This august, I went to Sweden to look for the invisible diversity that exists in homes. I wanted to find those arthropods and microbes that we live with, but never see. I joined up with Jonas and Misha to make the third installment of our Bugs in the Home series. Here is what we produced:
If you haven’t seen the rest of this series, here is a link to the entire playlist.
Recently, I was asked to make a video about hunting and how it affects conservation. I love this idea because I am a conservationist at heart and a scientist by trade. I also grew up hunting. My whole midwestern family hunts. Here is what has me thinking: how can you make the following statement?
To a hunter, I think this statement makes complete sense. To someone opposed to hunting it makes no sense at all. I think there is truth somewhere in the middle, and if you’re a hunter, I think it’s important to understand what a statement like this really means.
First, let’s be clear. If you shoot something, you’re not conserving the thing you just shot. You could conserve the pelt, the antlers, or the memory of that animal, but that animal is gone. However, you might be doing something that helps conserve the species, the habitat, or the region’s biodiversity. This is a big “might.” You can’t just claim to be a hunter and a conservationist unless you understand how you, as a hunter, fit into the greater scheme of conservation.
So let’s step through how hunting can or cannot help in conservation. The first, most logical step is to start with an understanding of conservation in general.
Conservation is defined as the act of preserving, guarding and protecting. When talking about a single animal, hunting doesn’t fit the definition. It’s only in a broader sense—where conservation refers to protecting and preserving biodiversity, the environment and natural resources—does hunting have value. If, through hunting particular species, we are able to protect the vast diversity of animals and plants in an area then maybe hunting is important to conservation.
I think conservation should be focused first on sustaining biodiversity. Hunting has an important role here that I’d like to discuss. However, before we go on, it is important that we all agree on this definition of conservation. If you’d rather agree that conservation simply means the survival of the species you’re hunting, I think our common ground may fall apart. For example, if you’re only interested in what you can do to make sure you keep a population of wild pigs, as opposed to how you can manage wild pigs to keep a healthy ecosystem, I don’t think you can call it conservation.
This is an extremely tricky subject to do a video on because the intricacies of hunting and conservation also depend on the region of the world you’re in. They are dependent on local laws, the culture of the people, some history, and the biology of the organisms.
For example, the recent discussions of trophy hunting in African countries bring up a completely different set of issues than those we deal with in the US. Some of those countries have banned hunting (like Kenya) and other countries (like Zimbabwe) seem to have used hunting to fuel great conservation success stories. We don’t have the same problems of poaching, extreme poverty, and hunting for bushmeat. Simply put, you can’t lump hunting around the world together as one concept. Here, I’ll be discussing hunting only in North America.
What would things be like if nobody hunted? Would everything fall apart? I don’t think it would. Animals and plants would find an equilibrium. They’d probably eat a lot more of our crops, predators would eat our cats, and there may be more animal-borne diseases to deal with, but we’d probably see a lot more animals. Countries like Bhutan, where the population is mostly Buddhist and people don’t hunt, are pretty nice. However, we don’t have that history.
I come from a country where, culturally, some people like to hunt. A lot of people like to shoot things for sport or leisure. In fact, the common hunter is part of why the passenger pigeon (our most beautiful and abundant pigeon) went extinct in 1914. They say flocks of them blackened the sky. Now, they’re gone.
In fact, in the 1800s we lost a lot of species and almost lost many others, like the bison. In that case, hunters were not part of the solution; they were the problem. Fortunately, some American leaders realized what was happening and decided to make sure there were animals left for us all to enjoy (and potentially hunt) in the future. To be clear here, this change was in part because the hunting elite at the time, who lived in big cities, wanted to make sure they could keep hunting. So, when hunters claim that we have what we have now because of “hunters,” it’s important to realize nearly everyone hunted. It took a conservationist hunter to give us what we have today.
Essentially, America had to find a way to conserve things so that we didn’t lose more of our abundant wildlife. The solution was in part what we now call the North American Wildlife Conservation Model.
This model isn’t as much a set of rules as it is guidelines for making decisions. It is articulated officially by organizations such as The Wildlife Society (as seen in this publication). Here are the basic principles:
Essentially, no individual owns the wildlife of the land. Instead it’s owned collectively by the public and managed by the national and state governments as a resource for everyone. In other words, if you own land, you don’t own the wildlife on it.
By making it illegal to sell and trade North American wildlife, this ensures that a market is not created that might otherwise reduce numbers of native species. This includes wild game meat, bird feathers and native species in the pet trade. It’s why hunters don’t sell their deer meat.
