3.20.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Radiowized Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader
is Kelly Taylor. Before we begin, I will share with
you a reminder. RADIOI is a reading service intended for
people who are blind or have other disabilities that make
it difficult to read printed material. Our first article comes

(00:24):
from the Weather Channel. Tropical forests are struggling to keep
up with climate change. Study reveals tropical forests are a
crucial part of helping our planet maintain balance, but they
are adapting too slowly to keep pace with climate change.
Often referred to as the lungs of the Earth, tropical

(00:46):
forests play a critical role in regulating our global climate,
but as our planet warms, these crucial tropical forests aren't
adapting quickly enough to keep pace with climate Changeists from
Wake Forest University and the University of Oxford's Environmental Change
Institute have published a groundbreaking study in the Journal's Science

(01:10):
that highlights the vulnerability these forests are facing. The health
of our tropical forests is directly linked to the health
of our planet. While they cover less than six percent
of the Earth's land surface, they contain more than half
of the world's animal species. These forests absorb vast amounts
of carbon dioxide, acting as a natural buffer against climate change.

(01:34):
Scientists believe that by twenty one hundred, temperatures in the
region could rise up to seven point two degrees fahrenheit,
with rainfall decreasing by as much as twenty percent. This
could push tropical forests further out of balance, increasing their
vulnerability to extreme climate events. The study focused on trees

(01:55):
in both mountainous and lowland regions, revealing that the trees
in the mountainous regions adapted better to climate change, most
likely due to the bigger climate swings at higher elevations.
In lowland forests, changes in plant traits such as leaf
thickness and drought resistance indicate some adaptation. However, these shifts

(02:19):
are happening at less than eight percent of the speed
required to keep up with climate change. This lag increases vulnerability,
making forests more susceptible to extreme weather, drought, and biodiversity loss. Quote.
The superpower of tropical forests is that, for the past

(02:40):
sixty million years, trees could rely on animals to pollinate
them and move their seeds, says Miles Silman, co author
of the study. Quote, we are rapidly removing the animals
that disperse the plants and make all the other ecological
interactions happen. The loss of fauna and the law of

(03:00):
large tracts of habitat are kryptonite for tropical forests. If
tropical forests fail to adapt quickly enough, their ability to
store carbon and reli and regulate climate will weaken. This
could lead to increased carbon emissions, accelerating climate change. Also,

(03:22):
species unable to cope with the changing climate may decline
or disappear, leading to a loss of biodiversity that could
have cascading effects on ecosystems. Quote. If we know what
species of trees are doing better or worse, and what
set of traits they have, then we know what they

(03:42):
can withstand. It will help inform what conservation actions should
be encouraged and where funding should be allocated, says lead
author Jesus A. Agire Gutierrez. To protect these vital forests,
conservation efforts must focus on reducing deforestation, promoting biodiversity, and

(04:06):
restoring degraded areas. While trees may not be able to
move fast enough on their own, strategic human intervention such
as assisted migration and reforestation could provide the lifeline these
forests need. The next article is from the Guardian and

(04:27):
the headline reads too many urban deer is an impending disaster.
Still we owe them an apology. This is from March eighteenth,
Heart Racing. I hauld my breath and brace to witness
the impact. This is written by Kylie Moore. By the
way the spindly fawn crosses first, tottering its way across

(04:52):
the two lane artery that borders my house, I watch
a truck approaching in the opposite direction and wait for
it to slow down. Will it The doe waits until
the last moment, deciding the best time to cross the road.
Is when the truck is almost upon her. She darts out,
her white tail raised high in alarm. The bay window

(05:14):
where I curl up with my dog in a good
book happens to provide the perfect vantage point for near
miss carnage. On a daily basis, I don't even have
to watch to know what's happening. Sometimes I hear the
screeching of breaks a honking horn. I know how it ends.
A deer limping around with its leg in an awkward angle,
a carcass piled unceremoniously on the side of the road.

