Who poops in the woods?

Scat deserves more than a passing glance

Hardly a trip into the woods goes by without an encounter with animal droppings--otherwise known as scat, excrement, feces or poop. Sometimes all that is warranted is quick glance at deer pellets or moose nuggets, while other times a stop is needed to inspect them. Scatology, the study of animal droppings, if not for the squeamish--you do have to look closely but not necessarily touch them. 

Animal droppings can contain parasites, so it is best not to handle them with  bare hands. For the curious, a stick works well to dissect the droppings. 

Scat is a valuable clue to which animals are around, especially when tracks aren’t visible. Though a combination of tracks and scat makes identification easier since not all scat is easy to identify. 

The scat’s shape is the first clue to what family the animal might belong to. Teardrop or tapered scat is characteristic of the cat family while fattened threads characterize the weasel family. Oblong scat, sometimes with a nipple at the end, characterize the deer family while round pellets indicate rabbits and hares. Tubular, tapered scat characterizes foxes while just tubular scat covers a wide variety of animals, including canines, raccoons, skunks, opossums, wolverines and bears. 

Herds of elk leave large quantities of scat in the woods.
Elk scat follows the deer family characteristics of oblong pellets

Scat can provide clues to an animal’s diet and help distinguish between different animals depending on their diet characteristics. Coyote scat is highly variable every day because they are opportunistic omnivores, meaning they eat whatever is available. Coyote scat may contain hair, bones, fruit or berries while domestic canine scat usually doesn’t contain hair. Wolf scat will contain hair and bones that can indicate what animal it came from--long hair implies a rabbit or deer while short hair suggests a smaller mammal. Fisher scat resembles mink scat but is larger and may contain porcupine quills, since they are the main predator of porcupines. 

An animal’s diet can easily change the color, shape and contents of its scat. The familiar winter moose nugget becomes softer in the summer because of the switch from woody browse to succulent vegetation. Deer also follow this pattern from hard pellets to softer pellets that can clump into a rather large ball in the summer. Similarly, bear scat becomes a loose pile of berries during huckleberry season. 

The location of scat provides another clue to its owner. Foxes are known to deposit their scat on prominent objects, such as rocks and stumps, to mark their territory. Muskrats do the same thing but their prominent objects are closer to the water, such as logs, rocks and beaver structures. Likewise, raccoons deposit scat in prominent areas (crotch of trees, rock outcroppings or fallen trees) and several raccoons may deposit scat at the same site. Due to a raccoon’s omnivorous diet, their scat may contain berries, insects, fruits and fish parts. 

Scat can also provide clues to an animal’s behavior. Snowshoe hares defecate one pellet at a time, so if they are on the move the pellets will be strung out but if the pellets are in a pile, it indicates the hare was stationary, possibly at a feeding spot. Animals tend to leave scat in areas where they feel safe, which is why there is often numerous deposits of scat near deer beds in dense woods. 

Members of the cat family tend to scratch out the area around where they defecate, which can help identify their segmented, blunt-ended droppings. The larger the droppings the larger the cat (bobcat versus mountain lion). 

While size may be a clue for some species, the size difference may not be as large as you might expect. Think of the difference in size between rabbit pellets and deer pellets compared to the difference in physical size of the animal. 

While it may be easy to dismiss a pile of animal poop, a wealth of knowledge can be gleaned from the lowly scat if you just stop to look. 

What would Earth be like without water?

How often do you think about water? Only when your thirsty? When going fishing or swimming? Water is everywhere, even in the desert. 

First of all, the human body is composed of 70 percent water. While the human body can endure a month without food, it can only go a week without water. Likewise, all plants and animals need water to survive. 

Sockeye salmon, like all animals, need water to survive

Animals and plants, including humans, obtain most of their water from rivers, lakes and groundwater--the main sources of freshwater on earth. Amazingly, this accessible freshwater only comprises one percent of all the water on earth. Ninety-nine percent of earth’s water is unusable to us. 

