Not quite how you would expect a crocodile to behave!
With thanks to Christine over at 350 or bust who published on Saturday, 30th June.
Then a web search found a more extensive video.
Pocho, the “domesticated” Costa Rican crocodile that gained international attention for a weekly show he performed with owner Gilberto Sheedan, died Tuesday at Finca Las Tilapias in the Caribbean-slope town of Siquirres. Olga Valle, Sheedan’s wife, said the nearly 1,000-pound croc died a natural death at age 50. A funeral will be held for Pocho on Sunday at 1 p.m.
“All of the people in the village have offered their condolences and assistance,” Valle said.
On past Sundays, Pocho and “Chito,” as Sheedan was better known, performed a show for visitors in a 100-square-meter artificial lake at Finca Las Tilapias. Chito, 54, declared the one-eyed crocodile “domesticated.” He could command Pocho to do tricks such as winking its one good eye, lifting its head and tail out of the water, rolling over and permitting Chito to stick his head inside the massive reptile’s maw.
Chito found the 5-meter-long crocodile near death on the shore of the Parismina River, in the Limón province, 17 years ago. The crocodile had been shot in the left eye. Chito and several friends loaded the animal into a boat and took him to Siquirres, where Pocho was nursed back to health. Chito even slept with the crocodile during its recovery.
After an employee saw Chito swimming with Pocho one day, word of the duo’s friendship spread. In July 2000, Costa Rica’s Channel 7 filmed the unusual pair. Chito and Pocho became stars, receiving attention as far as the United States, Chile and the United Kingdom.
The Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Ministry allowed Chito to keep the crocodile as long as they could monitor it. Chito worked with a veterinarian and a biologist and fed Pocho 30 kilograms of fish and chicken a week.
Chito never imagined the fame that would come from the unique friendship. All he wanted was an animal companion. A sign on his ranch emphasized that relationship: “Chito and Pocho are best friends.”
“I just wanted him to feel that someone loved him, that not all humans are bad,” Chito told The Tico Times in 2007. “I love all animals, especially ones that have suffered.”
Love is really the solution to practically every problem in the world!
So why do we insist of manipulating the genetics of food!
I read somewhere recently, and of course now can’t find the reference, that the genetic modification of our food represents as big a danger to the long-term survival of man as does the damage to our biosphere.
So a recent item on the blog Food Freedom News jumped out at me. This was an item that was introduced as, “The author of Seeds of Destruction (about Monsanto) has a new piece out on pesticides and mass animal deaths… very sobering.”
Clicking on the ‘new piece’ link takes one to here, from which I quote the opening paragraphs,
“A recent study showed that every human tested had the world’s best-selling pesticide, Roundup, detectable in their urine at concentrations between five and twenty times the level considered safe for drinking water.”
Birds and bees are something most of us take for granted as part of nature. The expression “teaching about the birds and the bees” to explain the process of human reproduction to young people is not an accidental expression. Bees and birds contribute to the essence of life on our planet. A study by the US Department of Agriculture estimated that “…perhaps one-third of our total diet is dependent, directly or indirectly, upon insect-pollinated plants.”
The honey bee, Apis mellifera, is the most important pollinator of agricultural crops. Honey bees pollinate over 70 out of 100 crops that in turn provide 90% of the world’s food. They pollinate most fruits and vegetables–including apples, oranges, strawberries, onions and carrots. But while managed honey bee populations have increased over the last 50 years, bee colony populations have decreased significantly in many European and North American nations. Simultaneously, crops that are dependent on insects for pollination have increased. The phenomenon has received the curious designation of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), implying it could be caused by any number of factors. Serious recent scientific studies however point to a major cause: use of new highly toxic systemic pesticides in agriculture since about 2004.
That first paragraph alone made me sit up, “A recent study showed that every human tested had the world’s best-selling pesticide, Roundup, detectable in their urine at concentrations between five and twenty times the level considered safe for drinking water.” What a strange race we are!
Wlliam F. Engdahl
Then it was easy to find out more information about the author of the book Seeds of Destruction, William F. Engdahl, including his website. Mr. Engdahl is clearly no stranger to controversy as this YouTube video illustrates,
Back to that Food Freedom article. Further on, there is evidence of the size of the problem in the UK,
Alarming UK results
A private UK research organization, Buglife and the Soil Association, undertook tests to try to determine cause of the bee death. They found that the decline was caused in part by a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Neonicotinoids are “systemic” chemicals that kill insects by getting into the cell of the plant. In Britain it’s widely used for crops like oilseed rape and for production of potted plants.
The neonicotinoids are found in the UK in products including Chinook, used on oilseed rape and Bayer UK 720, used in the production of potted plants which then ends up in gardens and homes around the country. The new study examined in detail the most comprehensive array of peer-reviewed research into possible long-term effects of neonicotinoid use. Their conclusion was that neonicotinoid pesticides damage the health and life cycle of bees over the long term by affecting the nervous system. The report noted, “Neonicotinoids may be a significant factor contributing to current bee declines and could also contribute to declines in other non-target invertebrate species.” The organization called for a total ban on pesticides containing any neonicotinoids.
The president of the UK Soil Association, Peter Melchett, told the press that pesticides were causing a continued decline in pollinating insects, risking a multimillion pound farming industry. “The UK is notorious for taking the most relaxed approach to pesticide safety in the EU; Buglife’s report shows that this puts at risk pollination services vital for UK agriculture,” he said.
Indeed in March 2012 Sir Robert Watson, Chief Scientist at the British Government’s Department of Environment announced that his government was reconsidering its allowance of neonicotinoid use in the UK. Watson told a British newspaper, “We will absolutely look at the University of Stirling work, the French work, and the American work that came out a couple of months ago. We must look at this in real detail to see whether or not the current British position is correct or is incorrect. I want this all reassessed, very, very carefully.” To date no policy change has ensued however. Given the seriousness of the scientific studies and of the claims of danger, a prudent policy would have been to provisionally suspend further uise of neonicotinoids pending further research. No such luck.