(05:38):
From where I sit in Missoula, Montana. We have a
tenuous at best existence with urban deer, hitting them with
our cars, bothering them with our dogs, and grumbling when
they eat our garden vegetables. This is true throughout the country,
from West Virginia to Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Deer can
live pretty much anywhere with food, water, and cover to

(06:01):
hide from predators. White tailed deer, hunted to near extinction
in the nineteenth century, have staged an impressive comeback. Their
over abundance is now considered a nuisance and to some
even a crisis. One Audubon New York forest manager said
the organization considered surging deer populations, which eat all the

(06:24):
shrubs and tree ceilings in sight, as bad for Eastern
forest bird habitat as the climate crisis. As bad as
the climate crisis. Scientists from the National Park Service agree
too many deer are an impending disaster. Deer and dense
urban areas may have all they need to be perfectly

(06:45):
content with a home range the size of eight blocks,
said Travis Gallo, professor of Urban ecollegy and conservation at
the University of Maryland. Gallo and his team have spent
two field seasons hanging out in arcs in the middle
of the night, attaching GPS collars to deer. He's currently
working to overlay their movements with cell phone data, pinpointing

(07:09):
exactly where the lives of humans and deer meet. Living
in our midst deer do their best to adapt to
our rhythms, but that's not always a fool proof way
to minimize conflict. Human collisions with deer increase by sixteen
percent in the week following the autumn clock change, marking

(07:30):
the end of daylight saving time. The time switch leads
to peak traffic volumes shifting from before sunset to after sunset,
putting commuters and deer together in the dark. Researchers estimate
that year round, daylight saving time would prevent more than
thirty six thousand deer deaths, thirty three human deaths, and

(07:53):
thousands of injuries to both parties. I wonder if there's
a better way to live alongside deer in all their forms.
Cute neighborhood critter, garden, pest even reservoirs for COVID nineteen
and tickborne ill diseases. Have any communities cracked the code,
The booming Utah city of Eagle Mountain is a good

(08:15):
place to start. Rapid development in recent years isn't usually
good for deer. Quote in housing humans we evict deer,
says author Bin Goldfarb. Research from twenty sixteen found that
residential housing development is actually worse for mule deer populations

(08:35):
in Colorado than oil and gas development, but rather than
steam roll wildlife, public officials had taken a decidedly dear
friendly approach. Dear friendly ordinances are written into zoning codes
and transportation plans which require wildlife crossings over new roads,
and that developers install dear friendly fencing and lighting in

(09:00):
certain designated habitat areas. No new construction is allowed on
ridge lines and in seasonal washes, and the town is
one of few with a municipal wildlife biologist. More than
twenty miles of tall fences are being built even before
the neighborhoods around them spring up to shepherd migratory deer.

(09:22):
A protected corridor will guide deer directly through dense subdivisions
with room to eat and sleep too. It's a stunningly
proactive approach and a chance most exciting cities will never
have to do things right the first time. Humans are
trying to guide deer and other wildlife over and under

(09:43):
our infrastructure in other ways, too. Wildlife crossings have been
gaining steam since the nineteen fifties, with projects in the
works or recently finished in Washington, Colorado, and more. The
world's largest wildlife crossing will open next year in southern California,
spanning ten lanes of traffic. Elsewhere in the US, city

(10:06):
officials are trying to coexist with deer by keeping their
populations in check. Deer thrive in our neighborhoods, where our
presence often means limited predators and never ending meals of
ornamental plants, gardens, and bird feeders. It's kind of paradise
minus the cars. Road mortalities are the biggest threat to them,

(10:28):
Gallo said, so attracting them into neighborhoods deliberately or accidentally
puts them in danger. Staten Island to New York City,
where city officials are paying experts millions to catch and
administer the ungulate version of a vasectomy, is at the
forefront the city's deer vasectomy program. Again in twenty sixteen,

(10:49):
and it appears to be working. The Parks Department set
in twenty twenty four that deer populations were down almost
fifty percent. Deer collisions have also declines substantially, as have
sightings of black leg black legged ticks, which spread lime
disease and other diseases. But servid birth control isn't cheap.

