Life is Tough I

There is more and more being said about the almost continuous discovery of other planets in our galaxy and the number of them that might be able to support life.  I have never doubted that there is life on other planets and have attributed the doubt of others to our human arrogance.  Life on Earth itself is tenacious and resilient.  We find life inhabiting near boiling water in many places, at depths with incredible pressure around the Black Smokers in the deep ocean canyons, and to the near airless regions at the outer edges of the atmosphere

Those of us who have worked in the more difficult and demanding climes around the world know about life’s resilience and tenacity.  Although I have been involved in conservation work with manatees, mangroves, and, most recently, mountain bogs, much of my early work in conservation biology was in the deserts of Utah, Nevada, and Southern California where the nights can be very cold, the days hot as blazes, and fresh water sources few and far between.  What was even more amazing to my friends and relatives was that I was working with fish; small, even tiny fish there in the deserts from the Salton Sea in Southern California, up through the springs and creeks of the mountain valleys of Northern Nevada and Utah, and down to the floor of Death Valley hundred feet below sea level. 

One of these systems, Salt Creek originates in a low range of hills on the floor of Death Valley.  This is the only place in the world that one finds the appropriately named Salt Creek pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus) in a spring-stream complex with water temperatures that reach over 112F in the summer, with salinities much in excess of sea water and with a spring that pumps enough Lithium out to keep a manic-depressive happy for a long time. 

(The comments will be continued in the next posting.)

Chatting With Ishmael II

(Continued from the Preceding post)

Ishmael, you tell us that, “The world was given to man to turn into a paradise, but he has always screwed it up because he’s fundamentally flawed.”  I’m honestly not sure who did the giving.  In terms of flaws, you say that we humans are biological beings, but beings with a rather high concept of ourselves who consider ourselves an exception to the rules of life.  Actually, I think we can make a rather strong point that we are different.  Hold on now, hold on!  I didn’t say that we are an exception, but I think we can make a point for being different.  After all, your thoughts are in something called a book.  Books appear to be the exclusive artifact of humanity.  We could say the same thing about our use of computers or the roads I just took into town.  Is it possible, Ishmael, that we can do all of these things and still not be able to see where our environmentally destructive paths are taking us?  We demonstrate daily that it is indeed possible.

It was your hope that by communicating with selected students you could pass on your concerns and suggestions, and you have done that now for about two decades.  You’ll be happy to know that there has been some progress, at least in knowledge.  A handful of us now have a greater understanding of how global geological and atmospheric processes work.  But it is a small handful. The science of ecology continues to contribute to our understanding of the very intricate nature of life process on global, regional, and local levels.  But, unfortunately only a handful  understand these studies.  My own field, Conservation Biology, has begun to more carefully link human processes (e.g. population, economics, social systems, etc.) within ecosystems and bioregions. 

It is unlikely, however, even with greater knowledge, that we will be able to reverse the trends that continue degrading the quality of life on Earth and the extirpation of much of it.  You offer us hope that humanity holds the ability to become aware of and reverse the damage.  Aware, yes, but reverse, I’m afraid not.  My lifetime in conservation biology is a testimony to your warning that each of us “…contributes daily to the destruction of the world.”  I have watched that happen and I’m worried, very, very worried.

Chatting With Ishmael I

Several decades back I read a book by Daniel Quinn about a gorilla named Ishmael who was able to mind-talk with specially selected humans.  Ishmael’s sometimes  pedantic and Socratic chats were meant to describe the degraded environmental situation, reflect on why things had gotten that way, and suggest what we might do to improve the situation. I enjoyed the book then and encountered it again in late 2011.  I thought I would take this opportunity to have a chat with Ishmael.        

Ishmael my friend, it was good to talk with you again after all of these years.  I have to agree that we are, as you say, in a “disastrous cage of our own making” and once the door shuts on that cage we will pay a very heavy price. The scientific information indicates that we are already paying part of that price you mention.  During the first week of November 2011, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted increasingly extreme weather, with its attendant destruction, injury and death, caused by planetary warming, due to human impacts.  

On the other side of the coin, however, we don't yet seem to have the ability to sterilize Earth.  Also, it does not appear as if the evolution of life may end due to humanity’s toxic actions.  The United Nations Environmental Program, however, reports, continued increases in the number of environmental refugees as land previously used for agriculture and grazing becomes seriously degraded.  Worldwide, habitat for other species (including your own) continues to be destroyed by population expansion (7 billion and counting) and human habitat continues to be degraded along with lifestyles.

(Continued in the next post)

Color it Green II

(Continued from the preceding post.)

