Tag: flying

Animal-Powered Farming

  • Dan Macon, owner of Flying Mule Farm, and his mule, Frisbee (Photo by Tamara Keith)

With fuel prices through the roof,
many people are changing their routines to
save money. Tamara Keith brings
us this story of a farmer who’s abandoned
his tractor for something much more fuel
efficient:

Transcript

With fuel prices through the roof,
many people are changing their routines to
save money. Tamara Keith brings
us this story of a farmer who’s abandoned
his tractor for something much more fuel
efficient:

“Step up.” (kissing noises)

Meet Dan Macon and his mule Frisbee.

“Frisbee is a 7 year old mule and she was born here at our place. And she got
her name because I promised my oldest daughter, who was then 3, that if she got
up with me when the mule was born she could pick the name.”

“Step up. Good girl.”

On this day Macon and Frisbee are plowing to prepare a patch of land to plant
for the fall. Macon’s Flying Mule Farm is in the California foothill town of
Auburn. And he says it’s 100% animal powered.

“We have a sign now in our farmer’s market stall that says mule powered
vegetables. We use no pesticides, no synthetic fertilizers and no petroleum in
producing our vegetables. And we joke with them that we haven’t harmed any
tractors in producing their goodies.”

He sells his squash, kale, potatoes and other produce at two local farmer’s
markets. He also supplies restaurants in nearby resort towns.

At this point Macon is only farming a quarter of an acre, but hopes to expand
soon. He holds a pair of leather reins as he follows Frisbee in circles around
the small field. He directs her movements with vocal cues, kissing sounds and
pressure applied to the reins. And it seems to work, some of the time.

Tamara Keith: “Seems like it could be a matter of debate as to who’s in
charge.”

Dan Macon: (laughs) “Well as I tell people who have seen pictures of us
doing it, the mule’s the one with the long ears and the guy in the hat is the
jackass.”

Macon has been farming for 7 years and, until this year, he used a gas and
diesel powered tractors. He made the switch for philosophical reasons rather
than economic ones, but it’s penciling out financially too.

“And then diesel went to $5 a gallon and it seemed like a really good
decision.”

And Macon isn’t the only farmer doing this. Animal powered farming,
particularly with horses, is growing in popularity nationwide.

Lynn Miller is editor of the Small Farmer’s Journal. He says 400,000 people
are using animals to farm, and only half of them are Amish.

“I’m predicting within two to three years an additional quarter of a million
people will join the ranks of those who choose animal powered, not as a
throwback, not a return to a nostalgic past, but because it is a practical and
viable option for the future.”

Macon uses organic farming practices, but Frisbee kind of fertilizes the soil as
she goes – if you know what I mean. So, his produce can’t be certified
organic. Macon says he isn’t concerned about his lack of certification.

“I think knowing your farmer is far more important to food safety than any
regulatory program. And if you know your farmer, and your farmer stands
behind what he or she is producing for you, then you’re going to be insured of a
safe product, and that’s how our relationship works with our customers.”

There are other advantages to farming with a mule, says Macon. He’s not
much of a mechanic, so when his tractor broke down in the past he’d have to
call someone to repair it. Now if his source of traction has a problem, he can
just call his wife. She’s a large animal veterinarian.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Grand Bridge Scaled Back for Birds

  • A tern chick at Mille Lacs Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats:

Transcript

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats.

Every year, millions of people cross the mighty Niagara River on the Peace Bridge that connects Buffalo, New York to Canada. And many of them sit for hours in a traffic jam. The border crossing and passport checks slow things down. But there are just not enough lanes for all the traffic.

Ice delivery man Tim Holliday is one of those who is fed up with hours and hours of bridge delays.

“Like, I gotta go to the duty-free here, and when I’m coming out of here I have to go through customs and they always ask, what were you doing in Canada?” said Holliday. “I’m just sick of the hassles, you know?”

Transportation officials say a new bridge is needed. The traffic problems will only get worse. Because of increased trade, about eleven million additional travelers are expected to be using the Peace Bridge over the next decade.

And that’s a headache for Ron Rienas. He manages the busy international bridge crossing. He says building a new bridge would help with the traffic delays and help with national security.

“This is a border improvement project designed to address redundancy issues, security issues, traffic flow, all of those things, maintenance issues…all of those are impacted by not being able to proceed with the project,” said Rienas.

A second bridge has been designed. It’s a cable-stayed bridge with towers as high as the Washington monument.

Brian Higgins is Congressman for the area. He’s pushing for federal approval of the impressive cable design. He says the region needs an iconic symbol of progress.

“We are in the eleventh hour of a project that’s been going on for fifteen years. We need additional capacity at the Peace Bridge to promote the efficient, predictable flow of commerce between the United States and Canada – we need an iconic bridge, a signature bridge,” said Higgins.

But that signature bridge is exactly the kind of design that is dangerous to many birds.

