Avengers: Nature and Culture

Last night I took a break off from studying and saw the Avengers movie (which I highly recommend). To my surprise, there were a lot of environmental themes running through the plot. For example, the Stark building at the opening of the movie was just renovated into an energy dependent high rise, when Nick Fury was explaining to the Avengers about the motives for saving the tesseract he said it would supply unlimited clean energy to the world "Something the {world} badly needs." 

One character in particular, The Hulk, embodies a theme relevant to our Nature and Culture class, where does nature belong in man. Dr. Banner is described to be similar to Hawkins in the movie, but inside of him there is 'the beast'. The beast was created through Dr. Banner's hubris, as he got too fancy with his experimentations with gamma radiation in his quest for power and wealth, he became too exposed. The creation story itself is an allegory to man's experimentation with nuclear energy and technology pioneering without considerations of the consequences. As a result, Dr. Banner turns into the Hulk, an animal whose classic enemy is the military. The Hulk's actions is a metaphor for what nature would do to man if nature could pack a punch. At first Dr. Banner dislikes the Hulk, but he learns how to utilize the Hulk by fighting the good fight so that both Dr. Banner and the Hulk are happy. 

Dr. Banner makes peace with the Hulk inside him, that is the message the screen writers and the comic book creators intended, that when man and nature coexist, they become a hero. 

I found it interesting that the modern day Avengers hold pollution as one of their villains and advocate for responsible scientific discovery.

I found this you-tube video and can finally see the old woman in the old woman- young woman optical illusion picture!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7f1G6Nx5VDw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Feral Cats & Kakapo Birds

In today's lecture about feral cats and wild birds, we discussed briefly the differences in predation levels with cats on islands, and I believe someone also asked about the issue of flightless birds. As Professor Tantillo demonstrated, a lot of the research that paints cats as huge threats to birds lacks strong data and support, and often contain lots of potential biases/uncontrolled variables. I agree with him on many of these points, however (not to be anti-feline or anything, but..) I do know a rather unique example that involves both flightless birds and an isolated island situation, in which feral cats have been heavily implicated in their near extinction (after other initial causes of population decimation).

Professor Tantillo talked about how Fitzgerald & Turner drew the conclusions that cats on islands tend to prey more frequently on birds than do cats on continents (see page 166 of Dennis Turner's book, Domestic Cat: The Biology of it's Behavior). This example I'm about to discuss is in keeping with their conclusions, as it is about feral cats on very isolated islands, but I just wanted to share it because I think the flightlessness aspect adds a great facet to the feral cats vs. birds debate. (And it should also be taken into account because regardless of the extremely unusual qualities of this parrot, a bird is a bird is a bird.)

Conservation officer Daryl Eason feeding a Kakapo.

The Kakapo bird (Strigops habroptilus), also known as the owl parrot, is a large flightless parrot that is  nocturnal, like cats. They can climb trees and 'parachute' down using wings for balance and breaking, but primarily stay on the ground. They are suspected to be the oldest bird species, evolutionarily speaking, that is in existence today. They are almost entirely defenseless against predators such as cats because they evolved on New Zealand, which actually contained no mammals (except two species of bats) for millions of years. Their only predator was the giant eagle, which also went extinct, giving them no reason to evolve any defenses against predatory mammals.. The Kakapo once numbered in the hundreds of thousands. but after the arrival of humans (of course, who else?), much of their habitat was destroyed, they were hunted for food and feathers, and various predatory mammals were introduced. Humans eventually slowed down on habitat destruction & hunting about 150 years ago, leaving Kakapo populations significantly smaller, but still at a maintainable number with the removal of human pressures. Predation from introduced mammals still continued from stoats and feral cats, leading to a nearly complete extinction of the Kakapo.

