Friday, July 24, 2015

Penguins have only two types of taste genes; no wonder they gulp their food.

 

Penguins have only two types of taste genes; no wonder they gulp their food

 Penguins, infamous food gulpers, may be unable to taste many thingsPenguins may look tastefully attired, but they lack the genes for two types of taste that other birds have, according to a new study. (Lee Hotz / Los Angeles Times)

By contact the reporter
 t may not be worthwhile taking your penguin to Umami Burger, but it might do fine at a Seder.Penguins don't have the genetic ability to sense the meaty, savory "umami" taste, and they wouldn't flinch at a peck of bitter herbs either, according to a new study.
The only taste genes left to the flightless tuxedoed birds are salty and sour, according to the study, published online Monday in the journal Current Biology.

It's still not clear whether penguins actually do taste anything, given that scientists have been unable to find taste buds in their tongues. But it remains rather curious that they would have lost two types of taste that in other species can help differentiate good food from a potentially toxic meal.
The genetic mystery started when scientists in China sequenced the genomes of two penguin species, as part of a massive international project that cataloged the genetic code of 45 bird species.

No birds have the "sweet" taste gene anymore, so its absence was no surprise. But the researchers could not find two taste-related genes that other birds seem to have, and worried that their genome might have been poorly analyzed. So they emailed Jianzhi Zhang, a University of Michigan molecular biologist and longtime connoisseur of animal taste.
Zhang confirmed that the genome work was fine. "The genes that are supposed to be neighbors of those taste receptor genes were all there," he said. "It’s just those specific taste genes that are missing."

When Zhang looked at genomes from other penguin species, "We either couldn’t find those genes or we found genes but they were so-called pseudogenes, the relics of formerly functioning genes,” he said.
But among closely related tube-nosed sea birds such as albatrosses and petrels, "we were able to find umami and bitter receptor genes,” Zhang said.
That implies that the genes became dysfunctional sometime after the last common ancestor of both groups, about 60 million years ago, and before penguins radiated into separate species 20 million years ago, according to Zhang.

The loss of genetic sequence has had no apparent consequence, though. In fact, not only is there little evidence of taste buds on penguin tongues, the organs appear to be adapted more for catching and holding slippery fish, according to the study.
It's not clear whether the tongue changes came before the loss of taste or as a result of it, the study noted.
Researchers believe the most plausible explanation for the flavor deletions might be that they simply don't matter in the extreme cold of Antarctica.

A coding sequence called Trpm5 is known to help transduce several types of taste signals from buds to the brain, including umami, bitter and sweet - but not sour and salty, according to the study. Trpm5 signaling, however, fails as temperatures drop.
So maybe penguins were genetically able to "sense" umami and bitter, but were environmentally thwarted. Either way, it makes little difference in evolution. If random shuffling of the DNA doesn't matter for survival, then these changes can accumulate enough to lead to pseudogenes that no longer work like their ancestral code once did.
Still, no one is sure if the remaining flavor genes matter to birds that gulp their food without chewing or pausing.
“It would be interesting to do a behavioral study to see if penguins have at least two tastes," Zhang said.
Got a taste for science? Follow me on Twitter: @LATsciguy
Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

A very insightful essay bringing to the surface the very very delicate balance that exists on our planet between flora & fauna.  The Earth  must maintain this balance so that the  Earth's very poignant beauty and purpose and function~~~~is SUSTAINED.

Its impact on the economy, pollution, and the focus on Climate; The Conversation---makes this worthy substance, for continued enthusiasm, and consideration


Lou Marconi (SuiteLou0819)
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DEBATE: Are Restrictions on Fracking and Oil Exports Stifling American Prosperity?

 
 
 
As conversations of weather occurrences and suggested anomalies become more frequent and mainstream in the scientific community, as well as at the grass-roots-level, the need to embrace and index substantive information into an authoritative conduit to encourage more research and development~~~IS IMPERATIVE.


Pertinent themes as Global Warming, Climate Change, and Melting Ice Caps has stimulated discussions, seeded forums, and spawned additional research, all to foster consensus, and recommend courses-of-action. 

