Bees – Their Survival is Ours too…

The following article on Hanyuan in Sichuan Province of China is a useful lesson to us all.  When development goals and activities are defined in strictly financial terms we observe how siloed and myopic all concerns for environment and human values become.  In Hanyuan, agriculture and horticulture are the primary activity and concentration on a singular crop, pear, led to one-pointed optimization of yield.  Mono-cropping leads to all sorts of complications and the temptation to resort to extreme measures in the face of inevitable insect menace.  Psylla (Pear lice) is the outcome of creating ideal monocrop conditions for its proliferation.  A variety of symbiotic pear varieties (and even better other fruit crops) would have culturally thwarted the fatal toxic trap to which farmers and government succumbed.

Resorting to non-specific chemical sprays in a bid to optimize yields, thereby decimating pollinators and toxifying soils and soil ecology is a pattern seen in most parts of the world where adoption of “modern” agri-methods prevails.

China has been particularly efficient at it with its command economy.  We need to evolve a carefully thought out strategy and support structure in all our livelihoods programme to avoid these traps and come up with a successful Non-Pesticidal Management (NPM) regime that effectively deals with this issue.

In anticipation of efficient pollination of the millions of fruit and coffee plants that will be flowering in 2-3 years, the Araku team has begun a pilot to encourage farmers to nurture a local Indian pollinator – Apis cerana.  Although A. cerana has less honey yield than its exotic sister Apis mellifera (now widely encouraged in India in the Agri-industry) it has several holistic advantages.  It is a great pollinator, is non-aggressive and easily domesticated, and its honey and wax are renowned for their medicinal value.  Additionally A. cerana is disease resistant – for example varroa mite is co-adapted in A. cerana while A. mellifera is non-adapted.  [Biodiversity of Honeybees – Dr MR Srinivasan, TNAU 2004]

In encouraging and nurturing A. cerana into our Araku ecosystem with a focus on Livelihoods we are confident of sidestepping the problems that arise from a singular concentration on “optimal” yields and financial returns.

Why not just bring in more bees?

I don’t know if you can answer this question, but PBS had that special on bees, and showed an area in China where there aren’t any honeybees, and the people pollinate the fruit trees by hand.  Do you know why they just can’t bring in more bees? Off to the research library where I found a very interesting story.

Off to the research library where I found a very interesting story.

This is a story of conversion from communal agriculture to household agriculture, food production to fruit tree production, and extreme poverty to increased wealth.

Hanyuan is a town in the Sichuan Province of China. About 80% of the population is involved in farming. Most of the pears in China are grown here. And until 1981 most of the farmland in Hanyuan was farmed communally. Many farmers had colonies of beehives to pollinate various food crops. Prior to the mid 1980’s, pear trees would flower, but fruiting was unsuccessful.  Most pears require cross-pollination in order to set fruit. In order to increase the yield of Hanyuan Baili pears, the dominant pear variety, two other varieties of pear trees were brought in. This introduction was successful because all three pear varieties bloomed at the same time allowing successful cross-pollination and increased crop yield.

After 1981, farmers in Hanyuan were allowed much more freedom to manage the land. In 1983, at the urging of the government, mass cultivation of another pear variety, Jinhuali, began. This variety fetched a better price in the market than Hanyuan Baili. Jinhuali pears also fetched a higher price than rice and wheat, and that caused many farmers to plant Jinhuali pears in areas previously planted with other trees and crops. But there was a problem.

Remember what I wrote about the necessity of cross-pollination by a different variety of pear? The farmers tried grafting two other varieties of pears to the Jinhuali pear trees to increase cross-pollination and fruit set.  But they didn’t have much luck. It turned out that the grafted pear varieties and the Jinhuali pear variety did not have compatible flowering times–the grafted pear varieties flowered either before or after the Jinhuali pear flowered.

In order to increase fruiting in Jinhuali pear trees, local farmers began to experiment with hand pollination. They had great success and hand pollination was encouraged by the government. Quickly, a relationship between one of the pear grafted varieties, the Jinhuali pear trees, and hand-pollination was established. The farmers learned how to harvest viable pollen from one pear variety, and how to hand-transfer viable pollen to the Jinhuali pear flowers.

Hand-pollination increased yield and led to a even better-looking pear. The hand-pollinated fruits continued to bring a better market price than other pear varieties (or rice, wheat, and many other food crops the farmers had been growing).

About the same time the fields were being converted to hand-pollinated pear trees, an outbreak of pear Psylla (Pear lice) began. The Psylla are a serious pest of pears. This outbreak was treated by intense spraying with insecticide. In fact, every time an insect appeared on the income-producing pear crop, farmers would spray–sometimes as much as 12 times during each production season. Unwilling to risk the loss of their pear trees–and the subsequent loss of income–the farmers continued to intensively spray their pear trees–killing the pest insects.

The honeybees, once common, began to disappear. The intensive spraying killed all insects, including the honeybees. Bee keepers moved their colonies out of the area to protect them. Honey bees can still be found in abundance in nearby areas where intensive spraying is not conducted.

 While hand-pollinating does increase yields and produce better-looking fruit, the farmers would like to move away from depending on hand-pollination. But the farmers still spray several times a season for insects. And beekeepers–still unwilling to risk losing their colonies to insecticide spraying–are also reluctant to lose income by bringing their honey bee colonies into Hanyuan to pollinate pears.

 The bee keepers are reluctant for another reason. Pear flowers do not produce much nectar and what little nectar they do produce is low in sugar. A bee keeper bringing bees into the area risks not only the death of his colony from insecticide spraying, but the loss of income from honey production.

Until the farmers learn to manage the pear crop better–utilizing Integrated Pest Management techniques, improving the varieties of pears, and improving and coordinating production methods–they will continue to safeguard their higher incomes by spraying insecticides to control insect pests on their income-producing crop and they will need to hand-pollinate. And the bee keepers will keep their bee colonies in other areas.

Will we feed the world on insects?

Will entomophagy soon become just another of our weird culinary habits, along with eating snails, frogs’ legs and offal? Will we soon be serving insects and arachnids at the dinner table? The idea might sound repulsive to most people living in developed countries, but

In Asia, Africa, South America and Australia, people are meeting some of their nutritional needs with a variety of creepy-crawlies. But this consumption is often linked to local, cultural habits and the production of insects has not yet reached the industrial stage of “minilivestocking”. And soon it might have to. With an ever-increasing world population, an ever-diminishing amount of available arable land and fast-depleting natural resources, feeding everyone with the recipes that we have been predominantly using so far seems completely illusory. This is where insects come into the picture: more and more FAO experts now see entomophagy as a credible, sustainable and safe alternative to meat or fish for providing protein to the world. Insects are also a source of fatty acids and vitamins. And they are far more respectful of the environment than “traditional” farming: they use much less land, much less water, much less food – insects transform food into matter more efficiently than the animals we normally eat –, and produce far fewer greenhouse gases. They also reproduce so fast that production possibilities are wide open. So, why wait? A large-scale fly larvae production factory has recently opened in China, aiming at taking insect consumption to the next level: the mass market. Will many others soon be following this example?

Overcoming disgust

The major obstacle that still keeps bugs out of our daily meals is disgust. While our ancestors most certainly ate insects when they lacked animal protein, and while many of our fellow humans do so under exactly the same circumstances, there is still, in the countries that can “afford” not to resort to them, a strong rejection of insects. The most surprising part of it is that these Western consumers happily eat invertebrates such as molluscs and crustaceans and a variety of foods that could at first sight be labelled “disgusting”. The advocates of entomophagy stress that insect-based recipes are often as delicious as conventional ones: taste would not be abandoned in favour of nutritional and environmental concerns. There is thus a vast task ahead in educating these populations if bugs want to maFirst, an almost technological one: with what do we feed enormous amounts of insects designed to feed humans? In the fly larvae factory in China, it is not yet possible to give them rice bran, and they feed on animal excrement, which makes them suitable only for animal consumption. More widely, the question of diet for all bugs is crucial in guaranteeing the safety of food for human consumers. Then, there is the issue of insects that are captured in their natural habitat: if they live in agricultural areas, it is highly likely that they are contaminated by pesticides and herbicides – some actually argue that there is a slight absurdity in killing so many protein sources just for the sake of saving crops that are less nourishing. The wildlife insect populations should also be managed so as never to let them become extinct, as they are crucial to biodiversity and the preservation of the environment. And finally, in order to create a real economic opportunity for those who wish to develop minilivestocking, the food system will have to include insects in the supply chain, mostly to feed other animals.

These obstacles do not seem insurmountable. They mainly require an educational approach, common sense and sound governance to be overcome. If these conditions are met, we might soon enjoy larvae-, cricket-, ant- and scorpion-based meals. And, just as we got used to eating raw fish in expensive sushi-bar restaurants, we will not find it so disgusting after all.ke it big in the world.

Hyena Skull

Hyena skulls go back a very long way in the fossil record. None of the fossils unearthed is any different to those of present-day hyenas. In order to corroborate its claims, the theory of evolution needs to produce a sign, a single example, a transitional form showing that these animals are descended from some other life form. But this is impossible. The evidence revealed by paleontology is fossils belonging to present-day life forms that have never changed, and every new finding represents significant evidence against the theory of evolution. The 42-million-year-old hyena skull in the picture is one of the proofs that refute evolution and shows that hyenas have never changed in any way.