And if the harm to bees wasn’t serious enough, try this extract,
Effect on Human Brain?
But most alarming of all is the evidence that exposure to neonicotinides has horrific possible effects on humans as well as on birds and bees.
Professor Henk Tennekes describes the effects:
“Today the major illnesses confronting children in the United States include a number of psychosocial and behavioral conditions. Neurodevelopmental disorders, including learning disabilities, dyslexia, mental retardation, attention deficit disorder, and autism – occurrence is more prevalent than previously thought, affecting 5 percent to 10 percent of the 4 million children born in the United States annually. Beyond childhood, incidence rates of chronic neurodegenerative diseases of adult life such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia have increased markedly. These trends raise the possibility that exposures in early life act as triggers of later illness, perhaps by reducing the numbers of cells in essential regions of the brain to below the level needed to maintain function in the face of advancing age. Prenatal and childhood exposures to pesticides have emerged as a significant risk factor explaining impacts on brain structure and health that can increase the risk of neurological disease later in life.”
There is also growing evidence suggesting persistent exposure to plants sprayed with neonicotinoids could be responsible for damage to the human brain, including the recent sharp rise in incidents of autism in children.
This really is an article that you should read in full, which also includes a full bibliography and notes section. Plus you can leave your responses as a comment – go for it!
The grandeur of the ancient relationship between dog and man.
A couple of weeks ago, I came across a fascinating article that had been published in American Scientist magazine (online version) written by Professor Pat Shipman. The article provided the background and evidence to support the proposition that dogs may have been man’s best friend for thousands of years longer than we realized.
Very quickly I came across Pat Shipman’s website and learnt that this is one clever lady. As her About page explains,
CAREER SUMMARY
Prof. Shipman
I am internationally known as a paleoanthropologist and conducted research for many years in Africa on human evolution and the animal communities in which humans evolved.
I have conducted research on material from sites in France, Spain, the United States, Java, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa. I have written more than 50 scholarly articles, appearing in journals such as Nature, Science, Journal of Archaeological Science, Paleobiology, Journal of Human Evolution, and Current Anthropology.
I have written more than 100 articles in popular science magazines or newspapers, including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, American Scientist, Discover, and Natural History. Two of my books were featured on the cover of The New York Times Book Review: The Neadertals and Taking Wing. Taking Wing won the Phi Beta Kappa prize for science book of the year and was a runner-up for the LA Times Science Book prize.
My book on Homo erectus, Wisdom of the Bones, was co-authored by Alan Walker and won the Rhone-Poulenc Prize in science writing.
My books have been widely praised as compelling, accessible, and highly readable, with a strong narrative thread. Reviewers frequently comment upon the meticulous research that underpins my books, a feature I consider to be my trademark.
My most recent popular science book, The Ape in the Tree, written with Alan Walker, was called by The Vancouver Sun “part adventure story, part cutting-edge science.” In a Science magazine review, the book was praised as “a fine account of new ways to puzzle out the behaviors of fossilized animals from odd scraps of bone.” Another reviewer raved, “Wonderfully engaging and insightful, The Ape in the Tree, is sure to become a classic in the literature on human origins.” MacArthur fellow John Fleagle wrote in the Quarterly Review of Biology, “Science writing doesn’t get any better than this.” In 2009, this book was awarded the W.W. Howells Book Prize by the American Anthropological Association.
In Britain, my new biography of Mata Hari, Femme Fatale, was selected as The Book of the Week by BBC radio. Each day during the week, an actress gave dramatic readings from the book on the air for fifteen minutes.
With The Animal Connection, I return to paleoanthropology and consider the influence of our connection with animals on human evolution and the origin of modern human behavior.
See what I mean!
Anyway, as you can readily understand, as the author of a blog that writes about what we can learn from this ancient relationship between the dog and man, it struck me as wonderful if I might be permitted to republish in full that article. Prof. Shipman promptly gave me such permission.
So today, I am doing just that and tomorrow I want to write more about Pat Shipman’s latest book, The Animal Connection.
oooOOOooo
The Woof at the Door
Dogs may have been man’s best friend for thousands of years longer than we realized
It’s funny how much difference a single letter makes. A “woof” at the door is a very different thing from a wolf at the door. One is familiar, domestic, reassuring; the other is a frightening apparition of imminent danger. The distinction between our fond companions and the ferocious predator of northern climes goes back a long way.
Dogs are descended from wolves, probably the gray wolf. Some scientists argue that, because dogs and wolves can and do interbreed, they shouldn’t be considered to be separate species at all. They believe that domestic dogs are only a subspecies or variant of the gray wolf, Canis lupus, and ought to be called Canis lupus familiaris (the familiar or domestic wolf) instead of Canis familiaris (the familiar or domestic dog). Although the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring is a tried-and-true criterion for recognizing that two populations are really variants of a single species, the reality is more nuanced. We cannot know whether dog-wolf hybrids will thrive and survive, or die out, in the long run.
Prehistoric cave paintings rarely depict wolves or other carnivores. This watercolor tracing of a cave painting was made by the archaeologist Abbé Henri Breuil in the early 1900s from the Grotte de Font-de-Gaume in France. The 17,000-year-old cave paintings number about 250 and mostly show bison and mammoths—only one is thought to be a wolf. Canids may have been domesticated by this point; it is possible that portraying wolves and humans was taboo. Paul Bahn
Certainly we expect to be able to distinguish a dog from a wolf if we see one. Of course, domestic dogs are wildly variable in size and shape, thanks to several hundred years of selective breeding. Some have long, fluffy coats; others have tightly curled, nearly waterproof coats and webbed feet. Some are leggy and swift, whereas others are solid, stoutly built guard dogs. Some fit neatly into a pocketbook, but others barely fit into a compact car. As Robert K. Wayne of the University of California at Los Angeles declares, “Dogs show more diversity in appearance than any other mammal.”