The intent of CLIMATE; THE CONVERSATION, is to be The Bulletin Board, The Platform, The Podium,  and The Credible Source & Bibliography for such astute, sincere, and scholarly considerations. 

Sincerely;

Administrators:

Andrew M. Marconi

Lou Marconi

 

DEBATE: Are Restrictions on Fracking and Oil Exports Stifling American Prosperity?

Lifting Bans on Fracking, Exports Will Add Many Jobs, Save Consumers Billions
By Kyle Isakower
THE """YES""""   PERSPECTIVE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If Texas were a nation, it would be the No. 3 dry natural gas producer in the world — ahead of Iran, China and Saudi Arabia.
Eight individual states now each produce over 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, which would rank them among the world’s top 30 producing countries.
In oil production, two U.S. states — Texas and North Dakota — would rank among the top 20 nations in the world. Four additional states — Alaska, California, New Mexico and Oklahoma — make the top 35.
In other words, the United States is now a global energy superpower, and even individual states are now global leaders in their own right.
This growth is paying off for American families and businesses. The abundance of affordable energy has lowered costs for many businesses, sparking a manufacturing renaissance and attracting companies back to our shores. Shale energy will support nearly 400,000 manufacturing jobs this year.
Memorial Day gasoline prices were at their lowest levels in five years, spurring the highest holiday weekend road travel volumes in 10 years.
Last year, U.S. Energy Information chief Adam Sieminski estimated that global supply outages could push prices to about $150 per barrel. But stable and growing U.S. production acted as a buffer against turmoil in the Middle East and elsewhere, and now Americans are saving an average of $108 per month at the pump.
That’s pretty much the definition of energy security, and it’s almost entirely due to hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.
If production levels on federally controlled land matched those on state and private lands, the United States could reap even greater economic rewards.
But that’s not what’s happening. While production on non-government land jumped 89 percent for oil and 43 percent for natural gas between 2009 and 2014, gas production on public lands slumped 34 percent and remained flat for oil.
The culprit is all too predictable: bureaucratic red tape. New hydraulic-fracturing regulations announced by the Obama Administration would make the disparity even worse by delaying operations and driving up costs.
Hydraulic-fracturing operations are already subject to a wide range of federal regulations under the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other laws — in addition to strong state rules tailored to each area’s unique geology, hydrology and other physical characteristics.
According to the Ground Water Protection Council, “state agencies are on the forefront of oil and gas regulation” and continually update regulations to “address the safety and environmental issues surrounding modern energy development.”
As President Obama’s former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar put it, “We know that, from everything we’ve seen, there’s not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone.”
Meanwhile, regulatory delays for key infrastructure and federal restrictions on crude-oil exports continue to hold back production, preventing U.S. consumers and workers from realizing the full economic benefits of America’s energy revolution.
Lifting the obsolete, ’70s-era ban on crude exports could generate up to 300,000 additional U.S. jobs, cut our trade deficit by $22 billion, and save American consumers billions per year on gasoline, heating oil and diesel fuel.
Free trade for crude oil also makes geopolitical sense.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and sponsor of legislation to end the export ban, notes:
“If we lift the current sanctions on Iran while keeping in place our own domestic sanctions on crude-oil exports, America’s ability to increase its domestic energy security and that of our allies will suffer.”
America’s production resurgence has been a game-changer geopolitically, economically and from a national-security perspective.
Forward-thinking policies that encourage, not undermine, responsible energy production can cement our position as a global energy leader.
– – –
Kyle Isakower is vice president for regulatory and economic policy at the American Petroleum Institute.
–––––––––