Specimens of Terrestrial Animal and Bird Fossils -

Monkey Skull

Darwinists have created countless scenarios regarding the alleged evolution of man. These scenarios are devoid of any scientific evidence and are speculation invented so that human beings will regard themselves as supposedly the chance descendants of monkeys. All the fossils that Darwinists claim to represent as transitional forms in the mythical evolution of man have actually transpired to be belonging either to assorted species of apes or else to various human races. It is a scientific fact that monkeys have always existed as monkeys and never turned into another life form. One of the pieces of evidence documenting this is the 32-million-year-old monkey skull in the picture. This fossil specimen is identical to the skulls of present-day monkeys. There is no trace in it of any passage toward human beings

Darwinists Must Abandon Their Errors Before It Is Too Late

While the scientific world is still unable to fully account for insects’ bodily structures and flight techniques, it is the height of sophistry to claim that these came about by chance. The mutations that Darwinism points to as the supposed architects of these systems are in reality harmful effects that merely cripple a life form, cause permanent injury to its organs and even result in its death. It is impossible to maintain that mutations that take place solely on the basis of chance can bring into being an insect’s wings, muscles, nerves and antennae and complex systems such as respiration and digestion. It is a terrible error to attach any credence to such nonsense.

No coincidence can create a flying machine, such as a helicopter. Even if all the components of a helicopter are left scattered about in a large field, natural events will still never be able to produce a helicopter from them. It is as illogical to propose this as it is to suggest that an insect’s wings or any other organ or system in its body could emerge as the result of blind chance. It is obvious that these marvelous systems in living things can only fully function, and the organism can only survive, when they are all present together.

It is impossible for an insect with no knowledge of the mechanisms by which it might fly to design them and for unconscious cells to carry out such complex functions.

The way that ladybugs, which also possessed a flawless wing structure millions of years in the past, prepare their twin wings for flight is a complete miracle of creation.

Outer wings containing chitin surround the elastic, membranous flying wings like a sheath. When the insects wishes to fly it opens its outer wings, literally like a hydraulic gate, and the larger flight wings folded underneath emerge. These crumpled flight wings become smooth and elastic almost instantly. This attractive insect then takes off and flies away.

One environment in which fossils form is amber. The amber from trees flows down and covers a living thing, preserving it entirely and creating a fossil. These fossils represent an important truth, in the same way as other fossils.

This ladybug was fossilized together with all its soft tissues some 25 million years ago. There is not the slightest difference between the ladybug in the amber and those living today. Ladybugs were created in their present form.

The conscious systems we see in insects clearly indicate creation. We particularly see this when we look at fossils: dragonflies, various species of flies and beetles appear suddenly in the fossil record with all the marvelous properties they possess today and with no evolutionary ancestors preceding them. Fossils show us, quite simply, that evolution never happened.

The facts revealed by the scientific data and fossil records conflict with both the claims that Charles Darwin first made 150 years ago and with all the present-day versions and variations of the theory of evolution.

For anyone to still espouse the theory of evolution in the face of all these facts is of course highly thought-provoking. Such people still follow along in Darwinism’s wake and turn their backs on the true facts; but this is merely a short-term deception. The facts are much clearer now than they were in Darwin’s time and also much easier to establish. The number of people seeing and accepting the facts is growing, and there is a rapid decline in the numbers of people who believe unquestioningly in evolutionary fairy tales. The scientific proof cannot be ignored and hidden as easily as it was in Darwin’s day. Research is uncovering new and marvelous properties in living things every day and invalidating the evolutionist concept of chance. Every new scientific finding shows that the universe was created by an Intelligence superior to all things. Disciplines such as genetics, microbiology, paleontology, geology and all other branches of science constantly and clearly reveal the fact of creation.

There is no doubt that this scientific progress will continue to take place and that science will become one of the finest means of describing the creative artistry of Allah; this is because all knowledge belongs to Allah. Darwinism, on the other hand, will go down in history as an unscientific theory condemned to obsolescence, much like the geocentric model of the universe or alchemy.

People will be amazed how they ever believed in such a theory.

The above photograph of a fossil lightning bug provides countless scientific data dating back some 50 million years. We first see that the insect’s antennae, legs, joint structure, compound eyes, wing structure and everything else is all perfectly formed, regular and immaculate. Second, we see no half-formed organs in the process of evolution, as evolutionists would have us believe. This insect has never changed over the intervening 50 million years. With their marvelous wing architecture, the systems that allow them to produce light in their own bodies and their complex compound eyes, lightning bugs are a perfect marvel of creation. In short, this glorious life form tells us that “there is no such thing as evolution.”
No rational and logical person would ever look at the design in an airplane and claim that all the components came together by chance to produce a vehicle capable of flying. On the contrary, people looking at the design in an airplane will think that there is very fine and detailed planning involved in every stage, and that a large number of engineers and technicians pooled their knowledge and experience together and put in a great deal of hard work and time. Life forms that fly have been equipped with features superior to those of airplanes. It would be a total violation of logic and reason to look at these living things, created with the ability to fly, and to say that they are the product of mere chance. Classic evolutionary scenarios cannot explain how such delicate calculations work with such superior technology in these life forms devoid of any consciousness. Indeed, Darwinists have no answer to give at all because no such thing as evolution ever happened. Almighty Allah created all living things.

21st Century Researchers Use Insects As Models For Progress

In recent years, various scientific research groups and major universities have been working on manufacturing micro-flight vehicles by imitating insects’ flight mechanisms. One of the most important of these is supported by the British-based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and is playing a key role in the new aerial vehicles' development.27

Dr. Richard Bomphrey, from the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, says that the findings from analysis of the architecture of insects’ wings “will make it possible to aerodynamically engineer a new breed of surveillance vehicles that, because they're as small as insects and also fly like them, completely blend into their surroundings."

The research team uses cutting-edge computer modeling capabilities and the latest high-speed, high-resolution camera technology to investigate insect wing structure and performance. Key to the work is the calculation of air flow velocities around insect wings. This is achieved by placing insects in a wind tunnel, seeding the air with a light fog and illuminating the particles with pulsing laser light - a technique called Particle Image Velocimetry.28

According to Dr. Bomphery, different types of insect wing serve different purposes. “For instance,” he says, “bees are load-lifters, a predator such as a dragonfly is fast and maneuverable, and creatures like locusts have to range over vast distances.” Investigating the differences between insect wing structures has been a key focus in engineering micro flying robots. These ecological differences have led to a variety of wing designs depending on the task needing to be performed. Micro flying vehicles and micro-cameras installed on them will be able to be used in a great many fields.29

Despite all the specialists working on the subject and all the technological means at their disposal, it is thought that insect-sized flying machines will only become a reality in the next 20 years.

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Insect Anatomy

I have drawn a wasp to use as an example of insect anatomy. I will add more detail to the descriptions soon.

Antenna

Antennae are the insect's feelers. They are sensory organs that can smell, taste, detect sound and air movements. Some insects navigate solely using the antennae. Most insects use thhem to find and identify food.

Head

Contains brain, mouthparts eyes and antennae.

Attatched to an insects head are its eyes, its antennae and its jaws. Some insects have biting mouthparts, others, such as bugs, have sucking mouthparts.

Compound eye

Allows the insects to see. Made up of many small lenses arranged in a globe which can give the insect a good field of view. Compound eyes do not produce very good definition but they are very sensitive to movement. This is why flies cannot tell that there is glass in a window but can skillfully avoide being swatted by a newspaper.

Thorax

Contains muscles which drive the legs and wings which are attatched to it.

Abdomen

Contains digestive system and reproductive system. All organs are supplied with oxygen by a network of trachea. The trachea are connected to the surface of the insect's 'skin' where openings are called spiracles.

Legs

Insects have six legs. Legs are segmented and vary in shape greatly. Some insects have modified legs which serve special purposes. For example, grasshopper's hind legs are enlarged and very muscular which allow the grasshopper to jump large disances.

Wings

Insects usually have 2 pairs of wings. Some insects have no wings at all. Many insects have 1 pair of wings (true flies) others have 2 pairs which behave like 1 pair (wasps). Some insects use all four wings to fast dynamic flight (dragonflies). 

Giant Squid

The giant squid remains largely a mystery to scientists despite being the biggest invertebrate on Earth. The largest of these elusive giants ever found measured 59 feet (18 meters) in length and weighed nearly a ton (900 kilograms).
However, their inhospitable deep-sea habitat has made them uniquely difficult to study, and almost everything scientists know about them is from carcasses that have washed up on beaches or been hauled in by fishermen. Lately, however, the fortunes of scientists studying these elusive creatures have begun to turn. In 2004 researchers in Japan took the first images ever of a live giant squid. And in late 2006, scientists with Japan's National Science Museum caught and brought to the surface a live 24-foot (7-meter) female giant squid.
Giant squid, along with their cousin, the colossal squid, have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, measuring some 10 inches (25 centimeters) in diameter. These massive organs allow them to detect objects in the lightless depths where most other animals would see nothing.
Like other squid species, they have eight arms and two longer feeding tentacles that help them bring food to their beak-like mouths. Their diet likely consists of fish, shrimp, and other squid, and some suggest they might even attack and eat small whales.
They maneuver their massive bodies with fins that seem diminutive for their size. They use their funnel as a propulsion system, drawing water into the mantle, or main part of the body, and forcing it out the back.
Scientists don't know enough about these beasts to say for sure what their range is, but giant squid carcasses have been found in all of the world's oceans.