In other words, animals are protected and managed by governmental laws, not by market principles, public status (elites), or land ownership. Laws that regulate access to wildlife include the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the 1973 Endangered Species Protection Act.
Every citizen has an opportunity, under the law, to hunt and fish in the United States and Canada. This makes sure we don’t get a ruling class that decides it’s going to have the exclusive right to hunt. It’s also in part why in-state hunting tags are so cheap.
This means we should not kill wildlife for frivolous purposes. Every reasonable effort should be made to use all aspects of the wildlife, including food and fur. This principle essentially shuns trophy hunting just for the horns, heads or skins.
Because birds and other game migrate across international boundaries, several international treaties have established that wildlife is an international resource as well. Thus, the management of these species is regulated by cooperation of management agencies across borders as well as through international treaties.
Wildlife should be managed via sound science. Basically, it’s important to study and understand the population dynamics, behavior, and habitats of wildlife so that decisions come from that research instead of interests solely based in hunting, stocking and culling predators.
In short, these seven basic principles act as guidelines for the government to manage fish and wildlife populations at optimum levels for eternity. It also makes sure that decisions are based in science. It also essentially states that part of the goal is that everyone can keep hunting. That means these guidelines include hunting in their definition of conservation.
For conservationists interested exclusively in keeping biodiversity levels high, I think hunting also has a great role as well. Here is how:
Hunting does two main things for conservation. One, it acts as a funding source for state agencies that help conserve habitat. While this money could come from somewhere else, the reality is that in North America, much of it comes from hunting (more on the funding model in a second). Secondly, it helps control prey species (deer, elk, bison) who might otherwise have population explosions due to reduced predator populations (reduced from hunting). Let me touch on the specifics of each of these.
Just over half of the Department of Fish and Wildlife is funded by hunting. For example, here is the breakdown of where funding comes from in Idaho:
Hunters do fund just over half of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. That Department in-turn spends a big % of the budget to directly support hunting activities (working on getting these exact numbers). That means that a lot of the money hunting raises is able to go into basic scientific research of plants and animals (I’m really hoping that hunting raises more money than is spent on it. I’m still looking for these numbers).
Additionally, XX dollars is used every year to buy up new land and protect it with the sole purpose of allowing hunters to hunt on it in the future. The benefit is that these areas are also conserved for the thousands of other species that use the habitat.
To summarize it, here are the main activities that hunting dollars support:
If you’re a hunter, you’ve probably heard that hunting deer helps keep populations in check. That’s true. We have lost the predators that might keep deer in check naturally, so deer populations have the potential to go out of control. But what does that mean? Why would that even be a problem?
First, herbivores in large numbers can destroy vegetation. In fact, the Nature Conservancy considers an overabundance of deer in the eastern US to the be the greatest threat to the forests – even more than climate change. They selectively eat certain species, changing the dynamics of the forest. They decrease songbird abundance. In fact, they decrease biodiversity across a wide range of taxa.
Secondly, deer and other prey species spread diseases. In particular, they are a major host for Lyme disease, which is causing huge problems in the United States. Ticks feed on the deer and then pass the pathogen to humans. In fact, I did a video about the ecology of Lyme disease here.
Third, too many deer, elk and moose can cause real problems for motorists. In fact, in 2003 there were 1.5 million deer-related collisions, injuring 13,713 people and causing $1.1 billion in vehicle damage.
I live in a forested area of NC with 1,200 acres abutting my property. Yet, I have never seen a deer in the 5 years I’ve been here! When a state issues deer tags, they cannot control where you hunt for deer. Because I’m in the outskirts of a large city like Charlotte, my woods are over-hunted. Other areas are under-hunted.
I also live in prime cougar, bear and wolf country, yet have never seen any of these. In fact, the eastern cougar was recently declared extinct. Part of why we need hunting is because we lack predators. I won’t get into predator hunting here; that could warrant an entire series to do it justice.
Finally, if the major funding source for conservation programs comes from hunting, then a decrease in hunting enthusiasm means those very departments are in trouble. In fact, that’s what is happening around the country. Here is a quote from the Arizona Game and Fish Department:
“In some states, the number of hunting and fishing licenses sold has remained stable in recent years. But given the rate of population growth, particularly in Western states, the percentage of people participating in hunting and fishing is actually decreasing. There is no alternative funding system in place to replace the potential lost funds for conservation. If hunting ends, funding for wildlife conservation is in peril.”
