We know…we’ve been remiss, and it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. Something Wild, as you know, is a chance to take a closer look at the wildlife, ecosystems and marvelous phenomena you can find in and around New Hampshire. But over the years there is one species in New Hampshire that we haven’t spent much time examining. A species, I think that has been conspicuous in its absence. Humans. So we’re grabbing the bull by the horns and digging in to a complex species that is an important part of the ecosystem. And we thought we’d start with a particular trait that’s been with us almost since the beginning: olfaction. The sense of smell among other sensory systems are relatively unchanged throughout mammalian history. As Nate Dominy, professor of anthropology and biological sciences at Dartmouth, says, “a lot of the traits we see in mammals are retention of those basic traits.” Dominy suggested our olfactory sense was really important to our proto-mammalian ancestors. Picture
To everything there is a season and this is the season when we go swimming and we spend a lot of time talking about Cyanobacteria. So what is it, exactly? we spoke with Sonya Carlson in 2016 when she was the head of the Beach Inspection Program with the state Department of Environmental Services and gave us a primer on the micro-organism. Cyanobacteria has been on earth for a long time, to the tune of 3.5 billion years! “In fact, we scientists think it's what created oxygen in our atmosphere, so it's a very important part of this world.” Carlson stressed that the bacteria itself is not necessarily the problem. It’s ubiquitous, she says it “has been found in every lake and water body around the world, but usually it's just a small part of the ecosystem.” Instead it’s the toxin that the Cyanobacteria emits over its life span, or all at once when it dies, that is the problem. Those toxins “can actually hurt people and dogs and livestock.” Cyanobacteria blooms are tricky to predict but
Today’s topic is thunderstorms. Summer in NH brings those triple H days – hazy, hot, and humid! On days like those there’s nothing more welcome than the arrival of a late-afternoon thunderstorm, leaving in its wake cool, refreshing air, scrubbed clean of haze and pollution.
Outside/In host Sam Evans-Brown, joined us in the field this week at Something Wild. We were in Sutton, NH tracking some turkey vulture chicks, because Dave discovered some vultures living among the rocks in a nearby cliff-face. Turkey Vultures (one of three vulture species living in North America) are obligate to this kind of structure: cavities in a boulder field, caves in a cliff, even big hollow logs. TVs don’t build their own nests, they just create a depression in an existing structure, but their primary criteria is shelter from the weather. While these nests usually do protect their occupants from the weather, there are other dangers. Since many nests are on the ground they are susceptible to predation from foxes and fishers. But the TVs have other defences. If a vulture feels trapped, it will offer a warning hiss before vomiting on a threat. Consider being covered in partially digested, putrid carrion; it’s easy to imagine any threat beating a hasty retreat. But that is the
At Something Wild we like to talk about some of the interesting wildlife or natural occurrences you can find in New Hampshire. We hope you learn a little something wild along the way; sometimes that’s birds and bees, sometimes that’s flowers and trees, but today we want to talk about that thing called love. Biophilia is an idea popularized by American ecologist and philosopher E.O. Wilson. He suggested that humans have an instinctive bond to other living creatures – that we’re innately attracted to nature. We have it at Something Wild! And there’s almost certainly a higher rate of it among folks living in this state of granite than in other places in the country. But this sense of biophilia is particularly acute among people in the profession. Over the years, we’ve spoken to ornithologists (birds) , dendrologists (trees) , meteorologists (weather) , ichthyologists (fish) – lots of different “-ologists” and we’ve noticed a theme among them when we’ve broached this topic: they were all
We’ve been hearing a lot about porcupines this year. They seem to be everywhere! It’s positively a plague of porcupines! So why are there so many? Biologists don’t have an official answer, but Dave Anderson has a hypothesis involving coyotes and fisher cats. The porcupine’s only real predator is the fisher. It takes a tough critter to eat a porcupine. Anecdotally, trackers and hunters are reporting that fisher numbers appear to be down this year, so it makes sense that porcupine numbers are up. There are a lot of coyotes and that means they’re eating a lot. Coyotes are having an impact on prey species like snowshoe hare and ruffed grouse. There is so much competition for medium sized animals it’s no wonder the fisher population seems to be lower. However, coyotes don’t go for porcupine, so while they’re eating everything else our prickly friends remain untouched. In fact, a porcupine could saunter right past a coyote without fear. The coyote instinctively knows to leave them alone – a
The specter of drought is often raised in these early days of summer. And for good reason, though water levels have returned to normal around the New Hampshire, state officials are still warning residents to remain cautious after last summer drought. And while we often fret about the health of our lawns and our gardens, Dave (from the Forest Society) wanted to address drought resistance among his favorite species, trees. So, we all know that trees need water to survive. Basically the many leaves on a given tree have these pore-like holes called stomates that leak moisture into the surrounding air. As that vapor exits the tree through the leaves it draws more water up through the trunk and branches, like through a bundle of straws. Harnessing the power of the sun, trees break apart that water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen molecules; forming glucose with the hydrogen and exhaling the oxygen into the atmosphere. The glucose is what fuels growth in the tree, from buds to bark to
Talk of turkey is usually relegated to the month of November as we stuff ourselves with eating yams and cranberry jelly, and watch college football. And the misperception about Ben Franklin proposing the wild turkey as our national bird, is usually not far behind.
The battlefield is ancient. Strewn with the debris of generations. Trees splintered, rocks shattered. Neither side will yield this talus slope in the pursuit of that which is most coveted. This is Game of Stones. Actually, this is just another installment of New Hampshire’s Wild Neighborhoods, and this time we’re scaling the battle ground known as Talus. And there was some disagreement at Something Wild about whether we should call it “talus” or “talus woodland”. What we did agree on was that when the ice-sheet receded from New Hampshire 12,000 years ago, it scraped up the landscape pretty significantly. In its wake it left south-facing cliffs, with boulder fields at their feet. Imagine Canon Mountain in Franconia Notch or Cathedral Ledge in North Conway. And these boulder fields are the front lines of where the titans Geology and Botany clash. The argument for calling this “talus woodland” is that over time, the boulder fields develop a mat of leaf litter, moss and soil that will
Before we get into this week's topic, check out Chris and Dave's recent appearance on NHPR's Outside/In. They joined host Sam Evans-Brown for a special edition of "Ask Sam" . There are few sounds in nature that command your attention as effectively as the rattle of a rattlesnake. And though these snakes are not aggressive, that sound does elicit a hard-wired, innate fear response. Roughly translating to “Watch Your Step, Mister!” the rattle is an alarm designed to stop trouble before it starts.