 THE """""NO"""""   PERSPECTIVE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New Federal Rules Are Low-Cost and Promising, But May Not Be Tough Enough
 By Michael E. Kraft
(Tribune News Service/TNS) – The Obama administration recently announced the first major federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to take effect in June.
Fracking has been praised for contributing to a massive increase in production of oil and natural gas, reducing the nation’s reliance on imported oil and fostering increased use of cleaner natural gas over other fossil fuels, particularly coal.
Critics, however, have long faulted fracking’s impact on the environment and public health from contaminated wastewater and release of toxic chemicals. In some states, the injection of wastewater in deep underground wells also has led to an increase in earthquakes.
The new rules proposed by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management apply only to oil and gas leases on 750 million acres of public and Indian lands. They leave untouched the vast majority of fracking operations that take place on private and state lands.
These other drilling activities will continue to be governed only by state regulation, which has been supportive of the industry. However, many states have yet to develop regulations for fracking, and the new federal plan could push them to adopt tough rules. That’s one of the industry’s fears.
The Interior rules target three concerns about fracking. One is the way that recovered wastewater is handled. Instead of being stored in open pits, which is now common, covered tanks are to be used to minimize groundwater pollution.
A second element addresses construction and testing of well casements, which could help to control leakage of drilling fluids as well as accidental release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
This summer, the administration will be proposing separate rules to reduce methane emissions from new and modified oil and gas production and transmission facilities, with voluntary guidelines for existing installations.
A third component mandates disclosure of information about chemicals used within 30 days of fracking operations. The information is to be placed in an online database at the industry-backed FracFocus website. However, companies will be allowed to keep certain proprietary chemicals secret.
Interior estimates that the cost of compliance with the new rules will be less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the cost for drilling a well, seemingly a small amount. Yet the industry argues that this cost and the associated red tape of regulation could seriously disrupt oil and gas drilling. It is more likely that declining oil prices would do that, as they have already.
Drilling companies also object to full and timely disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking. They cite the burdens of reporting such chemical use, even though tens of thousands of companies routinely and efficiently disclose chemical releases through the federal Toxics Release Inventory program.
Interior made many concessions to industry before issuing the proposed rules, yet oil and gas companies filed lawsuits to block their implementation. In addition, Republican leaders in Congress promise legislation to keep control of fracking completely under state authority, a move that is almost certain to weaken regulation of the industry.
On the other side of the dispute, environmental groups generally have praised the new rules, although many say they are insufficient to protect public health.
For example, the rules do nothing about toxic air emissions at fracking sites, and the limited disclosure of fracking chemicals comes only after drilling begins.
President Obama is said to view his last two years in office as an opportunity to leave an historic environmental legacy, with actions on climate change topping that list.
The new fracking rules will help to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet they may do less in that regard than many other administration efforts, such as setting higher vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, promoting renewable-energy technologies, and finalizing EPA’s Clean Power Plan that will sharply limit carbon emissions from power plants.
———
Michael Kraft is professor emeritus of political science and public and environmental affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.


 Being at the TIPPING-POINT of the many many factors that are clearly demonstrating to have an impact on this orb that we call Earth, it is becoming increasingly apparent decisions and necessary actions must be taken to reverse the detrimental trends that are increasingly self-evident.
 
Once we have assessed their impacts, and once we have recognized the negative affects on the environment, on the land that we are farming, on our commercial and industrial endeavors, on the atmosphere that we are breathing, it is critical to recognize that WE MUST REVERSE THESE TRENDS. Then, given the time and place to implement actions and practices to have a cause-and-effect impact in a positive way, will influence implementation, and at least retard further deterioration of our environment and our climate.  On a larger scale, reversing the trends of deterioration should always be----the ultimate objective.  

Its impact on the economy, pollution, and the focus on Climate; The Conversation---makes this worthy substance, for continued enthusiasm, and consideration
 
Lou Marconi (SuiteLou0819)


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Science Scientists Make Novel Attempt to Save Giant Turtle Species

 

Science

Scientists Make Novel Attempt to Save Giant Turtle Species

By RACHEL NUWER

The Yangtze giant softshell turtle has been driven to the brink of extinction. Gerald Kuchling/Turtle Survival Alliance

