January 12, 2012

Drought In Texas Has Led To Conditions

That Threaten Half Of All Surviving Whooping Cranes

Fulton, TX (AP) Scientists are warning that the devastating drought in Texas could threaten the world’s only remaining flock of whooping cranes.

The birds eat blue crabs and berries during their annual migration to the Gulf Coast. The high-protein diet is supposed to sustain North America’s tallest bird through the winter and prepare it for the nesting season in Canada. But this year, the drought has made food and water scarce.

The lack of rain has made estuaries and marshlands too salty for blue crabs to thrive and destroyed a usually plentiful supply of wolf berries. In addition, a long-lasting ``red tide’’ - a toxic algae that blooms in salty water - has made it dangerous for the birds to eat clams, which retain the algae’s toxin and can pass it along the food chain.

``We’re very apprehensive, very concerned, monitoring the population very closely to see what it is the reaction might be,’’ said Dan Alonso, manager of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, the winter home of about half of the 300 remaining cranes.

In 2009, when Texas last suffered a severe drought, an estimated 23 whooping cranes died between November and March, when they typically head north to nest in Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park. Tests indicated some had contracted rare diseases and were undernourished. Scientists believe some died of starvation.

Whooping Cranes are guided migration in 2008

This year, at least one crane has already died, Alonso said.

Scientists are alarmed because they don’t normally see dead birds so early in the season. Usually, only 1 percent, or about three birds, die over the winter.

``I think we’re going to lose a bunch again this year,’’ said Tommy Moore, captain of a skimmer boat that takes tourists and bird lovers to view the cranes in Texas’ shallow wetlands.

``The only thing I’ve seen them eat, period, is dead fish off the side of the channel ... there’s just nothing here to eat,’’ said Moore, who observes the birds nearly every day.

A century ago, the whooping cranes’ majestic 5-foot (1.5-meter) frame and mournful call were common across the Texas shoreline and as far away as the East and West coasts. But by the 1940s, the pesticide DDT and disappearing habitat decimated the population, leaving only 14 birds in the whole country.

The eventual ban of DDT and efforts by scientists and Gulf Coast residents who view the cranes as a part of the tranquil landscape helped bring the population up to the current estimate of 300 birds.

Attempts to rebuild populations in Louisiana and Florida have been less successful. Eventually, Alonso said, scientists hope to grow the population to 1,000 nesting birds and then list the species as threatened _ a more secure status than endangered.

Drought can have long-lasting effects on a species’ recovery. For example, if the birds don’t get enough protein during the winter months, more of them could die on the 2,500-mile (4,000-kilometer) journey back to their summer nesting grounds, said Lee Ann Linam, a wildlife biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department who grew up near the Aransas refuge and has spent most of her adult life working on the species’ recovery.

Unlike other birds, the cranes don’t stop to eat while flying back to Canada so the nutrition they get in Texas is especially important. In addition, Linam said, the high-protein diet is key to a successful nesting season. The cranes only produce one chick per season, so there is little room for failure.

Another concern is water. When the birds are in Texas, they normally survey on foot for crabs, berries, acorns, worms and insects. But if there is no water, they will fly to drink. That uses up precious energy and potentially makes it easier for predators to nab them.

``The whooping cranes don’t do as well when there are lower amounts of freshwater coming into the bay systems,’’ Linam said.

Still, scientists hesitate to interfere with the workings of nature. After the drought of 2009 caused some cranes to die, the refuge looked into raising blue crabs to feed the birds. But they quickly discovered that crabs are difficult to farm because they are cannibalistic. And it would cost some $2 a crab if they were successful _ too expensive for a cash-strapped program.

So instead, the reserve has taken other steps to help, including trying to capture rain to replenish water holes, revitalizing windmills and burning hundreds of acres of refuge land to make it easier for cranes to forage.

``We need every bird,’’ Alonso said, to help the species recover.

Poetry Lovers & Poets Take Note: Somebody’s

Messin’ With The Belle Of Amherst!

Amherst, MA (AP) She’s Amherst’s most famous daughter, the Belle of Amherst, the iconic 19th-century recluse whose poetry is now considered to be some of the best ever penned by an American writer. Her work is taught in American literature and poetry courses from middle school to college, anthologized in myriad poetry collections, and praised for its innovative, pre-modernist rhythms.

In short, Emily Dickinson is not someone you’re supposed to trifle with. Her poetry is sacrosanct, isn’t it?

Well, no. As Westfield poet Everett Decker sees it, Dickinson’s work is both beautiful and distinct, but it can also be difficult to approach, with its enigmatic imagery and unconventional meter. Last fall, he immersed himself in studying all of Dickinson’s 1,789 poems, surrounding himself with research materials such as Noah Webster’s 1844 ``American Dictionary of the English Language’’; he also drew on a website, the Emily Dickinson Lexicon, that’s run by a Dickinson scholar in Utah.

