Monarch Update

MEXICO CITY —The amount of Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped 59 percent this year, falling to the lowest level since comparable record-keeping began 20 years ago, scientists reported Wednesday.

It was the third straight year of declines for the orange-and-black butterflies that migrate from the United States and Canada to spend the winter in mountaintop fir forests in central Mexico. Six of the last seven years have shown drops, and there are now only one-fifteenth as many butterflies as there were in 1997.

The decline now marks a statistical long-term trend and can no longer be seen as a combination of yearly or seasonal events, the experts said.  But they differed on the possible causes.

Who's at fault?
Illegal logging in the reserve established in the Monarch wintering grounds was long thought to contribute, but such logging has been vastly reduced by increased protection, enforcement and alternative development programs in Mexico.

The World Wildlife Fund, one of the groups that sponsored the butterfly census, blamed climate conditions and agricultural practices, especially the use of pesticides that kill off the Monarchs' main food source, milkweed. The butterflies breed and live in the north in the summer, and migrate to Mexico in the winter.

"The decrease of Monarch butterflies ... probably is due to the negative effects of reduction in milkweed and extreme variation in the United States and Canada," the fund and its partner organizations said in a statement.

Omar Vidal, the World Wildlife Fund director in Mexico, said: "The conservation of the Monarch butterfly is a shared responsibility between Mexico, the United States and Canada. By protecting the reserves and having practically eliminated large-scale illegal logging, Mexico has done its part.

"It is now necessary for the United States and Canada to do their part and protect the butterflies' habitat in their territories," Vidal said.

Debate over loggingLogging was once considered the main threat to the reserve, located west of Mexico City. At its peak in 2005, logging devastated as many as 1,140 acres (461 hectares) annually in the reserve, which covers 193,000 acres (56,259-hectares). But a 2012 aerial survey showed almost no detectable logging, the first time that logging had not been found in detectable amounts since the mountaintop forests were declared a nature reserve in 2000.

Lincoln Brower, a leading entomologist at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, said in a statement that "the report of the dwindling Monarch butterfly winter residence in Mexico is ominous."

"This is not just the lowest population recorded in the 20 years for which we have records," Brower said. "It is the continuation of a statistically significant decrease in the Monarch population that began at least a decade ago."

However, Brower differed on whether small-scale logging, the diversion of water resources and other disruptive activity in the reserves in Mexico are playing a role in the decline.

"To blame the low numbers of monarchs solely on what is happening north of Mexico is misleading," Brower said. "Herbiciding of soybean and corn fields that kills milkweed is a serious problem, but the historical decline over the past 19 years has multiple causes.

"All three countries need to face up to the fact that it is our collective activities that are killing the migratory phenomenon of the Monarch butterfly," he said.

Hidden problems
Environmentalist and writer Homero Aridjis praised Mexico for progress in reducing illegal logging, but added that "low intensity logging, not detected in satellite image analysis, continues unabated in and near critical overwintering habitats."

The head of Mexico's nature reserves, Luis Fueyo, said there are still some problem to be solved at the wintering grounds in Mexico, including some small-scale logging and water availability. The Monarchs don't drink any water throughout their long migration until the reach Mexico, and the mountain streams in the area have been affected by drought and human use.

The migration is an inherited trait. No butterfly lives to make the round trip. The millions of Monarchs cluster so densely on tree boughs in the reserve that researchers don't count their individual numbers but rather measure the amount of forest they cover.

This winter, the butterflies covered just 2.93 acres (1.19 hectares), down from 7.14 acres (2.89 hectares) last year.

Fluffy Dies at the Columbus Zoo

Fluffy, at 24 feet, was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's longest snake.

The world's longest snake – at 24 feet and 300 pounds – has died at a zoo in Ohio.

Fluffy, a reticulated python recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's longest snake, died Tuesday night. A necropsy found a tumor on her ovary, according to a press release from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

"She was greatly loved here by the staff, mainly because she was a gentle snake," zoo spokeswoman Carrie Pratt told CNN affiliate WBNS-TV.

Fluffy was 18 years old and had lived since 2007 at the Columbus Zoo, which had built a special habitat for her.

Reticulated pythons are nonvenomous constrictors found in tropical forests in Southeast Asia, according to the zoo's website. They are the world's longest snakes, averaging 10 to 20 feet in length. They live on small mammals like rodents but sometimes eat wild pigs, deer and primates.

SHC

Danny Vanzandt May Have Died From Spontaneous Human Combustion

I think this is possible, but not by a flash of fire and you are incinerated.  My guess is a slow smoldering fire that finally transforms the body into cinders.

Authorities investigating the death of a 65-year-old man in Muldrow, Okla., haven't thrown water on a bizarre theory for the tragedy: Spontaneous human combustion (SHC).

On Monday, members of Danny Vanzandt's family found his dead body inside his home burned and incinerated in such a manner that suggests he may have spontaneously combusted,  according to Sequoyah County Sheriff Ron Lockhart.

"I think there's only about 200 cases worldwide and I'm not saying that this has happened. I'm just saying that we haven't ruled it out," Lockhart told KSDK-TV, emphasizing there was no damage to the house and no signs of struggle.

"There was no damage to the furniture or anything around the fire, so it was a low heat fire," he told the station.

Lockhart said the victim was an alcoholic and an avid smoker, factors that may have contributed to the body blaze.  

“We wasn’t saying the guy just busted into flames, you know there’s gotta have an ignition source and that’s what we’re looking at is an ignition source such as lighting a cigarette and catches himself on fire, sucks the flames down his throat, and falls down,” Lockhart told KFSM-TV.

Lockhart, who attended the autopsy Tuesday at the state Medical Examiner's Office in Tulsa, told TulsaWorld.com that there is no evidence of foul play.   