In May, an international team of scientists, veterinarians and zookeepers gathered at the Suzhou Zoo near Shanghai. Their desperate mission: to attempt the first artificial insemination ever of a softshell turtle, saving the species from oblivion.
“Even if we get just one or two hatchlings, I will be very happy,” said Gerald Kuchling, a project leader for the Turtle Survival Alliance, a nonprofit conservation organization. “Even a single one would give hope for the recovery of this magnificent animal. It would be a turn.”
Quite a turn, actually. The Yangtze giant softshell turtle — thought to be the largest freshwater turtle in the world — was once common in the Yangtze and Red Rivers. But by the late 1990s, pollution, hunting, dams and development had driven it to the brink of extinction.
There are only four known specimens remaining, and only one female — an 85-year-old resident of the Suzhou Zoo. For years, biologists have been trying to coax her and her 100-year-old mate to produce hatchlings. So far the pair have disappointed scientists, with the female laying clutch after clutch of unfertilized eggs.
She was discovered only in 2007, three years after the sole other known female died at the Beijing Zoo. Desperate to find another, Dr. Kuchling and Lu Shunqing, a turtle specialist from the Wildlife Conservation Society’s China branch, had asked every zoo in the country to send them photographs of any large softshell turtles in their possession.
One image, taken at the Changsha Zoo in Hunan, caught their eye, and days later, they arrived to examine the turtle. It was indeed a Yangtze giant softshell turtle and, crucially, a female. She had once been part of a traveling animal exhibition, they learned, and became a permanent resident of the zoo shortly after the end of the Chinese Revolution in 1949.
Dr. Kuchling and Dr. Lu arranged for her transport to the Suzhou Zoo, where they hoped she and the zoo’s male specimen would begin producing more of their kind. To their delight, the animals did appear to mate, and that summer, the female laid around 180 eggs.
But none proved fertile, a disappointment that would repeat itself for six years. “The conservation world was holding its breath,” said Rick Hudson, the president of the Turtle Survival Alliance. “It’s been a lot of frustration since.”
Scientists decided to intervene. On May 6, Dr. Kuchling and Dr. Lu, with a team that included turtle experts from the United States, drained the male’s pond and used a cargo net to wrangle the 140-pound turtle onto a stack of car tires that served as a makeshift examination stand. Putting him under anesthesia, the scientists used an electrical probe to induce a partial penile erection.
Normally, the penis of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle looks a bit like a medieval weapon. Equipped with fleshy spikes, protuberances and lobes, it is designed to navigate the female’s equally complex reproductive organ, located inside a byzantine chamber called the cloaca.

The problem became immediately clear to the scientists: This turtle’s penis was mangled.
Two decades earlier, another Yangtze giant softshell turtle had been added to the male’s pond in an attempt to mate the animals. The second turtle turned out to be male, as well, and the two fought. The second male was killed, and the victor suffered serious damage to his shell and, it now appears, to his reproductive organ.
The team also examined the male’s sperm — extracted using electrical stimuli — and finally discovered good news. While motility was low, the sperm were viable. The scientists decided to proceed with artificial insemination of the female.
With no case studies to go on, the team had to improvise. Dr. Kuchling examined the sedated female’s cloaca with a fiber-optic endoscope to locate the compartment leading to her oviducts. Then Barbara Durrant, the director of reproductive physiology at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, deposited the semen.
“It was just a matter of delivering the semen through a small plastic tube into what we think is the correct place,” she said. “Unfortunately, there just hasn’t been that much basic reproductive physiology work done in turtles and tortoises.”
Even if it’s guesswork, artificial insemination may be the only chance to save the species. Two other male Yangtze giant softshell turtles are believed to be in Vietnam — one in Hoan Kiem Lake, in the center of Hanoi. But those animals “are pretty much off limits for any non-Vietnamese,” Dr. Kuchling said, and so a collaborative breeding program seems unlikely.
A handful of Yangtze giant softshell turtles may remain in the wild; tentative sightings have been reported in a dam reservoir on the Red River in Yunnan Province. Conservationists, however, are not betting that another male will be captured anytime soon.
Science ScienceTake By James Gorman and Poh Si Teng 1:17
ScienceTake | The Turtle’s Point of View

ScienceTake | The Turtle’s Point of View

Scientists studying the behavior of endangered leatherback sea turtles put video cameras on their shells.
By James Gorman and Poh Si Teng on February 23, 2015. Watch in Times Video »
Now the wait begins. When the female lays her first clutch of eggs, probably by late June, the scientists will know if this first effort was fruitful.
“Nobody has ever done this before, and it’s probably a long shot,” Dr. Kuchling said. “But we are all hopeful, and if it doesn’t work this time, we’ll definitely try again. Despair is not an option.”

