Alcide d’Orbigny, French Naturalist, Born (1802)

The foraminifera are microscopic single-celled marine animals that secrete tiny shells.  Under a microscope, they look like miniature mollusks.  It took a dedicated and observant French scientist, Alcide d’Orbigny, to figure out what these little creatures were all about.

Alcide d’Orbigny was born in the village of Couëron, France, on the banks of the Loire River not far from the coast, on September 6, 1802 (died 1857).  His father, a doctor and naturalist, often took his son to the shore to collect shells, insects, plants and fossils.  By age 11, d’Orbigny was hooked—he wanted to become a naturalist.  His educational background and early occupation are fuzzy, but he was obviously an astute observer of nature, a talented illustrator and an original thinker.

In 1825, he published a paper on the classification of cephalopods, into which he placed the tiny shelled foraminifera (later, he and others realized the mistaken classification and created a separate phylum for these organisms).  He drew exquisite illustrations of many species of foraminifera, and later sculpted plaster models for students to study.  That taxonomic work earned him a reputation as a gifted biological scientist.

Alcide Dessaline d’Orbigny

His reputation landed him an opportunity to explore South America, so he put his work on foraminifera aside for a time.  From 1826 to 1834, he participated in an expedition to study the natural history of the continent.  He visited Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Uruguay, collecting, describing and naming more than 1,000 species.  He drew beautiful renditions of the specimens he collected.  Along the way, he drew the first complete map of South America.  Charles Darwin, who didn’t get to South America until 1832, was envious of d’Orbigny, saying that he had probably collected “the cream of all the good things.”

While exploring the Parana River that makes the border between Argentina and Uruguay, d’Orbigny discovered rich beds of fossils in the exposed cliffs along the river.  He recognized that these fossils, including pollen grains, mollusks and his beloved foraminifera, were distributed in distinct layers.  He reasoned that by aging the fossils, the layers could be dated—an original concept.  He continued his work on tiny fossils when he returned to France, and became an expert on the taxonomy of micro-fossils, naming more than 2,800 fossil species.  His work on micro-fossils later became a major tool in oil exploration, using the fossils in cores to assess the likelihood that oil lay below.

His fossil work earned him a position as the first professor of paleontology at the Paris Museum of Natural History and recognition as the “father of micropaleontology.”  His descriptions of the relationships between fossils and mineral layers in the soil led to the development of the field of biostratigraphy.  His major work on the fossils of France, thousands of pages of descriptions and drawings, was never completed; he died an unexpected early death at age 54. Dozens of species and genera are named in his honor.

A plate of illustrations of foraminifera species by d’Orbidny

D’Orbigny achieved a feat that is coveted in today’s scientists, but rarely achieved.  He was a “T-shaped” scientist.  He was a generalist, working across biological and geological disciplines, developing the breadth associated with the horizontal stroke of the “T.”  But he was also a recognized expert on the foraminifera, both extant and fossilized, providing the depth of expertise associated with the vertical stroke of the “T.”

References:

Encyclopedia Britannica.  2018.  Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alcide-Dessalines-d-Orbigny.  Accessed July 17, 2018.

Letters From Gondwana. 2015.  Alcide D’Orbigny and the Beginning of Foraminiferal Studies.  Available at:  https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/alcide-dorbigny-and-the-beginning-of-foraminiferal-studies/.  Accessed July 17, 2018.

Lys, Maurice.  1958.  Alcide d’Orbigny (1802-1857).  Micropaleontology (1958) 4(1):115.  Available at:  https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/micropress/micropal/article-abstract/4/1/115/84967/alcide-d-orbigny-1802-1857?redirectedFrom=fulltext.  Accessed July 17, 2018.

Scott, Michon.  2018.  Alcide d’Orbigny.  Strange Science.  Available at:  https://www.strangescience.net/dorbigny.htm.  Accessed July 17, 2018.

President Roosevelt Dedicated Great Smoky National Park (1940)

On September 2, 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stood at the podium on the border of Tennessee and addressed a crowd of ten thousand standing below him in the state of North Carolina.  The occasion was the dedication of Great Smoky National Park, the 500,000-acre forest that straddles the two states.

President Franklin Roosevelt dedicates Great Smoky National Park (photo by National Park Service)

Great Smoky became the second eastern national park (after Acadia, in Maine) when it was authorized on June 15, 1934.  For decades, park enthusiasts had lobbied for an eastern park that could join the beloved parks of the West—Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon and others.  Willis and Ann Davis, wealthy and prominent members of Knoxville, Tennessee, society, first broached the idea after a western tour of national parks in 1923.  Creation of an eastern park was complicated.  Whereas western parks were carved out of federal lands, land in the East needed to be purchased from private owners.  And much of the East was already in use for other purposes.  Loggers, for example, fought Great Smoky because the forests would be off limits to cutting.

Nonetheless, the idea took hold. The North Carolina and Tennessee legislatures appropriate some funds, as did the U.S. government.  When these appropriations were clearly insufficient, the philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. stepped in.  He donated $5 million to the cause, equaling the appropriations of state and federal governments.  Eventually, $12 million was spent to acquire the park’s original 300,000 acres.

The significance of Great Smoky is hard to overstate.  It is one of the largest contiguous stands of deciduous forest in the world, earning it classifications as an International Biosphere Reserve (1976) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1983).  The mountains of Great Smoky are among the world’s oldest.  The park contains most of the highest mountains in the eastern U.S., among them Mt. Davis, named for park advocate Willis Davis.  The area escaped the last glaciation, and therefore is a meeting place of northern and southern forested ecosystems.  Consequently, plant diversity is high.  More than 1600 plant species live there, including more than 100 species of deciduous trees, more than exist on the entire European continent.  Almost all of the park is forested, about a quarter of which is old-growth forest.