(11:11):
Keeping the program running through twenty twenty nine all costs
two and a half million dollars. Perhaps a more common
way to control urban deer populations is through urban hunts.
Too many deer in an area can eat themselves out
of house and home, nibbling vegetation before it can ever
grow back. That happened in Rock Creek Park, seventeen hundred

(11:34):
acres of leafy refuge in the middle of Washington, d c.
Trained biologists with the National Park Service have been strategically
killing deer there under the cover of night with silenced
weapons since twenty thirteen. With fewer deer, the park's seedling
density is more than double. In the suburbs of Washington,

(12:00):
trained hunters can use bow and arrows to kill deer
with homeowner's permission. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and towns throughout Arkansas have
similar programs. Archers are chosen by a lottery system to
hunt deer, which often number in the three hundreds per
square mile. Gallos said that scientifically, he supports culling programs

(12:22):
as an innovative, creative approach to balancing ecosystems. I struggle
with the idea of full throated approval, and I know
I'm not alone in that hesitancy. It feels wrong to
lay out and all you can eat buffet, then punish
deer for taking advantage of it. A pilot urban deer

(12:43):
hunting program in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was supposed to start
in January, but opposition from residents mostly concerned about the
fate of their children, not the deer, postponed the pilot
until at least the fall. I hate seeing deer scamp
across the road, but I love finding them sleeping in
my sideyard as silent house guests. Their tawny bodies lay

(13:07):
curled up only a few feet from where I lay
swaddled in my own bed. Quote. This is the way
wild animals mostly live among us, opinion writer Margaret Wrinkle
wrote in The New York Times, quote, they are right
there crouched under a bush, curled up beneath a tool shed,
tucked next to the trunk of an evergreen end quote.

(13:30):
Sometimes I startle them when I go outside to start
my car in the winter, I stumbled across them on
my daily dog walks too. I love watching them pull
crab apples off trees in the fall and warily eye
me with big black eyes when I walk by. I
love knowing they're there, and I hate watching them almost
get hit by cars on a daily basis. I want

(13:53):
to say I'm sorry, Sorry for growing tantalizing food in
my backyard and fencing it off. Sorry for my dogs
spooking you on walks, Sorry for being right there in
your way just as much as you are in mine.
Now let's turn to BBC Wildlife. Why do cats have

(14:17):
slit shaped pupils? And how high can the best feline
high jumper leap? Here? Nineteen wildcat facts that will boggle
your mind From March the eighteenth. Did you know that
jaguars hunt crocodiles or that no cat can both roar

(14:37):
and perr Whether they're sprinting at eye watering speeds, leaping
across massive ditches, or even boasting tails long enough to
double as a ic winter garment. These fascinating predators never
fail to impress or surprise. Here are ten facts about
wildcats that reveal just how remarkable they are. Well, it's

(15:01):
actually more than ten, it's nineteen wildcat facts. Number one,
not all big cats roar. Of the five species of
big cat lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar, and snow leopard, one
cannot roar. The snow leopard instead communicates using purrs, mews,

(15:22):
and other sounds associated with wildcats. Number two. Cats are
obligate carnivores, which means they need to eat meat in
order to remain healthy. Three. Among the big cats, the
lion is the only social one. The other species of
big cats live solitary lives in the wild, while lions

(15:45):
nearly always live in groups called prides of up to
thirty adults and their offspring. Number four. Cats often have
slit like pupils, which can more rapidly open incl meaning
they can adapt from different light conditions more quickly. The
majority of cats and dogs also have a reflective layer

(16:08):
behind the retina called the tapatum that allows for enhanced
night vision. Number five. The snow leopard has an extremely
long tail, which provides balance and also offers additional warmth
during the colder seasons when the animal can wrap it
around its body. Number six. Cheetahs are the fastest animal

(16:31):
in the world, running up to speeds of ninety four
kilometers per hour. Not only are they fast, they also
have impressive acceleration, increasing their speed by ten kilometers per
hour in a single stride. While they are large cats,
they are not classified as a big cat in the
same way as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars and snow leopards,