Pertinent themes as Global Warming, Climate Change, and Melting Ice Caps has stimulated discussions, seeded forums, and spawned additional research, all to foster consensus, and recommend courses-of-action. 


The intent of CLIMATE; THE CONVERSATION, is to be The Bulletin Board, The Platform, The Podium,  and The Credible Source & Bibliography for such astute, sincere, and scholarly considerations. 

Sincerely;

Administrators:

Andrew M. Marconi

Lou Marconi

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Science World’s Aquifers Losing Replenishment Race, Researchers Say

 

 

Science

World’s Aquifers Losing Replenishment Race, Researchers Say

By

 
Gine Celli climbing out of an irrigation canal that is covered in dried salt on a farm near Stockton, Calif. New studies warn about the depletion rates of aquifers in food-producing regions that support up to two billion people. Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press   


From the Arabian Peninsula to northern India to California’s Central Valley, nearly a third of the world’s 37 largest aquifers are being drained faster than they are being replenished, according to a recent study led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine. The aquifers are concentrated in food-producing regions that support up to two billion people.
A companion study indicates that the total amount of water in the aquifers, and how long it will last at current depletion rates, is still uncertain. “In most cases, we do not know how much groundwater exists in storage” to cover unsustainable pumping, the study said. Historical estimates, it argues, probably have unrealistically overstated total groundwater volume.
“We’re depleting one third or more of the world’s major aquifers at a pretty rapid clip,” said Jay S. Famiglietti, a professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, and a leading researcher for the two studies. “And there’s not as much water there as we think.”

Graphic

Your Contribution to the California Drought

The average American consumes more than 300 gallons of California water each week by eating food that was produced there.
OPEN Graphic
Dr. Famiglietti and his colleagues found that eight to 11 of 37 major world aquifers are overstressed, meaning they are losing much more water than man or nature returns to them.
The new studies do not come as a surprise to hydrologists like Jerad Bales, chief scientist for water at the United States Geological Survey. But for him and other experts, an open question is whether the governments and individuals who control groundwater can or will work to gain more knowledge about the extent of the resource and how much use is sustainable.
Another question is whether those with responsibility for managing the aquifers will act to limit groundwater use, particularly if groundwater is essential to their livelihoods.
“We still have a ways to go in terms of learning how, and having the willpower, to manage our groundwater systems,” Dr. Bales said. “We need to think about it more. Water — people all over the world think, ‘If it’s under my property, it’s my resource.’ But it affects everybody.”
Pradeep Aggarwal, who leads the isotope hydrology division of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said in an interview that there was growing recognition of the extent of groundwater depletion but that the problem remains “an orphan.”
“Unless the government has an alternative to provide for their livelihoods, who is going to stop it?” Dr. Aggarwal said.
A farmer, he added, will figure that “my livelihood depends on pumping that water — if I stop pumping it, my neighbor keeps pumping it.” The problem of groundwater depletion, he said, cannot be solved by individuals. “This requires action on a larger scale,” Dr. Aggarwal said.
The stress on the most-used groundwater, measured over broad geographies by a NASA satellite that has provided 13 years of data, is a matter of real concern because, as the study said, “groundwater is currently the primary source of freshwater for approximately two billion people.”