It does seem a bit backwards that we should now encourage hunting for the sake of keeping our agencies funded. In the past, almost everyone hunted. We used hunting to fuel conservation so that we could all hunt and enjoy the wildlife. Things are changing, and it seems like the model will adapt and change with it. Let’s just hope wildlife conservation doesn’t suffer because of changing trends.
Hunting won’t go away anytime soon. It’s part of what our country was founded on. It’s a great privilege and something humans have done for all of our existence. Our model in North America works so conservation of lands and hunting can coexist. I’m glad we have the opportunity to use hunting to aid conservation efforts.
Hunting in tandem with good science can help conserve all species if done right. It’s fun to think about. If you’re a hunter, it’s good to know where you fit into this great conservation mix. No matter what you love about nature, surely you want to protect it. As a hunter, you can do your part. The great thing is that you can have your cake deer and eat ’em too.
Recently, I went out to a small reserve in southern Georgia to talk about ways to communicate how valuable our wild places really are. While out there discussing we did a half-day quail hunt. From footage on that trip I made this.
Bugs have finally brought Haley and I to the Amazon! Of all the places where new species of arthropods await, the Amazon rainforest is on the top of the list. It’s wild and remote. It’s also hot, humid and a bit of a chore to get to.
I have the opportunity this year to follow around bug people – entomologists from the California Academy of Sciences. Michelle Trautwein invited me to document a global study on the arthropods in people’s homes. I was pretty excited to say the least! Most of my excitement was simply because you can never know all your bugs.
There are roughly 1.5 million species that have been described so far. Of those about 80 percent are arthropods – mostly insects. But here’s the kicker. There are still a lot more arthropods to be discovered. Some people estimate there are from 5 to 10 million more arthropods out there. Spend any time with a seasoned entomologist and they’ll tell you all the undescribed species they have back in the lab, waiting to be worked up.
Now we’re here in the amazon. For those that have never been, it’s worth a visit. This is my second trip so far. On my first one, I made a top ten list. Here is what you might see when you venture into the jungles.
Back to our bugs. We’re here to sample bugs in people’s houses. You’d expect there to be a lot of them right? Well, that’s what we thought too, until we started sampling. We saw big ones, and showy ones, but we didn’t find a ton of diversity. By that, I mean the total number of species. In the US, most houses averaged about 30-100 species in their houses. Here, the number wasn’t much different. Why not? We expect it might have something to do with the way people live.
Our new book is out! This book is an introduction to the world of science and natural history filmmaking. Most books on filmmaking discuss ways to become an independent filmmaker. Yet, working in science and natural history is unique. This book fills a void in education in this field. It gives insight about getting into the industry via National Geographic and Discovery as well as breaking into the world of Youtube. To make science films in any of these venues you need a recipe for success. This book helps you make your own recipe depending on your goals.
The question seems simple enough, right? Yet, how many people have thought to ask it? Most of my life I’ve heard about cortisone as an wonder drug that miraculously helps decrease swelling and reduces injury. But, the story get’s complicated. Here is a short we did to catch you up to speed.
So the take home message really is that cortisone can make things worse, if you don’t understand how it works. The science points to that answer. But to really understand this topic you have to understand the Basics of Cortisone.
Here is the actual VO script to the video just incase you prefer reading about it instead of watching the video:
There is no denying that cortisone reduces pain and swelling. Because of that a lot of cortisone shots have been given to help people healing from joint injuries. But just because you get immediate pain relief doesn’t mean it’s helps your joint heal.
A recent analysis of studies on thousands of individuals with joint pain, particularly tennis elbow, showed that cortisone shots, did in fact reduce pain immediately. However, when they examined individuals 6 months later, they found that those with cortisone shots had a lower rate of full recovery and were 67% more likely to have a relapse of the injury. How is that possible?
To understand it you have to know more about cortisone.
Cortisone is a corticosteroid. Its produced naturally in the body via the adrenal cortex (kidneys). If you’re familiar with cortisol aka the stress hormone, it works similarly.
You see, when your body is in a stressful situation, this hormone is released. It works like this, you want to get sugar to your brain – the most important thing. So the hormone, stimulates the breakdown of fat, protein and carbs into useable energy int eh blood. That means your blood glucose levels rise. It also suppresses other activities that aren’t vital in that immediate stressful situation, like the immune system. And that’s the main role of a cortisone shot – it’s as an immune suppresant aka anti-inflamatory.
So, you can use it medically to cure problems with immune response – like
The problem is that the they are best used as a short term solution.
