Gavan Central

Inspired by Gregg McLachlan’s recent twitter conversation with Caroline Schultz¹, allow me some reasoned conjecture answering what might happen to animals that hibernate in a warming climate.

First, some definitions: hibernation, colloquially-speaking, is the long, uninterrupted sleep that animals undertake to avoid the winter. More correctly, hibernation is one kind of dormancy along a continuum—kinds of deep rest that muddle across periods of time and kinds of organisms, including: torpor, estivation, brumation and diapause. But let’s focus on hibernation². Two important things happen in hibernation that set it apart from the others I’ve just listed: it involves a lowered body temperature and a lowered heart rate. In turn, this means a lowered metabolism.

Now here in Southern Ontario, we have few animals that enter true hibernation. Bears (and in our case we’re talking Black Bears or Ursus americanus) do not enter true hibernation. But Groundhogs (Marmota monax, pictured below), Eastern Chimpunks (Tamias striatus) and Little Brown Bats (Myotis lucifugus) do.

photo credit: NapaneeGal

Now our enjoyment of, as a species of naked apes, the winter season may lead us to believe that other animals enter hibernation to avoid the same cold weather that (some of us) suffer though. The truth is somewhere else—these hibernators have depressed their metabolism so they can avoid having to find food. So, rather than an inability to deal with cold weather, it is the lack of food that has driven the evolution of entering a physiologically dormant state when food disappears.

We’ve (the naked apes in Souther Ontario) have been enjoying a warm period this January and its supposed to get as warm as 6 degrees Celsius on Sunday. Before we tackle the larger question of climate change, what might a warm period like we’ve been having do for those animals hibernating right now?

I’m turning to the great book Winter World: The Ingenuity Of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich to help me answer the question and I’m going to focus on the ground squirrels (the Chipmunk and the Groundhog) just to simplify things. Chipmunks and Groundhogs, though they both hibernate, show different strategies in preparation. Simplified: Chipmunks collect food and Groundhogs get fat.

In fact, Heinrich writes that a chipmunk’s “availability of stored food affects whether is remains active or enters [hibernation]” (p.99) meaning that in years with lots of available food, Chipmunks can be active the entire winter and don’t need to suppress their metabolism. This was the subject of an entire doctoral dissertation, so I can’t possibly give a nuanced answer, but being active in the cold seems to be associated more with lots of stored food rather than warmer temperatures. So, for Chipmunks, it will be some combination of the two factors (food & cold) that will predict the depth and length of their hibernation. In fact a Southern species, the California Chipmunk (Tamias obscurus) does not hibernate at all.

Groundhogs are different. They follow something called a circannual calendar—named, to continue our connection to Southern Ontario, by two researcher from the University of Toronto—which means they prepare for, enter and exit hibernation on an internal clock, independent of external conditions.

So, what do these intermittent warm periods do? For Groundhogs, nothing, as they’re busily following the ticking of their circannual clock, waiting for it to rouse them sometime in mid to late February. Like most things in the natural world, there is an exception to Groundhog’s circannual clock: in the U of T experiments, when the air temperature remained above 30 degrees Celsius, the Groundhogs did not enter hibernation. Chipmunks, on the other hand, are easy to rouse, even when in hibernation. Does this mean a longer period of warm weather would wake them up? Perhaps. Likely, those that are active are the Chipmunks with access to food in their cache, so being active, and the higher metabolism, isn’t as serious.

What would a warming climate do? This is where the guess work comes in. Over a long period of time, I would guess that the Eastern Chipmunk would come to resemble its southern cousin and not hibernate at all. For the Groundhog, it would seem that the climate would need to warm a great deal—above 30 degrees Celsius in the wintertime—for them not to hibernate. That’s not an immediate concern right now, and if ever Southern Ontario’s winter temperature ever got to 30 due to global climate change, I think the lack of hibernation would be the least of a Groundhog’s worries.

In the short term, it’s a bit more interesting to guess. Different populations of Groundhogs emerge at different times. This is evident in the fact that Groundhog day falls on February 2nd even though our Southern Ontario Groundhogs emerge later in February. February 2nd is the time of year the southern Groundhogs, specifically those in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, generally emerge. This shows some plasticity in the length of that circannual calendar. I would suspect with a warming climate that the clock would begin to change—Southern Ontario groundhogs entering their den later in the year and emerging earlier. Would these climatic changes occur faster than that the circannual calendar could change? I don’t know. For Chipmunks, it would be similar to the long-term changes. Eastern Chipmunks, I suspect, in combination with access to food, will be more active.