Another scientist, Marc Bierkens, who holds a chair in earth surface hydrology at the Department of Physical Geography at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, estimated that about 20 percent of the world’s population depended on crops irrigated by groundwater. In 2012, he published a study in the journal Nature that pointed to the same groundwater overuse reflected in the NASA data.
“Humans are overexploiting groundwater in many large aquifers that are critical to agriculture, especially in Asia and North America,” the Bierkens study said.
Details about individual aquifers are hard to come by. The data from NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) satellites cannot show a level of detail below 150,000 square kilometers.
Dr. Famiglietti, who is also senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that for the managers who have some control over the use of aquifers, the data from Grace is “too coarse” to provide useful data for local decisions. “They are waiting for us to do the research — we call it downscaling it to a resolution they can use, that makes it actionable for them,” he said.
The volume of water in 11 of the 37 aquifers studied has declined over more than a decade, according to the study, which was just published in the journal Water Resources Research.
The researchers looked at what appeared to be the loss of groundwater in the aquifers — many of the most stressed are in arid or semiarid regions — and examined how the water has been used, whether for irrigation, supplying the daily needs of large populations or for industrial purposes.
“Quantifying our understanding of how we use water in the world is very important, especially when the resource becomes limited,” Dr. Famiglietti said. “It’s important to understand where the big users are because that is key to affecting management in the future.”

A very insightful essay bringing to the surface the very very delicate balance that exists on our planet between flora & fauna.  The Earth  must maintain this balance so that the  Earth's very poignant beauty and purpose and function~~~~is SUSTAINED.
Its impact on the economy, pollution, and the focus on Climate; The Conversation---makes this worthy substance, for continued enthusiasm, and consideration

Lou Marconi (SuiteLou0819)
Posted by at No comments:

Science For Mule Deer, an Incredible 150-Mile Migration




As conversations of weather occurrences and suggested anomalies become more frequent and mainstream in the scientific community, as well as at the grass-roots-level, the need to embrace and index substantive information into an authoritative conduit to encourage more research and development~~~IS IMPERATIVE.


Pertinent themes as Global Warming, Climate Change, and Melting Ice Caps has stimulated discussions, seeded forums, and spawned additional research, all to foster consensus, and recommend courses-of-action. 

The intent of CLIMATE; THE CONVERSATION, is to be The Bulletin Board, The Platform, The Podium,  and The Credible Source & Bibliography for such astute, sincere, and scholarly considerations. 

Sincerely;

Administrators:

Andrew M. Marconi

Lou Marconi



 

Science

For Mule Deer, an Incredible 150-Mile Migration

By

THE RED DESERT, WYO. — As a small group of scientists and volunteers waits by the side of a gravel road here, a helicopter swoops down, carrying two blindfolded mule deer in slings. It hovers for a moment in a furious swirl of rotor-blown snow, detaching the deer slings. As it lifts and turns, the team runs into the stinging cloud.

Team members carry the deer on canvas stretchers to a spot to be weighed and tested. From each animal, they draw blood, pull a whisker, check a GPS collar or put on a new one, take a rectal temperature and fecal sample, perform an ultrasound on the haunches, shoot a local anesthetic into the jaw, and pull a tooth.
Ten minutes of probing and testing later, the deer are freed and dash off, with numb mouths and doses of antibiotics, perhaps wondering what in the world just happened.
The scientists were taking snapshots of the deer’s health and downloading their movements from their digital collars — part of a broader effort to track and preserve their migration route.
Researchers only recently discovered that path, known as the Red Desert-to-Hoback migration, which is as long as any known land migration in the lower 48 states, a twice-yearly, 150-mile journey that has inspired numerous conservation groups to work together to protect the deer’s route from development.
Some conservationists hope the unusual collaboration will serve as a useful precedent that could help protect other species and wild lands. “We think this has the potential to be a model for what state and federal agencies do across the West,” said Leslie Duncan, public lands manager for the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Seasonal migrations in search of food are essential to the survival of many animals. The famous herds of the Serengeti chase the rain. In the West, many elk, deer, antelope, moose and other big game move to lush mountain slopes in the spring and summer, and wait out the winter at lower, warmer elevations.
“Migration is the underlying mechanism that allows this landscape to support the deer populations,” said Hall Sawyer, a research biologist with Western EcoSystems Technology, a consulting firm, who discovered the mule deer route.

