Polar Bear Opposites

I'll apologize up front for directing you to a video including Glenn Beck. He's a repugnant human being and I would give my left hand to slap him with my right hand. But he interviewed presumptive VP candidate Sarah Palin a few months ago and I thought a few of her views were utter nonsense.

Sarah Palin is an intelligent, yet agenda-driven person and her utilitarian views on Alaskan oil bubble through. Regarding the interview:

1) Palin says the Polar Bear population has increased over the last 30 years and they should not be listed as an Endangered Species. There are several sub-populations of Polar Bears around the Arctic. 5 are declining, 5 are static, 2 are increasing and 7 populations are indeterminate. I don't know the specific number of Polar Bears in each sub-population but overall there are about 25,000 bears. The problem is global warming - which Palin reportedly doesn't believe is occurring, is causing the Arctic ice sheets to melt. Polar Bears hunt by seeking out ice holes that seals use to breathe air. They then catch and eat the seals which I hear are delicious. As the ice continues to decrease and habitat becomes more fragmented, Polar Bears that require the ice will suffer and could very well become extinct.

2) Palin refers to the oil and natural gas in Alaska as "our oil". "Our" being Alaska's and she demands the right to drill immediately in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Federal land is protected and the natural resources on it, in it and under it belong to the American people. Congress can approve the drilling in ANWR, but they haven't since it is considered to be an insufficient amount. Drilling would be restricted to a small area, but getting the oil to refineries would be environmentally damaging. Pipelines would disrupt Caribou migrations at the least and the 19 million acre refuge was established in the 60's (and planned before Alaska was a state) to protect the natural ecosystem. McCain and Obama are against drilling in ANWR.

3) Palin suggests we are "fighting over energy supplies" in the wars the US is currently waging. Really? I thought it was about "weapons of mass destruction." Did we invade a foreign country to assure oil rights? I do believe she is on the record as saying what most politicians have not.

When Nixon called for the creation of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, Congress approved legislation that "was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a consequence of economic growth and development untendered by adequate concern and conservation." Polar Bears are perfectly qualified for this protection. They simply "mess around" with Palin's oil and gas drilling interests so the state of Alaska is suing the Federal Government to keep the bears from being listed.

As the former chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Sarah Palin is an appropriate spokesperson for the continued pressure to utilize the natural resources of Alaska, but she clearly cares little for the plant and wildlife of Alaska, nor Endangered Species Act that was created to protect them.

Let's NOT bring these ideals to the lower 49. I won't be voting for McCain/Palin.

The Tortoise and the Scare: Scream Like a Girl

All animals have some warning system that protects them from harm. Rattlesnakes rattle. Bees Buzz. Dogs growl. Monkeys throw poop. If you're fast you can run away. If you're slow you can curl into a ball and use your specialized hairs to fend off an attacker like a porcupine does. And if you're a turtle you can pull yourself inside your shell and hide right? I went hiking after work in the Estero Aquatic Preserve and was walking while fiddling with my GPS when I heard a HHHSSSSSTTT - so I screamed like a girl. I was alone. I don't need to admit this, but my honesty has been called into question (I did yell at the pig - the macaw did call me a cracker. 99% of what I relay here is the truth) but for the sake of candor I offer all details here now. I screamed like a girl. It surprised me. It surprised the massive Gopher Tortoise who thought better of his simple hiss and hold your ground strategy and he pulled himself inside his shell.

I'd never heard one hiss that loud and that long and the fact that I almost stepped on this huge turtle didn't help. This place is known for a nice population of the endangered turtles. Their preferred habitat of sandy, palmetto/pine flatwoods is perpetually under attack which almost always ends up as a cookie cutter housing development.
They love to dig 5-10 foot deep burrows in the ground where they spend much of their time.


The rest is spent foraging for grasses, berries and the occasional flower or dead animal if it's rotten enough. They can't exactly chase it down and kill it.

Although they are on the Endangered Species List, they will most likely be removed soon along with Wood Storks and Manatee. This is not because their populations are increasing since each is suffering the opposite. Instead, the Bush Administration argues that the Endangered Species Act has not provided each species with sufficient protection and therefore should be downgraded to threatened to which they also argue offers the same protection. Confused? It's like removing a "School Zone" because cars aren't slowing down anyway. Basically developers will not have to concern themselves with hissing turtles and nesting birds and boaters can go back to speeding through the gulf.

So every tortoise I see is exciting and through my and MaLe's adventures we've seen a few.

(Kids - don't do this) This in on the Florida Turnpike. Speed limit 70 MPH. We passed it and I realized it was a tortoise. By the time we slowed and backed up an 18-wheeler had hit it.

This one chose a back road in Punta Gorda and enjoyed a better fate. I stopped and made sure he made it before I let anyone pass.

On my way out of the preserve today - I spooked a Marsh Rabbit who bolted into the palmettos. I didn't scream.

The Ghost Orchid: The Epiphyte of Your Life

Chances are you will never see a Ghost Orchid in the wild. Rare in nature and often growing in difficult to access places, this seemingly ethereal and ephemeral epiphyte can be found in the Everglades and most specifically in the Fakahatchee Strand State Park where I take my tours. Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants without being parasitic. They essentially use a host tree for support as the swampy soils and thick canopy make life on the forest floor tough.

