The Lazarus flower

The way things are, sometimes it's nice to find a bit of good news to focus on.  Today's good news comes to us by way of my dear writer friend Vivienne Tuffnell, whose books are brilliant and whose lovely blog Zen and the Art of Tightrope Walking should be on your "subscribe" list.

The article Vivienne posted was about an amazing accomplishment -- the "de-extinction" of a plant, the York groundsel (Senecio eboracensis).

[Photograph credit: Andrew Shaw/The Rare British Plants Nursery]

The plant has an interesting history.  It's an example of a curious phenomenon where a new species has resulted from hybridization -- in this case, between the exotic Sicilian ragwort (Senecio squalidus) and the native common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris).  Some time in the last three hundred years -- when Sicilian ragwort was unintentionally introduced to England -- the two cross-pollinated.  Such hybrids are usually infertile because of having sets of non-homologous (unpaired) chromosomes, but the hybrid then backcrossed to S. vulgaris, resulting in an allopolyploid, a plant that had a combination of chromosomes from two different parent species but was self-fertile.  It was also genetically distinct enough from both parent species that it couldn't backcross again, and thus was reproductively isolated -- i.e., a new species.

(Interestingly, another example of allopolyploidy is wheat, a hybrid of two grass species that have actually been identified in the wild.)

The problem was, the new species was only found in the city of York, and an extensive cleanup campaign in 1991 involved the overzealous application of weedkiller.  The only colonies of York groundsel known were destroyed.  Researchers had three small pots of the plant on a windowsill in the University of York, but the plant is an annual or short-lived perennial, and they didn't last long.  Fortunately, before dying, they produced a pinch of tiny seeds -- which were sent to the Millennium Seed Bank at the fabulous Kew Gardens.

Andrew Shaw, of The Rare British Plants Nursery, wanted to see if the York groundsel could be brought back.  There was a small amount of seeds in private ownership, but those germinated poorly.  So he approached Kew to see if the remaining seeds might be used to try to save the species from extinction.

It worked.  Of the hundred seeds planted by Shaw, all but two of them germinated.  Over the next two years, Shaw oversaw the production of over a thousand seedlings, which were planted out in specially-chosen plots of land in the city.  The reintroduced plants are now flowering in the wild for the first time in over thirty years.

"It’s a smiley, happy-looking yellow daisy and it’s a species that we’ve got international responsibility for," said Alex Prendergast, senior vascular plant specialist at Natural England, who worked on the project.  "It only lives in York, and it only ever lived in York.  It’s a good tool to talk to people about the importance of urban biodiversity and I hope it will capture people’s imagination.  It’s also got an important value as a pollinator and nectar plant in the area because it flowers almost every month of the year."

So there's your cheerful news of the day.  While humans do their fair share of damage, it's nice to know that sometimes, people who care will actually work toward fixing something.  In this case, bringing back a rare plant from the brink of extinction -- and introducing a bit of color into the landscape of a city.

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What the cat dragged in

One thing I try to keep in mind when I'm reading something controversial is the fact that all humans have biases, including me.  And sometimes these biases are so powerful that they become blind spots -- something we believe so strongly that we flatly refuse even to consider any evidence to the contrary.

And when you tie in powerful emotions to these blind spots, people become so immovable in their convictions that trying to change their minds is damn near impossible.

One rather unexpected case of such a blind spot surfaces periodically on a listserv I belong to.  As some of you may know, I'm a rather rabid birder, and have been known to stand in the freezing cold for hours or trek through a leech-infested steam bath of a southeast Asian jungle just in order to see birds I've never seen before.  So I belong to a listserv called "BirdChat," so I can connect with other similarly-obsessed and dubiously-sane people around the world.  And every once in a while, someone will bring up the topic of...

... cats.

When you bring up cats -- more specifically, outdoor cats -- you immediately sort the birding world into two groups.  The first has a mortal hatred of outdoor cats, and considers their toll on bird populations to be ridiculously high.  The second, which consists almost entirely of people who own cats that are allowed outdoors, dismisses those contentions as nonsense.

[image courtesy of Mark Marek Photography and the Wikimedia Commons]

And the battle escalates quickly.  Usually someone brings up the Stephen's Island Wren, a little flightless bird that lived only on one island near New Zealand, and which was exterminated by the islanders' pet cats.  Someone else will counter that we're not talking about small islands, here, that allowing Mr. Fluffums to catch a sparrow or two every once in a while is just allowing him to express his natural hunting instincts, and isn't hurting anything.  Some hothead will then propose turning loose coyotes near Mr. Fluffums' stomping grounds, and seeing how his owners will feel about "natural hunting instincts" then.  Tempers rise, unsourced facts and statistics are thrown around, and no one gives an inch.  Usually a moderator will have to step in and say, "You people need to stop this right now," and everyone will return, grumbling, to their respective corners, until the next time the subject comes up.

So at the risk of setting off a firestorm here, how 'bout we look at an actual peer-reviewed study regarding the subject?  Can it be true that outdoor cats are a problem, or are we looking at people who take bird conservation way, way too seriously?

Scott Loss, Tom Will, and Peter Marra wrote an article for Nature about two years ago that settles the issue, fact-wise, once and for all.  Called "The Impact of Free-Ranging Cats on Wildlife in the United States," it describes a "systematic review and [quantitative] estimate [of] mortality caused by cats," and came up with the following staggering statistics:

We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals annually... Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.

That's "billion" with a "b," folks.  And focus especially on the last sentence; cats are the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for American birds.  More than legal and illegal hunting; more than pesticides; more than collisions with automobiles, wind turbines, and airplanes.

In fact, more than all of those put together.