In 1970 they were declared entirely extinct, but in 1974 two males were discovered in Fiordland. In the next four years, 16 more males were discovered, which still qualified the kakapo as extinct as there were no females. Finally, in 1977 around 200 birds were found on Stewart Island (a relatively uninhabited island in Southern NZ that was free of stoats but filled with cats), with the first females seen in nearly 100 years. Extensive research was performed in the next 4 years, where it was determined feral cats had become the main predatory threat. Admittedly, there are numerous variables/biases that come into play on this issue as discussed in class, since cats are certainly not the only factor affecting Kakapo population numbers. They have very low fertility and reproductive rates as they take 9-11 years to reach breeding age, and are also entirely herbivorous and will postpone breeding until good seed production years where they are certain to be able to raise chicks. There are also still pressures from other predators such as polynesian rats. However, when the Stewart Island population was fitted with radio-transmitters and monitored by researchers, it was found over 50% of the adults were killed within 12 months by feral cats, suggesting them as the primary threat.

Alarmed by the high death rates, in 1982 the NZ Wildlife Service was brought in to eradicate the feral cat population on Stewart Island. Initially it worked well, dropping predation rates from ~56% to nearly ~0%. This ultimately failed as cats quickly reoccupied the area and death rates went back up, so they finally relocated the remaining 61 Kakapo to three smaller cat-free islands. The NZ government stepped in and over the next few decades began implementing a Kakapo recovery program which has been fairly successful. The IUCN red list of threatened species's most current population size from 2009 states the total number of post-breeding season Kakapos left is 124, and of those, ~55 are mature adults.

So.. what do you think of this particular example of cats versus birds? Do you agree with the steps they took in re-establishing the Kakapo population? How sustainable is this path if the Kakapo still can't deal with predatory mammals? Is eradicating feral cats from the area justifiable to preserve this species of birds? Or are these birds just evolutionarily slow and haven't successfully adapted/deserve to go extinct?



Note - If you want more information, all my information was taken from sources that were hyperlinked to throughout this post, as well as you can take a look at this extensive list of kakapo related scientific publications.

Non-native species

Here is a recent article on judging non-native species by their origins:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7350/full/474153a.html

The Baby Seal Issue Today

Today highly recognizable organizations like PETA and the International Humane Society still see Clubbing seals as a battleground. There has been laws prohibiting the clubbing of "white coat" seals in 1987, but bigger grayer seals are still up for grabs once a year. These baby seals, as stated in class grow up to be bigger seals that deplete fish stocks making it hard for fisherman to make a livelihood and support their economy.
Recently Ke$ha has turned her infamy into altruism. She has become the International Humane Society's first global ambassador, spreading her message "Canada's Club Scene Sucks." Ke$ha even made one of those cameos where her voice is backdrop to a slideshow of cute baby seals wiggling around helplessly. The cameo gives no mention or consolation to the fisherman locals that this ban would directly affect. She proposes that until Canada bans all seal killing, Protestors will not eat Canadian sea food. There's even an phone app called "Protect Seals" which will tell the user if a restaurant is seal friendly or not.
It's good to see Ke$ha trying to use the fame she has collected from eating beards and puking glitter for a good cause, but it saddens me that this ad might generate more support than an ad created by scientists.

Great Sequoia in Ithaca

While searching for the location of the local redwood tree. I found the great sequoia (Sierra redwood) that is located in downtown Ithaca. Although Sequoias can successfully grow in the northeast, they typically do not surpass  heights of 100 ft tall (compared to the usual 200 ft in  Sierra Nevada Mountains in California). It is interesting because although the tree is able to grow, the health of it is questionable. The unfavorable seasonal changes are most likely responsible for the unhealthy nature of the tree as the top is clearly dying.

http://www.giant-sequoia.com/gallery/usa/new-york/

The day Niagara Falls dried

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/blog/5461/the-day-niagara-falls-dried

While today marks the anniversary of the only natural stoppage of the Niagara Falls flow, in July 1969, a team from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers managed to divert the flow of water from Niagara River away from the American half of the Niagara Falls for several months with an artificial dam. This colossal effort allowed them to study the composition of the riverbed and strengthen a number of faults so slow the inevitable erosion of American Falls. Unfortunately for those of us who love when horses parade, unlike in the 1848 dry-up, no horses were paraded across Niagara Falls in 1969.

urban hipsters and cabin porn

On urban hipsters and cabin porn:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/what-cabin-porn-looks-like-to-a-real-expert-on-cabin-history/254495/

Great example of a term-paper size project...

