I am a great supporter of the wonderful photography forum Ugly Hedgehog. I was grumbling the other day that despite me having had my Nikon D750 for some months now I was still struggling to know how to use it properly. One of the wise birds, JD750, on the Forum said (in part):
“Sit down and read the manual, from page 1 to the end, with the camera in your lap.”
That’s what I have been doing and, oh my goodness, has it helped. Here are just a few photographs taken in the last week as a result of me reading the manual.
Firstly, some from outside around the house all with a bit of an autumnal feel to them.
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Then a pic of Ben out in the paddock early on a rather brisk last Friday morning.
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Experimenting with aperture-priority shot when sitting more-or-less in front of the wood stove one afternoon last week.
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Plus some photographs from August of this year. Still using the Nikon but relying much more of the ‘automatic’ settings. Still neat photos in my opinion.
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What’s that saying about when all else fails read the manual!
Or more specifically living a long and healthy life assisted by our dogs!
Recently the Care 2 site published a wonderful item about the real benefits of having a dog in our life when we are the ‘wrong’ side of (fill in your own number!).
So here it is for all you good people. I know without a doubt that there will be many nodding heads out there as the article is being read.
According to a 2016 Gallup poll, 44 percent of Americans own a dog. That is a pretty significant number. In fact, dogs are easily the most popular pet among US pet owners—sorry cat lovers. But what is it that makes dogs so great? Well, they’re fun loving, energetic, make excellent companions and… may actually help you live longer.
A recent Swedish study suggested that owning a dog may be linked to a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death. According to the study, owning a dog was associated with a 20 percent reduced risk of overall death and a 23 percent reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. The study tracked 3.4 million people over the course of 12 years, including both dog owners and non-dog owners. Interestingly, the effects of dog ownership were most pronounced when subjects lived alone and were the sole caretakers for the dog, as they experienced a 33 percent reduced risk of death.
So what is it that makes dogs so beneficial to our health and our lives? Here are a few theories:
EXERCISE
Dogs need exercise as much as we do, but, oftentimes people prioritize their pup’s needs above their own. Many people would more readily take their dog on a walk than walk alone down the block to get some fresh air and take care of themselves. But lucky for us, exercising a dog means exercising yourself, too! It is well established that regular exercise reduces your likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease. A dog may provide irrefutable motivation to get you off the couch and on a walk, which could be saving your life.
OUTDOOR TIME
Along the same lines, dogs encourage us to get outside more. Being outside reduces stress, can increase vitamin D levels and promotes happiness. It can be easy for us to get lazy and stay snuggled up inside when the weather is less than ideal, but dogs need regular outside access. Our pups encourage us to get outside on a regular basis, which can have a small but significantly healthful impact on overall mood and stress levels.
BENEFICIAL BACTERIA
Having a dog is essentially like consuming a powerful probiotic every single day. Dogs go out in nature, roll in mud and grass, chew on sticks, sniff all sorts of bacteria-ridden substances and then track little microscopic bits of this array of bacteria back into our homes. But that may actually be a good thing. According to the New York Times, “Epidemiological studies show that children who grow up in households with dogs have a lower risk for developing autoimmune illnesses like asthma and allergies — and it may be a result of the diversity of microbes that these animals bring inside our homes.” The wider the spectrum of bacteria we subject ourselves to, the more balanced our own microbiomes will become. Since the microbiome can affect all areas of our health, including the likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease, the long term health benefits of diverse bacterial populations should not be underestimated. Dogs, and other pets, do an incredible job of strengthening our microbiomes, which has a profound impact on our health.
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
There is something to said for the emotional stability a dog provides. Chronic stress has been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death, which makes it even more significant that dogs are great at reducing our stress and anxiety levels. They are like our little furry therapists—they are always there for us, through good times and bad, and they always love us indiscriminately. The companionship of a dog and a human is one of the purest, most mutually beneficial relationships one can have. It’s pretty powerful.
Of course, just giving your parents a dog doesn’t mean they will necessarily live longer—especially if they aren’t ‘dog people.’ But for those who are, next time you come home to a wagging tail and a wild tongue, be grateful to your pup pal for all the amazing things they bring to your life.
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Again and again one realises just how incredible it is to have a dog, or several!, in one’s life!
The FDA reports it has received about 68 reports of pet illnesses related to “bone treats”.
