Author: Adam Allington

Deer Birth Control

  • Gardiner Joe Williamson says sterilization does nothing to solve the immediate problem of too many deer. (Photo courtesy of Adam Allington)

Whitetail deer have adapted pretty well to the suburbs. But… it means a lot of car-deer accidents. It also means deer munching on tulips and shrubs. Some people consider them pests and want to get rid of the deer. But instead of simply killing them, one city has decided to capture and sterilize a number of does.
Adam Allington reports, the results might point toward the future of urban wildlife management.

Transcript

Whitetail deer have adapted pretty well to the suburbs.

But… it means a lot of car-deer accidents. It also means deer munching on tulips and shrubs. Some people consider them pests and want to get rid of the deer.

But instead of simply killing them, one city has decided to capture and sterilize a number of does.

Adam Allington reports, the results might point toward the future of urban wildlife management.

It’s a crisp night in Town and Country, Missouri…home to some 10,000 souls…and about 800 deer.

“There goes a deer over there, it’s just to the left of the tree, you can barely see it.”

Joel Porath is a wildlife regional supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Just like humans, whitetails he says, are right at home in the quiet cul du sacs of suburbia.

“They have all the food resources, they don’t have hunting and they don’t really have predators, so mainly vehicles are what kill them in communities like this.”

Lynn Wright sits on Town and Country’s board of aldermen. Despite the accidents she says most folks like seeing the deer around…kind of reminding them that they don’t live in the city.

“But when you start going from 2 or 3 and seeing 10 or 12 in the backyard you do start getting concerned about that.”

The car accidents were a problem, but Wright says people also complained about damaged trees and landscaping. Still, the town resisted the easiest solution—to just hire sharpshooters to come in and kill all the deer.

Instead, they explored alternative methods…this is sound from a department of conservation video…it shows four deer eating corn in a back yard…just then, a large dropnet is released…sending them into a flailing frenzy until technicians rush in with tranquilizer shots.

The deer are then brought to Steve Timm. Timm is a veterinarian with White Buffalo Incorporated. Its a company that specializes in sterilizing deer.

“We’ve got two does coming in. We’re going to sterilize them by removing ovaries.”

Timm operates out of a small eight by sixteen foot trailer… When the does arrive they’re hoisted on to an operating table and prepped for surgery.

“I’ve located the left ovary here, and so I’ll clamp it, bring it to the surface, use cautery to prevent any bleeding.”

The whole process takes about 20 minutes. The deer are then stapled up, fitted with reflective collars and released.

Timm says the theory is simple—fewer fauns mean less deer eating shrubs and running into cars.

“The early information suggests, that if there are some deer in the environment, especially our sterile does, the other deer have less tendency to move in.”

But not everyone backs the sterilization approach.

Joe Williamson is a retiree who loves to garden. Walking around his yard he points out flowering magnolias, yews, Japanese maples…basically, a kind of all-night deer buffet.

“This is a good example of antler rubs, this is called Staghorn Sumac. The bucks rub their antlers on here and they break them off, you see all these…its just wrecked.”

Williamson says sterilization does nothing to solve the immediate problem of too many deer. It’s also much more expensive. Town and Country paid White Buffalo 150-thousand dollars to sterilize 112 does, and kill another 100.

But, Joel Porath of the Department of Conservation says in the end, the best solution may involve sterilizing some deer…and killing others.

“Could you imagine if we stopped allowing deer hunting in the state? You know we kill around 300,000 dear each year and it doesn’t take very long for the population to jump back up. So, they do need to continue to do something in Town and Country down the road.”

By the end of spring Porath says the department should have enough information to see if sterilization makes sense for other suburban areas.

For The Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington.

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Science Funding in a Tanking Economy (Part One)

  • An EPA scientist testing online sensors for water distribution systems (Photo courtesy of the US Office of Management and Budget)

The recession is hitting more than banks and homes these days. State budget cuts and no increases from the federal government are straining research labs and scientists. Adam Allington reports the effects might not be as obvious or immediate as the house foreclosures and the credit crisis, the effect on science jobs and innovation might be just as bad:

Transcript

The recession is hitting more than banks and homes these days. State budget cuts and no increases from the federal government are straining research labs and scientists. Adam Allington reports the effects might not be as obvious or immediate as the house foreclosures and the credit crisis, the effect on science jobs and innovation might be just as bad:

At first glance there’s not much in Dale Dorsett’s lab beyond the usual – you know, grad students in white lab coats, centrifuges, test tubes.

Even though his lab is relatively small, his costs are not.