KONY 2012

There is a (not so) new movement spreading the United States called KONY 2012. It's not an election, it's an awareness campaign for the Invisible Children Foundation. Joseph Kony is leader of the "Lord's Resistance Army." He has been abducting African children to use in his army. He forces the boys to be soldiers and the girls to be sex slaves. The International Criminal Court has put him as the number one war criminal and I agree that Kony has committed vile atrocities.
KONY2012 is a viral video on youtube employing pathos, ethos, logos, and a whole lot of bandwagon reasoning to it's video. It has created this movement with the point of destroying apathy, ignorance, and bringing the whole world together to make a brighter tomorrow. How hip and trendy is that? Plus the creator of the project has an adorable son and he wears hipster shades. The video is a piece of art- as it should be because the Invisible Children foundation pulls more than 70% of its funds to make awareness videos. Before going out and buy the KONY bracelets, and join the "KONY 2012-Cover the Night:  Cornell University" facebook group (held on April 20th if you are interested)

I dare you to read this article:http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com.nyud.net/

This article not only questions the money appropriations of "The Invisible Children" but also questions the end game. We are throwing money at a Ugandan military group to take militant action against one man with an army of children bodyguards. Militant actions may also cause Kony to take even more drastic measures to protect himself than he has before. Read the article, it explains it better than I ever could.
Here is the KONY 2012 campaign video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

I still feel like I am missing some details, there is still more to investigate about KONY2012 because I do believe that it was made with the best intentions. I just wish that they spent some of the time in the 30 minute video discussing how they would hopefully reduce children collateral in their military endeavors.

Here is KONY's response to the tumblr: http://www.news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8431706/kony-2012-filmmakers-respond-to-criticism

I find it interesting that the Invisible Children's "model" is to educate the Western world, but then he belittles the tumblr argument solely by stating that a canadian high school student made it. He should be celebrating the removal of ignorance and this display of action if he was true to his mission because where the information comes from is less important than if it is true or not.


Stay informed.

Why We Think Nature Is Beautiful

Professor Eugene Hargrove has a very nice slide set titled "Why We Think Nature is Beautiful" available on the web at the Center for Environmental Philosophy at the University of North Texas at Denton. The set includes a series on the Hudson River School.

Twilight in the Wilderness

Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage 'Round the World

Professor Tantillo mentioned the "Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World" in class this week. For anyone interested in viewing it, click the link below:
Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage 'Round the World

Peace on Earth

Cartmill references the MGM cartoon "Peace on Earth" in his essay on Bambi Syndrome. The video, linked below, shares Bambi's strong misanthropy but displays it in very different ways. 

"Peace on Earth (1939)"

Conference announcement

‘Nature & the Popular Imagination’
The Fifth International Conference of the
International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture
8-11 August 2012, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California (USA)
http://www.religionandnature.com/society/conferences.htm#malibu

Information & Call for Proposals

The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC) is pleased to announce its next conference in Malibu, California at Pepperdine University in August 2012. The conference theme will be “Nature and the Popular Imagination.”

Malibu is located on the Pacific Ocean, just minutes from Hollywood, that archetypal place of imagination and dreams, the backyard and playground for practitioners of the cinematic arts. For generations, the interconnections between religion and nature have been expressed, promoted, and contested through the incubator of popular culture, and sometimes even in films produced in Malibu itself or the Santa Monica Mountains above it. As a global, symbolic center, both reflecting and inventing nature/religion representations, Malibu and its environs provide an ideal venue for critical reflection on the religion/nature nexus in the popular imagination.

The ISSRNC cordially invites creative proposals including but not limited to papers, panels, film screenings, and forums with “cultural creatives” from this region and beyond, to illuminate the conference theme.

Specific proposals, for example, might explore:
• Apocalypticism (Abrahamic, Mayan, Scientific, etc.).
• Documentary film: nature faking and realism
• Theatrical film and nature spiritualities
• Nature in cartoons and animated films
• Malibu (and/or California) as sacred, imperiled, and desecrated places.
• The spiritualities of celebrities, including as animal and/or environmental activists

As always, while we encourage proposals focused on the conference’s theme, we welcome proposals from all areas (regional and historical) and from all disciplinary perspectives that explore the complex relationships between religious beliefs and practices (however defined and understood), cultural traditions and productions, and the earth’s diverse ecological systems. We encourage proposals that emphasize dialogue and discussion, promote collaborative research, and are unusual in terms of format and structure. Individual paper and session proposals, as are typical with most scholarly associations, are also welcome.