The majority of water is salt water (97.5 percent). Freshwater accounts for only 2.5 percent of total water and of that 68.6 percent is locked in glaciers and icecaps (mainly Greenland and Antarctica), 30.1 percent is groundwater and the remaining 1.3 percent is surface water and other freshwater sources (such as atmospheric water). 

Ice crystals that look like snowflakes on a frozen puddle

If all the water on earth was contained in a gallon jug, the freshwater available to us would be about one tablespoon (less than one percent). Rivers and lakes only constitute a small portion of all the water in the world and one lake, Lake Baikal, contains 20 percent of the world’s unfrozen freshwater. Located in southeast Siberia, Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world (over 5,000 feet) and the most voluminous freshwater lake. 

In regards to water, the earth is a closed system, much like a terrarium. The earth doesn’t gain or lose water, except for the occasional incoming meteor. The same water molecules that were on earth millions of years ago are still present today. The water coming from your faucet may have eroded part of the Grand Canyon or been ingested by a woolly mammoth. 

The Grand Canyon was formed by the erosive forces of water

On average, during a 100-year period a single water molecule (H20) will spend 98 years in the ocean, 20 months as ice, two weeks in lakes and rivers, and less than a week in the atmosphere. 

Water is unique in that it is the only substance naturally found on earth in all three forms: liquid, solid and gas. How many naturally occurring liquids can you think of that don’t contain water?

What would the world be like without ice? No ice fishing, glaciers or ice cubes. What if ice didn’t float? There would be no polar ice cap. Since water expands when it freezes, it becomes less dense than liquid water and floats (unlike other liquids). 

Water can form different shaped ice crystals when freezing

Water vapor in the atmosphere only comprises 0.001 percent of total water. Without water in the atmosphere, there wouldn’t be the formation of clouds or precipitation. Ninety percent of atmospheric water comes from evaporation of surface water and the other ten percent comes from transpiration by plants. 

Water is an integral part of earth: from the plants and animals it sustains to the land it erodes through water and ice. Earth would be a desolate place without water. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald February 16, 2012. 

Cactus: More than a prickly pincushion

The ability to survive and thrive in a sun-scorched land with little water has been perfected by the cactus. Located only in portions of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, New Mexico, California and Mexico, the saguaro cactus (the iconic symbol of the desert southwest) is well-adapted to the hot, dry conditions. 

 

Saguaro cactus grow extremely slow in order to minimize the nutrients they need. An eight-year-old saguaro may only be one inch tall. The distinctive branches don’t begin to grow until the saguaro is between 75 and 100 years old and a mature saguaro with five branches can be over 150 years old. 

While they may be slow-growing above ground, the root system grows quickly. Within hours of a rain storm, the cactus will grow new roots to absorb the abundant moisture. Most of the roots are within a few inches of the surface in order to absorb water from the smallest rain shower.

All of the water the roots absorb has to be stored somewhere; the stem of the cactus is an adapted storage tank. A mature saguaro cactus can weigh over six tons when filled to capacity with water. In order to contain that quantity of water, the stem of the saguaro is pleated and has the capability to expand like an accordion when water is being collected. Likewise, the pleats will contract when the cactus’s supply of water diminishes. 

Not only do the pleats enable extra storage space, they also provide shade and extra surface area for photosynthesis. Since cacti don’t have green leaves, the photosynthesis has to occur in the stem, which is covered in a waxy coating to prevent moisture loss.

A cactus’s spines are modified leaves. They even shade the cacti like leaves but not to the same extent. Their light color reflects up to three-quarters of the sunlight striking them which helps keep the cacti relatively cool. 