He takes me toward a locked room in the back of the lab containing a single microscope.

“It’s a laser scanning confocal microscope, which is essential for part of our work. That cost – $350,000 – now you know why we keep it locked.”

Dale is a molecular biologist at St. Louis University. He studies a genetic disorder that affects about one in ten-thousand humans.

Well, that is, when he can.

These days Dorsett says he spends more of his time filling out grant applications than he does on his research.

And he’s not the only one in this pickle. Winning grants for research is getting tough.

“The problem becomes when it gets so competitive that even really deserving projects, or very productive scientists who are doing really good work can’t get funded and that’s the situation we’re in right now.”

Funding from organizations like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation has been slipping for years. It’s a big problem.

It used to be about 30% of grant applications were successful. Now, that success rate has slipped into the teens.

And even those researchers who do get funded say grant preference is often given to projects that produce immediate results – which just isn’t the way most science works.

“I’m conservative because otherwise the lab would go under.”

Kristen Kroll runs a lab studying stem cells at Washington University.

“I would love to be more aggressive about what we go after, which connections we try to make to other models. I think I’ve curbed what we could be doing to a point where what we are doing is sustainable in the current funding climate.”

Kroll says there is such a back log of quality grant applications on file at the NIH and NSF, grant reviewers aren’t even separating wheat from chaff any more they’re separating wheat from wheat. So a lot of good research just doesn’t happen.

And in a world economy the U.S. isn’t the only player in the market for innovation. Other countries could gain an advantage in science.

James McCarter is the Chief Scientist for Divergence, a St. Louis-based biotech company.

“The emergence of India and China, in addition to Japan and Korea and Europe. There are sizeable countries out there now that are serious in these spaces and are making serious investments and have the talent.”

Now,you might be thinking, won’t that big stimulus package send wave of cash into the coffers of government research agencies – problem solved right?

Not so much. While a billion dollar shot in arm might be welcome news for some labs, many advisors worry that the long-term effect might actually exacerbate the funding crisis.

John Russell is the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at Washington University. He says, a big pile of cash all at once does nothing for ongoing research that can take years to complete.

“One of the concerns about a big bubble is that if it’s just a bubble is that it takes five years to train somebody so it needs to be more spread out I think to be effective.”

Russell warns universities considering a building and spending spree to plan carefully, so current projects don’t reach beyond future budget realities.

For The Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington.

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Science Jobs Scarce (Part Two)

  • (Photo courtesy of National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences)

It’s the best of times and the worst of times to start a science career in the
United States. Researchers today have access to tools and techniques that
have accelerated the pace of discovery to new highs. But as record numbers
of PhD’s graduate, many young scientists are finding a job market that is not
ready to absorb them. Adam Allington traces the supply and demand for
young scientists in a faltering economy:

Transcript

It’s the best of times and the worst of times to start a science career in the
United States. Researchers today have access to tools and techniques that
have accelerated the pace of discovery to new highs. But as record numbers
of PhD’s graduate, many young scientists are finding a job market that is not
ready to absorb them. Adam Allington traces the supply and demand for
young scientists in a faltering economy:

Briana Gross is in her second year of a post-doctoral fellowship at
Washington University, she’s studying genetic adaptations of wild rice.

She’s been applying for college faculty jobs for the past two years. This
year she says she’s gone all-out.

“I’ve applied for I think 36-38 jobs, 3-4 of those positions have been cancelled
completely due to hiring freezes. I’ve had two interviews.”

These days there’s a glut of qualified talent. Between too many doctoral
grads and cutbacks, it’s tough to find a position.

One recent job interview did little to bolster Gross’s confidence for the
future.

“While I was waiting to meet with the dean, one of the financial administrators came buy
and kind of joked about how I couldn’t possibly be interviewing for a position because
there was no money available to hire anyone at the university. So, if that’s happening
this year, next year is going to be really rough.”

So, how’d we end up with too many scientists for the jobs out there? Well,
the answer goes back to an event scientists simply call “the doubling.”

In 1998, President Clinton doubled budget for the National Institutes of
Health, which had the effect of drawing in all kinds of new talent and
investment for science and research.

The problem came later when that funding went flat – precisely at the same
time all those new PhD’s were entering the job market.

“You know, its like you push a bunch of people into the pipeline and then there’s been
chocking off of the U.S. pipeline.”

Kristen Kroll is a professor of developmental biology at Washington
University; she employs two post-docs in her lab.

“What we’ve done is we’ve convinced a whole generation of U.S. post-docs and graduate
students not to go into academic science.”