What is it that tells us this animal is “dog” and that one is “wolf?”
Modern wolves and dogs can be distinguished reasonably easily by their appearance. The most telling feature of dogs is the snout, which is significantly shorter and wider than wolves’ snouts. Only a few dog breeds with extremely elongated, slender snouts, such as Irish wolfhounds, surpass wolves in “snoutiness.”
But a crucial part of the difference we perceive is in the animals’ manner and attitude towards humans. Domesticated dogs are just that: canids that live in the house or domicile of humans. They are genetically disposed to seek out human attention and approval and to accept human leadership. Wolves are not.
How did this important change come about? Probably in the distant past, humans took in a wolf cub, or even a whole litter of cubs, and provided shelter, food and protection. As the adopted cubs matured, some were aggressive, ferocious and difficult to handle; those probably ended up in the pot or were cast out. The ones that were more accepting of and more agreeable to humans were kept around longer and fed more. In time, humans might have co-opted the natural abilities of canids, using the dogs’ keen noses and swift running skills, for example, to assist in hunting game. If only the most desirable dogs were permitted to breed, the genes encoding for “better” dogs would continue to be concentrated until the new domesticated species (or subspecies) was formed.
Time to Tame
The creation of a domestic, useful, familiar canid by years of selectively breeding wild and terrifying wolves was almost certainly unplanned. The wolf at the beginning of the process of domestication was tamed—made individually docile—but the essential fact is that, over time, the offspring of those initial wolves were genetically inclined to be more tractable.
Domestication was one of the most brilliant accidents in the entire history of humankind. What’s more, we got it right the first time: Dogs were the original trial animal, and successful product, of such an accident—the happy outcome of years of unwitting experiments and dumb luck.
How long does domestication take? Nobody knows. In an experiment, Russian biologists kept a breeding colony of silver foxes and intentionally selected for breeding those with the least fear and the least aggression toward humans. After 10 generations, 18 percent of the foxes sought human contact and showed little fear. After 30 or so generations, a “domesticated fox” had been created.
The catch is that this experiment was deliberate and strictly controlled. The foxes could not breed with wild foxes and dilute the changing gene pool. Human contact was minimized so animals could not be tamed by their handlers. And because of the experiment’s scientific intent, no one could say, “Oh this one is so cute, let’s let it breed even if it is a little aggressive.” So in the case of dogs, without all these controls, the process could have taken much longer.
Another way of estimating the time at which domestic dogs originated is to consider their genetic differences from wolves. One prominent group of researchers, including Robert Wayne, along with Carles Vilà of the Uppsala University in Sweden and their collaborators, initially estimated in 1997 that dogs diverged from gray wolves 100,000 to 135,000 years ago. After more study, they revised their divergence date to between 40,000 and 100,000 years ago. Another group, led by Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, favored the Chinese wolf, a subspecies of the gray wolf, as the probable ancestor and estimated in 2002 that it was domesticated between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago.
How do these genetic estimates stack up against the fossil record? Until 2009, the oldest known remains of domestic dogs were two adult skulls dated to between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago, from Eliseevichi, a region in Russia. Both had the relatively broad, short snout typical of dogs, and both were large, heavy animals, nearly the size of great Danes.
Then a team led by Mietje Germonpré of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences reported a stunning new finding in the February 2009 issue of Journal of Archaeological Science: a nearly complete fossil dog skull dated to 31,680 + 250 years ago.
Another Look
Germonpré and her colleagues thought that researchers might have overlooked early prehistoric dogs in the fossil record of the Upper Paleolithic, so they analyzed skulls of large canids (wolves or dogs) from various European sites. The Upper Paleolithic time period spanned 40,000 to 10,000 years ago and is divided into sections based on the artifacts from those times. By convention, each span is named for a culture of people who made the artifacts, and the people, in turn, are usually named for the geographical location where the artifacts were found. The Epigravettian culture existed from 14,000 to 10,000 years ago; before that, the Magdalenian culture thrived from 18,000 to 10,000 years ago; and skipping back a few sections, the Aurignacian culture occurred from 32,000 to 26,000 years ago.
In order to identify the fossil skulls accurately, Germonpré’s team first analyzed a large reference sample of 48 wild, modern wolves and 53 dogs belonging to 11 different breeds. They also examined five skulls (including the ones found in Eliseevichi) that were firmly established as prehistoric domesticated dogs.
In order to establish the morphological differences between wolves and dogs, a group of researchers led by Mietje Germonpré statistically analyzed skulls from 48 modern, wild wolves and 53 modern dogs from 11 breeds, as well as five skulls that were previously established to be from prehistoric dogs. Recent wolves (pink) and prehistoric dogs (blue) clustered into their own groups, based on the length of their toothrows and the shape of their snouts. Modern dogs clustered into four groups, with some overlap in their areas. Recent dogs with archaic proportions included huskies (brown), recent dogs with wolflike snouts included German shepherds (yellow), recent dogs with short toothrows included great Danes (orange), and recent dogs with slender snouts included doberman pinscers (green). One modern dog, a Central Asian shepherd, clustered with the prehistoric dogs. The group then classified new skulls into the established groupings; examples that fell slightly outside of the ranges but that are statistically likely to be within the group are shown as lighter-shaded areas. Recent young wolves fell into the recent-wolf group, whereas wolves kept in captivity were classifed as recent dogs with wolflike snouts. Fossil canid skulls divided between the recent-wolf group and the prehistoric-dog group, with one falling in the group of recent dogs with wolflike snouts. Stephanie Freese, data courtesy of Mietje Germonpré.
The team used statistical analysis of cranial and dental measurements on the skulls to sort the reference sample into six natural clusters. One cluster contained modern wolves. Another consisted of recent dogs of archaic proportions (such as chow-chows and huskies); a single specimen of a Central Asian shepherd was closer to this group than any other but fell outside it. A third cluster included dogs, such as German shepherds and malinois, which have wolflike proportions. These three groups overlapped each other in their cranial proportions. A fourth group of modern dogs has short toothrows—the length of the jaw that contains teeth—and includes such breeds as great Danes, mastiffs and rottweilers. This group overlapped slightly with the archaic-proportioned dog group but not with the others.