   The Huffington Post  |  By David Moye

Posted: 02/21/2013 4:19 pm EST  |  Updated: 02/21/2013 4:19 pm EST

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam -- Dead mice laced with painkillers are about to rain down on Guam's jungle canopy. They are scientists' prescription for a headache that has caused the tiny U.S. territory misery for more than 60 years: the brown tree snake.

Most of Guam's native bird species are extinct because of the snake, which reached the island's thick jungles by hitching rides from the South Pacific on U.S. military ships shortly after World War II.

There may be 2 million of the reptiles on Guam now, decimating wildlife, biting residents and even knocking out electricity by slithering onto power lines.

More than 3,000 miles away, environmental officials in Hawaii have long feared a similar invasion — which in their case likely would be a "snakes on a plane" scenario.

That would cost the state many vulnerable species and billions of dollars, but the risk will fall if Guam's airdrop strategy succeeds.

"We are taking this to a new phase," said Daniel Vice, assistant state director of U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services in Hawaii, Guam, and the Pacific Islands. "There really is no other place in the world with a snake problem like Guam."

Brown tree snakes are generally a few feet long but can grow to be more than 10 feet in length.

Most of Guam's native birds were defenseless against the nocturnal, tree-based predators, and within a few decades of the reptile's arrival, nearly all of them were wiped out.

The snakes can also climb power poles and wires, causing blackouts, or slither into homes and bite people, including babies.

They use venom on their prey, but it is not lethal to humans.

The infestation and the toll it has taken on native wildlife have tarnished Guam's image as a tourism haven, though the snakes are rarely seen outside their jungle habitat.

The solution to this headache, fittingly enough, is acetaminophen, the active ingredient in painkillers including Tylenol.

The strategy takes advantage of the snake's two big weaknesses. Unlike most snakes, brown tree snakes are happy to eat prey they didn't kill themselves, and they are highly vulnerable to acetaminophen, which is harmless to humans.

The upcoming mice drop is targeted to hit snakes near Guam's sprawling Andersen Air Force Base, which is surrounded by heavy foliage and if compromised would offer the snakes a potential ticket off the island. Using helicopters, the dead neonatal mice will be dropped by hand, one by one.

U.S. government scientists have been perfecting the mice-drop strategy for more than a decade with support from the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior.

To keep the mice bait from dropping all the way to the ground, where it could be eaten by other animals or attract insects as they rot, researchers have developed a device with streamers designed to catch in the branches of the forest foliage, where the snakes live and feed.

Experts say the impact on other species will be minimal, particularly since the snakes have themselves wiped out the birds that might have been most at risk.

"One concern was that crows may eat mice with the toxicant," said William Pitt, of the U.S. National Wildlife Research Center's Hawaii Field Station. "However, there are no longer wild crows on Guam."

The mouse drop is set to start in April or May.

A 2010 study conducted by the National Wildlife Research Center found brown tree snakes would cause between $593 million and $2.14 billion in economic damage each year if they became established in Hawaii like they are on Guam.

Power outages would cause the most damage, followed by a projected decline in tourism. The cost of treating snake bites would account for a small share.

Native Hawaiian birds "literally don't know what to do when they see a snake coming," said Christy Martin, a spokeswoman for the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, a partnership of Hawaii government agencies and private organizations.

"Once we get snakes here, we're never going to be able to fix the situation," Martin said.

Frog makes the cutest noise!

See the video on the link below.  Could this be the world's cutest frog making the world's most adorable noise?

http://www.realmonstrosities.com/2013/02/namaqua-rain-frog.html

http://www.snotr.com/video/10660/Namaqua_rainfrog

Dean Boshoff shot this video of a Namaqua Rain Frog. He found the cute little critter in sand dunes along Port Nolloth in South Africa.

Namaqua Rain Frogs are burrowing creatures that spend most of their time underground. They're also less than 5cm long.

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Library Of Animal Sounds

The murmurs, whispers, shrieks and growls of 9,000 species are now digitized in a huge library of animal sounds, including some songs that will never be sung again.

Housed at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Macaulay Library's  audio archive contains roughly 150,000 high-resolution recordings, all available online. It’s the largest collection of wildlife sounds in the world, and routinely called upon by students, scholars, scientists, and filmmakers.

“Sound has a remarkable ability to transport someone,” said audio curator Greg Burney. “You play a sound, and it’s as though the person or the animal is alive, right there in the room with you.”

Digitizing the collection took 12 years. Now, the 10 terabytes of tracks have a total playback time of more than 7,500 hours. Supplementing that auditory cacophony are thousands of video clips, and a photo archive is on the way.

The collection's inaugural recordings date back to 1929, when a song sparrow, rose-breasted grosbeak, and house wren were recorded singing near the shores of Cayuga Lake. The youngest bird in the collection is an ostrich – recorded while still in the its egg. 

Also tucked into the collection are recordings of the now-extinct Kauai Oo and the (most-likely) extinct ivory-billed woodpecker.  Preserving these natural sounds for future generations is certainly one of the collection’s functions.

JUDY LOST THIS ONE!

I have always said that Judy has the gift of saving birds that fly into our windows.  This white throated sparrow was an exception.  Friday morning, this beautiful bird flew into our atrium door so hard that I am certain its neck was broken.  Sad!  Throughout the years, we are lucky to have very few birds meet their end by flying into the windows.  Most seems to bounce and head back to the feeder to eat!

There are two color variations of this bird- white striped and tan striped.  Studies indicate that the white striped adults (seen here) tend to mate with the tan striped birds.  No indications why.  
White and tan-striped males and white striped females sing, but the tan striped females do not.  Strange indeed!