While many of my neighbors apply pounds of chemistry to kill the moss in their lawns, I spend time on my knees (something my very religious Mother would have encouraged) pulling the grass from the moss one small clump at a time.  Moss grows quite well under the gnarly branches of the red maple that shelters the front of our home at Hidden Springs from the often hot Southern sun.

There is something about the repetitive task sometimes associated with caring for the moss that is very meditative.  Our moss garden responds best to sweeping rather than raking. I use a broom with soft bristle to brush away the acorns and leaves that, at various times of the year, coat the surface of the moss.  Each sweep of the broom not only moves the leaves and nuts along but also restores the unity of the green velvety surface.   The rhythmic whisper as the bristles move back and forth across the surface of the moss is the background to a profound meditation…one whispered sweep of the broom at a time.

Perhaps someday Aesthetics will turn its attention to other natural beauties.  For example, the beauty of evolutionary biology as a species comes into being or the beauty of a natural system feeding the cycle of life and death…that would indeed be a substantial transdisciplinary leap into the connections that bind and liberate us all.

Connections.

Shallow depressions in the sandy mud alongside woodland pond. 

Depressions made by a wandering raccoon, an animal so well adapted to feed on the clams buried beneath the surface of the sand that they fish by touch alone.

Connections.

The clams strain minute plankton, clarifying the water, cleaning it until it sparkles--growing inside their shells until a passing raccoon senses their presence beneath the sand, and....

Connections.

Plankton--tiny children of the sun using the basic elements of nature to create the stuff of life, to build their own living plant-selves from the sun and minerals that surround them in the water.

Connections.

Standing -- on the verge of the glassy waters watching the connections unfold, watching the interconnectedness take place. 

Stepping -- carefully least I erase the trace of what has passed here...of the connections that have taken place here.

Wondering -- where I and mine belong in this web of life. 

Sensing -- in those shallow wanderings the elements of nature flowing through me.   

Knowing -- that someway, somehow I and mine have become separate from the primal patterns shifting and blending in the waters of the woodland pond. 

Understanding-- that the separation is only temporary, can only be temporary, is only illusion. 

Standing -- again-- in the shadows at the edge of the pond.

Watching--in my delight and in my fear.

Color it Green I

The Aesthetics of Environment

Things change and old words take on new meanings.  Green for example has come to mean many things other than a color…nature, environment, products, politics, and many more.  Here in the mountains of western North Carolina we have a lot of green.  The mountains are clothed in a cloak of green, the meadows, fields, and lawns are green and gold, and it is beautiful. We are told by philosophers that Aesthetics is the study of beauty.  Apparently, the root of the word is derived from the Greek terms for sensing or feeling or perceiving.  I sense and perceive that a healthy world is a green, fecund, and growing world...a beautiful world.  These mountains are beautiful but my professional work has taken me from the deserts of the American West and Southwest to the Gulf Coast and Caribbean and, now, to the Southern Appalachian Mountains and I have seen a great deal of beauty in all of these places.

In recent decades Aesthetics has expanded its scope to investigate the questions of beauty in nature.  We now talk about environmental aesthetics. What is it that we sense when we look at a beautiful river valley or the winding rows of corn stubble cut for silage in the fall, or a small park in a concrete and steel city?  Something happens. We can feel it, we can sense it.  Sometimes that feeling is very powerful and often it is shared. A lot of work is being done on what it is that we feel by neurophysiologists, psychologists, biochemists, and other specialized fields such as cognitive studies.  Perhaps, one day they will tell us all about it in the often sterile, reductionist words of science.  But there is nothing sterile about our individual or, very often, our collective response to these things. 

We are moved by nature to paint it, write poetry about it, to emulate it in our gardens. In terms of the issues addressed by conservation biology, why is it important what we find beautiful?  A number of observers have made the point that the kinds of natural settings we find beautiful often make a substantial difference when it comes to reaching that collective decision of what places we wish to set aside, to save, to restore or enhance and which to surrender to other, perhaps more consumptive uses.

We most often perceive of transformation to a green world in a mega-sense…for example the greening of government programs…corporate greening…and organizational transformation. But, in fact, critical transformation can only take place one person or even one action…one blade of grass, if you will, at a time.

(Continued in the next post.) 

(The literature on the aesthetics of environment and nature pertaining to the world  environmental crisis has grown considerably over the past several decades with numerous journal articles and books.  Over the years, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and Contemporary Aesthetics have published a number of articles on the subject. Arnold Berleant, Allen Carlson, John Fisher and others have contributed significantly.  Books addressing this subject include those by  J.B. Callicott, T. Morton, and others. I also suggest Lance Hosey's The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design)

Journey Back in Time II

(Continued from the preceding post)

Writing and publishing has been so much a part of my life in conservation biology and has so much to do with developing a transdisciplinary perspective about things, I thought I might list a dozen or so publications from over the decades that had a particular interest for me. I’ve leaned more heavily here on natural history writing than scientific journal publications.

