animals Archives ~ Rambling ranger

November 18, 2022November 19, 2022

Neighbors

OK, I’m back. It’s been a while since I wrote a post, more than six months. My Mom passed away and then life got really busy. I needed time to grieve. Something had to give, and with the internet connection challenges of my remote rural Alaska home, it was the blog. But I’m back now, and I wanted to mention a few of my neighbors, who I can always count on to bring a smile to my face.

I’m not talking about just my human neighbors, although they, too, can be counted on to bring a smile to my face. I’m not the only one who’s gotten busier lately. We seldom have time to visit anymore.

I see a lot more of my other neighbors, the wild ones. They visit often. Some of them are practically roommates, like the porcupine who moved in under the house in the spring of 2020, when I was a little late getting back home to Alaska due to Covid. I had to evict that squatter. He was a bad roommate. He chewed up the hose connecting my propane tank to the house.

Pine Grosbeak — Songbirds bring joy to my life.

Some neighbors are always welcome. My favorites are the songbirds. Waking up to their songs brings joy to my life daily.

Another species that I see often in the fall is the spruce grouse. It’s a mystery. I don’t understand it. These birds don’t migrate. They live here year-round. Yet they’re everywhere in the fall, but you NEVER see them in the spring and summer. Where are they? It is a mystery.

The snowshoe hares go through big population boom and busts, too. It’s about an 11-year cycle. Some years you are practically tripping on them, there are so many. Then the population crashes and you can go a whole summer and maybe see one.

Some neighbors can be obnoxious. I’m talking about tree rats, aka squirrels. They have no conception of private property and will trash your house and steal your insulation to use in their own home. Obnoxious. So I was really glad to see a new addition to my neighborhood this fall, a pine martin. He’ll clean out those pesky squirrels!

Another neighbor I’m usually happy to see is the moose. They’re good at teaching ME that lesson about private property. The lesson that there is no such thing. My land belongs to them, too. I hate to have them visit when they are intent on eating the garden or chowing down on that going-to-be oh-so-photogenic patch of head-high fireweed blossoms that would perfectly set off my best view, the day before they would flower.

Black Bear Cubs — Cute, but stay outta my yard!

Then there’s the neighbor that Alaska is famous for, the one I am much happier NOT seeing in my yard. Ever. Bears. I could see either black bear or grizzlies in my neighborhood, although thank goodness not as often as I saw them when I was renting a house in the middle of a soapberry patch. But you have to always be aware, every single time you walk out the door, that they could be there, maybe just around the corner. I mean, I’m glad I live in a place where I can still run into a bear on Main Street, as I did this summer in Kennecott. But I hope they stay away from my house!

I have another new neighbor in the ‘hood, down in McCarthy town, in Clear Creek, where I get my water. We are getting a few, though I wouldn’t call it a run yet, red salmon now coming up Clear Creek. We’ve had an October run of silver salmon for a long time, but the reds have only started showing up the last few years, in August.

It’s because of the dynamic landscape we live in, constantly changing and changing ever more quickly these days due to the glacial retreat caused by global climate change. The hydrological changes in the town of McCarthy are especially striking. Land that was forest when I first moved here is now wetland. The little pond at the toe of the glacier is now a big lake. These changes have made the area more attractive for some creatures, like beaver and salmon, but caused some big challenges for us, the human residents.

Dall's Sheep above Chitina — Dall’s Sheep above Chitina

There are other neighbors living a little farther away, but still in what I would consider the neighborhood. These friends I don’t see as often maybe but enjoy whenever I get the chance. There’s that family of swans in the Chokosna ponds area. It’s always nice to catch up with them, and see how many cygnets they’re raising this year. I might see the occasional bald eagle, or rarer still, a glimpse of Dall’s Sheep in the Crystalline Hills or up above the town of Chitina. Maybe I’ll see a lynx along the McCarthy Road, or a weasel in Kennecott. I’m glad to live in a community with so many wonderful neighbors!