Presenters will be encouraged to submit their work for possible publication in the peer reviewed Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, which is the official journal of the ISSRNC, and has been published quarterly since 2007.

Given the ISSRNC’s commitment to internationality financial assistance will be available for a number of scholars from outside of North America. We anticipate being able to provide travel grants to at least ten international scholars.

Submitting Proposals

Proposals for individual paper presentations, sessions, panels, and posters should be submitted directly to Sarah Pike at spike@csuchico.edu. It is not necessary to be an ISSRNC member to submit a proposal. Individual paper proposals should include, in a single, attached word or rich text document, the name and email of the presenter(s), title, a 250-300 word abstract, and a brief, 150 word biography (including highest degree earned and current institutional affiliation, if any). Proposals for entire sessions must include a title and abstract for the session as a whole as well as for each individual paper. Proposers should also provide information about ideal and acceptable lengths for proposed sessions, and whether any technology, such as data projectors, are desired.

Most paper presentations will be scheduled at 15-20 minutes and a premium will be placed on discussion in all sessions. Proposals will be evaluated anonymously by the Scientific Committee, but conference directors will be aware of proposers’ identities in order to select for diversity in terms of geographical area and career stage. Student proposals are welcome.

Requests for assistance with invitations to assist with visa processes must be included with proposals.

Requests for financial aid from scholars outside of North America must also be included with proposals, and provide a clear statement as to whether such aid is essential for attendance, the needed amount, and an explanation of supplemental travel resources that will be available to the proposer. Decisions on travel grants will be made by the ISSRNC Board of Directors based on recommendations from the conference directors and scientific committee.

Deadline for Proposals

The deadline for proposals is 1 May 2012.

Registration & Lodging

The cost for registration has yet to be determined. Inexpensive lodging will be available in the dorms at Pepperdine University. While additional lodging will be available at nearby hotels it will be comparatively expensive due to the summer tourist season, so we encourage all who can to stay on campus. Details about registration and lodging will be forthcoming here at the Conference Website and will be sent by email to ISSRNC members and any others who directly express interest in the conference to its directors.

Conference Directors

The Conference Directors are Chris Doran (cdoran@pepperdine.edu), from Pepperdine University, and ISSRNC board member Sarah Pike (spike@csuchico.edu), from California State University, Chico. Professor Doran will head up the local organizing committee and Professor Pike the Program Committee, including the Scientific Committee, which will evaluate proposals. Please direct inquiries to the appropriate conference director.

Special Events

A number of special events and excursions are in the works, including a scholar-led tour of The Getty Villa in Malibu, discussions with prominent filmmakers and actors, hiking trips in the Santa Monica Mountains, and opportunities to enjoy the beautiful and famous Malibu coast. Some of these may be offered before or after the official conference period. Information about these events will be provided here as it becomes available.

Conference Sponsors

The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture is a scholarly organization, established in 2006, which is devoted to understanding the complex relationships. It has hosted conferences previous in Florida (USA), Mexico, The Netherlands, Australia, and Italy. The August 2012 will be the first conference in six years in the United States.

The ISSRNC is especially grateful to Rick Marrs, the Dean of Seaver College at Pepperdine University, whose visionary leadership and generosity has made it possible to hold the ISSRNC’s 2012 International Conference in the iconic and beautiful seaside space known worldwide as Malibu.

Robin Hood

The original movie trailer for the 1938 Errol Flynn version of Robin Hood--the standard by which all other Robin Hood movies are judged!

featuring a cast of thousands

Killing owls to save owls

Here's a link to an article on Smithsonian.com about the threat that barred owls pose to the continued survival of spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest.

Three-week old spotted owl hatchlings

An excerpt from the article:

Most of the evidence that barred owls are harming spotted owls is circumstantial; that's why Wiens and other researchers traipse the woods daily, studying how the two species fight for space and food. Still, the trend is clear. Rocky Gutiérrez, a University of Minnesota wildlife biologist, wrote in 2006 that "despite the paucity of information, many biologists now feel that the barred owl is the most serious current threat to the spotted owl."

