CNN Skepticism

Last night, I was having dinner out at what I thought was a normal time, but thanks to DST was really nearly 9 at night. Consequently, the restaurant was very empty, and there wasn't many people to talk to or do the normal social things with while you wait for that one cook left around to fire up the grill again. I started watching TV, to kill some time. And let me say something that's been bugging me for a few years now.


Now, I'm willing to accept that some people have a nice, well-rounded education. I'm even willing to accept that these people are more likely to end up as TV anchors - thought I might think it has to do more with their looks than what's going on upstairs in some cases. But some anchors try too hard to come off as knowledgeable about everything. Here and Now, on NPR, is horrible about it. I can't listen to that show, because the host tries to act like she's an expert on car engineering as well as Mid-East geopolitics. I'm even willing to accept that the TV has an anchor that knows something about earthquakes, and disaster recovery. But honestly. Am I really to believe that their anchor just so happens to be an expert on nuclear power too?

It's not a topic you can B.S. your way through - I remember enough of my nuclear chemistry from college to know that the person was far past the limits of their knowledge. They couldn't pronounce any words right, and they had a frazzled idea of how things worked . It's clear someone tried to bone up on the subject in the 3 minute commercial break from reading off flash cards. Did she really have to act like she was familiar with the inner workings of a modern(ish) reactor? Honestly, if there's one subject where you can say "Well, I'm not sure what's going on, but the here's what the real experts say:" it's got to be nuclear power. But now, the "Energy Corespondent" was acting like they'd just got done teaching a short lesson to a class of graduate students and where now favouring us plebs with their bountiful knowledge.


So, to keep me from giving in to the same temptation that they have, let it be known I only have two areas of expertise. The first is critters. The second is Justin Beiber-ology. Maybe I am qualified to be a news anchor afterall.

Oh no! Someone told him about Emzymes!

The biomedical community is in biiiiig trouble now. Their secret is out. A "shaman" figured out why people age, die, feel old, and gradually get discoloured teeth. It's emzymes.



According to his theory, which I must stress is 100% true, the body has a finite emzyme resource. Eventually, you will run out of your precious bodily fluidsemzymes and begin to age. He says most people run out at 25, although some very lucky people run out in their 30s.

We're done. Science has been revealed as a shallow hoax to cover up our emzyme technology. Now that he has teh_truth, we might as well pack it in.

Wing-bat envy

Here in Alaska, we only get senate candidates who 

• go on unemployment, and then argue unemployment should get removed, 
• lie about why they won't release their records, 
• fail to pay their taxes, 
• apply for low-income resident hunting licenses that they aren't qualified for, 
• want to abolish the federal minimum wage,
• apply for medicare money, which they're vehemently against,
• accept farm subsidies which they're vehemently against,
• and who think that the 17th amendment was just a crummy idea because really, what to voters know anyhow?

Well, that and Lisa Murkowski, who should really have her name legally changed to something like "Lisa Smith" for her write in campaign, if she wants any chance in heck. But let's be honest, how boring is that? There's no style. It's just boring old rank-hypocrisy from a self-important group of blowhards who lust after power like I lust after a big bowl of ice cream. There's nothing new or exciting there. We have Palin going around talking about Death Panels, and other forms of verbal diarrhoea, but she's pretty much gone national now. She's the 'States' problem now (sorry guys). Oh, and I've heard rumours we got some other guy running, too.

But Delaware? They have candidates who say that although they dabbled in witch-craft once upon a time, that honestly, they've stopped being a witch. She also denies evolution, and has a strange obsession with... well... topics that are really none of her business. And honestly, that makes our craziest candidates look sane and well adjusted. I guess when people say we should go back to the root of what makes this country great, they mean going back to the 1600s:

From the Wasted Money department

Austria has the same problems that every other country has - some roads are dangerous, and there are too many motor accidents on them. Most of the time, people send in civil engineers to think how they can rout traffic to minimize accidents, or change the roads to make accidents less likely (or more survivable). When I first moved into Fairbanks, I moved to the corner of Geist and University, one of the most accident prone intersections in the state, so I'm well familiar with the concept.

