Sea Turtles in British Columbia

an old drawing of a Loggerhead Sea Turtle

In the waning tropical daylight, a uniformed park official sauntered over to me. “There are crocodiles in the water,” he told me. I was alone, studying the shallow, clear water of a slow-moving river near Tamarindo, Costa Rica which flowed between me and a nature reserve. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, I changed my search from tropical fish to crocodiles. After examining every hiding spot in the water without seeing even a little crocodile, I concluded I was safe. The crocodile warning was likely to scare me out of wading across the river to avoid the reserve’s entrance fee.

The nature reserve protected a stretch of Pacific-facing sandy beach for leatherback turtles to come ashore and lay their eggs. I happened to be in the exact area when sea turtles were coming ashore. That night, I joined a chaperoned sea turtle viewing expedition. After a short sunset boat ride (it wasn’t set up to be a difficult expedition), I relaxed on the sand watching the interplay between the moonlight and surf while Reserve staff patrolled the beach for turtles. Three hours after our arrival, a leatherback was spotted hauling herself out of the surf. We left her alone to choose her nest site.

That was the my first sea turtle encounter. On a tropical beach, turtles weren’t a surprise we expect turtles to be nesting there. The second time I encountered sea turtles was to pick up a dead Olive Ridley sea turtle that had paid the price for staying north too long.

In November 2011, an Olive Ridley sea turtle washed ashore on Wickaninnish Beach in the Pacific Rim National Park (ref and ref). Unfortunately, when a beachcomber spotted the turtle, she was in critical condition with a cracked shell. The Parks Canada folks whisked her off to the Vancouver Aquarium for care, but sadly she didn’t survive. A necropsy was performed to determine cause of death, tissues were taken and gut contents analyzed. After data were collected, the turtle was passed from the aquarium to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Her final destination was to be the Royal British Columbia Museum — this turtle is the first record of her species in British Columbia. In death, this turtle is destined to have an afterlife as the northernmost Olive Ridley specimen in the northeast Pacific.

Generally, our local waters are too cold for sea turtles and few wander this far north. McAlpine et al. (2004) describe sea turtles on our coast as “rare vagrants and uncommon seasonal residents.” However, they may be influenced by our warm summer temperatures (Stinson, 1984). Once here, they are free of predators. We have no record of anything eating a stray sea turtle.

Three species of sea turtles have been spotted in our waters: Green, Olive Ridley and Leatherbacks. As of 2004 (McAlpine et al.), there were 11 published reports of green turtles dating back to 1955, 14 published sightings for leatherback turtles dating back to 1932 and none for the Olive Ridley sea turtle. In a recent tracking study of ten Olive Ridley sea turtles, it was discovered they spent 90% of their time in waters with a sea surface temperature of 27 degrees Celsius (Polovina et al., 2004) — good luck finding that on the BC coast. However, a suspicion lingered that Olive Ridley turtles must pass by our coast as they have been spotted off the Washington coast and as far north as Alaska. Loggerhead turtles may eventually be spotted here, as they also have been seen in Alaska (Hodge and Wing, 2000).

In the fall as weather gets cooler, turtles that remain in northern waters risk getting sluggish, their digestion system shuts down and any food in their gut ferments. The added stress of cold waters make turtles susceptible to disease, infections from injuries, and in some cases, the turtles drown.

Green turtle carcasses found here in late fall tend to be large juveniles and small adults (McAlpine et al., 2002). Were they too inexperienced to know it was time to head south? Once these green turtle carcasses divulged their secrets, they get sent to local institutions to further scientific research and education.

Despite being critically endangered, leatherbacks are the most commonly spotted spotted sea turtle in BC waters (Matsuda et al., 2006). Sightings occur all along the coast, suggesting these turtles take advantage of warm sea surface temperatures between late summer and early fall (Spaven et al., 2009). As of 2009, there were 126 unique leatherback sightings recorded for BC (Spaven et al., 2009). Generally, “little is known of the occurrence and distribution of leatherback sea turtles in the waters of BC” (Spaven et al., 2009).

If you want to see a leatherback turtle’s shell, the Royal British Columbia Museum has one on display in the marine room in the Natural History Gallery. Naming these turtles ‘leatherbacks’ is appropriate as their distinct shell is covered in skin, reminiscent of a dried leather coat.

In February, 2012, I accompanied Gavin Hanke, the vertebrates curator at the Royal British Columbia Museum, on a trip to Nanimo’s Pacific Biological Station to pick up the Olive Ridley turtle that had been found on Wickanninsh Beach and transport it to the museum. At the Pacific Biological Station, the turtle was stored in a large walk-in freezer along with marine animals collected for scientific research. Even in the sub-zero air, the freezer stunk of stale fish. The aroma stuck to my clothes and stayed with me the rest of the day.

A large green garbage can barely contained the Olive Ridley turtle; its nose reached right up to the lid. The animal’s plastron and internal organs had been removed during the necropsy, so only the turtle’s head, limbs and carapace remained. Hollowed out, the turtle still seemed huge.

Eventually the turtle will be preserved and added to the museum’s collection. Behind the closed doors (to contain the smell) of the museum’s wet lab, the turtle will be soaked in formaldehyde; a process called ‘fixing’ that is akin to pickling. The formaldehyde links proteins within the turtle’s cells, to lock the animal in a ‘life-like’ look. The best way to determine if the fixing process is complete is to poke the specimen with your finger. If it feels rubbery it is done. For a turtle this size, the fixing process takes a few weeks.