Thanks to Anne of Slow Shutter Speed for this week’s Lens-Artist Photography Challenge, “Wildlife Close To Home”.

January 22, 2021January 24, 2021

Biodiversity is an Emotional Issue

When it comes to biodiversity, my feelings run through the full gamut of emotions.

Happiness

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge — Biodiverse landscapes make us happy.

Being close to nature has been a priority of mine for nearly my whole adult life. From my first backpacking trip on, I realized that immersing myself in landscapes teeming with life – many different forms of life interacting easily and naturally with each other – kept me healthy, happy and sane. Knowing that I am just a piece of a very big puzzle, a cog in the unbelievably complex wheel of the Universe, helps me to regain a proper perspective when I get overwhelmed by challenges that seem too great for me to handle. It’s really not all about me; my problems are so inconsequential when I am surrounded by the real Big Picture.

I’m not alone. It has been acknowledged by cultures all over the globe that healthy, thriving ecosystems are necessary for our physical, mental, and spiritual health. Variety IS the spice of life.

Gratitude

Death Valley Monkeyflower — Plant biodiversity is incredibly important in our lives.

Every day I am grateful for the complexity of life. Biodiversity is responsible for all the choices we have in the foods we can eat. It is responsible for life-saving medicines, with more being discovered all the time. Lack of biodiversity has been connected to many disease outbreaks. Biodiversity is accountable for resiliency and flexibility in the face of dramatic changes to our planet. It is necessary for the very air we breathe and water we drink.

As a park ranger, biodiversity is essential to my employment. It’s probably the main reason people visit national parks. But you don’t have to work in the tourism industry to be economically dependent on biodiversity. According to the Living Planet Index, people derive approximately $125 trillion of value from natural ecosystems each year. Gotta be grateful for that.

Concern

We are losing our biodiversity at an astonishing rate, a reason for great concern. Species extinctions currently vary between 100 and 10,000 times the background extinction rate of one to five extinctions a year over the history of the planet. That doesn’t even get into the decline in populations of many species not yet in danger of extinction. The average population size of vertebrate species has declined by 68 percent from 1970-2016. Since biodiversity is essential to our survival, we should all be concerned.

Sadness

Monarch Butterflies — The Western Monarch Butterfly population is down more than 99% from the 1980s count.

Witnessing this decline breaks my heart. It makes me very sad when I read about mass die-offs of seabirds in western Alaska or see with my very own eyes the decline of a species like the Monarch Butterfly.

Fear

Denali National Park — After a lengthy court battle, grizzly bears are still covered by the Endangered Species Act in the contiguous US.

As I watch ecosystems crash one by one, as we continue to do little to nothing to address this issue, I feel fear. I fear for our quality of life and our very survival as a species as we continue to degrade the resources we need to depend on, both now and in the future.

Guilt

Wramgell St. Elias national Park & Preserve — Like most of us, I need to make more conscious choices.

I’m an American. I’m guilty. It’s ridiculous how much we Americans contribute to the loss of habitat and the loss of biodiversity. All because we have been trained to constantly want more, more, more, just to keep our consumer-driven culture intact.

I didn’t get a driver’s license until I was 50. I didn’t want to become part of the problem. But I am part of the problem. I’ve driven a couple of hundred thousand miles since then.

I’m not much of a consumer for an American. I’m not one of those getting Amazon packages every day. I seldom buy something unless I need it. But I don’t always buy organic or make wise choices about eating locally. Pesticides, herbicides, and industrial farming methods are some of the main drivers behind the loss of biodiversity. Transportation of foodstuffs from one part of the world to destinations tens of thousands of miles away is an incredible waste of our planet’s resources. I could do better. We all could do better.

Anger

graffiti on redwood tree — Disrespect for living things makes me angry.

