Readers’ wildlife photos

September 2, 2014 • 5:36 am

Reader Bruce Lyon, whose photos from China appeared not long ago, has sent us some more:

Here are few more bird photos from my June trip to China. I visited Kuankuoshui (KKS) Nature Reserve, where two Chinese colleagues study interspecific brood parasitism in cuckoos. The cuckoos are obligate brood parasites that never have their own nests but instead lay eggs in the nests of individuals other species, who then raise the eggs and chicks. KKS is remarkable site because a whopping 11 species of parasitic cuckoos c0-occur there (a few of the species are rare). I saw 5 cuckoo species during my visit, including watching a parasitic egg-laying visit by a female Himalayan Cuckoo parasitizing a warbler nest. The cuckoos are tough to see, let alone photograph, and I was only able to get photos of two species: the Asian Emerald Cuckoo and the Common Cuckoo.

Below: A male Asian Emerald Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx maculatus). KKS is a famous reserve in China for the likelihood of seeing an Emerald Cuckoo. During my visit there was a steady stream of Chinese birders and photographers seeking this species.

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Below: Another photo of the same male:

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Below: Emerald Cuckoos parasitize only a couple of warbler species at KKS, including this Green-crowned Warbler (Seicercus burkii). The warblers nest along cutbanks along roads and my colleagues have observed female cuckoos carefully searching the same cutbanks to find warbler nests to parasitize.

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Below: Another Emerald Cuckoo host, the Buff-throated Warbler (Phylloscopus subaffinis) with a grub to feed a fledgling. This species nests in a completely different habitat, bushes in open areas. This would require different search methods and perhaps search images by the female Emerald Cuckoos.

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Below: A female Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) perched high in a tree. The fog was so dense that it was difficult to focus on the bird let alone photograph it. Cuckoos often perch high in trees where they scope out their surroundings and find host nests, presumably by watching birds building their nests or making trips to and from their nests. At the species level the Common Cuckoo is a host generalist that uses lots of different host species, but individual females may specialize on a few or even a single host species.

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Below: Three species of redstarts at KKS are known to be hosts of the Common Cuckoo, including this Daurian Redstart (Phoenicurus auroreus) which associates closely with people and nests in buildings. This bird is a male.

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Below: Plumbeous Water Redstarts (Rhyacornis fuliginosus) have also been documented as hosts of Common Cuckoos. This is a water-loving species and I found its lovely habitat along gorgeous streams or lake edges.  This is a male. Like many birds that associate closely with running water, these birds wag their tails constantly, as can be seen by the blurred tail in the photo.

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Here’s a video of one I found on YouTube; the notes say, “This small bird was found to be jumping / hovering / and fishing at the base of Ban Jhakri Water Falls near Peeling in West Sikkim. Its act of occasionally widening of its red tail is worth watching.”

 Below: Plumbeous Water Redstart habitat—a lovely stream through the forest.

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For pictures of some lovely herps from this reserve, go here.

Back-to-school boots

September 2, 2014 • 4:20 am

It is acceptable to wear cowboy boots after Labor Day, et voilà—a new pair. These have been identified by experts as having been made by the famous bootmaker Carlos Hernandez, who worked for the Martin Boots store in Austin (they have an “MB” logo stamped inside), as well as for some other well known outfits like Lucchese (for whom he designed the famous “State Boots,” and Capitol Boots.

This pair is at least thirty years old, but I bought them completely new on eBay. Not a scratch on the sole.

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Just to let you know that good boots have a history and people who are curious about it, here’s the background that was traced back by the boot aficionado who sold them to me. This is information from the still-living designer:

“Greg Martin was the owner of Martin Boots, but has since passed away. The company was shortlived and yes I did design work for the company. The boots were made by Master Bootmaker Carlos Hernandez, of quite some fame, and his crew of excellent bootmakers. Sadly Carlos has passed away, as well as most of the bootmakers that were quite skilled and produced some very fine boots. They were purchased and renamed Texas Custom Boots, for which I continued to do design for, and managed after Carlos passed away. The company, Texas Custom Boots, has been sold several times. The original bootmakers have all aged and passed away and the company went into decline. Today, the name Texas Custom Boots is owned by Noel Escobar, and is still in operation in Austin, Texas. Not only did I work at Martin Boots, I know that pair, as they have my design on them.”

