Unnatural Kingdom

In the article The Unnatural Kingdom by Daniel Duane, on the New York Times, two ways of conserving animal populations are mentioned.  Both ways discussed utilize various types of trapping and locating through technology.  The technology allows conservationists to monitor and protect the populations of endangered species while keeping them in the wild.  The two ways of conserving the animal populations are: predation prevention, and animal relocation.

Animal relocation, is just what it sounds like.  Scientists measure the population of a specie until that population has reached a sustainable number, and then the scientists will take some of that population and transport it to another area that needs a greater population, or higher diversity.  In the example used in the article, pregnant female sheep were captured in one area of the Sierra Nevada park and transported to another location where they’d give birth to their baby sheep, and add to the population.  Predation Prevention is when scientists monitor the predation habits of an ecosystem, if a predator is harming the population of an endangered species too much, professional hunters will intervene, and kill the main predator before it has a chance to kill more of its prey.

I am of the opinion that neither method is superior over the other.  In the circumstance presented in the article of the Sierra bighorn populations, and mountain lion predation, both methods were necessary.  The scientists needed to grow the populations of the Bighorns through the park, and they also needed to prevent the over-predation of the sheep by the mountain lions.  In other circumstances, the prevention of over predation might only be necessary.  In cases like the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone park, animal relocation was the only method needed.  The superiority of either method is purely circumstantial.

The restored populations of the Bighorn sheep will have a lower genetic diversity in the coming years than they did 200 years ago.  This is because the population of sheep have been grown from a small population recently (by the scientists), and so right now there is a very small genetic pool for the sheep to reproduce from.  Though, as the population of the sheep continues to grow, it will become more diverse, as the gene pool will grow, and diversity will be inevitable.

After reading this article, I still think that the animals who have had their populations should still be considered wild.  The animals still live in the wild and still are not domesticated by humans, and therefore they are still wild.  Our definition and concept of what a wild species is may need some adjustment though.

IFAP Topic 2 - Environment

Main ideas of the Executive Summery:

• Farms are located in poorly planned areas (flood plains or close to communities that utilize well water) and, the surrounding area cannot take such a high amount of waste and leads to pollution, and general degradation of the surrounding environment
• The annual production of manure produced by animal confinement facilities exceeds that produced by humans by at least three times - this results in large quanities of manure that carry excess nutrients, chemicals, and microorganisms that find their way into waterways, lakes, groundwater, soils, and airways which as a result in excessive nutrient loading, eutrophication of surface waters, reduced air quality is due to releases of toxic gases, odorous substances, particulates, and bioaerosols containing a variety of microorganisms and human pathogens
• High resource use
• High amounts of greenhouse emissions 
• It is extremely energy intensive and requires disproportionately large inputs of fossil fuels, industrial fertilizers, and other synthetic chemicals

Summary of Topic 2 (from the main document):

IFAP farming focuses on high efficiency and low cost production, and when compared to previous generations of farming styles, IFAP is much less sustainable. This uses high amounts of feed, chemicals, fuels, and energy in general to produce as much protein and animal products as possible in as short of a time as possible. This method of farming has many more environmental impacts, and has more public health concerns when compared to older methods of animal farming.

Possible solution:

The best way to make a change is to write to your senators, governors, and other public officials in order to have them pass legislation to regulate, control, and stop as many of the negative impacts of IFAP farming as possible. Also to accomplish this general education of people would bring about greater change, as the more people who know the negative impacts on the environment and their health, the more likely it is that legislation will be passed.

Tar Sands and EROI

1. We should extract tar sands first as the EROI is 5 and the EROI is 3 - this means you get more energy per a single unit of energy
2. Both require heat to get the oil into its final form.  Heat added in oil shale turns the oil shale into crude oil and natural gas - heat added to tar sands extracts the oil from within the sand.
3. The major difference between getting oil from oil shale and tar sands is that you get more oil from tar sands.  When extracting oil from oil shale, natural gas is a byproduct of the process.
4. With off-shore drilling there is a much higher EROI and therefore you get more oil and have to use less fossil fuels to get it.  In the long run, this means we produce more oil without having to use as much oil/ fossil fuels to get it - this results in lower rates of CO2 pollution
5. When searching for food in my house I first look for junk food or something I can consume quickly with little to no work.  My last choice is having to make food as it takes a lot more time and work to get the food.

Head Count Paper

The Haber-Bosch Process has given humans the tool for their own demise.  With the development of the Haber-Bosch Process, it has given humans the ability to produce food much more quickly than ever before.  This ability to produce more food has given humanity the ability to reproduce much more.  This has lead to more rapid population growth, in a shorter time frame.  The Haber-Bosch Process is key to humanity’s overpopulation problem, as it gives humans the ability to reproduce at an exuberant rate, as farming can be done almost non-stop with the use of artificially produced nitrogen.  In poor undeveloped countries, people need to have a lot of children to produce enough food to feed themselves and to sell for some profit.  Not only that but, in undeveloped countries family planning, birth control, and sexual education are severely lacking or, nonexistent.  That, the need for labor (from their children), and religious/ social beliefs all contribute to the high T.F.R. (Total Fertility Rate), or high birth rates, in these undeveloped countries.  Countries mainly in Africa have the highest T.F.R.s, such as Niger, which has the highest T.F.R. is 7, Mali is 6.25, and Somalia which is 6.17.  With all of the undeveloped countries farming consistently, year-round, and developed countries (such as the U.S. or China) also farming, the food production is probably the highest it's ever been.  Yet, the food is not enough to feed everyone, we are currently having more babies then we can feed.  The population is expected to reach 8 billion people by 2025, and double by 2100.  This trend is ridiculous and needs to be stopped.  Two things need to happen: one, over and high consumption by developed first world nations needs to be reduced or at the very at least reduced.  Two, we all need to follow in suite of countries such China, or Japan, where our T.F.R.s are at 2.1 or below, so that our population will not grow.  Instead our population will cap off, and even start to decline, and then at that point will we be able to produce enough food so everyone will be able to eat, and not starve.  So that humanity won’t suffer a great cataclysmic event.