The 20,000 acre park has the highest diversity of orchids in North America, but the Ghost Orchid is one of the most rare and in fact we rarely see orchids at all. Sadly, orchid thieves poach the plants from their host tree and sell them on the black market. You may have heard of the 1994 book the Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean based on the true story of a flower poacher in the Fakahatchee. Hollywood made an adaptation loosely based on the book with Nicholas Cage. It was called Adaptation.

Anyway. The orchids are few and far between, but 3 weeks ago, birders at Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, (just north of the Fakahatchee), were searching for Owls when they noticed a 6-blossomed flower growing 60 feet up on the trunk of Bald Cypress! This was a first in that Ghost Orchids had not been found in this sizable sanctuary and no Ghost Orchid had ever been found above 26 feet from the forest floor or on a cypress! That deserves one more!! They've had experts definitively say this is a Ghost Orchid, but who knows, maybe it's a whole new species not known to us.

I've not bothered to be concerned about ever seeing a Ghost Orchid. I just assumed I would never see one, but I headed out to Corkscrew and had the luck to see the most rare flower in North America.

The Sanctuary had spotting scopes to see the flowers which were blooming 100 feet from the boardwalk. My photos will pale in comparison to anyone with a telephoto, but I got a picture nonetheless through the scope.

The flowers bloom from June to August, with 1-10 flowers arising from nothing but roots attached to the cypress. Each flower blooms one after the other and they only last three weeks, so I arrived just in time. Once they go to seed, they drop bell pepper-sized seeds into the wind in the hope that one may land in an appropriate spot and begin to grow. It doesn't happen often.

They're called Ghost Orchid because they look like little dancing ghosts or jumping frogs which is why they have the less then stellar and less used name of Frog Orchid.

The flowers are so prized by orchid thieves, that the sanctuary has had to set up motion-sensing cameras and trip wires around the perimeter of the tree to protect it. There are already rumors of poachers plotting to steal them. Imagine getting caught and going to jail? What are you in for? "Stealing flowers".

I'll stick to photographs. This is one of those once in a lifetime experiences. Couldn't be more elated.

Jungle MaLe's Everglades Adventure

Rasta-MaLe

MaLe learned more about Florida Panthers than she ever wanted to know. The oft repeated morning question from me - "Guess what got run over?"....."Another Panther?"

MaLe chases down an Endangered Gopher Tortoise

Enjoying the spiky-legged Lubber Grasshopper

At the beach with Brian, Tara and Peytee

MaLe, Pia, Patricio, Juan Jose and MaLe's aunt

Don't waste water in Florida!

A rare cockatoo from Papua searches for food....

The Garcias and an American Crocodile

The typical pose


What can I say?

Unlucky #13

I've been gone for a few days as I have been driving the east coast tour out of Fort Lauderdale while our new guide was away.

Since my last post, Florida Panther #9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 were all struck and killed by vehicles in SW Florida. There are now no more than 90. The most ever killed by vehicles in one year was 11 in 2006. With all of the development, I feel there is no hope for them.

The UN just delisted the Everglades as an Endangered World Heritage site, claiming the threat of development does not put the ecosystem at risk any longer. This is the equivalent of giving George Bush the Nobel Peace Prize. There is not a shred of evidence that the Everglades is at any less of a risk than it was when it was listed. Hard to imagine how they came to that conclusion.

I may seem cranky. I have my reasons which I will explain here soon enough. It's hot. Fort Myers set a record on Monday when the thermometer hit 98 degrees. I've never experienced a 100 degree day in Florida. (Oddly I've experienced 4 in Vermont.)

It hasn't rained much either.

By the time this is posted, I will have awoken at 4:45 am and driven across the Everglades to guide on the east coast (on Thursday 6/28). I'll watch for panthers and pray for rain.

Chicken Protein Shakes and Snake Wraps

When you're an endangered reptile in captivity, hunger strikes are not acceptable. Indigo Snakes are endangered not only due to loss of habitat (dry, pine and palmetto forests) but because they are so docile in temperament and incredibly beautiful that people illegally remove them from the wild and sell them as pets. The male Indigos shimmer with crimson and obsidian iridescence as if created by a glass blower. The females lack the red but are equally gorgeous. This one was removed from a Gopher Tortoise's burrow (a typical place they cohabitate) by an ignorant farmer and became too sick to be returned to the wild. But after several months it still has not eaten and it was time for us to step in and force feed him.

The snake is nearly 6 feet long. To get the tube far enough down into the stomach, I would have to hold the snake and prevent him from straighting out.

The tube must go down the esophagus. Food or air into the lungs would kill the snake.

The food is a delicious blend of pureed chicken and eggs, which is fairly close to what they would eat in the wild and in truth is remarkably foul smelling.

Once the stomach is full, the snake must be relaxed and held upright to allow gravity and a little massaging to help the food stay down.

Snakes feel more comfortable when they are draped or wrapped around something. (normally a tree!!) In this case, the Indigo coiled up into my shorts and than came back down the other leg and wrapped around. That should give you an idea of how long the snake is. And how comfortable I was. It really didn't bother me until the snake decided to uncoil by backing out of my shorts. I wanted no part of that and we enticed him to come back out the way he went in.


Really....what can I say for this one?

This should keep the Indigo healthy for many weeks to come, but hopefully he'll learn to eat on his own again.