And from the maker’s daughter:

“My father, Carlos Hernandez Sr. and my brother Carlos Hernandez Jr. were the actual designers and creators of the State Boots that were custom made through Lucchese’s Boot Shop. My father made the patterns and my brother created the designs. Many of the boots were assembled in my home, at 517 W. Martin St., San Antonio, Texas. There were many nights the machines were going all through the night. I witnessed their creation and to this day I own one of the tools used to make them. I am very proud of the legacy left by my father and brother.  Virginia Hernandez Guadiano.”

Lucchese made a set of boots (see the link above for photos) with a theme for each of the 50 states. Only one boot was made for each state, and you can pick up one for about $11,000!

Now, what I don’t know is what kind of hide these boots are made from. It’s clearly reptile, but almost all reptile boots are made from teju lizard, which looks nothing like this. Perhaps some herper can identify the skin. Here’s a close-up:

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Cat with head-mounted laser

September 1, 2014 • 1:20 pm

by Matthew Cobb

We’ve debated the ethics of playing with cats (and other animals) using laser pointers a number of times (e.g. here). This cat’s staff has fitted it up with a head-mounted laser. So at least kitty won’t get his eyes fried. Still not sure it’s the Right Thing to do though.

However, I once had a cat – Spizz, the cat from outer space – who was the smartest cat I have ever known, who would hold one of those long stiff parcel wraps in his mouth, then push it along the kitchen floor, which mind a nice noise, and try and catch it, just like this cat. Except that Spizz figured that out all by himself, and would spend hours messing about. He would also fetch balls of aluminium foil that you flicked across the floor, and bring them back.

A non-prize for the reader who knows why/when we called him Spizz.

 

Spot the tawny frogmouths

September 1, 2014 • 11:20 am

Yes, there are two of them here. From Frans de Waal’s public Facebook photos, via reader Steve. There are two birds here: a remarkable example of camouflage:

Tawny frogmouths

This species (Podargus strigoides), a denizen of Australia and Tasmania, is famous for camouflaging itself and closing its eyes. As Wikipedia notes:

One of the best examples of cryptic plumage and mimicry in Australian birds is seen in the tawny frogmouth who perch low on tree branches during the day camouflaged as part of the tree. Their silvery-grey plumage patterned with white, black, and brown streaks and mottles allows them to freeze into the form of a broken tree branch and become practically invisible in broad daylight.  The tawny frogmouth will often choose a broken part of a tree branch and perch upon it with its head thrust upwards at an acute angle using its very large, broad beak to emphasise the resemblance. Often a pair will sit together and point their heads upwards, only breaking cover if approached closely to take flight or warn off predators. When threatened, adult tawny frogmouths will make an alarm call that signals to chicks to remain silent and immobile ensuring that the natural camouflage provided by the plumage is not broken.

 

A Jehovah’s Witness criticizes me for criticizing their policy on blood transfusions

September 1, 2014 • 9:52 am

In my talk on the incompatibility of science and religion, I gave a “worst-case” scenarios of the harm inflicted by choosing religion over science. I’ve written about this before, so won’t belabor it here, but it involves the denial of medical care to sick or injured children on religious grounds.  In most (48/50) U.S., states, parents get a legal break (even exculpation) if their children are harmed or die because medical care is withheld on religious grounds. Christian Scientists and Pentecostal Christians are the biggest offenders, and if you want to read all about this, read When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law by Shawn Francis Peters or  God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church by Caroline Fraser (the former is more legally oriented, the latter a history of the Christian Science Church which is a great book and a real eye-opener.

But Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) are also guilty, for their religion, based on two Bible verses prohibiting “eating blood,” does not allow blood transfusions. While some blood fractions are permitted, like hemoglobin itself or clotting factors, the transfusion of whole blood, plasma, red or white cells, and platelets are all prohibited. Also prohibited is the transfusion of “self-donated” blood, whereby you give blood in advance of an operation, giving you time to make new blood, and then you have a reserve should you need it. But you can’t do that—Bible says no.

As a result, many, many Jehovah’s Witnesses have died from refusing blood. Not only that, but they brainwash their children into refusing blood, too. Below is a cover and a picture taken from a 1994 issue of Awake! magazine: an official publication of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Every child shown died from refusing blood.

How are they characterized?  As “Youths Who Put God First”! When I showed this picture during my talk, there was an audible shudder in the audience.  The children are seen as martyrs for their faith’s delusions.

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But don’t forget that even those parents who refused blood were once children, too, and most of them were probably brainwashed as well, so to say that they had the “choice” to take a transfusion ignores their own upbringing.