Complete Seneca Lake Lab Report

Here it is, buddies. Enjoy.

It is now updated as of 9:15 on 11/19, thanks Bandicoot for all your helpful advice.  Final copy is ready.

Seneca Lake Lab

Research Question: How does the depth of Seneca lake effect the amount of life?

Controlled Variables: The type of tests we take, the time we take the tests will be pretty much the same ( same season, same day, same weather conditions, etc. )

Independent Variable: The depth of the water

Relevant Variables: We must make sure that the tests are conducted as similarly as possible. The level of pollution, temperature, season, are all relevant variables

Background Info: Seneca Lake is the deepest of all the Finger Lakes in New York State, reaching up to depths of 618 feet.  Seneca Lake is the geographic center of all the Finger Lakes as well, with the town of Geneva on Northern tip and Watkins Glen on the Southern end of the lake.  Seneca Lake's water is maintains a fairly moderate temperature throughout the year, the water has high levels of dissolved oxygen, allowing for all types of life throughout various depths.  The water supports numerous types of fish, some of which are Lake Trout, Smallmouth Bass, and Yellow Perch.  Plant life also thrives, with pondweeds, waterweeds, plantain, stoneworts and muskgrass being prevalent in the water and on the shores of the lake.  In-text Citation.

Hypothesis: Evidence of life will be consistent throughout all depths of the lake, while life low on the food pyramid will be at the higher depths while the tertiary consumers will most likely be at lower depths.  

Methods to Control Variables: I want to measure turbidity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH levels at all depths.  Taking all the same tests at all locations, even multiple trials of the tests at all three locations would all go to further eliminate human error and control variables.

Procedures:

Dissolved Oxygen:

1. Gather the dissolved oxygen kit.
2. To the LaMotte sample bottle, add 8 drops of the manganese(II) sulfate solution (bottle 4167) followed by 8 drops of the alkaline potassium iodide azide solution (bottle 7166).Some water may drip off the sides.
3. Carefully cap the bottle, mix by gently inverting - then allow the orange-brown precipitate that has formed to settle below the shoulder of the bottle (about 3-4 minutes).
4. Using the 1 gram spoon provided in the kit (0697), add one level spoonful of sulfamic acid (bottle 6286) to the solution in your LaMotte sample bottle. Cap the bottle and mix until both the reagent (white crystals) and precipitate (brown crystals) have completely dissolved and you obtain a clear brown-yellow solution.
5. Pour this clear brown-yellow solution from the LaMotte bottle into the titration tube and fill it up to the 20 ml line.
6. Use the plastic eye-dropper provided in the kit, add 8 drops of the starch solution to the titration tube. At this point, the solution should change color to a bluish-green.
7. Fill the Direct Reading Titrator (0337) up to the 0 mark [looks like a syringe, marked 0-10 ppm] with the sodium thiosulfate solution (bottle 4169).
8. Insert the titrator you just filled through the small hole in the cap of the titration tube and titrate the solution slowly. Swirl the titration tube until the blue color of the solution disappears permanently with one drop of titrant (i.e., you are looking for a color progression from green-blue to blue to light blue to colorless). You may have to fill the titrator more than once. Be sure to record how much titrant you used before refilling. The direct reading titrator is calibrated in units of parts per million (ppm) dissolved oxygen, therefore, be sure to record all of these units.

Temperature:

1. Use the Ship's onboard "CTD" to gather temperature measurements.

Turbidity:

1. Take Cup that has Secchi Disk on it and slowly lower it into the lake until it disappears. Record the height at which it disappeared.
2. Pull the Secchi Disk back up until it can be seen again record that.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2, 3 more times, and collect average of the three trials

pH Testing:

1. Fill up a vial with lake water
2. ASAP after getting water sample turn the pH meter on
3. Remove the cap to expose the glass bead
4. Pour at least an inch of water into a beaker rinsed with lake water
5. Place the pH meter in the beaker
6. Let the number on the readout stabilize for 5-10 seconds
7. Read the pH number and record it.

Final Questions: How good is this food going to be?

Also - what are the possible implications of whatever results we may find while on our excursion to Seneca Lake?

How I Impact The Carbon Cycle

• I ride in vehicles, that emit CO2
• I play three sports in which I preform cellular respiration at an accelerated rate
• I live
• I eat
• I use electricity
• I use paper, which contributes to deforestation
• I breathe
• I use charcoal which is a form of carbon
• Cotton clothes also use carbon based polyesters
• I use plastics which is synthetically altered carbon