QUEST Community Science Blog

Why do Moon Bears need you to knit?

Once upon a time in the far away land of Hong Kong, a woman named Jill Robinson discovered that beautiful moon bears where being held captive in tiny cages in China and farmed (through their bellies) as a living source for bear bile, which is used in traditional medicines. She decided to do something heroic about the issue and founded the Animals Asia Foundation. Animals Asia became a thriving organization, dedicated to ending cruelty and restoring respect for all animals in Asia.

For many moon bears, their stories have a happy ending. Jill and the AAF crew have rescued 500 bears, releasing them into their idyllic sanctuary in Chengdu China. Newly rescued moon bears tentatively step on fresh grass, slowly learn to climb, socialize, scamper through bamboo, wrestle and eat honey, finally becoming a real bear.

Of course, the bears can’t go from cages to sanctuary directly; they must endure urgent veterinary care and often surgery to remove the bile equipment from their bodies. Bears must be anaesthetized to receive this care and it is important that they stay warm and comfortable during the process. Just as with humans, the bears’ extremities are the first things to get cold and that is where knitters on the West Coast of the United States, worlds away, come in. They must knit giant bear mittens!

The Oakland Zoo is hoping to have some mittens knitted in order to hand them directly to Jill Robinson on May 21, when she speaks at the Oakland Zoo. We will have a knitting party at the zoo on Friday, May 9, from 1pm-3pm. However, mittens can be turned in to the Oakland Zoo at anytime and mailed to China in the hopes that the thousands of moon bears still in captivity will need them soon.

The mitten pattern allows for several weights of yarn and includes instructions for knitting in the round with one circular, two circulars, double-pointed needles, or knitting flat. Finished mittens are about 7″ wide (14″ circumference) with a 12″ foot and 6″ cuff. The pattern is intended to be beginner level, but if you have any questions about the techniques mentioned, you might find the website knittinghelp.com helpful.

Click here for the pattern and try it yourself:

bearbooties.pdf

The Oakland Zoo will be working with Article Pract in Oakland on more mittens for bears.

Find out more about Moon Bears and their plight, and meet Jill Robinson on Wednesday, May 21 at 6:30 for the lecture entitle, “From Prison to Paradise: Rescuing the Endangered Asian Moon Bear. Bring the family to Bear Day at the Oakland Zoo on Saturday, May 17.

Some of this information is thanks to Twisted, the Knit Shop in Oregon who is helping the Oregon zoo knit mittens.


Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.

It’s approaching that time of year again: Spring Equinox. The blaze in my home’s interior hallway has been signaling this for the last week.

The shadow of Chabot’s “solar clock” at noon
on the equinox produces a pattern of solid green
straddling the gnomonI noticed late in the afternoon a couple days ago that the windowless hallway where we hang all of our family photos was afire in a shaft of bright sunlight, entering a window in the adjacent bedroom. Only around Equinox (Spring or Fall), when the Sun sets about directly west, does this happen in my house. The rest of the year the Sun sets too far north or south for this window-and-hallway alignment to take place. It’s a striking event because for only a few days of the year my normally dark hallway explodes with radiance.

Ancient cultures all around the world made use of the changing rise and set position of the Sun to track the seasons, and either observed special alignments of sunlight and shadow with geographical features, or built structures that made the special alignments. Stonehenge is one famous example, but there are plenty of other seasonal observatories in just about every part of the world.

Unlike the more distant stars in the sky, which always rise and set at the same points on the horizon, the Sun (a star too, of course) wanders northward and southward in the sky throughout the year, and so its rise and set points migrate. On the Equinoxes the Sun rises directly at the east point on the horizon and sets directly at the west point-but at Summer Solstice in the Bay Area it rises a full 30 degrees to the north, and at Winter Solstice 30 degrees to the south.

The reason for the Sun’s annual wandering comes from the tilt of Earth’s rotational axis with its orbit around the Sun. At our (Northern Hemisphere) Summer Solstice, our hemisphere is tipped toward the Sun and the Sun appears at its most northerly point in the sky; we receive more hours of sunlight and more direct rays from the Sun-so it’s warmer. Winter Solstice is opposite, with our hemisphere tipped away and the Sun and the Sun farthest to the south, making for shorter hours of daylight and less direct solar rays–and so it’s colder.