While it may seem nothing would even come near a saguaro with its sharp spines, the saguaro is an integral part of the desert ecosystem.  Gilded flickers and Gila woodpeckers create well-protected nest cavities in the pulpy flesh of the cactus. Once they abandon the cavities, they become occupied by elf owls, screech owls, finches, purple martins and sparrows. With few vantage points in the flatter areas of the desert, the Harris’s and red-tailed hawks take advantage of the saguaro’s height (upwards of 50 feet) to build stick nests between the branches. Once the hawks abandon their nests, ravens and great horned owls will move in. 

Saguaros also provide food. Nectar-feeding bats, birds, bees and other insects pollinate the flowers and in turn help create fruit. Animals ranging from birds to iguanas to kit foxes feed on the moist fruit. And in times of extreme drought pack rats, jackrabbits, mule deer and bighorn sheep will carefully eat the cactus’s flesh for the moisture. 

The saguaro cactus is well-adapted to its dry, hot environment and can even survive a few years of drought with its stockpile of water unless something eats it first. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on February 9, 2012. 

Petroglyphs: A primitive means of communication

Painstakingly scratched into the rock above the Colorado River in southeast Utah were depictions of big horn sheep, birds, bears, horses and human-like figures with bows and arrows. These petroglyphs, also known as rock art or Indian writing, were created by prehistoric and historic peoples over thousands of years. 

Human figures and bighorn sheep petroglyphs above the Colorado River west of Moab, Utah

 How many thousands of years? Some of the earliest petroglyphs are depictions of mammoths which went extinct 10,800 years ago and the petroglyphs are believed to have been created between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago. The introduction of bows and arrows into petroglyphs is thought to be around 500 A.D. On the other end of the time frame are petroglyphs of people riding horses, which occurred after the Spaniards reintroduced the horse to the New World in the early sixteenth century (prehistoric horses in North America became extinct about the same time as mammoths and were not tame enough to ride). 

Petroglyph of a person riding a horse near Sand Island (southwest of Bluff, Utah)

Petroglyphs are motifs pecked, ground, abraded, incised or scratched onto a rock surface—usually with another rock. Another form of rock art is pictographs which are paintings on a rock surface. 

One might think that petroglyphs are ancient Indian graffiti but they contain greater significance. Prehistoric people didn’t scratch out these motifs on a whim, it took time. According to native people today, each motif’s orientation to other motifs, the horizon and the landscape was planned. Some petroglyphs have modern meaning, such as big horn sheep or alignment with astronomical occurrences, while the meaning of others has been lost through the generations. 

Petroglyphs of bighorn sheep and a flying squirrel at Newspaper Rock in SE Utah

Petroglyphs were used to tell stories, record significant events, mark trails, or record cultural or religious beliefs.  Geocontourglyphs are petroglyphs that represent a landform or surrounding terrain, such as a squiggly line representing a nearby river. 

While petroglyphs at different sites may look similar, each site has unique styles since they were created by different cultures at different times. Petroglyphs occur worldwide on every continent except Antarctica. The highest concentrations are in Africa, Scandinavia, Siberia, Australia and southwest North America. 

Petroglyphs west of Moab, Utah

Prehistoric people did not have a written form of communication, so the fact that different people across the globe created petroglyphs independently for thousands of years is astonishing. The motifs vary worldwide but the need to convey information was still there—and they used the same techniques. They all contain the same types of motifs: abstract designs, basic forms (such as bear paws, bird tracks and human footprints), and life forms of people and animals. 

Petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock

Pictographs weren’t used as a form of communication until 7,000 to 9,000 years ago. Prehistoric people took care to place pictographs in sheltered locations, such as alcoves, caves and under overhangs. They must have known the vulnerability of the paintings to the elements. The substance utilized to make the pictographs was mineral or plant material mixed with a binder of fat residue or blood. 

Prehistoric people left a record of their presence on rock walls, in canyons and caves, and on boulders starting thousands of years ago and for some cultures these petroglyphs and pictographs are all that remain of their existence. 

Human figure petroglyphs west of Moab, Utah

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on February 2, 2012.