Once the carcass is fixed, it is soaked in water to remove excess formaldehyde. Finally, the turtle will be stored in a vat (because it is too big for a bottle) of ethanol. Alcohol is easier to work with than formaldehyde. Over the long term, ethanol keeps bacteria and fungi at bay. Future researches will not be able to perform any DNA analysis since the formaldehyde was used to fix the turtle.

Thinking back to Costa Rica, once she had excavated a pit in the sand, we approached with only the dimmest lights to watch the leatherback turtle lay her eggs. The guides assured us that we weren’t bothering her, which I didn’t believe as they needed our entrance fee to fund the nature reserve. Even in the dim light, the turtle’s eggs were brilliant white and there were lots of them. Each one was a perfect sphere. I was curious what they felt like — a curiosity that remained unsatisfied.

When she was finished, the leatherback used her back legs to slowly sweep sand over her eggs. She never looked at what she was doing, but still buried the eggs perfectly. Once done, she hauled herself with her massive flippers/front legs back to the ocean leaving a trench in the sand behind her. We quietly backed away as her form became a dark mass surrounded by sparkly surf.

Further on, a newly hatched leatherback was making its way toward the water across our path. I picked it up. It was floppy and wiggly like newborns often are, and its front legs dwarfed the rest of its body. The size difference between this tiny turtle that fit into my hand and its gargantuan mother was stunning. Since a lot of us were on the beach that night, I took the turtle to the water rather than let it run the risk of being stepped on by another tourist. It fought the gentle surf, then it slipped under the surface and vanished from sight. Would it some day tour past the BC coast? Would it beat the odds and return to the beach to lay its own batch of eggs?

In the darkness, I also headed to sea. A boat took me back to the outskirts of Tamarindo, and my hotel. This time, I didn’t stop to check the water for crocodiles.


references

Polovina, J.J., G.H. Balazs, E.A. Howell, D.M. Parker, M.P. Seki and P.H. Dutton. 2004. Forage and migration habitat of loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) sea turtles in the central North Pacific Ocean. Fisheries Oceanography, 13:1, 36-51.

McAlpine, D.F., S.A. Orchard, and K.A. Sendall. 2002. Recent Occurrences of the Green Turtle from British Columbia Waters. Northwest Science, 76, No 2, 185-188.

McAlpine, D.F., S.A. Orchard, K.A. Sendall and R. Palm. 2004. Status of Marine Turtles in British Columbia Waters: A Reassessment. The Canadian Field-Naturalist. 118. 72-76.

Matsuda., B.M., D.M. Green and P.T. Gregory. 2006. Amphibians and Reptiles of British Columbia. Royal BC Museum, Victoria, Canada, 266pp.

Spaven, L.D., Ford, J.K.B, and Sbrocchi, C. 2009. Occurrence of leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) off the Pacific coast of Canada, 1931-2009. Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 2858: vi + 32 p.

Stinson, M. L. 1984. Biology of sea turtles in San Diego Bay, California and in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. MSc. thesis, San Diego State University, California.

Hodge, R. P., and B. L. Wing. 2000. Occurrences of marine turtles in Alaska waters 1960-1998. Herpetological Review. 31: 148-151.

Image is from here.

Not in my slow cooker...

from left to right (best guess): black bear, cougar, cougar, 
bear cub, lynx, badger. On the bottom: polar bear.

Conversation the other day turned macabre as guests, who are heading out bear hunting this week, asked my husband how to clean a bear’s skull for display - not surprisingly, my husband knows about these sorts of things.

Mammal’s skulls tend to hold together much better than the skulls of reptiles or birds, so preparing them is simpler. First remove the fleshy bits as close to the skull as possible. A sharp knife would do the trick.

Get rid of the eyeballs (perhaps give them to a friend for a tasty treat, in Mary Roach’s Gulp she mentions cultures who enjoy that sort of thing). I’m not sure exactly how one removes eyeballs from a skull and I really don’t want to be spending time thinking about it - no doubt I will at 2am.

Someone would have to commit the zombie act of removing the brains. A chopstick stuck inside and swished about would work. Once the brain is pureed, shake it out.

Now it's time to get all CSI and slowly boil the skull. A slow-cooker would be ideal. Cover the skull with water, turn it on low and walk away. After a very long time, a day or so, the remaining flesh and tendons would fall right off (like any well done rack of ribs). You could baste the beary-soup with a solvent like alcohol or acetone to remove excess oils out of the bone. Pull the skull out and set it aside to dry. Fish any teeth that fell out from the resulting broth, dry them off and use white glue to put them back in place.

For a final touch, spray a 10 percent solution of white glue over the entire dry skull. This prevents the bone from drying out and delaminating (powdering), incidentally, this is the same technique used to set fake turf onto a super-detailed model railway - in case multitasking of model railways and skull preparation ever comes up. Keep bleach and peroxide away from the skull as both act to break down proteins in the bone causing it to turn to powder far sooner.

All that is left is to find a nice place to display the skull. If you ever want a skull but don’t want to put in the work, nice replicas can be found (e.g. here).

As a tangent - the conversation was entirely hypothetical as the would-be-bear-hunter had no plans on taking a rifle into the woods with him.

Case of skulls photo was taken here

Urban Nature

diversity in the garden

Why should you cultivate dandelions in sidewalk cracks, spiders in the attic and mushrooms in lawns...

Now that spring has fully arrived, I’m spending time weeding my garden. Volunteer plants have sprung up everywhere, like, well, weeds. I’m not pulling everything out - much to the annoyance of my neighbor who claims my few dandelions are an eyesore even though millions are in the park across the street.