Starfish (Sea Star) Asteroidea .

Marine scientists have undertaken the difficult task of replacing the beloved starfish’s common name with sea star because, well, the starfish is not a fish. It’s an echinoderm, closely related to sea urchins and sand dollars.
There are some 2,000 species of sea star living in all the world’s oceans, from tropical habitats to the cold seafloor. The five-arm varieties are the most common, hence their name, but species with 10, 20, and even 40 arms exist.
They have bony, calcified skin, which protects them from most predators, and many wear striking colors that camouflage them or scare off potential attackers. Purely marine animals, there are no freshwater sea stars, and only a few live in brackish water.
Beyond their distinctive shape, sea stars are famous for their ability to regenerate limbs, and in some cases, entire bodies. They accomplish this by housing most or all of their vital organs in their arms. Some require the central body to be intact to regenerate, but a few species can grow an entirely new sea star just from a portion of a severed limb.
Most sea stars also have the remarkable ability to consume prey outside their bodies. Using tiny, suction-cupped tube feet, they pry open clams or oysters, and their sack-like cardiac stomach emerges from their mouth and oozes inside the shell. The stomach then envelops the prey to digest it, and finally withdraws back into the body.

Green Sea Turtle

The green turtle is a large, weighty sea turtle with a wide, smooth carapace, or shell. It inhabits tropical and subtropical coastal waters around the world and has been observed clambering onto land to sunbathe.
It is named not for the color of its shell, which is normally brown or olive depending on its habitat, but for the greenish color of its skin. There are two types of green turtles—scientists are currently debating whether they are subspecies or separate species—including the Atlantic green turtle, normally found off the shores of Europe and North America, and the Eastern Pacific green turtle, which has been found in coastal waters from Alaska to Chile.
Weighing up to 700 pounds (317.5 kilograms) green turtles are among the largest sea turtles in the world. Their proportionally small head, which is nonretractable, extends from a heart-shaped carapace that measures up to 5 feet (1.5 meters). Males are slightly larger than females and have a longer tail. Both have flippers that resemble paddles, which make them powerful and graceful swimmers.
Unlike most sea turtles, adult green turtles are herbivorous, feeding on sea grasses and algae. Juvenile green turtles, however, will also eat invertebrates like crabs, jellyfish, and sponges.
While most sea turtles warm themselves by swimming close to the surface of shallow waters, the Eastern Pacific green turtle will take to land to bask in the sun. Occasionally seen sunbathing alongside seals and albatrosses, it is one of the few marine turtles known to leave the water other than at nesting times.
Green turtles, like other sea turtles, undertake lengthy migrations from feeding sites to nesting grounds, normally on sandy beaches. Mating occurs every two to four years and normally takes place in shallow waters close to the shore. To nest, females leave the sea and choose an area, often on the same beach used by their mothers, to lay their eggs. They dig a pit in the sand with their flippers, fill it with a clutch of 100 to 200 eggs, cover the pit and return to the sea, leaving the eggs to hatch after about two months. The most dangerous time of a green turtle’s life is when it makes the journey from nest to sea. Multiple predators, including crabs and flocks of gulls, voraciously prey on hatchlings during this short scamper.
Green turtles are listed as an endangered species, and a subpopulation in the Mediterranean is listed as critically endangered. Despite this, they are still killed for their meat and eggs. Their numbers are also reduced by boat propeller accidents, fishnet-caused drowning, and the destruction of their nesting grounds by human encroachment.

Sperm Hoarders: Why Animals Store Semen

A new study shows that one in four wild guppies in Trinidad and Tobago are fathered by the sperm of dead males. Some of these sperm have been stored for long enough that these males could otherwise be the grandfathers of these fish-to-be.

Guppies can store sperm for later use. Photograph by Schmidbauer/Blickwinkel/Alamy

After mating, female guppies store sperm in a specialized cavity in their ovaries, keeping it alive with small amounts of sugar until the eggs are fertilized. (Also see “Why Female Flies Eat Sperm.”)
Why store sperm? Female guppies outlive males by at least a year, so storing sperm from multiple mating partners gives the female a choice of the best genes to sire her offspring.
Since these fish fathers don’t provide any care for their offspring even when living (for that matter, mama guppies don’t tend to their offspring after birth, either), being dead doesn’t harm the fish fry after birth, according to the study, published June 5 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Yet study leader Andrés López-Sepulcre, of the École Normale Supérieure in France, and colleagues don’t know whether the guppies’ sperm quality deteriorates over time—though the stored sperm can clearly fertilize at least some eggs.
Nor do López-Sepulcre and colleagues understand why females continue to use sperm from dead males when plenty of live males are around and able to provide fresher semen. (See “Sperm Recognize ‘Brothers,’ Team Up for Speed.”)
Sperm-Hoarding Snakes and Octopi
Sperm storage is a common occurrence in the natural world. Many other animals have been found to store sperm, including the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus).

Chickens near their shed in Rothenfuld, Switzerland. Photograph by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, National Geographic

In 2011, researchers at North Carolina and Georgia State Universities found that the eastern diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus) stored sperm for an exceptionally long period of time.
The discovery was made when a rattlesnake captured from the wild in Florida in 2005 gave birth in 2010, despite the fact it’d been kept away from other snakes. Scientists initially thought it was an example of virgin birth—a form of asexual reproduction in which the female provides both sets of chromosomes to her offspring—until genetic analysis revealed two parents. (Learn more about virgin birth.)

An eastern diamondback rattlesnake rests on a mangrove tree in Everglades National Park, Florida. Photograph by Chris Johns, National Geographic.

So how do the females tell the sperm that it’s time to do their job? By studying the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris), biologist Anna DiCosmo at Italy’s University of Napoli Federico II and colleagues tested a hypothesis that females emit chemicals called chemoattractants.
Males of various species can sense and seek out these chemicals—just as hordes of tired office workers shuffle toward the smell of the coffeepot every morning.
DiCosmo knew that when females of other species related to octopi release their eggs into the water, males are attracted by chemoattractants in the eggs. Following the chemical trail, the males swim over and release their sperm. (Also see “Small Squid Have Bigger Sperm—And Their Own Sex Position.”)

A common octopus hides near Poor Knights Island, New Zealand. Photograph by Brian J. Skerry, National Geographic

Although the common octopus fertilizes its eggs internally, DiCosmo wondered whether this species also used chemoattractants to rouse the stored sperm out of hibernation.
So the researchers gathered some mature octopus eggs and separated out proteins in the eggs. One particular protein, named Octo-SAP (octopus sperm attractant peptide), made the sperm go a-swimming. They reliably swam toward higher concentrations of Octo-SAP, a key requirement for a chemoattractant—suggesting that octopi use the chemicals to rouse sperm, according to a study published June 15 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Octopus Sperm Storage Explained
DiCosmo has some hypotheses about why sperm storage evolved in the octopus. (See video: shark vs. octopus.)
One is the mismatch between the time it takes for an egg to mature versus the rapidity with which a male can produce sperm. For instance, a female might not have a mature egg ready when she meets a male—which doesn’t appear to happen very often.
“Given that octopi are solitary animals, they do not have many chances to meet partners. For this reason, storing sperm is one of the only good strategies to optimize fitness. Immediate or external fertilization would result in no or just a few successful matings,” DiCosmo told National Geographic.
As for humans, we can reassure ourselves that at least we’re not hoarding sperm. Although it might be worth checking behind the ice cream carton in the freezer, just to be sure.

Saltwater Crocodile

Earth’s largest living crocodilian—and, some say, the animal most likely to eat a human—is the saltwater or estuarine crocodile. Average-size males reach 17 feet (5 meters) and 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms), but specimens 23 feet (7 meters) long and weighing 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) are not uncommon.
Saltwater crocs, or "salties," as Australians affectionately refer to them, have an enormous range, populating the brackish and freshwater regions of eastern India, Southeast Asia, and northern Australia. They are excellent swimmers and have often been spotted far out at sea.
Classic opportunistic predators, they lurk patiently beneath the surface near the water's edge, waiting for potential prey to stop for a sip of water. They’ll feed on anything they can get their jaws on, including water buffalo, monkeys, wild boar, and even sharks. Without warning, they explode from the water with a thrash of their powerful tails, grasp their victim, and drag it back in, holding it under until the animal drowns.
Population estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 worldwide, and they are considered at low risk for extinction. But saltwater croc hides are valued above all other crocodilians, and illegal hunting, habitat loss, and antipathy toward the species because of its reputation as a man-eater continue to put pressure on the population.

Sand Tiger Shark

Sand sharks, also known as sand tigers and gray nurse sharks, have a deceivingly ferocious look. They are large-bodied and display a mouthful of sharp teeth that protrude in all directions, even when the mouth is shut. Despite this, they are a docile, non-aggressive species, known to attack humans only when bothered first.
Sand sharks are brownish-gray with rust-colored spots on top and white underneath. They have a flattened, cone-shaped snout and a distinctive, oblong tail with a notched, upper lobe that is significantly longer than the lobe below. Individuals range in size from 6.5 to 10.5 feet (2 to 3.2 meters) in length.
Their name comes from their tendency toward shoreline habitats, and they are often seen trolling the ocean floor in the surf zone, very close to shore. They are found in warm or temperate waters throughout the world's oceans, except the eastern Pacific.
Sand tigers are the only shark known to come to the surface and gulp air. They store the air in their stomachs, which allows them to float motionless in the water, seeking prey. They are voracious predators, feeding at night and generally staying close to the bottom. Their staple is small fish, but they will eat crustaceans and squid as well. They occasionally hunt in groups, and have even been known to attack full fishing nets.
Although this species is widespread and is not widely fished for food, it has one of the lowest reproduction rates of all sharks and is susceptible to even minimal population pressure. For this reason,it is listed as vulnerable and is protected in much of its range.