And the Niagara River is a virtual highway for nearly three hundred kinds of birds. The cables can be invisible to the birds and they can fly into them and die.

Among those birds is the Common Tern. It’s an endgangered species.

Terry Yonker knows these and other birds better than most.

“We probably documented somewhere in the range of half a million birds, and there’s a common tern right there.”

Yonker is a scientist and a former Ornithological Society president. He wrote an environmental study that recommended against the bridge’s cable design because it could kill hundreds of different kinds of birds, including the endangered tern.

Yonker says even if it avoided hitting the cables by flying over the bridge, the tern would be stressed by such a tall bridge design. That’s because it has to make eight trips over the bridge each day to feed its young. But he says it probably wouldn’t make that many trips if the new bridge is any higher than the Peace Bridge.

“You raise that structure and they’ll have to spend a lot of energy doing that. They’ll maybe make five or six trips a day and that means one or two chicks are going to get less food out there,” said Yonker.

The other concern is a food source for the tern.

Fishery experts say the enormous piers would change water currents, eventually killing off the Emerald Shiner. That’s the tiny fish the endangered bird feeds on.

So a new design is being recommended: A lower bridge with smaller piers to protect the tern and the emerald shiner.

Federal and state agencies are working to find a way to mitigate the threat to the birds and fish by altering the plans for the new bridge. But environmental experts say you can’t mitigate extinction.

Environmentalists and some biologists say the common tern is more than an endangered bird. They say it’s a warning, about what happens when sound science is ignored for the sake of progress.

But, try explaining that to the people stuck in traffic for hours because a second bridge is being blocked to save a small bird and a little fish.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Around the World in a Solar Plane

  • A computer-generated image of the solar plane (Photo courtesy of Solar Impulse/EPFL Claudio Leonardi)

A team in Switzerland is gearing up for
the first around-the-world flight of a solar
powered plane. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

A team in Switzerland is gearing up for
the first around-the-world flight of a solar
powered plane. Rebecca Williams has more:

Bertrand Piccard was the first to fly a hot air balloon non-stop around the
world.

“You know a lot of people think something is impossible just before someone
else finds the solution to do it.”

Now he’s leading a team that’s building a solar powered plane to fly around the
world. The plane will have long skinny wings with solar panels, and room for
just one pilot.

“My greatest hope is that enough people will follow our adventure. These
people will say ‘Wow! If there was there a team that could do it in a solar
powered airplane, of course we should do it also ourselves in our daily lives.’”

Piccard says they have a lot to test out, especially how to fly at night.

If all goes well, the first real test flight is planned for next year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Whooping Cranes Following by Example

Researchers began a program to reintroduce whooping cranes in the eastern U.S. in 2000. This winter, some young cranes are learning how to migrate south from older birds. The biologists tracking the birds say so far, the new recruits are catching on. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Researchers began a program to reintroduce whooping cranes in the
eastern U.S. in 2000. This winter, some young cranes are learning how
to migrate south from older birds. The biologists tracking the birds say
so far, the new recruits are catching on. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:


At first, humans led the new flock of whooping cranes from Wisconsin
to Florida by flying ultra light planes. Now, some of those birds are
teaching a few younger cranes how to make the trip.


Kelley Tucker is with the International Crane Foundation, one of the
groups involved in the reintroduction project. She says this winter, four
young whooping cranes are flying with older cranes and sandhill cranes
on the migratory path. They’re relying partly on instinct, partly on the
lead of the older birds.


“The birds will be a couple miles apart, but some of the biologists have
said ‘I have a sense that the younger birds know where the older birds
are.’ Sometimes they’ll roost within a mile or two of the older birds.”


Tucker says eventually she hopes all the chicks will learn to migrate
from older birds, and the ultra light planes won’t be used. She says it’s
important for the cranes to make it back to Wisconsin in the spring to
mate.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

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A Rare Visit From a Northern Neighbor

  • The Great Gray Owl is a rare sighting south of the U.S.-Canadian border. (Photo by Matt Victoria, Camillus, NY. www.fickity.net)

The Great Gray Owl usually lives deep in the northern forests of Canada. But due to scarce food, thousands of the big owls have drifted south. They’ve drifted into southern Ontario and Quebec, even crossing the border into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Last month, a Great Gray was spotted in New York, the first one documented there in almost a decade. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein was there when it
happened:

Transcript

The Great Gray Owl usually lives deep in the northern forests of Canada. But due to scarce food,
thousands of the big owls have drifted south. They’ve drifted into southern Ontario and Quebec,
even crossing the border into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Last month, a Great Gray
was spotted in New York, the first one documented there in almost a decade. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein was there when it happened:


Ornithologist Gerry Smith had invited me to see some of the best raptor habitat in northern New
York. We took off in his cluttered Saturn wagon.


