Field Notes
Endangered Species: Greater Sage Grouse
Wildlife
Habitat
Endangered Species: Kirtland's Warbler
Education
Global Warming
Dispatches
Marital Bliss
Bon Appetit
Good Hair Day
Crazy for You
Horse Sense
Prime-Time Thoreau
Ratzilla
Don’t Flush
Illustrations by Edwin Fotheringham
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Marital Bliss
Breaking up is hard to do. But is it hard on the environment, too? Absolutely, says Michigan State University ecologist Jianguo “Jack” Liu. In a study based on data compiled from divorced and married couples in 12 countries in and around the year 2000, Liu and colleague Eunice Yu found that divorce creates more—and smaller—households within a given population, leading to less efficient resource use. In the United States, where the proportion of divorced households tripled from about 5 percent in 1970 to 15 percent in 2000, people living in such households use roughly half again more electricity and water than those in married households on a per capita basis, according to the study, published in the December Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. For example, Liu says, when you turn on a light, it uses the same amount of energy whether there are five people in the room or only one. The same goes for heat or air-conditioning. Furthermore, when the newly single set up households—with everything from furniture to appliances—they consume construction materials, land, and energy. These findings may not stop couples from calling it quits, Liu concedes, since there are many reasons that marriages don’t last. But he hopes some individuals consider alternative arrangements, such as living with friends or other family members. “The first step is to inform people about the impact of divorce on the environment,” he says.—Andrea Anderson
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Bon Appetit
Tired of the same old eagle watching? Nevada has a new treat in store for you: bald and golden eagles gorging on cow placentas. When hungry raptors can’t find live prey they scavenge for other food—and a fresh cow placenta can really fit the bill. “It’s the mother lode of nutrients,” says Allen Fish, director of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory in San Francisco. Visitors attending Carson Valley’s annual Eagles and Agriculture Tour—in which private ranches and conservation groups participate—can get a guided tour of the afterbirth feast, which sometimes includes stillborn calves. Other activities, such as a nighttime “owl prowl” and a rafting trip through heron rookeries, also reveal the rich birdlife that can exist on well-managed ranchlands. “[The event] is a beautiful celebration of the bounty of what agriculture can produce, not only in food and fiber but in wildlife and habitat,” says Dan Kaffer, the event’s creator and coordinator for the Western Nevada Resource Conservation and Development Council (an arm of the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service). As you consider a ticket, a disclaimer for the gore seekers and squeamish alike: The placental afterbirth isn’t too noticeable. And at any rate, says Fish, “if bald eagles are into it, it must be cool.” (For more on Carson Valley, click here. For photos from the tour, click here.)—Julie Leibach
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Good Hair Day
Short or long, blond or black, hair can absorb oil on a head—or on a beach. When a ship spilled 58,000 gallons of the greasy liquid into San Francisco Bay in November, a number of organizations donated more than 5,000 mats of human hair to help soak up the slick, marking the first time hair mats had been used in an oil spill cleanup effort. The mats, made from tresses collected from salons across the country and cut into 1-foot-by-1-foot squares, are already employed in a San Francisco Department of the Environment used motor oil collection program. Matter of Trust, a local environmental group, helped marshal the shaggy locks into action. “Within the first 72 hours these hair mats were just slurping up oil,” says the group’s cofounder Lisa Gautier. “You would just dab it like a paper towel, and it would soak it right up.” The cleanup crews and volunteers scoured the beaches with the woven hair, and Matter of Trust is now conducting an experiment in which it will cover the mats with $10,000 worth of oyster mushroom spores donated by Washington State mycologist Paul Stamets. If all goes well, the mushrooms will digest the oil and the mats will turn into compost. Individuals, salons, even pet groomers can donate hair for future efforts, but human hair is the best oil sponge, whether it’s on a body or in the bay. (To find out how your salon or barber shop can participate, click here.)—Susan Cosier
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Crazy for You
It’s often said that love is blind, and in the case of Petra, a black Australian swan that makes her home on the Aasee Lake in Münster, Germany, it may also be a bit confused. Petra, the only swan of her species on the lake, has fallen for a white, plastic swan-shaped pedal boat. Biologists at the nearby Allwetter Zoo say Petra stares longingly at the vessel, cooing and swimming circles around it as parkgoers sail and row around the lake. Because Australian swans don’t migrate, Petra braves the cold winter temperatures with her plastic partner. Zoo officials came up with a plan to house the swan and her boat boyfriend in a protected pond on zoo grounds, and transported the two in November 2007 to their love nest. The boat’s owner, Peter Overschmidt, had no problem lending the two-seat craft, the only swan boat on the lake, to Petra for the winter, and he plans to build more permanent accommodations for the couple. Black swans, like many waterfowl, mate for life, and zoo biologists say it is unlikely Petra will stray, no matter how unresponsive her new sweetheart may be.—Shawn Query