I mean, think about it, you don’t want your body filled with stress hormones long term because, there are side effects to what we associate with having high stress levels. Namely:
Fat atrophy probably sounds good, except when it occurs at the point of a cortisone injection.
In the end, there are somethings you would not use cortisone for – like
Of course, with that said, the science does point to cortisone helping with things like:
lumber radiculopathy, plantar fasciatis, and morton’s neuroma.
So there you have it, Cortisone, is not the cure all treatment it was once thought to be. Know though that while it helps with some things, it can help with temporary pain releif – and well, it might decrease long term recovery. So if you’re an athlete or someone with a random tendon issue, you might want to think twice about getting cortisone. But, that’s what the doctors are for. Let them help you decide if it’s right for you
A big thanks to OrthoCarolina for teaming up with us to make this video successful.
Have you noticed that the science documentary networks that used to present 100% factual science content have now started drifting into an odd abyss of reality programming? I’m not saying it’s all bad (there are some great ones out right now), but there seems to be a diversion from good science – the stuff I remember loving as a budding filmmaker. The situation has been on my mind a lot lately, having now done several shows for various networks, including a TON of pitching various programs. I present the problem I’ve found with the current trends here:
The real problem I see isn’t the network, or the executives. The problem may be that the networks are basing programs on a faulty rating system. There are shows that are getting ratings that most of us science communicators think are terrible – all the ‘Real house wives of’ shows are testament to that. Is it because people love the show, or because people are shocked that there is something so odd on TV. Is it essentially a race for the most viral-type program. I hope not as I’ve made it my career to make good science programming. I think shows on discovery actually are reversing the trend right now. I give much of that credit to a few visionary execs at the top. But will it last?
I’m not sure what the solution is. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the trends, the problems, or ways to reverse it.
We’re so excited to bring you the news of our recent Emmy win for our documentary with the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, Mysterys of the Driftless. Here is the television coverage of the event.
We shot the film in 2011 and released it a year later. The film has been a huge success for us we’re so happy to showcase the work local conservation groups are doing in the area, particularly that of the MVC. If you haven’t seen the film here it is, in full, on Youtube.
I’d also like to give a special thanks to Rob Nelson and Dan Bertalan for making the film and Tim Jacobson and George Howe for believing in us to make it happen via the MVC. Read up more on the project here.
If you ever wanted a better understanding of how cider is made, this short video helps explain the ins and outs of making this classic fall drink.
In the US, we like to call alcoholic cider, “hard cider.” The rest of the world, just keeps it simple by referring to it as cider. The non-alcoholic stuff is called “sweet cider.” Understanding the science of cider has everything to do with understanding the conversion of sugars into ethanol by our favorite fungi – yeast.
The process of converting the sugars to ethanol is really the story of glucose converting via glycolysis into two pyruvate molecules. Then, via alcoholic fermentation, those pyruvate molecules convert to carbon dioxide and acetaldehyde. Those acetaldehydes then convert to ethanol. This process is performed in the absence of oxygen. The end products from the glucose then are your alcohol and your carbonation! It really is as simple as that.
Zombies. What does that term mean to you? Chances are you think about something from Hollywood. I actually thought that’s all there was to this Halloween character. I was wrong.
Zombies have a true biological basis to them. The stories as we know them have their origin in the country of Haiti. This small Carribean country is famed as being one of the only places where the African slaves revolted and kicked out the Europeans. After doing that, their African tribal culture took over. Many say it’s now more African than Africa! It’s also the epicenter of Voodoo.
Corn, which was discovered in the new world, was brought back to Europe in the 1500s. It quickly became a crop of the poor, who would often eat nothing but raw corn as their main energy source. But, here is the problem. Corn contains the essential vitamin niacin, but it is inaccessible in its raw form. Thus, eating a diet of only raw corn leads to a vitamin deficiency known as pellagra. Victims of pellagra are hyper-sensitive to sunlight. If exposed, the skin often turns shiny with scaly areas. The brain starts to degenerate causing the person to have insomnia, anxiety, aggression, and depression. Often the persons stomach bleeds, meaning they can not eat normal food and can often digest only blood.
Here is another interesting tidbit: Pellagra was not common in the new world where corn was native. The reason for this is that peasants in Mexico and Central America prepared corn differently. Corn tortillas were often prepared with lime (an alkali)which helped to extract niacin from the corn and thus insured that pellagra didn’t arise.