Now Decker has produced a unique guidebook of sorts: an introduction to 125 of Dickinson’s poems that he has titled ``haiku Emily!’’ He’s written haiku-style interpretations of the poems based on his own interest in haiku and Japanese philosophy and the similarities he sees between haiku and what he calls the ``hymnal lyric style’’ of Dickinson’s work.

``I wanted to find a way to make her poetry a little more accessible and less intimidating, especially to those unfamiliar with it,’’ said Decker, 52, who discovered Dickinson’s poetry when he was in middle school. ``As I dug into her poems, I thought that if I could find a way to distill them into something a little more approachable, it might give readers an entry to the original work.’’

Decker at the Dickinson Museum

Just released by Small Batch Books of Amherst, Decker says he thought it only appropriate that he find an Amherst publisher, ``haiku Emily!’’ has won a strong endorsement from Dickinson scholar Polly Longsworth, a member of the Board of Governors of the Emily Dickinson Museum and a former Amherst resident. Longsworth, who has written extensively about Dickinson, calls Decker’s poetry ``an amazing, brilliant body of work.’’

``Sometimes Everett Decker unlocks obscure Dickinson poems, sometimes he clarifies one, and sometimes he creates something entirely new,’’ Longsworth writes about the book. ``In reading both his work and Dickinson’s together, I found most of the `haiku’ successful standing alone, yet the engagement with both poets made them the most meaningful to me.’’

The 125 poems in ``haiku Emily!’’ are just a small portion of Decker’s Dickinson-related oeuvre. He has created a haiku-influenced poem to match each of her 1,789 poems, compiling them in a thick binder that he gave to Longsworth to review earlier this year after he got to know her at various Dickinson-related events.

``Polly is very amicable, and I found out after meeting her how high up she was in the world of Dickinson scholarship,’’ said Decker. ``I felt my poems stood pretty well on their own, but I wanted to see if they would stand up to scholarly scrutiny, so I asked her if she’d give me some feedback. ... I’m very grateful for her response.’’

Decker, who works in information technology for the U.S. Postal Service in Springfield, has been writing poetry for years and has been published in various journals. He’s hoping ``haiku Emily!’’ will spark interest in the other 1,664 haiku interpretations he has made of Dickinson’s work.

He and Trisha Thompson, co-owner of Small Batch Books, settled on the 125 poems in ``haiku Emily!’’ as a way of both introducing readers to his work and marking the 125th anniversary of Dickinson’s death in 1886. The book, available at the Emily Dickinson Museum and local bookstores, sells for a Dickinson-inspired price: $17.89.

Thompson, a former magazine editor, says she’s always had an appreciation for Emily Dickinson’s poetry. But she adds that she never quite understood the fascination, even reverence, that many people, particularly in Amherst, seemed to have for her work.

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of Decker’s poetry, either, when he approached her this past summer.

Once she began reading his poems, though, her thinking on Dickinson changed, and her appreciation for what Decker had accomplished grew. ``I get it now,’’ said Thompson. ``What Everett’s done is really help you find a way into her poetry, to grasping its essential meaning. I was blown away by the comparisons he’d made.’’

As Thompson sees it, by distilling Dickinson’s poems, Decker has identified the things that made her unique and even radical for her time _ stylistic touches such as the frequent use of dashes, for example, and her embrace of controversial topics, from sex to the existence of God. Her work, adds Thompson, was like something you might have seen ``at a 19th-century version of a poetry slam.’’

Decker is quick to point out that what he has written is not strictly haiku, which in its English form typically consists of three non-rhyming lines totaling 17 or fewer syllables. Most of his poems are longer, the length generally dictated by the matching poem by Dickinson, and some include rhymes.

As he writes in the book’s preface, ``While a `haiku Emily!’ is neither haiku nor Emily Dickinson poetry, it is strongly influenced by both. ... I held no preconception about where a `haiku Emily!’ was going or even how it would get there, but I trusted that each would speak to me and find its voice.’’

Poet Emily Dickinson

The ``haiku’’ elements of the poems include a connection to nature and minimal use of punctuation and capital letters, he adds, while the ``Emily!’’ elements include the central images and themes of specific Dickinson poems.

His poems are untitled, like Dickinson’s, each one bearing a number that links it to the corresponding Dickinson poem, which are numbered under a system developed by Dickinson scholar Ralph Franklin in the 1990s. The titles of the corresponding Dickinson poems, taken from the first line of each, are also listed with each of Decker’s poems.

Some of his interpretations can be laugh-out-loud funny. Take ``Did we disobey Him?’’ in which Dickinson wrote: ``Did we disobey Him?/ Just one time!/ Charged us to forget Him-/ But we couldn’t learn!/ Were Himself-such a Dunce-/ What would we-do?/ Love the dull lad-best-/ Oh, wouldn’t you?’’

