The Ivory Billed Woodpecker is NOT extinct

What a rare treat, these tears of joy for old-school conservation. What other species (and government I dare say) but ours would silently pump $10 million+ into buying up the land around where another endangered (and thought to be extinct) species was seen and make sure it was well protected before announcing (a year later) that the spieces wasn't extinct. I remember reading into this last year and finding less than conclusive accounts, which now seem like they must have been strategic, and touching.

See for details:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/News/NewsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-04-28T203324Z_01_N28115095_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-WOODPECKER-DC.XML

It is important to point out that there are major reasons to get away from thinking on the species-level and move toward ecosystem-level thinking (as is hinted at in the end of the above article). But for now let us bask in some good old biophilia.

Classes Fall 2005

I will be studying the following exciting subjects (and making you listen to me talk about them):

Anthropology 395: Advanced Special Topic: Past Human Landscapes

Biology 305: Evolution of Iowa Flora (Labs will be held at the fancy new facility on our college-owned prairie CERA)

Biology 345: Advanced Genetics

Philosophy 242: Ethical Theory


And this summer I will be taking:

Biology 399: Summer Research: Maya Ethnoecology

Grinnell College Environmental Mission Statement

Folks,

I'm on a committee that is developing overarching environmental guidelines for Grinnell and we wrote up a draft. If you have any comments please leave them for me. We meet with the President next week to finalize the statement. See below:

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Grinnell College “aims to graduate women and men. . . who are prepared in life and work to use their knowledge and their abilities to serve the common good” (Grinnell College Mission Statement). It follows that the College values the common good of environmental sustainability: the long-term maintenance of the environmental resources and services that support human and all other life on earth. Thereby, Grinnell College is committed to promoting environmental sustainability in all its actions.

The College, in pursuing this over-aching goal, will pursue strategies to:
Reduce resource consumption.
Increase resource re-use and recycling.
Reduce waste output.
Maintain a healthy campus environment for the Grinnell College community.
Acknowledge Grinnell College’s interdependence with the Iowa landscape.
Foster native Iowa biodiversity.

Successful implementation of environmental initiatives will complement other college priorities, such as reducing financial costs and creating campus landscape and architecture that promote personal health, safety, and productivity. The above environmental goals and their associated benefits will be achieved most effectively if they are seamlessly integrated with campus operations.

To achieve its environmental goals, the College will:
Challenge all members of the campus community to improve their environmental practices.
Incorporate analysis of environmental costs and benefits into budget planning, purchasing,
campus planning, construction projects, and daily operations.
Provide the educational and human resources necessary to assess, research, implement, and improve environmental strategies.
Provide opportunities and resources for research and free inquiry of environmental issues.

Guano

I hope to resolve the meaning of the word guano. It seems that the word came into use in the mid 19th century when it became an export commodity (mostly from islands off Peru and Chile) for use on European and, later, American farms. So the term mostly means easily collectible nutrient rich droppings. Most dictionaries simply call guano the feces of sea birds. Wikipedia, the most useful site in my search, calls it " the name given to the collected droppings of seabirds and bats." The word has its origin in the Kitchua (aka Quechua, an important Peruvian upland native group with a relatively global visibility. My spelling is the more politically savvy according to Lara Janson, a friend who is going to the area on a Fulbright next year) word "wanu" which, I gather, refers to its ability to enrich argiculture. The most important animal for the Peruvian industry of guano exportation has been the Guanay cormorant and the Peruvian Pelican.

Incidentally, lest we think that this industry was of little importance, let us remember that when the English began to import significant amounts of guano in 1847, their nightsoil industry collapsed. The nightsoil industry collected human wastes from cesspools outside houses in London and other major cities to distrubute to agricultural areas. While the transition to connecting house waste streams to city sewers was well underway, many houses still used cesspools near their homes and paid nightsoil men to take it away periodically. In 1856, the problem of human wastes accumulating in the Thames and London's groundwater became so serious and undenyable that a massive undertaking was begun to build the world's first major system of sanitary sewers seperate from storm water sewers. The seperation of London's water supply from its waste disposal was undertaken by Sir Joseph Balzalgette and saved many lives by reducing cholera epidemics and other fecally transmitted diseases.

The game of the Season

I urge you to try Bottle. It is a simple game that requires only a Powerade or Gatorade or similar bottle. You get three or four plus people together and stand in a circle on the grass. The object of the game is to catch the bottle with one hand (and no trapping against any part of your body) after in bounces off the ground and before it hits the ground a second time. So the game starts with a player throwing the bottle against the ground and everyone trying to snatch the bottle out of the air at the same time. It ends up being pretty fun because you never know what is going to happen and everyone dives around for the bottle as it goes bouncing through the air off people's attempts to snatch it. A good starting throw is important. Try holding it by the cap end and trying to make it hit the ground on its bottom and then bounce up pretty high. Keep score or not; we typically don't here. It's so much fun no one usually gives a shit. Good for most ages and athletic abilities.

Note from Belize

Today I walked through Maya ruins- Cahal pech and Xunantunich. Archeologists have reconstructed them but they have recreated only what they know was there. It is pretty impressive. Actually, I hardly have the capacity for a proper taking in: today, I've decided to read a novel to relax from all the learning I have been doing the last week. I was on Glover's Atoll, one of four atolls (sunken islands with reefs all around the edge) in the caribbean. Specifically, I was Middle Caye, on one of the three cayes (small islands made of accreted corals) on the atoll. Middle caye is about 7 acres and is taken up by a research facility for anyone who wants to do research. The staff are all locals- creole, garrifina (essentially a unique caribbean african culture), and belizians. They speak english and creole mostly, the latter when they are in a rush or shooting the shit. I shat with them a few nights on the dock where they sit with a shotgun and gaurd their boats from theft by locals or Guatemalans who can boat there in a few hours. BUT, the mostly amazing thing has been what lies under water, through the plastic of a dive mask. Do you know what it is like??? I can't describe it. I wish only that a similarly easy (amazingly easy) portal into the below ground were possible. The water in the whole attol is from 1-100 feet deep and we spent most of our time in depths of about 1-20 feet. You drift on the water and look down at the most-creative-and-full-of-secrets-and-surprises aquarium you can imagine. Parrot fishes eating the corals make an audible crunch and there are so many of them it sounds like rain. Small nurse sharks sometimes can be seen around the reefs hanging out. Angelfishes, grunts, snappers, rockfish, gobies (cleaner fish who wait for large fish to come and bite off parasites even from inside the mouth), wrasses, basslets, squirrel fish, etc. I learned to recognize at least 3 species in each of these groups plus more groups I can't remember. Then there are the corals- hard ones with calcium carbonate between the polyps (clonal indivuals), soft ones with protien structures seperating the polyps, and sea fans. Sponges, amazingly different kinds of algae, land crabs, hermit crabs the size of your fist that can climb trees, parrots, ospreys, grackles, other birds. I haven't coutned but I bet I've learned a hundred or more species in a week.

Now I'm the mainland, enjoying the forests. I think so far I have only seen what we would call second growth and what I thought was great in Alaska until I saw a real old growth forest and realized what was really great. I hope to see a similarly huge and great forest but I'm not sure I will. The trees and amazingly diverse (there are most species of trees in 10 square hectares in the tropics than in all of north america) and they are covered in epiphytes (plants that live on the trees). Iguanas, lizards, kinkajus . . . .