What all of this points to though, and what I haven’t really addressed in relation to global climate change, is that access to food continues to be the most important factor associated with hibernators. The question that then needs to be asked: how with global climate change, change the plant communities of Southern Ontario and what impact could that have on the mammals that currently live here?

Perhaps I’ll take a stab at that next time…

1. As aside, here’s why Twitter is awesome—before Twitter, how or where else do you get to have an informal chat with the executive director of Ontario Nature and the founder of environmentally-focused career site? [↩]
2. If you want more in-depth, scientific information, I suggest this open learning source [↩]

© José Luis Rodríguez

This striking image, taken by José Luis Rodriguez, won the 2009 Veolia Environnement Wildlife photographer of the year competition. The subject is an Iberian Wolf (Canis lupus signatus), leaping over a farm gate somewhere in the Spanish countryside. At the time that the prize was announced in October 2009, Rodriguez  has this to say about the image:

“I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting – or predation – but without blood,” he told BBC News. “I didn’t want a cruel image.”

October 2009 has become January 2010 and Rodriguez has been stripped of the—technically speaking, disqualified—award. From the special statement announcing the disqualification:

The judging panel was reconvened and concluded that it was likely that the wolf featured in the image was an animal model that can be hired for photographic purposes and, as a result, that the image had been entered in breach of Rule 10 of the 2009 Competition.

You can read more about the case against the shot, but the disqualification is an interesting development as it signals that a boundary has been crossed between what is considered wild and what is not. The 2010 rules of this competition state that “only pictures of wild animals and plants and landscapes are eligible. Images of animal models or any other animal being exploited for profit may not be entered.” This, of course, is the ostensible reason for the disqualification. Read, however, how this image was crafted:

Watching the animals as they returned to the same spot to collect food each night, Mr Rodriguez decided on his dream shot.

He eventually captured it using a photographic trap that included a motion sensor and an infrared barrier to operate the camera.

The winning photograph wasn’t a chance moment where human, photographic equipment and wolf all masterfully and fatefully converged. It was, rather, a measured, long-term exercise involving bait to attract the wolves, cameras to record the image and an infrared trap to trigger the shutter. So, was the winning photograph ever an image of “true” wildlife? Or, to put it another way, what does the image loose in impact to learn that in addition to the bait, the camera and the IR trap, a captive wolf known as Ossian was the subject?

Given that there is photography involved, an act that already works in ways to remove the viewer from the subject, that the animal subject should be seen as now falling into the category of “not wild” is fascinating. In fact, these developments speak to a larger question of the truth and authenticity we put in wildlife photography. I’ll be provocative by saying there are no truly “wild” or ” nature untouched” moments that come from an image captured by photographic equipment (read a related previous post on Tusk Cams & Nature Films).

I do love to geotag the photographs that I take. But what to do with all that data once entered? iMapFlickr is a neat-o site that takes my geotagged photos (say, like the ones I took on Heather and I’s honeymoon) and places them in a google map. Brilliant part? You can embed the ensuing maps in all kinds of places, including a blog posting.

So I offer you, without further explanation, our geotagged honeymoon:

photo credit: KittyCanuck

From first-hand experience, when you’re selling something on Craigslist set the price for some multiple of 20—this way you don’t have to make change as your buyer will have likely just gone to the bank machine and have twenties in their pocket.

photo credit: liz.novack

We don’t have a problem with them in our apartment (thankfully), but because of an interest (I guess somewhat similar to gawking when an emergency vehicle goes by) in where they’re found in Toronto, I discovered the bedbug registry and a map of reported Toronto sightings. Now the usual caveats apply to self-reported information, but it’s fascinating and not surprising to see that the hot-spot appears to be centred around St. James Town.

But really, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Interestingly, when we were in NYC, we saw bedbug sniffer dogs services advertised. I haven’t seen anything like that yet here. But perhaps that’s just a symptom of when you look at NYC’s sightings map, it appears to cut across more socio-economic neighbourhoods. There is likely a need for sniffing dogs here in Toronto, it’s just those who need their services the most can’t afford it.

Barosaurus in the basillica, originally uploaded by Gavatron.

The main entrance to the American Museum of Natural History.