(16:54):
which belong to the panthera group. Number seven. The tiger
is usually considered to be the largest cat species, weighing
in it up to three hundred kilograms and measuring three
meters long in captivity. The world's largest cat is Hercules,
a lion tiger hybrid called a lager at Myrtle Beach

(17:16):
Safari in California. He measures three point three meters in
length and weighs four hundred and eighteen kilograms. Number eight.
The five big cat species were assessed and categorized by
the IUCN Red List, and the tiger was a species
most threatened with extinction. It's listed as endangered. The other

(17:40):
big cats were listed as vulnerable, that's lion, leopard and
snow leopard, and near threatened the jaguar Number nine. In
the Wildlife Kingdom, purring and roaring are mutually exclusive, so lions, tigers, leopards,
and jaguars are incapable of purring, while every other cat
can but can't roar. Number ten. Not all cats hate water.

(18:06):
Jaguars in particular are fans of water. They often live
near water and are good swimmers. As a result, there's
an entire new category of prey available to them. They
will eat crocodiles and other aquatic animals. There's even a
cat that can swim underwater and specializes in diving for
its prey. Meet the fishing cat. We named it one

(18:27):
of the weirdest wild cat species in the world. Number eleven.
Snow Leopards have been known to leap up to nine
meters six times their body length. In fact, the longest
jump recorded for any feline was eleven point seven meters
by a snow leopard leaping over a ditch and was

(18:47):
observed by a team of Russian biologists. Number twelve. Tiger
habitats have been destroyed by human activity the world over,
and as a result, they have lost an estimated nine
five percent of their historical range, and what's remaining is
still under threat. One of the world's largest tiger populations

(19:08):
is found in these sun Bardens. I'm sorry, sun Darbans,
a large mangrove forest area on the coast of the
Indian Ocean. Rising sea levels caused by climate change are
threatening to wipe out these forests and the last remaining
habitat for this tiger population. Thirteen. Cats were first domesticated

(19:31):
four thousand years ago in ancient Egypt. Cats were initially
valued for their ability to kill rodents and venomous snakes,
but tomb paintings show that many of these stea lions
were also household pets and a part of family life. Fourteen.
Vying for first place in the smallest cat in the

(19:52):
World category are the rusty spotted cat and black footed cat,
which are very close in size, measuring thirty five to
forty eight centimeters and thirty five to fifty two centimeters
in length, respectively. Number fifteen. The jaguar has the strongest
bite of any big cat relative to its size. Research

(20:15):
by Adam Hartstone Rose and other colleagues at the University
of South Carolina who compared the byte forces of nine
different cat species, reveals that a jaguars byte force is
only three quarters as strong as a tiger's byte force.
Cats number sixteen. Cats marked their territory long before we did,

(20:38):
emerging in Eurasia thirty million years ago and twenty five
million years before our ancestors first appeared in Africa. Seventeen.
Cats possess a third eyelid, which provides additional physical protection
for the delicate cornea and helps to lubricate and clean
the eyeballs. Eighteen. Black panthers are not a species as such,

(21:05):
but rather melanistic leopards and jaguars. The levels of the
pigment melanin and in an individual determines how dark they are,
as the more pigment an animal has, the darker it is.
In many African countries, black panthers are revered and considered
symbols of power, darkness, death, and rebirth. And number nineteen.

(21:28):
There are lions in India. Ask people to name an
African animal who will probably be a close call between
lions and elephants. However, lions are also found in Asia,
though with one small population of about six hundred and
seventy lions living in Gear National Park in northwest India.

(21:52):
Now an article from Scientific American a headline reads, wildfires
threaten astronomy last summer. I this is by Peter McMahon,
and many others around the world watched in horror as
wildfires reduced nearly a third of the town of Jasper, Alberta,
to ashes and incinerated some one hundred fifty square miles

(22:16):
of the surrounding Jasper National Park. Although I now live
and work in Tucson, Arizona, the devastation still felt personal.
Jasper is part of a dark sky preserve I helped
to create in the Canadian Rockies, and is where my
wife and I spent nine years building a stargazing tour
company and planetarium. The disastrous convergence of two forest fires

(22:40):
in late July saw three hundred foot high flames launch
charred pine cones and embers out ahead of the blaze.
The fire generated lightning strikes and down drafts as it moved,
accelerating the hellish inferno. Roughly twenty five thousand people fled
before the fire hit, and a fire fighter died battling

(23:02):
it Unlike some our business endured, but it was not unscathed.
Smoke had marred our telescopes and other equipment. Insurance claim
estimates for wild fire related damages in the park may
eventually top a billion dollars Canadian Yet as damaging as
this event was, it foretels possibly greater harm and disruption.