The fifth and sixth clusters were completely separate from all others. One consisted of dogs with extremely long, slender snouts, such as Doberman pinschers. The final group, which had long toothrows and short, broad snouts, was made up of the prehistoric dogs. Statistically, the team’s ability to identify any individual specimen as belonging to the correct group was highly significant and accurate.
Using these clusters as reference categories, Germonpré and colleagues used a statistical technique (called discriminant function analysis ) to assign 17 unknown fossil canid skulls to the established categories. Not all of the “unknowns” were truly unknown, however. Five were immature modern wolves that might have had different proportions because of their age, two were wolves that had been kept in captivity, and one was the Central Asian shepherd that didn’t cluster into any of the groups. Additional unknowns were 11 fossil skulls from sites in Belgium, the Ukraine and Russia, although two of these fossil skulls proved to be too incomplete to classify.
The technique correctly classified all of the immature wolves as wolves, but the two zoo wolves were classified as recent dogs with wolflike snouts. Five of the fossil skulls also fell easily into the modern wolf group; although two of these specimens fell into the region of measurements that overlapped with the group of recent dogs with wolflike snouts, they had a higher statistical probability of being wolves. One fossil skull fit directly into the group of recent dogs with wolflike snouts, even though this specimen was clearly ancient.
The remaining three fossil skulls—one from Goyet Cave in Belgium and one each from Mezin and Mezhirich in the Ukraine—resembled each other closely. All three were classified as prehistoric dogs with probabilities of 99 percent, 73 percent and 57 percent, respectively, as was the (modern) Central Asian shepherd, with a 64 percent probability. In addition, the Mezin skull was odd enough in appearance (for a wolf) that another researcher has suggested it might have been a captive wolf. Germonpré and her team were delighted with these results.
The group also successfully extracted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from seven ancient canid bones from Goyet Cave and Trou des Nutons in Belgium. Rather than damage precious skulls, they sampled only bones in which wolves and dogs differ little, so they presumed all of those they sampled for mtDNA were wolves. From each sample, they sequenced a segment of the mtDNA that is highly variable in living wolves and dogs. Each fossil had a unique mtDNA sequence, or haplotype , in this region, which could not be matched with any known sequences for modern wolves (of which there are about 160) or modern dogs (of which more than 1,000 exist) stored in GenBank, a database of all publicly available nucleotide sequences.
“I was not so surprised at the rich genetic diversity of the fossil wolves,” says Germonpré, because there have been other studies with similar findings. Foxes and wolves underwent a severe bottleneck in population size at the end of the last Ice Age, and many genetic lineages went extinct at this time.
“But we were surprised at the antiquity of the Goyet dog,” Germonpré adds. “We expected it would probably be Magdalenian,” perhaps 18,000 to 10,000 years old. This outcome would fit with their results for the Mezin and Mezhirich skulls, which were found with Epigravettian artifacts roughly 14,000 to 10,000 years old. When the age of this specimen from Goyet was directly dated using accelerated mass spectroscopy radiocarbon-dating techniques, the team found that it was not 18,000 years old, but almost twice as old as the next oldest dog, placing the Goyet dog in the Aurignacian period.
A Time of Change
The Goyet dog fossil shows that the domestication of the first animal was roughly contemporaneous with two fascinating developments in Europe.
Around this time, Europeans began producing objects that are recognizable as art. Some of the earliest known art objects from Europe include the remarkable cave paintings of Chauvet Cave in France, the oldest of which were made 32,900 ± 490 years ago. None of the hundreds of glorious Chauvet paintings show wolves. However, the cave preserves something even more haunting: the footprints of a human child about four-and-a-half feet tall, as well as many footprints of large canids and bears.
Around 33,000 years ago, humans began perforating teeth for use in decoration. Although canid teeth made up a very small percentage of the total fauna teeth available, they were used in a majority of the ornaments. Fangs from foxes and wolves appear to have been favorites. One example of a perforated wolf tooth (shown in two views at right) is from Abri Castanet in France and has been dated to 33,000 years ago. A strand of beads interspersed with fox teeth came from the Russian site of Sungir and has been dated to 24,000 years ago (left). There is no specific evidence that canid teeth were used in necklaces; the fox-teeth strand may have been a belt. Randall White
Michel-Alain Garcia of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Nanterre noticed in 1999 that one track of canid prints appears to accompany the child’s prints. These canid prints, unlike the others, have a shortened middle digit on the front paw: a characteristic of dogs. Garcia suggested that the child and dog might have explored the cave together. Charcoal from a torch the child carried is 26,000 years old.
The Upper Paleolithic cultures of Europe are famous for the flowering of all kinds of exquisite art: sculptures, carvings, paintings and engravings. Animals are common and readily recognizable subjects. Prehistoric art expert Paul Bahn notes that depictions of carnivores, including wolves or dogs, and of humans are rare. Bahn conjectures that portraying wolves and humans might have been taboo.
Anne Pike-Tay of Vassar College offers another perspective. She observes that the scarcity of artistic depictions of carnivores parallels their scarcity in the fossil faunas of the Upper Paleolithic. If domesticated dogs were helping humans hunt, she speculates that they might have been placed in a completely different symbolic category from other animals.
“What if dogs were put in the ‘human family’ category as an extension of the hunter, and like humans, warranted no (or very few) painted or engraved depictions?” she wonders.
The second development of the Aurignacian period is the appearance of objects of personal adornment: jewelry. Although beads and perforated objects occurred much earlier in Africa, the earliest such objects in Europe appeared about 40,000 years ago. At 33,000 years ago, early Aurignacian people began perforating animal teeth (and occasionally human teeth) to wear as pendants or other ornaments, such as belts.