Haines Ferry Terminal, Haines, Alaska

I had just pulled the van into the ferry queue and stepped outside when they arrived: from the tree-tops of the nearby Pacific Northwest temperate rain forest, two Northwestern Crows (Corvus caurinus) glided and landed on the asphalt beside me. Hopping to a stop and quickly re-arranging their wings, they looked up at me and I looked down at them. In a moment, with our mutual glances, it was obvious that these two were here because of the growing line of cars, vans and campers that were parked, lining up to board the evening ferry to Skagway, Alaska. I decided to watch.

Earlier in the evening, I had glimpsed a pair of Northwestern Crows foraging by the ocean as I was driving along the coast of the Lutak Inlet to the ferry terminal. As the common corvid of the coast in this part of North America, it wasn’t a surprise to see them here. The tide was receding along a rocky beach, and as I passed, the crows appeared from the shoreline below. Their wings beating in the stiff on-shore breeze with the kind of tempo one expects when birds take flight, they both flew up into a sharp parabola. One of the pair had something in its bill—it looked like some sort of mollusc—and slowed down its wing beats, quickly decelerating. Reaching the apex of its flight, it dropped the object from its mouth onto the rocky shore below. Down the birds flew, on I drove.

This kind of behaviour isn’t unusual in the Northwestern Crow. They’re known to be foragers along the edge of the ocean, looking for aquatic organisms that become stranded as the tide ebbs. If it can be found between the exposed rockweed, it can be considered food and these crows find their protein in the fish, molluscs and crustaceans that live along the coast of the Northern Pacific. While they are foragers, and live commensally with humans, I experienced something unexpected along the line of vehicles.

As I watched the crows standing at my feet, they hopped past me and my vehicle towards the van that had pulled up behind mine in the queue. With what I would describe as curiosity, the two crows began to inspect the grill of the camper van. It became clear what they were looking for: insects. Or, more correctly, they were searching out freshly-deceased insects that had stuck to the camper’s metal and chrome. And so the metal grill became the shore: up these birds flew, gleaning the remains. Because of the lack of a good perch, they looked more like oversized Ruby-Crowned Kinglets (Regulus calendula) feeding in this way, with their wings quickly flapping to give them the purchase they needed to get their food. This was challenging work for the crows. After the “easy” carcases were gone, it became a cooperative effort with each bird taking turns in one of two roles: one flying up to remove the insects and the other, after the insect hit the pavement, eating it up.

In the minutes before the ferry arrived they continued looking for more to eat, moving from car to van down the line of vehicles.

photo credit: stevendepolo

Confession time: I can’t skate.

Bombshell, eh? It’s not that I’ve never strapped skates on, it’s just the last time I did so, I was in Grade 8. By my calculations, that was nineteen years ago. We had a neighbourhood skating rink when I was growing up in Guelph, and I would go to skate when I was a kid. But I distinctly remember stopping by plowing full-bore into the snowbanks that surrounded the rink. Saying I could skate would be like saying PopoZão is a subtle pop masterpiece.

Given the Canadian cultural identity surrounding ice skating (in full view this fall with the CBC mash-up hit Ice Capades Battle of the Blades), its something that I don’t really advertise. I feel like any white Canadian boy who was born in the late 20th century has the common experience of playing hockey. Me? Not so much. I don’t think I’ve ever played a proper road or ice hockey game. I can count on one hand how many NHL games I’ve seen from start to finish. Wayne Gretzky means more to me as being born in the same city than as The Great One. Icing is something on a cake, not a rule of the game. I don’t know what the lines on a hockey rink mean. I don’t care if a loonie was melted into centre ice at the Salt Lake City Olympics. You’re getting my point.

Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: the_tahoe_guy

I just got off the phone with a fellow who identified himself as “Mark Wilson” of Master Resorts. Mark had great news—because I had earned “golden points” on my VISA card, I had qualified for a free trip¹.

I have Mark’s name in quotation marks because I’m positive this was a scam—from the private caller / number on the caller ID to VOIP-quality phone connection, to the slightly-off “golden points”—this “free vacation” phone call screamed that I shouldn’t trust this guy. So, I decided to have some fun and waste as much of his time as possible.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Jack, after I updated my status on Facebook suggested that they were offering a trip to Club Fraud in the Greater Scamtillies—those puns are too good not to go unmentioned [↩]