Bone treats differ from regular uncooked butcher-type bones because they’re processed and packaged for sale as “dog treats”.
Which Products?
A variety of commercially-available bone treats for dogs were listed in the reports including items described as:
“Ham Bones”
“Pork Femur Bones”
“Rib Bones”
“Smokey Knuckle Bones”
No specific brands are mentioned in the FDA bulletin.
The processed products may be dried through a smoking process or by baking. They may also contain other ingredients such as:
Preservatives
Seasonings
Smoke flavorings
According to Dr. Carmela Stamper, a veterinarian in the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the FDA…
“Giving your dog a bone treat might lead to an unexpected trip to your veterinarian, a possible emergency surgery, or even death for your pet.”
So, if you’re planning to give your dog a stocking full of bone treats this holiday season, you may want to reconsider.
Illnesses Reported
Illnesses reported to FDA by owners and veterinarians in dogs that have eaten bone treats have included:
Gastrointestinal obstruction (blockage in the digestive tract)
Choking
Cuts and wounds in the mouth or on the tonsils
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Bleeding from the rectum
Death
According to FDA, approximately 15 dogs have reportedly died after eating a bone treat.
How Widespread Is the Problem?
To date, reports submitted by pet owners and veterinarians have included about 90 dogs. Some reports included more than one dog.
In addition, FDA has received 7 reports of product problemssuch as…
Moldy-appearing bones
Treats splintering when chewed by the pet
How to Keep Your Dog Safe
FDA has included the following tips to help keep your dog safe:
Chicken bones and other bones from the kitchen table can cause injury when chewed by pets, too. So be careful to keep platters out of reach when you’re cooking or the family is eating.
Be careful what you put in the trash can. Dogs are notorious for helping themselves to the turkey carcass or steak bones disposed of there.
Talk with your veterinarian about other toys or treats that are most appropriate for your dog. There are many available products made with different materials for dogs to chew on.
What to Do?
Dr. Stamper adds the following advice…
“We recommend supervising your dog with any chew toy or treat, especially one she hasn’t had before. And if she ‘just isn’t acting right,’ call your veterinarian right away!”
U.S. citizens can report complaints about FDA-regulated pet food products by calling the consumer complaint coordinator in your area.
Good people, ran out of time yesterday but wanted to republish the following.
It first appeared in October, 2015. The pictures are no longer available online.
Exploring the range of emotions felt and displayed by our dogs.
Like so many bloggers, I subscribe to the writings of many others. Indeed, it’s a rare day when I don’t read something that touches me, stirring up emotions across the whole range of feelings that we funny humans are capable of.
Such was the case with a recent essay published on Mother Nature Network. It was about dogs and whether they are capable of complex emotions. Better than that, MNN allow their essays to be republished elsewhere so long as they are fully and properly credited.
Joy, fear, surprise, disgust, sadness. These are the basic emotions dogs feel that are also easy enough for humans to identify. But what about more complex emotions?
Many dog owners are convinced their dogs feel guilty when they’re caught misbehaving. In the same way, many owners are sure their dogs feel pride at having a new toy or bone. But it gets tricky when you assign these sorts of emotions to a dog. These are definitely emotions felt by humans, but are they also felt by dogs?
(see footnote)
Why we question the presence of complex emotions is wrapped up in the way we get to those emotions. The American Psychological Association explains, “Embarrassment is what’s known as a self-conscious emotion. While basic emotions such as anger, surprise or fear tend to happen automatically, without much cognitive processing, the self-conscious emotions, including shame, guilt and pride, are more complex. They require self-reflection and self-evaluation.”
Essentially we’re comparing our behavior or situation to a social expectation. For instance, guilt comes when we reflect on the fact that we’ve violated a social rule. We need to be aware of the rule and what it means to break it. So, can dogs feel guilt? Well, exactly how self-reflective and self-evaluative are dogs?
Among humans, children begin to experience empathy and what are called secondary emotions when they are around 2 years old. Researchers estimate that the mental ability of a dog is roughly equal to that of an 18-month-old human. “This conclusion holds for most mental abilities as well as emotions,” says Stanley Coren in an article in Modern Dog Magazine. “Thus, we can look to the human research to see what we might expect of our dogs. Just like a two-year-old child, our dogs clearly have emotions, but many fewer kinds of emotions than found in adult humans.”
