Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for September 25, 2005

Penguins and Sex

By

Stephen Jay Gould in his book ‘Rocks of Ages: Science and Religon in the Fullness of Life’ (Random House 2001)concludes that science defines the natural world and religon our moral world.

In an insightful piece published last week in the Sunday Times Andrew Sullivan considers how penguin biology has become part of the morality wars in the US with the religious right hailing a movie about penguins as “passionately affirming traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.”

But, Sullivan writes:

According to “The Auk,” the scholarly journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union, emperor penguins make Liz Taylor look like a lifetime monogamist. Their mate fidelity year to year is 15 percent.

… According to the Auk, “in Emperor Penguins, the tendency to divorce occurred only when females returned earlier than their previous mates. Most Emperor Penguin pairs formed within 24 hours after the arrival of males, which were outnumbered by females.” Memo to male emperor penguins: If you get to the breeding grounds a day late, forget about it. She’s already moved on.

It gets worse. Some penguins are – wait for it – gay. Of course, any fool could have told you that. They’re invariably impeccably turned out, in simple and elegant tuxedoes with a very discrete splash of color; and you can’t tell the boys from the girls.

This is a major problem for zoos, hoping for baby penguins. In Berlin’s Bremerhaven zoo, zoo-keepers were frustrated for years wondering why their penguin couples weren’t producing any eggs. After DNA testing, they found out that three of the five pairs had the avian equivalent of “civil partnerships.”

Gay marriage has apparently been around a lot longer than many of us believed. So they brought in four, er, birds from Sweden to try and wean the gay penguins into reproducing. No word yet on progress.

But German gay groups were outraged. How dare the zoo try and re-program gays?

And Sullivan concludes:

Alas, for all the, er, mounting evidence that homosexuality and promiscuity and trans-genderism exist in the natural world, it’s a little stupid to use this material for political purposes. How do I put this gently to both the social right and the p.c. left? We’re not penguins. We’re not chimps. We’re not even those merrily promiscuous bonobo monkeys. We’re humans. And even our “natural” mating habits – moderate monogamy and some homosexuality, according to all the best science – do not tell us anything about morality as such.

… Not everything is political. And not everything is about us.

National Parks to be Baited with 1080

By

I was recently faxed through a summary of research findings on the impact of aerial baiting on spotted quoll populations. The report is now available at the NSW National Parks website here.

There seems to have been a collective sigh of relief that baiting with 1080 for wild dogs will now occur in some National Parks and that baiting will now be considered for other parks on a case-by-case basis.

Report findings included that:

Although some analyses are still outstanding, the available results from each of the three separate aerial baiting trials conducted by the DEC during the 2004-05 period, and from the work undertaken in Queensland during 2002-05, have demonstrated that mortality among known quoll populations is much lower than that predicted by previous non-toxic trials. However, quoll mortalities due to 1080 poisoning do occur, albeit rarely.

It appears that quolls eat toxic bait at highly variable rates. More importantly, most quolls consuming 1080 dog baits survive. The consistency of these results across sites indicates little difference in the response to aerial baiting between distant quoll populations. Moreover, the observed low mortality rates due to 1080 poisoning are apparently not caused by an adaptation of quoll populations to repeated exposure to aerial baiting, but also applies to quoll populations in areas that have not had a recent history of aerial baiting.

Reasons for the lower than expected mortality of quolls in the wild are uncertain. It may be that, of the animals that consume baits, most have a higher tolerance of 1080 than would otherwise be predicted on the basis of laboratory-based trials (ie. they have a higher resistance). It is also possible that quolls regurgitate baits.

During any aerial baiting program, individual animals of a range of native species may be killed by 1080 baits including spotted-tailed quolls, brush-tailed phascogales and several species of dunnart and antechinus, native rodents, potoroos, brushtail possums and many species of birds. The recent research has shown that population level impacts on the species of greatest concern, the spotted-tailed quoll, is unlikely. However, it is possible that mortality due to aerial baiting may have significant impacts on small populations of quolls already suppressed due to drought, habitat fragmentation, disease etc. In addition, there is no information on the sub-lethal effects of 1080 on native species e.g. fertility and birth defects. On the other hand, aerial baiting which suppresses local fox and dog populations may benefit quolls in the area. Hence, the potential impact of aerial baiting on non-target species has to be assessed on a case by case basis.

After discussing the results and other published information, the Steering Committee agreed that aerial baiting can now be considered as an additional control technique where appropriate. However, in order to maximise effectiveness and minimise selection for bait-shy dogs, the Committee encourages the use of an integrated approach that employs a range of techniques e.g. ground and aerial baiting, trapping, shooting, exclusion fencing.

I read on Friday that a penguin colony off the coast of south-western Victoria is struggling to survive because of wild dog and fox predation. The breeding colony on Middle Island has been reduced from nearly 300 penguins to 60 according to the ABC Online report. A team from Deakin University are apparenlty monitoring population numbers. While I am all for more monitoring, it would be perhaps useful if the scientist also did some baiting, perhaps with 1080, when they return to the island in October?

Climate Change

By

Rita hit the US mainland (near Port Arthur, Texas) as a category 3 hurricane last night. This will put Rita in the US National Hurricane Centres ‘major hurricane’ category.

It is starting to really look like there has been a recent significant increase in the number and intensity of big storms hitting the North Atlantic basin.

I thought the recent paper at Tech Central Station was interesting from this perspective. If you want to keep arguing the relevance of this paper and about numbers and intensity of hurricanes there is a long thread at this blog here.

Some have suggested ‘it’ is all to do with anthropogenic global warming (AGW), others that is is a return to ‘the conditions’ of the 1940s.

A bit has been said about weather patterns changing in Australia after 1976. This is when some claim it really started to get dry in the south west of Australia.

I had a look at the Bureau of Meterology time series rainfall data the other day and noticed that there was a spike this autumn for the SW, View image .

The spike didn’t carry through to winter. But it will be interesting to see what this year’s total rainfall for the SW looks like.

I have also noted water allocations keep increasing for irrigators in the Murray Darling Basin. I gather places like Mildura are looking green, as is much of western Queensland.

Could we be in for some wetter years?