Sick songbirds, deep sea life & animal traps

It's worrisome for warblers like goldfinches (NJ's state bird), sparrows and chickadees, and those who love them: Songbirds in our area are sick, and the cause is still unknown.  

The Mercer County Naturalist Newsletter recommends cleaning and putting away bird baths (10% bleach and 90% water) and feeders for the time being, while this “mortality event” that’s “occurring in nestling and fledgling songbirds in the mid-Atlantic, extending into the Southeast and eastern upper Midwest” is investigated.   https://tinyurl.com/y5epfsrx

Numerous young birds – also including orioles, woodpeckers, blue jays, robins and cardinals – have been found to have eye and neurologic issues, the publication continued.

American goldfinch

Although birds are susceptible to several viruses and bacteria, it’s already known that this outbreak was not primarily caused by salmonella, chlamydia, avian influenza virus or West Nile virus. 

Those who see birds with head tremors, partial paralysis or weakness in the legs; or birds falling to the side or unable to stand at all may contact the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife's Wildlife Veterinarian Dr. Nicole Lewis (Nicole.lewis@dep.nj.gov) or call 877-WARN-DEP for any additional instructions.

The article linked here looks at this issue beyond New Jersey.  https://tinyurl.com/yay333ct

Will this season come to be called the "silent summer"?  We pray not. 

Unfinished ocean business

Soon after my last post, about marine creatures, the NYTimes book review section featured a cover

Tufted titmouse

review of two new books about ocean life.  The essay itself included myriad surprises about who lives in that vast watery world, and where – with much of the information only recently discovered, and fascinating.  If you lack time or book-length interest, at least read the review and enjoy the cover illustration. https://tinyurl.com/dux8rp5a

Trapping: a year-round horror

“The question I want to ask is simpler than [whether human beings have the right to take another animal’s life, and if so for what reasons].  I want to know why it is still legal to kill animals in ways that cause inexpressible pain and fear and destruction, to both the targeted animals and an immense range of others.”

Margaret Renkl’s opinion column last fall, “How not to kill an animal,” is powerful.  She writes against inhumane ways to kill animals when that is to be done, including animal traps, a hideously cruel vestige of earlier, less enlightened times.  Animal traps, which can torture any animal caught in them, maiming or killing pets and people, are outlawed elsewhere, but not in most of the US.  https://tinyurl.com/29tr3jx9

House sparrow

One antidote to the horrors involved with animal traps is the Sept. 14 webinar from the Humane Society of the US (described below), “Protecting your pets and wildlife from traps.”  Yes, the fall hunting season is closing in, but trapping animals happens all year round – made legal with phony claims of predator control or “nuisance” wildlife control -- and it must be fought. 

Here are details about both the trapping issue and the webinar, including a registration form.  I hope you’ll take a look and consider attending next month’s session. https://tinyurl.com/4nwjhw4e

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Please note: AnimalBeatII will return from vacation next month. This is the 200^th AnimalBeatII blog post, so if you want to keep reading about animals, your course is clear! 

 

Dive into the watery world of sharks & more

How many times this seashore season have you heard someone mention Jaws . . . again?  Or talk up merely being near blue water, or extol the healing properties of salt water?  Add to that liquidy mix this summer’s excess of  wet weather, and you’ve got good reason to think about watery creatures.

When you think of animal life in water, sharks probably come to mind early and often.  So let’s start there, and go way back to earlier shark life — an existence that almost vanished  forever yet still limited the array of sharks even now.   

These days, the worst that can happen to sharks is overfishing and man-made killings, like finning – the barbaric practice of catching sharks only to cut off their fins for shark fin soup, then to toss them back into the ocean.  There, the helpless sharks die of suffocation, blood loss or predation.  

“Humans kill 100 million sharks annually,” according to Humane Society International, with hundreds of millions killed for shark fin soup alone.  https://tinyurl.com/vehx4pup

                      Great white shark                NYT image          

About 19 million years ago, long after dinosaurs were wiped out, sharks nearly went extinct, and even now, they’re still not fully back.  Exactly what happened then is still not known, but a mysterious mass extinction occurred in the world’s oceans that decimated sharks’ diversity.

Scientists studying “dermal denticles,” the microscopic scales that entirely cover sharks’ bodies like protective armor, found in sediment cores that shark diversity had so declined that only a fraction of shark species survived that event.