Bengal Tiger

Tigers are the largest members of the cat family and are renowned for their power and strength.
There were eight tiger subspecies at one time, but three became extinct during the 20th century. Over the last 100 years, hunting and forest destruction have reduced tiger populations from hundreds of thousands of animals to perhaps fewer than 2,500. Tigers are hunted as trophies, and also for body parts that are used in traditional Chinese medicine. All five remaining tiger subspecies are endangered, and many protection programs are in place.
Bengal tigers live in India and are sometimes called Indian tigers. They are the most common tiger and number about half of all wild tigers. Over many centuries they have become an important part of Indian tradition and lore.
Tigers live alone and aggressively scent-mark large territories to keep their rivals away. They are powerful nocturnal hunters that travel many miles to find buffalo, deer, wild pigs, and other large mammals. Tigers use their distinctive coats as camouflage (no two have exactly the same stripes). They lie in wait and creep close enough to attack their victims with a quick spring and a fatal pounce. A hungry tiger can eat as much as 60 pounds (27 kilograms) in one night, though they usually eat less.
Despite their fearsome reputation, most tigers avoid humans; however, a few do become dangerous maneaters. These animals are often sick and unable to hunt normally, or live in an area where their traditional prey has vanished.
Females give birth to litters of two to six cubs, which they raise with little or no help from the male. Cubs cannot hunt until they are 18 months old and remain with their mothers for two to three years, when they disperse to find their own territory.

Raccoon

Bandit-masked raccoons are a familiar sight just about everywhere, because they will eat just about anything. These ubiquitous mammals are found in forests, marshes, prairies, and even in cities. They are adaptable and use their dexterous front paws and long fingers to find and feast on a wide variety of fare.
In the natural world, raccoons snare a lot of their meals in the water. These nocturnal foragers use lightning-quick paws to grab crayfish, frogs, and other aquatic creatures. On land, they pluck mice and insects from their hiding places and raid nests for tasty eggs.
Raccoons also eat fruit and plants—including those grown in human gardens and farms. They will even open garbage cans to dine on the contents.
These ring-tailed animals are equally opportunistic when it comes to choosing a denning site. They may inhabit a tree hole, fallen log, or a house's attic. Females have one to seven cubs in early summer. The young raccoons often spend the first two months or so of their lives high in a tree hole. Later, mother and children move to the ground when the cubs begin to explore on their own.
Raccoons in the northern parts of their range gorge themselves in spring and summer to store up body fat. They then spend much of the winter asleep in a den. There are six other species of raccoons, in addition to the familiar northern (North American) raccoon. Most other species live on tropical islands.

White-Tailed Deer

deer family, are found from southern Canada to South America. In the heat of summer they typically inhabit fields and meadows using clumps of broad-leaved and coniferous forests for shade. During the winter they generally keep to forests, preferring coniferous stands that provide shelter from the harsh elements.
Adult white-tails have reddish-brown coats in summer which fade to a duller grayish-brown in winter. Male deer, called bucks, are easily recognizable in the summer and fall by their prominent set of antlers, which are grown annually and fall off in the winter. Only the bucks grow antlers, which bear a number of tines, or sharp points. During the mating season, also called the rut, bucks fight over territory by using their antlers in sparring matches.
Female deer, called does, give birth to one to three young at a time, usually in May or June and after a gestation period of seven months. Young deer, called fawns, wear a reddish-brown coat with white spots that helps them blend in with the forest.
White-tailed deer are herbivores, leisurely grazing on most available plant foods. Their stomachs allow them to digest a varied diet, including leaves, twigs, fruits and nuts, grass, corn, alfalfa, and even lichens and other fungi. Occasionally venturing out in the daylight hours, white-tailed deer are primarily nocturnal or crepuscular, browsing mainly at dawn and dusk.
In the wild, white-tails, particularly the young, are preyed upon by bobcats, mountain lions, and coyotes. They use speed and agility to outrun predators, sprinting up to 30 miles (48 kilometers) per hour and leaping as high as 10 feet (3 meters) and as far as 30 feet (9 meters) in a single bound.
Although previously depleted by unrestricted hunting in the United States, strict game-management measures have helped restore the white-tailed deer population.

Antarctic's Ice Shelves Melting From the Bottom Up

Antarctica's ice shelves are losing it.

Conventional wisdom holds that ice shelves—the seaward extension of glaciers on land—lose most of their mass by shedding icebergs. But new research finds that there's another weight-loss program at work—many of Antarctica's ice shelves are melting away from the bottom up.

Glacier experts have known for years that ice shelves melt at the boundary between the ice and the sea. But previous studies have only looked at individual glaciers and ice shelves in Greenland and Alaska, said Erin Pettit, a glacier expert at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks who was not involved in the new research.

A study published today in the journal Science has gone beyond those individual observations and found that about 55 percent of the mass lost from ice shelves in Antarctica is through melting at the ice-ocean boundary. (Learn more about The Big Thaw in National Geographic magazine.)

"This places more importance on the role of the ocean," said study leader Eric Rignot, a glacier expert with a joint appointment at the University of California, Irvine and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "If the ocean melts these ice shelves, it will affect the ice sheets on land."

That's because ice shelves act like plugs in a bottle, explained Rignot: They regulate the flow of ice from the glacier into the ocean. Without them, glaciers have been known to accelerate into the sea, contributing to rising water levels. (Related: "New York's Sea Level Plan: Will It Play in Miami?")

The results could have implications for how Antarctica changes due to global warming, which has already had a hand in melting in some parts of the continent.

"Continued warming of the ocean will slowly increase ice shelf thinning," the study authors wrote. And that could affect the ability of ice shelves to regulate the flow of glaciers into the ocean.

Big Losses From Smaller Packages

Using a combination of data from satellite observations, radar, and computer models, Rignot and colleagues measured ice shelf thickness and speed, and the net input of snowfall onto shelf surfaces between 2007 and 2008.

Rignot and team chose that time period because it had the most complete data on ice shelf speed.

The data suggested that 48 percent of the meltwater lost from ice shelves came from smaller shelves on the southeastern Pacific side of Antarctica. These smaller units account for only about eight percent of the total ice shelf cover in Antarctica.

The big shelves—Ross East, Ross West, Filchner, and Ronne—which account for 61 percent of the ice shelf cover in the Antarctic, contributed only about 15 percent of the meltwater in the scientists' analysis. (Explore Antarctica with this interactive map.)

Bottom Line

This was surprising, said Rignot: "Even the small ice shelves matter in the Antarctic."

The reason for this disproportionate loss from the smaller ice shelves is because the smaller shelves sit on relatively warmer water than the bigger shelves, Rignot said. (See pictures of a warming Antarctic.)

Researchers aren't sure how changing climates will affect ocean temperatures and currents in this area. But the bottom line, Rignot said, "is that the rate of melting is very sensitive to ocean temperature."

This sensitivity, especially on the southeastern Pacific side of the Antarctic, is worrisome, said the University of Alaska's Pettit—who is also a 2013 National Geographic Emerging Explorer—because it takes only a little change in temperature or ocean currents to create a reaction in this area of ice.

How Diving Mammals Stay Underwater for So Long

Imagine holding your breath while chasing down a giant squid (Architeuthis dux)—multi-tentacled monsters wielding suckers lined with tiny teeth—in freezing cold water, all in the dark. That would take a lot out of anybody, yet sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) do this day in and day out.

The ability to dive underwater for extended periods is a specialized feat marine and aquatic mammals have evolved over millions of years. Diving mammals will slow their heart rate, stop their breathing, and shunt blood flow from their extremities to the brain, heart, and muscles when starting a dive. (Related: "Can Diving Mammals Avoid the Bends?")

But champion divers, such as elephant seals, can hold their breath for about two hours. "It was known that they rely on internal oxygen stores when they're down there," said Michael Berenbrink, a zoologist at the University of Liverpool, England, who specializes in how animals function.

But there was something else going on in the bodies of these animals that researchers were missing, until now.

So what's new? A study published June 13 in the journal Science reports that diving mammals—including whales, seals, otters, and even beavers and muskrats—have positively charged oxygen-binding proteins, called myoglobin, in their muscles.

This positive characteristic allows the animals to pack much more myoglobin into their bodies than other mammals, such as humans—and enables diving mammals to keep a larger store of oxygen on which to draw while underwater.

Why is it important? Packing too many proteins together can be problematic, explained Berenbrink, a study co-author, because they clump when they get too close to each other.

"This [can cause] serious diseases," he added. In humans, ailments like diabetes and Alzheimer's can result.

But myoglobin is ten times more concentrated in the muscles of diving mammals than it is in human muscles, Berenbrink said.

Since like charges repel each other—think of trying to push together the sides of two magnets with the same charge—having positively charged myoglobin keeps the proteins from sticking to each other.

What does this mean? Berenbrink and colleagues found this positive charge in the myoglobin of all the diving mammals they examined, although some had larger positive charges than others.