I won’t go into Christian Science, but read Carolyn Fraser’s book if you want to see the children killed in the name of Christian Science. What is curious in these stories—and I’ve read many—is the lack of affect the parents show after having killed their children by refusing medical care (often simple procedures like insulin injections or antibiotics).  It is as if they see their kids in the hands of God, and it’s His decision, not theirs. Most maintain that they were good parents, even though their neglect killed their children. And virtually all of those parents get off legally, or are given a slap on the wrist. (In contrast, if you neglect medical care on nonreligious grounds, there is no protection: you are guilty of child abuse or even manslaughter. This is one of the unconscionable privileges that religion gets in our country.)

At any rate, a Jehovah’s Witness came up to me at the meeting (I am curious why they want to attend an atheist/humanist meeting!) and tried to argue with me. Fortunately, I had another appointment, and couldn’t talk. But later that day I got an email from a JW, which I reproduce here without divulging names or identifying information. Note that techniques of “bloodless surgery” have been developed by doctors who deal with Jehovah’s Witnesses and other people who don’t want blood transfusions, though it’s always better to have the option of full transfusion. At any rate, here’s what I received. I have no idea how this person knew I talked about the JWs and blood transfusion (my emphasis below):

I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses who takes exception to your opinion regarding blood transfusions.  On [date redacted], our [age redacted] year old daughter was pronounced DOA after a car accident in which  she sustained an aortic tear.  Long story short, she is alive today because she did not receive a blood transfusion. The physician who operated on her is convinced she survived because she did not receive blood. According to  [name redacted] the loss of blood served to lower her blood pressure and  other bodily functions compensating for the loss of blood. It gave him the opportunity to repair the damaged aorta and she survived an operation with an 85% death rate-W/O blood!  Her hemoglobin count at one point while in an induced coma was 2.9.  She survived the very same accident from which Princess Diana died two weeks prior.  Princess Diana according to published reports was transfused right in the ambulance.  Is it possible that the added pressure on the aortic tear made the opening larger and put her body under even more stress?  As a result of this surgery, Dr. [name redacted] was asked to a Bloodless Convention to explain his findings in our daughters case. I don’t consider myself a religious fanatic nor am I easily persuaded.  I like to do objective research and am convinced that the Bible is inspired of God. His mandate re. the taking of blood is due to his knowledge of his creation.  Many doctors and scientist are revisiting their position on bloodless surgery. I would like to suggest you look at our website JW.ORG, if you are not to biased against us on general principle.

Well, even if you believe a transfusion would have killed the daughter, and I am not sure I believe it, there are many more kids who died because they didn’t get transfusions. They are the Children Who Put God First.  All doctors would like to have the option of transfusion, but they can’t use if if the patient (even a child) refuses.

The bit in bold shows the true irrationality of this stand, one that is not a simple academic dispute between science and religion, but costs people their lives. And yet this writer claims that he/she is not a religious fanatic, and makes decisions based on “objective research.” This person is wrong on both counts.

I wish there were some way to eliminate religious exemptions from medical care for children. Yet those exemptions were put in place by our own lawmakers—not because they are JWs or Christian Scientists or faith-healing Pentecostal Christians, but because they give the usual unwarranted American deference to religion. They are our laws, and we must be held to account for them. It’s time to change them. Every child should have the chance to live, and that includes getting medical care based on science rather than ambiguous passages in a fictional Iron Age document.

 

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Daniel Fincke: morality is objective

September 1, 2014 • 8:29 am

Several of the talks at the Pittsburgh Atheist/Humanist meetings were excellent, and I hope to have time later to discuss one or two more. But first I want to say a few things about Daniel Fincke’s talk, titled “Empowerment Ethics.”  Daniel (I don’t know if he goes by “Dan”), as you may know, is a philosopher whose website at Patheos is called “Camels with Hammers.”

I had given my own talk earlier, and during the Q&A someone asked me whether, because of my penchant for using science and rationality rather than faith, I nevertheless had a faith-based ethics system. (It’s a good question.) I said no, it wasn’t based on belief in something for which there was no evidence (my conception of “faith”) but simply a preference—a judgment call based on what I think would create a more harmonious and just society, and some of those judgments are informed by evidence. In the end, though, my view that a harmonious and just society—like Sam Harris’s view that the most moral society maximizes well being—is at bottom a preference. People hate that, but it’s what I do believe.  I still don’t believe there is any such thing as an objective ethical judgment, though of course I believe that ethics rests heavily on empirical observation: what helps vs. what hurts people, and how societies function under different moral codes. But your criteria for what makes one thing moral and another not cannot, I think, be objective.