Even in an urban environment (like where I live), we’re still part of nature. Urban living doesn't have to mean surrounding ourselves with a concrete jungle; we can still make room for diversity in nature. Even the dandelion that takes root in a tiny crack in the pavement and the moss that grows on your roof counts as diversity.

Diversity is important because it adds a complexity that makes an ecosystem stable. A single change that destroys one species is not a big deal if many species fill that niche, but a very big deal if it was the only species. For this reason, any ecosystem with only a few species is vulnerable. Consider a lawn containing a single species of grass - soon weeds will move in or nutrients will be used up, forcing the owner to take drastic action like applying herbicides or fancy synthetic fertilizers. Or, consider diversity in relation to our food crops: using a single variety can result in crop failures and no back-up to turn to. A sad example is the potato famine that occurred in Ireland between 1845-1852 (from wikipedia article here). Even though there are many varieties of potatoes on this planet, the Irish only planted a select few species and blight wiped them out - bad, bad news.

A diverse ecosystem, in contrast, acts to buffer the effects of change. No one goes out into an old growth forest and sprays the dandelions (although, exotic plants can still invade). My garden, which I pack full off as many different crops into my tiny yard as I can, will always produce me something.

Taken as a whole, the Earth is an example of a diverse ecosystem and can be considered a biosphere. People have dabbled in creating artificial biospheres since at least Victorian times. On a small scale, you can go out and buy an 'ecosphere' which is a sealed glass ball filled with water. Inside the sphere is a little ecosystem consisting of shrimp, algae and bacteria, which isn’t very diverse. In 1986, Carl Sagan wrote a glowing article about these ecospheres called, 'The world that came in the mail'. Their makers say these glass worlds can last up to 10 years, but critics say the shrimp are slowly being poisoned by their own waste while starving. Perhaps a bigger biosphere is needed.

Biosphere 2 (earth is Biosphere 1) is a 3.14 acre sealed greenhouse in Arizona that is broken up into several different types of ecosystems. Each ecosystem included several species that filled the same ecological niche, and soils were seeded with micro-organisms in an effort to enhance diversity. In the early 90's, an experiment was conducted by sealing in eight volunteers to simulate using a biosphere for space colonization. I remember seeing the ad for volunteers and being fascinated with the idea; however I had other commitments at the time and couldn't apply - which is perhaps for the better.

These eight people to be were sealed into Biosphere 2 for two years where they grew their own food. Their atmosphere was also enclosed, so the only oxygen available came from the plants within the biosphere. It turns out the biosphere wasn't a stable system: carbon dioxide levels fluctuated widely and oxygen levels couldn't be maintained. All the pollinating insects died, while cockroach and ant populations overran the place. The people sealed inside couldn't grow enough produce, forcing them onto calorie restricted diets.

One result of this experiment was to demonstrate that creating a stable biosphere is currently outside our capabilities. Since we haven’t successfully made a new biosphere, Biosphere I is all we have. So don't get rid of all the diversity that pops up or moves in. Keep a little diversity at home.

Upside down grazers

possible alien world?

Imagine a world where animals graze on a surface of green extending above our heads. To me this sounds like a scene from a science fiction movie set on an alien world that requires ‘unabtainium’ or a ‘flux-vortex’ to exist. Yet, habitats like this exist on earth. The underside of sea ice is one (caves are probably another).

In the Arctic, the sun returns long before the ice melts. Since first year ice is relatively clear, sunlight can pass through. Algae takes advantage of this light and sets up shop on the bottom surface of the ice. A two-dimensional world is created in the normally three-dimensional euphotic zone.

Ice algae plays an important role at the base of the ecosystem. These algae blooms represent the beginning of the Arctic grazing season as no photosynthesis can occur during the long winter polar night. Since other phytoplankton are scarce this time of year, creatures flock to the icy roof for a meal. Diners include diatoms, protozoa, nematodes, copepods and others. Copepods in particular are a food source for bigger creatures and fish such Arctic cod. These fish are eaten by bigger fish, birds and marine mammals.

Light is critical for ice algae to thrive, so any snow covering the ice can have a negative impact. Too much snow and there won’t be enough light for the algae to grow. Additionally, particulates in the ice can block sunlight. A large mining or smelting operation could coat the ice in particles, blocking the algae’s light.

This ecosystem, like all others on our planet, will be impacted by climate change - and we don’t know exactly what the end result will be. Ice algae need the clearer first-year ice to grow. If warmer conditions made this ice melt sooner, the algae would sink and die. The grazers that depend on the algae would starve. On the sea floor, algae would decompose potentially creating anoxic conditions, a potentially fatal environment for bottom dwellers such as turbot, Greenland sharks and Arctic skate. Or, if warmer conditions result in less multiyear ice, potentially more first year ice could form. Ice algae would have more space to grow and more food could be available for all (assuming there was enough nutrients). 

Image is from here

Snakes in the freezer

My husband holding a rattlesnake

- he tells me he know what he is doing

In addition to tasty delights, my freezer often ends up the temporary home for animals that have died and are on their way to join the scientific collection at the local museum where my husband is a curator. It is sad that these animals have died, especially since it is often the result of humans like getting hit by a car or birds not seeing windows. At least collecting them puts them to good use - plus it prevents having to kill animals for science. I only accept the recently dead - I’ve put my foot down against rotting carcasses after a unpleasant decomposed swan incident. We’ve temporarily housed various song birds, a mink, a hawk, owls, wall lizards, newts, garter snakes, squirrels, toads and more. Perhaps a spare freezer in the carport would not be amiss.