Well Austria isn't bound by such conventional thinking. Why send in civil engineers, they thought, when they could send in a team of crack druids to fix the problem. (Yes, Druids).

The team - which has secretly been working for Austrian authorities for two years - is said to have reduced fatal accidents at one notorious crash site to zero after restoring its "terrestrial radiation."

Chief engineer Harald Dirnbacher from Austria's motorway authority ASFINAG explained: ""We were really sceptical at first and certainly didn't want people to know what we were doing, so we kept it secret."

Good call on that. You wouldn't want anyone making fun of you for sending in Druids to move energy about, instead of taking a more practical approach. That would just be intolerable.

I especially love this bit:

But the druids warn that they could be fighting a losing battle as the biggest cause of radiation disruption is mobile phone masts.

I wonder if they ever met this guy.

Austria:

Bear Rancher update

Remember Charlie the Bear Rancher? He's the guy who decided that he was going to feed a whole mess of bears dogfood for years. He was training them to... who knows. Musically fart Easter hymns, for all I know or care. The man is clearly not engaging his brain, if he thinks romping around with bears is a fantastic idea.

Well, the Bear Rancher has plead guilty to feeding wildlife, and is going to get slapped with some fine and probation. I don't see this stopping the next brilliant person who wants to do this, because the state let it go on for 20 years before acting. Treadwell was a good demonstration that Bears are not Pets.

The commentators in ADN, as usual, prove we have the brightest and best here. Some people asked why they're going after a guy who feeds bears when they only tried and punished people engaged in the wanton waste incident in the North-West. Like this fine person:

This man taught us a lesson that hopefully the youth of today will remember, that harmony is possible under the proper conditions. As usual, the authorities must impose their will upon those who don't conform. I can only imagine the price of his fine might equal the value of his property. This is just plain wrong, we have a person who feeds bears in a remote location and is looking at a minimum fine of 20K. And meanwhile back on the tundra we have a caribou slaughter that results in a comparative wrist slap.
I think the blindfolded broad with the scales has lost her freaking mind.

Ah, yes. Because, you know a guy who can afford to ship 10,000 lbs of dog food to feed bears each year just can't take a fine. Where is he going to find money to feed the 2011 bears, I ask you? Why, with such a large fine, he won't be able to feed bears for at least five years! Big brother is out to get us!!!!one

pkidwell  wrote on 04/07/2010 06:41:11 AM:
I long for the days when the government will get out of our lives and allow us to live as we had before the kooks took over.

Don't you love how this person just claimed Charlie the Bear Rancher is one of the sane, normal people needing protected from the "Kooks?" Nothing says "Normal Behaviour" feeding bears for 20 years to train them to do stuff. Why, that's our god given right to do that!

Anton_Chigurh  wrote on 04/07/2010 07:52:22 AM:

A 100 years ago no one would have given a care in the world as long as he was not hurting himself or others. Complete government take over of almost every aspect of our lives is on the horizon. You'll see

Top on the Obama commo-fascist take over's agenda is to take your god given, constitutional right to feed random bears and strip them like ladies at a Republican fundraiser in Vegas. Yes, it turns out the New-World-Order is mostly concerned with getting states to enforce laws they had before the New-World-Order. How insidious.

Alaska. Seriously:

Top Photo by Alaska Department of Fish and Game / The Associated Press

Happy Birthday, Cold Fusion!

It's now been 23 years since Cold Fusion was born, and each year the pseudo-scientific advocates of that discredited piece of anaq troll around and claim that they've made it work. Like clockwork, this time of year, they amble about the media saying that limitless energy is within our grasp, if only we pour more money down the hole. Meanwhile, real fusion makes actual progress.

---

It was today, 23 March, in 1987 that Stanley Pons of the University of Utah announced the "invention" of Cold Fusion. They didn't do so through scientific channels, but instead by having a press conference before anyone could verify their results. Two years, and 4.5 million dollars later, the government finally listened to the scientific community, who were very sure the results were full of bull. A 4.5 million dollar lesson in why science by press-release is a bad idea™.