Which teeth did they choose? Among their favorite sources are what have been identified as fangs of foxes and wolves. These identifications might better be termed “small or large canids,” because until now no one has considered the possibility that dogs might have been domesticated so long ago. Besides, identifying a single canid tooth specifically as dog or wolf would be difficult, if not impossible.
Randall White of New York University argues that Aurignacian and later people chose to wear objects that displayed their identity or membership in a certain group or clan. Like gang colors or a t-shirt that proclaims its wearer to be a fan of a particular band, ancient people wore things that made their allegiances clear.
Fossils have helped to establish a far earlier timeframe for dog domestication. A paleolithic canid skull from Goyet in Belgium, about 31,000 years old, has traits characteristic of a dog rather than a wolf (a). When compared to wolves from a similar era, one from Trou Ballu (b) and one from Trou des Nutons (c) in France, the Goyet dog has a relatively wider snout and larger carnassial teeth, and it also has a wider braincase. Elsevier Ltd.
White observes that the teeth Aurignacian people chose to wear were obviously not a random sample of the animals in the fauna. For example, the fauna from the Grotte des Hyènes (Cave of Hyenas) at Brassempouy, France, is dominated by horses, aurochs (a type of cattle) and reindeer—mostly as food remains that often show cutmarks or charring—as well as hyenas, which probably lived in the cave when humans did not. Wolves are rare, making up less than 3 percent of the total fauna. Of approximately 1,600 animal teeth at Brassempouy, only about 2 percent were modified for use as ornaments. However, nearly two-thirds of the ornaments are teeth of wolves or foxes. The rest of the perforated teeth are from other rare species: bear, humans and red deer. None of the teeth of the most common species were used as ornaments at Brassempouy.
Did someone who wore a perforated canid tooth 33,000 years ago proclaim him- or herself to be one of the group that domesticated dogs?
Possibly. Domesticating dogs was a remarkable human achievement that doubtless provided a definite selective advantage to those who accomplished it successfully. They might well have had reason to brag about their accomplishment by wearing canid teeth.
Bibliography
Germonpré, M., et al. 2009. Fossil dogs and wolves from Paleolithic sites in Belgium, the Ukraine and Russia: Osteometry, ancient DNA and stable isotopes. Journal of Archaeological Science 36:473–490.
Morey, D. F. 1994. The early evolution of the domestic dog. American Scientist 82:336–347.
Ostrander, E. A. 2007. Genetics and the shape of dogs. American Scientist 95:406–413.
Savolainen, P., et al. 2002. Genetic evidence for an East Asian origin of domestic dogs. Science 298:1610–1613.
Trut, L. N. 1999. Early canid domestication: The farm-fox experiment. American Scientist 87:160–169.
Vilà, C., et al. 1997. Multiple and ancient origins of the domestic dog. Science 276:1687–1689.
We expect to be away for about the next 10 or 11 days.
While there are a number of new posts that will come out during this period, rather than have quiet days with nothing being posted, some days I will be republishing posts from the last three years; hopefully most of them new to your eyes.
Inevitably, responding promptly to comments will be tough.
Which is why I am so grateful to Martin Lack of Lack of Environment who graciously agreed to keep an eye on things while we are away.
The Guardian jumps the gun on record June sea ice melt
29 Jun 2012, 11:15 – Verity Payne
The Guardian this week reports that recent rapid melting of Arctic sea ice has seen levels reach a “record low for June”. But it’s premature to be heralding June 2012 as having record low Arctic sea ice extent before the month is even over, particularly as sea ice extent is not currently tracking at record low levels.
The Guardian article says Arctic sea ice “has melted faster this year than ever recorded before”, under the online headline “Arctic sea-ice levels at record low for June”.
This headline could be read in two ways. The first interpretation is that Arctic sea ice extent for the month of June is at a record low. But can we know that before the month is out? The second is that at some point in June Arctic sea ice was at a record low. But does highlighting a few days of sea ice behaviour best illustrate what’s happening to the sea ice?
The piece also appeared in the print version of the Guardian yesterday with the headline “Arctic sea ice has melted faster than ever, say scientists”.
Melt season
The Arctic sea ice is in long-term decline due to man made climate change, but it’s not a uniform decline – sea ice cover changes with the seasons, and the weather in the region affects how far the sea ice extends, particularly as it melts towards the ice minimum in late September.
During melt season, Arctic sea ice seems to get a lot of media attention, often with rather confusing results. This Guardian article was prompted by analysis from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), who provide daily updates and regular analysis of Arctic sea ice conditions.
The mention of that Guardian Newspaper article is worth clicking through to, if only to enjoy the fabulous photograph, as below:
Scientists say Arctic sea ice has plummeted to its lowest levels ever this year. Photgraph: Steven J Kazlowski/Alamy
Back to that embedded link in the Carbon Brief posting to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. It reveals a wealth of important information. Try this …
Rapid sea ice retreat in June
Arctic sea ice extent declined quickly in June, setting record daily lows for a brief period in the middle of the month. Strong ice loss in the Kara, Bering, and Beaufort seas, and Hudson and Baffin bays, led the overall retreat. Northern Hemisphere snow extent was unusually low in May and June, continuing a pattern of rapid spring snow melt seen in the past six years.
Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent for June 2012 averaged 10.97 million square kilometers (4.24 million square miles). This was 1.18 million square kilometers (456,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average extent. The last three Junes (2010-2012) are the three lowest in the satellite record. June 2012 ice extent was 140,000 square kilometers (54,000 square miles) above the 2010 record low. Ice losses were notable in the Kara Sea, and in the Beaufort Sea, where a large polynya has formed. Retreat of ice in the Hudson and Baffin bays also contributed to the low June 2012 extent. The only area of the Arctic where sea ice extent is currently above average is along the eastern Greenland coast.
Get your mind around this image that comes from the latest NSIDC report.
Arctic sea ice extent for June 2012 was 10.97 million square kilometers (4.24 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that month. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data
That old saying that I opened with, the one about There are those that do, etc.
