http://naturenewssf.blogspot.com
Walking is also an ambulation of mind. -Gretel Ehrlich
1. McLaren Park History Walk & Clean-up Party March 30
2. Service Learning Experience in Muir Woods March 30, April 27
3. Please write Fish & Wildlife Commission on live animal food markets
4. Carnivores on the defense
5. The Sounds of Silence - and more - in Bay Nature
6. Service-based learning workshop on mission blue butterfly Apr 2
7. Gardening From The Ground Up Class Apr 20-May 4
8. Stunning creations of nature: Birds of Paradise
9. Parting Words from Franz Wright
10. Sexual strategies; the numbers game
11. Want to ride your bike to Yosemite? Do it and help Restore Hetch Hetchy
12. Anthropomorphic nouns: a Parliament of owls, &c
13. What happens in one minute on the internet
14. And advice on speed from a westerner
1. McLaren Park History Walk & Clean-Up Party, Sat March 30, 10am-1pm
Here's a great excuse to get outside on a nice spring morning, while also doing something vital for our City's second largest open space -- John McLaren Park. The theme is history, so come hear the stories and see the maps of how the McLaren region looked fifty and a hundred years ago!
We'll start with a brief history talk about Mansell Street and the surrounding areas, then walk up the hill to a nice vantage point for observation both of the old roadbeds and homestead locations in McLaren ("old" and "new" maps provided), as well as the springtime consequences of the 2012 wildfire on the southern slopes. Then we'll break up into Easy Peasy, Moderate, and Fit As A Fiddle contingents to spread out along Mansell and pick up discarded trash on our way back to lunch, while discovering firsthand some of the leftover markers of times gone by. Rec/Park and other City workers will be on hand to direct traffic and make sure we work safely and efficiently.
So join us for a morning of community action and historical exploration! Bring your family and friends, and your favorite beverages, desserts, and snacks to share as well. This event is sponsored by Save McLaren Park and SFRPD's Natural Areas Program, with additional support from the McLaren Park Collaborative.
Meet at the Mansell/Visitacion Ave. parking lot.
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2. Service Learning Experience
3/30, 4/27 (9:30 AM-2:30 PM)
Earn 5 service hours for school by working in habitat restoration, flossing, sweeping and more at Muir Woods National Monument! Bring water, lunch, and wear sturdy shoes, dress in layers. Reservations required; phone 388-2596.
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3.
(JS: Please write to the Fish & Game Commission, and cc those in the cc line)
To:
Cc: , ,
Subject: Live Animal Food Markets.
Hi Sonke,
Having watched the California government stall on the non-native frog and turtle issue for the past three years, I find it extremely disconcerting that California's own Fish & Game Commission refuses to take any action to protect the very wildlife it is mandated to protect. What is most disturbing is that both the FGC and the DFW are fully aware of the problems incurred by California's native wildlife due to the permits for the importation of non-native frogs and turtles that the DFW issues.
The FGC/DFW cannot simultaneously issue permits for a destructive activity and act as if they have no responsibility towards fixing the problem. If the legislature truly is required to deal with this issue, then the FGC and DFW share responsibility for making those contacts in the legislature and taking proactive action to ameliorate the effects of your group's damaging permitting process. To shun all responsibility I am sure you agree is to fail to uphold the missions of your respective organizations, and to serve as an accomplice towards preventable environmental destruction.
To be clear, neither the DFW nor the FGC has ever been able to tell me any specific piece of code that requires the issuance of permits to all applicants, or any code that prevents the DFW/FGC from cessation of said activities. On the contrary, the Federal Endangered Species Act makes it very clear that all activities that harm endangered species require permits. The DFG/FGC have no such permits to the best of my knowledge, and thus the issuance of importation permits for
harmful species like the American Bullfrog is potentially a violation of federal law, as these permits facilitate the predation of California Red-Legged Frogs, as well as disease spread and competition for endangered species' food sources and habitat.