I took a picture of the building cold fusion was `invented` in while I was in Utah. I tried to visit the lab itself, but they'd long since torn it out and renovated it. Most of the chemistry faculty were reluctant to talk about that sad bit of history. Behind the building, in this picture, you can see the Salt Lake City Olympic stadium - a project that went considerably better, I might say!

Begich drives to D.C.

From ADN:

Alaska Sen. Mark Begich had a kind word for Toyota today during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on the Toyota vehicle recalls, reports The Hill.

Begich told his colleagues that he drove his Toyota Highlander hybrid from Alaska to the nation's capital last summer, a distance of more than 5,000 miles, which took him 19 days to complete. ... "I'm here in one piece, and that's great. It's a good car, and I'm very happy about it."

What Begich didn't mention was that he drove the entire trip without stopping. Mostly because he couldn't.

(Actually, I think the Toyota problem is vastly overblown, but I couldn't resist the joke.)

A conversation that definitely took place.

From the Tundra Drums:

The new five-acre spot at the airport, near the hangar where the Guard parks Blackhawk helicopters, is a perfect location because of the military's transformation from a Cold War force to one prepared for new threats in the wake of 9/11, Katkus said.
For example, the military today strives to better protect airports and the armory's location will help provide additional security, he said. 

---

Scene: PAKISTAN BORDER CAVE.
Mohammed Omar  enters into the cave, and kneels on the symbol of Al Quida.

OMAR: What is thy bidding, my master.

The ghostly image of Osama Bin Laden appears above the cave floor.

BIN LADEN: There is no great disturbance among the Americans.

OMAR: I have seen it.

BIN LADEN: We must strike fear into our enemy.

OMAR: Yes my master.

BIN LADEN: We must destroy.

OMAR: But where? New York...  Washington... we have done these.

BIN LADEN: Indeed. We must strike deep into their heart. We must strike them where they will never recover. York Model Railway Station.

OMAR: Isn't that part of another skit by a much funnier fat Irish man?

BIN LADEN: Was it? Damn that bald Irishman. Make a note: We crash an air plane into Dara O'Briain's house next June.

OMAR: Yes, my master.

BIN LADEN: No, what will truly break the will of the American pigs... is if we attack the Bethel Alaska's Airport.

OMAR: Bethel? Is that... wise?

BIN LADEN: Indeed. Our strike will come suddenly, and without warning. Yes, more people are in the average Reno Casino on a given day, than have been in Bethel ever, but this is exactly why it will work.

OMAR: But... my master... they have a new armory building, which was built in part through a homeland security justification.

BIN LADEN: Damn those American rats! They'll rue the day they thwarted me with their strategic protection of Bethel.

OMAR: continues to kneel in uncomfortable silence.

BIN LADEN: Just as well. We probably should not split our resources from our plan to attack the true hub of America, Great Falls Montana.

The Perils of Taking Action.

Suppose we're the CDC (Centre for Disease Control). We anticipate an outbreak of, say, Squirrel Pox (which, to my knowledge, doesn't exist except in this example). We have to choose to either take action against the outbreak of Squirrel Pox, or let it go on its own. No brainer, right? Always take action for the public good. Well, if you do take action, and you're successful in keeping the Squirrel-linked disease to a minimum... well... here's a tongue in cheek outcome table:

Obviously, the best thing for the CDC to do is to do nothing! The best outcome (The "Let's ignore it, and hope it goes away" outcome) is in that category. ;)

Imagine! You put effort into a vaccination campaign against Squirrel Pox, and hunt down Squirrels for extermination so even their Squirrel Alarm Calls don't save them from the glue factory. And so few are injured by the evils of Squirrel Pox. And then the public goes, "See? No one died! You, CDC, are a bunch of alarmist jerks. For this, we punish you."