Half a days drive from the coast can put me in rattlesnake country. Only once, have I seen a wild rattlesnake. It was so young it only had its button rather than a full rattle. It looked small and helpless when we cornered it on the bank of a stream. Then it put on an aggressive display, striking at us with it’s mouth open. We could clearly see its fangs, but managed to stay clear of them. We thought it was harmless, only later did I discover that baby rattlesnakes have very potent venom.

What makes a rattlesnake scary is its venom. Venom is saliva that has been modified over evolutionary time. It contains a complex assortment of components that differ between snake species. According to Munekiyo and Mackessy (1998) : “lethality of venom results from a synergistic interplay of venom components, including enzymes, peptides and specific toxins.”

The venom of a Fer de Lance acts differently than rattlesnake venom, which is why it is important to identify the snake that bit you - so you can get the right antivenin.

Snake venom is on my mind because my husband and I recently went to rattlesnake country. My husband has a long history of picking up rattlesnakes - including, Prairie, Eastern Massasauga, Timber, Dusky Pigmy, Northern Pacific Rattlers, and Eastern and Western Diamondbacks. So I was expecting a road-killed rattlesnake to come home with us and spent time in the freezer. I started to wonder if frozen rattlesnake venom is still toxic.

Fortunately, the toxicity of frozen rattlesnake venom has been studied by researchers (Munekiyo and Mackessy, 1998) looking at how to best preserve the venom for scientific research. The answer is yes, a frozen rattlesnake’s venom is still toxic - I’ll need to handle them with care. Munekiyo and Mackessy (1998) went on to speculate that their results should apply to all front-fanged snake venoms (both vipers/rattlesnakes and cobras and their relatives have front fangs). However, this still needs to be studied. I won’t worry about it as I don’t expect a cobra in my freezer - although I wouldn’t be surprised if I found one there. Presumably a cobra in the house would arrive with some warning or at least a big colourful sticky note on the freezer lid.

Reference: Munekiyo, S.M., and S.P. Mackessy. 1998. Effects of Temperature and Storage Conditions on the Electrophoretic, Toxic and Enzymatic Stability of Venom Components. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 119B, 119-127.

Thanks to G. Hanke for the photos

Garter Snakes

A Wandering Garter Snake

In my opinion, if you mess with an animal and it bites, scratches or pees on you, you deserve it. Currently, I try to let wild animals be; however, as a kid, I often tormented garter snakes in the garden. They would bask in the heat on the black plastic we used to control weeds. This preferred location made them easy to find and I never had any difficulty snatching them by the tail as they tried to slither away. Once caught, their typical defense mechanism was to pee. This potent musky-smelling pee would persist on my hands even after thoroughly washing them in soap and hot water.

Even though they are carnivores, garter snakes don’t want anything to do with people. Wikipedia claims that a garter snake may coil and strike - but I’ve never seen them do anything like this (I've just discovered that a friend and my husband have seen a snake do this - especially when garter snakes are cold). Generally, they retreat from humans as people kill more snakes than snakes kill people.

Since, garter snakes play an important role in keeping pests down, I’d love to have them in my current garden to control the slugs. These streamlined snakes can be quite colourful with black or brown bodies and stripes that range from blue, to yellow or red (the San Francisco Garter Snake is pink).

Garter snakes have saliva that acts like a mild venom, which is dangerous to a frog, but not a person. Only once was I bitten (I totally deserved it). I had the snake by the tail, but moved my hand in range of its mouth. I ended up with two tiny pricks on my hand which healed cleanly without even a hint of infection.

As an aside, I always let the snake go and I still feel bad that I was once keen on interrupting their day.

Thanks to G. Hanke for the photo

Aliens for dinner

Not the alien I mean

Sounds like I invited some extraterrestrials over to share a meal but, what I really mean is eating invasive species as a form of revenge against the damage they inflict on our native species.

As people move around, we tend to take critters (and plants - which I’m not going to discuss) with us. Rats and cats have been introduced across the globe, both of which have been known to decimate bird populations - especially on islands where birds have lost their ability to fly. Pigs were deliberately left on tropical islands by passing sailors to provide future food.

Sometimes animals are intentionally introduced as a means to fix a problem. For example, Australian sugar cane crops were being decimated by cane beetles, so in 1935 just over 100 cane toads were introduced to control the cane beetles. The cane toads adapted well to their new environment, now there are over 200 million - however they didn’t control the cane beetles. Instead cane toads caused all sorts of other problems as they are toxic to the animals that try to eat them.

Want to make a buck? 
How about introduce a critter that produces a luxury product, like beaver fur. In 1946, 50 beavers from Canada were introduced to the southern tip of South America for just this reason. It turned out great for the beavers as there were no predators to worry about. The beavers went on to do what beavers do - gnaw down trees and build dams. Unfortunately, the forests in that region can’t handle beaver damage like North American forests can, so the damage is extensive. Active programs are still underway to remove the beavers.

Not all introduced species create these kind of problems, however there is always a risk that a local species will be displaced by the newly arrived animals. The result is a loss to our global biodiversity as our world-wide ecosystem is becoming more and more homogenized.

In my part of the world, we have lots of introduced species (tropical areas often have more - Hawaii and Florida are perhaps the hardest hit with alien invaders). There are green crabs, manila clams, carp, house sparrows and grey squirrels to name a few. Another that has become ubiquitous in North America is the European Starling. These noisy birds like open country - like orchards and grain fields. They often flock together in massive flocks where they scour the area for fruit and insects to eat. They indiscriminately eat crops intended for human consumption which has put them on the hit list of many farmers. They also out compete local birds, for instance swallow species like the purple martin, for nest sites.