In other words, if 18-month-old children can’t yet experience these emotions, and dogs are roughly equal to them in cognitive and emotional ability, then dogs can’t feel these self-reflective emotions either. At least, that’s what researchers have concluded so far.
Is that guilt or fear?
The evidence for primary emotions like love and happiness in dogs abounds, but empirical evidence for secondary emotions like jealousy and guilt is sparse. And this is partially because it’s difficult to create tests that provide clear-cut answers. When it comes to guilt, does a dog act guilty because she knows she did something wrong, or because she’s expecting a scolding? The same expression can come across as guilt or fear. How do we know which it is?
“In wolves, it is thought that guilt-related behaviors serve to reinforce social bonds, as in primates, by reducing conflict and eliciting tolerance from other members of the social group. The same could be true of dogs, though their social groups would primarily include humans. The problem is that the display of the associated behaviors of guilt are not, themselves, evidence of the capacity to emotionally experience guilt… It may still be some time before we can know for certain whether dogs can experience guilt, or whether people can determine if a dog has violated a rule prior to finding concrete evidence of it.”
Guilt, and other secondary emotions, are complicated. That’s exactly why cognitive awareness and emotional capacity in dogs is still a topic under study. In fact, it’s an area that has grown significantly in recent years. We may discover that dogs have a more complex range of emotions than we’re aware of today.
Dogs are highly social animals, and social animals are required to navigate a range of emotions in themselves and those around them to maintain social bonds. It wasn’t so long ago that scientists thought that dogs (and other non-human animals) didn’t have any feelings at all. Perhaps our understanding of dog emotions is simply limited by the types of tests we’ve devised to understand their emotions. After all, we’re trying to detect a sophisticated emotional state in a species that doesn’t speak the same language.
There’s a lot we don’t know
Marc Bekoff makes the argument for leaving the possibility open. In an article in Psychology Today he writes, “[B]ecause it’s been claimed that other mammals with whom dogs share the same neural bases for emotions do experience guilt, pride, and shame and other complex emotions, there’s no reason why dogs cannot.”
Keeping the possibility open is more than just an emotional animal rights issue. There is a scientific basis for continuing the research. A recent study showed that the brains of dogs and humans function in a more similar way than we previously thought.
Scientific American reports that “dog brains have voice-sensitive regions and that these neurological areas resemble those of humans. Sharing similar locations in both species, they process voices and emotions of other individuals similarly. Both groups respond with greater neural activity when they listen to voices reflecting positive emotions such as laughing than to negative sounds that include crying or whining. Dogs and people, however, respond more strongly to the sounds made by their own species.”
Until recently, we had no idea of the similar ways human and dog brains process social information.
So do dogs feel shame, guilt and pride? Maybe. Possibly. It’s still controversial, but for now, there seems to be no harm in assuming they do unless proven otherwise.
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Footnote: At this point in the MNN article there was a link to a series of gorgeous photographs of dogs. If you dear readers can wait, then I will publish them this coming Sunday. If you can’t wait, then go here!
That ‘we’ being all the animals, plants, insects and humans there are.
I’m not saying anything new and not making this plea for the first time in this place.
But just take a few minutes out of your busy day to reflect that for you, for me, for everyone wherever they are in the world, physically and culturally, doing nothing is not an option.
More of that in a minute.
First I want to share with you a few autumnal photographs of our home here in Oregon.
Below was taken at 9am on October 24th showing the mountain mist right down to the tops of our trees that mark the edge of our driveway from the house to our Hugo Road entrance.
Next, a sunrise photograph with the camera pointing to the East. The tree line follows the ridge of some hills the other side of Hugo Road. The picture taken on the 19th October at 07:20. Now a close-up of the remains of a very old tree trunk with the trees that border Bummer Creek, that runs through our land, just showing through the morning mist. Taken on the 24th October at 09:05.
Final photograph I wanted to share with you is this beautiful sight of the moon taken from our property at 16:05 on the 25th. October.
Regular readers will know that Jean and I are not believers in any religion; we are atheists. But to my way of thinking that puts even more pressure on me and Jean to try to make a difference. We do all that we can but there’s no doubt that we can do more.
Yesterday, I referred to Bill Ripple, or to give him his full signature: William J. Ripple, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon.
I sent Bill an email:
Dear Bill (and forgive the over familiarity if that offends),
I am a Brit, just turned 73, living with my beautiful wife, Jean, London-born as I was, down in Merlin, Oregon.
