Tag: reproduction

Whooping Cranes Not Hatching

  • One of the goals of the Partnership is to get more cranes to raise young in the wild, but so far, only one crane chick has been successfully hatched and gone on to migrating. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Wildlife experts are trying to bring back a flock of migrating whooping
cranes in the eastern United States. But there’s a problem. Scientists are
having trouble getting the whoopers to hatch chicks in the wild. Chuck
Quirmbach reports – researchers are taking a closer look at the ten-year-old
rehabilitation effort:

Transcript

Wildlife experts are trying to bring back a flock of migrating whooping
cranes in the eastern United States. But there’s a problem. Scientists are
having trouble getting the whoopers to hatch chicks in the wild. Chuck
Quirmbach reports – researchers are taking a closer look at the ten-year-old
rehabilitation effort:

It’s not easy to get whooping cranes to reproduce, but here in Baraboo,
Wisconsin, researchers have had success at getting captive cranes to produce
chicks.

For the last ten years, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership has created a
flock of more than 100 whoopers. Researchers hatched the birds
– and trained them to migrate by flying behind ultralight aircraft ….or to
follow adult cranes. The birds now fly between the upper Midwest and
southeastern U.S.

But one of the goals of the Partnership is to get more cranes to raise young
in the wild. So far, only one crane chick has been successfully hatched and
gone on to migrating.

Jeb Barzen is with the International Crane Foundation. He says they can’t
keep supplying the flock with chicks hatched in captivity:

“It’s expensive. it’s expensive in time, expensive in money…expensive in overall conservation effort, because what you put into whooping crane reintroduction you can’t put into other conservation projects at that time. so to be fully successful …you want that population to be
able to survive on it’s own.”

So far, about 16 million dollars has gone into re-introducing whoopers to
the eastern u.s. More than half of that money came from private donors.

The birds’ main summer home is here at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge
in Wisconsin.

It’s not that the cranes don’t get close to each other. If you watch the cranes here, you can spot single cranes and the occasional couple.

Jeb Barzen pauses to watch two tall white cranes having a territorial dispute:

“Ooh! these birds are threatening each other. that’s a preen behind the wing
threat…that the second bird is doing…so these are not birds of the same
pair.”

Researchers don’t know why the birds are not raising more wild chicks. But
they do have some theories. Even when cranes do make nice and produce an
egg – the relatively young cranes may be too inexperienced to be patient
parents. Black flies may drive the birds off their nest. Or the parents
may be low on body fat and take off to find food.

The crane researchers are gathering data to find out what cranes need for a
successful nesting site. They’re using tracking radios to follow some of the
birds.

Anne Lacy is with the International Crane Foundation. Today she’s driving
around southern Wisconsin listening for the whoopers.

“it’s important to look at what choices they make as a young bird
before they breed…to know how they choose those areas….they need for
water for roosting at night…they need that eventually for nesting.”

This kind of research is being ramped up this spring. That’s because an
independent report raised some concerns about the crane recovery effort.
The report was done by consultants hired by the Whooping Crane Eastern
Partnership. It mentions problems with financial oversight, scientific
coordination, and whether the birds’ main summer home – at the Necedah
wildlife refuge – is the best place for them.

Louise Clemency is with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And
she is a co-chair of the eastern partnership. She says the crane recovery
effort won’t make any big changes overnight.

“We’re trying to the time to draw the right conclusions so we can
take the right next step.”

Clemency says decisions on the whooping crane experiment could come next
year. In the meantime..she hopes that some crane eggs laid this spring at
the Necedah refuge will hatch.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Ten Threats: Botulism Kills Beach Birds

  • Interns for Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania walk along a Lake Erie beach picking up dead birds. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

We’ve been bringing you reports from the series, ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes’ which is now looking at the threat to beaches. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He reports that scientists are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly caused by humans.


Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:


Along parts of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Huron, large numbers
of dead birds and fish are washing up on shore. If they’re left there, the
disease that killed them can be passed on to other wildlife. That’s why
park officials such as Mike Mumau at Presque Isle State Park at Erie,
Pennsylvania ask their staff to watch out for the dead carcasses.


“Our interns do a great job. They’re the eyes of the staff that are out. So,
there’s probably three to four days a week that they’re out on the
beaches, checking to see if they have anything.”


Since 1998, untold numbers of fish and sometimes hundreds of dead
birds a year have washed up on just these eight miles of Lake Erie beach.


Eventually, researchers figured out the problem: type “E” botulism. It
slowly paralyzes the birds until the respiratory system shuts down. Most
of them don’t make it that long. They get so weak they can’t hold their
heads up out of the water and they drown.


(Sounds of walking and shovel)


Leslie Jones and her fellow interns are headed out to an area to pick up
some dead seagulls on the beach.


“When we’re out here doing migratory bird studies, we might see some
and then we pick them up as soon as possible. A lot of times, we get
radioed from different people like lifeguards and they have us come out
and pick them up so that the disease doesn’t spread throughout the rest of
the ecosystem.”


They find five dead birds rotting on the beach. They bury the maggots
because they could carry the botulism toxin and other birds might eat the
maggots. They shovel the bird carcass into a black plastic garbage bag.


“If they’re very fresh, this one, obviously not very fresh, but, if we get a
fresh one, we actually freeze them and they’re sent off to be tested
botulism, but, something like this we’ll just bag up until we can get them
incinerated to get rid of all the disease.”


The fresh carcasses are shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in
Madison, Wisconsin.


There, Grace McLaughlin is among the researchers who are beginning to
put the puzzle together.

Here’s what they think is happening. The invasive species zebra mussels
and quagga mussels create huge mussel beds that begin a complicated
biological phenomenon. Organic matter collects there, and then decays. It
lowers the oxygen level in the immediate area of the mussel beds. Type
“E” botulism spores occur naturally, but when the oxygen level goes
down, they begin reproducing like crazy. The waste they produce is the
toxin.


“That toxin will accumulate in the organic matter as well as in the water
in the immediate vicinity of the mussel beds. As the mussels do their
filter feeding, they will accumulate the toxin in their tissue. They are not
susceptible to the toxin. However, when the fish start coming down
there and eating the mussels, they become intoxicated, lose their ability
to swim properly and become easy prey for the birds that come in.”


The fish that feeds on the mussels the most is another invasive species,
the round goby. Researchers made the connection when they noticed the
botulism started being a problem shortly after round gobies arrived in big
numbers.


The type “E” botulism toxin has killed tens-of-thousands of birds such as
cormorants, terns, loons, ducks, and seagulls.


Back at Presque Isle State Park, Mike Mumau says it’s terrible to see so
many birds die.


“We just do our best on our end to stop the botulism cycle. When we
can, provide samples, and also, keep it a positive recreational experience
for all our visitors. They don’t want to see birds decomposing and
rotting out on the beaches, so we’re pretty diligent with that.”


Researchers say that’s about the best that can be done. Since ocean-
going vessels brought zebra mussels, quagga mussels, and round gobies
to the Great Lakes, all three of the invasive species have flourished. It
will likely be a long time before we’ll ever begin to understand the full
extent of the damage to the native wildlife of the lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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Winemakers Bugged by Asian Beetle

  • The Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle was introduced in 1916 to control aphids. It has since established populations around the country. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:

Transcript

Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It
looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it
invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is
it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:


Ann Sperling goes out to the vineyards every day to check for bugs. She’s the vintner
with Malivoire Winery. Malivoire is a small organic winery in the Niagara Peninsula in
Southern Ontario, just north of the New York State border. There’s one kind of bug in
particular that Ann is hoping she doesn’t see – the multicolored Asian lady beetle.


