 darling, where You Been So Long?
Our last semi-monthly newsletter was published here, online, in August 2009. Apparently, not much semi-monthly about it anymore.
In October we undertook a major overhaul of Interspecies.com. The work is still very much in process, but enough has now been completed to merit a closer look amidst all the usual array of newsletter linkage regarding all the myriad ways human beings intersect with nature.
For just one rather riveting example, read this firsthand account of the Japanese dolphin drive fishery, written in a rowboat in a little cove on Iki Island during a drive, while I was consulting for the World Wildlife Fund, Animal Welfare Institute and others way back in 1980. And if you haven't already seen the film, The Cove, it is a stunner of a movie about cetaceans and the people who risk their lives to protect them. The risker-in-chief is Ric O"Barry, who is a long time cohort of Interspecies.
Or for a completely different take on dolphin happenstance, click this button  to listen to a six minute fugue composed by 300 lag dolphins ((Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) and myself on guitar. And read this account of how the music was recorded. 10 miles offshore of Port Hardy on the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
Click on the audio button to the left. Hey now, what's that sound? It's called music by some, including me. Four years ago, Interspecies.com produced a CD of music by a group of mostly distinguished digital composers. We gave each of them a CD of 300 underwater sound samples: seals, lobsters, shrimp, dolphins, current, walrus, you get the idea. We only asked that they stick to our CD of sounds as best they could, and limit their composition to six minutes. Most of them ended up on a CD called The Belly of the Whale, which is distributed by Important Records. The Belly CD was a co-production between Interspecies.com and perhaps the Internet's best known art-for-nature site called Greenmuseum.org. A few composers who submitted music didn't make the cut. Bryce Beverlin was one of them, but only because he submitted his music a week after the deadline. i promised him that one day I'd feature his "tune" on Interspecies.com. Here it is. Enjoy. Or if not enjoy, take this moment to savour the depth and the diversity of human endeavor.
Is This For Real?
As a consultant for the US Navy, I occasionally come into contact with politicians representing the government's official point of view. I have learned that this so-called "official points of view" must be counted as among the most surreal perceptions of reality ever dreamed up by the human mind. Bravo Salvador Dali, bravo Monty Python, for making it all so explicit. Precisely because I am currently engaged on the Navy's sonar/whale issue, I have become acutely aware of a much more dangerous issue confronting cetaceans, which is a direct result of all our addiction to oil. This is the two-headed monster of oil spills and seismic testing. It is in this context, that I have chosen the Interspecies newsletter video-of-the-issue, which depicts an interview between a TV news broadcaster asking some good questions, and an Australian politician representing the official point of view. (sent in by Larry Soll)
What Does Interspecies.com represent?
Our organization is best known for its 30 years of interactive work with whales. But take a peak at our charter, which tries to explain what we actually do in the world. A member (Darby Crouss) recently sent me this news story which seems so cogent to our charter, that I excerpt it here in full.
Making a buzz: French roads to help honey bees (AFP)
PARIS — France is to sow nectar-bearing flowers on the sides of roads in an experiment aimed at helping the honey bee, hit by an alarming worldwide decline, the ministry of sustainable development said on Tuesday. More than 250 kilometers (155 miles) of roadside will be sown in the coming months, launching a three-year test that could be extended to the country's 12,000-kilometer (7,500-mile) network of non-toll roads, it said.
"More than 35 percent of our food is provided by pollinating insects, including bees. Protecting them also means ensuring our survival," Ecology Secretary Chantal Jouanno said.
 Bee hives in parts of North America, Europe and Asia have been struck by a mysterious ailment dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). At normal times, bee communities naturally lose around five percent of their numbers. But in CCD, a third, a half — sometimes even 90 percent — of the insects can be wiped out. The suspected culprits include a blood-sucking mite called varroa, a single-celled fungal parasite called Nosema cerenae that causes bee dysentery and pesticides used in fields that are pollinated by bees. Other explanations include poor nutrition -- that mega farms, stripped of hedgerows and wild flowers, and spreading suburbs, with their concrete, roads and lawns, are depriving bees of a decent diet.
"Aqua Lines" |
Links
For February 2010
I've been accumulating worthy links about animal communication for over six months, so there's some wonderful stuff here. For instance, it turns out that bowhead whales change their songs from year to year and never repeat songs from previous years. The whales have a new repertoire each year — presumably as part of the eternal struggle to obtain a mate. Whale song is not a new phenomenon. But the special thing about the bowhead whale's song is that they sometimes sing with 'more than one voice'." They produce two different songs or sounds, which are then mixed together.
Of course, it's not just whales. Mosquitoes also use songs to attract mates. When a mate is a found, the two lovers sing in harmony. Watch this music video to hear some mosquito love songs.
Although all birds have feathers, some flaunt it. This photo essay of some of the world's most colorful birds put a smile on my face.
Pregnant elephants do maternity exercises, that are quite similar to yoga. Apparently, they are even willing to work with a human yoga teacher. This article makes it sound as if the human taught these exercises to the elephant. Don't believe it.
Krak krak! (Watch out, a leopard!) Hok hok hok! (Hey, crowned eagle!) Very good — you have just mastered half the basic vocabulary of the Campbell’s monkey, a fellow primate that lives in the forests of the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast. The adult males have six types of call, each with a specific meaning, and they string two or more calls together into a message with a different meaning.
Evidence now suggests that the human immune system has developed its own discrete memory system. It's basically this issue: so many pathogens , how do I fight them all. Answer: remember which ones caused problems last time. So where do these memories exist? Probably not in in the brain. White blood cells attack what's right in front of them, and unless they have a telepathic connection to that very faraway and centralized organ, no other form of communication seems to provide the necessary networking infrastructure to remind them. This same article in the NY Times, also includes several examples of plants that also have memories. Where do those memories exist. Certainly not in the brain, since plants don't have brains. Or do they? Talk to you again in two months.
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