Equinox is a middle point between solstices: the Sun is poised between the northern and southern extreme points of the solstices-positioned directly over Earth’s equator-and the hours of daylight and night are about equal.

Does your home or place of work function as a solar seasonal calendar, as mine does? Is there a special time of year when you notice a striking pattern of light and shadow, a special alignment of walls, windows, doors, or other features? From the location of Chabot Space & Science Center, at equinox the Sun sets directly on the Golden Gate Bridge… .

If you have noticed something like this, then you’ve experienced what many ancient peoples noticed about the seasonal changing of the Sun. Their observations led them to understanding, or at least making use of, the cycle of the Earth revolving about the Sun to establish the earliest calendar systems.

Take a look and see what you notice, especially around Equinox (March 19, Pacific Time-March 20 GMT).

Benjamin Burress is a staff astronomer at The Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.

The original Oakland Observatory in the 1880’s,
at Lafayette Square in Oakland. Credit: Chabot Space
& Science Center archives.This year marks an anniversary for the astronomical heritage of Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area: Chabot Observatory turns 125!

Originally established as the Oakland Observatory in 1883, the facility was a unique creature from the very beginning. Conceived by then Oakland Public Schools Superintendent Jewett Gilson, who was inspired by a school observatory he saw in Philadelphia, the observatory was created for use by Oakland schools and the general public at large.

Gilson looked for, and eventually found, a donor to fund the observatory project: Anthony Chabot, a wealthy entrepreneur and philanthropist who made his fortune building municipal water systems in the Bay Area– including Lake Temescal and Lake Chabot. Anthony Chabot stipulated as part of his original $3,000 gift that the telescope shall forever be available for public observation at not cost– a tradition that continues today.

Chabot didn’t want the observatory to be named for him, so in its earliest years it was called the Oakland Observatory. The public, as the story goes, insisted on calling it Chabot Observatory in gratitude for the gift– and eventually the name was made official.

The original location for the observatory and its 8-inch Alvan Clarke and Sons telescope (”Leah”) was close to downtown Oakland in Lafayette Square– which today remains a square block of parkland, at 10th and 11th Streets and Martin Luther King Junior Way and Jefferson Street. In those days, 10 or so visitors on any given night would climb the tower-like structure to the telescope dome and peer at the heavens through the high quality instrument. Reservations had to be made in advance– sometimes as long as a month or two.

As Oakland grew, and particularly as it converted its street lighting from gas-powered lamps to electric lights, the necessity of moving the observatory to a darker spot grew. The observatory’s first director, Charles Burckhalter (who is said to have been the first person in Oakland with an astronomical telescope, set up in a backyard observatory at his home on Chester Street), arranged for the relocation. A number of different sites were considered– including a spot near Redwood Peak, the current location of the observatory– but a small hill next to the Mills College campus was finally adopted.

In 1915, Chabot Observatory opened at its new site, along with a new 20-inch Warner and Swasey telescope (”Rachel”), and continued to wow the public with the astronomical vistas it conveyed. In 1923 the directorship passed to Earle Linsley, a Mills College professor, who expanded the reach of the observatory to the public through outreach to schools and the establishment of an amateur astronomy group (today the Eastbay Astronomical Society).

Having visited this Chabot Observatory as a child in the 1960s, I now appreciate how long and distinguished a career those two telescopes spanned. At the time, I had no idea that Leah, even in 1968, was 85 years old-older than my grandparents! Then the observatory was run by the beloved Kingsley Wightman — “Mr. Science” to a generation or two.

It took the moving Earth to relocate the observatory a second time– literally. Because of Chabot Observatory’s location almost directly on top of the Hayward Fault, and the fact that the aging buildings were not quake– safe in the first place, another site had to be found: the present location of Chabot Space & Science Center, adjacent to Redwood Peak.

Happy 125th to Oakland’s special connection with the stars!

Benjamin Burress is a staff astronomer at The Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.

Nyla - found safe and soundYesterday, a 10:00 am Text Message from friend stated:

My Dog Nyla had disappeared. I could use some help.

My reply:

Whatever you need.