For centuries, people have utilized the pumpkin and its relatives. The pumpkin is native to North America; even before Europeans came the Americas, Native Americans were using them as an important food source. The thick skin of the pumpkin could be peeled, pressed, and made into mats. Strips of flesh could be roasted on the fire and eaten. The seeds could also be cooked and ingested.
When Europeans arrived, they saw how native groups were using the pumpkin and quickly began using it as well. Early colonists also brought with them other traditions that took the use of the pumpkin to a whole new level: Jack-o’-lanterns.
The tradition of using pumpkins as Jack-o’-lanterns came from an old Irish story of Stingy Jack. The story gets long and complicated, but the gist of it is that Jack had tricked the Devil multiple times whereby the devil agreed not to take his soul. So, when Jack ended up dying, the Devil was true to his word. But God decided he shouldn’t be in heaven so his soul remained on the earth. He was given only a hot coal to light his way, which he put into a small, carved turnip or gourd. He was remembered every year when people would carve out members of the cucurbitaceae family (cucurbits) and put them on the doorsteps or window ledges.
When the Europeans discovered American pumpkins, they quickly adapted their tradition with the much larger and easily carved gourd. It also became associated with the festival of Halloween.
The traditions associated with Halloween have their roots in the Irish holiday Saween. Saween isn’t a celebration of the Devil or a lord of the dead as some people might think. It was celebrated from the night of October 31st to the evening of November 1st and is most closely related to our modern New Years’ Day. It was a celebration of the year and the harvest. In ancient tradition, carved gourds where put outside the house with coals in them to welcome back dead relatives and warn off Stingy Jack.
It’s common for more than one species to be described with the same common name. For instance, the colloquial term “banana” is used for more than one species found throughout the tropics. Most Americans see only one of these species, but there are actually many more. What we call pumpkins are phenotypically orange individuals from the following four species: C. pepo, C. maxima, C. mixta, and C. moschata.
The most difficult concept to grasp, however, is that each of these species has also been domestically bred into different forms to the point that we wouldn’t even call them pumpkins. Zucchinis, for instance, are the same species as the common pumpkin, C. pepo. We wouldn’t mistake a zucchini for a pumpkin would we? Thus, pumpkin is really a term used to describe a characteristically orange, squash-like gourd.
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=wmHGM0Hwuzo
Giant pumpkins aren’t the same species as the common pumpkin you find every year for sale at Halloween. The species is C. maxima and the largest ones are especially “helped” along. The kind of giant pumpkins that win competitions take special care. First, it is important that the prize pumpkin is getting its supply of nutrients without having to compete with others on the same plant. Thus, once a pumpkin starts, the other flowers are pruned off. But, the pumpkin mania doesn’t stop there.
Special fertilizers are added to the soil and lotions are even rubbed on the outside of the pumpkin. The trick though is to make sure the pumpkins grow fast but not too fast. If they grow too large, too quickly, the pumpkin will cave in on itself.
When it comes to big lakes, those of us in America are familiar with our 5 Great Lakes. Anyone that lives in that area knows how long it takes to drive around them – they’re huge. But when it comes to volume, Lake Baikal has as much freshwater as all of those lakes combined! It has 20% of the world’s available freshwater and can boast being the deepest lake in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC9-sYuNLgo
This lake has a few pretty amazing biological stats. It is home to the world’s only true freshwater seal – the Baikal Seal, or Nerpa (A few other marine seals have colonies in lakes). It is also home to some 1,600 species of which 60% are endemic, meaning they’re not found anywhere else in the world. There are a few families of fish (sculpins) that are only found here. Additionally, the amphipods here are world famous.
Amphipods are an order of crustacean that generally live in the water. Most of them are pretty small – on average about 0.4 inches. However, there is a species in lake Baikal that can reach nearly 3.5 inches long! These amphipod’s size is restricted to the amount of dissolved oxygen and the oxygen in the lake is really high! In fact, unlike most rift lakes where there exists a strong layering of water, there is little to no layering of dissolved oxygen here. That means that life can exist readily all the way to the bottom.
As I’m a fish biologist, this post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention the unique fish assemblages. Surprissingly there are only about 60 native fish species here. Yet, half of them are found nowhere else in the world. In particular, the family Abyssocottidae (deep water sculpins), the Comephoridae (Baikal oilfish or Golomyankas) and the Cottocomoephoridae (Baikal Sculpins) are only found in this lake basin.
Some of the neatest unique fish are the Golomyankas, a type of deep water sculpin that lives in open water at depths of about 330 to 1,640 feet. These oily fish are the primary prey of the Baikal seals. There are also sturgeon, and Greyling unique to the lake.