Great Smoky National Park (photo by Brian Stansbery)

The park is also the most visited national park.  More than 11.3 million people visited the park in 2017, double the visitation of the second most popular national park.  The park is within one day’s drive of most of the population of the eastern United States.  The crowds that visit the park today resemble the crowd that gathered on this day in 1940 when President Roosevelt dedicated the park.  The ceremony at Newfound Gap straddled the state lines of Tennessee and North Carolina.  Reports listed the crowd that day over 10,000, perhaps as high as 20,000.  Roosevelt said then what most of us still believe about our national parks:

“There are trees here that stood before our forefathers ever came to this continent; there are brooks that still run as clear as on the day the first pioneer cupped his hand and drank from them. In this Park, we shall conserve these trees, the pine, the red-bud, the dogwood, the azalea, the rhododendron, the trout and the thrush for the happiness of the American people.

We used up or destroyed much of our natural heritage just because that heritage was so bountiful. We slashed our forests, we used our soils, we encouraged floods, we overconcentrated our wealth, we disregarded our unemployed—all of this so greatly that we were brought rather suddenly to face the fact that unless we gave thought to the lives of our children and grandchildren, they would no longer be able to live and to improve upon our American way of life.

In these later years we have tried sincerely and honestly to look ahead to the future years. We are at last definitely engaged in the task of conserving the bounties of nature, thinking in the terms of the whole of nature.”

References:

Gsmp.com.  History.  Available at:  http://www.gsmnp.com/great-smoky-mountains-national-park/history/.  Accessed September 1, 2017.

McKown, Harry.  2007.  September 1940:  Dedication of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  North Carolina Miscellany.  Available at:  http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/index.php/2007/09/01/this_month_sept_1940/.  Accessed September 1, 2017.

National Geographic Travel.  Great Smoky Mountains.  Available at:  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/great-smoky-mountains-national-park/.  Accessed September 1, 2017.

OhRanger.com.  Great Smoky Mountains National Park, History of Great Smoky.  Available at:  http://www.ohranger.com/smoky-mountains/history-great-smoky.  Accessed September 1, 2017.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.  1940.  Address at Dedication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  September 2, 1940.  Available at:  http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16002.  Accessed September 1, 2017.

Waters, t. Wayne.  2011.  The First Family of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Smoky Mountain Living, June 1, 2011.  Available at:  http://www.smliv.com/features/the-first-family-of-the-great-smoky-mountains-national-park/.  Accessed September 1, 2017

UNESCO Established First World Heritage Sites (1978)

UNESCO is one of those darned acronyms that we all have heard of, but perhaps can’t quite explain.  As we often say, it’s complicated.  But UNESCO is a fundamentally important cog in the machine of global conservation, for both nature and culture.

UNESCO stands for United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization.  It is one of the many independent United Nations’ groups (others include FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, also an important conservation group) .  It was created almost immediately after the end of the World War II, as the world’s countries gathered together to repair the war’s devastation.  UNESCO was formed in November, 1945, with the initial goals of restoring educational opportunities and scientific research for the pursuit of peace and all humanity.  These are still core goals of the organization.  UNESCO operates from headquarters in Paris, France(learn more about the UN here).

A generation later, UNESCO began to fret about the loss of cultural resources and, even later, natural resources.  With impetus from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the 1972 UN meeting on environment in Stockholm, and the U.S. government, UNESCO decided to develop a conservation program for natural and cultural resources.  The official resolution states that

 “…in a society where living conditions are changing at an accelerated pace, it is essential for man’s equilibrium and development to preserve for him a fitting setting in which to live, where he will remain in contact with nature and the evidences of civilization bequeathed by past generations, and that, to this end, it is appropriate to give the cultural and natural heritage an active function in community life and to integrate into an overall policy the achievements of our time, the values of the past and the beauty of nature,…”

The chosen strategy was to create a list of the places around the world most deserving of preservation.  Those places were to be called “World Heritage Sites.”  Member nations would recommend sites and commit to preserving them.  Over the next six years, UNESCO worked to define the details of how the program would work.

Simien Mountains National Park, one of the first 12 World Heritage properties (photo by A. Davey)

The first set of World Heritage Sites, therefore, had to wait until a meeting held from September 5-8, 1978, in Washington, DC.  At that meeting, the 12 original UNESCO World Heritage Sites were chosen:

  • L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Park, Canada
  • Nahanni National Park, Canada
  • Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
  • City of Quito, Ecuador
  • Simien National Park, Ethiopia
  • Rock Hewn Churches, Lalibela, Ethiopia
  • Aachen Cathedral, Germany
  • Cracow’s Historic Centre, Poland
  • Wieliczka – salt mine, Poland
  • Island of Goree, Senegal
  • Mesa Verde National Park, United States
  • Yellowstone National Park, United States
Aachen Cathedral, Germany, one of the first 12 World Heritage properties (photo by Ralf Houven)

From that initial dozen, the list of World Heritage properties has grown in every year except one (no sites were added in 2002).  The list now contains 1121 properties.  The majority of the properties are cultural (869, or 77%); 213 are natural, and 39 are both natural and cultural.  World Heritage properties exist in 167 countries, and 39 extend over international boundaries.  Some properties are individual parks or historic/cultural sites (like Yellowstone National Park) (learn more about the park here), but others are much larger regions that often include public and private property.  Only 2 properties have been delisted (Dresden Elbe Valley in Germany and Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman), but 53 are considered in danger for a variety of reasons (armed conflict or war, natural disasters, uncontrolled development, excessive tourism, pollution and poaching).

Most of the world’s nations (193) are parties to the World Heritage program, which carries the legal status of a treaty.  Being a party allows a nation to submit properties for inclusion on the World Heritage List.  Having a property on the list obligates a nation to protect and preserve the property, using its own laws, agencies and finances; UNESCO provides only minimal funding for the study of potential new properties.

UNESCO is another example of how the post-World-War-II commitment to international collaboration has made our world safer, more humane, and, in this case, more sustainable, beautiful, and culturally rich.