No question in my mind that firmly in the camp of those that do is Mother Nature! Anyone prepared?
A guest post from Martin Lack points to the crux of the issue of denying man-caused climate change.
Introduction
I saw this post on Martin’s Blog Lack of Environment the day after I wrote a piece called In praise of fairness. In my piece I mentioned the sad case of Mr. Bob Diamond and Martin continued with the theme in such a manner that I wanted to republish his article in full. Here it is.
oooOOOooo
Are you negligent, incompetent or complicit?
This was a question posed to former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond this week, when he appeared before a Parliamentary Select Committee of MPs on Wednesday. It is a question that I would like to ask Dr Richard Lindzen… In fact, I have asked the question and – just as Bob Diamond did – he has refused to answer it… Here is the evidence on which you should decide for yourself:
Many readers will recall that, following my visit to London to hear Lindzen speak to a room full of fake sceptics in the Palace of Westminster on 22 February this year, I attempted to get some answers to questions. Unfortunately, I failed. I have been particularly frustrated by one thing; possibly the most misleading aspect of Lindzen’s entire presentation – a combination of graphs of recent atmospheric CO2 and temperature data that was mysteriously omitted from the PDF of the presentation that was initially posted on the Internet. Although Lindzen never answered any of my questions, he did insert this slide into the PDF of his presentation despite my pointing out to him – MIT and the AGU – that it was essentially meaningless (as the y-axes could be stretched to show either correlation or no correlation as preferred by the speaker).
Here is a screenshot of the misleading graph from the video of the presentation:
Steeply inclined Keeling curve versus apparently non-correlating temperature – if you stretched the temperature axis enough it would appear to correlate quite well. Therefore slide neither proves not disproves anything.
This bears more than a passing resemblance to the World Climate Widget – a very similar-looking combination of graphs (i.e. manipulated to suggest that there is no correlation between recent atmospheric CO2 and temperature data) – that can be downloaded as a widget from Anthony Watts’ Watts Up With That? (WUWT) misinformation blog.
If you go to the WUWT widget page, you will find the two graphs in both of these images (above and right) are there presented separately. However, to prove my point – that anyone using these graphs to try and prove there is no correlation between long-term CO2 and temperature changes – just look at what happens when you take the graph of University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) global lower atmosphere data as used by WUWT (i.e. cooler than surface temperature data) and stretch it:
Clearing the fog of data misrepresentation created by Lindzen et al. – Note the clear upward trend in the temperature graph on the left (it was there all the time).
Therefore, for anyone – including Lindzen – to try and use the original combination of graphs to suggest there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature, this suggests that they are either negligent, incompetent, or deliberately trying to mislead people. For many people who are not scientists to be fooled by this is understandable but, for a prominent scientist like Lindzen to make this mistake – and not apologise for doing so – is unforgivable. Furthermore, it would seem that, no matter how many times he is criticised, he just keeps repeating the same old mistakes: Skeptical Science: Lindzen and Choi 2011 – Party Like It’s 2009
It would appear that, despite the best efforts of the majority of prominent climate scientists, Lindzen’s London Illusions are still fooling a lot of people. If you follow that last link, it will take you to the website of what I prefer to call The Global Wonky Policy Foundation, where it is reported that only 43% of the British adult population felt able to agree with the following statement: “Global warming is a fact and is mostly caused by emissions from vehicles and industrial facilities”.
It has been suggested to me that this question is carefully phrased to deter people from saying “yes” (i.e. they might agree that warming is occurring and/or that humans are the primary cause; but they might not agree that vehicles and factories are the primary source of emissions). However, this is ‘clutching at straws’ in my opinion; and leaves me wondering what percentage of the population would feel able to agree with this statement:
“The sunrise is a fact and is mostly caused by the Earth not being flat and spinning once a day whilst orbiting the Sun”…?
oooOOOooo
I’m very grateful to Martin for allowing me to republish this.
This summer has seen nature visiting on man a series of catastrophes. To name just a few, we have the record-breaking rainfall in Britain in June, the Colorado wildfires and the 1,400,000 storm-struck households in the eastern US.
Colorado burning
Inevitably, many wonder if this is connected to climate change as a result of mankind’s behaviours. Many now believe so.
But we have to stand on the rock of science.
So it was great to come across a recent article on Grist that led me to this organisation, Climate Communication. As they say on the About Us page,
Climate Communication is a non-profit science and outreach project funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the ClimateWorks Foundation. Climate Communication operates as a project of the Aspen Global Change Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the scientific understanding of Earth systems and global environmental change.
That review on Climate Communication includes the following video,
Not convinced?
Then try this evidence from an interview with Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research shown on PBS Newshour,
Want more? Go for it!
The PBS video came from the British Guardian newspaper (link thanks to Naked Capitalism). The Guardian reported,
Is it now possible to blame extreme weather on global warming?
Wildfires, heatwaves and storms witnessed in the US are ‘what global warming looks like’, say climate scientists
Posted by Leo Hickman
Tuesday 3 July 2012
Whenever an episode of extreme weather – heatwave, flood, drought, etc – hits the headlines, someone somewhere is sure to point the finger of blame at human-induced climate change.
Such claims are normally slapped down with the much-aired mantra: “You cannot blame a single episode of bad weather on global warming.” But with the on-going record high temperatures affecting large parts of the US, there seems to be a noticeable reduction in such caveats and notes of caution.
This week, scientists have been queuing up, it seems, to explain how the wildfires in Colorado, the heatwave across the eastern seaboard, and the “super derecho” are all indicative of “what global warming looks like“. Most pulled back, though, from directly blaming global warming for such weather events.
“In the future you would expect larger, longer more intense heat waves and we’ve seen that in the last few summers,” Derek Arndt of NOAA Climate Monitoringtold the Associated Press.” The same report added: “At least 15 climate scientists told the Associated Press that this long hot US summer is consistent with what is to be expected in global warming.”