Others differ, and think morality is objective, one of them was Fincke, who in his 20-minute talk outlined his vision of “empowerment ethics,” which seems to be a quasi-utilitarian form of ethics along the lines of Sam Harris’s.  (I may be doing him a disservice, but I’m remembering the best I can).

Fincke claimed that yes, ethical judgments are objective.  What are the criteria for such judgments? Finke said it was “human flourishing”: whatever is more moral is that which allows for the most human flourishing.  This criterion was supposed to be objective, though Fincke didn’t define what “human flourishing” is. He also emphasized—and here I agree with him—that ethical judgments must be based on rational thought as far as possible, and that they must be consistent within a person: you cannot, say, that it is never moral to embezzle, and then cheat on your taxes.

Now this sounds good to people, and many agreed with him. Why I think they did is simply because for most moral judgments there is no disagreement among most people. We don’t hurt children or animals or anybody unnecessarily, we don’t steal, and so on. Much of that common feeling may be based on moral judgments that are instinctive because they are evolved: they allowed our ancestors to live in harmonious bands. (That doesn’t mean, of course, that they’re good behaviors now.) But there is no unanimity among people in two instances: religion-based morality and the “hard cases.”

Religions, of course, differ strongly in what they consider moral and immoral. Many Catholics see homosexuality as immoral, and the Church sees homosexuality as a “grave sin.”  Catholics also see divorce and contraception, as immoral. Many Muslims think it’s immoral for women to drive, go to school, or show their faces. How do you convince them that human flourishing overrides these dictates? I think it does, but they would simply claim that that is not so, for those moral dictates are given by God, and the best society is the one that obeys God’s rules. In other words, if those dictates were disobeyed, society would not flourish. (God might even destroy it, or send hurricanes!)

Now you can say that this is an irrational view, because it’s based on faith, but try convincing religious people that they are objectively wrong about that.

The more difficult cases are when religion isn’t involved, and in the Q&A I asked Dan to answer three questions.

If morality is objective, what is the objectively more moral action in these three cases:

1. Is it more moral for you to keep all your money or to save lives by giving away to Third-World charities everything you have beyond what you really need to live?

2. Is it more more moral to kill 1000 chimpanzees to save a maximum of 100 human lives?

3. Is it moral to torture someone if you think there is a 50% chance by so doing you will save 10,000 human lives?

I don’t think you can give an objective answer in any of these cases, for we simply cannot weigh “flourishing”.  How do we value a chimp life versus a human one? We don’t know exactly how much chimps suffer, or how sentient they are; and does that matter anyway?  Why is Fincke (and the rest of us) not acting immorally if flourishing would be maximized by giving away most of what we have and don’t need? (Saving a life, after all, which you can do by feeding poor kids in, say, Africa, is the best way to help people flourish with the least effort.) And as for torture, well, you can always say that torturing someone, even if it saves 10,000 lives, would brutalize society, and so reduce flourishing. But how do we know that? We can’t do the experiment, or look at other societies who do torture, because they differ in many other ways from ours, and at any rate, we could, as Alan Dershowitz thinks, put stringent legal controls on who should be tortured and how—controls that other countries don’t have. (Dershowitz thinks we should have “torture warrants.”).

There are other hard cases. Is ethnic profiling of terrorists on plane flights immoral if it would save lives? What about abortion? Is it immoral to allow a woman to abort an infant in the third trimester? How do you answer such questions objectively? I have my own answers (for example, I think abortion should be allowed on demand), but I couldn’t say that that is the objectively moral thing to do. I could argue that our society is better when such abortions are allowed, but a religious person could say that a third-trimester fetus is sentient and could be removed from the mother and have a life and that in the end that individual would be glad it wasn’t aborted.  It comes down, I think, to what kind of society you prefer.  After all, how do you balance the various aspects of “flourishing,” one against the other (keeping your wealth versus saving children, or killing chimps versus saving human lives)? That, too, was a problem with Sam Harris’s view: there are various ways to judge “well being,” and how do you weigh them one against the other?

We even may all agree on the utilitarian ideal of “maximum well being” or “maximum flourishing,” but different people will weight different aspects of these criteria differently. In the end, I still think it comes down to preference and a judgment call, and for me that involves what you think is the best behavior for individuals and societies to be well off. Some of one’s judgments are empirically testable in principle, but the criteria for what is moral, and how to weigh different facets of those criteria, still seem to me in the end to be subjective and not objective.

Objective ethics is a view that is gaining traction, and I wish I could get on board. But I have yet to be convinced that, say, anything involving animal rights can be judged objectively, except for easy cases like sacrificing ten mice to save a thousand humans.