Nope, much safer for your job for you to do nothing.  Imagine how good you can get at Solitaire! I guess my point is Squirrels are up to NO GOOD.

See? Evil!

Graph for the day

Vaccines: They work.

Hat tip: Bad Astronomy. Graph source: CDC

Avatar reviewed.

I saw Avatar. I didn't pay for seeing it, which is a good thing, because I would have rioted. I never planned on paying to see Avatar, anyhow. So, willing to give anything a try once (willing to be entertained), I sat through over two hours of wonder CGI. And don't get me wrong, the CGI was great. Immersive. What Starwars was aspiring to. It's so elegant, you forget its there.

Dear god, I wish I could forget the plot was there. It was everything I knew it was, and worse. The paternalistic bullhooey racism was so thick and deep that at times, I had to to restrain myself from throwing something at the screen. And the plot was terrible. No, seriously, awful. I've read a lot of reviews afterwards, and not one has a kind thing to say about the plot. But for some reason, it gets a positive review because it's pretty. Isn't that like saying, "The 10 story tall building has floors, no lights, no plumbling, and no heat or AC, but it has a really nice facade." The point of a movie is to tell a story. Plot is not a secondary consideration. Plot is the only consideration. If the plot is great, we'll ignore about anything. 

Here are just a few of the things I didn't like. I could keep writing for another hour, easily.

1. Dances with wolves in space. Except WHITE GUY (who is obviously not white, but human) saves all the INDIANS (who are obviously not indians, but Na'vi). So, the message I take home from this is imperialism is bad. And all natives (who are not natives, but obviously aliens) need to get them out from the thumb of imperialist problems is a white guy. Pause and bask in the glory of that logic. Not only is it totally self-refuting, but it's also incredibly patronizing. So, basically, it's dances with wolves, without ANY of the plot devices that made Dances with Wolves good. Why did this need made?
2. Dude. You're even more racist than I thought you'd be (and I thought you'd be astoundingly racist). War wooping? In touch with nature? Going 'aiaiaiaiaiai!'? War paint? Feather necklaces? Are you serious?
3. Men are warriors. Wimminz is spirituals, and should be chosen by men. Obviously. Cute `stand by your man` music. To quote someone else, the gender politics of this film are %#($8ing wacked.
4. The aliens were totally un-alien. In fact, there was nothing alien about them. 10 fingers, 10 toes. Blue, with funky stamens in their hair, but otherwise? Totally human. They even had breasts. This is a serious lack of imagination. And why were most of the vertebrate animals in the movie hexapods, except for the Na'vi? They're missing two limbs, if they evolved on the planet.
5. Plotholes the size of asteroids. No, seriously. You could fit an asteroid right down on their little world tree thing and just wipe the lot of them out. Guns? Bullets? Giant mechanical suits? You're a freaking space faring nation, act like one. Bombard them with $($%*ing asteroids! Let's see their arrows deflect that! There was zero imagination to the sci-fi. None.
6. Uh, so, I couldn't help but notice pretty much every Na'vi was voiced by a not white person. The Antagonists... uh. Well, yeah. This one more or less speaks for itself.
7. When you start making up floating mountains, without any hint of explanation beyond 'it's magical!', you've ceased being sci-fi. The floating mountains served no plot purpose, either. They could have done the one relevant scene in another really big tree. They were as pointless as pouring half a pound of sugar on Captain Crunch.
8. More about biology - a lot of that plant life made no sense to me. I.e., actively annoyed me. So you only have one glowing pink tree per planet? How the heck do glowing pink-trees reproduce, if there's only one of them, and there always has only been one of them? Why were plants both motile, but rooted? Why was there only one world tree in the area? How did it's seed get there?
9. Unobtanium? Come on. I mean... _come on_. Trioxide flagersidan. There, I came up with a better name in all of 5 seconds. Why not just call it `Name place holder from first draft?` It's not lazy writing. It's not even writing, period.
10. To steal someone else's phrase (I'll link him in a minute), "War is bad. Now here's some more!" So, what's your moral, again? Not since Inglorious Bastards was there a movie as self-refuting as this on even it's most important points.
    