We live on 13 wonderful acres of rural property with 6 dogs (down from 12 when we moved here 5 years ago) and 4 horses, the majority of whom are ex-rescues.
I am the author of the blog Learning from Dogs and want to publish a post highlighting that viewpoint article. Because I believe with every neuron left in my ageing brain that the political changes that this world so urgently needs can only come when 99.9% of the public are screaming out “enough is enough”!
But there’s another saying that comes to mind, the one about being the change you want to see or something like that.
Is there information anywhere online that spells out, almost in words of one syllable, what lifestyle changes each of us can and need to commit to today? Changes that are as appropriate for elderly authors living in the country as young people seeking their first job or those up to their necks in working and raising families?
For that is what I want to publish on my blog!
If it would be easier for me to make an appointment to call you and take notes over the phone then I am just as happy to do that.
Sincerely,
Paul Handover
Hugo Road, Merlin,
Bill promptly replied:
Hi Paul, how long of a list of lifestyle changes do you want to make? Would three or four be enough? Bill
then followed that up with another email:
Paul, Consider suggesting that if people want to help, they could have fewer children, reduce energy consumption such as driving autos and flying, avoid meat and eat mostly plant-based foods and avoid wasting food. Below are quotes from our paper. Bill
“It is also time to re-examine and change our individual behaviors, including limiting our own reproduction (ideally to replacement level at most) and drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources ….
… reducing food waste through education and better infrastructure; promoting dietary shifts towards mostly plant-based foods
Now watch this video
I will close this post by listing out all the things that you and I can do now!
Set a target for reducing your car mileage next year compared to 2017,
If you are a regular aircraft passenger, then set a target for flying fewer hours in 2018 compared to 2017,
reduce or stop eating meat,
do not waste food,
reduce the use of heating and cooling in your home/s for next year,
commit to a dietary change away from meats and processed foods to a plant-based diet.
Then for younger couples who want a family around them, limit the number of children to a “replacement level” at most. Adopt??
In a reply to Colette following my post of last week Caring for animals, I wrote:
Jean is on a diet that is predominantly fruit and vegetables as part of slowing down the progression of her Parkinson’s disease. The diet is essentially a no-dairy, no-grain, no-meat diet to eliminate the risk of any gut inflammation. She is advised by a professional nutritionist here in Grants Pass, OR. I follow along with Jean motivated to slow down my own cognitive decline.
Colette then responded to my reply with quite extensive details of her own diet. Her reply opening:
I have some food sensitivities that started my dietary changes a number of years ago. I found I was allergic to eggs after struggling with severe joint pain that doctors couldn’t explain. Then I began to find that a few other things were problematic including gluten, also prompting dietary change. The animal protein side came into sharper focus during a moment of epiphany at an elephant sanctuary and I started a vegetarian diet. However, I soon switched to a completely (almost except for some contamination in the odd thing now and again) vegan diet.
I am healthier, my cholesterol dropped from a total of 212 mg/dlto 135mg/dl and I have more stamina, fewer infections, colds and illness. (Nothing terrible to put me to bed since I became Vegan).
I do try to get a balance of a variety of fresh fruit and veg, protein and fats in my diet.
… that was then followed by her describing what a typical day looked like in terms of what she eat.
I offered to describe what Jean and I eat.
Fundamentally, Jean was advised to have a diet that reduced the chance of her having any gut inflammation but, if she did, a diet that would bring that inflammation to a close. All to do with Leaky Gut Syndrome and how the brain can be negatively affected.
So …
Breakfast
Two tablespoons of milled flax,
One tablespoon of hemp hearts,
A sprinkling of chia seed,
Prunes, banana, dried apricots, walnuts, berries when available,
Coconut milk or almond milk
Lunch
Mainly salad greens, raw vegetables, tomatoes, avocado, some canned herring,
Mixed fruits, as in oranges, apples,
‘Naked Green’ smoothie
Dinner
Mixed vegetables,
Baked chicken breast,
Green salad with tomatoes and avocado,
Almonds or other nuts
Drinks during the day
Herb teas, ‘V8’ juice, green tea, ‘Naked Green’ smoothies, almond milk.
We are also taking a course of Juice-Plus tablets; a recommendation from our local nutritionist.
Anyway, that’s enough from me for today.