This doesn’t get religious people off the hook, of course. Although they may claim that their ethics are objective—and superior—because they’re based on God’s dictates, virtually every religious person picks and chooses which of God’s dictates to obey.  Christians do not, as the Bible mandates, kill adulterers, those who work on the Sabbath, or adulterers. That, too, is picking and choosing based on some extra-Biblical notion of what is right. And that, to me, seems to me no more objective than my own secular ethics.

 

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Once there were billions

September 1, 2014 • 6:10 am

JAC: Yesterday I mentioned that today is an anniversary of note. I forgot that it was the 75th anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the Germans, and thus the beginning of World War II. But it’s also a biological anniversary, and Greg has volunteered to tell us about that one:

by Greg Mayer

Exactly 100 years ago today, on September 1, 1914, the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) became extinct. We rarely know when a species becomes extinct with such precision, even in those cases, like the passenger pigeon, when the species succumbed at the hands of man. We know for the passenger pigeon, though, for by this date 100 years ago it had been many years since a passenger pigeon had been seen in the wild, and the only remaining birds were in captivity. And on this date, Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo at the age of 29.

Martha, the last passenger pigeon, by Carl Hurlbert, USNM.
Martha, the last passenger pigeon, photo by Donald Hurlbert, USNM.

Her demise marked the end of a sad chapter in the history of human exploitation of nature. In the first half of the 19th century, flocks of passenger pigeons darkened the skies of eastern North America, and could take days to pass by. Their numbers were estimated to be in the billions. A few decades of remorseless market hunting more than decimated them, and, once below a certain number, the intensely social species seemed unable to successfully reproduce. The last few pigeons in captivity stemmed mostly from the efforts of Charles O. Whitman, one of Jerry’s predecessors in biology at the University of Chicago, and an expert on pigeons. Whitman’s attempts at breeding, including sending Martha to the Cincinnati Zoo, did not succeed. Martha outlived Whitman, who died in 1910, so he did not live to see the ultimate passing of the pigeons.

The National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian has a temporary exhibit commemorating this sad milestone, “Once There Were Billions“, which opened in June and will be up till October of next year. I got a chance to see it just a few days after it opened. It’s a small exhibit—just two cases—but dense with specimens, objects, and information, a fine example of the style of museum exhibition that I call the “cabinet” style, which we’ve praised before here at WEIT.

Once There Were Billions, first case, at the USNM, 26 June 2014.
“Once There Were Billions”, first case, at the USNM, 26 June 2014.

After Martha’s death she was sent to the Smithsonian, where she still resides, and she is a highlight of the exhibition.

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Three specimens, including Martha herself (11). Martha and number 10 are mounted for exhibition, while 12 is prepared as a standard”study skin”. (Almost all bird specimens in a research collection are prepared in this fashion.)
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Martha signage from “Once There Were Billions”.

A number of classic illustrations are included from the Smithsonian Library, including from Mark Catesby’s Natural History of Carolina from the 1700s.

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A passenger pigeon from Mark Catesby’s Natural History of Carolina.

The exhibit also features 3 other once abundant species which were driven extinct largely by hunting: the great auk, the Carolina parakeet, and the heath hen.

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The second case in the exhibition at the USNM.

The great auk is shown in an illustration from Walter Rothschild’s Extinct Birds (which also has a passage on passenger pigeons on pp. 167-170),

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Great auk from Rothschild’s Extinct Birds.

as well as by a preserved specimen.

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Great auk at the USNM.

And the Carolina parakeet is represented by two specimens; note the passenger pigeon illustration from Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology to the left of the parakeets.

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Carolina parakeets. Note Wilson’s passenger pigeon illustration to the lower left.

On the exhibit web page, there are links to a fine collection of illustrations and books about all four species from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

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Signage for “Once There Were Billions”.

The Smithsonian is also showing a set of sculptures by by Todd McGrain from the Lost Bird Project; his passenger-pigeon sculpture is displayed on the USNM’s ‘front lawn’.

Passenger pigeon sculpture at USNM.

The Lost Bird Project sign at USNM.
The Lost Bird Project sign at USNM.

For further reading on passenger pigeons, I recommend A.W. Schorger’s The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1955). Two new books have been published this year, A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction (Bloomsbury USA, New York) by the noted Chicago naturalist Joel Greenberg, and Mark Avery’s A Message from Martha: The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and its Relevance Today (Bloomsbury Natural History, London), but I have not read them.

h/t  Mark Joseph