Tracking a Migration

Mule deer migrating between their winter and summer ranges cross a checkerboard of federal, state and private lands. Researchers captured and collared deer to map the routes, in red, followed by migrating herds.
  1. WIND RIVER
  2. RESERVATION
  4. Jackson
  7. Hoback
  9. Junction
  12. Jackson
  15. WYOMING
  18. Rock Springs
  21. MULE DEER
  23. SUMMER
  25. RANGE
  28. FREMONT LAKE
  31. Lander
  34. Pinedale
  37. Farson
  40. RED
  42. DESERT
  45. WINTER
  47. RANGE
  50. LAND OWNERSHIP
  53. U.S. Forest Service
  56. Bureau of Land Management
  59. Rock Springs
  62. Bureau of Indian Affairs
  64. State
  66. 10 miles
Private or other
Source: Wyoming Migration Initiative, University of Wyoming; InfoGraphics Lab, University of Oregon
By The New York Times
Because houses and roads, fences and gas wells, and busy routes for four-wheelers and snowmobiles can pose obstacles to traveling animals, conservationists have long recognized that preserving migration routes is essential to preserving wildlife.
About 500 deer travel the full 150 miles from their winter range here in the Red Desert to spring and summer grounds in the Hoback River basin near Jackson, Wyo. Other herds, totaling 5,000 deer, follow most or part of the path.
The route crosses public and private lands, and scientists say it is extraordinary, given its length, that a relatively clear path still exists for the deer.
But conservationists have recognized that protecting it will require unusual cooperation among public and private groups and a new level of scientific understanding to guide changes in regulation.
The good news, said Steve Kilpatrick, head of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, is that conservation groups are joining forces to help the mule deer in ways he had not seen. “I think it’s unique,” said Mr. Kilpatrick, whose group has hired a coordinator for the informal coalition. “I don’t know of any other situation in the nation that it’s happened.”
Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times
Helicopter Wranglers
The effort to track the Red Desert-to-Hoback migration of mule deer began in 2011. Dr. Sawyer had been hired by the Bureau of Land Management to track wildlife, and he put GPS collars on 40 mule deer in the Red Desert, one of the most open, stark landscapes in a state full of them.
No one really knew what the Red Desert deer did in the spring and summer, although some had been seen there year-round. Most mule deer migrate, but some stay put for reasons that are not well understood. And “unless you collar a herd, it is really difficult to have a sense of whether they migrate or not,” said Matthew Kauffman, a biologist for the United States Geological Survey and a professor at the University of Wyoming who leads the Wyoming Migration Initiative.
Capturing and collaring the animals is a bit like a mule-deer rodeo. New Zealanders developed a technique for shooting nets from a helicopter, in which the pilot flies the way a cowboy rides a cutting horse. The pilot isolates a deer, flying close enough for a gunner to fire a net that traps the deer. The pilot then lowers the craft so the “mugger” — the gunner or another crew member — can jump to the ground.
The mugger runs to the deer, wrestles it into a position where he can blindfold it and wrap it in a sling. The helicopter then swings back so the mugger can hitch the sling to the copter before climbing aboard.
Mule deer are airlifted to biologists for testing. Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times
The process can be rough on the deer, and accidents are inevitable. Kevin Monteith, a wildlife biologist at the University of Wyoming who works with Dr. Sawyer, says 1 to 3 percent of the deer die or are injured when trapped by nets, and have to be put down.
But the researchers say capturing the deer this way allows them to study populations in remote areas. And without those studies, the migration route would have remained unknown.
Once deer are collared, the researchers release them and then recapture them each spring and fall to download information from the collars, which record a deer’s location every three hours.
When Dr. Sawyer returned to the Red Desert in the spring after collaring the first 40 deer, he found only a few. It turned out that almost all of them had migrated somewhere, and more than half had made the full 150-mile trip.
Migrations are nothing new to Dr. Sawyer. He discovered the so-called Path of the Pronghorn, a roughly 125-mile migration from the Green River basin to Grand Teton National Park, and helped popularize it with Joe Riis, a photographer and videographer from Wyoming. That documentation led to changes in regulations on public land to protect the route.
Biologists cart off a deer for testing.  Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times
Scientists knew that most mule deer migrated to higher ground in the spring and back down in the fall. But until the Red Desert migration was discovered, the lengths of the migrations were not known. Details of their path, provided by GPS collars, were a boon to conservationists.