About the study, Dr. George Fenwick, president of the American Bird Conservancy, said:

The very high credibility of this study should finally put to rest the misguided notions that outdoor cats represent some harmless, new component to the natural environment.  The carnage that outdoor cats inflict is staggering and can no longer be ignored or dismissed.  This is a wake-up call for cat owners and communities to get serious about this problem before even more ecological damage occurs.

Pretty unequivocal, you'd think.  But the response from cat owners has largely been: silence.

The reason I bring all of this up is a conversation I had a couple of days ago with someone who was troubled because she has a bird feeder, and also an outdoor cat.  So she is, in effect, luring in birds so the cat can kill them.  Is there anything, she asked, that she can do to keep the cat from killing the birds in her yard?

I said, "Keep the cat indoors."

She looked dubious.  "But... I don't want to do that."

I gave her an incredulous look.  "Then you shouldn't have a bird feeder."

"I don't want to do that, either.  I like the birds."

"Then keep the damn cat indoors."

Having seen the firestorms that have erupted on the BirdChat listserv, I let the topic drop.  Because when you tie in biases and preconceived notions with the emotions -- especially about something as emotionally-laden as pet ownership -- things can escalate really quickly.

The data is out there.  Let me reiterate: outdoor cats are the single worst cause of bird mortality in the United States (and, I believe, in Great Britain as well).  So if you care about wildlife, the only responsible thing to do is to keep your cats inside.

But I have to wonder how many minds this will change.  On topics like this, it's far easier to frown, say, "Oh, but this can't really be about my cat," and go on doing what you've done before.  I hope I'm wrong, mind you, because this is one topic on which the jury has weighed in, and the verdict is unarguable.

But as we've seen all too many times before, changing people's minds when they've already decided what they believe is often a losing battle.  Sometimes the attitude is "evidence be damned, I'll do what I like."

Hark, hark, the shark

I guess it was bound to happen.

It started decades ago, with Jaws.  Then you had the hyped-up "documentaries" of the 80s and 90s featuring lines like, "Let's put the bikini-clad Baywatch wannabee in the giant metal cage, lower it into the water, and throw around bleeding fish parts, and see what happens."  But things ramped up considerably when the Discovery channel started "Shark Week."  Then we had the following, which made a lot of us science types shake our heads and say, "Um... really?":

Oh, if only it were "enough said."  Because you know it's not.  It is never enough said, once the ball gets rolling, especially if the ball has teeth and fins.  Because just a few days ago we had a new "documentary" on Discovery, one that upped the ante even further, by claiming that one of the largest seagoing predators that has ever lived... is still alive.

 Called Carcharodon megalodon, or just "Megalodon" for short, this thing was, to put it bluntly, freakin' huge.  Fossils have been found that indicate that the biggest ones could reach 18 meters in length (for reference, the largest great white sharks get to be about 6 meters long).  So, this was one scary-ass beast, the likes of which would make me hesitant to set foot in the ocean again.

If it still existed.  Which it doesn't.  Scientists are in agreement that Megalodon went extinct about 1.5 million years ago.  But of course, given the foolishness that has appeared on Discovery (remember Finding Bigfoot?  and The Haunted?  and, most germane to our discussion here, Mermaids: The Body Found?), I shouldn't really be surprised.

Oh, but there's a poll!  Because scientific truth is determined by public consensus, evidently.  You can vote that "YES! The evidence for Megalodon can't be ignored! The monster shark lives!" or "Maybe.  95% of our oceans remain unexplored, so it's possible that Megalodon is still out there."  Or (and I imagine this choice accompanied by a sad shake of the head), "No.  The scientists are right."  So, anyway, I voted (guess which way?), mostly so I could see what the results were, and was unsurprised that 32% of the respondents voted "yes," and 48% "maybe," leaving the poor scientists in the dust with a paltry 20% of the vote.

Of course, given that a common attitude is that public school biology curricula should eliminate the teaching of evolution "because lots of people don't believe in it," I shouldn't be surprised that (1) the public is easy to hoodwink into believing nonsense, and (2) there's a sense that science is a democracy.

Now, don't misunderstand me.  I love the ocean, and I think sharks are really cool.  And there's no doubt that charismatic megafauna are big sellers, explaining why you see lots of calendars and framed prints and greeting cards and tattoos with images of wolves, lions, and jaguars, and far fewer with wombats, possums, and naked mole rats.  I get why there's never been a film called Rabbitnado, although I have to admit I would watch it, especially if the bunnies turned out to be like the Beast of Caer Bannog:

But that's just me.  And since these media outlets exist to make money, not to promote good science, it's no wonder they jump on the bandwagon.

Sharon Hill, in her wonderful blog Doubtful News, did a piece on Megalodon recently, and expressed hope that "Shark Week" and other dubious attempts at nature documentary would raise awareness of shark conservation.  Me, I'm less sanguine.  When the movie Jaws came out in 1975, there followed a senseless slaughter of sharks of all sorts, including the completely harmless gray nurse shark.  Just as people don't get that science is done based on evidence, not on voting in a poll, they also don't tend to respond rationally when an irresponsible media outlet has ramped up the fear.

Anyhow, that's today's exercise in futility.  Given that Megalodon got "record ratings," I'm doubtful that anything I say is going to have an effect.  Maybe I should make my own documentary, you think?  You can't beat 'em, join 'em.  How about Hopping Mad: Is Australia's Carnivorous Kangaroo Still Alive in the Outback?  Start with some photographs of fossil skeletons:

Follow up with some scary drawings:

Hire a scientist or two to weigh in on how we can never be sure that an animal is extinct, because the Coelacanth, you know, and so on.  Then have a poll.   Sure fire winner, right?

Of course, right.