So, can we now say, or not, that specific extreme weather events are caused, or at least exacerbated, by global warming? Has anything changed in climate scientists’ understanding of the attribution – or “anthropogenic fingerprint” – of such events? Are they now more confident about making such links?
I put this question to a number of climate scientists ….
Leo Hickman then reports the assessments of eight leading scientists. Go and read their words here. If you can do it now!
The science is solid!
So as you watch these scientists talking about the meaning of climate extremes think what you can do today to reduce your own impact on this planet. Just as importantly, think how you can influence those around you and those that represent you that now is the time to wake up to the fact that nature is telling us to slow down!
The growth in awareness of what we are doing to the planet is astounding. There is hope, we have to promote hope and we have to acknowledge that hope is a powerful agent of change.
Don Tapscott presents what might just be humanity’s salvation.
Millions of us, of all ages, are linked together in this new ‘wired’ world. For old crusties such as myself, it’s all too easy to recall the days when the mention of the word ‘chip’ immediately brought to mind fried fish! But we struggled into this new world and now can’t imagine how it was in those earlier days – anyone want to buy my old quill pen? 😉
There are huge benefits to this wonderful networked world and most days I read something on a website here or a blog there that opens my mind in unfathomable ways. Not only that, but the number of friends, new and old, who co-operate with my attempts to show how integrity is the only way forward is humbling.
Thus it was that an old friend of many years, Lee C., sent me a link to a recent TED talk that revealed in just 17 minutes a message of hope for all of us. It reminded me that our younger generation have their own knowledge, their own aspirations, their own fears and dreams.
Without more ado, watch it now!
The recent generations have been bathed in connecting technology from birth, says futurist Don Tapscott, and as a result the world is transforming into one that is far more open and transparent. In this inspiring talk, he lists the four core principles that show how this open world can be a far better place.
And weren’t those flocks of starlings just breathtaking?
Lee also sent me this:
Don Tapscott’s recent TED talk ends with footage of starlings in vast numbers which is referred to as a ‘murmuration’. I watched it just two nights or so ago. Tonight I went outside for a breath of fresh air (ok a call of nature) and this is part of what I saw. So pleased to have had my mobile phone in my shirt pocket.
Finally, I hadn’t come across Don Tapscott before but thanks again to this amazing world of shared information, a quick Google search finds Don’s own website here.
It’s some ago that I read Lester Brown’s book World on the Edge but I still recall the effect it had on me. Namely, this is not some environmentalist’s ‘willy waving’ but something that has the potential to hurt, I mean HURT! Since the book was published the stream of information and evidence has turned into a flood of awareness that if we don’t change our ways soon then we, as in the vastness of human life, will go over the edge.
So it was a good reminder to come across a recent extract on the Earth Policy Institute website that is republished in full, as follows:
No previous civilization has survived the ongoing destruction of its natural supports. Nor will ours. Yet economists look at the future through a different lens. Relying heavily on economic data to measure progress, they see the near 10-fold growth in the world economy since 1950 and the associated gains in living standards as the crowning achievement of our modern civilization. During this period, income per person worldwide climbed nearly fourfold, boosting living standards to previously unimaginable levels. A century ago, annual growth in the world economy was measured in the billions of dollars. Today, it is measured in the trillions. In the eyes of mainstream economists, our present economic system has not only an illustrious past but also a promising future.
Mainstream economists see the 2008–09 global economic recession and near-collapse of the international financial system as a bump in the road, albeit an unusually big one, before a return to growth as usual. Projections of economic growth, whether by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs, or Deutsche Bank, typically show the global economy expanding by roughly 3 percent a year. At this rate the 2010 economy would easily double in size by 2035. With these projections, economic growth in the decades ahead is more or less an extrapolation of the growth of recent decades.
But natural scientists see that as the world economy expanded some 20-fold over the last century, it has revealed a flaw—a flaw so serious that if it is not corrected it will spell the end of civilization as we know it. At some point, what had been excessive local demands on environmental systems when the economy was small became global in scope.
A study by a team of scientists led by Mathis Wackernagel aggregates the use of the earth’s natural assets, including carbon dioxide overload in the atmosphere, into a single indicator—the ecological footprint. The authors concluded that humanity’s collective demands first surpassed the earth’s regenerative capacity around 1980. By 2007, global demands on the earth’s natural systems exceeded sustainable yields by 50 percent. Stated otherwise, it would take 1.5 Earths to sustain our current consumption. If we use environmental indicators to evaluate our situation, then the global decline of the economy’s natural support systems—the environmental decline that will lead to economic decline and social collapse—is well under way.
How did we get into this mess? Our market-based global economy as currently managed is in trouble. The market does many things well. It allocates resources with an efficiency that no central planner could even imagine, much less achieve.
However the market, which sets prices, is not telling us the truth. It is omitting indirect costs that in some cases now dwarf direct costs. Consider gasoline. Pumping oil, refining it into gasoline, and delivering the gas to U.S. service stations may cost, say, $3 per gallon. The indirect costs, including climate change, treatment of respiratory illnesses, oil spills, and the U.S. military presence in the Middle East to ensure access to the oil, total $12 per gallon. Similar calculations can be done for coal.
We delude ourselves with our accounting system. Leaving such huge costs off the books is a formula for bankruptcy. Environmental trends are the lead indicators telling us what lies ahead for the economy and ultimately for society itself. Falling water tables today signal rising food prices tomorrow. Shrinking polar ice sheets are a prelude to falling coastal real estate values.
Beyond this, mainstream economics pays little attention to the sustainable yield thresholds of the earth’s natural systems. Modern economic thinking and policymaking have created an economy that is so out of sync with the ecosystem on which it depends that it is approaching collapse. How can we assume that the growth of an economic system that is shrinking the earth’s forests, eroding its soils, depleting its aquifers, collapsing its fisheries, elevating its temperature, and melting its ice sheets can simply be projected into the long-term future? What is the intellectual process underpinning these extrapolations?