It was introduced to North American in 1916 to control help aphids on plants. In 1988 in
Louisiana, the ladybug population suddenly started to grow. Scientists still don’t know
what happened to make them reproduce so fast at that time. But in only six years, it
spread as far as the northern states and southern Canada.


The spread of the bug has been very bad for the grape and wine industry. Sperling is
nervous about these ladybugs because she was caught by surprise a few years back. She
didn’t know anything about the problems they would cause to her wine at the time.


“Typically there is a certain number of insects including wasps and things like that that
are harvested with the fruit and it doesn’t cause any problems in the processing. And in
2001 there were these Asian lady beetles and they infected, or affected, the flavor of the
wine, so that there were many wines from that vintage throughout the Niagara peninsula
that had the characteristic flavor and were not saleable.”


The big problem is that Asian ladybugs are the skunks of the insect world. Just like
skunks, they give off a bad smell to discourage predators. And they release a sticky
brown substance from the joints in their body when they’re stressed and they make a real
mess.


At harvest time, there’s a lot of commotion in the vineyards. That’s when the bugs get
really upset, and they leak all over the grapes. They also hang on to the grape clusters
and are pressed into the wine along with the fruit. Sperling says they had to dump half of
their 2001 vintage because it had a bitter taste and a bouquet of raw peanuts.


Because of this, the multicolored Asian Ladybug has become a big problem for wineries
in the Great Lakes region and in the Midwest. It’s such a pressing problem for the wine
industry that the Ontario Grape Growers Association has set up a special task force to
figure out what to do. Gerry Walker is heading up the task force. He says the ladybug
isn’t a problem this time of year, but the populations are being monitored to head off
potential problems during the harvest season.


“First of all, the bug usually is outside the vineyard for most of the season. It’s usually
located in soybean fields or forested areas. It has a wide host range in terms of what
aphid species it will feed on. It primarily feeds on aphids during the growing season,
populations build up and at the end of the growing season when cool temperatures occur
it cues the bug to look for hibernating wintering sites and also to fill up on sugars in order
to hibernate. And so they move to the vineyards as the grapes begin to ripen.”


Asian ladybugs are found across most of the southern part of North America –
everywhere that there is an aphid population.


And there is a connection between soybean fields and vineyards. Here’s why – aphids
like to eat soybeans, and the multicolored Asian ladybeetle likes to eat aphids. When the
soybeans are harvested, the beetles look for new food and move to the vineyards.


Mark Sears is an environmental biologist at the University of Guelph. He’s beginning a
study to find out the movement patterns of the ladybug. He says we can’t get rid of them.
All we can do is control them.


“This beetle’s been here long enough that there’s no way we’re going to eliminate it. We
just want to suppress its numbers so that it isn’t a problem, in this case, in the vineyards.
If we do a good job of suppressing aphids – we’re not going to eliminate them either, but
if we keep them at lower numbers then there’s less food available for beetle populations,
there will be fewer of them to move to vineyards. And therefore we should be able to
contain the problem, not the insect itself.”


Ann Sperling is one of many winemakers who’s happy to see that this major study of the
ladybug is being done. But the invasion of 2001 was also a valuable learning experience.
Sperling says they’re ready if it happens again. Malivoire Winery has bought a shaker
table to dislodge the bugs from the bunches of grapes. They’ll also hire more people to
sort the grapes by hand.


Some people in the wine industry don’t like to talk about the multicolored Asian ladybug.
They’re afraid of tainting the reputation of their wines. Ann Sperling agreed to talk about
it because she thinks there wouldn’t have been as much damage to their 2001 vintage if
they had been better prepared. They haven’t had any big problems since then.


If another large invasion happens now, Malvoire Winery is ready. Ann Sperling hopes
other wineries will learn from their experience.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.