I know what it is like to have a missing pet. When my cat Tucker slipped out two years ago around the winter holidays, I was distraught. I feared he was stuck in the garage of a vacationing family, hit by a car, starving in an alley, wet, cold and crying for me somewhere in the streets. I did everything to find him, creating a ‘CSI Oakland’ headquarters at my house. Though I did not find Tucker, I did feel at peace with my efforts and felt able to advise my friend on his search. The trick is to turn your guilt, fear and sadness into positive energy and to take immediate action!

1. Reach out to Friends and Family: Right away, reach out and ask for help. You would be surprised who steps up and offers their time, so give them the chance to do so.

2. Create an e-mail list of your team and keep them updated.

3. Flyers, postcards and business cards: It is PR time. Arm yourself with the flyers, tape, staplers and tacks and hit up the neighborhood. Use your most current photo of your dog and create bright-colored flyers, as well as smaller postcards or business cards. Post your flyers right away and everywhere within 1 mile of where the pet went missing. Post in coffee shops, store windows, video stores, parks, pools, churches and local hangouts. State clearly, “MISSING DOG”. Include what neighborhood the dog is missing from and when he/she was last seen, as well as your phone number and a description of the dog. If you are offering a reward leave out one detail of the description (eye color or odd patch on belly) in order to weed through responses.

4. Network: Set out in teams and talk to people. Give out the cards to your neighbors, dog walkers, bus drivers, taxi drivers, local police, neighborhood youth, the postman, garbage woman and everyone you meet. Give them away at the farmer’s market, shopping center and BART station, wherever you can encounter the most local people. Almost everyone can relate to a lost pet and most will be sympathetic to your mission.

5. Contact Pet Places: visit your local Animal Control, Humane Society, rescue places, veterinary offices, pet stores and pet supply places. Check their found dogs and give them flyers to post. With Animal Control, you must go in immediately and visit often. You can post in their Lost Dog binder and check the Found Dog one. Staff will show you current found dogs and, sadly, the police deceased animal cards. Bay Area Shelters are at www.animalservices.org/uploaded_files/shelterlist.pdf or www.labrescue.org/Pages/bayareashelters.htm.

6. Craigslist: As always, a fantastic resource. Use Craigslist to list your missing pet, but also use it to check for found dogs. Try the newspaper, as well.

7. Call the Police: Most officers are quite willing to take a card and keep an eye out.

8. Look: With a friend, look for your dog in his/her favorite places, like a friends’ yard or the local dog park. Call to them, rattle their leash, squeak their favorite toy or use an Acme dog whistle as you walk.

9. Stay Positive

and

10. Do Not Give Up! Pets have been known to find their way back home after being lost for several months.

Now for the good news: thanks to flyers (#2 above), someone called with a lead late last night and Nyla was found. Hey, it works!

Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.

latitude: 37.7502, longitude: -122.148

There’s nothing like a trip away from the city lights to remind you just how bad light pollution can be here in the Bay Area.

The Milky Way in the skies of Death Valley’s
Devil’s Racetrack. Credit: Dan Duriscoe, U.S. National
Park ServiceI just got back from my semi-yearly pilgrimage to my favorite spot on Earth: Death Valley National Park. My main reasons for returning to this place again and again have mostly to do with hiking in the stunning natural beauty of the place, reconnecting with good times in my childhood, and reflecting spiritually on life, the Universe, and everything.

But, I can’t go to a place like that and not feel more connected with outer space. Not only is the night sky a celestial spectacle–but it’s darned cold there too, this time of year! Cold, like space. Each turn of the Earth through its own shadow is like a quick dip in the icy pool of space….

After twilight had faded, after the campfire had burned to embers–and as the frigid cold of the desert winter night started seeping through my layers of clothing–I lay down on the picnic bench and raised my binoculars to my eyes…

…and that’s all I had to do. Arcing overhead was the section of the Milky Way around the constellations Cassiopeia, Perseus, Andromeda, Pegasus–a section of the sky rich in a variety of “deep sky” objects (objects typically only visible through binoculars or telescopes).

There was the Double Cluster in Perseus–a pair of “open” clusters of stars.