I hope you will carefully consider these points, and your role in making California a better place for humans and wildlife.
Please feel free to call me should you wish to talk.
Sincerely,
Dr. Kerry Kriger
Save The Frogs - Founder, Executive Director, Ecologist
www.savethefrogs.com
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4.
JS: I�m a lifelong carnivore, but I am getting pressure from all directions to not be. Following last two newsletters' item on the subject:
Three hundred trout are needed to support one man for a year. The trout, in turn, must consume 90,000 frogs, that must consume 27 million grasshoppers that live off of 1,000 tons of grass. G Tyler Miller, Jr, American chemist (1971)
Hi Jake, We could make an end run around the trout and frogs and just eat 203 grasshoppers/day.
Now I get this:
Paris Harvey Why Vegan? (a short video).
Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment or exploit in any way. We are not their "owners". We are their guardians.
Re: Human hunger: Did you know..."More than 90% of soybeans, 80% of corn and 70% of grain grown in the US goes to feed livestock! 800 million more people could be fed if the grain fed to livestock was used to feed people." (David Pimentel, Professor of Entomology, Cornell University.)
Think you can be an environmentalist and still eat meat? Think again... Meats Not Green
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5.
JS: In the 1950s I was impressed when someone told me of a psychiatrist who would advise his patients to go to some isolated natural area and to become aware of every sound there.
The Sounds of Silence; Tuning Into the Natural Soundscape in the April-June issue of Bay Nature is such a story and is a must read. Bay Nature is always a good read, and should become prescribed school curriculum.
Are you a subscriber? Why not? baynature.org
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6.
On Tuesday April 2nd from 10am to 1pm, Lech Naumovich, Liam O'Brien, and the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department will be hosting a service-based learning workshop about the federally threatened Mission Blue Butterfly. We are looking for a small group of volunteers to come learn about this important butterfly and help us improve it's habitat. We'll bring some snacks and provide some instruction about the butterfly and its habitat!
What to bring: water, a lunch, sunscreen, close-toed shoes (boots), grass shear (or large scissors) and your interest in learning and stewarding our rare and important natural areas.
Where to meet: Meet at the Twin Peaks parking lots near the summit, we will walk from there: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=203755634580909887884.0004d8e8c0c715875cd7b&msa=0&ll=37.753132,-122.447562&spn=0.002993,0.004286
RSVP: You must RSVP by Sunday - March 31st. There are very limited spots and they will be reserved on a first come (RSVPed) - first served basis. RSVP to lech@goldenhour.org with your name and contact information.
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7. Gardening From The Ground Up Class
Want to grow vegetables, see more hummingbirds, and enjoy your garden more with less work?
Attract butterflies, bumble bees, song birds, hummingbirds, and other beneficial critters to your garden. Learn healthy garden management, grow edible plants, enjoy the wonder and beauty of California native plants, learn how they can help you sustain an environmentally friendly, water saving and easy care garden.
Beginners, black thumbs, seasoned gardeners all welcome. Get thrilled to spend time in your garden. Have fun with beautiful slides shows and a hands on Field Trip.
www.thegardenisateacher.com Class schedule: April 10 � May 4, 2013
4 Wednesday evenings 7pm � 8:30 pm, 1 Saturday Field Trip
Register: Piedmont Adult School http://piedmontadultschool.org/c_general.aspx
800 Magnolia Ave, Piedmont, CA 94611
Phone: 510-594-2655
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8. Birds of Paradise, from the Cornell Ornithology Lab - a 5-minute+ video of a stunning phenomenon:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/REP4S0uqEOc
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9.
Parting Word
As for me
I have no mind
to lose anymore, I am through
with all that -
the sky is my mind
today.(And
it always is
and always was
today.) Blue,
her color
sorrowing over us ...
Does it flow out of or into us, seeing?
Unseen ray of perception the face beams
at things, or
face on which things shine!
I am so glad
that I no longer know,
no longer
care.
And one more thing:
the future?