And now, sharks’ abundance is severely threatened, making for a double whammy that some believe may ultimately amount to the worst extinction of all.  https://tinyurl.com/3eyr293m

Scalloped hammerhead sharks

“Shark attacks” -- or those two words, anyway – are disappearing.  That’s because shark scientists hope to change how people regard sharks: not as blood-thirsty predators, but as animals “whose population has plummeted by 71 % since 1970,” mostly from overfishing.   

One shark expert put it: “A lot of what’s called a shark attack . . . is actually provoked by humans” – plus: the great majority of person-shark meetings don’t involve a bite.   So the suggested alternative wording is preferable because it’s less sensational and more accurate.  For instance, “shark incident” or shark interaction" or "shark encounter."

This fascinating story includes examples of myriad possible “shark interactions,” including when a person accidentally steps on a tiny one or a passing shark touches a person and keeps going. (Remember, sharks don’t know what humans are!)   https://tinyurl.com/3t5adnfp

Whale shark

Time out on sharks for awhile.  Maybe later, dogfish sharks and ghost sharks, from among the more than 500 shark species: small and colossal, glowing and roaming, according to one source.

On to another watery creature I’ve never seen but recently read about: the cuttlefish.  This cephalopod (seh·fuh·luh·paad) has lately become a lab darling for curious (aren’t they all?) scientists.  But first,

A cuttlefish is one member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda that also includes squid, octopus and nautilus.  These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles modified from the primitive molluscan foot. --Wikipedia

Ranging in size from about an inch to more than 2 feet, cuttlefish boast one of the largest brains among invertebrates.  They can regenerate their limbs and camouflage, blending with their environment to hunt or escape, and they possess amazing skin that can mimic surrounding textures and colors.  These attributes make cuttlefish attractive for exploring how and when intelligence evolves.  https://tinyurl.com/3xe3vd8c

Cuttlefish competing for a female

Feeling like a nice dip in the ocean about now?  Or would “high and dry” be your destination choice?

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Companion animal loss displaces other topics today

You’ll probably recognize this situation: Knowing exactly what you want to say (or write, in this case), you unexpectedly come upon something else that hits you hard and can’t wait.  So it went with this blog post.

Yesterday I attended a superlative webinar offered by Jackson Galaxy, the multi-media cat specialist ("Cat Daddy") I’ve followed off and on for years.  First it was “My Cat from Hell” on TV – usually well worth the watch -- then various other programs of his.  Most recently it was his seasonal “Cat Camp,” which I discovered only after it went virtual.

Norman

The high quality of that series surprised me; each session taught me things I wanted to know, and did it well.  Yesterday’s webinar, “You're Not Going Crazy, You're Grieving: Navigating Animal Companion Loss in a Post-Pandemic World,” was timely and excellent.

Joined by Stephanie Rogers, a grief counselor who specializes in animal companion loss support, Galaxy spoke in touching self-disclosing ways about the effects of pet deaths on their people.  At some length, the two discussed desirable ways to handle such grief-filled times.  

BTW, “grief” was defined as the internal expression of loss; it’s a process we go through after losing a beloved pet.  “Mourning” is the external expression of internal experience of grief, such as crying, sharing stories of those who died and rituals.

Bernie

Rogers shared her formula for grief: “We grieve in direct proportion to how much we love.”  That is, “Our grief experience will be every bit as big as our love.”  We can expect deep, lasting pain after the death of a companion animal we deeply loved; it’s the price we pay.

“Disenfranchised loss” is one major impediment while a person grieves for a lost pet.  When society doesn’t view grief for an animal’s death being as important as grief for the loss of a person, that only adds to the mourner’s sorrow.

The person grieving for a lost animal often wonders, “What can I do to stop the grief, the pain?”  And Rogers answers: Nothing can be done to move on faster and get past this.  We need to understand grief as a transformational life experience; we should “embrace our grief” and acknowledge the intensity of our loss, naming and claiming it.  “It takes more strength to mourn than to keep a stiff upper lip,” she says.

(For more about Stephanie Rogers, visit her website: EmbracingYourGrief.com.  And for more on the subject of grief from the same team of experts, register for this CatCamp summer session on Saturday, August 28 at CatCamp.com. It will cost $10 – a bargain!)

Dupree

Animal nits & bits

 ·         Monarch butterflies: going, going gone?  Judging by monarchs’ interest in my milkweed plant this summer, the sad reports I’ve read must be true – these beautiful creatures are just not showing up in anything like their (former) usual numbers.  I saw just 3 monarchs around the milkweed flowers, and later, only 2 caterpillars among the leaves.  

Will future generations never see monarchs?