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Whooping Cranes Suit Up for Fall Flight

Fifteen more endangered whooping cranes are are following ultralight aircraft through the Midwest, on the way to Florida. It’s part of an experiment to create a migrating flock of the birds in the Eastern U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Fifteen more endangered whooping cranes are about to follow ultralight aircraft
through the
Midwest, on the way to Florida. It’s part of an experiment to create a migrating
flock of the birds
in the Eastern U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


This is the third year that pilots wearing cranelike costumes are leading a flock of
young
whooping cranes on the birds first southerly migration from Wisconsin. About twenty
cranes
now migrate on their own. A public-private partnership is trying to create a flock
of 125
whoopers, including two dozen breeding pairs.


Larry Wargowsky is the manager at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, which is the
starting
point of the birds flight. He says it’s important to keep building the numbers of
young cranes
because it takes 4 to 7 years for them to mature.


“If it takes that long, there’s a chance of birds having fatalities. They hit power
lines, always
disease, parasites, injuries of some sort. So you need more birds.”


The only other migrating flock of whooping cranes travels between Canada and Texas.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chuck Quirmbach.

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Saving Turtles From Traffic

  • Research assistant Molly Wright on the trail for radio-tagged turtles. (Photo by David Sommerstein)

Driving on country roads can sometimes be like navigating an obstacle course of wildlife – deer, skunks, raccoons, frogs, and throughout much of the summer – turtles. Turtles like to lay their eggs along roadsides and become easy candidates for road kill. They live and reproduce for decades, so when an adult is killed prematurely, it can have a big effect on turtle populations as a whole. Researchers are trying to find out how often turtles cross the road and how to help them get safely to the other side. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Driving on country roads can sometimes be like navigating an obstacle course of wildlife – deer,
skunks, raccoons, frogs, and throughout much of the summer – turtles. Turtles like to lay their
eggs along roadsides and become easy candidates for roadkill. They live and reproduce for
decades, so when an adult is killed prematurely, it can have a big effect on turtle populations as a
whole. Researchers are trying to find out how often turtles cross the road and how to help them
get safely to the other side. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


Tom Langen starts his day around 6 in the morning on the shoulder of a two-lane road in northern
New York State. He walks along and counts roadkill.


“We like to get out early before the traffic gets bad, but also before the crows and other animals
have drug everything away.”


When he finds a dead snapping turtle, he nudges it off the road and bends down to study it.


“So this is a female. It’s pretty mangled. Unfortunately I can’t see any of the banding on her
shell.”


Each morning, he’ll find two or three like this. Langen’s a biology professor at Clarkson
University. He specializes in animal behavior. He’s trying to figure out whether a few smooshed
turtles a day is a little problem or a big one for the species as a whole.


His hypothesis is that it is a big problem. Turtles can live more than 60 years. And they have a
higher reproduction rate the older they get.


“So the old individuals are very important, and the older they are, the more important they are.”


Turtles like to live in marshes or ponds. But they like to lay their eggs in drier places. In what
Langen describes as a cruel twist of ecological fate, road berms are perfect. They’re dry, sandy,
and often close to marshes.


“The turtles have evolved over millions of years certain cues of what makes a good nesting site.
And by chance the roads that we’ve built in the last 50 to 75 years have some of those features
that match that so they’re tricked into going to those places.”


To figure out how many turtles are tricked into playing chicken with cars, Langen and his
research assistants catch turtles in nets. They inject them with a tag that identifies each
individual. So when they find a dead one, they know who it is.


They also want to know how far the turtles range. So they attach tiny radio transmitters to turtles’
shells and track their movements. That job falls to research assistant Molly Wright.


“Umm, we’re going to go after a snapping turtle. It’s a snapping turtle that we found in a swamp
by the Grasse River.”


(sound of sloshing water)


It’s known only as “Turtle #6”. Wright slogs waist deep through a marsh just off the highway.
She slings a radio receiver over her shoulder and holds an antenna like the one you’d put atop
your house.


“Yeah. That’s the noise that the radio antenna telemetry device makes for the turtle, so it’s a
pretty distinctive sound. It’s straight in front of us somewhere, the turtle is.”