Baugh, T.M. 1972. The muskrat - Nature’s mini-engineer. High Country News 4(24):10.

Baugh, T.M. 1973. The lonely land. Nevada Outdoors 7(3):l0-12.

Baugh, T. Michael. 1975. Land at river’s end. Pacific Search 9(9):44-45.

Baugh, T. 1978. Beyond the seventh dune. Pacific Discovery 31(3):16-21.

The Naturalist series published by Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine were well received and represented very good natural history.

Baugh, T. 1981. Southern comfort: A naturalist on the Gulf Coast, Part I. Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine 4(11):40-43, 69. (The entire five-part series.)

Baugh, T.M. 1985. The edge of the sea, Part I: Rocky shores. Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine 8(9):68-72. (The entire eight-part series.)

In the 1980’s I published fairly frequently in the scientific literature and the following manuscripts made some contribution to the information on the conservation biology of threatened and endangered species.

Baugh, T.M. and James E. Deacon. 1983. Daily and yearly movement of the Devil’s Hole pupfish Cyprinodon diabolis Wales in Devil’s Hole, Nevada. Great Basin Naturalist 43(4):592-596.
(https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/ojs/index.php/wnan/article/viewArticle/2188)

Baugh, T.M., J.A. Valade, and B. Zootsma. 1988. Manatee use of Spartina alterniflora in Cumberland Sound. J. Marine Mammal Science 5(10):26-27.
(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-7692.1989.tb00217.x/abstract)

Magazines stop the presses, insitutes close their doors, and things get lost in the shuffle.  With that in mind, I want to briefly slide into the most recent past decades and the present so that these things don't get lost.

During my fellowship with the Green Institute, I began to publish online at the Institute’s web site.  Online publication was a new departure for me feeling as I did that if it wasn’t on paper, it wasn’t published.  Some of the Green Institute material is archived and some has been offered in this blog in an abbreviated version.  Several not offered on the blog are noted as follows:

Baugh, Tom. 2006. A politics of plague. The Green Institute.
(http://greeninstitute.deanmyerson.org/node/59)

Baugh, T. 2007. Ecocaust and ecological wisdom. The Green Institute.
(http://greeninstitute.deanmyerson.org/subpages/baugh_ecocaust.asp)

More recently, among many other things, I have been working on the restoration of a Southern Appalachian Mountain Bog. The manuscripts noted here reflect my continuingly active field and research orientation.

Baugh, T. R.E. Evans, C.J. Steward, and S. Artabane. 2011. Restoration of a Southern Appalachian Mountain Bog: Phase I. Reed Canary Grass Removal. Ecological Restoration 29(1&2): 13-14.
(http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/ecological_restoration/v029/29.1.baugh.html)

Baugh, T. and R.E. Evans. 2011. Restoration of a Southern Appalachian Mountain Bog:Phase II-Hydrology. Natural Areas Journal 31(1):88-91.
(http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3375/043.031.0110?journalCode=naar)

Returning to the decade beginning in 1971 and into the mid-1980's, in no way can the above fully represent my work during this period, But it does skim the surface of what was an enjoyable and challenging time…filled with high professional productivity and adventures throughout the American West, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, the Gulf Coast, and out into the Caribbean. 

Journey Back in Time I

How about a little time travel?  In looking back over the past year’s postings I see that I have done myself, and my mentors over the earlier years of my professional life a disservice and lopped-off a decade of creativity and productivity…and it was a good decade.  I tend to lump all of my work under the definition of conservation biology, and most of it was.  But from the early 1970’s through the early 1980’s much of that work was represented by science education and natural history explorations and writings. 

Over this period my bibliography shows that I published several hundred natural history articles beginning with Wyoming Wildlife Through the Lens in High Country News in 1971.  Unfortunately, this is also the time just before humanity stepped off into cyperspace and much of this material doesn’t seem to be archived anywhere.  (Perhaps life didn’t exist before the WEB?).

Some of this was pipeline time, a period of smoke-filled flights, chock-full of oil field humanity, flying back and forth from Oregon to Alaska. During this decade, as part of my US federal agency work, I was instrumental in publishing the very popular brochure Land at River’s End: The Copper River Delta that was later made into a natural history program for television.  I was also deeply involved in a publication called the Forester’s Almanac.

This is also the time of expeditions into what were then still some very remote corners of the American West. Toward the end of this period my fieldwork began to be reported not just in popular magazines but more and more in the technical and scientific literature such as the Western Naturalist, Great Basin Naturalist, and Southwest Naturalist.