Why would anyone introduce starlings? 
In the late 1800’s, Eugene Schieffelin decided to introduce every bird mentioned in Shakespeare's works into North America. As part of this odd plan, 60 starlings were released in 1890 into New York’s central park. Now, there is an estimated population of 200 million.

So what can be done? 
One option is to eat the invaders. I was at an event recently put on by the Penticton Museum and Archives for the opening of the traveling ‘Aliens Among Us’ exhibit created by the Royal BC Museum. The exhibit highlights alien species in BC. At the opening, breaded and fried starling breast was offered - the meat was dark and gamey, reminiscent of goose, and was quite good. For Okanogan fruit growers, eating starlings must be a delicious form of revenge.

It would take a lot of effort to harvest enough starling breast to make a full meal. I’ll just keep the idea in the back of my mind in case there is a zombie apocalypse and starlings are all I can catch.

As a tangent - people are not considered ‘aliens’ in this context because people tend to move themselves around (i.e., natural dispersal) - although governments might label people as aliens for various reasons. By this same logic, extraterrestrial aliens would only be considered aliens if they hitched a ride to earth on a space shuttle instead of their own spaceship.

Glass Frogs

My collection of frogs some day needs one of these.

The case of the drowning crickets

A firebelly toad waiting for a cricket

Our aquatic tank contains many firebelly toads, and each one of them is a voracious cricket eater. A few large rocks in the tank create an island, surrounded by open water. When we place crickets on the rocks, a significant portion of them fall into the water staying there until they drown (or until we rescue them and put them back on solid ground). Are cricket brains so tiny that they don’t realize they can’t breathe, and so don’t pull themselves out of the water, or is something else going on?

I found a nice explanation in an essay by J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) ‘On Being the Right Size’:

There is a force which is as formidable to an insect as gravitation to a mammal. This is surface tension. A man coming out of the bath carries with him a film of water of about one-fiftieth of an inch in thickness. This weighs roughly a pound. A wet mouse has to carry about its own weight in water. A wet fly has to lift many times its own weight and, as everyone knows, a fly once wetted by water or any other liquid is in a very serious position indeed. An insect going for a drink is in as great danger as a man leaning out over a precipice in search of food. If it once falls into the grip of the surface tension of the water - that is to say, gets wet - it is likely to remain so until it drowns.

I often swim at lunch. When I’m done I haul myself out of the water and head to the showers without a second thought for the amount of pool water I’m carrying around with me. It’s lucky for me that my size makes me immune to the same surface tension that drowns the unfortunate crickets.

As a tangent: I found an online copy of Haldane's essay here - it's worth reading and not too long.

a porpoise for a trip

The picture of the turtle I took was
blurry - so here's my lunch instead

This morning I went on a short road trip to drop off a harbour porpoise and pick up an olive ridley sea turtle from the Pacific Biological Centre - a trip that took two hours one way. Both animals had been found dead, frozen and put into scientists hands.

Olive ridley’s are the most abundant of the sea turtles. Unfortunately, their numbers are declining putting them at risk of extinction like all the other sea turtles. Years ago, I saw a live one on a beach in Costa Rica that came ashore to lay eggs - we moved along quickly to avoid disturbing her. It was night and to me she seemed huge as she hauled her mass up the sandy beach, however, they’re small compared to other sea turtles.

The sea turtle we picked up today ventured too far north as they normally live in tropical waters - in fact, turtle was the first olive ridley ever found here. Cold blood in cold water meant the animal probably was moving pretty slow. It was found on a beach in Toffino after it was too late to help. Why it came this far north we don’t know.

I’ll write more about the turtle shortly, as I’ll be helping at the museum to preserve it.

Plastic in the ocean – a depressing thought

A myctophids (photo by G. Hanke RBCM)

“No scientist would ever use the state of Texas as a unit of measurement” 

       - Captain Charles Moore

My husband and I went to a talk by Captain Charles Moore recently. He wrote 'Plastic Ocean', a book I'll read and write a review of (we have been planning to get the book for some time). He brought up some interesting and depressing points about how much plastic is in our oceans and what it's doing to the life there.

Only about 10% of the garbage that gets into the oceans washes ashore; the rest is concentrated into the mid-ocean gyres. An unfortunate side effect of our convenience-based consumer lifestyle is that much of the garbage produced is plastics, which float and don't breakdown. It takes approximately 6 years for the garbage to travel around a gyre and the average life of the garbage in a gyre is 10 revolutions – that is 60 years.

At first the plastics resemble what they started as – a milk crate, a laundry basket, etc. Since plastic presents a hard substrate, algae eating fishes claim larger chunks as shelter and keep the surface fairly algae free. This clean plastic eventually gets colonized by barnacles and corals creating a new multi-level trashy ecosystem - with algae as the base, then on to herbivores, planktivores, secondary invertebrate consumers, and so on ending at the top predators (large fishes, birds, dolphins and relatives).

As hard-shelled invertebrates grow, their mass overcomes the buoyancy of the plastic. The reef sinks, and over time, the attached organisms decay or dissolve in the cold ocean depths. Buoyant once again, the plastic floats to the surface and the cycle of colonization can begin anew.

In the long run, this plastic garbage will rub up against other debris or be broken by wave action. The plastic pieces get smaller and smaller. A ruby-red bottle cap might be scooped up by an albatross to be fed to its chick or the plastic rings holding a six-pack together might end up around a sea turtle, restricting normal shell growth. Captain Moore mentioned myctophids, an abundant group of lantern fishes which are a vital part of the open ocean food web. Dissections of their stomachs show some of these fish are eating as much plastic as food. Even the tiniest pieces can be ingested by filter feeders.