11. Natives are so IN TUNE WITH THE ENVIRONMENT that they obviously TALK to FLIPPING ANIMALS. How about in our next movie, a planet full of Jewish people who are fantastic with accountancy? We'll call it "Dances With Ledgers." I can see the Oscar now...
12. Hi, I'm strawman. I want my villains back. And you'll be hearing from all the 3-year olds you ripped off for the the characters of "Casually Racist McCorperatePants" and "Lt. Col. Kill Them All and Eat Their Babies." As far as I can tell, the sole motivation for either of them is they like hitting things, and digging up stupidly named rocks.

Yeah. I didn't like it.

I won't tell you to read the Filthy Critic's review, because you have to find college humour and foulmouth toilet talk hilarious to enjoy him. And he's rather not safe for work viewing for language alone, never mind his more... colourful metaphors. But he sums up the movie's portrayal of Natives perfectly in these paragraphs.

First is its patronizing vision of the indigenous people. It's like Cameron was channeling some long-haired asshole who sells turquoise roadside near Sedona. The movie treats the natives as simpletons, idiot savants full of pure goodness and new-agey magical powers, the same way guilt-ridden white people of limited intelligence think of American Indians. Cameron gives them the ability to see into the hearts of others. As far as I know, the only people who believe nonsense like that are folks with shit to hide. They're the ones who worry good people can see right through them.
The Na'vi talk to the earth and the animals. They live in harmony with nature. Through them, Cameron preaches the same simpleton back-to-the-earth bullshit as those phonies who go to Pow-wows and talk out their asses about magical American Indians. Hell, I'm surprised there isn't a cameo by Iron Eyes Cody. 

I probably can't talk you out of going. Sadly, so many idiots are watching it, it's going to be one of those things that we all have to do, some time, just like George Lucas' garbage stewStarwars prequel movies. I hope someone reads this and understands why some people have had such a vitriolic response to the movie.

I really, really hope I don't have to write about Avatar again.

Sadly, the news said Cameron is making a trilogy. Hell.

2nd Grade Math.

Find your nearest 2nd grader and show them this. Maybe they can tell Fox News what they did wrong when making a piechart. :p

Racism, obviously, is dead.

NEW ORLEANS – A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

In my experience, the words "I'm not a racist" is usually followed buy some incredibly racist comment. The full story is here. Oh, it should go without saying that this is flamingly illegal. It's not even close to being slightly legal. It's not even legal if you squint at it after a few pints, and it's dark, and you have pinkeye, and you left your glasses at the bar.

It's pretty damn illegal.

I know, now that we have a black president, racism is obviously dead.

Pie in the sky, and sonar stations.

The Susitna Dam is back in the news again. Any bets on which gets finished first? The Susitna Dam, or the Road to Nome? My project to build a Trolly Car line all the way to Hooper Bay is currently ahead of them both, when I kicked around some dirt this morning on the way to the outhouse.

On an unrelated note, Anderson's scheme to give away free land to revitalize their community seems to have failed. Who would have thought that giving free land to random people wouldn't work...

A while ago, a bunch of fishers in Marshall staged a fishing protest against the subsistence closures. A bunch of other people in other villages did it too, but they didn't publicize the fact. The Feds finally ticketed someone - the only person they couldn't ignore, who was a VPSO. Word is around the water cooler that they really, really want this year's cluster**** to go away. Days like this, I'm glad I don't do anything with fish.

Hooch and TV reception.

This has been bugging me: Is it just me, or does ADN's coverage of Bethel's proposed alcohol changes read something like this:

Oh my god! Natives are going to get into the booze! Everyone panic!

Maybe I'm reading into their coverage too much. Or not enough: ADN loves to be moralistic and patronizing.

Unrelated note, I might be a bit quiet the next few days. I'm in the processes of moving to new place. First thing I noticed is that Goldstream has much better TV reception than Farmer's Loop. I know this because my TV wasn't even slightly pixel-y as I watched last night's House M.D.