This study provides a nice example of convergent evolution—where different lineages living in similar environments evolve the same answer to a common problem, wrote Randall Davis, a biologist who studies the physiology and behavior of marine birds and mammals at Texas A&M University in Galveston, in an email.

"[And it] sheds light on the origins of myoglobin and its role in extending breath-hold duration in aquatic mammals," said Davis, who was not involved in the study.

"It will raise some controversy, but at the same time I think it's going to stimulate more research, which I couldn't be more pleased about," said Jerry Kooyman, an animal physiologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego who was not involved in the study.

Kooyman cautions that some of what’s known about aspects of diving behavior, such as dive duration, is based on small sample sizes. So researchers must be careful when trying to draw connections between diving ability and how much myoglobin a species can claim.

What's next? Berenbrink hopes to look at the myoglobin in humans from societies with a history of diving behavior to see if they show similar changes in their oxygen-binding protein.

"There are ethnic groups around the world who have relied on diving to get food. Some of these humans can stay underwater for a very long time," he said.

Musk-Ox

Musk-oxen live in the frozen Arctic and roam the tundra in search of the roots, mosses, and lichens that sustain them. In winter, they use their hooves to dig through snow to graze on these plants. During the summer, they supplement their diet with Arctic flowers and grasses, often feeding near water.
These animals have inhabited the Arctic for many thousands of years, and their long shaggy hair is well adapted to the frigid climate. The outer hairs, called guard hairs, cover a second, shorter undercoat that provides additional insulation in winter. This undercoat falls out when temperatures climb at winter's end.
Female musk-oxen carry their calves during an eight-month pregnancy, but after birth there is little time to waste. The infants are able to keep up with their mothers and the rest of the herd within a few hours.
Musk-oxen are herd animals, and groups of two or three dozen animals are sometimes led by a single female. Herds use cooperation to deal with predation by wolves or dogs. When threatened, they "circle the wagons" and array themselves with their young in the middle and their sharp horns facing outward toward their foes. A cornered musk-ox can be a fearsome enemy, charging with its massive bulk and attempting to use its horns to deadly effect.
Such defenses are not terribly effective against human hunters, who killed great numbers of musk-oxen for their hides and meat. Today, legislation protects herds in Alaska, Norway, and Siberia, where the animals live on preserves.

Nile Crocodile

The Nile crocodile has a somewhat deserved reputation as a vicious man-eater. The proximity of much of its habitat to people means run-ins are frequent. And its virtually indiscriminate diet means a villager washing clothes by a riverbank might look just as tasty as a migrating wildebeest. Firm numbers are sketchy, but estimates are that up to 200 people may die each year in the jaws of a Nile croc.
Africa's largest crocodilian, these primordial brutes reach a maximum size of about 20 feet (6 meters) and can weigh up to 1,650 pounds (730 kilograms). Average sizes, though, are more in the range of 16 feet (5 meters) and 500 pounds (225 kilograms). They live throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the Nile Basin, and Madagascar in rivers, freshwater marshes, and mangrove swamps.
The diet of the Nile crocodile is mainly fish, but it will attack almost anything unfortunate enough to cross its path, including zebras, small hippos, porcupines, birds, and other crocodiles. It will also scavenge carrion, and can eat up to half its body weight at a feeding.
One unusual characteristic of this fearsome predator is its caring nature as a parent. Where most reptiles lay their eggs and move on, mother and father Nile crocs ferociously guard their nests until the eggs hatch, and they will often roll the eggs gently in their mouths to help hatching babies emerge.
Hunted close to extinction in the 1940s through the 1960s, local and international protections have helped them rebound in most areas. In some regions, though, pollution, hunting, and habitat loss have severely depleted their numbers.

North American River Otter

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The playful North American river otter is equally at home in the water and on land. It makes its home in a burrow near the water's edge, and can thrive in river, lake, swamp, or estuary ecosystems. Otter abodes feature numerous tunnels—one of which usually allows them to come and go from the water.
These otters swim by propelling themselves with their powerful tails and flexing their long bodies. They also have webbed feet, water repellent fur to keep them dry and warm, and nostrils and ears that close in the water. They remain active in winter, using ice holes to surface and breathe. They can hold their breath underwater for some eight minutes.
River otters, members of the weasel family, hunt at night and feed on whatever might be available. Fish are a favorite food, but they also eat amphibians, turtles, and crayfish.
On land, river otters can bound and run quite well, if not quite as effectively as they swim. They love to playfully slide down snow-covered, icy, or muddy hills—often ending with a splash in the water. Otter families of mother and children can be seen enjoying such fun, which also teaches survival skills.
Males do not help raise young otters. Females retreat to their underground dens to deliver litters of one to six young. When the young are only about two months old, they get an advanced swimming lesson—their mother pushes them into the water. Otters are natural swimmers and, with parental supervision, they soon get the hang of it.
These otters' range has been greatly reduced by habitat loss, though they exist in such numbers that they are trapped in some locales. Otters are also very sensitive to environmental pollution.

Nudibranch

The bottom-dwelling, jelly-bodied nudibranch (NEW-dih-bronk) might seem an unlikely canvas for Mother Nature to express her wildest indulgences of color and form. But these shell-less mollusks, part of the sea slug family, bear some of the most fascinating shapes, sumptuous hues, and intricate patterns of any animal on Earth.
There are more than 3,000 known species of nudibranch, and new ones are being identified almost daily. They are found throughout the world's oceans, but are most abundant in shallow, tropical waters. Their scientific name, Nudibranchia, means naked gills, and describes the feathery gills and horns that most wear on their backs.
Generally oblong in shape, nudibranchs can be thick or flattened, long or short, ornately colored or drab to match their surroundings. They can grow as small as 0.25 inches (6 millimeters) or as large as 12 inches (31 centimeters) long.
They are carnivores that slowly ply their range grazing on algae, sponges, anemones, corals, barnacles, and even other nudibranchs. To identify prey, they have two highly sensitive tentacles, called rhinophores, located on top of their heads. Nudibranchs derive their coloring from the food they eat, which helps in camouflage, and some even retain the foul-tasting poisons of their prey and secrete them as a defense against predators.
Nudibranchs are simultaneous hermaphrodites, and can mate with any other mature member of their species. Their lifespan varies widely, with some living less than a month, and others living up to one year.

Nurse Shark

The scientific name for the nurse shark sounds like something Bilbo Baggins might have said to summon elves to his rescue: Ginglymostoma cirratum. Actually the name is a mix of Greek and Latin and means "curled, hinged mouth" to describe this shark's somewhat puckered appearance.
The origin of the name "nurse shark" is unclear. It may come from the sucking sound they make when hunting for prey in the sand, which vaguely resembles that of a nursing baby. Or it may derive from an archaic word, nusse, meaning cat shark. The most likely theory though is that the name comes from the Old English word for sea-floor shark: hurse.
Nurse sharks are slow-moving bottom-dwellers and are, for the most part, harmless to humans. However, they can be huge—up to 14 feet (4.3 meters)—and have very strong jaws filled with thousands of tiny, serrated teeth, and will bite defensively if stepped on or bothered by divers who assume they’re docile.
They use their strong jaws to crush and eat shellfish and even coral, but prefer to dine on fish, shrimp, and squid. They are gray-brown and have distinctive tail fins that can be up to one-fourth their total length. Unlike most other sharks, nurses are smooth to the touch.
Nurse sharks are found in the warm, shallow waters of the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans. They are abundant throughout their range and have no special conservation status, although the closeness of their habit to human activities is putting pressure on the species.

Nutria

Nutria are large, web-footed rodents that are more agile in the water than on land. They live in burrows, or nests, never far from the water. Nutria may inhabit a riverbank or lakeshore, or dwell in the midst of wetlands. They are strong swimmers and can remain submerged for as long as five minutes.
Nutria (also called coypu) are varied eaters, most fond of aquatic plants and roots. They also feast on small creatures such as snails or mussels.
Nutria can be rather social animals and sometimes live in large colonies, reproducing prolifically. Females have two or three litters every year, each consisting of five to seven young. These animals mature quickly and remain with their mothers for only a month or two. In some areas, booming nutria populations have become troublesome as the animals develop a taste for farm fare.
The nutria's yellow or brown outer hair looks shaggy and unappealing, but it covers a lush fur undercoat, also called nutria, that is popular for use in clothing. Nutria are farmed and trapped for this fur.
Nutria once lived only in southern South America, but they have been domesticated as fur animals and transplanted around the world. In many areas, including Canada and more than a dozen U.S. states, fur farm escapees quickly establish large wild populations near their new homes.

Ocelot

Twice the size of the average house cat, the ocelot is a sleek animal with a gorgeous dappled coat. These largely nocturnal cats use keen sight and hearing to hunt rabbits, rodents, iguanas, fish, and frogs. They also take to the trees and stalk monkeys or birds. Unlike many cats, they do not avoid water and can swim well.
Like other cats, ocelots are adapted for eating meat. They have pointed fangs used to deliver a killing bite, and sharp back teeth that can tear food like scissors. Ocelots do not have teeth appropriate for chewing, so they tear their food to pieces and swallow it whole. Their raspy tongues can clean a bone of every last tasty morsel.
Many ocelots live under the leafy canopies of South American rain forests, but they also inhabit brushlands and can be found as far north as Texas. These cats can adapt to human habitats and are sometimes found in the vicinity of villages or other settlements.
Ocelots' fine fur has made them the target of countless hunters, and in many areas they are quite rare, including Texas, where they are endangered. Ocelots are protected in the United States and most other countries where they live.
Female ocelots have litters of two or three darkly colored kittens. In northern locations females den in the autumn, while in tropical climes the breeding season may not be fixed.