Plastics are known to absorb pollutants. Species low on the food web eat plastic scraps, creating another way for pollutants to end up in our food. I wonder, what that tuna I ate for lunch ate for its lunch?

So what can we do? I try to use as little as plastic as possible. I have my own metal water bottle and ceramic coffee cup. I keep food in glass containers, and use re-fillable bottles for shampoo and cleaning products. Any other ideas?

as a tangent: thanks to my husband for helping me with this one.

nature at the back door

The monster-from-a-horror-flick stage 

of a lady bug's life

In my office, I've arranged it so that from my desk I look out into the backyard. My husband and I have removed most of the lawn and whats left contains more clover than grass – which the neighbour's bees love when it's blooming. Raised garden beds now dominate the space. In the spring, I'll plant them with veggies. Right now, they contain remnants of last summer's garden – kale, parsnips and turnips ready for harvest. Plus, one bed is currently home to our crazy chickens (crazy because as soon as one catches sight of me, they all come running). We also have berry bushes and herbs waiting for spring.

Now that there is a variety of landscape, nature has moved in (we don't apply any nasty chemicals in our yard). I've observed the full cycle of a ladybug's life from it's monster-from-a-horror-flick larvae stage to its glossy-red-poka-dotted adult stage. Jumping spiders and bee flies visit, neither of them stay still long enough for me to get a good photo. A hummingbird has taken up residence in the holly behind the fence. A Bewick's wren raised a family in a pile of cedar branches which we almost carted off to the dump (we noticed the birds just in time). I'm looking forward to the day I see a garter snake move in to help with the slugs. Someday, frogs would be nice too.

Producing tasty fruit and veggies is my goal for the backyard, but, it's nice to see creatures finding a home in my yard. Even in winter, lots of creatures are making use of the yard.

Swamp Water

Home for many microbes

On a whim, I did an internet search on 'swamp water'. What came up included alcoholic drink concoctions and a 1941 movie based on an earlier book which looked like more of a drama than the potential horror promised in the title. No search result came up for swamp water as the random mixing of soda pops (which always came out brown for me because of the necessity of root beer). When I was a kid, I looked forward to any opportunity to mix pops and called it 'swamp water'. I did an informal survey of friends, and I'm not the only one who made swamp water, in fact, a few friends admitted they still do it, especially with slurpees. It even turns out some kids today are still making swamp water.

Speaking of kids and swamp water, I ran a group activity for kids last week on microbes (specifically the oceanic variety, although discussions didn't go that way). I borrowed a microscope and brought in water wrung out of my aquarium's filter, otherwise known as my in-house swamp water. The whole activity reminded me of when I was kid and my science-teacher father brought home a microscope from work for me to use. All the little critters out of my aquarium's filter became visible to me.

We haven't always known about microbes. Anton van Leeuwenhoek (I have no idea how to pronounce his name) discovered these tiny life forms everywhere in 1675. For his discovery, he used a microscope of his own design – one of the earliest microscopes. By definition microbes are simply creatures you need a microscope to see, and they typically form the base of an ecosystem. According to Wikipedia, many blame the failure of Biosphere II on an improper balance of microbes. Microbes are incredibly useful: they are required for brewing, wine making, baking, pickling and fermentation; they play a role in decomposition of organic matter; and they aid our own digestion by synthesizing vitamins and fermenting complex carbohydrates into digestible form. Microbes aren't all beneficial, in fact, many infectious diseases can be attributed to them.

My favourite of the aquarium-filter microbes are amoeba, partly because I can identify them and partly because they lack a definable shape. They are moving blobs that use their blobiness to envelope their prey. Amoeba were discovered by August von Rosenhof (another name I can't pronounce) in 1757, a surprisingly long time after the discovery of microbes especially considering how ubiquitous they are (in every aquarium I've ever had amoebas have flourished).

With the exception of amoeba, I can't identify specific microbes. They are hugely diverse: there are ones that swim like snakes, ones shaped like tiny ovals zooming around, and ones formed as large blobs that change shape as they move – plus many more. And this is just in my aquarium (which was originally seeded from local pond water). What would I find in my soil? Under the oak leaves in the park nearby? In a tidal pool? How about in my kitchen sink's drain? I'm always amazed by the diversity of critters right under our noses (or even in our noses). We live in a wild place.

Polar Bear Hair

Polar Bear photographed by Iva Peklova

Bears scare me, in fact, they scare me more than anything else. As a child, I would lay awake in my second story bedroom fearing that a bear would crash through my window at any moment. Even then, I was well aware the black bears in the area preferred to forage for berries and grubs over breaking into a child's bedroom but, I still feared them.

If I camp in the woods, any twig breaking or rustling sound will immediately start me thinking of bears. I've seen plenty of wild bears (black bears, grizzlies and polar bears) and I've never had a bad experience – mostly the bears acted terrified of me (perhaps as cubs they feared people would break into the dens). I'm forced to conclude that my life-long bear fear is irrational – at least I no longer fear bears will break into my urban second story bedroom.

In the temperate climate I live in, I don't see a bear every time I step in the forest. In fact, I rarely see them. However, every time I've been to the arctic, I've seen polar bears. I've seen more polar bears in the wild than any other type of bear. The arctic is huge and there are not a lot of polar bears, so I find it somewhat strange that I see them most often.

When I was shopping for my dad's birthday present (he ties flies for fishing), I was drawn to a swatch of polar bear hair. I wanted to touch it, so I bought the package and took it home. Polar bears aren't truly white, instead they are more of a cream colour. In a southern zoo setting they can even acquire a tint of green from algae growth.