Never
been there.
~ Franz Wright ~
(God's Silence)
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10.
Sexual strategies
The numbers game
Mar 14th 2013 The Economist
IN 1948 Angus John Bateman, an English geneticist, proposed that females invest more in producing and caring for their offspring than males because sperm are cheaper than eggs. Since then, however, many species, in particular egg-laying ones, have been found to violate what became known as Bateman's principle. Such role reversal has left evolutionary biologists baffled.
Some suggested that species in which females lay eggs that are big compared to their bodies may need more time to recover after laying eggs and males perform nest chores to compensate. Others fingered high levels of nest predation, which prompts females to seek more males to mate with, in order to produce more offspring, and leave nests untended; again, males pick up the slack. Neither hypothesis had robust data to back it up.
In 2000 Tamas Szekely, an ornithologist at the University of Bath, put forward an alternative explanation. What determines the role adopted by each sex, Dr Szekely contends, is the ratio of males to females. Typically, females outnumber males. This means a male mates with a female once and goes off in search of another willing partner, leaving the mother to tend the nest. Where the ratio favours males, however, the fathers might care for the young rather than face stiff competition to woo another female. Since the supply of males is low, females compete for them instead.
This idea remained untested, however, mainly because finding reliable data on animal sex ratios is tricky. But Andras Liker, Dr Szekely�s colleague at the University of Sheffield, believes he has found some. For over 20 years researchers around the world have been painstakingly collecting data on waders. Studies by Dr Liker and Dr Szekely showed that the data were good enough to test the sex ratio hypothesis.
As they report in Nature Communications, wading birds� sex roles are indeed correlated with the sex ratio in 16 of the 18 species they tested. In the five species in which females outnumber males (ruffs and northern lapwings, for instance) mothers care for their brood. In the 11 male-dominant species, including Jesus birds and greater painted snipes, by contrast, it is the fathers who look after the nestlings.
Sex ratios are, of course, in part determined by precisely the sort of behavioural traits Drs Szekely and Liker strive to explain. The reason this does not lead to a chicken-and-egg problem, as it were, is that sex ratios are also a function of other factors, like different mortality rates among adult males and females, themselves the result of things like body size.
Dr Szekely's idea may help explain why sex-role reversal seldom happens in mammals, where sex ratios tend to favour females (though mammalian males also lack females' ability to produce milk). It might even, Dr Liker speculates, shed light on other social behaviour in animals, such as homosexual pairing, possibly triggered by a shortage of available partners of the opposite sex.
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11.
Have you always wanted to ride your bike to Yosemite? Wanted to participate in Muir's March but more of a biker than a hiker? Well now we've got an event for you!
Muir's Riders arrive at Hetch Hetchy, August 4, 2012
Muir's Ride celebrates John Muir's first historic trek to Yosemite and follows a challenging but beautiful 200 mile route over the Coast Mountain Range through the Sierra foothills to Hetch Hetchy.
This is a 4-day bicycle trip designed to raise awareness and funds for the campaign to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley. Fully supported by a professional bike trek company.
Click here for more information
Be a part of history and join us on this amazing event. Help bring this national treasure back to life--and harden your buns in the process!
Mike Marshall
Executive Director
P.S. Feel free to call me at 415-956-0401 if you have questions.
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12. Anthropomorphic Nouns
Herd of cows
A Flock of chickens
A School of fish
A Gaggle of geese.
A Pride of lions,
A Murder of crows
An Exaltation of doves
A Parliament of owls.
Now consider a group of Baboons.
Baboons are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?
... A Congress
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Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg: "We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it."
The lament of all elected officials, and it helps to explain Congress. JS
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13. What happens in one minute on the Internet. Digital Koyaanisqatsi
http://scoop.intel.com/what-happens-in-an-internet-minute/
If only I may grow: firmer, simpler, -- quieter, warmer. -Dag Hammarskjold, former Secretary General of the United Nations
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14.
High Country News
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