Olive Ridley Sea Turtle

The olive ridley turtle is named for the generally greenish color of its skin and shell, or carapace. It is closely related to the Kemp’s ridley, with the primary distinction being that olive ridleys are found only in warmer waters, including the southern Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Olive and Kemp’s ridleys are the smallest of the sea turtles, weighing up to 100 pounds (45 kilograms) and reaching only about 2 feet (65 centimeters) in shell length. The olive ridley has a slightly smaller head and smaller shell than the Kemp’s.
These turtles are solitary, preferring the open ocean. They migrate hundreds or even thousands of miles every year, and come together as a group only once a year for the arribada, when females return to the beaches where they hatched and lumber onshore, sometimes in the thousands, to nest.
Olive ridleys have nesting sites all over the world, on tropical and subtropical beaches. During nesting, they use the wind and the tide to help them reach the beach. Females lay about a hundred eggs, but may nest up to three times a year. The nesting season is from June to December.
The olive ridley is mostly carnivorous, feeding on such creatures as jellyfish, snails, crabs, and shrimp. They will occasionally eat algae and seaweed as well. Hatchlings, most of which perish before reaching the ocean, are preyed on by crabs, raccoons, pigs, snakes, and birds, among others. Adults are often taken by sharks.
Though the olive ridley is widely considered the most abundant of the marine turtles, by all estimates, it is in trouble. Rough estimates put the worldwide population of nesting females at about 800,000, but its numbers, particularly in the western Atlantic, have declined precipitously. The United States lists the western Atlantic population of olive ridleys as endangered and all other populations as threatened.
Many governments have protections for olive ridleys, but still, eggs are taken and nesting females are slaughtered for their meat and skin. Fishing nets also take a large toll, frequently snagging and drowning these turtles.

Orangutan

The Malay word orangutan means "person of the forest." These long-haired, orangish primates, found only in Sumatra and Borneo, are highly intelligent and are close relatives of humans.
Orangutans have an enormous arm span. A male may stretch his arms some 7 feet (2 meters) from fingertip to fingertip—a reach considerably longer than his standing height of about 5 feet (1.5 meters). When orangutans do stand, their hands nearly touch the ground.
Orangutans' arms are well suited to their lifestyle because they spend much of their time (some 90 percent) in the trees of their tropical rain forest home. They even sleep aloft in nests of leafy branches. They use large leaves as umbrellas and shelters to protect themselves from the common rains.
These cerebral primates forage for food during daylight hours. Most of their diet consists of fruit and leaves gathered from rain forest trees. They also eat bark, insects and, on rare occasions, meat.
Orangutans are more solitary than other apes. Males are loners. As they move through the forest they make plenty of rumbling, howling calls to ensure that they stay out of each other's way. The "long call" can be heard 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) away.
Mothers and their young, however, share a strong bond. Infants will stay with their mothers for some six or seven years until they develop the skills to survive on their own. Female orangutans give birth only once every eight years—the longest time period of any animal. The animals are long-lived and have survived as long as 60 years in captivity.
Because orangutans live in only a few places, and because they are so dependent upon trees, they are particularly susceptible to logging in these areas. Unfortunately, deforestation and other human activities, such as hunting, have placed the orangutan in danger of extinction.

Opossum

There are more than 60 different species of opossum, which are often called possums. The most notable is the Virginia opossum or common opossum—the only marsupial (pouched mammal) found in the United States and Canada.

A female opossum gives birth to helpless young as tiny as honeybees. Babies immediately crawl into the mother's pouch, where they continue to develop. As they get larger, they will go in and out of the pouch and sometimes ride on the mother's back as she hunts for food. Opossums may give birth to as many as 20 babies in a litter, but fewer than half of them survive. Some never even make it as far as the pouch.

Opossums are scavengers, and they often visit human homes or settlements to raid garbage cans, dumpsters, and other containers. They are attracted to carrion and can often be spotted near roadkill. Opossums also eat grass, nuts, and fruit. They will hunt mice, birds, insects, worms, snakes, and even chickens.

These animals are most famous for "playing possum." When threatened by dogs, foxes, or bobcats, opossums sometimes flop onto their sides and lie on the ground with their eyes closed or staring fixedly into space. They extend their tongues and generally appear to be dead. This ploy may put a predator off its guard and allow the opossum an opportunity to make its escape.

Opossums are excellent tree climbers and spend much of their time aloft. They are aided in this by sharp claws, which dig into bark, and by a long prehensile (gripping) tail that can be used as an extra limb. Opossums nest in tree holes or in dens made by other animals.

These animals are widespread and are sometimes hunted as food, particularly in the southern United States.

California's 'Dwarf' Fox Is Back From the Brink

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Kneeling in the dirt beneath a sycamore tree, Christie Boser cradled the endangered island fox in her lap, firmly gripping its neck with a gloved hand while using the other to slip on a green blindfold that would keep the animal calm.
It had been captured the night before, lured into a metal cage by the scent of cat food and the promise of an easy meal. After weighing the creature, Boser ran a flea comb through its reddish-gray fur, massaged and petted its lean body, and probed its mouth to gauge its condition.
"All his claws look nice and pretty ... but he has a broken canine," said Boser, a scientist with the Nature Conservancy and the restoration manager on Santa Cruz Island, the largest in the chain of eight Channel Islands off the coast of California.
After a brief exam, Boser released the yearling fox, which scampered off and vanished into some nearby shrubs.
It wasn't too long ago that such a routine checkup was a lot less commonplace. One of America's rarest mammals, found only on six Channel Islands, the island fox was driven nearly to extinction in the 1990s by predatory golden eagles. By 1999, there were only about 85 island foxes left on Santa Cruz Island, while nearby San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands were each down to about 15.
Today, the species is on the verge of a dramatic recovery—one of the fastest in the history of the Endangered Species Act—with nearly 2,500 on the Channel Islands.
"They were listed as endangered in 2004, and they're pretty much ready to come off that list at this point," said Timothy Coonan, a biologist with the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), which works with the Nature Conservancy to preserve resources on Santa Cruz Island.
Threat From the Skies
Scientists think the island fox is descended from mainland gray foxes that arrived on the Channel Islands sometime between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, and that the animal's body shrank in size because of limited space and resources.
"It's probably the best known example of island dwarfism," Coonan said.
On the islands, the smaller foxes quickly differentiated into six new subspecies. Free from predators, they thrived until until the 1990s, when golden eagles arrived.
Historically, golden eagles never bred on the Channel Islands, but some do occasionally make the 25-mile (40-kilometer) trek from the California mainland.
In previous times, golden eagles arriving on the Channel Islands would have likely been chased off by bald eagles, which are intensely territorial. But the Channel Islands' bald eagles had been decimated decades earlier by the insecticide DDT, Coonan explained. From the 1940s to about the 1970s, chemical companies discharged millions of pounds of DDT into the ocean, where it contaminated the bald eagle's marine food supply.
In the '90s, golden eagles were drawn to Santa Cruz Island by its burgeoning feral pig population. The descendents of domestic farm animals brought to the island in the 1850s, the pigs provided a steady food source for the raptors.
"What the golden eagles were really depending on were the pigs. The foxes were kind of an ancillary snack," said Kate Faulkner, chief of natural resources management for Channel Islands National Park.
The loss of bald eagles, the arrival of golden eagles, and the island's thriving feral pig population created "a perfect storm of events" that nearly doomed the island foxes, Coonan said.
Sleepy Juice and Robo-Dogs
The crisis spurred a recovery effort by the NPS and the Nature Conservancy, which owns 76 percent of Santa Cruz Island. "We went to the wall on the island foxes," Coonan said. "In the park services, we're mandated to save everything entrusted to our stewardship. If we let the island foxes go extinct, we might as well not be here managing anything."

Flowers on Santa Cruz Island, home of California's 'dwarf' fox.

Photograph by Rich Reid, National Geographic

Captive-breeding programs were established on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel islands. Contract hunters were brought in to remove the non-native feral pigs and sheep, which had stripped the islands of vegetative cover for the foxes.
And bald eagles—which feed mainly on fish and don't affect the foxes—were slowly reestablished on the islands while golden eagles were captured and released back on the mainland.
That last task proved especially challenging. "The last golden eagle pair was really tricky to get because they had seen all their buddies get captured," said the Nature Conservancy's Boser.
After increasingly creative attempts to catch the birds—including using a fake egg filled with a sedative that Boser called "sleepy juice," and a robotic dog dressed up to look like a fox, the final golden eagle pair was netted by helicopters in 2006. In total, 44 golden eagles were removed from the islands.
The night the last golden eagles were captured, Boser and her colleagues celebrated atop a mountain on Santa Cruz Island. "A collective cheer echoed across the Santa Barbara Channel," Boser said.
Swift Recovery
With the feral pigs and the golden eagles gone, the fox population rebounded—and with a swiftness that stunned even the scientists and conservationists involved.
Today there are about 1,300 foxes on Santa Cruz Island, 500 on San Miguel Island, and 600 on Santa Rosa Island, with each population having a 90 percent annual survival rate.
"It's a strange thing," Coonan said. "The official recovery plan has not even been finalized [by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service], and yet these populations are doing so well that they can come off the endangered species list."
Brian Hudgens, a research ecologist at the Institute for Wildlife Studies, which ran the fox captive-breeding program, agreed that some of island fox subspecies are just about ready for delisting.
"For the subspecies on San Miguel and Santa Cruz, their populations are large enough and they are doing well enough that they are no longer in danger," Hudgens said. "Santa Rosa is almost there. It'll probably take a couple more years."
The work to save the island fox is far from over, however. The Nature Conservancy and the NPS continue to monitor the foxes, keeping an eye out for dangers like pathogens and parasites, as well as looming threats such as climate change.
Another potential concern is genetic health. Despite rebounding to their predecline numbers, the species was so severely culled that the amount of variation in its gene pool might have been compromised.
Such a "population bottleneck" could impact the fox's ability to deal with disease or environmental change, said Gary Roemer, a biologist at New Mexico State University who has studied the island foxes.
One controversial solution would be to interbreed different subspecies of island foxes, Roemer said. A similar strategy was recently used to bolster the genetic health of Florida panthers, drawing on DNA from cougars from Texas.
Coonan said he is happy to shift from worrying about the fate of the foxes to monitoring their health.
"It's actually a great stage to be here in the island recovery," he said. "I can sleep a little bit more at night because of everything that's gone on."

