Extinction Awareness Day

October 12th symbolizes many things.  It is National Farmers Day, National Gumbo Day, National Pulled Pork Day, and even International Moment of Frustration Scream Day. October 12th, 2021 also symbolizes for me a day of seeing a life goal achieved.  After 7 years of researching, writing, revising, learning the process of seeking a publisher (a reason to Frustration Scream at times), revising, and finally choosing to self-publish my book, my story  Deader Than a Dodo  is finally published!  Rather than being a story copied and placed in binders or sent to friends as a PDF for their thoughts, my book is finally a real boy...I mean, a real book. Now I'm  off to learn how to set up sales numbers and market the book, which will be a new learning curve.  You can order it through multiple sites like Barnes & Noble or Amazon right now as a paperback.  Since it's self-published, I don't seem to have as much say on the paperback price to start, but I do...

  Happy Halloween 2021!   Bats are synonymous with Halloween. Many people suffer from "chiroptophobia", the fear of bats.  Bats are nocturnal. They are a flying mammal.  They do swoop through the air seemingly at random.  Bats use their echolocation, which can be an eerie noise to hear, but one bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes each night.  Some bats don't stick to the usual bug diet.  They eat fruit.  In fact the the Little Mariana Fruit Bat was one of those fruit bat species.  There are at least 11 other species of bat that have also gone extinct. Also known as the Guam Flying-Fox, this fruit bat was first discovered in 1931.  It would often mix itself among the larger Marianas flying-fox. The last Little Mariana Fruit Bat was a female found at Tarague Cliff in March of 1967.  A young flying-fox flew away but was never seen again. Guam's history has played a role in the extinction of its species.  It was occupied by Cha...

  The Tubercled-Blossom Pearly Mussel was one of 11 species of freshwater mussel to be officially declared extinct barring any reports with 55 days.   This mussel was once very abundant in all rivers in the eastern U.S., especially in the Ohio River.  The biggest obstacles that the Tubercled-Blossom Pearly Mussel could not overcome was the turbidity (lack of water clarity) and the increased sediment in the waterways they called home, mostly from deforestation and farming along the rivers.  The addition of dams and pollution added to the mussel's fate. These mussels require relatively calm waters to fertilize their eggs.  Once the eggs hatch the female releases the larvae into the water.  The babies drift through the water.  If they manage to attach to the gills of a host fish, they will develop and grow into an adult. Once they reach a certain size, they release from the fish's gills and settle to the bottom of the river and can live there for 50 ...

Breaking with the normal flow of these posts, I wanted to highlight the bigger news in the U.S. on extinct species.  The United States passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 as a way to identify and save species from extinction. There are two ways to be removed from the Endangered species list.  To recover or to go extinct. The Endangered Species Act has helped save 54 species, like the brown pelican, the humpback whale, California Condor, American alligators, and our nation's symbol, the Bald Eagle to name a few. We love these animals and are glad they are doing well (see logos below). This week 23 more species were also removed from the Endangered Species List.  Should we be excited?  Well these 23 species have been deemed extinct, since there has been no proof of their existence for 50 or more years.  That means these animals are "as dead as a dodo". There is also a 55 day "comment window" for anyone to provide proof of one of these 23 species, but the out...