References:

UNESCO.  1978.  Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Final Report.  Available at:  http://whc.unesco.org/archive/1978/cc-78-conf010-10rev_e.pdf.  Accessed July 16, 2018.

UNESCO.  Introducing UNESCO: what we are.  Available at:  http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/introducing-unesco/.  Accessed July 16, 2018.

UNESCO.  1972.  Recommendation concerning the Protection, at National Level, of the Cultural and Natural Heritage.  16 November 1972.  Available at:  http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13087&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.  Accessed July 16, 2018.

UNESCO.  The World Heritage Convention.  Available at:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/convention/.  Accessed July 16, 2018.

UNESCO.  World Heritage List.  Available at:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/.  Accessed July 16, 2018.

Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, Died (1914)

Martha, the last surviving Passenger Pigeon, died on September 1, 1914.  Martha had been born in a zoo (Probably Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo) and later was relocated to the Cincinnati Zoo, where she lived until her death.  With her death, a species that had once been the single most abundant bird in North America—and probably the world—went extinct.

Painting of Passenger Pigeons by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

The Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was most closely related to the Mourning Dove, but almost twice as large.  It measured 16 inches long, its large body able to propel it on long flights over vast areas.  Flocks of Passenger Pigeons roamed from Canada to the Gulf Coast and from the Atlantic to the western edge of the Midwestern forest landscape.  They were communal birds, nesting in large groups with sometimes hundreds of nests in a single tree, so heavy that limbs broke under their weight.            What most distinguished Passenger Pigeons, however, were their huge flocks flying around the eastern half of North America.  Flocks were often over a mile wide, stretching as far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon.  John Audubon observed a flock a he traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1813:

“The air was literally filled with Pigeons.  The light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse, the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of the wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose.”

When he reached Louisville, the flock was still overhead—and continued passing for another full day.  A flock that passed through Ontario in 1860 was estimated to contain more than 3 billion birds, and a nesting colony in Wisconsin included 136 million breeding birds over an 850-square-mile swath of forest. One estimate suggests that as many as 40% of all birds in North America were Passenger Pigeons.

The habit of the birds to fly in such huge flocks made them vulnerable to uncontrolled exploitation.  They were shot and trapped for food—the birds were meaty and delicious—both by individuals and by commercial hunters.  As their natural forest habitats were converted to farmlands, they were shot because they fed on crops.  That a species so abundant could be overharvested was unimaginable, but by the late 1800s, only isolated colonies existed.  By 1890, the Passenger Pigeon had all but disappeared from the wild.  Three captive populations at the Chicago, Milwaukee and Cincinnati Zoos gradually died out.

Martha, named after the nation’s first First Lady, lived to the ripe old age of 29 in her comfortable zoo environment. A $1,000 reward was offered to anyone who could find a male to breed with Martha—but no mate was ever found. She grew weaker over the years, to the point that zookeepers lowered her perch to just a few inches off the ground so she could hop up rather than fly.  When she died on September 1, 1914, her body was immediately packed in a huge block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution for mounting.

The mounted specimen on Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, in the Smithsonian Institution

One century of unbridled exploitation and massive habitat changes had doomed the world’s most abundant bird to extinction—a sobering reminder of the need for conservation.

References:

Harvey, Chelsea and Elizabeth Newbern.  2014.  13 Memories of Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon.  Audubon, August 29, 2014.  Available at:  http://www.audubon.org/news/13-memories-martha-last-passenger-pigeon.  Accessed August 31, 2017.

Smithsonian.  “Martha,” The Last Passenger Pigeon.  Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Explore Our Collections.  Available at:  https://naturalhistory.si.edu/onehundredyears/featured_objects/martha2.html.  Accessed August 31, 2017.

Smithsonian.  The Passenger Pigeon.  Encyclopedia Smithsonian.  Available at:  https://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_si/nmnh/passpig.htm.  Accessed August 31, 2017.

Souder, William  2014.  100 Years After He Death, Marth, the Last Passenger Pigeon, Still Resonates.  Smithsonian Magazine, September 2014.  Available at:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/100-years-after-death-martha-last-passenger-pigeon-still-resonates-180952445/.  Accessed August 31, 2017.

Fort Bragg, Home of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, Established (1918)

You might not expect the establishment of a military base to receive attention on a conservation history calendar.  For two reasons, however, one specific and one general, Fort Bragg serves as a great reminder of the importance of military lands to conservation.

Fort Bragg was established on September 4, 1918, as an ideal training and testing location for artillery warfare.  Located in rural southeastern North Carolina, the army base covered a huge area—160,000 acres—but had good railroad access.  Camp Bragg, as it was known then, came on line a little late to help in World War I, but it has proved its value since then as a premier training site.  It is one of the largest military facilities in the world, with a $1.2 billion budget, 250,000 people living on or near the base and a local economic impact of about $10 billion annually.

Postcard showing Fort Bragg (photo by Boston Public Library)

Fort Bragg is also a unique environmental site—the first reason why it deserves conservation attention.  The longleaf pine ecosystem once covered most of the southeastern U.S. coastal plain, but the majority has been replaced by farming, commercial pine plantations and development.  But not Fort Bragg.  The base contains one of the largest contiguous longleaf pine regions left in the country, just about half of the base’s total area.  The park-like environment, with widely spaced tall, old trees and a richly diverse covering of ground vegetation, is maintained naturally by fire.  Whereas fire has been controlled in surrounding areas for a century, small fires have always burned on Fort Bragg—shooting artillery around can make that happen!

A well-managed longleaf pine forest in Georgia (photo by USFWS Southeast Region)

Consequently, Fort Bragg has remained an ideal longleaf pine ecosystem.  And one particular species really likes it there—the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (with the nickname “RCW”).  As longleaf pine declined, so did populations of RCWs, that require large old longleaf pine trees as sites for their nesting cavities.  The RCW was listed as an endangered species in 1968.