If there’s good interest in me sharing some of the many links to this whole area of diet, the gut and how it can affect the brain, then do sing out! (But I have no professional knowledge; will just report our findings!)
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Wow! What an incredibly useful link thanks to Colette. I am referring to the NutritionFacts website.
Then how easy it was on that site to find a video specifically about diet and PD.
Jean and I are removing chicken and fish from our diet immediately; in other words going vegan.
Anyone who emails me this is impossible to resist!
Hi,
I work on behalf of petsbyplane.com, and I recently noticed your blog while I was looking around for a few resources on pets and taking pets by plane!
I know sometimes it’s hard to create new content all the time and sometimes you probably find yourself needing blog content at learningfromdogs.com
I’m looking for high-quality sites like yours that I can contribute quality articles to in order to continue to build my profile, win a Pulitzer Prize and eventually take over the Universe.
Well another person trying to take over the Universe seems to fit the pattern of these present times so what the hell!
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Seven Techniques to Create a Safe New Home for Your Dog
Whether you are moving houses and you have to transport your dog or you are bringing a new dog into your house, you have to be prepared. Dogs can easily be stressed out by changes. They can become anxious, which will impact their behavior and even their eating habits. By doing your research beforehand and knowing how to handle various situations, you can be fully prepared on moving day and you can ensure your dog will enjoy his new home from the very first day.
1. Think about Transportation
If you’re bringing a dog home from a shelter, you will need to pick him up with a car and a dog crate. It’s strongly recommended to put your dog in a crate while you are driving since you don’t know yet how it will react to so many new things and environments. This way, you will be able to focus on driving and getting to your destination safely.
If, on the other hand, you are moving houses with your pet, you have to decide if you want to use a professional pet moving company or do it all by yourself. Moving to a different state or country will imply travelling by car or plane. Depending on the situation, you have to get informed about vaccines, plane tickets and necessary documents.
2. Keep Your Dog away from the Commotion on Moving Day
To keep your dog stress-free, consider taking him to a friend’s house while you pack up your last things or move out furniture. By keeping him away from the commotion, you are shielding him from unnecessary stress. Make sure not to pack all of your dog’s favorite toys. Keep a few around at all times as these will comfort and soothe your dog during anxious hours.
3. Make Sure the New Home Is Ready to Receive Your Dog
Moving with your pet is stressful. You have to take care of dozens of things at the same time. An important thing you shouldn’t forget to do is to check the new house is prepared for your dog. If you are renting, make sure the landlord accepts pets. You will probably have to make a deposit and even pay monthly rent for your dog. If the house has a backyard, ensure there are no gaps in the fence or other hazardous plants or objects. Inspect the rooms as well and eliminate dangerous things such as exposed wires, shabby furniture, old cans of paint or cleaning products.
4. Keep a Schedule
Dogs thrive on routine, so keep that in mind even when moving houses. You might not be able to go back to your schedule on the first day, but try to get back on track as soon as possible. Feed your dog at the same hours and take him for walks as you used to before.
5. Take it Easy
New surroundings can be overwhelming for your dog. There are new places, smells, sounds and people to get used to. He might be anxious at first, and even refuse to eat, but he will easily adjust to the new settings in his own time. The best thing you can do through this entire experience is to be very patient and talk encouragingly to him. If you want to start training him, start on day one. Be generous with the treats and occasionally repay good behavior with a new toy.
When you’re introducing your dog to the neighbors and showing him around new places, always keep him on a leash. He might be too excited to contain his happiness and you never know how he will react.
6. Find a Veterinarian Before Moving
You should ask your veterinarian for recommendations before moving. Get in touch with your new vet prior to the move and make sure they are fully equipped to take care of your pet. It’s essential to find a trustworthy vet before moving so you can have the peace of mind that your dog will be in good hands no matter what happens.
7. Give Your Dog a Lot of Attention and Love
Even if moving occupies your whole time, you should always make time to play with your dog and show him that he is loved. This will help him cope better with the situation and will help calm him down. If you would like to train your dog but don’t know how, reach out to a professional trainer. Give your dog the attention he needs and he will have a smoother transition and adjust to the new environment in no time.
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So what part of the Universe do you intend to start taking over first, John?
The other day we went to buy more hay and feed from our local supplier The Red Barn on Upper River Road in Grants Pass.