We trudge slowly past green lilypads into the middle of the marsh. We clutch long grasses to
keep our footing among the muck and submerged logs. Wright sweep the antenna left and right.
She looks like a radio statue of liberty.


“People see us pretty regularly on like their drives to and from work and people bicycle. There’s
one man who pulled over and he’s like, “what’s up with that girl with the antenna on her head?”


“You see that moving right there?” “Yeah.” “That’s the turtle. It’s moving in the lilies.”
“Right there?” “Yup.” “That’s him right there. Turtle #6 has been found.”


Wright jots down the GPS coordinates, water temperature, and other observations in a notebook.
She notices we’re only several feet from the road. Of the 15 turtles she’s tracking, about a third
have crossed.


“I can’t make any conclusions from it because I haven’t done the stats yet, but you see a lot of
dead turtles on the road.”


The team of researchers will compile data over the next three years. They hope to get a sense of
how many turtles live in the area and what percentage of them get run over. Lead scientist Tom
Langen says, ironically, some of these turtles are older than the roads they’re getting killed on.


“It would be a terrible tragedy to remove these animals from our environment and over a brief
period of fifty years because of our traffic activities. I’d like to see those populations preserved
and maintained in good numbers. My daughter likes to see them, and I want her to see them as
well.”


Langen says his research could give road engineers a mandate to design fences, baffles, and
passageways that could keep turtles and other animals out of harm’s way. He cautions drivers to
be careful near wetlands, and if they see a dead turtle, odds are more turtles are trying to cross the
road nearby.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommertein.

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SAVING TURTLES FROM TRAFFIC (Short Version)

  • Research assistant Molly Wright on the trail for radio-tagged turtles. (Photo by David Sommerstein)

Turtles like to live in wet, marshy areas. But they make their nests in dry areas, like in the gravel on the side of roads. Researchers are trying to determine how many turtles are becoming road kill and what effect that’s having on their populations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Turtles like to live in wet, marshy areas. But they make their nests in dry areas, like in the gravel
on the side of roads. Researchers are trying to determine how many turtles are becoming roadkill
and what effect that’s having on their populations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David
Sommerstein reports:


Biologist Tom Langen spends a lot of time walking along roads in northern New York State. A
professor at Clarkson University, he and his team of researchers catch turtles and put an
identifying tag on each one. So when they find one that’s been run over, they know who it is.


“…and by looking at the number that we find that are hit, and the number that are hit that have
been caught before, we can estimate the population size and what percentage are being hit.”


Langen says killing adult turtles has a big effect on the population because they reproduce for
decades. He says the project could persuade road engineers to build tunnels and other passages.
That way turtles and other animals will be able to cross the road and get to the other side safely.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

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Link Between Cadmium and Breast Cancer?

A recent study shows a possible link between breast cancer and a toxic chemical we’re exposed to every day. And people living in some Great Lakes states might face higher exposure to this chemical. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erika Johnson has more:

Transcript

A recent study shows a possible link between breast cancer and a toxic chemical
we’re exposed to everyday. And
people living in some Great Lakes states might face higher exposure to this
chemical. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Erika Johnson has more:


Cadmium is a toxic metal present in trace amounts in the air, water, soil, and in
most foods. It is also found in
batteries and cigarettes, and is released by some industries.


Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois are at the top of the list for overall cadmium exposures.


Recent findings published in Nature Medicine suggest that even low levels of cadmium
in lab rats caused changes
in their sexual development. Cadmium mimics estrogen, the female hormone that
regulates the reproductive
systems of men and women.


Steve Safe is a Toxicologist at Texas A & M University.


“Women have high doses of estrogen. They have much higher rates of breast cancer
than men. And estrogen has
been clearly linked to breast cancer. What we don’t know is, ‘Can cadmium
contribute to that? Does low dose
cadmium have any effect on humans at all?'”