Although I feel guilt, I feel a lot more anger. I feel angry at everyone that disrespects nature and the diversity of life. The thoughtlessness of an individual vandalizing or destroying a tree or a flower can make me mad, but the heartlessness of powerful corporations and individuals who put short-term profit before the long-term health of the planet makes me rage.

Despair

Sea Star and hermit crabs — Hermit Crabs scavenging a dead sea star

I’ve felt a lot of despair over the last 4 years as I’ve watched all the hard-won environmental reforms of the previous 50 years go by the wayside. I’ve felt despair as I’ve had to stand by while the Trump administration gutted the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, two key pieces of legislation for the protection of biodiversity.

It can be overwhelming when the reality of the situation really sinks in. When I walk a beach in Olympic National Park that no longer supports starfish, or think of the reefs in the Florida Keys that I used to snorkel that are now white, dead skeletons, I feel despair.

Joy

But it’s not all doom and gloom. We humans have some amazing capabilities. We can turn things around when we really try. There are success stories out there. There are species that have been brought back from the edge of extinction and are now thriving.

Elephant seals are one of those species. So are sea otters. So are bison. They’re out there, those examples of times when we’ve corrected the mistakes we’ve made. I feel great joy when I see these success stories.

Hope

Yellowstone National Park — American Bison have come back from the brink of extinction.

“With unity, we can do great things.” – Joseph R. Biden

Although my emotions run the whole gamut, the main emotion I am feeling right now when it comes to biodiversity is hope. A new day is dawning. We have an opportunity right now to turn things around and build a better world for the future, a world where biodiversity matters. But to make this happen, we need to change our mindsets. Instead of asking ourselves, “What will best benefit me?”, we need to ask ourselves, “What will best benefit us, all of us? What policies can we enact that will be good for not just the short-term, but for the long-term health of our Mother the Earth?” We need to take a good look at how we do things and figure out better ways to do them, ways that protect biodiversity and lead to a cleaner, greener planet. We have a chance, and we need to act on it. Now.

“It’s time for boldness because there’s so much to do.” – Joseph R. Biden

Thank you to Patti of Pilotfishblog for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge theme, Emotions.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve — Biodiversity is good for all of us!

Answers to last week’s quiz – 1) Purple Cress, alpine 2) Purple Mat, desert 3) Bristly Langlosia, desert 4) Spring Beauty, alpine 5) Bigelow Mimulus, desert

February 19, 2019November 4, 2020

The Elephant Seals of Piedras Blancas

Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery, California

Not all stories about animals threatened with extinction end sadly. I’d like to share with you an animal comeback success story.

Elephant Seals at Piedras Blancas rookery, California — Family Portrait

Before the advent of kerosene, seals were hunted as ruthlessly as whales, and for the same reason. Oil. Both seal and whale oil were in great demand for lighting up people’s homes at night.

One seal in particular was prized, the elephant seal. They are really big animals. The male can weigh up to two and a half tons. Due to its great size and thick blubber, an elephant seal could render an immense quantity of oil. Northern elephant seals were hunted relentlessly, until the species was on the brink of extinction. By 1913, only 30 were left, a small herd that spent its onshore time on Guadalupe Island off the coast of Mexico.

Piedras Blancas rookery, California — Elephant seal bulls fight for dominance

Realizing that extinction was imminent, the Mexican government took steps to protect the last of the elephant seals. Their stringent protection measures were successful. The elephant seals survived. Over time, they even began to thrive.

As the population of elephant seals rose, they began to recolonize some of their former territories, eventually moving north to the waters off the coast of California.

Elephant seals are amazing animals. They spend most of their lives in the deep ocean. Superbly adapted to their life in the sea, they spend 90% of their time there underwater. They migrate thousands of miles, swimming up to 60 miles in a day. Elephant seals can dive deeper than any other mammal, including whales. Although most of their dives are 300-600 meters, they can dive down as deep as a mile under the surface of the sea. They can even hold their breath for almost 2 hours without resurfacing.