Tyler, the owner, was distraught having just returned from urgently running his dog in to see Dr. Russ at local Lincoln Road Vet Clinic. The reason being that his dog had eaten some rat poison that he had put out on one of the upper floors of the barn.
Later I was discussing this with our good friend, Jim Goodbrod, also a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM), and Jim said that so long as the dog is caught quickly and taken to a vet it is unlikely that it would leave the dog with any permanent harm.
However, Jim then went on to say that especially at this time of the year the thing that vets see far too often is dogs who have drunk antifreeze that car owners put into their radiators ahead of the winter season.
Jim stressed that dogs very rarely are unharmed after having contact with antifreeze. Even a teaspoonful was sufficient to kill a cat and cause severe kidney damage in dogs!
So it was essential to spread the word.
No better done than by offering you this video. Watch it! Especially through to the end where Dr. Barker offers clear advice as to what to do if you suspect antifreeze poisoning of your dog or cat.
http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/… Dr. Karen Becker, a proactive and integrative wellness veterinarian, talks about antifreeze poisoning, which often occurs when an animal encounters an antifreeze leak from a car radiator.
If this prevents even a single dog or cat from being poisoned by antifreeze then that’s a win!
My posts of the last few days have been in the ‘cuddly, cosy’ vein of life and, as many would say, a long way from the reality of this 21st century.
The reality is tough and scary and many, including me, favour running away from scary places. I’m sure that the urge to flee and hide is a survival behaviour from long time ago. BUT!! But the only hope for us humans is to face the facts full on.
Take, for example, the Ganges River. We have all heard of this famous river (my emphasis below):
The source of the Ganges is the Gangotri glacier. Here it is:
Gaumukh, snout of the Gangotri glacier,surrounded by the Bhagirathi peaks of Garhwal Himalayas, at an altitude of over 4,000 metres. Photo: Vidya Venkat.
Scientists say dwindling snowfall affects volume of water fed to the Bhagirathi, the main source of the Ganga
After a four-hour-long trek from Bhojwasa, the final camping spot in Gangotri, when a brown, fractured pile of rocks finally came into view it was hard to believe that this was the mouth of the glacier from which the ‘holy’ Ganga emerged.
Gaumukh, the snout of the Gangotri glacier, named after its shape like the mouth of a cow, has retreated by over 3 kilometres since 1817, says glaciologist Milap Chand Sharma of Jawaharlal Nehru University.
It was nearly two centuries ago that the retreat of the glacier was first documented by John Hodgson, a Survey of India geologist.
With 10 Indian States reeling under drought and the country facing a severe water crisis after two weak monsoons, the story of retreating freshwater sources such as the Himalayan glaciers is worrying. And though a three-kilometre retreat over a period of two centuries might seem insignificant at first glance, data shows that the rate of retreat has increased sharply since 1971. The rate of retreat is 22 metres per year.
Twenty-two metres or seventy-two feet a year!
Wringing our hands is no good. All of us who care for our Living Planet have to shout out just what is going on. As George Monbiot continues to do. Take his latest essay, for example, that is republished here in full with GM’s very kind permission.
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Insectageddon
The scale and speed of environmental collapse is beyond imagination.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20th October 2017
Which of these would you name as the world’s most pressing environmental issue? Climate breakdown, air pollution, water loss, plastic waste or urban expansion? My answer is none of the above. Almost incredibly, I believe that climate breakdown takes third place, behind two issues that receive only a fraction of the attention.
This is not to downgrade the danger presented by global heating – on the contrary, it presents an existential threat. It is simply that I have come to realise that two other issues have such huge and immediate impacts that they push even this great predicament into third place.
One is industrial fishing, which, all over the blue planet, is now causing systemic ecological collapse. The other is the erasure of non-human life from the land by farming.
And perhaps not only non-human life. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, at current rates of soil loss, driven largely by poor farming practice, we have just 60 years of harvests left. And this is before the Global Land Outlook report, published in September, found that productivity is already declining on 20% of the world’s cropland.
The impact on wildlife of changes in farming practice (and the expansion of the farmed area) is so rapid and severe that it is hard to get your head round the scale of what is happening. A study published this week in the journal Plos One reveals that flying insects surveyed on nature reserves in Germany have declined by 76% in 27 years. The most likely cause of this Insectageddon is that the land surrounding those reserves has become hostile to them: the volume of pesticides and the destruction of habitat have turned farmland into a wildlife desert.