We are facing a situation in economics today similar to that in astronomy when Copernicus arrived on the scene, a time when it was believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Just as Copernicus had to formulate a new astronomical worldview after several decades of celestial observations and mathematical calculations, we too must formulate a new economic worldview based on several decades of environmental observations and analyses.
The archeological record indicates that civilizational collapse does not come suddenly out of the blue. Archeologists analyzing earlier civilizations talk about a decline-and-collapse scenario. Economic and social collapse was almost always preceded by a period of environmental decline.
For past civilizations it was sometimes a single environmental trend that was primarily responsible for their decline. Sometimes it was multiple trends. For Sumer, rising salt concentrations in the soil, as a result of an environmental flaw in the design of their otherwise extraordinary irrigation system, led to a decline in wheat yields. The Sumerians then shifted to barley, a more salt-tolerant crop. But eventually barley yields also began to decline. The collapse of the civilization followed.
For the Mayans, it was deforestation and soil erosion. As more and more land was cleared for farming to support the expanding empire, soil erosion undermined the productivity of their tropical soils. A team of scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has noted that the extensive land clearing by the Mayans likely also altered the regional climate, reducing rainfall. In effect, the scientists suggest, it was the convergence of several environmental trends, some reinforcing others, that led to the food shortages that brought down the Mayan civilization.
Although we live in a highly urbanized, technologically advanced society, we are as dependent on the earth’s natural support systems as the Sumerians and Mayans were. If we continue with business as usual, civilizational collapse is no longer a matter of whether but when. We now have an economy that is destroying its natural support systems, one that has put us on a decline and collapse path.
The reality of our situation may soon become clearer for mainstream economists as we begin to see some of the early economic effects of overconsuming the earth’s resources, such as rising world food prices. On the social front, the most disturbing trend is spreading hunger.
As rapid population growth continues, cropland becomes scarce, wells go dry, forests disappear, soils erode, unemployment rises, and hunger spreads. As environmental degradation and economic and social stresses mount, the more fragile governments are losing their capacity to govern. They become failing states—countries whose governments can no longer provide personal security, food security, or basic social services, such as education and health care. As the list of failing states grows longer each year, it raises a disturbing question: How many states must fail before our global civilization begins to unravel?
How much longer can we remain in the decline phase, whether measured in natural asset liquidation, spreading hunger, or failing states, before our global civilization begins to break down? We are dangerously close to the edge. Peter Goldmark, former Rockefeller Foundation president, puts it well: “The death of our civilization is no longer a theory or an academic possibility; it is the road we’re on.”
Adapted fromWorld on the Edge by Lester R. Brown. The message is clear.
But if you haven’t read the book it’s available online, for free! Just go here and not only will you find the link to the book but also links to other valuable materials.
Founder and President of the Earth Policy Institute, Lester Brown, speaks about his new book World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse. The issues, says Brown, are critical — and the big question is whether we can change direction before “we go over the edge.” Among his points: solar, wind and geothermal energy, with energy efficiency, can provide all the power we need, but a massive effort must be made now to fully shift to these clean, safe, renewable energy technologies. He strongly rejects nuclear power.
Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. Hermann Hesse
Nuneaton in Warwickshire is a town about 100 miles North-West of London. It’s firmly in that part of England known as the Midlands, encircled by such places as Birmingham, Coventry, Rugby and Leicester. It is also the home of the Nuneaton & Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary So what, you might ask?
Watch this!
On the Wildlife Sanctuary’s website, there is the story of Jasmine,
Jasmine was a rescue dog who lived at the sanctuary until her passing in 2011. She was no ordinary rescue dog, she was the most amazing greyhound in the world!
She was only a young pup when she was locked in a shed and abandoned. When she was discovered by the police many days later she was emaciated, mange ridden and terrified. She was taken to the RSPCA quarters in Coventry where Geoff just happened to be visiting several weeks later. They were introduced and as they say ‘the rest is history’. She came to live with Geoff at the sanctuary. Each day her confidence grew and her personality flourished. But the most amazing thing was yet to come….
It turned out Jasmine was a natural ‘Mother hen’. One day a young fox cub was brought in to the sanctuary. She had been tied to railings and left to die. She was very small and weak and the outlook wasn’t bright. That was until Jasmine sauntered over to the fox cub’s basket and started to lick her. Geoff was immediately concerned, followed by bemusement, followed by amazement as he saw before his eyes the fox responding to Jasmine’s touch. He quickly realised that Jasmine was acting in the same way the fox cub’s mother would have done in the wild!
Over the next few days Jasmine continued to ‘mother’ the fox cub who Geoff had named Roxy. Roxy grew strong and grew up. She lives at the sanctuary with Jasmine who is mum and best friend all rolled into one.
Jasmine was truly one of a kind. She mothered many of the sanctuary’s residents back to health including Bramble the roe deer, Humbug the badger and two of the other sanctuary dogs, just to mention a few.
Sadly Jasmine passed away in 2011. She is greatly missed by all at the sanctuary.
So what’s Geoff’s story? That is beautifully explained here,
In February 2001, an injured swan was taken to a veterinary clinic in Warwickshire. The swan was injured, but needed only a week of rest before it was able to be released back into the wild. However, there was nowhere in the area for the swan to rest and receive care, so it was put to sleep. This was when Geoff decided to set up the sanctuary.
Geoff had worked as a security guard for many years but was injured at work and forced to retire. He used his savings to transform his garden into a haven for wildlife and has never looked back.
Geoff, all the caring people in the world salute you!
As of 2011, the Sanctuary has been open for ten years, and has had 6,500 birds and 4,250 animals.
The Sanctuary relies on the work of our dedicated team of volunteers; who accompany us on fundraising events, talks, and shows to help raise money for the Sanctuary.
So let me close by thanking Suzann for sending me the video link to this beautiful story. And do make a note to look in on Learning from Dogs next Saturday to marvel at yet another example of the way dogs (and Geoff!) throw off their pasts and rejoice in the present.
Learning from Dogs 