In 1990, a showdown occurred between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, responsible for rebuilding RCW populations, and the U.S. Army, responsible for maintaining military readiness, when the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a “jeopardy opinion” challenging Fort Bragg’s activities.  Could RCWs and training Fort Bragg co-exist, or did one need to be sacrificed for the other?  Fortunately, the two federal branches came together for the benefit of both.

Red-Cockaded Woodpecker at entrance to nesting cavity on a longleaf pine (photo by USFWS Headquarters)

Since then, a major recovery project has occurred, with great success.  The North Carolina Sandhills Conservation Partnership was created in 2000, including both agencies and local conservation groups.  As wildlife biologist Pete Campbell said, “Before the partnership began, the relationship between the military and environmental advocates was strained, especially in regard to the red-cockaded woodpecker.”  After the partnership, an intensive monitoring and education program began, active nest sites were protected from training activities, artificial nesting boxes were installed and habitat management expanded.

The results have been nothing short of miraculous.  Within a few years—and five years faster than anyone dared to dream—RCWs expanded from 200 breeding pairs to over 500.  The species has now been declared “biologically recovered” on the base and in the surrounding area.  Training restrictions were relaxed as wildlife specialists and military planners began to understand how soldiers and equipment in the woods could co-exist the birds.  One Fort Bragg official said, “We’re no longer adversaries.  It’s really just about managing the training lands properly.  If Fort Bragg does that, the woodpecker is going to be fine.”

Which brings us to the second reason for discussing military lands and conservation.  Military lands in general are havens for wildlife.  Think about it.  Most military bases have large land holdings, only a small fraction of which is actively used and developed.  The rest is undeveloped, left alone to buffer military activities from the surrounding community, reducing noise, disruption and the prying eyes of nosy neighbors.  In total, the Department of Defense controls about 30 million acres of land with this strategy.

What could be better for biodiversity?  Nothing, apparently.  Department of Defense lands (along with US Forest Service lands) hold the highest number of federally protected species—more than Fish and Wildlife Service lands or National Park Service lands.  Even more importantly, the density of protected species (species per unit area) on military lands is about six times higher than on other federal lands.  Army lands, like Fort Bragg, turn out to be the most valuable, probably because the average Army base is larger than those of other services.

Next time you pass a military base, think of it in two ways.  First, of course, it is part of the great system of national defense that protects the U.S.  But, second, think that you are passing by a great biodiversity preserve.  And if it happens to be Fort Bragg, look up.  You might see some paratroopers and a happy RCW flying by!

References:

Benton, Nancy et al.  2008.  Conserving Biodiversity on Military Lands:  A Guide for Natural Resources Managers, 2008 edition.  NatureServe.  Available at:  http://www.dodbiodiversity.org/Full_Publication_Conserving_Biodiversity_on_Military_Lands.pdf.  Accessed July 123, 2018.

Brooks, Drew.  2014.  Fort Bragg and red-cockaded woodpecker co=exist comfortably after shift in conservation attitudes.  The Fayetteville Observer, Aug 19, 2014.  Available at:  http://www.fayobserver.com/0c570329-0049-5543-a074-f8ec55604454.html.  Accessed July 13, 2018.

Shaeffer, Matthew.  Fort Bragg.  North Carolina History.  Available at:  http://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/fort-bragg/.  Accessed July 13, 2018.

US Fish and Wildlife Service.  Red-cockaded Woodpecker Recovery:  From Conflict to Collaboration.  USFWS Endangered Species Program.  Available at:  https://www.fws.gov/endangered/map/ESA_success_stories/NC/NC_story1/.  Accessed July 13, 2018.

Lord Walsingham Shot 1,070 Grouse (1888)

Lord Walsingham was known as a crack shot.  He had to have been to shoot more than one thousand game birds on a single day.  His total—1,070—remains a world record, and it is unlikely that it will ever be exceeded.

Thomas de Grey, also known as the 6th Lord Walsingham, lived in Blubberhouse Moor, a small village in the Yorkshire region of northeastern England.  Living from 1861 to 1919, he was a well-respected member of the British gentry, serving in a variety of civic roles and renowned as a cricketer.  He was also an accomplished naturalist, especially a student of Micro-Lepidoptera, the taxa of tiny moths and butterflies.  He amassed a significant collection over his life, donating more than 250,000 specimens to the Natural History Museum in London.  He wrote books and papers about insects and birds from various parts of the world.

The 6th Lord Walsingham, as depicted in Vanity Fair magazine (drawing by Theobald Chartran)

But, it seems, he loved shooting birds above anything else.  The moorlands of his home are the ideal habitat for the Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus), which eats heather and shelters in the evergreen plants all year long.  Hunting these birds became popular in the mid-1800s, when an expanding railway system allowed hunters easier access to northern moorlands and shotguns became breech-loading, allowing easier loading and re-loading (note the similarity to the increased harvest of American bison in the Great Plains of the U.S.).  Hunting is usually conducted by beaters who walk through the moors (on “drives”), flushing birds towards shooters (called “guns”) stationed in blinds.

Lithograph of Red Grouse, by Elizabeth and John Gould, circa 1832-1837.

That was the technique Lord Walsingham used on August 30, 1888, when he established his record.  The first drive of the day occurred at 5:12 AM, the last at 6:45 PM.  He hunted with a series of shotguns, being constantly re-loaded and handed to him by assistants.  In all, Walsingham’s beaters completed 20 drives, and he shot 1,057 of the birds they drove his way.  He completed his day by shooting 13 birds as he walked home, to reach the total of 1,070 Red Grouse shot by one person on one day.  According to one report, he shot one bird every 13 seconds over the 12+ hours of his hunt.

He was a crack shot, of course, but he was also after a very accommodating prey. Red Grouse were obviously very abundant at the time and remain so today.  Current densities just before the opening of the hunting season are about 1 bird for every 4 acres; densities in 1888 were probably much higher, especially on Walsingham’s estate.  The habit of grouse to remain hidden and motionless until a beater is almost on top of them means the quarry never scatters as hunting continues.