It is remarkable that we need to rely on a study in Germany to see what is likely to have been happening worldwide: long-term surveys of this kind simply do not exist elsewhere. This failure reflects distorted priorities in the funding of science. There is no end of grants for research on how to kill insects, but hardly any money for discovering what the impacts of this killing might be. Instead, the work has been left – as in the German case – to recordings by amateur naturalists.
But anyone of my generation (ie in the second bloom of youth) can see and feel the change. We remember the “moth snowstorm” that filled the headlight beams of our parents’ cars on summer nights (memorialised in Michael McCarthy’s lovely book of that name). Every year I collected dozens of species of caterpillars and watched them grow and pupate and hatch. This year I tried to find some caterpillars for my children to raise. I spent the whole summer looking and, aside from the cabbage whites on our broccoli plants, found nothing in the wild but one garden tiger larva. Yes, one caterpillar in one year. I could scarcely believe what I was seeing – or rather, not seeing.
Insects, of course, are critical to the survival of the rest of the living world. Knowing what we now know, there is nothing surprising about the calamitous decline of insect-eating birds. Those flying insects – not just bees and hoverflies but species of many different families – are the pollinators without which a vast tract of the plant kingdom, both wild and cultivated, cannot survive. The wonders of the living planet are vanishing before our eyes.
Well, I hear you say, we have to feed the world. Yes, but not this way. As a UN report published in March explained, the notion that pesticide use is essential for feeding a growing population is a myth. A recent study in Nature Plants reveals that most farms would increase production if they cut their use of pesticides. A study in the journal Arthropod-Plant Interactions shows that the more neonicotinoid pesticides were used to treat rapeseed crops, the more their yield declines. Why? Because the pesticides harm or kill the pollinators on which the crop depends.
Farmers and governments have been comprehensively conned by the global pesticide industry. It has ensured its products should not be properly regulated or even, in real-world conditions, properly assessed. A massive media onslaught by this industry has bamboozled us all about its utility and its impacts on the health of both human beings and the natural world.
The profits of these companies depend on ecocide. Do we allow them to hold the world to ransom, or do we acknowledge that the survival of the living world is more important than returns to their shareholders? At the moment, shareholder value comes first. And it will count for nothing when we have lost the living systems on which our survival depends.
To save ourselves and the rest of the living world, here’s what we need to do:
We need a global treaty to regulate pesticides, and put the manufacturers back in their box.
We need environmental impact assessments for the farming and fishing industries. It is amazing that, while these sectors present the greatest threats to the living world, they are, uniquely in many nations, not subject to such oversight.
We need firm rules based on the outcomes of these assessments, obliging those who use the land to protect and restore the ecosystems on which we all depend.
We need to reduce the amount of land used by farming, while sustaining the production of food. The most obvious way is greatly to reduce our use of livestock: many of the crops we grow and all of the grazing land we use are deployed to feed them. One study in Britain suggests that, if we stopped using animal products, everyone in Britain could be fed on just 3m of our 18.5m hectares of current farmland (or on 7m hectares if all our farming were organic). This would allow us to create huge wildlife and soil refuges: an investment against a terrifying future.
We should stop using land that should be growing food for people to grow maize for biogas and fuel for cars.
Then, at least, nature and people would have some respite from the global onslaught. And, I hope, a chance of getting through the century.
Science shows that animals, including dogs, do dream!
I wanted to republish a recent and serious article written by George Monbiot but couldn’t bear to push back against the wonderful video of yesterday. Those loving ripples are still spreading across my consciousness and, I’m sure, that’s the same for you.
Consciousness, sleep, and dreaming are fascinating states of the mind. Previously thought exclusively the states of human minds. But not so!
The electric eel exhibit at the New England Aquarium has a feature that makes it a favorite. Whenever the eel is hunting or stunning prey, the charge powers a voltmeter above his tank. It lights up when the eel is using his electricity, and allows you to see the invisible—like magic.
One day I saw another magical thing happen in the tank. Thanks to the voltmeter, I was able to watch the eel dream.
It happened when I was standing in front of the exhibit with Scott Dowd, the lead aquarist for the freshwater gallery, watching the eel resting motionless at the bottom of the tank. “I think he’s asleep,” I said to my companion.
“Yes, that eel is catching some serious z’s,” he agreed.