Young PhD’s see the uphill battle for jobs and scarce grant money and
wonder if its worth the struggle.

And it’s not just post-docs who are feeling the pressure these days—junior
faculty are spending more of their time in the lecture hall and less time in the
lab.

David Duvernell teaches biology at Southern Illinois University at
Edwardsville.

“We try to maintain an active research program at SIUE, at the same time we’re teaching
our 2 or 3 courses a semester.”

Duvernell says SIUE enrollment in freshman-level biology courses has
nearly doubled, but state support has not.

“And where the students are losing out is that then we have less time to spend in research
labs, where we train students individually and give them an experience that will
ultimately make them employable and competitive for graduate and professional
programs.”

University administrators point that historically only about 30% of all post-
docs land a faculty job, with the rest going into the private sector. Except
these the private sector is shedding jobs even faster than the universities.

Jared Strasburg is a 4th-year post-doc from Indiana University. He says if he
hasn’t found a faculty job by August, he’ll have to consider something else.

“Academia is long hours, it’s a lot of work, But, I never felt like if I put in those hours
and worked really hard that I wouldn’t be capable of getting a position and getting
funding necessary to do the work that I was interested in. Needless to say now that
proposition looks a lot more tenuous.”

In recent years some universities have taken steps to curb the number of
graduating PhD’s.

But as the number of unemployed post-graduates rises, some say the whole
system for training scientists needs to be updated to jive with the modern
economy.

As fewer and fewer scientists actually work in universities, some say more
focus needs to be placed on careers outside of academia.

For The Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington.

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Armadillos Migrating North

  • Armadillos are migrating from Southern states into the Midwest. (Photo by Hollingsworth, John and Karen – USFWS)

Armadillos are moving out of Southern states and are pushing into the
Midwest in record numbers. Adam Allington reports:

Transcript

Armadillos are moving out of Southern states and are pushing into the
Midwest in record numbers. Adam Allington reports:


Prior to the 1900s, armadillos were hemmed in by large rivers and open
prairie grasslands that weren’t suitable habitat. Now, all that’s changed.
Humans have cultivated the kind of woodlands and thickets that armadillos
need for cover.


Lynn Robbins is a biology professor at Missouri State University:


We’re getting a lot more records in central Illinois, we’re getting more records up into
Nebraska, we’ve found them now moving up into Indiana… have no records so far in
Iowa, I would not be surprised if somebody called and said ‘yes, they’re here.'”


Robbins says warmer winters and lower average snowfall are one hypothesis
for the expanding armadillo range. They are also prolific breeders and have
no natural predators.


For the Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington

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Fruit Frostbite From Record Lows

Freezing temperatures recently descended on large sections of the country.
Record lows were registered from the south to the plains states. The
prolonged frost means entire crops of fruit and grain could be lost. Adam
Allington reports:

Transcript

Freezing temperatures recently descended on large sections of the country.
Record lows were registered from the South to the Plains states. The
prolonged frost means entire crops of fruit and grain could be lost. Adam
Allington reports:


Paul Peters has 500 acres of apples and peaches in central Missouri. Peters
says above average temperatures during the day and night advanced the
growing season by 2-3 weeks:


“We really didn’t cool down at night; I think probably was more of a concern then
reaching 60-70 degrees in the daytime. One of my partners here said he’d never seen an
apple blossom in March and this year he did.”


But then a week-long frost hit, right when crops were at their most
vulnerable.


Extensive damage has also been reported on crops of winter wheat, grapes
and cherries.


Some farmers will be able to till under failed wheat and alfalfa crops and
substitute corn. However, it may not be that simple since corn seed supplies
are already tight from higher than normal plantings for ethanol production.


For the Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington.

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New Method to Stop Spread of Invasives

  • Garlic mustard is an exotic species in some places, so it doesn't have any natural predators. That means it can push out native plant species and disrupt ecosystems. Researchers are trying to find ways to prevent this by targeting smaller populations. (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

Invasive species cost the United States economy some 120 billion
dollars per year. Adam Allington reports some researchers plan study
new methods of controlling and eliminating some invasive plants:

Transcript

Invasive species cost the United States economy some 120 billion
dollars per year. Adam Allington reports some researchers plan study
new methods of controlling and eliminating some invasive plants:


Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are developing a
model that targets small populations of invasive plants before honing
in on big clusters.


Dr. Tiffany Knight says the idea is that small populations often spread
quicker then larger ones:


“If you can focus your efforts on satellite individuals that are just
at the front of where the population is spreading, it might be a more
efficient method which saves time and money of managers.”