Much of my early work was with small fish, many of them called killifish, and the American Killifish Association lists a dozen and half published articles on this subject alone during the latter part of this period from 1979 into the early 1980’s (see below). But not all of the articles dealt with fish. One example would be my study of the dune lakes systems along the Oregon coast that begins “Back beyond the seventh dune…” and was published in Pacific Discovery magazine.

During this time I wandered from Southern California’s Salton Sea, to pocket-sized lagoons on the California coast, to high mountain valleys in Nevada where, as one of my field partners said, it was so cold it felt like there was “…nothing between us and the north pole but a two-strand barbed wire fence.”  I worked with strangely-name species such as pupfish, chub, and mummichog.

My contributions to the popular literature were good work. But it was my increasing contributions to the scientific literature that got me thinking and that sent me from my federal job back to Weber State University in Ogden, Utah for a second undergraduate degree, this one in Zoology. From there it was on to a graduate student stipend in the laboratory of Professor James E. Deacon at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and, into what we call these days, conservation biology. Jim has become a life-long friend.

Some References at (http://www.aka.org/aka/modules/lexikon/letter.php?init=B)

Baugh, T. M. 1979. In search of the desert pupfish: Part One. Freshwater and

Marine Aquarium (FAMA) 2 (9): 44-45, 63, color photos; Part Two. 2 (10): 35, 82-83.

Baugh, T. M. 1981a. Adapting Salt Creek pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus) to fresh water.

The Great Basin Naturalist 41 (3): 341-342.

Baugh, T. M. 1981b. Apparent cleaning behavior of two killifishes. Journal of the American

Killifish Association 14 (5): 170-171.

Baugh, T. M. 1981c. The aquarium maintenance requirements of 4 species of genus Fundulus.     

The Journal of Aquariculture 2 (3): 73-77.

Baugh, T. M. 1981d,e. Southern Comfort, a naturalist on the Gulf Coast, Part One.

 Freshwater and Marine Aquarium (FAMA) 4 (11): 40-43, 69, photos; Part Two. 4 (12): 15-18.

Baugh, T. M. 1982a,b,c. Southern Comfort, a naturalist on the Gulf Coast, Part Three.

Freshwater and Marine Aquarium (FAMA) 5 (1): 16-18, photos; Part Four. 5 (2): 18-20, 84-87, photos; Part Five. 5 (3): 14-17, 76-79.

Baugh, T. M. 1983a,b. In search of Crenichthys nevadae. Part I. Freshwater and Marine

Aquarium (FAMA) 6 (10): 16-17, 77-78, photos; Part II. 6 (11): 14-16.

Baugh, T. M. 1984a,b. In search of the Salt Creek pupfish. Part 1. Freshwater and Marine

quarium (FAMA) 7 (5): 34-35, 44-45, color photos; Part 2. 7 (6): 31-33, 54.

Baugh, T. M. and J. E. Deacon. 1983a. Daily and yearly movement of the Devil's Hole pupfish

Cyprinodon diabolis Wales in Devil's Hole, Nevada. The Great Basin Naturalist

43 (4): 592-596, 5 figs.

Baugh, T. M. and J. E. Deacon. 1983b. Maintaining the Devil’s Hole pupfish Cyprinodon

Diabolis Wales in aquaria. Journal of Aquariculture and Aquatic Sciences 3 (4): 73-75.

Baugh, T. M. and J. E. Deacon. 1983c. The most endangered pupfish. Freshwater and Marine

Aquarium 6 (6): 22-26, 78-79, 12.

Baugh, T. M. and J. E. Deacon. 1988. Evaluation of the role of refugia in conservation efforts

for the Devils Hole pupfish, Cyprinodon diabolis Wales. Zoo Biology 7 (4): 351-358.

Baugh, T. M., J. E. Deacon, and D. Withers. 1985. Conservation efforts with the Hiko White

 River Springfish Crenichthys baileyi grandis (Williams and Wilde). Journal of

Aquariculture & Aquatic Sciences 4 (3): 49-53, 3 figs.

Baugh, T. M., et al. 1986. New distributional records for Cyprinodon nevadensis mionectes,

an endangered pupfish from Ash Meadows, Nye County, Nevada. Southwestern

Naturalist 31 (4): 544-546.

Baugh, T. M., J. E. Deacon, and P. Fitzpatrick. 1988. Reproduction and growth of the Pahrump

poolfish (Empetrichthys latos latos Miller) in the laboratory and nature. Journal of

Aquariculture & Aquatic Sciences 5 (1): 1-5, 6 tables.

(Continued in the next post.)