I've had enough of these politics!

I've decided to become a secessionist. Our state can't afford to remain tied to this sinking, stinking union anymore. The lower 48's president is a mad man who'll destroy us all.

What prompted this decision? Not healthcare, not foreign policy, nor anything else on the legislative agenda.

No, it's his choice in beer:

According to ABC "The president will drink Bud Light," his Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. "The Harvard scholar has expressed his preference for Red Stripe, and the sergeant mentioned to Obama that he likes Blue Moon."

Any president that willing drinks Bud Light is no president of mine! Obama should just said he'd be drinking urine all night. The Police officer has some taste - Blue Moon is a reasonably okay brew. Maybe he should be president, instead.

Clippy joins the army

Just the other day, I was railing against Microsoft making my annoying while I try to do basic things on a computer. Well, one of Microsoft's worst ideas - that god forsaken paperclip that annoyed the heck out of everyone - is about to be implemented for the military. The idea is that it'll help military brass wade through the nightmare of paperwork that is working for the government. I personally imagine it will work something like this:

Name Change, and random things from the trip

I've decided to standardize my blog pseudonym to TwoYaks to be in line with some of my other online handles, as opposed to what it was before. It has the advantage of being even harder to pin to me, since you can count the people who know the reference/joke on... okay, you need a lot of hands to count that high. But it's smaller number than before! ;)

I love/hate the lower 48. Mostly the latter, but you can have some fun there too! I spent a lot of time at a hotel bar trying to pass time before I could get to sleep - evil evil jet lag - and I heard a lot of... "Wisdom." For example, this guy who was throwing back Gin and Tonic all night insisted that North Dakota was colder than Fairbanks, and he ain't gonna be told otter-wise by no al-akan. I shouldn't make fun of how he talks (god knows folks poke fun at me!) but I can make fun of what he was saying. He was, by the way, well on his way through his 7th gin and tonic when I left, and he clearly had more before I came there. Oh, and he was an airline pilot. :p

Other pieces of brilliance I observed include a car shop that, quote, "Specializes in forin cars." Forin. You know, the place where they speak forin. And over there in America, they speak American.

A lady who was wearing two sweaters, and some clothing under that, and kept complaining it was too hot. Really? You don't say. I can't figure out why! :)

A couple who exclaimed that climate change must be real, because Fairbanks was so hot. Well, uh, they got it half right, so I didn't feel inclined to correct them on the half that is oh-so-very-very-wrong.

Other than that, the trip was nice. I've got my yearly reminder why I don't want to live in the lower 48 when I can avoid it, and the wedding went well enough. People would seek me out to talk about Alaska, meaning someone told everyone else that I chased critters for a living. That was great, I suppose, except for the part where I really wanted to talk about someone else's job - he worked with rocket engines for LUNAR LANDERS!!! and only wanted to talk about caribou and moose. I think I informed him he had the coolest job in the whole building, but he wasn't impressed - I suppose we all get used to the neat bits in our life, huh?

I don't have many pictures from Columbus Ohio, but I do have quite a few from Ann Arbor Michigan, where I stayed a few days. Ann Arbor is a very lovely town, and I'll share some of those soon.

To update on the iPhone, I decided to give it a pass. Jailbreaking is nifty, but only works with other GSM carriers. In Alaska, AT&T is the only GSM carrier (whereas outside, they have others like T-Mobile). I'll end up getting one directly from GCI, since they have masts in lots of the places I end up. And for my eon inside airplanes, I bought a 16 gig iPod touch. I watched movies on there until my eyes bled, and then I watched more. I love this little gadget! Also, I put photos on it from around Alaska, a sort of `best hits` which came in handy at the wedding for showing very interested attractive people what I do.
It worked, ahem, well. O:)
I love it. I also used it to take notes on some of the more dumb things I saw or heard outside. And when I got stuck sitting around (since there's often a lot of waiting around between things in big weddings) I played iPod airhockey and other neat little games.
Thanks to everyone who gave me feed back on their iphone/ipod experiences!

