San Diego Zoo on Birds, Some of Which are - What Else? - Endangered

"Animal Bytes: Birds"
San Diego Zoo

"What is a bird?

"Birds are vertebrates, with a backbone and skeleton, although some of the bones are hollow to keep the bird light. Their forelimbs have the same bones as the human arm, but they are highly modified to form the structure for wings. Some of the bones in the wrist and fingers are fused together for extra strength.

"Fancy feathers

"Like mammals, birds are endothermic, but they are the only animals that have feathers. Feathers are made of keratin. Each feather has a stiff, hollow center shaft with hundreds of side branches called barbs. Each barb has two rows of side branches called barbules. This structure allows air to gather in the feathers, making them lightweight and keeping the bird's body heat from escaping...."

It's a pretty good introduction to birds - and yes, some birds are endangered.

Like the San Clemente loggerhead shrike and some other birds in Hawaii. Which the San Diego Zoo is helping. They've got a managed breeding program for the San Clemente loggerhead shrike, and they've been doing pretty much the same thing for some of the Hawaiian birds.

Some of what's on the page seems terribly obvious: Like "What is a bird?" Think about it, though: The San Diego Zoo's mission is to be "...a conservation, education, and recreation organization dedicated to the reproduction, protection, and exhibition of animals, plants, and their habitats...."

Not everybody's been around for the half-century that the Lemming's logged on planet Earth - and defining what you're talking about makes good sense, from a teaching point of view.

As for making the island safe for the San Clemente loggerhead shrike, and helping them survive? Provided that it doesn't mean pushing people off the other Channel Islands, I don't see the harm in it. (Avalon, on Catalina Island, north of San Clemente Island, was evacuated back in 2007: but the folks moved back after the fire was out. NPR (May 11, 2007))

The San Clemente Island bird project is a collaborative thing with the U. S. Navy, by the way.

And maybe it's a good idea to keep San Clemente loggerhead shrike around. According to the San Diego Zoo, the birds eat mice and lizards.

Finally, it may be noteworthy that pigeons, sparrows, and crows don't seem to make the 'endangered species' lists.

It could be done, though.

Given a little imagination and creative analysis of the birds' DNA, the pigeons residing within a kilometer of Kansas City, Missouri's Washington Square Park could be called a distinct species (I suggest "Kansas City T-Bone Pigeons") - but that's another topic.

Sort-of-related posts:

• "Discovery Channel Hostages and the Environment: It Could have been Worse"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (September 1, 2010)
• "Tiny, Cute, and Endangered: The Long-Eared Jerboa, 2007"
  (August 9, 2010)
• "Your Daily Adult Requirement of Cute: An Extremely Satisfied Bird"
  (June 14, 2010)
• "Frail, Delicate Little Mother Nature?!"
  (December 20, 2009)

Salmonella in Eggs: Let the Blames Begin

"More Egg Recall News: Companies Point Fingers on Salmonella Contamination"
Katherine Hobson, Health Blog, The Wall Street Journal (September 1, 2010)

"FDA officials may have released inspection reports - which included observations of vermin and other unsanitary conditions - on the two farms at the hub of the humongous egg recall, but the agency has not yet identified the precise source of the salmonella outbreak.

"Now one of the farms and its feed supplier each suggest the other is the problem, the WSJ reports. Wright County Egg, which recalled 380 million eggs and where the bulk of the nasties in the FDA's reports were observed, has suggested the problem may be tainted bone meal, a feed component purchased from a supplier. Not surprisingly its Minnesota-based supplier, Central Bi-Products, begs to differ, saying its 'heat-processed bone meal was untainted when it was shipped,' the WSJ says.

"The FDA found salmonella in the bone meal, among numerous other places, at Wright's facilities - and the agency's inspectors reported problems that may explain how stored bone meal could be contaminated, including porous bins that were 'exposed to live birds and avian feces' and possibly accessible to rodents, the WSJ says...."

This is hardly surprising: Wright County Egg has - at best - a monumental public relations problem on its hands. American's are picky about manure showing up where it shouldn't be - and even more fussy about diseased eggs on the grocery shelves. Whoever's in charge at WCE would naturally want everybody to believe that they're the victims in this piece.

Things could be worse for those two egg farms, though: conditions in their barns hadn't killed the mice. (August 31, 2010)

I live in central Minnesota, and would just as soon believe that a company in this state wouldn't be shipping salmonella with its feed.

For that matter, I'd just as soon believe that a company in the next state south of us wouldn't sell tainted eggs. Bad things happen - and sometimes company bigwigs make really, really stupid decisions. Remember those poison peanuts?

The Lemming may be biased: but it does seem that mixing feed - no matter how pristine it was when it arrived - with bird poop isn't a good idea.

This investigation - and the mess that those egg farms are in, literally and figuratively - aren't likely to go away any time soon.

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Related posts:

• "Salmonella In Eggs: It's Enough to Make You Sick"

HR 8799b: Unexpectedly Hot and Cloudy: And About 130 Light Years Away

"Big Alien Planet's Weather Forecast: Hot and Extra Cloudy "
Space.com (August 31, 2010)

"Astronomers peering at a large alien planet have found it to be covered by an atmosphere unlike that of any extrasolar planet yet seen.

"The planet, known as HR 8799b, is about seven times the mass of Jupiter and was discovered in 2008. Since then, astronomers have found little hint of the methane expected in the planet's atmosphere and evidence that it is hotter and cloudier than previously thought.

"The discovery suggests that young gas giants may be cloudier than previously imagined. HR 8799b is among a half-dozen exoplanets that have been directly imaged with telescopes, researchers said...."

Also remarkable: Astronomers used the Keck II Telescope's adaptive optics system to sort out HR 8779b's spectrum from that of its star.

This sort of technology makes it possible to analyze the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars directly. And get really, really low-resolution pictures of them. The Space.com article includes an image of HR 8799b - that's about three pixels across.

Still: that three-pixel-wide dot is about 130 light-years away. Impressive.