A record-holding bird, beavers as angels, & a cat shuttle

Bar-tailed godwit in flight

“Look!  Up in the sky!”  

Birds are often considered remarkable – for their beauty, their intelligence or inventiveness, their song.  How about if they hold the distance record for their non-stop migration flight: 7,000 miles?  Especially if they do it without food, water or rest for eight to 10 days and nights, through all kinds of weather?   

Bar-tailed godwits, truly remarkable birds, annually travel from Alaska to New Zealand to breed and raise their young.  Then, duty done, they fly back to Alaska, apparently never asking “Is this trip really necessary?”

Talk about “extreme sports”!

Shaped something like missiles with aerodynamic wings and bodily changes that facilitate their travels – including carefully added body fat that fuels their flights -- godwits fly non-stop from Alaska over the Pacific to Hawaii, then Fiji, till they reach New Zealand’s beaches. 

While their navigation system is still uncertain, there’s no doubt godwits have one, and their young somehow catch on when they fly north to Alaska.  It's estimated that some 90 thousand birds make the annual trip for more food and fewer predators – and 90% make it. 

Only through greatly improved technology in recent years have scientists become able to track such bird flights.  Now, they can follow individual birds in real time.    https://tinyurl.com/25na9s6r

Now the “good guys”

Beavers: devils or angels?  These days, they’re trending toward angels, especially in parts of the country experiencing drought.  “Water” is the magic word.

In the bad old days for beavers, their dams often foiled farmers’ plans so they were sometimes dynamited or otherwise destroyed, and the federal government killed the animals – nearly 25 thousand of them last year.    

Gradually, people started seeing advantages to beaver dams and began to happily co-exist: dam pools provide water for livestock and wildlife during droughts; they slow down destructive torrents of water raging down mountain sides; and they turn creeks into wetlands, clean the water and serve as buffers against wildfires.  In some places where their dams aren’t needed, beavers are being relocated to areas where they are -- people are learning to “leave it to beavers.”  https://tinyurl.com/52b9tk9n

Dogged about accuracy

Last week’s post included an entry about “teenage dogs,” as identified by Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, a dog behavior expert.  I captioned the accompanying image of a black dog “Quid,” assuming that’s who it was.  Then, from a review of Horowitz’s new book, The Year of the Puppy, I learned I was wrong because it includes a photo of the real “Quid,” short for “Quiddity,” btw.

That rebellious-ready black dog must have been a stand-in.  Maybe even another teen dog.  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/18/books/alexandra-horowitz-year-of-the-puppy.html

A happy end note

The heroic job of rescuing some 4,000 beagles from a Virginia breeding facility that supplied animals for experimentation is finished, thanks to the HSUS and its partner organizations around the country.  Beagles who would have been used, abused and killed are now starting real lives in loving homes.

Linked below, the video stars some of the rescued beagles learning to play; it’s followed by a few flashbacks to the huge, widespread efforts on their behalf.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgCOdi7pRn0   

Shuttle off to . . . sterilization

As the state’s central resource for information on community cats and Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), the Animal Protection League of New Jersey (APLNJ) also encourages and assists with implementation of that program. 

Now, seeing a need to transport large numbers of cats through the TNR process, the organization is offering a shuttle service next Tuesday, Oct. 4.  APLNJ subsidizes costs so the total price of $60 per cat ($70 for no ear tip) also includes a microchip.

If demand continues for shuttles-to-sterilization, the service will too.  (https://aplnj.org/tnr/)