Fish & birds, minus all but human beasts this time

Buffalo

“Beast, bird or fish?”  I recognized the words, but didn’t remember where from.  (Did any readers?)  Only after I decided those three categories describe much of what I write about here in AnimalBeatII, Google officially answered that question, describing a game we’ve probably all played (one that sounds ridiculously easy, btw.)   https://tinyurl.com/2ay8jppy

True, there have been many more “beasts” featured here than fish or birds.  So today’s post ignores beasts (such a negative word to describe what are often majestic and/or magnificent animals) and touches on both fish and birds.

Fish first.  Let’s go with “glowing sharks.”  If you didn’t know sharks can glow, you’re not alone; some of them don’t just hunt; they also lighten up their surroundings.  And “the largest glow-in-the-dark species with a spine – on land or sea” -- was recently discovered off the coast of New Zealand. 

Kitefin sharks, which can grow to nearly six feet in length, emit blue-green light.  Their bioluminescence is far from exclusive, though: a wide array of other organisms—bacteria to fireflies to squid – can also glow.  (So ends this glowing report, for now!)   https://tinyurl.com/h5h8v75s

Despite their robust appearance, manatees are not as healthy as they may look.  In South Florida’s waterways, they are dying in much greater numbers than has occurred over the last five years. 

Why?  Manatees are starving because sea grass, their main source of nutrition, is in short supply.  And why is that?  An ingredient in Roundup, the notorious herbicide, runs off from fields into waterways, where it helps fuel algae blooms that block sunlight from the sea grass, inhibiting photosynthesis.

So, sea grass supplies are dwindling and manatees, however loved by Floridians, are starving.  Still other causes could include sewage pollution from septic tanks.  It’s not a pretty picture. 

https://tinyurl.com/2m4c48fb

Which brings us to birds, in another un-pretty picture that paints the way of the world these days.  This poem sketches the current scene, one the TV newscaster about to show human violence could also warn about: “The images that follow may be disturbing.”

Vanishing

 

by Brittney Corrigan

 

Nearly one-third of the wild birds in the United States  and Canada have vanished since 1970, a staggering  loss that suggests the very fabric of North America’s  ecosystem is unraveling.  –The New York Times (9-19-19) Meadowlark As the world’s cities teem with children—flooding  our concrete terrains with shouts  and signs—as the younglings balance  scribbled Earths above their heads,  stand in unseasonal rain  or blistering sun,   the birds quietly lessen  themselves among the grasslands.  No longer a chorus but a lonely, indicating trill: Eastern meadowlark, wood thrush, indigo bunting— their voices ghosts in the  chemical landscape of crops. Red-winged blackbirds veer beyond the veil. Orioles  and swallows, the horned lark and the jay. Color drains from our common home so gradually, we convince ourselves  it has always been gray.   Little hollow-boned dinosaurs, you who survived the last extinction,  whose variety has obsessed  scientific minds, whose bodies  in the air compel our own bodies to spread and yearn— how we have failed you.   The grackles are right to scold us,  as they feast on our garbage  and genetically-modified corn.  Our children flock into the streets  with voices raised, their anger  a grim substitute for song.

(Copyright © 2021 by Brittney Corrigan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 8, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.) 

 

 

Cerulean warbler

 

Readers, if you're seeing any truly “pretty pictures” for animal life on earth right now, please share with us!  Go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com.