Open clusters are stars bound together gravitationally, still clinging to each other after their “group infancy” in the gaseous cloud that gave birth to them. Stars in these clusters are young–and because of their youth, open clusters often contain a number of large, bright, blue stars that shine brilliantly–but which have short life spans as stars go, being more prolific hydrogen-burners (gas guzzlers). (In a word, you can’t find an old blue giant star.)

You can’t avoid seeing open clusters in this region; the place is positively littered with them….

This is also where the famous Andromeda Galaxy can be found, in the constellation Andromeda (where else?). What’s special about the Andromeda Galaxy? For one, it’s the closest large galaxy to our own, as well as the most distant object in the Universe that can be seen with the unaided human eye (without telescopic help). Looking at the Andromeda is like looking through a peephole into the realm beyond our Milky Way…

I could go on and on yakking about what I got to see in the clear, dark Death Valley skies last week, so I’ll have to stop myself now. Suffice to say that with a dark sky, a pair of binoculars, and a segment of the Milky Way in view, encountering the celestial wonders of the Universe in a very personal way is like shooting ducks in a barrel.

But don’t let the light polluted skies of the Bay Area stop you from trying it from your own backyard; there’s a lot to behold despite the city lights…

Benjamin Burress is a staff astronomer at The Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.

Listen! You can hear the sounds of the ocean, but is it getting quieter?

Last week while snorkeling in Roatan, Hondoruas, I came face to face with a Conch. Not a shiny shell in a gift shop, but a moving creature, shuffling along the sea floor, munching on grasses and just being a mollusk. I was in awe. My crew was still digesting the Conch Soup from the previous night and would soon tap our feet to a Garifuna performance complete with Conch Shell blowing. And haven’t we all picked one up off of someone’s coffee table and listened to sounds of the ocean? I am sure I am not the only one who associates the Conch Shell, and so many shells, with jewelry, lamps, ash trays, picture frames, instruments, Bo Derek, and at times, dinner. But this, this was a living creature, using the shell for what it was created for; a home.

The study of shells, both amateur and professional, is called Conchology. There are millions of Conchology practitioners, or collectors, who feel drawn to collect shells. They are inspired by their spirals, blown away by their beauty, and drawn to keep them in their desire to connect with the earth. Many study shells scientifically and their findings can lead to conservation awareness, medical advances and my favorite, biomimicry ideas. I do not aim to deny anyone these experiences, but do wish to know how to collect shells, and all items from nature, responsibly.

As a conservation teacher, I have often talked to kids about picking flowers, etc. At times I will teach the ditty, “One for the butterflies, one for the bees, one for the beetles and one for me,” honoring the deep need to be close to nature, while teaching that other creatures need these treasures for survival. Therefore, we share.

Tips for collection shells might be:

• Adhere to the environmental regulations of the state and country you are in (for California, go to www.dfg.ca.gov/fish/fishing)
• Put things back where you found them as you look
• Take only shells with nobody home
• Be aware of your source and their conservation practices before you buy
• Join a club that practices responsible collection

Other ideas would be appreciated.

On the boat on the way back from the snorkeling, one woman could not resist. She had a shiny, pink Conch Shell on her lap. The guide attempted to explain why tourists are not allowed to take the shells directly from the ocean. As the woman protested, a hermit crab popped out of the shell and gave the woman a surprising poke. Over the edge and into the sea went the shell and its guest. When we listen to the ocean, it sometimes speaks for itself.

Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.

latitude 37.7502, longitude -122.148

Picture of the edge of Victoria Crater superimposed with
image of the rover Opportunity.
Credit: NASA/JPLMars is not only on the horizon, it’s become a sky-high creature of the night…and so, it’s time to blog about the Red Planet once again, and to showcase a few favorite pictures from the veteran robots presently exploring that world.

Mars reaches “opposition” on December 24th. This is the time when Earth crosses directly between the Sun and Mars–in other words, when Mars is at the opposite end of the sky from the Sun and at its closest distance from Earth–this time about 55 million miles. You can see Mars yourself in the evening hours if you face east and look high: it’s that steady, bright, orange dot right between Gemini and Taurus.

So what’s been happening on Mars, exploration-wise? Here’s a quick summary on that score:

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have had their tours of duty extended a fifth time, which should keep the rovers going–their health willing–possibly through 2009. Having landed on Mars in January of 2004 for a nominal 90 day mission, the robot pair has now lasted almost four years.