The Red Grouse (photo by Dunpharlain)

Red Grouse were a favorite of Lord Walsingham, and most British would agree.  Their meat quality is famous for taste and nutritional value (the species is known as the “King of Gamebirds”).   The species (or perhaps a sub-species of the Willow Ptarmigan) lives only in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.  It is the official gamebird of Scotland.  Hunting in Great Britain begins traditionally on August 12, known as “Glorious Twelfth,” and continues until late November or early December.  And the Red Grouse is a big money-maker for the economy of northern England and Scotland.  Hunting them employs about 2500 people and generates about $200 million dollars annually.

One difference between U.S. and British hunting laws is that wild birds can still be sold in regular markets.  Lord Walsingham defended the large harvest of birds on his property in 1888, saying, “out of 2,000 grouse bagged … on my 2,200 acres, 500 were given away to friends, and 1500 were sent to market.” Bagging a meal of Red Grouse in a fancy restaurant on the Glorious Twelfth is still on many English bucket lists.

Red Grouse depend on intact moors for their continued existence.  The upland moor habitat has been shrinking over the last century, due to conversion to pastureland and climate change.  Moorlands are rarer today than tropical rainforest, and 75% of all remaining area (about 3million acres) is in the British Isles.  Consequently, moorland conservation is the principal means for ensuring sustainable populations (and harvests) of Red Grouse.

Let’s hope that Lord Walsingham’s record is never challenged again.  The records we should be seeking today are not how many birds we can harvest, but how much habitat we can preserve.

References:

British Association for Shooting & Conservation.  Grouse shooting and management in the United Kingdom:  its value and role in the provision of ecosystem services.  Available at:  https://basc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2015/03/Research-White-Paper-Grouse-shooting-and-management.pdf.  Accessed July 12, 2018.

Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.  Red Grouse.  Available at:  https://www.gwct.org.uk/research/species/birds/red-grouse/.  Accessed July 12, 2018.

Godfrey, Rupert.  Lord Walsingham’s Grouse.  Fieldsports Magazine.  Available at:  https://www.fieldsportsmagazine.com/Shooting-Grouse/lord-walsingham-s-grouse.html.  Accessed July 12, 2018.

The Telegraph.  2017.  Grouse shooting:  12 facts about The Glorious 12th.  The Telegraph, 7 August 2017.  Available at:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/grouse-shooting-12-facts-about-the-glorious-12th/.  Accessed July 12, 2018.

Henry Bergh, Founder of ASPCA, Born (1813)

Cruelty to animals is considered a sin in modern society, but in the 1800s, cruelty was commonplace.  Henry Bergh, a rich socialite with a profound sense of what it means to be humane, changed all that.

Henry Bergh was born on August 29, 1813 (died 1888).  The term “born with a silver spoon in his mouth” could have been coined to describe Bergh.  His father was a wealthy shipbuilder in New York City, but considered an honest, fair and responsible man.  His mother was equally gentle and considerate.  Henry inherited those qualities from his parents, along with a considerable fortune.

Bergh and his brother took over the family business and ran it successfully for several years before selling out and becoming men of leisure.  Bergh and his wife were “first night” socialites, generally appearing at the openings of plays, musical events and art exhibits in New York.  The Berghs traveled often to Europe, enjoying the best of life.  He loved the theater especially, and fashioned himself as a playright.  He wrote several plays, and convinced friends to stage them—all were dismal failures.

Portrait of Henry Bergh, by Benson John Lossing and George E. Perine

Because of his wealth and political connections, Bergh received a diplomatic posting from President Lincoln, serving in St. Petersburg, Russia.  While there, he experienced frightful treatment of animals, particularly work horses.  Once he observed a draft horse being whipped, he jumped from his carriage and confronted the horse’s owner.  That day, we are told, convinced Bergh that preventing cruelty to animals was his life’s work.  He resigned his diplomatic post and sailed back to New York.  On the way, he stopped in England to consult with the nation’s leading anti-cruelty advocate.

Back in New York, Bergh promoted his anti-cruelty message with passion and perseverence.  Animals should not be treated as property, he asserted, but as fellow creatures with whom we shared the earth. “This is a matter purely of conscience,” he wrote, “it has no perplexing side issues.  It is a moral question in all its aspects.” Although he couldn’t write plays, he could write provocative and persuasive letters to newspapers, politicians and rich patrons.  He soon convinced the state of New York to issue him authority to form the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), founded in 1866.

Within two weeks, the New York legislature passed an anti-cruelty law and put the ASPCA in charge of enforcing the new law.  Bergh went to work with a staff of officers.  He roamed the streets of New York, often in the worst neighborhoods and in the dark of night.  With the new law in his pocket, he accosted anyone seen mistreating an animal.  If a simple lecture did not deter the offender, Bergh would drag him from his seat to demonstrate his authority and courage.  He went after the treatment of work animals first, but also challenged dog-fighting and cock-fighting and the mistreatment of domestic animals.  He created the first ambulances, for transporting sick and injured horses to veterinarians—his horse ambulances were the model for their later use for humans!

Contemporary lithograph of Henry Bergh confronting the driver of malnourished and mistreated draft horses.

Bergh received both praise and criticism for his efforts.  His supporters called him “An Angel in Top Hat.”  His detractors called him “The Great Meddler.”  He withstood death threats and physical beatings.  He clashed with P. T. Barnum over the treatment of circus animals, carrying out a high-profile public debate.  In the end, Bergh won over Barnum, who changed his practices.

And, in the end, of course, he has convinced modern society to treat animals humanely.  His founded the first anti-cruelty organization in the U.S., with many thousands of similar groups now working effectively across this country and the world.

And how does this relate to conservation?  The expansion of ethical treatment from people to domesticated animals is an essential step on the road to the protection of wild creatures, then wild places and, finally to a sustainable earth.  Organizations that protest the inhumane treatment of animals work side-by-side with more direct conservation organizations to help people understand that all of creation needs our help—and we will perish without the rest of creation.  “Mercy to animals,” Bergh wrote, “means mercy to mankind.”