The Great White Whale Fight

The Georgia Aquarium is proposing to import 18 white whales, belugas, captured in Russia's Sea of Okhotsk—three to keep for itself, the rest to distribute to five other marine parks.
This reverses a trend. There have been no imports of wild-caught whales or dolphins into the United States for 20 years. One constraint has been the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which requires that captures be humane and not endanger wild populations—a standard that the marine parks find difficult to meet. Another has been a rise in public opposition to whale captivity, a growing PR problem for the industry that may well prove existential.
The beluga proposal, predictably, has ignited controversy. Environmental and animal-rights organizations argue that these 18 wild-caught whales are destined for lives of isolation, sensory deprivation, and mental derangement. The environmentalists suspect that the belugas may just be pump-primers—Trojan whales, in effect—pawns in an industry strategy to resume the interrupted flow of killer whales, the prime moneymakers in marine theme parks.
The industry, for its part, argues that the Russian belugas were captured humanely, that their importation is necessary to ensure that the captive beluga population continues to grow, and that the display of belugas in theme parks is educational and thereby promotes conservation of the species.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for approving the beluga permit, has concluded its hearings and closed the public comment period. The decision could come any day. No one believes that NMFS, or "Nymphs" as everyone calls the agency, relishes this chore. Responsibility for the welfare of marine mammals has always been an odd fit at NMFS, a branch of the Department of Commerce concerned primarily with fisheries. No matter which way it decides the beluga question, NMFS is certain to be sued.
Sea Canary
"Beluga" is a slight tweak of the Russian word for this whale, byeluga, and it derives from byeley, "white." (Beluga is also the Russian word for sturgeon, which doubtless has caused much confusion, and many bad caviar jokes, in Russian conversation over the centuries.) The Canadian Inuit name is kenalogak, "white whale." The scientific name is Delphinapterus leucas, "white dolphin without fins." The whiteness of the whale, for all humanity, is its most striking and eerie feature.

Belugas in the wild, pictured here in an estuary of Canada’s Cunningham River in the Northwest Territories, are known as the “canaries of the sea” because of their whistles and chirps.

Photograph by Gunter Ziesler, Getty Images

The second-most striking characteristic is the voice. The beluga is the most voluble of all cetaceans. The old sailors called it the "sea canary" for its astounding repertoire of twitters, tweets, whistles, clicks, barks, chirps, shrieks, creaks, raspberries, and ratchet sounds. The whale does uncanny frog, parrot, kazoo, and Roman candle imitations, despite the disadvantage of never having heard any of these noises in the original version. For goofy, expressive vocal flatulence, a small pod of belugas can beat the Cub Scouts in any farting contest you ever heard around a campfire. A large pod passes by like some kind of lunatic orchestra.
The white whale belongs with another midsize arctic whale, the narwhal, in a small two-species family, the Monodontidae. This name, "the one-tooths," refers to the long spiral tusk of the narwhal—its sole dentition and the origin of the myth of the unicorn—and slights the other half of the family, badly shortchanging the beluga, which can have as many as 22 teeth and never fewer than 16.
In Old Norse narwhal means "corpse whale." The gray and mottled back looked to Norse seamen like a drowned Viking a long time afloat. If the narwhal is the corpse, then the beluga is, perhaps, the luminous white spirit that has departed the body, leaving the helical nine-foot-long tusk behind.
The beluga is a beautiful creature. It is as bright as an epiphany, with symbol written all over it. And yet, watching belugas, it's possible to understand a little of what Melville struggles to explain in Chapter XLII of Moby Dick: "It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me."
Sonic Imagery
Belugas grow to 15 feet long and can weigh a ton and a half. The short beak is overhung by a bulbous forehead, or "melon," the precursor, by tens of millions of years, of the sonar dome on a submarine. This organ produces and focuses the beluga's sound, both the click-trains of its echolocation and the whistles and chirps of its vocalization. The melon changes shape dramatically as the beluga varies its enunciation.
In the brains of whales and dolphins, which are larger than our own, most of the computing power goes not to mathematics, rhymed couplets, and string theory—so far as we know—but to interpreting rebounding click-trains. The beluga, in its mind's ear, watches sonic imagery of finer grain than anything a Navy sonar technician sees on his screen. Among other refinements, the sonar of belugas and all other toothed whales has a Doppler function: Changes in pitch signal whether its prey fish is coming or going.
Where most whales and dolphins have fused cervical vertebrae—the spine stiffened for more power in the swimming stroke—the beluga has retained an unusual degree of articulation in the neck. It nods emphatically and cranes to look at things. This flexibility, along with the beluga's garrulous commentary on everything it sees, suggests an unusual degree of curiosity—at least, to human beings. The body language and wordiness of human curiosity happen to converge with the beluga's, and we are a species that jumps to conclusions.
The beluga has no dorsal fin, just a slight spinal ridge behind the midpoint of the back. The gestation period is 14 months. The calf, gray at birth, stays with its mother for two years, turning blue-gray as a juvenile and, finally, upon reaching sexual maturity, white.
Belugas are gregarious, sometimes forming aggregations of more than a thousand in the estuaries where they calve in summer. These gathering places—along the margins of the Sea of Okhotsk, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Hudson Bay, and the Mackenzie Delta—would have made happy hunting grounds for monomaniacal wooden-legged Yankee whaling captains. In these shallows Ahab would never have had to ask, "Hast seen the white whale?"
Why "Humane" Capture Is Hard to Define
If the Georgia Aquarium is to import 18 belugas, the National Marine Fisheries Service requires that the aquarium and its allied marine parks meet a burden of proof. Of the criteria spelled out by the NMFS Office of Protected Resources, most of the debate has centered on two: "The proposed activity is humane and does not present any unnecessary risks to the health and welfare of marine mammals," reads the first. "The proposed activity by itself or in combination with other activities will not likely have a significant adverse impact on the species or stock," reads the second.
On the first criterion, humaneness, there is an unfortunate vagueness in the language of the law. At the beluga hearings, Jennifer Skidmore of NMFS noted that "'humane' is defined in the MMPA as the method that involves the least possible degree of pain and suffering practicable." This does not chart a clear path to humaneness. The least possible degree of pain and suffering practicable might be a great deal of pain and suffering indeed.
(The absence of clear guidelines here is especially problematic when it comes to NMFS. Left to its own interpretations, the agency has a poor record in preventing pain and suffering in whales and dolphins—not just in its regulation of captures for marine parks but also in its oversight of tuna fleets. Tuna seiners killed hundreds of thousands of dolphins annually as bycatch until the NMFS was sued into enforcing compliance with MMPA.)
To address the second criterion—the impact on the species or stock—the Ocean Park Corporation, on behalf of the marine parks, asked the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to convene an independent panel. The panel's mission, paid for by the industry, was to review the Russian research on the stock in question—the belugas in the Sakhalin-Amur region of the Sea of Okhotsk.
If the marine parks, for their sponsorship money, hoped for a rosy or unequivocal answer on the status of the stock, the IUCN did not oblige.
Caveats and Concerns
The scientists of the IUCN panel expressed many concerns with the methods of their Russian counterparts, particularly those of the aerial survey program. The survey methods were poorly described, the panel reported. It was difficult to discern which of three analysis methods applied to which flown segment. The analysis software, Belukha2, "is not described in a way that inspires complete confidence in its methods or algorithms." Flight segments were not randomly placed, but instead were intentionally flown over known concentrations of belugas, or over areas where concentrations were expected. This is not the way to get unbiased results, obviously. The Russian approach could only skew the numbers upward.
The IUCN report is hedged everywhere with reservations, caveats, and cautions. If any certainty emerges, it is that the status of the Sakhalin-Amur stock is uncertain.
But we do know some things. We know that belugas are threatened across the entire Arctic by overhunting, development, vessel traffic, pollution, and climate change. In 1999 the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission concluded that only 4 of 29 beluga populations worldwide are stable. The belugas of the Sea of Okhotsk were nearly wiped out by overhunting beginning in the 1930s, and by the 1960s commercial white-whaling ceased, for too few belugas could be found.
The numbers have rebounded since, and the Okhotsk stocks are again under pressure from commercial and indigenous whaling, from ship strikes and fishing entanglements, and from live-captures for oceanaria. The Sakhalin-Amur stock has been disproportionately hit by live-captures. The work of assessing the size and condition of this stock is incomplete, but it is certain that it has fallen to less than 60 percent of its original numbers and thus meets the definition of a "depleted" stock under the MMPA.
We know, too, that belugas do poorly in captivity, living shortened lives. Of the 71 that have been captive in the six marine parks now seeking Russian belugas, 34 have died. When Canada banned the practice in 1992, Russia became the last place on Earth where belugas can be captured for display. For the marine parks, until their beluga husbandry improves and they learn how to encourage their white whales to live longer and breed more enthusiastically in captivity, Russia is the only hope.
The IUCN panel, in concluding its report, thanks Ocean Park Corporation, noting that it is rare for marine parks, beneficiaries of the trade in cetaceans, to invest in the research and monitoring necessary to ensure long-term sustainability. It is rare indeed, and admirable.
And yet the depth and sincerity of the industry's dedication to science and sustainability is not beyond question. The marine parks commissioned the capture of the 18 belugas over a five-year period, stashing them in tanks by the Black Sea, well before the results of the scientific assessment were in, before public hearings, and before any permit was granted. With what would appear to be calculation, they have presented the NMFS with a fait accompli.
From Dolphin Trainer to Dolphin Advocate
"What the [Georgia] Aquarium is trying to do is hypocritical," Ric O'Barry, director of the Dolphin Project, told me. "They say they want to display the belugas so they can educate the public, sensitize the public, and the public will protect the belugas after that. Protect them from whom? The aquarium is the only one bothering them. They captured them. They threw them in a truck. They want to throw them in an airplane and bring them to their building in Atlanta, Georgia, so that they can teach respect for nature. What is wrong with that picture?"
O'Barry is a turncoat. A pioneer in the trapping and training of dolphins for marine parks, he was also the head trainer for the squad of captive female dolphins who starred as Flipper, the male bottlenose dolphin of the 1960s television series Flipper. (Female dolphins are preferred as thespians. Males are scene-killers, prone to frequent and untimely erections.)
As his career advanced, O'Barry began to question the morality of his work. Was it right to own dolphins? His moment of truth came after cancellation of the television series, when Kathy, his favorite among the females playing Flipper, fell ill in a small tank and died in his arms. A week later he was in jail in Bimini, having attempted to free a dolphin named Charley Brown from his pen. And so O'Barry's lifework has gone ever since: 180 degrees off its direction at the start.
"There is no such thing as a humane capture," he said. "That's an oxymoron. I've captured more than a hundred dolphins myself, so I know what I'm talking about. It's an extremely violent procedure. They're separated from families. Many die during the process."
O'Barry is the protagonist of The Cove, which won the 2010 Academy Award for best documentary. With camouflaged cameras, O'Barry and the filmmakers recorded the slaughter of dolphins at Taiji, Japan, the fishermen wielding knives and spears, the dolphins flailing and screaming, the killing cove turning red with blood. Collectors from marine parks routinely showed up at Taiji, buying dolphins selected from among the doomed. When the bloody footage of the cove came to light, the marine parks argued that they had rescued, by their purchases, a few lucky dolphins from certain death. O'Barry and his allies countered that the marine parks, by the high prices they paid for "rescued" dolphins, subsidized the hunt; the oceanaria were not white knights—they were participants.

