Art, animals, and the earth

Bison, like these at Custer State Park, in South Dakota, were central to the Plains Indians. But when the U.S. National Parks Service tried to reintroduce them to Lakota lands, it tore the community apart. PHOTO: SARAH LEEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

Rewilding is the idea that, having extirpated many species, by returning large animals and birds like the California condor to the landscape, we can restore key ecosystem functions.The most famous example is probably the reintroduction of grey wolves to the northern Rockies and the Mexican grey wolf to the desert Southwest in the mid-late’90s. There’s a phenomenon called trophic cascade, which means that a large predator like a wolf has a regulatory effect on the entire food chain. In Yellowstone, the return of wolves has meant that the elk can’t be fat and lazy and start to browse in a different fashion, which in turn allows aspen and beavers…

“In 1986, after a fire and explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released radioactive particles into the air, thousands of people left the area, never to return. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 5 have found that the Chernobyl site looks less like a disaster zone and more like a nature preserve, teeming with elk, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, and wolves.

“The findings are a reminder of the resilience of wildlife. They may also hold important lessons for understanding the potential long-term impact of the more recent Fukushima disaster in Japan.

“It’s very likely that wildlife numbers at Chernobyl are much higher than they were before the accident,” says Jim Smith of the University of Portsmouth in the UK. “This doesn’t mean radiation is good for wildlife, just that the effects of human habitation, including hunting, farming, and forestry, are a…

“Researchers have long thought fish were heartless and cold, incapable of the relationships mammals cultivate, but new research among fish in coral reefs suggests fish can work in long-term paired relationships.
By Lucy Schouten, Staff September 29, 2015

“A diver snorkels in the Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s Queensland state. Rabbitfishes from a coral reef have just been found to exhibit reciprocal cooperation, meaning they are the first fish known to take care of each other.
“Fish living in the vast network of coral reefs near Australia are already known to moviegoers for their devotion, thanks to the loving clownfish father-and-son pair in Pixar’s “Finding Nemo.”  From: exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com

GR:  The Bluegill in my ponds defend their nests against predators.  It seems that there are usually two defenders, but I haven’t watched enough to be sure.

In September of 2012, I was at our cabin in Douglas County Wisconsin. My husband was in the cabin and I decided to go for a walk with our dog, a Giant Schnauzer weighing in at about 100 lbs.

My husband keeps many trails cut on our property and so Max, my dog, and I started hiking through the trails. Max usually never left sight of me nor me of him and if I called him he always returned.

A few minutes went by and I didn’t see him. I called and he didn’t come back. I was close to a road so I walked through the brush and looked up the road.

There at the intersection stood Max with three wolves. None of them were growling, no teeth showing, no hair standing up. I called to Max but he didn’t come.

They were about 100 feet from me so…

This video from the USA says about itself:

26 September 2015

In this short clip a male Lucifer Hummingbird arrives and takes a sip at the feeder while the rain falls.

The West Texas Hummingbird Feeder Cam is nestled in the mountains outside Fort Davis, Texas, at an elevation of over 6200 feet. This site hosts a total of 24 Perky Pet Grand Master hummingbird feeders, and during peak migration can attract hundreds of hummingbirds from a dozen species that are migrating through the arid mountains. For the whole experience, watch LIVE here.

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Martha MacDonald Napaltjarri (in foreground) and Mona Nangala painting at Papunya Tjupi art centre, Papunya, 2015. Photo: Helen Puckey

Have you heard of Papunya? The birthplace of what is touted as the century’s greatest art movement? The Conversation looks at how the movement has given birth to indigenous artists’ collectives, transformed communities, empowered women and forms a grand narrative on Aboriginal art:

The emergence of ‘dot’ paintings by Indigenous men from the western deserts of Central Australia in the early 1970s has been called the greatest art movement of the twentieth century.It all changed at a place called Papunya. Papunya was a ‘sit-down’ place established in the early 1960s, 240 kilometres northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory (NT). The settlement brought together people from several western desert language groups: the Pintupi, Warlpiri, Arrernte (Aranda), Luritja, and the Anmatyerr, who were unaccustomed to living in close proximity to each…

“Trees, crucial absorbers of climate-harming carbon dioxide gas, may finally be balking at an ever-earlier spring season brought on by global warming, researchers said Wednesday.

“Over the past several decades, trees across central Europe have been steadily sprouting their spring leaves earlier in response to warmer temperatures, they said.

“As a result, forests absorbed more carbon dioxide in a longer growing season—a boon that has been worked into global warming projections.

“But a study published in the science journal Nature said trees have slowed their pace of seasonal advance—raising fears it may stop altogether.

“The slowdown “suggests a current and possible future weakening of forests’ carbon uptake due to the declining temperature sensitivity of (trees),” lead author Yongshuo Fu of Peking University in Beijing told AFP.”  Read more at: phys.org

GR:  This is one of those “point of no return” stories.  If forests indeed begin absorbing less CO2, preservation and…

Colorful and complex, the unique and beautiful work by David Burnham Smith, master ceramic artist, could be easily displayed in the garden or the home and enjoyed for many generations.

“His inspiration comes from history, nature, spirituality and, of course, inspiration is drawn from the whole history of the ceramic world. He strives to create ever more complex and demanding works of art either in shape, composition or decoration.“

Kitten 4 – source ceramic-artist.co.uk

Kitten And Mouse – source ceramic-artist.co.uk

Moggie 2 – source ceramic-artist.co.uk

Oriental Cat – source ceramic-artist.co.uk

I am including this Bronze piece because it is so different from his other works and I love how it is reminds me of ancient Egyptian bronze cat sculptures.

Cat Bronze – source ceramic-artist.co.uk

Visit www.ceramic-artist.co.uk for more galleries of David’s work.

Some of the world’s most prominent companies are expected to set a long-term target on Wednesday of powering their operations entirely with renewable energy, the latest in a wave of commitments suggesting that corporations are becoming more serious about battling global warming.

In addition, backers of a campaign to divest from fossil fuels announced Tuesday that investment managers controlling assets of $2.6 trillion had joined their effort, a 50-fold increase from a year ago and a sign that the divestment movement had spread far beyond its modest origins on American college campuses.

Nine major companies are expected on Wednesday to join a global coalition of firms intent on converting to renewable energy. The new members include Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Walmart and Goldman Sachs. A handful of the companies have already reached the 100 percent target; others do not expect to do…