“Data creates opportunities to do things that didn’t exist before,” said Steve Sharkey, director of the Knobloch Family Foundation, which backs the research.
The researchers are tracking more than a route. They are also mapping behavior, like feeding and reproduction, and working to uncover the connections between the health of the deer and when and where they migrate.
Each test on a deer provides crucial data. Teeth establish age, whiskers provide DNA, blood and feces provide information about diet and metabolism, and ultrasound scans of the haunches establish percentages of body fat.
The body-fat levels can vary tremendously from deer to deer and from season to season. Migrations in the West follow what biologists call the “green wave” in the spring — the bloom of grass and other vegetation that starts at low elevations and moves higher with each day. The deer that fare best “surf” that wave, catching each area’s vegetation at its peak, when it is full of nutrition and still tender.
Mule deer outside Pinedale, Wyo. Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times
The mule deer take a couple of months to travel 150 miles. The path connects points where they stop and feed, and those times are studied closely, too. By pooling the data, scientists can connect deer health to the path, and the timing of their movements. They can also map the path to show who owns the land that the deer cross.
The scientists do not lobby for policy changes or conservation action. But they understand their importance. So when they publicized the Red Desert-to-Hoback route, they listed the top 10 challenges to the migration route — something conservationists could work with.
A Migration Coalition
In July, at the prompting of the George B. Storer Foundation, Wyoming conservation groups gathered to discuss the Red Desert route — organizations like the Conservation Fund, which purchases land; the Wilderness Society and the Wyoming Outdoor Council, which focus on regulatory issues; and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and Muley Fanatic Foundation, which have a strong base among hunters.
The coalition focused on the top challenge for protecting the migration route — a bottleneck near Fremont Lake. The deer cross Pine Creek there at a location where one side is federal Bureau of Land Management land and the other is private. Houses and marinas are nearby, as is Forest Service land.
GPS collars used for tracking. Biologists are capturing and testing the mule deer to monitor their migration routes. Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times
The route there is about a quarter-mile wide, but sometimes narrows to a single-file path. And the land was for sale. If bought by developers, the migration route would most likely be blocked.
Buying it made sense to the coalition. “This is one of the last, best migrations,” said Luke Lynch, state director of the Conservation Fund, which is in the process of buying the 364 acres for about $2 million. The Knobloch Foundation is providing half of that; the rest will have to be raised.
A longer-term goal of the coalition is to change public-land management to place greater value on migration routes. The Bureau of Land Management is revising plans for land use in an area that includes the Red Desert. If the bureau designates the migration route for protection, that could serve as a precedent for other decisions by the bureau and other agencies.

That, Mr. Sharkey says, is “the big enchilada.”
Meetings with the bureau are continuing. The conservationists have the support of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, which has jurisdiction over the animals, but not the land. A draft report is due later this year.
The conservationists and scientists will face other challenges in trying to protect the migration route. But more accurate data provided by new technology and the deer themselves — even if they are reluctant partners in the helicopter lifts, teeth-pulling and other tests — are making political and regulatory action easier, mostly by pinpointing the small targets of land that are important for protecting the route.
“It’s not about huge vast landscapes,” said Peter Aengst, senior director of the Northern Rockies region for the Wilderness Society, which is part of the mule-deer conservation effort. “It’s about very narrow but very critical acres.”


A very insightful essay bringing to the surface the very very delicate balance that exists on our planet between flora & fauna.  The Earth  must maintain this balance so that the  Earth's very poignant beauty and purpose and function~~~~is SUSTAINED.
Its impact on the economy, pollution, and the focus on Climate; The Conversation---makes this worthy substance, for continued enthusiasm, and consideration

Lou Marconi (SuiteLou0819)

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