Being hard-core fish enthusiasts, we continued to watch transfixed while the electric eel slept. And that’s when it happened: A big flash shot across the voltmeter display—and another and another.
Electric eels hunt while swimming forward, wagging their heads to and fro, sending out electric signals that bounce back to them, sort of like a dolphin’s echolocation. But he was still motionless. So what was the flash for?
“I thought the eel was asleep!” I said to Dowd.
“He is asleep,” he replied.
We realized at once what we were almost surely witnessing. The electric eel was dreaming.
“It would appear that not only do men dream,” Aristotle wrote in History of Animals, “but horses also, and dogs, and oxen; aye, and sheep and goats. . . .”
It was obvious: Like most of us, Aristotle had watched sleeping dogs twitch their ears, paddle their paws, and bark in their sleep. Surely other animals dreamed as well.
But since Aristotle’s day, more “modern” thinkers denied that animals could dream. Complex and mysterious, dreams were considered the exclusive province of so-called higher minds.
As brain research advanced, however, researchers were forced to concede that Aristotle was right. Animals do dream.
And now we are even able to glimpse what they dream about.
Since the 1960s scientists have understood that our dreams happen during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of the sleep cycle. During this time our muscles are normally paralyzed by the pons of the brain stem, so that we don’t act out our dreams. In 1965 researchers removed the pons from the brain stems of cats.* They discovered the cats would get up and walk around, move the head as if to follow prey, and pounce as if on invisible mice—all
while asleep.
By 2007 we would get an even more vivid picture of animals’ dreams. Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists Matthew Wilson and graduate student Kenway Louie recorded the activity of rats’ brains while the animals were running a maze. Neurons fire in distinct patterns while a rat in a maze performs particular tasks. The researchers repeatedly saw the exact same patterns reproduced while the rats slept—and they saw this so clearly they could tell what point in the maze the rat was dreaming about and whether an individual rat was running or walking in his dreams.
The rats’ dreams arose from the hippocampus, the same area in the brain that seems to drive humans’ dreams. It’s an area known to record and store memories, and that supports the notion that one important function of dreams is to help us remember what we have learned. Of course, it’s important to a lab rat to remember the right way to run a maze.
So if rats dream of running mazes, what do birds dream about? Singing.
University of Chicago professor Daniel Margoliash conducted experiments on zebra finches. Like most birds, zebra finches aren’t born knowing their songs; they learn them, and young birds spend much of their days learning and rehearsing the song of their species. While awake, neurons in the forebrain known as the robustus archistrialis fire when the bird sings particular notes. The researcher was able to determine the individual notes based on the firing pattern of the neurons. While the birds were asleep, their neurons fired in the same order—as if they were singing in their dreams.
Much less work has been done on fish than on mammals and birds. No one has found REM sleep in fish—yet. But that does not mean they don’t dream. Interestingly, no one has discovered REM sleep in whales, either. But whales almost surely dream. They are long-lived, social animals with very big brains much like our own, and for whom long-term memory consolidation is crucial.
And if you were looking for rapid eye movement in sleeping owls, you’d never see it—because owls’ eyes are fixed in their sockets. That’s why they need to turn their heads around, Exorcist-style. Yet owls’ brain waves show they dream, too.
Fish do sleep, however—that much is well known. It’s been carefully documented that if zebra fish are deprived of sleep (because pesky researchers keep waking them up), they have trouble swimming the next day—just as a person would have trouble concentrating after a dreamless night.
What might an electric eel dream about? The voltmeter at the New England Aquarium showed us the answer: hunting and shocking prey.
*Care2 stands firmly against animal testing and believes it to be a cruel and unnecessary practice for which there are viable alternatives, such as computer modeling.
ooOOoo
A young Pharaoh asleep, and dreaming?? September, 2003.
Good people, ran out of time yesterday but wanted to republish the following.
Next, a sunrise photograph with the camera pointing to the East. The tree line follows the ridge of some hills the other side of Hugo Road. The picture taken on the 19th October at 07:20.
Now a close-up of the remains of a very old tree trunk with the trees that border Bummer Creek, that runs through our land, just showing through the morning mist. Taken on the 24th October at 09:05.
Regular readers will know that Jean and I are not believers in any religion; we are atheists. But to my way of thinking that puts even more pressure on me and Jean to try to make a difference. We do all that we can but there’s no doubt that we can do more.
Learning from Dogs 