References:

ASPCA.  History of the ASPCA.  Available at:  https://www.aspca.org/about-us/history-of-the-aspca.  Accessed July 10, 2018.

Ferguson, Mark.  2007.  Henry Bergh.  Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, April 22, 2007.  Available at:  http://uudb.org/articles/henrybergh.html.  Accessed July 10, 2018.

O’Reilly, Edward.  2012.  Henry Bergh:  Angel in Top Hat or the Great Meddler?  New York Historical Society, March 21, 2012.  Available at:  http://blog.nyhistory.org/henry-bergh-angel-in-top-hat-or-the-great-meddler/.  Accessed July 10, 2018.

Zawikowski, Stephen.  Bergh, Henry.  Learning to Give.org.  Available at:  https://www.learningtogive.org/resources/bergh-henry.  Accessed July 10, 2108.

Roger Tory Peterson, Ornithologist, Born (1908)

Seven million of us have a copy.  Mine sits on a table by the kitchen windows, next to the binoculars. I use it almost every morning.  A Field Guide to the Birds, by Roger Tory Peterson.  I’ve tried other bird guides, but I can’t break the habit to pick up Peterson’s book.  Nor should I.  Roger Tory Peterson is the man who made birdwatchers out of all of us.

Roger Tory Peterson was born on August 28, 1908, in Jamestown, New York (died 1996).  He wasn’t like other children—they called him strange—and his parents had trouble understanding him.  He was quiet, troublesome at school, often fell asleep in class.  Then a teacher, Blanche Hornbeck, had her students all join the Junior Audubon Club; at age 11, Peterson had found his passion—birds.

He got a paper route so he could watch birds in the morning and earn money for a camera to photograph them.  He became a good student, but mostly in art classes.  As a teenager, he submitted paintings of birds to art shows—and won, often in competition with leading artists.  He graduated high school when he was 16, and he followed his father into the furniture business. His skill as an artist was soon recognized and he was taken off the assembly line to paint the decorative designs on fancy furniture.  His boss convinced him to go to art school, and he saved for two years to earn tuition.  From 1927-1929, he studied art in New York, eventually at the National Academy of Design.

To earn a living, he became a teacher in the Boston area, but birds remained his passion—observing them, photographing them, painting them.  He had an idea for a guide to birds that would be different than the complicated, taxonomically based bird guides of the time.  Instead, he grouped birds by their appearance, making comparisons easier.  He drew detailed pictures of birds, emphasizing their shapes, sizes, coloration, and individual features, like beaks, feet and tail shape.  He placed arrows pointing to the distinctive features that observers should look for.  He added simple, direct text about the birds’ ranges, flying patterns and songs.  It was a guide for the amateur, not the specialist.

He submitted the book to four publishers, all of whom rejected it.  He then sent it to Houghton-Mifflin, which decided to take a chance.  Not much of one, however.  They printed 2,000 copies and forced Peterson to forego royalties on the first 1,000 because the publisher needed to recover the cost of so many illustrations.

Surprise!  The first 2,000 copies sold out in two weeks!  It was a huge success, and gave birth to the modern hobby of bird watching.  Over time, A Field Guide to the Birds went through 4 editions and 47 re-printings, and remains constantly in print to this day.  In all, 7 million copies have been sold.  Peterson didn’t stop there, however, going on to write, illustrate or edit more than 50 field guides for birds, flowers and other groups.  Ecologist Paul Ehrlich credited Peterson as “the inventor of the modern field guide.”

Photo by Larry Nielsen

His approach of clear, simple illustrations with arrows pointing out important features was a clear winner.  When he was drafted into military service during World War II, he was assigned to create training manuals, and he adopted the same approach as in his bird guide.  The Air Corps, for example, created a guide for identifying planes based on their appearance, complete with arrows to emphasize distinctive features.

Based on the success of his bird guides, Peterson became one of America’s leading conservationists.  He worked for the Audubon Society for eight years as an educator and art director.  Teasing apart his skill as a teacher, artist and naturalist is impossible, as they all combined in his work.  He understood that animals, especially birds, could entice anyone to become a conservationist.  He wrote:

“The philosophy that I have worked under most of my life is that the serious study of natural history is an activity which has far-reaching effects in every aspect of a person’s life.  It ultimately makes people protective of the environment in a very committed way.  It is my opinion that the study of natural history should be the primary avenue for creating environmentalists…”

Few would doubt the impact that that approach has had on our environment and the conservation movement.  He is considered the father of American ornithology and received virtually every major conservation award that exists.  When President Jimmy Carter bestowed on Peterson the Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 9, 1980, Carter said:

“Roger Tory Peterson has achieved distinction as a consummate painter, writer, teacher and scientist. As an unabashed lover of birds and a distinguished ornithologist, he has furthered the study, appreciation and protection of birds the world over. And he has done more. He has impassioned thousands of Americans, and has awakened in millions across this land, a fondness for nature’s other two-legged creatures.”

So, next time you scurry for the bird book so you can decide if you’re looking at a White-throated Sparrow or a White-Crowned one, give it up for the man who pointed out the way—Roger Tory Peterson.

References:

Houghton-Mifflin Books.  Biography, Peterson Field Guides.  Available at:  http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/peterson/rtp/biography.shtml.  Accessed July 9, 2018.

Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.  Roger Tory Peterson.  Available at:  https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/resshow/perry/bios/PetersonRoger.htm.  Accessed July 9, 2018.

Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History.  Biography.  Available at:  https://rtpi.org/roger-tory-peterson/roger-tory-peterson-biography/.  Accessed July 9, 2018.

Severo, Richard.  1996.  Roger Peterson, 87, The Nation’s Guide To the Birds, Is Dead.  The New York Times, July 30, 1996.  Available at:  https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/30/us/roger-peterson-87-the-nation-s-guide-to-the-birds-is-dead.html.  Accessed July 9, 2018.