(23:24):
As wild fires have grown in number and intensity in
recent years, they have increasingly threatened our ability to see
and study the heavens. If we don't find solutions soon,
such blazes could top light pollution as the most pervasive
threat to astronomical observation. Many cherished views of the Cosmos

(23:48):
could figuratively go up in flames. On a mountain summit
in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, a dead oak tree, blackened by fire,
stands about three feet from a dormitory at kit Peak
National Observatory, where I currently serve as the Visitor center
operations manager. The charred tree is a reminder of how

(24:10):
close an earlier disaster came. A lightning strike in June
twenty twenty two sparked a wildfire that swept across the
bobo Quivari Mountains, destroying four buildings and approaching within dozens
of feet of some of kit Peak's twenty two major
research telescopes. Days after the Jasper tragedy last summer, another

(24:36):
wildfire forced pre evacuation preparations at kit Peak. With tarps
at the ready to cover telescopes and safeguard equipment. The
problem is getting worse. Wildfires have already destroyed several major
telescopes at Australia's Mount Stromlow Observatory, and in twenty twenty,

(24:56):
California's Sierra Remote Observatories came close to destruction from a
wildfire that covered telescope optics in ash and debris. During
the twenty twenty two fire season, I stood with my
staff at a stargazing event at the top of the
Jasper Skytram, looking down the valley as fire snaked across

(25:18):
the shores of Jasper Lake, fifteen miles away. Although that
fire never reached the town of Jasper, its smoke sporadically
scuttled our views for weeks at the Jasper Planetarium originating
in Alberta, British Columbia, California, and other regions, Smoke from
such fires can blot out the stars at sites. Even

(25:40):
thousands of miles away. Meteorologist Alan Rayhill, whose Clear Sky
Chart is a trusted planning tool for astronomical observers, lamented
a gloomy forecast to me recently. Quote for the second
half of this century, we won't see blue sky anymore.
Between March and December, clear nights have become pretty rare.

(26:04):
Yet there's hope for those willing to try to adapt.
More professional and amateur astronomy institutions are finding ways to
protect against wildfires, their causes, and their effects. Kit Peak
is installing specialized detectors to provide early warnings for lightning
strikes on the mountain. It has partnered with a local

(26:24):
alliance of firefighters, naturalists, ranchers, and others on a master
plan for future emergency responses. Lowell Observatory and Flagstaff Arizona
collaborates with local authorities on prescribed burns and strategic fire
breaks to protect its grounds. Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles

(26:45):
has upgraded its fire suppression systems and building materials. It
closed during the wildfires in January but did not come
under direct threat. At the Jasper Planetarium, we've added a
radio telescope capable of peering through the murk, offering live
radio maps of distant galaxies. Fixing the underlying problem, though,

(27:08):
will require orders of magnitude more effort than simply adapting
to a new normal. Bob McDonald, science popularizer, fellow astronomy
enthusiast and Order of Canada recipient points out to me, quote,
the increase in wildfires and droughts around the world is

(27:28):
a sign that climate change is no longer an issue
for future generations. It is in our face, here and now.
In his recent book, The Future Is Now, McDonald argues
that COVID shutdowns inspired many to see that we have
the tools to reverse climate change through alternative energy, carbon
capture and energy storage. Quote. The smoke is a clear

(27:52):
signal that it's time to get on with it and
clear our skies, not just for astronomy, but for human health.
He told me. That's all for today's Diary of Science
and Nature. Your reader was Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned
for the Health Corner on RADIOI