Although the majority of their time is spent far offshore, elephant seals do need to come to land to breed, birth and molt.

One of the places they have recently returned to is a beach just south of Piedras Blancas Point, at the southern end of the Big Sur coastline.

Elephant seals began to make Piedras Blancas home in the 1990s. At first there were only a couple of dozen seals landing there. In those early days, the local community viewed the return of elephant seals as a bit of a problem. The beach they were landing on was popular with surfers, and there was a concern about the possibility of conflict between the seals and the surfers. There was also a discussion about the seals interfering with traffic on Highway 1.

Sometimes they do actually make it across the highway. Not often, though. They need to be on the beach.

A management plan for the seals was debated. Education, not regulation, was key to the success of the plan. It also required a bit of a compromise. The surfers would have to sacrifice their beach for the good of the seals.

A non-profit organization, Friends of the Elephant Seals, trained docents to staff the area and educate visitors when the seals were active. A small fence was built to keep the seals off the highway and discourage people from approaching too closely.

The plan was a success. The elephant seal population increased exponentially, growing from that two dozen in the early 1990s to 17,000 in 2018.

Piedras Blancas is now one of the biggest seal rookeries in California, hosting about 10% of the entire world population of Northern Elephant Seals.

The numbers are still increasing. Here at Piedras Blancas, about five thousand babies are born a year.

Since their numbers are increasing, though, the beaches they already inhabit may not be enough. During the recent government shutdown, the elephant seals at Point Reyes National Seashore took over Drake’s Beach, formerly a favorite of the park’s human visitors. Like the earlier debate at Piedras Blancas, officials are not quite sure what to do about it but are leaning toward education and giving it back to the seals. Do you really want to argue with a two and a half ton bull elephant seal, and all his friends and relations?

The gargantuan bull elephant seals just may be the ugliest animals on Earth. Sometimes they look rather comical. This must be where Sesame Street’s Snuffleupagus came from. Other times, well, they’re just plain ugly. At least four, sometimes up to ten times the size of the females, these behemoths look like they belong to a completely different species.

Males fight for territory and breeding rights. Although the fighting can get ugly, usually vocalizations and posturing will cause one of the two combatants to back down.

Mating is often, although not always, brutal. Females usually resist, trying to move away and screaming loudly, flinging sand into the bull’s face. They are bit and clobbered and violently restrained by the males. Sometimes babies are crushed by the ardent bulls pursuing their mothers and die later from internal injuries. Imagine a human getting run over by a truck. It’s kind of like that, a hundred pound pup squashed under an oblivious two ton bull.

Hostility and aggression are not confined to the males. The females fight often among themselves, too. As I watched one cow and her pup argue, I thought, “Is that any way to treat your poor little newborn baby?” Anthropomorphisizing, I know! Elephant seals seem like such an ill-tempered race. Their time on land must be incredibly stressful.

Maybe they just need a Snickers bar. During their time ashore, elephant seals neither eat nor drink. Males may stay on the beach up to 100 days.

Females will only spend 4-6 weeks at a time on land, but nursing a pup will take its toll. Mothers lose two pounds for every pound a pup gains. They will lose about a third of their body weight during their time onshore. That and they’re getting randomly raped. It’s enough to make anyone grouchy!

January and February are the best months to watch all the action at the rookery. Births, nursing, mating, fighting for dominance all happen at that time. There’s a lot going on. It’s fascinating to watch.

Seals mating, Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery, California — Seal porn

Observing the elephant seals leaves me with a couple of thoughts to ponder, that I’d like to share with you. Are we going to be OK with giving up a beach every 20 years or so to let another species thrive? Or are we too selfish to allow even that?

The other is a ray of hope. If the elephant seals can come back after being almost completely exterminated by human causes, can we bring some of today’s endangered species, like the Monarch Butterfly, back from the brink? I think we can, if we want it enough. I hope we do.

Tag: animals

Neighbors

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