The invasive plant they’re working with is garlic mustard. It’s a
European species that spreads by out-competing native plants on the
forest floor.


The U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding the research, banking on
the idea that a method which effectively controls garlic mustard, might
also be applied to other invasives such as kudzu, which is
devastating Southern forests, or spartina, which is causing troubles in
coastal areas.


For the Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington

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Invasive Reeds Help Treat Wastewater

  • Phragmites, or "common reed," is being used to treat wastewater in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. (Photo by Adam Allington.)

Nature is often full of practical solutions to real-world problems. Take the case of sewage and wastewater treatment: for decades engineers have used mechanical means to process wastewater before disposing of the end product in landfills. It turns out that phragmites, a robust wetland reed, can do the job just as quickly and for a fraction of the cost. Adam Allington has more:

Transcript

Nature is often full of practical solutions to real-world problems. Take the case of sewage and wastewater treatment: for decades engineers have used mechanical means to process wastewater before disposing of the end product in landfills. It turns out that phragmites, a robust wetland reed, can do the job just as quickly and for a fraction of the cost. Adam Allington has more:


Brandee Nelson is wearing knee-high rubber boots. She’s wading out into a tiny patch of reeds gently swaying in the wind. They’re planted in a goopy substance that appears to be mud, but is actually…


“Sludge. We’re standing ankle deep in sludge. Sludge is the leftover solids from the conventional sewage treatment process. Things that are very organic in nature, but thin enough that you can’t really scoop it out with your hand. It’s not the consistency of yogurt, it’s more like a thin milkshake.”


That thin milkshake used to be the solid stuff that you flush down the drain. Brandee is an environmental engineer working for the village of Tivoli, New York. Today she is monitoring the growth of two recently planted reed beds. The reeds are an invasive wetland species called “phragmites,” or “common reed”. In most places these reeds are a problem because they crowd-out native plants, but here they’re doing a job.


“The whole reason to have the reed beds is really to get the largest volume reduction of your waste product. Because the sludge tends to have so much water in it, and phragmites sucks up an enormous amount of water. This bed, we’re standing in it now, this bed will be totally dry in one day.”


Even though Tivoli is relatively small at about 1000 residents, the village still produces 100,000 gallons of waste water every day. That waste water translates into a whole lot of sludge, which Tivoli then has to haul to landfills.


“We’ll probably be saving about $45,000 on hauling fees.”


Tom Cordier is deputy mayor for the village of Tivoli.


“At one point we had drying beds, and it took about a week for them to dry, and then we would come in with our backhoe and take out the dried material. But every time we got ready to do that, it would rain and we would have to start the whole process over again, and then in the wintertime it was always freezing, and finally we got to the point where we had to have it trucked away.”


Before they planted the reeds, Tivoli had to remove their liquid sludge once a month. When the reeds are fully grown, the village won’t need to haul anything away for over 10 years. But if reed bed technology is so efficient, why isn’t everyone using it?


The answer has a lot to do with the predictability of mechanics, versus the variables of biology.


“One of the issues with the reed beds is it’s a biological process. Engineers like to typically do things that are mechanical, things that fit into formulas.”


Dan Fleuriel is director of the wastewater treatment for the town of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. Shelburne Falls began experimenting with reed bed technology back in the early 1990’s. Unlike the short 3 foot reeds in Tivoli, the mature reeds in Shelburne Falls tower some 6 feet over us as we walk through them.


“We’ve been applying to these reed beds since 1993. It’s been very good for us because we’ve gone from a very time consuming process of de-watering sludge to something that we pretty much leave hands-off that we can rely on.”

Functionality and reliability: they’re fundamental to any civil engineering project. But Brandee Nelson notes that Tivoli’s reed beds also make sense from an environmental perspective.


“This waste product, 150,000 gallons of it, used to go to a landfill somewhere else and it wasn’t our problem any more. Now what we’re able to do is manage that waste product here on site in a relatively small footprint using a natural technology, a very low-energy technology, and in the end we’ll end up with a product that we can use for village landscaping projects.”


Tivoli’s reed beds are expected to reach full maturity by next summer. Success of the project is being followed closely by neighboring towns, who are also considering a switch to reed bed treatment plants.


For the Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington.