If you look closely at a polar bear's hair, it is hollow and transparent. At some point an urban myth was promulgated that the hairs were acted like natural fibre optic cables, channelling the light, especially UV down to the bear's black skin. It doesn't quite work that way, instead light just passes through the hair to heat the skin. In this case, the simple answer is the right one.

As a tangent, the polar bear hair felt wiry rather than soft like I expected.

Fireflies

Few insects vie in popular fame with the glow-worm, that curious little animal which, to celebrate the little joys of life, kindles a beacon at its tail-end. Who does not know it, at least by name? Who has not seen it roam amid the grass, like a spark fallen from the moon at its full?

- from The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre, an anthology of Jean-Henri Fabre's works translated from French by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

Glow-worms, also called fireflies or lightening bugs (I prefer to call them fireflies), don't live where I do, so I've never seen one. My only encounters have been in fictional accounts, but I can understand how they capture people's imagination – I'd be captivated if glowing beetles 'like a spark fallen from the moon at its full' were flying around my backyard. I suspect I'd watch them for hours, and back when I was a kid, I would have loved to catch them. According to the Smithsonian Institution's Animal; the Definitive Visual Guide to the World's Wildlife, 2000 species of fireflies exist world-wide, ranging in size from 0.5 to 3 cm. And it's no surprise that they're typically nocturnal; what would be the point of glowing if no one could see?

Their light serves different purposes through a firefly's life. As larvae, they flash to warn predators of the larvae's toxicity. As adults, each species emits their own unique set of flashes to attract mates. Males typically can fly around to find their mate, while the flightless females stay in one place and flash. A female firefly's flashing can be the downfall of a male, since some females mimic other firefly species' flashes to earn themselves a quick meal.

A firefly's light falls into the 510 – 670 nm range, corresponding to yellow, green or pale-red and contains no infrared or ultraviolet wavelengths. They produce their light purely through a chemical reaction that triggers a light-emitting pigment to flash within specialized cells in the firefly's abdomen.

Firefly populations are decreasing. Loss of habitat makes life harder for fireflies, and light pollution may be interfering with their signals. In fact, light pollution causes all sorts of havoc for critters. For fireflies finding a mate becomes more difficult, because how can they home in on a series of flashes from a potential mate while lights are flashing all around them? For other animals excess light confuses their sense of navigation, like puffins in Iceland disorientated by city lights. Children rescue the puffins and release them – which strikes me as a bit odd since puffin is considered a delicacy there. Light pollution is such an issue (probably more because it make the stars hard to see than what it does to critters) that there is an 'International Dark-Sky Association' and places designated 'dark-sky preserves'. I wonder what all the excess artificial light is doing to us?

Lots more info about fireflies can be found here.

April Showers

It's another 'April Showers' type day today – rain has been coming down all day with no signs of stopping. Worms are making their way onto the roads and side walks to the delight of the robins (who don't need to get up early to get a worm around here). I like worms, they represent healthy soil to me. Since I'm someone who is trying to grow tasty food in my back yard (step 1: grow vegetables, step 2: save planet), healthy soil is a good thing. I agree with what Charles Darwin said about worms:

“It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures.”

When I lived in various apartments, I tried indoor worm composters (always of my own construction). Generally, my worms did well but, so did fruit flies. I tried at least three times, each time abandoning the idea because of the fruit fly swarms that emerged. Maybe there was some trick I needed to know about, but now that I have outside space for a proper compost, I'm not going to worry about it.

There are all sorts of different types of worms but, the common earthworm or Lumbricus terrestis is the one I see in my garden. These guys usually hang out in burrows close to the surface and recycle organic debris. Leaves, grass clippings, even carrot peels can all be turned into great soil by worms. Their bodies are divided into linked, somewhat independent segments. Each segment is pressurized with fluid to give the worm shape and has muscles that can act independently to allow it to move. The mouth is at one end and along the whole body is the gut and waste is pushed out the other end. This waste (that is, poo) is what makes good soil.

What is it?

I was reading over a paper by John Peyssonel from the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions (volume 50, 1757-1758, pages 585-589) titled 'Observations on the limax non cochleata purpur ferens, the naked snail producing purple.' It is about some sea creature and after reading it I have no clue what it is.

From the text (which is longest run on sentence I've ever seen):

Among the fish we meet with in the seas of the Antilles of America, we find, that this I am going to describe will appear precious, from the beautiful purple colour it produces, in the same manner, that the cuttle-fish produces its ink, if a means could be found to produce the liquor in a sufficient quantity to render it an article of commerce

The author goes on to describe this 'fish' as soft, viscous, without shells, scales or bones. It has no feet or fins. It acts like a slug when touched, in that it wreaths up as round as it can. In fact, they are so similar to snails and slugs the author calls them 'naked snails.' Their bodies are greenish in colour with black circular spots. They have two horns or antennae which might serve as eyes. Under a tough plate at the back of the body, it keeps a sack of purple juice. The purple juice can be deployed in defense just like a cuttle-fish uses it's ink.

Is this a description of a nudibranch? Or maybe a sea hare?

A bloody green

Further to my post from yesterday, I stumbled across an interesting article from the 1818 edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 108, pages 110 to 117. The paper was called 'A Few Facts Relative to the Colouring Matters of Some Vegetation' by James Smithson – an interesting person that I'm planning on digging up more information on.

I found this buried at the end in a section called 'Some Animal Greens':

There are small gnats of a green colour: crushed on paper, they make a green stain, which is permanent.

