Ideology trumps science

Quotes from a state environmental protection agency: "Why would we include things we don't agree with? That's ridiculous," Saenz said. "We were looking at not including very controversial things that are unsettled science."

and

"It isn't censorship to accurately report in our document what we believe. That's being responsible. That's being accurate"

I'm thinking the citizens may want to have an independent contractor run some water quality tests - there's obviously something in the water in Texas...

Article from Reuters:

The leaders of the agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, are appointed by Republican Governor Rick Perry, who said in a recent presidential debate that the science of climate change was "unsettled."

At issue is "The State of the Bay 2010" report commissioned by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which has come under scrutiny after Rice University Professor John Anderson said that an article regarding sea-level changes he contributed was censored for political reasons.

Democratic state Senators Rodney Ellis of Houston and Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio wrote to Perry appointee Bryan Shaw, chairman of the commission.

In his letter, Ellis said he concluded from the deletions that "the facts simply proved inconvenient to the agency and other state leadership, and thus they were excised."

The commission said on Monday it would remove Anderson's article on sea-level rise in Galveston Bay from the report, ending a standoff with Anderson over the deleted information.

Commission spokesman Andy Saenz said Anderson prematurely revealed the draft report to the media without prior approval, and that the commission did not want to include controversial implications about global warming in the report.

"Why would we include things we don't agree with? That's ridiculous," Saenz said. "We were looking at not including very controversial things that are unsettled science."

Two co-editors of the project, Jim Lester and Lisa Gonzalez, scientists with the Houston Advanced Research Center, a nonprofit research facility contracted for the report, asked the agency to remove their names, fearing their own credibility.

Lester, the center's vice president, called the deletions "scientific censorship." He said Anderson's statements in the article were not political and were reviewed by lower-level staff at the agency before upper management made its own edits.

"As a scientist, my main concern is about the availability of objective science for decision-making in agencies," Lester said.

Saenz denied the claims of scientific censorship.

"Using a word like censorship is very powerful," he said. "It isn't censorship to accurately report in our document what we believe. That's being responsible. That's being accurate."

Saenz said the agency was preparing a response to the senators. The agency, which is embroiled in a lawsuit with the Environmental Protection Agency over greenhouse gas emissions, has been working on the report for more than two years, the agency said.

FROM REUTERS:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/20/us-climate-change-texas-idUSTRE79J0DW20111020

Fuzzy pictures of fuzzy spiders

The southern house spider (Kukulcania hibernalis) is a sexually dimorphic species of crevice spider (Filistatidae). Both the female and male have fine, light-colored hairs on their abdomen and both have been documented as employing autotomy as a defensive tactic.

These were photographed on my car port earlier this week (same male in both pics, two different females):

The brown recluse looking specimen is the male; the female is larger and darker.

What kind of crap is this?

What kind of crap is this anyway?

I’ll give ya a couple hints:

The critter that left it behind lives in Florida, can weigh over 240 lbs, and it is a member of the order Carnivora…

It’s from a Florida Black Bear - Ursus americanus floridanus!

Usually their crap looks a little more like this:

But I guess you never know what you might find when you start digging through another’s crap…

King snake – It’s what’s for dinner!!!

Both of the above pictures were taken near Ft. Walton Beach, Florida a couple of months back.

Two is a company...

Anyone who has ever shared a residence can attest to the fact that cohabitating with others can be an extremely stressful state of affairs. Disputes resulting from a lack of privacy, the unequal sharing of common resources, and poor communication become routine occurrences. Even worse is a cohabiting situation in which those sharing the living space develop a mutual love interest – how does that get resolved? Luckily, a recent study published in an animal behavior journal may offer a glimpse of hope for those truly desperate for resolution.

Weighing as much as fifteen pounds and often sporting wingspans greater than nine-feet, bearded vultures (Gypaetus barbatus) are truly massive birds. First described by the father of modern taxonomy ( Carl Linnaeus) in his Systema Naturae, bearded vultures can be found competing for habitat throughout the mountainous regions of Europe, Asia and Africa. Even though a pining for expansive views has lead these bulky buzzards to prefer out-of-the-way nesting sites in hight rocky crags, pressure from human encroachment has caused their numbers to decline in recent years. The huge birds are experiencing population growth in a few isolated locales in the Pyrenees Mountains, but, unfortunately, the increase in the Pyrenees groups has contributed to overcrowding and a lack of housing options for many of the birds.

Under normal circumstances, in un-congested habitats, a bachelor bearded vulture will stake claim to a territory and take-up with a female member of the species; however, with the current surge in population in the Pyrenees, there simply isn’t enough available precipitous homesteads for all of the free-roaming males to settle down and raise families of their own. Lacking options, the roving males have developed a new strategy: they have begun to invade the established territories of their rivals – their already attached rivals. The itinerant bachelor invades the home of another male and claims residence with him and his already courted female companion. As might be predicted, the addition of an interloping male into the love nest of an established male-female pair has proven to adversely affect the reproductive success of the mate-pair.

Typically, a bearded vulture male-female pair will breed between the months of December and February and produce one or two eggs annually; but, the addition of the second male in the territory decreases the frequency and duration of the pair’s copulations. This occurs for a couple of reasons; firstly, the two males constantly fight each other for access to the female. The time and energy the males expend in combating and deterring one another leaves both far too exhausted to apply any romantic effort towards the female. Exasperating this situation even further, when one male does find the rare opportunity to copulate with the female, the rival male will often physically interrupt the act – he’ll stop them mid-coitus!

In addition to the mood-ruining intrusion of a combative third party during attempted sexual congress, the female can even be put-off by the mere presence of a second male — she’ll terminate copulation if she even spots a voyeur.

Fortunately, there is hope for the Pyrenees populations. As with the cliché, “time heals all wounds,” it turns-out that over long periods of time, the polyandrous model can work for the bearded vulture. Apparently the key to success in the multi-male regime is a willingness of the beta bird to demonstrate submission to the alpha – male on male copulations appear to curtail the aggression of the frustrated vultures.

Journal Reference:
Bertran, J., Margalida, A., & Arroyo, B. (2009). Agonistic Behaviour and Sexual Conflict in Atypical Reproductive Groups: The Case of Bearded Vulture Polyandrous Trios
Ethology, 115 (5), 429-438 DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0310.2009.01628.x