First Oil Well Drilled (1859)

August 27 is known in some circles as Oil and Gas Industry Appreciation Day.  It’s a pretty low-key affair, and I can’t find information about why the industry picked August 27—but I think I know the reason.  This date, in 1859, is also when Edwin Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the world.

Interest about oil had been growing for some time.  It oozed out of the ground in various places, including far northwestern Pennsylvania.  People had been making kerosene for lamps from coal, but chemists had figured out how to make kerosene from oil, a far easier process than converting coal to a liquid.  Others discovered—maybe—that oil was an elixir that could cure a variety of ailments, including the dreaded “consumption” (now we call it tuberculosis).

But finding oil in commercial quantities was tough.  The basic method was to gather it from pools on the ground where it seeped to the surface, a process that might yield a few quarts a day. Drilling with traditional techniques used for water wells or brine wells (used to bring dissolved salt to the surface) failed to produce oil.  The Seneca Oil Company of Connecticut was founded to develop new techniques, and they hired retired Edwin Drake to lead the efforts in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Edwin L. Drake

Drake was born in New York in 1819.  He became a railroad conductor, running routes in New York and Pennsylvania.  He developed a debilitating muscular condition and after eight years on the railroad, was forced to retire.  Unemployed, he and his family moved to Titusville, Pennsylvania.  Drake knew one of the owners of the Seneca Oil Company and when they met by chance in Titusville, Drake was offered the job to manage their oil-drilling efforts.

Drake set up shop in Titusville, Pennsylvania.  Working with an experienced local well driller, William Smith, Drake spent months trying and failing to perfect a drilling technique. His efforts earned the local nickname “Drake’s Folly.”  Eventually, investors abandoned Drake, and his workers began to doubt his sanity, calling him “Crazy Drake.”  But his drilling innovation—a pipe that surrounded the drill bit and kept the bore hole stable—made the difference.  Drilling three feet per day, they stopped on the evening of August 26, 1859, when the well was 69.5 feet deep.  The next morning, oil had floated to the top of the hole—and history had been made!

Photo of Edwin Drake (right) with his first oil well in the background

The well was soon producing 40 barrels of oil per day.  One observer noted that Drake’s well could produce in a few days the same amount of oil as a whaling ship on a four-year voyage.  Western Pennsylvania became the center of the oil industry, producing half of the world’s supply for the next 40 years. Colonel Drake (he was not a military man, but adopted the rank anyhow) went from a goat to a hero.

From that first oil well (which is now part of a fascinating museum at the site), of course, the modern world has been built upon an oil and gas economy.  More than 4 million oil wells have been drilled in the U.S. alone.  Oil supplies one-third of all the energy consumed worldwide, and 98% of fuel used for transportation.  The world consumes 1.5 million gallons of oil products (gasoline, diesel and kerosene, primarily) per minute.  Per minute!  That’s about 50 million barrels, or 2 billion gallons, per day.

Americans love our cars, and the rest of the world is growing to love theirs.  About 1.2 billion cars are traveling the world’s roads now, and that number will continue to rise.  Americans have about 82 cars per 100 people, while China has about 7 and India about 4.  As other forms of transportation develop, other fuel uses will also increase.  Consumption of jet fuel, for example, has doubled in the last two decades.

And despite dire warnings about running out of oil, that isn’t about to happen anytime soon.  Petroleum scientists keep discovering new sources of oil, so that reserves have not changed in decades, despite increasing extraction.  Drake’s first oil well was step one of a seemingly unending process of finding more sources of oil in more places throughout the world.

From Drake’s first well sprang an industry. This is the Desdemona, Texas oil field in 1919 (photo by Almeron Newman Photographic Company)

Oil has been one of several sources of our advanced society, with high quality of life for increasing billions of people.  But, of course, there is a dark side.  Burning oil produces greenhouse gases.  While coal is the worst fuel to burn in terms of CO2 emissions per energy unit produced (over 200 pounds per BTU), diesel and gasoline come in second (around 150 pounds per BTU).  China today emits the most greenhouse gases (about 28% of the total); the U.S. is second with 16.5%, and the European Union is third, with 11.4%.  Rounding out the top ten emitters are India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Iran, Canada and Saudi Arabia.  Together, the top ten emit 78% of the world’s greenhouse gases.

So, two lessons remain clear.  First, there is still a lot of oil and the world’s economy still runs on it.  Second, if we are going to slow down or stop climate change, we have to reduce the impact of burning fossil fuels—either with new technologies to reduce emissions or alternative fuels to replace oil and gas.  What we need, I think, is a new generation of Edwin Drakes, willing to be called crazy as they work to make our world sustainable.

References:

American Oil & Gas Historical Society.  First American Oil Well.  Available at:  https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/american-oil-history/.  Accessed July 7, 2018.

Clemente, Jude.  2015.  Three Reasons Oil Will Continue to Run the World.  Forbes Magazine, April 19, 2015.  Available at:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2015/04/19/three-reasons-oil-will-continue-to-run-the-world/#325d13f143f9.  Accessed July 7, 2018.

Davooe, Urja.  2008.  Edwin Drake and the Oil Well Drill Piple.  Pennsylvania Center for the Book.  Available at:  https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/edwin-drake-and-oil-well-drill-pipe.  Accessed July7, 2018.

Friedrich, Johannes and Thomas Damassa.  2014.  The History of Carbon Dioxide Emissions.  World Resources Institute, May 21, 2014.  Available at:  http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/05/history-carbon-dioxide-emissions.  Accessed July 7, 2018.

U.S. Energy Information Administration.  How much carbon dioxide is produced when different fuels are burned?  Available at:  https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=73&t=11.  Accessed July 7, 2018.

Krakatau Volcano Erupted (1883)

Long before Mount St. Helens erupted, the most famous volcanic eruption in modern times occurred in Indonesia—when the volcano on Krakatau Island erupted.  It has allowed an ecological “experiment” to be followed for more than a century.

