. 

Once the soil temperature is warm enough for them, Brood X will appear in 15 states and DC, including NJ and our neighbors.  Most active between 10 am-5pm, cicadas might accidentally land on people en route to a would-be rendezvous.  Not to worry: they want to move on at least as much as we want them to.  

                      Chicago Sun Times pic

Where were you 17 years ago when we had our last Brood X visit?  I still vividly remember walking into The Princeton Packet building one day when its black-topped entryway was covered with cicadas, like a very bumpy, crunchy rug – that’s how thick they were.  

Take heart: the cicadas are expected to be gone by July 4, appropriately enough, Independence Day!  After that, fans of the red-eyed insects will have to wait till 2038 for another visit.

The website below includes info, photos and a great video that prompts what I’ll call “cicada empathy” – it’s sad!      https://tinyurl.com/264shykk

More on elephants

From small insects to the largest land mammal, here’s a look back at elephant news from the April 24 Wildlife Conservation Expo.  Save the Elephants (STE) reported that in Tsavo (northern Kenya), poachers are no longer the main problem elephants face.

Instead, it’s elephant-human conflicts stemming from in farming and development. Elephants break into people’s mud huts as well as their crop fields, sometimes causing local people to retaliate. 

African elephants

To protect elephants from angry locals -- “to ensure that elephants have a future on our planet,” as The Elephant Crisis Fund (an offshoot of STE) has it – beehive fences are being used to deter bee-fearing elephants.  A smelly elephant repellent is in play, as are elephant watch towers and growing chiles, sunflowers and sisal to keep them away from huts and fields. 

In other news, forest elephants have only recently been determined to be a different species, genetically different from savanna elephants  They have smaller bodies, rounder ears and straighter tusks.

And they are critically endangered, just one step from extinction in the wild.  Sadly, it will be harder to save forest elephants because they wait longer to reproduce (6 years) and many of them live outside protected areas, making them more vulnerable to poachers.  

It’s obvious that conservation efforts for elephants everywhere must expand and continue. https://tinyurl.com/yysd5uhu

Please care for our bears!  

APLNJ.org

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