This brings to mind a child squishing bugs to see what colour their insides are. I've found no other reference to green dyes from gnats, so I'm assuming crushing gnats didn't make it into commercial production.

Actual bloody colours

I've been thinking about my bloody colours post of a little while back. Magenta and solferno were named because they reminded observers of the after effects of a battle. What about colours made from actual blood? That is, by killing a critter. These dyes exist, and some are still in use today.

Fantastic reds can be made from crushed insects. I wonder who was the first who thought of grinding up dried bugs to dye cloth? One of these dyes is Kermes, an ancient dye extracted from an insect (Coccus ilicis) that resided in the middle east. This bug lives as a parasite on oaks, producing carminic acid (the base component for a dye) to deter predators. Kermes is the root of the word crimson and predictably, cloth dyed with kermes turns out a bluish-red. Skilled dyers could even produce a scarlet cloth. About 70,000 insects are needed to make only one pound of dye – making a very bloody dye.

Cochineal, also known as carmine, is another ancient bloody dye produced from similar insect (Dactylopius coccus). This bug resides on cactus in Mexico and has been the foundation of a red dye for millennium. This dye is chemically the same as kermes except ten times stronger – less of them needed to die to produce the same amount of dye. When the Spanish brought this dye back to Europe in the mid 1500s, it quickly over shadowed kermes because it was a cheaper alternative. Both kermes and cochineal have been widely used to colour foods dating back to the middle ages, and cochineal is still in use now. As a food colourant it's called by many names, including 'natural red 4'.

Throughout the ages other similar insects have been used to make red dyes. Polish cochineal (Porphyrophora polonica), a insect that lives on the roots of herbs in Poland, was once used to make reds as an alternative to kermes. In India, a red dye was made from a secretion left behind by an insect in the same family (Laccifer lacca), I think the bug got to live in this case – but, I don't know for sure. In South East Asia, reds called lac, could be made from a whole family of related insects, which also provided the foundation for shellac (often used as a protective coat for wood).

Tyrian purple held the title of the most prestigious dye in antiquity. In Roman times if you were caught wearing clothing dyed this purple and weren't royalty it was considered a crime, of course affording this colour if you weren't royalty was virtually impossible. The complex technique for making this dye was discovered around 1500BC by the Phoenicians, an ancient Mediterranean seafaring traders. Tyrian purple is made from a pale yellow mucous secretion from some molluscs, commonly known as sea snails. It is possible to 'milk' these snails, in which case, they wouldn't be harmed – however, this is labour intensive so more destructive methods were used. Often the snails would simply be crushed to get their secretion. From one source, the snails were salted and left for three days to extract the liquid. The liquid was boiled for ten days after which fibers would be soaked in the resulting liquid for five hours. Finally, the resulting fabric would have to be exposed to sunlight where it changed colour from deep yellow, through green and blue to finally purple.

To dye a metre of cloth, 12,000 molluscs would be required (ie killed). Since they were making luxury fabrics, often a fabric would be dyed more than once to get the best shade. Different snails gave different shades, to get the best purple cloth would be first dyed in one species of snails then in another. Fortunately for the snails, synthetic dyes have completely replaced the original tyrian purple.

For more info check here, including some nice pictures.

A recycled documentary idea

Every couple of years, when I'm channel surfing, I stumble across a new documentary on what happened to the Amber Room. By the way, it's still lost. The Amber Room was built for a palace near St. Petersburg of gold leaf, mirrors and amber. The shiny yellows and golds are ornately detailed for an aristocratic taste found in another era. The room's complex construction took about eight years from 1701 to 1709 and included six tones of amber. In WWII, the room was covered in wallpaper in an attempt to prevent looting. It didn't work. The room was crated up by the Nazi's and shipped off. Although there has been repeated announcements of imminent discovery and theories on its fate, the Amber Room has yet to be recovered (it has however been reconstructed).

Along the Baltic Sea, pieces of amber wash ashore and have been collected since the stone age. The Dominion Republic is also a great place to find amber. In fact, amber is quite common and found all over the globe. But, what is amber? According to Wikipedia, it's fossilized tree resin. Coniferous trees are big producers of resins which is a hydrocarbon secretion. If you have ever handled a chunk of fir or pine tree, the turpentine like smell from the sticky residue left on your hands is the resin. Varnishes, adhesives, incense and perfumes have all been made from resins throughout the eons. Resin is different than sap, as sap is the fluid that transports nutrients around a plant (maple syrup is an example of a product made from sap).

Most amber is a warm yellow to orange brown. It's known to range in colour from a pale lemon yellow to red. Rare blue amber is formed when pyrites are included. Amber is often considered a gem stone, although it's not indestructible like a diamond.

To me, the most interesting thing about amber is that it can provide a window into ancient worlds. The oldest amber found so far is 320 million years old. We can learn about trees that have since gone extinct from the amber they produced. Since, resins are sticky stuff, the fossilized version ends up with all sorts of interesting things in it. Pollen from when our climate was different can be pulled out of amber giving us clues about ancient conditions.

The most spectacular are the trapped critters – insects, spiders, frogs and lizards. One misstep into the resin and these creatures are forever trapped. Baltic amber has few critters while Dominican Republic amber has more. Over the last few years scientists have isolated DNA from trapped termites, bees and butterflies. A great amber deposit with insects was recently found in India which promises more interesting finds. However, the Jurassic Park concept of isolating dinosaur DNA from the mosquito that bit it, is still fiction.

As a side note: amber ale has the deep yellow-orange of stereotypical amber, thus the name (no actual amber is involved in making amber ale).