Decker’s version? ``okay/there was the whole Eden thing - /get over it.’’

``I have so much respect and admiration for Emily Dickinson’s poetry,’’ said Decker. ``I’m not trying to be provocative or presumptuous in any way.’’

As he writes in his preface, ``I may have had to make her less reverent to make her more relevant ... (but) if even a whisper of Emily that you might not otherwise have heard comes through, then I will feel I have sung her praises as best I could.’’

Decker has long been devoted to Dickinson and her work. When he was 12, he heard about a Dickinson-related event in Amherst and bicycled there from Westfield, in the rain, only to discover he’d come on the wrong weekend. In recent years, he developed a renewed interest in the poet and began visiting the Emily Dickinson Museum regularly. And in September 2010, after he took part in the museum’s annual Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon, at which all of her poems are read aloud, he decided to devote all his spare time to studying her work.

In addition to having more of his haiku-style poems published, Decker says he hopes they will find their way into classrooms, stimulating discussion about poetry and encouraging more students to write their own poems. He’s also done book readings and has met with other Dickinson scholars. Recently he was invited to talk to the Emily Dickinson Reading Circle, a discussion group run by Dickinson scholar Margaret Freeman of Heath.

``I was a little nervous before I got up to speak,’’ Decker said as he posed for a picture outside the Emily Dickinson Museum a few weeks ago. But, he added with a grin, ``I think I passed the test.’’

Bats With White-Nose Fungus May Benefit

From European Bats With The Same Disease

Montpelier, VT (AP) A scientist studying the mysterious fungal ailment killing millions of bats across Vermont, New York and other states says the experiences of European bats that have been infected with a similar fungus that they’ve survived could provide lessons in the best way to control white nose fungus.

Most scientists believe the fungus that causes white nose syndrome in North America was brought from Europe where it was first introduced into caves in New York state. Definitive proof that the fungus is an invasive species has not yet been shown, though a study that could make that link is nearing completion.

``We have done an experiment and are analyzing the data,’’ said Craig Willis, a biology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, who has been studying the issue with money from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other sources. ``If we find evidence of the invasive species hypothesis, then it makes very good sense on focusing our efforts on European bats in hopes that we might come up with some approach for managing the disease in North America.’’

While definitive proof is lacking, many scientists studying white nose are convinced the fungus that causes the white patch that gives the disease its name came from Europe, making the fungus another in a long line of invasive species.

Among those that have reached Vermont are the invasive algae known as didymo, or rock snot, that can overwhelm cold-water streams; and zebra mussels that are expanding in Lake Champlain. Scientists are also warily watching for the arrival of the Asian long-horned beetle, which threatens maple trees, and the emerald ash borer, which threatens ash trees.

Bats infected with white nose wake from their winter hibernation and die when they fly into the winter landscape where they can’t find food. The fungus was first detected in New York’s Adirondack Mountains in 2006 and is spreading across North America. It’s believed to have killed at least a million bats, though precise numbers are impossible to determine.

A bat infected with the white nose fungus

``It would meet the definition of an exotic invasive organism,’’ said Scott Darling, a biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife who has led the state’s work on white nose since the mysterious death of thousands of bats in the state was first noticed. ``For some of us in this game the invasive species battle has been focused on reptiles, amphibians or mammals as well as plants. Now we’re dealing with microbes and that’s a whole other battle.’’

In Wisconsin, where white nose has yet to be found, the fungus has been listed as an invasive species. The listing helps officials get the word out about the threat and look for the fungus early on. It also allows the Department of Natural resources to work with property determine the best management for their site, which could installing gates on caves and hanging bat closure signs, said Erin Crain, an endangered resources section chief for the department.

The fungus that causes white nose, Geomyces destructans, is almost identical to the fungus found on bats in Europe, but it does not appear to have the mortality in Europe that it does in North America, studies have shown.

Willis said there are two basic theories that could explain why white nose is so destructive in North America, but not in Europe.

One is that the North American fungus existed here but went unnoticed until it mutated and became more deadly. The second is that the European fungus was brought to North America where bats are unable to fight off the infection.

If it is proven to be an invasive species, and the study Willis is leading is expected to be published in three to four months, an important next step would be to try to determine why European bats survive exposure to the fungus and most North American bats do not.

It could be the environment in the caves the European bats live could be different, which would slow the growth of the fungus. If so, steps could be taken to protect certain caves in an effort to ensure the bats are living in a better environment. Or it could be there are biological mechanisms that make European bats less susceptible to white nose.

It the environment in European caves is different, that would offer a concrete way to protect some of the bats.

``Adjusting the environment of a bat hibernacula is risky and likely impractical, but if we do find that the environment plays a major role in how the disease works it’s something to think about,’’ Willis said.