Ric O’Barry has gone from being a dolphin trainer, working with the animals who appeared on TV’s Flipper, to being a dolphin activist, protesting the hunting and capture of the marine animals.

Photograph by SHINGO ITO, AFP

David Phillips and Mark Palmer of Earth Island Institute, O'Barry's colleagues in the campaign against the Taiji kill, suggest that the lesson of the bloody cove is not just the appetite of the marine parks for wild whales and dolphins, but also the judgment of the National Marine Fisheries Service. For years the NMFS granted import permits for Taiji dolphins, accepting the assertions of the marine parks that the Taiji captures were humane. If the agency is to issue a permit for the 18 belugas, it will have to depend on similar assertions by the Russians, in particular the testimony of the beluga entrepreneur Nicolay Marchenko, who was hired by the marine parks to do the captures, and who has sent 31 slaughtered belugas from this same Sakhalin-Amur stock as shipments of meat to Japan.
The End of the Whale's Song
The Flipper of my own career—the cinematic whale—was Keiko, the killer whale in the movie Free Willy. I am his biographer. In researching Keiko's early life, I learned that soon after his capture in Iceland, while still a calf, he shut down his echolocation. This sudden silence is common among dolphins and other toothed whales in captivity. The click-trains ricochet around the tank, the walls become an acoustic hall of mirrors, and the whale gives up.
This made me curious about belugas. In their American cages, would these Russian sea canaries continue to sing? As a trainer, Ric O'Barry worked with only one beluga, but he has seen many other species of whale in transition to captivity, so I put the question to him.
"Well, they stop singing. That's what happens," he said. "That part of their life is over. You're talking about a sonic creature, a creature whose primary sense is sound, putting them in a concrete box. You wouldn't do that to a snake. If you go to the Atlanta Zoo, or the Miami Zoo, and take a look at the snake exhibit, you will see that the snake is given more consideration than any dolphin in captivity. In the snake exhibit, the snake has some grass in the habitat. It has some rocks. It has tree limbs to climb on. Go to the Georgia Aquarium and put your head underwater with your face mask on, and you'll see that there's nothing inside this box except water and a drain. It's just a bare concrete box. You wouldn't do that to a snake. So why would we do it to dolphins?"
A Captive Life
However the statutory questions on the Russian belugas are decided by the National Marine Fisheries Service—whether the agency grants or denies the import permit—the larger questions, the meta-questions, will remain.
The law, in specifying that whale and dolphin captures must be humane, implies that such a thing is possible. But is it really? Can it ever be humane to chase a sentient, gregarious, highly social creature like the beluga—a wild animal with strong family ties, a long juvenile dependency period, and an obligate relationship with Arctic ice—into the shallows, net selected members of the pod, separate juveniles from their mothers, truck the captives 4,350 miles (7,000 kilometers) to holding tanks on the Black Sea, detain them in Mother Russia for as long as six years, and then disperse them by airplane to concrete tanks in Florida, Georgia, Connecticut, and Japan?
The NMFS Office of Protected Resources, in its stipulation that "the applicant's qualifications, facilities, and resources must be adequate for the proper care and maintenance of the marine mammal," implies that proper care is an attainable standard. But is it? Can a creature that has known no walls or boundaries, neither in its individual life nor in the history of its species, be properly cared for in the confines of a tank?

A beluga whale catches a visitor’s eye at the Vancouver Aquarium. The facility once would capture cetaceans from the wild for display but halted this practice in 1996.

Photograph by Chris Cheadle, Getty Images

The language of the Marine Mammal Protection Act makes clear that it was the intent and insistence of Congress that any marine mammals on display in marine parks serve an educational purpose. That's the law. But did Congress really think this provision through? What sort of education do captive marine mammals provide? Is it natural history that the crowds learn, in the bleachers above oceanarium tanks, or unnatural history? In the wild, belugas do not breach—do not leap above the surface—but in marine parks they are trained to do so. In the wild, belugas do not swim in tandem with trainers in wetsuits riding them like water skis, a foot on either back. Wild belugas do not juggle. In the wild, belugas do not try to talk like humans—a phenomenon first observed in the U.S. Navy beluga named NOC, who learned to alter his normal vocal mechanisms, drop his voice a couple of octaves, and sing what sounds like a drunken nursery rhyme.
The popping buzz that a captive beluga delivers on cue, poolside, is not a sound called "popcorn," as Shedd Aquarium trainers inform young Chicagoans. That buzz is the click-train of echolocation. It was meant not to beg for a food reward in front of a crowd, but to target fast wild fish in the open ocean.
What sort of education do these behaviors offer?
And what is the larger lesson being taught? That marine mammals are here for our entertainment? That human dominance over sea life is to be celebrated? That cuteness is a virtue worthy of protection? That wild whales will be respected, and their populations protected, once their captive cousins can be taught to do tricks?
Are these the right lessons, or exactly the wrong?
"They Are Other Nations"
In National Geographic assignments over the years, I have spent hundreds of hours underwater with many wild cetaceans: blue whales, gray whales, sperm whales, humpback whales, dense-beaked whales, pilot whales, melon-headed whales, killer whales; spinner, spotted, bottlenose, and rough-toothed dolphins. I have come to a conclusion shared by every National Geographic photographer who has ever rolled off a boat with me:
That dolphin you see at Sea World is not a dolphin.
It is shaped very much like a dolphin—and a beautiful shape it is. But the captive dolphin is a simulacrum. It's a facsimile. Everything important about the real world of dolphins has been taken from it. Nothing it does is what a dolphin should be doing.
Among Homo sapiens there are two schools of thought on marine parks. One is that belugas and their kin are just animals: Not to worry, in their tanks they get three squares a day, they are free from any concern about sharks, their trainers give them love and companionship, and it's fun for everyone when they leap on signal to splash the crowd. The other is the notion expressed by Henry Beston in his book The Outermost House:
In a world older and more complex than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.
Ken Brower writes about the environment and the natural world. He is a longtime contributor to National Geographic magazine. Among his books are Wake of the Whale, an illustrated biography of National Geographic photographer Bill Curtsinger, and Freeing Keiko: The Journey of a Killer Whale From "Free Willy" to the Wild. He lives in Berkeley, California.