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Rooster Becomes Symbol in Sprawl Battle

  • Matt Lehner owns a farm that sits between two condominium projects. His rooster has become a symbol for his community's fight against rapid development in the area. (Photo by Adam Allington)

Some communities are struggling to find the right balance between new development and preserving the farms and natural areas surrounding them. Some towns feel as though rapid development is out of control. Local residents sometimes feel as though they’re fighting big business to preserve their community’s way of life. Every once in a while, a champion for their fight emerges from the least likely of places. The GLRC’s Adam Allington reports:

Transcript

Some communities are struggling with finding the right balance of new
development and preserving the farms and natural areas surrounding
them. Some towns feel as though rapid development is out of control.
Local residents sometimes feel as though they’re fighting big business to
preserve their community’s way of life. Every once in a while, a
champion for their fight emerges from the least likely of places. The
GLRC’s Adam Allington reports:


Matt Lehner is a mechanic and a small scale farmer. He lives on his
family’s homestead built by his great great grandfather in the late 1800’s.
These days the only animals on the farm a few chickens and geese that
Matt raises as a hobby.


“I’ve got bard rocks, I’ve got Rhode Island reds, I’ve got mini chickens
called banties.”


In a strange twist of fate Matt’s rooster has a become a local icon of sorts
by simply doing what roosters do best.


(Sound of crows)


Located just in northern Michigan near the Village of Suttons Bay, Matt’s
farm sits smack between two big condominium projects sitting on the
Bay, a scenic area off of Lake Michigan. Developers have tried to buy
the farm for years, but the family is not selling.


The new residents of the condos didn’t appreciate the early morning
crowing of Matt’s rooster… or their crowing any other part of the day for
that matter. Rather than an audible reminder of the rural character of the
area, the rooster crowing was a perceived as a problem by the
management of the Bay View Development. So they tried to get a no-
farm-animal ordinance passed by the village council.


“They tried to go to the village meeting to get an ordinance against
chickens without even notifying me they were doing this and the village
told them that this farm is 150 years old and it precedes their jurisdiction
by at least 50 years.”


In other words, Matt’s farm was not only there before the condos… it
was there before the village, and that wasn’t the end of the story. When a
small article about the dispute was published in the local newspaper, the
Leelanau Enterprise, locals rallied around the roosters with
surprising tenacity. Letters poured into the Enterprise. Most of which
were critical of the condominium’s attempt to get a crowing ban. It was
almost like the chicken scratched the surface of a tension that had been
simmering for years. Some residents of the county have the feeling that
their home is gradually becoming swallowed up by developers with no
connection to the land or its communities.


Ashlea Walter is a business owner from the nearby town of Empire. She
says that the rooster issue represents a kind of irony that she sees
happening every day.


“Yeah, I think the sentiment is that there is a lot of development all over
the county that we see and I’m not anti-development at all, but what I’m
seeing is the irony of the development. The great thing about this area is
its agricultural history, it’s picturesque towns and its natural beauty but
then what is so wonderful about the area is what the developers want to
get rid of.”


The developers didn’t think it was that big of a deal. They weren’t trying
to change the community. They just didn’t want the rooster waking up
everyone.


Todd Demock is the construction superintendent for the Bay View
Development. He says that as far as the chickens are concerned he never
thought it would go this far.


“Apparently the roosters that were next door were making a bunch of
noise. It didn’t bother me I wasn’t paying much attention to it. One day
I came in and seen an officer here and Karen told me that she had to file
a complaint against it. So we kind of laughed it off and didn’t think it
would become a big deal.”


But it did become a big deal. As word traveled around the county, the
Suttons Bay rooster has become the hot topic at every local coffee hour,
beauty salon and town meeting. Most people just shake their head and
laugh, others are more animated.


And the chickens, well their life hasn’t got any easier. With their right to
crow already at risk, a fire recently claimed one of Matt Lehner’s coops.


Police Officer Burt Mead was assigned to investigate.


“My initial reaction was, due to the history and the problems that we had
investigated there before that there could be some kind of criminal
involvement there.”


Turns out, no one had in fact put a hit out on the chickens.


“The principle reason it burned was that he had put a heat lamp in there.
Some of the chickens were in there nesting and he thought they would be
more comfortable, because it had been cold the previous two nights. So
he put the lamp in there and it was a temporary fixture. We think that it
probably fell over, the fire started precisely where he had placed the
lamp and the damages spread from there.”


As far as the dust up between the Lehner Farm and the Condo
development, the two parties have smoothed things over a bit. Matt will
keep his chickens but has agreed to slaughter some of the noisiest
roosters…and the developers they’ve offered to replace his coop with a
custom built “chicken condo”.


But the roosters won’t be forgotten. They’ve become a symbol for what
some people see as their threatened way of life… and a bumper sticker
battle cry for keeping the developers’ influence on the community
cooped up.


For the GLRC, I’m Adam Allington.

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