Same Species, Different Era: Civil War Letters

Reveal The Same Emotions We Experience Today

Madison, CT (AP) Bill Morrissey of Madison has a new appreciation for the joys of letter-writing.

Sure, up here in the real world, people are always tweeting and texting, messaging, blogging and Facebooking while they follow and ``friend’’ and e-chat each other up. But every Tuesday evening and Friday morning, Morrissey walks down a simple staircase in Memorial Town Hall in Madison and the modern world just falls away.

Down there, in the Charlotte L. Evarts Memorial Archives, he enters the world of the Civil War era, when people wrote letters as part of daily life.

Specifically, Morrissey has spent three years steeped in the letters that were once written to a prominent town citizen, George Wilcox, who was a nephew of Madison’s own Daniel Hand, and who lived 1830-1928.

Morrissey and the other volunteers, Charlotte Neely, Nancy Farnam and Loma Corcoran, are going through the letters, organizing them into plastic binders and then transcribing them onto a computer.

Last summer, they worked on most of the Civil War letters for a project for the town, and now they are working on the rest.
Morrissey estimates there are nearly 1,000 letters, correspondence written over the course of about 60 years, sent to Wilcox mostly from his older brother, Daniel Hand Wilcox, who had moved to Georgia upon his graduation from Yale College. The letters had been stored all these years in Wilcox’s home on Island Avenue, and were given to the town by Wilcox’s granddaughter, Maria Elena Pignatelli. They arrived in boxes.

Morrissey says he doesn’t believe the family had ever read all the letters, since they were tied up so neatly in packets. The boxes, he said, contained a few mouse droppings here and there.

But they give a wonderful picture of daily life in Civil War times for this prominent and well-to-do Northern family, he says.

``We get to read about the anxiety that Daniel felt, living in the South during the turbulent times of the Civil War,’’ he says. ``I don’t think Daniel’s sympathies ever left the Union.

He wrote about his unease with the election of Abraham Lincoln, because he didn’t think the South was going to accept him. Later, he joined a Southern militia to make people feel he wasn’t a Northern sympathizer, but he was later arrested as a spy and was finally acquitted. How he left the militia, we have no idea.’’

A civil war era letter & postage stamp

After Lincoln’s assassination, there was a very moving letter from Daniel, speaking of his grief and anxiety about what would happen to the country. ``I fear the greatest disaster to the nation as a consequence,’’ he wrote. ``(Andrew) Johnson cannot fill Lincoln’s place.’’

George Wilcox, having graduated from Yale College, studied law briefly in Georgia and then moved to Detroit, where he lived and practiced law until his retirement in 1892. At that time, he returned to Madison and married, at age 65, for the first time.

He and his wife, Mary Hobart Grenelle, had one daughter, Constance Grenelle Wilcox, who later married Prince Guido Pignatelli dei duchy di Montecalvo.

``Unfortunately, we don’t have George’s letters to his brother,’’ says Morrissey, ``so we really only have one half of the story. But we do have some letters from sisters and cousins and another younger brother to George. It’s a fascinating look at daily life.’’

One of the most interesting features of the letters is that the correspondence written by the women of the family uses a particular ``criss-cross’’ form of writing. That is, the letter writer goes both horizontally and vertically across the page, so that after reading the horizontal lines, the reader must turn the letter the other way and read the vertical lines which are imposed on top of the other writing. ``It’s very difficult to learn to read,’’ says Morrissey. He feels that it was some kind of fashionable way to write a letter, since it was only practiced by young women, and not in the men’s letters at all.

But Nancy Bastian, the town’s archivist, says it could also have been a way of conserving paper during hard times.

Neely says she loves doing the work because she gets involved in the story of people’s lives.

``I find the letters so interesting when they write about who is sick and who’s been disabled during the war,’’ she says. ``Because they wrote every day, you get so caught up in the story, and then after reading about their lives for a while, you come upon a letter that talks about that person dying, and it’s like you lost a friend. Really, it becomes so real.’’

At first, she admits, it’s difficult to figure out the spelling and conventions of the times. ``The spelling can be very creative. They often put the endings of words on the line above, and there are odd abbreviations. It’s like a foreign language. Once you learn that, though, it’s half the battle.’’

Morrissey says he gets so engrossed that he often works on the project at home. ``Once you get transcribing, you don’t want to stop, you want to see what happens next,’’ he says. ``You see the personalities of the people. Remember, there was no telephone, so they sat down every day and just wrote the news to each other. It’s a wonderful record.’’

It’s enough to make people today think about what kind of record of their lives they’re leaving behind, he says. Morrissey, a former engineer at Sikorsky Aircraft, admits that he himself is not much of a letter-writer.

``Luckily,’’ he adds with a laugh, ``I recently read that the Library of Congress is saving all our tweets. So at least there’ll be something about modern life that gets saved.’’