Spirit, which landed in the huge Gusev Crater, has traveled four and a half miles from its landing point and is now exploring a range of hills on a volcanic plateau. Probably topping the list of scientific evidence it has turned up is that water, in some form, has altered the chemistry in the environment, sometime in the past.

Opportunity, on the opposite side of the planet from Spirit, is currently exploring the half-mile-wide Victoria Crater. Exposed rock layers in the walls of the crater are expected to be an excellent “book” of Mars’ geologic history for Opportunity’s various instruments to read.

In its more than seven mile journey, Opportunity has revealed even stronger evidence that Mars’ distant past may have been warmer and wetter, and that, at least in Opportunity’s neck of the woods (Meridiani Planum), there may have been extended periods with liquid surface water.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, with its array of instruments and super-powerful camera, has produced the most discerning orbital imagery of Mars’ surface to date, giving us aerial views of the Martian deserts, canyons, ice caps, plateaus, volcanoes, craters, drainage channels, sand dunes, and so on, that look like they could have been taken from the window of a small airplane flying at very low altitude.

Even as Spirit and Opportunity send back postcard after postcard from the ground, like a pair of camera-happy tourists, that tantalize us with evidence of possible lakes, seas, and oceans in Mars’ past, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter with its more global viewpoint has revealed evidence that suggest another possibility: that the apparently periodic “bursts” of water activity might have been the work of large meteoroid impacts blasting through layers of ice and creating temporary episodes of water melt…

To round out the role-call, NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey and Europe’s Mars Express orbiters are also still in business and contributing to our already huge–but nowhere near complete–body of knowledge of that wandering orange dot in the sky…

Benjamin Burress is a staff astronomer at The Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.

latitude: 37.8148, longitude: -122.178

Look! Up in the night sky! It’s a bird! It’s a bloodsucker! No, it is a beneficial friend, the bat!

Bats have been around for about 50 million years and are among the earth’s oldest animals: they also are some of the most misunderstood. Because they are nocturnal and strange looking, people have associated bats with evil things for centuries. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, bats play a very important role in the economic and environmental health of the world.

In rain forests and deserts, bats are some of the most important pollinators of plants. Without bat pollinators, the wild varieties of many foods we eat: avocados, bananas, cashews, mangoes and peaches couldn’t grow.

Fruit eating bats spread seeds as they fly and digest. As natural insect controls, they can’t be beat. One bat can eat up to 600 mosquitoes in one hour!

There are nearly 1000 species of bats worldwide, most of which live in tropical regions, like our very own Flying Foxes at The Oakland Zoo. Forty three species live in the US. In fact, almost a quarter of the world’s mammals are bats! Bats are the only mammal that can fly and are in a special order called Chiroptera, which means “Hand wing.” Bat wings are actually membranes of skin that stretch between their hands and legs. Bats give birth to helpless young and are breast fed milk by their mothers.

The nine Bay Area counties are a veritable haven for bats. To join the ranks of bat-watchers, head to a favorite outdoor spot at sunset anytime between May and October. Visit Sunol Regional Wilderness, Tilden Regional Park, or Foothills Open Space Preserve. Stroll the campuses at Berkeley or Stanford, or the beach at Bolinas, Pescadero, or Fort Funston. Sit beside one of the lakes in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park or find an open spot in downtown Martinez. The shadows you see in flight may be any of 14 species found in the Bay Area–from the ubiquitous little brown, big brown, or Mexican free-tailed bats, to the diminutive western pipistrelles and sparrow-sized hoary bats.

Over the past 150 years, as development has altered the California landscape, bats have faced the loss of roosting sites and the destruction of woodlands and waterways where they feed. Like birds, bats have been devastated by the use of pesticides that kill off their prey, contaminate water sources, and accumulate in their body tissues. Our beneficial friends are in trouble! You can help California bats by putting up bat houses, or joining a conservation group like Bat Conservation International www.batcon.org.

Check out http://flyingfur.typepad.com for more bat blogging.

*Editor’s note: This is not to be confused with “Bay Area Bites,” KQED’s award-winning food and wine blog, which is going strong.

Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.

latitude: 37.7502, longitude: -122.148