Safe says more research is needed before any clear links can be made to human health.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erika Johnson.

Modified Fish to Protect Water Supplies?

Some scientists working on protecting freshwater supplies from terrorism are trying to recruit a new special agent. It’s a small fish that may serve as a sentinel of contamination. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Some scientists working on protecting freshwater supplies from
terrorism are trying to recruit a new special agent. It’s a small fish that
may serve as a sentinel of contamination. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Researchers are injecting firefly genes or a fluorescent
jellyfish protein into a small tropical freshwater species
called the zebrafish. The hope is that when the genetically
modified zebrafish is exposed to environmental pollutants or
chemical warfare agents, the fish would give off light or a green signal.


University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee scientist Michael Carvan says the
fish would be placed in water coming in from a source such as Lake Michigan.


“This would kind of be like the canary in the coal mine… where if the fish
signaled that there were toxic chemicals in the water… that that would alert
the system and probably shut down water that would go beyond that point.”


Carvan acknowledges that he’s having trouble getting the zebrafish to pass along
the so-called green gene from generation to generation.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chuck Quirmbach in Milwaukee.

Epa Launches Wider Probe Into Teflon Chemical

The Environmental Protection Agency has launched a wider probe into a chemical compound used to make Teflon-coated cookware and other well known products, such as Stainmaster, Scotchgard and Gore-Tex. The chemical is known as C8, and it’s manufactured by DuPont. It’s been found in the air and water across the country. Now environmentalists are putting pressure on the EPA to ban it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has more:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency has launched a wider probe into a
chemical compound used to make Teflon-coated cookware and other well known
products, such as Stainmaster, Scotchgard and Gore-Tex. The chemical is
known as C8, and it’s manufactured by DuPont… It’s been found in the air
and water across the country. Now environmentalists are putting pressure on
the EPA to ban it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has
more:


The EPA has launched the most extensive study yet to determine whether the
chemical C8 and similar families of chemicals cause reproductive and
developmental damage to women and girls. The 3-M company, which used to
manufacture C-8, has studied the effects of the chemical on lab rats. The
findings: rats exposed to the chemical lost weight. They experienced delayed
sexual maturation and their offspring commonly died prematurely.


DuPont company
scientist Robert Rikard, though, says the company has used C8 for more than
50-years. He says concerns about the chemical are unfounded. That’s even
though C8 belongs to a family of chemicals that some companies have stopped
manufacturing because of health concerns. 3-M stopped making its Scotchguard stain repellent
after finding one of the chemical compounds sticks around in the environment. It’s also
been found in the bloodstreams of people worldwide. The EPA doesn’t have guidelines in
place to regulate C8. And it could be months before there the agency finishes
its extensive study of the chemical compound.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Study Reveals Coots Can Count

A new study in the journal Nature reveals that some birds can count. Researchers have found that they’re able to identify and tally their eggs in order to improve their reproductive success. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett explains:

Transcript

A new study in the journal Nature reveals that some birds can count. Researchers have found that
they’re able to identify and tally their eggs in order to improve their reproductive success. The
Great Lakes Consortium’s Sarah Hulett explains:


Bruce Lyon is a biologist at the University of California Santa Cruz. He made the discovery while
doing research on the reproductive behavior of American Coots. Coots are dark gray, duck-like
waterbirds that live in the northern U-S and southern Canada. They’re parasitic birds. That means
they lay some of their eggs in other coots’ nests – tricking the host birds into incubating eggs that
aren’t theirs.


But Lyon found that some females are able to recognize the foreign eggs by counting and ignoring
the imposters. Lyon says taking care of other birds’ eggs means a slimmer chance of their own
chicks surviving.


“There’s not enough food to go around, and if you end up raising somebody else’s chick, it
probably means you’ve lost one of your own.”


Lyon says a female coot will protect her babies by identifying eggs that aren’t her own, and burying
them or pushing them to the edge of the nest.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.