Finally, a bit about grilled peanut butter - thanks to your blog replies, and a through investigation around the department, my research has concluded that you're most likely to know about it if one of two things is true:

1) You grew up in the bush, rural area, or your parent(s) did.
2) You grew up in the Midwest.

This is a strange distribution, and clearly merits further `research.` People from AK seem more willing to try it if they hadn't had it before, and people from California seem least willing to even consider it (and some think it's the most disgusting combination they've heard).

I'll treat this as another datapoint that California is just plain weird. ;)

Coors recall

It doesn't effect us here, but Coors has a big recall for their product. I bring this up for exactly one reason - This quote:

MillerCoors has recalled a batch of Coors Light in the Southeastern United States after taste tests at the company's Georgia brewery found the beer to be subpar.

Subpar Coors? How on earth would you ever notice? It gets worse? O:)

The Herd Concept

Random: Am I the only one who finds the article headline "Palin, gas line supporters dismiss pipeline criticisms" incredibly obvious? Of course they disagree with people who disagree with them. That's the definition of supporter, eh? They support. Next, the DNM will publish a story saying "Critics continue to criticize."

---

I've got my work on deer off to my coauthors for their review, and I've effectively finished my work on them. I would be going back to the wolf stuff now, except I haven't heard any direction from ADF&G, so that'll continue to get put on the back of the stove. I'm back to caribou work, where we've went and raided our freezer for blood and tissue. So maybe it's a good time to talk about the herd concept.

When we talk about caribou, we tend to talk about caribou in herds. For management purposes, there's 32 recognized herds in the state of Alaska. Don't ask me to name them all. By and large, they're numerically concentrated in 7 herds of 10,000 caribou or greater, with the north slope herds being the largest. As a pure guess, I'd say 90% of the caribou in Alaska are in the Porcupine, Central Arctic, Western Arctic, Mulchatna, Nelchina, 40-Mile or Teshekpuk Lake caribou herds.

One of the defining features of caribou is that they exhibit the prehensity to seasonal movements. c.f. domestic reindeer, who tend to move fairly "randomly" through time. What happens is that we see caribou exhibit site fidelity among females for parturition (what normal people call "childbirth" or "calving"). Because they return to at least roughly the same area each cycle, we tend to treat all the animals who use that same space the same way as a management unit.

You can see site fidelity illustrated off to the right. The figure is from ANWR, based off of a radio collared female in 1987. You can see how she migrated to the calving ground, hung around a while (probably calving), before moving off over the course of a few months. The Western Arctic herd migration is very pronounced - whereas the PCH may migrate 200-300 miles, the WAH will move up to and over 400 miles from their summer grounds on the North Slope to their wintering grounds on the Seward Peninsula. You can see a nice animation of that at this link to the CARMA network's webpage. Beware, the file is about 3 MB, for those of you on slow connections. Here's a link to the PCH's page, where you can click on "Porcupine Caribou Animation."

So, it should be clear that the herds are somewhat demographically independent - that the number of caribou in an area is linked to how well the herd is doing, and not how well the herd nextdoor is doing. This makes herds a very useful concept for management, as we as managers want to manage how many animals there are (abundance). However, although useful for management, the herd concept might not be evolutionarily signifigant - it might not reflect the actual, biological reality of what are important groupings for the animals. This is because caribou occupy different space when they rut and when they calve. Rut is when all the sex is happening, and long term biological processes are chiefly concerend with who has the largest number of successful offspring.

Whether the herd concept is actually rooted real or not, we can't say yet. A previous researcher did a survey of the North Slope herds, and found that they weren't biologically discrete units. However, that researcher's research was filled with problems, and many scientists are reluctant to take it at any value. There's a number of people doing studies across the state, and in Canada, investigating just that. One finished project from Canada found a mixed bag - some herds were legitimate biological entities of evolutionary importance, and some were not. And some herds should have been considered multiple herds. It will be interesting, as time goes on, to see how the North Slope caribou herds are found to be in the future.