Both barred and spotted owls, along with great gray owls and rufous-legged owls, belong to the genus Strix, medium-sized birds that lack the hornlike tufts of ear feathers common to many other owls. They are so closely related that they sometimes crossbreed, blurring species boundaries and diluting spotted owl genes. More often, though, when barred owls move in, spotted owls just disappear.

Where spotted owls are finicky eaters, barred owls consume almost anything, including spotted owls. Barred owls, typically 20 percent larger than their rivals, may take over spotted owl nests or slam into their breasts like feathery missiles. "The barred owl is the new bully on the block," DellaSala says. A few years ago, a naturalist in Redwood National Park observed the aftermath of a murderous encounter: a barred owl with a tuft of mottled feathers clinging to its talons flapping near a decapitated, partially gnawed spotted owl. When scientists dissected the spotted owl's body, they saw that it had been sliced and perforated, as if by talons.

So in recent years, wildlife managers have been mulling the ethics and efficacy of culling the barred owl in order to protect the spotted owl:

When barred owls started moving into spotted owl habitat, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initially proposed killing hundreds of the invaders. After an outcry from scientists and the public, wildlife managers instead plan to launch smaller studies to see if culling barred owls prompts the spotted birds to return. Even proponents of the approach acknowledge that the idea raises a thorny question: When is it appropriate to kill one species to help another?

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Spotted-Owls-New-Nemesis.html#ixzz1kg8opw8x

A fascinating controversy continues! And . . . never too early to think about term paper topics.

Welcome to spring 2012 semester

Hi everyone,
welcome to the course blog for NTRES 2320, "Nature and Culture." Looking forward to reading your postings.

Jim

Picture

Picture number two is really interesting. http://news.yahoo.com/photos/snapshots-week-of-june-3-1307133161-slideshow/

Central park

One time my teacher told me an interesting fact about central park. She told me that central park is worth more just the way it is rather than people constructing buildings in it. I find it interesting how iconic central park is to people and creating more buildings would not generate a lot money as it is today. Before taking the Nature and Culture class, I have taken parks for granted and now I appreciate it more due to the fact that people such as Fredrick Law Olmsted who fought really hard to design many parks and stood up for what he believed in.

Neil Young sings "Double Rainbow"

by the way, I still have yet to find any reference to where the double rainbow guy admits to having been on any kind of drugs the morning he saw the rainbows.  So I'll keep believing he was simply having an intense, emotional, pure Burkean experience of the sublime, thank you very much.  :-)

The Cove: the influence of media

While discussing the clubbing of the baby harp seals, one recent movie immediately came to mind: Ric O'Barry's The Cove.
The Cove proved to be an influential movie upon its release in 2009, and uses many of the same tactics the anti-clubbing supporters use in their own film and propaganda.
The Cove, a documentary, comments on the massacre of dolphins in Taiji, Japan, a small whaling community, and conveys a message not unlike that of the baby seal videos seen in class.
O'Barry's work shows secretly documented footage (as it was illegal for the movie crew to film on site, so cameras were hidden) of the dolphin hunters and how the men would murder the dolphins. It evokes a similar image of the killings of the baby seals. Armed man versus defenseless creature.
In addition, the film stars Ric O'Barry--a man who has been around the block in the dolphin entertainment business a couple times. His celebrity influence, along with the appearance of various other celebrities, including Hayden Panettiere, help to sway the audience to see their side of the argument.

This brings up the question raised in class: "Can pictures be arguments?".
After watching The Cove, the answer is an astounding "yes".
The Cove, as a picture, plays on human emotions such as pity for the dolphins, as well as anger and hate towards the Japanese hunters. Although voiced arguments are stated, the one scene of the slaughter is enough to change any person's opinion. The gut-wrenching scene is so emotionally charged that it can, and reportedly has, brought people to tears.

The Cove, like many other anti-animal cruelty propaganda, features the cruel and uncut violence towards animals, and no matter how vile and disturbing the footage is, it makes an effective argument and lasting impact on viewers. It leaves an indelible scar on human memory, making sure that the brutal killings of the animals will not soon be forgotten.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KRD8e20fBo