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Horse Sense
To lower emissions, the French are opting for hybrids—19th-century style, that is. Numerous French towns are trading their carbon footprints for hoofprints by bringing back the horse-drawn vehicle. But unlike your great-great-grandma’s set of wheels, these tricked-out carriages have disc breaks, blinkers, and removable seating, and cost about $17,000. “The public is very fond of horses, and France is very sensitive to the problem of the environment,” says Stéphane de Veyrac of the French National Stud Organisation, which showcased the equine-powered Hippoville in November at a conference for French mayors. Originally established to provide the military with horses, the organization now promotes their use in the war against global warming and rising fuel prices. Heavy loads and frequent stops can reduce gas mileage, but for a horse that can pull more than two tons, a little hay can go a long way. So 70 towns of up to 100,000 people are swapping bulky municipal vehicles, including recycling trucks and school buses, for horses in what they say is a more sustainable choice. Studies are under way to assess the relative carbon and economic merits, but so far a street sweeper following a horse seems a small price to pay for protecting the planet.—Melissa Mahony
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Prime-Time Thoreau
Walden’s author showed a keen sense of life’s ironies. None might tickle the iconic observer of nature more than a mass celebration of his work this Earth Day, on April 22. More than 700 educators and environmentally minded groups, from Israel to Australia, have gone online to request scripts of Walden: The Ballad of Thoreau, a two-act play about the self-taught naturalist Henry David Thoreau. Starting in 1845, Thoreau spent a little more than two years at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, where he lived ascetically, reflecting on nature and man’s place in it. Walden: The Ballad of Thoreau is set during his final two days there, and much of the dialogue is taken from Thoreau’s own writings. By offering the script online and free of charge, the play’s author, Michael Johnathon, hopes his work will teach fans and earth lovers alike about Thoreau, a guiding force in the environmental movement. On Earth Day “everybody is searching to do something to celebrate nature and the earth,” says Johnathon, who is also a folksinger. “[This play] just seemed like part of the natural celebration.” (For more information on the play, click here.)—Julie Leibach
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Ratzilla
Hefty rats (just shy of a pound) are often glimpsed crawling out of sewers or snuffling through trash, but a new giant specimen, identified last fall, puts its urban cousins to shame. A rat five to six times larger than your average city pest ambled into the camp of a scientific expedition in a remote Indonesian rainforest a couple of years ago. Although it has sharp claws and a hairless tail, this species (as yet unnamed) is distinguished from its less appealing relatives by its shy, vegetarian lifestyle (it dines on grasses and ferns) and its long, soft fur. The uninhabited Foja Mountains of Papua, Indonesia, where it was found, were created when the earth’s crust crumpled and seabeds were thrust high into the clouds. Bruce Beehler, vice president of Conservation International’s Melanesia Program, likens the region to the Galápagos Islands, another evolutionary laboratory. “This area has no human impact at all,” he says. “It is quite pristine, a place people just don’t visit, and birds are tame.” In addition to the big rat, scientists have found more than 40 new plants and animals in recent years, including one of the world’s smallest possums.—Kristin Elise Phillips
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Don’t Flush
Whatever you do, skip the toilet. That’s the new advice from the federal government on how to dispose of your old medicine. It recommends tossing your unused grape cough syrup and smooshed pain meds in with your freshly scooped cat litter (or coffee grinds, if you are kitty-free), then sealing the bag and giving it a good martini shake before putting it in the garbage can. “Flushing down the toilet is the worst thing you can do. Most of these compounds are not removed by wastewater treatment,” explains Dana Kolpin, a U.S. Geological Service hydrologist. In recent years Kolpin has identified about 50 pharmaceuticals in U.S. streams and groundwater. While impacts from human exposure to this potpourri is under investigation, it is known that dissolved birth control pills in Colorado’s Boulder Creek, a tributary of the South Platte River, have caused some fish to switch sex.—Kristin Elise Phillips
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