Krakatau is an island between Java and Sumatra, previously dominated by a group of ancient volcanic cones.  During the spring of 1883, plumes of ash and smoke at least six miles high appeared above the island, delighting some observers and worrying others.

1883 eruption of Krakatau (Lithograph – Parker & Coward, Britain, 1888)

The worriers were right.  About 1 PM on August 26, a major eruption occurred, blasting ash and smoke 15 miles high.  Much of the discharged material fell back into the cone, blocking further emissions and causing pressure to build up.  The next morning, the earth roared, a sounds that could be heard 2,800 miles away in Australia.  Four catastrophic blasts followed in rapid succession, a total force ten times greater than the Mount St. Helens eruption. A super-heated steam cloud spread for 25 miles around the blast.  A tsunami launched a 120-foot wall of water that drowned nearby towns.  More than 36,000 persons perished.

Map of Krakatau and nearby islands, showing the loss of land from the 1883 eruuption (Illustration by USGS)

When the eruption ended, the northern half of the island of Krakatau had been blasted away or sunk into the sea.  The island is now only about 5.5 miles long and 3 miles wide, about half its original size.  Since the 1930s, however, a small volcanic cone, called Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatau) has grown from the submerged part of the island.  Anak Krakatau has continued to experience small eruptions since then, building the size and height of the cone, and frightening those who live in the region (the last major eruption was in 2007).

The destruction caused by the Krakatau eruption was a human tragedy, but it has also provided a location to study ecological succession like no other.  All life was destroyed on Krakatau and two small adjacent islands.  Because of the complete extinction and because there are ecologically diverse islands nearby, watching subsequent changes to the island has provided scientists with a rare chance to study ecology on a large scale, without ethical questions about destroying life or ecosystems to understand them.

Of particular interest has been, studying patterns of ecological colonization and succession, testing a theory by ecologists Robert Whittaker and E. O. Wilson  known as “island biogeography.”  They supposed that barren islands accumulated colonizing species at an initially rapid rate that slowed to an equilibrium as the number of new colonizing species equalled earlier colonists that were becoming locally extinct through competition and habitat change.

The data from Krakatau confirmed their theory in most ways.  Many studies of the flora and fauna of the island have been conducted over the past century.  Although the lava flows had sterilized the land surface, layers of ash provided habitat for plant colonists.  The coastal areas developed first, followed by interior grasslands and then forests.  Although the island contains relatively few tree species compared to mature tropical rainforests, forests now cover most of the island.  As plants colonized, so did invertebrates and eventually vertebrates, including birds, reptiles and mammals.  In each case, a period of rapid colonization has been followed by a gradual leveling off.

A 2001 satellite view of Krakatau and nearby islands, showing the plant cover that has recolonized the islands (photo by Semhur, NASA)

Anak Krakatau provides another interesting site.  Because it has continued to erupt, the island’s successional path has been chaotic, with reversals and repetitive patterns of arrival and disappearance of species.  This confirms the more modern interpretation of ecological succession as a dynamic process, pushed and pulled in different directions by the disturbances that are common, not rare, in nature.

References:

Bagley, Mary.  2017.  Krakatao Volcano:  Facts About 1883 Eruption.  Live Science, September 14, 2017.  Available at:  https://www.livescience.com/28186-krakatoa.html.  Accessed July 5, 2018.

Bush, Mark B. and Robert J. Whittaker.  1991.  Krakatau:  colonization patterns and hierarchies.  Journal of Biogeography (1991) 18:341-356.  Available at:  http://www.sfu.ca/geog315-new/readings/Bush_Whittaker_91.pdf.  Accessed July 5, 2018.

Thornton, I. W. B. et al.  1988.  Colonization of the Krakatau Islands by vertebrates :  Equilibrium, succession, and possible delayed extinction.  Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.  85:515-518.  Available at:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC279581/pdf/pnas00254-0224.pdf.  Accessed July 5, 2018.

This Month in Conservation

March 1
Yellowstone National Park Established (1872)
March 2
Theodore Geisel, or Dr. Seuss, Born (1904)
March 3
World Wildlife Day and Creation of CITES (1973)
March 3
Isle Royale National Park Authorized (1931)
March 4
Hot Springs National Park Established (1921)
March 5
Lynn Margulis, Evolutionary Biologist, Born (1938)
March 6
Martha Burton Williamson, Pioneering Malacologist, Born (1843)
March 7
Luther Burbank Born (1849)
March 8
Everett Horton Patents the Telescoping Fishing Rod (1887)
March 9
The Turbot War Begins (1995)
March 10
Cape Lookout National Seashore Established (1966)
March 11
Save the Redwoods League Founded (1918)
March 12
Girl Scouts Founded (1912)
March 12
Charles Young, First African American National Park Superintendent, Born (1864)
March 13
National Elephant Day, Thailand
March 14
First National Wildlife Refuge Created (1903)
March 15
Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, Born (1874)
March 16
Amoco Cadiz Runs Aground (1978)
March 17
St. Patrick and Ireland’s Snakes
March 18
Nation’s First Wildlife Refuge Created (1870)
March 19
When the Swallows Return to Capistrano
March 20
“Our Common Future” Published (1987)
March 21
International Day of Forests
March 22
World Water Day
March 23
Sitka National Historical Park Created (1910)
March 24
John Wesley Powell, Western Explorer, Born (1834)
March 25
Norman Borlaug, Father of the Green Revolution, Born (1914)
March 26
Marjorie Harris Carr, Pioneering Florida Conservationist, Born (1915)
March 26
Kruger National Park Established (1898)
March 27
Trans-Alaska Pipeline Begun (1975)
March 28
Joseph Bazalgette, London’s Sewer King, Born (1819)
March 29
Niagara Falls Stops Flowing (1848)
March 30
The United States Buys Alaska (1867)
March 31
Al Gore, Environmental Activist and U.S. Vice President, Born (1948)
January February March April May June July August September October November December