“Here we go!…” (sound of engine turning on)


Gerry wears a beat up canvas hat, green sweatshirt, and always has one hand on his binoculars.
He started birdwatching when he was 13 as a sort of therapy.


“My father passed away when I was 15, but he was terminally ill, and I needed an escape, you
know, obviously as a 13 year-old kid I didn’t know that, but I got hooked, and the rest, as they
say, is history.”


More than 40 years later, he’s never had a job not related to birds. And he’s in his element
cruising the back roads of Upstate New York.


These farm fields are near the St. Lawrence River. They’re ideal for hawks and owls. They’re
grassy with occasional tree stands. And they don’t get as much snow as other parts of the state.
So birds can snag the mice and voles they live on all winter long.


In no time, Gerry’s spotting raptors. There’s a hawk perched in a twisted elm…


“Yep, it’s a Red-tailed Hawk and I think it’s got prey because it’s bending down like it’s eating.”


A rough-legged hawk soars above us, black and white plumage glowing in the sun.


“The bird was just lofting along.”


A Short-eared Owl glides past a farmhouse.


“Look how that is flying. It’s flying like a big fruit bat. Cutting left across the hay bales, coming
toward the house, above the house now, and drifting left.”


Smith’s also seen a snowy owl this year. But still no sign of the Great Gray owl.


The Great Gray usually lives in the far northern forests of Canada. But this year it has flown
south to the upper Great Lakes region by the thousands. Conservation biologist Jim Duncan is a
Great Gray Owl expert with the province of Manitoba. He says the phenomenon happens
cyclically, when the Great Gray’s main food source – the meadow vole – becomes scarce.


“It’s a regular migration. It’s like a robin migrating in response to food availability, except in the
case of the Great Gray Owl, it’s a longer period of time. It’s three to five years.”


Gerry Smith’s still waiting for the Great Gray in New York. It’s been spotted just across the St.
Lawrence River in Canada.


“There’s a single Great Gray Owl on Amherst Island, but not one, as far as we know, has made it
into northern New York despite the fact that a whole lot of us have been looking.”


Now, I know you’re going to call that easy foreshadowing. But believe it or not, just an hour
later, Gerry pulls the car over, grabs his binoculars, and peers at something big perched on a tree.


“We have the first Great Gray Owl that’s made it across the border. I’ll be a son of a gun. That is
so…Now I’m very enthusiastic. Hey, I’m gonna set up my scope.”


While Gerry unpacks the telescope, a raven flies to a branch just above the owl and tries to scare
it away. Birders call it “mobbing.”


“Now don’t you mob that owl, you fiend. I think that’s what he’s thinking of doing. Watch this.”


The owl holds its ground, and Gerry gets it in the telescope’s sights.


“That is so cool. It’s not facing us, it’s back is to us, but take a look, that shape is very
distinctive.”


It’s slate gray with some brown and white, round head, stocky body, as big or bigger than the
raven.


“This has been…oh, the owl just hooted. It’s a very low guttural hoot, something like a horned
owl, only deeper.”


Just then, the owl’s finally had enough. It takes flight and drifts slow and low to a stand of trees,
likely its roost. Gerry jots down the GPS coordinates and we get back in the car.


“Well, sir, we’ll finish the route and head back, but we have had undoubtedly the high point of
the day. That’s the high point of my winter.”


This Great Gray Owl migration is the biggest on record. Biologist Jim Duncan says it’s a chance
for all eager birders to help science.


“People have a real opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of the species, be they farmers,
housewives, commuters. They don’t have to be scientists.”


You do have to be respectful, though, if you want to report Great Gray sightings to wildlife
officials. Stay off private land, don’t make noise, and keep your distance. And enjoy a rare
opportunity to see a Great Gray visitor from the North.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

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Owls Crossing Border Into U.S. For Food

  • Owls have been migrating from Canada to the U.S. in search of easy prey. (Photo by Florian Engels)

Owls have been moving from their native habitat in Canada into the United States. Researchers say the number of owls making the trip is unprecedented. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley
reports:

Transcript

Candian owls have been moving from their native habitat into the United States, including MN, WI, MI, and IA. Researchers say the number of owls making the trip is unprecedented. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:


The Great Gray Boreal , northern hawk, and snow owls live in
the upper reaches of Canada. But hundreds of owls have been flying into the U.S. in search of food. The small mammals they prey on in their native range, like mice, voles, and lemmings, are in the midst of a population crash. Susan Foote-Martin is with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. She says it’s common for small-mammal populations to rise and fall. So, even though the owls expend a lot of energy to get here, their stay is temporary.


“They’ll definitely move back. They’re only down here because the population of the animals they eat are down. But there’s also another consideration, and that’s deep snow cover in the areas where they normally live.”


Foote-Martin says the owls have a hard time catching their prey because they burrow deep into the snow. She says if the owls continue to fly into the U.S. over several years, it could signal a problem in their native habitats.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Christina Shockley.

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