drive on the wild side

Bald Eagle
photo by Kim LeBlanc

STOP THE PRESSES!  The refuge just announced that the auto drive described below will NOT open April 15, because a pair of Bald Eagles are building a nest along the route.  If they continue to use that nest, it might be mid-June before the route opens.  But since eagles often build "practice" nests, the route might yet be opened in early May.  Stay tuned! 

The Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge has over 9,000 acres, but most of it has been accessible only by foot or bike, or not at all (the better to maintain it as a "refuge" for wildlife!).  But this year that changes, as a 7.5-mile auto tour opens in April. (http://www.fws.gov/midwest/Shiawassee/)

The auto route will be open 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. from April 15 - October 5, barring flooding conditions or soft roads.  And since four rivers come together at Shiawassee, take that "except when flooding" clause seriously!  To be certain of conditions, it's a good idea to call the refuge headquarters, (989) 777-5930, ahead of time. Another complication could be one of the more popular critters at Shiawassee -- the Bald Eagle.  If eagles choose to nest alongside the driving route, the opening date would have to be postponed until the young eagles leave the nest.

The route will provide wonderful access to the forests, floodplains, wet meadows, cattail marshes and rivers of Shiawassee, and its incredibly diverse wildlife.  People driving the route will be asked to remain in their cars, except at designated viewing areas, in order to limit their impact on birds and other wildlife. (Cars make great wildlife blinds!)



Check out Janet Martineau's
blog for more information
on the auto route at Shiawassee

 For more information about the auto route, check out this blog by "Friends of the Shiawassee" member, Janet Martineau,  http://janetmartineau.blogspot.com/2011/01/shiawassee-national-wildlife-refuges-75.html.
If you haven't visited this refuge before, you are in for a treat!  Over 270 species of birds use the refuge, including thousands of waterfowl during spring and fall migrations.  The refuge has been designated as a U.S. Important Bird Area by the American Birding Association. Prothonotary warblers, rails, shorebirds, nesting Bald Eagles. . . every season brings a variety of sightings!

Help map the moon!

"Citizen Science" has long allowed amateur ornithologists, lepidopterists, herpetologists, and lots of other "ologists" to take part in monitoring populations of plants and animals here on Earth.  But now is your chance to reach beyond our planet by helping to map the moon! The Citizen Science Alliance needs lots of eyes to help classify tens of thousands of NASA's moon photos.  It's a daunting task for a handful of scientists, but with the help of hundreds (or thousands?) of the rest of us, the craters, boulders, fallen space debris and other features of the moonscape will be mapped in fine detail.

Participants are asked to simply sort through a variety of photographs and count the craters, look for other oddities, and compare the numbers of boulders strewn across different areas of the moon.  It's an exercise in pattern recognition and counting that is still best done by the good ole human eye rather than by computers!  To help out with this project, check out this website:   http://www.moonzoo.org/

More clues in deformed frog mystery

Deformed Leopard Frog
photo courtesy David Skelly/Yale University

Year-by-year, scientists are gathering more information about what is causing deformities and "intersex" (mix of male and female parts) conditions in frogs across North America.  As the clues come in, it becomes more and more obvious that the deformities are almost certainly due to agents humans are introducing into the environment.  

The most recent research, by Yale University's David Skelly, is further evidence that the deformities are not caused by a single culprit, but rather by a suite of estrogen-mimicking drugs, industrial chemicals and pesticides.  Skelly's research studied frog populations in the ponds of four different Connecticut ecosystems: forested landscapes, agricultural areas, suburbs and cities. Not surprisingly, the frogs of forested landscapes were perfectly normal. Those in some agricultural area ponds had deformities.  However, the rate of deformities in urban and suburban areas was THREE times the rate of deformities in agricultural areas!  “The fact that these kinds of estrogens out in the environment can have this kind of effect on a vertebrate — many people would say that that alone is a basis for us to be concerned,” Skelly says of the potential impact of his studies. 

Skelly says drugs that are meant to act as estrogen (though not intended for the environment!), such as birth control pills, along with unintentional estrogen mimics such as the plasticizer agent Bisphenol A (BPA), are not removed by standard wastewater treatment, so they pass easily from our homes and factories into nearby rivers, streams and ponds. For a more complete report of his findings, check out the Yale Environmental 360 website:  http://e360.yale.edu/feature/unraveling_the_mystery_of_the_bizarre_deformed_frogs/2368/

lights out!

Night, or what is left of it,
in North America.

From parking lots to ball diamonds to our own backyards, we have lit up our nights to the point that we don't really have "night" anymore.  Light seemed like a good idea back when we lived around campfires, but it turns out there really is too much of a good thing.  Our relunctance to deal with the dark has been proven to have a negative impact not just on backyard stargazers and professional astronomers, but on wildlife , and on our own health and safety.  From baby sea turtles crawling away from the ocean instead of into it (due to nearby town lights), to various cancers (due to a decrease in the production of melatonin when exposed to nighttime lights), to safety issues caused by outdoor lights that create glare rather than security, night sky pollution is a serious hazard!  For more information on this topic, and to learn how you can use light without reducing your safety or endangering your health or that of wildlife, check out the website of the International Dark Sky Association, http://www.darksky.org/.

Typical mercury "security"
light that provides
more glare than security.

This organization does not recommend simply turning lights off and living in the dark, but using lights WISELY -- as needed, where needed, and most importantly, with light fixtures that put light where it is needed, rather than shooting it off into the sky (or worse, into your eyes, which keeps you from seeing the very dangers you are trying to expose).  The "frequently asked questions" page is a good starting point. So as always, turn off lights where you can. But where you can't, use the right light.