 ·         Local sightings with one surprise:  Deer, now more visible everywhere, this time included what I suppose was a young buck, with appreciable antlers – not way high but definitely getting there.  He stared calmly at me while I slowed down for a closer look at him.

·         A fox strolled along the sidewalk-outskirts of Princeton’s    main street, cool as a Kirby cuke.  

Tee shirt surprise

It’s an old pale blue tee with top and underside views of horseshoe crabs in dark blue – a happy reminder of Stone Harbor’s Wetlands Institute.  Finally, this summer, I read the italic wording: Limulus polyphemus. 

How about that?  Polyphemus: a literary allusion to the one-eyed giant Odysseus encountered, and defeated, in his travels.  Now I’m wondering why horseshoe crabs were named so colorfully. 

Moral of the story: Read your own tee shirts!

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Skilled squirrels, beloved elephant, cosmetic ‘testers’ & a cat hearing aide

             Acrobatic fox squirrel           Judy Jinn pic

It’s the dog days of summer – had you guessed it? – and periodicals are filled with advice for  “how to beat the heat” and “how to motivate yourself to work” . . . when you feel much more like napping or reading a novel by the pool.  Here’s a “dog days collection” of animal stories: oldies but goodies, happy and sad.  

Let’s start with a favorite (for me, anyway) neighborhood animal: squirrels.  It turns out that besides all their other sterling qualities, squirrels are notably acrobatic. 

Researchers at a California university studied wild fox squirrels to understand decision making, learning and creativity in the context of physical challenges.  Their being just as smart as they are athletic had made squirrels the easy choice.

They handily showed their adaptive ability to jump along varied perches (artificial branches, sometimes secretly changed by researchers for greater challenge), to adjust their leaps at midpoint for more or less speed and to learn from their mistakes, self-correcting on their landings.

It quickly became clear that squirrels consider the stiffness of the launching branch (for a stable takeoff) of greatest importance.   https://tinyurl.com/9vmd8jtc

Maggie: RIP

                                   Maggie                     PAWS pic          

Around 15 years ago, I started hearing about an African elephant confined in an Alaskan zoo.  On top of that climate, ridiculous for any elephant, Maggie had also lived alone there for the last 10 years.  (Let’s see, how many humane principles have already been violated here. . . ).

Born and captured as a calf in Zimbabwe, she then spent 24 years in the zoo.  Her plight came to the attention of caring and persistent people who worked to get her out of there.  It took them years to do so.  I know because I did what little I could to persuade “the powers that be” to free Maggie.

Finally, she was flown to a California sanctuary where she lived for nearly 14 years with other elephants (and bears and big cats) who had also been rescued from inhumane living conditions.  Her move introduced me to the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), an organization easy to admire because of Maggie and all the other animals it had saved.

Since then, PAWS communications have often included news of Maggie settling in, making elephant friends and – finally – living the good life in an appropriate “wide open spaces” habitat, with medical care as needed and love all the time.

Maggie died earlier this week, with special elephant friend Lulu at her side.  She was 41. https://tinyurl.com/2hkfv8x6

It seems fitting that next Thursday, Aug. 12, is World Elephant Day.  

Ralph: 1 of many

                                              Ralph                     HSI pic                     

Animals suffering and in need include their myriad numbers used in testing cosmetics for humans. That’s right: needless, frivolous cosmetics!  Rabbits are among the animals who are involuntarily involved in this cruel “science,” and they suffer mightily, often dying from their “life style.”  

Recent efforts to remind people about this horrific practice took the form of a short film about “Ralph,” a “tester” rabbit who describes his “job.”  I had missed it till now – but I don’t want you to miss it: https://www.hsi.org/saveralphmovie/

Ahoy, matey!  

Cats have long been common on ships, often serving as “mousers” and diverting company for the crew. But one nautical feline in the news is a handsome polydactyl who serves as ears for his deaf captain, Paul Thompson.

                         Scatty's fancy footwork                       Thompson pic              

“Scatty,” a young Maine Coon – the breed Thompson long aspired to sail with on “La Chica,” the 32-foot sailboat he built – has earned his sea legs atop his wide, extra-toed paws.  So far, there’s been only one “Cat overboard!” which Thompson handled with the fishing net he keeps on hand for that purpose.

To get his captain’s attention, Scatty has only to put a paw on Thompson’s knee for Thompson to rise and follow his crew member to the visitor at the door or the boat pulling up alongside.  

Thompson plans a round-the-world sail with Scatty.  What a team.    https://tinyurl.com/3accprws

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