Winged Sentinels: How Birds Are Coping with Climate Change; Animal Research–Why We Need It & Who it Helps; Pharmacy History in Wisconsin

Birds, being flighted and far-sighted, seem to be the envy of humans.  Daedalus escaped and Icarus died emulating the feathered ones. Humans with acuity & foresight are dubbed hawk-eyed or eagle-eyed. Travelers-by-land stew in jealousy when we measure distances “as the crow flies” knowing that while the corvids dart arrow-straight from the start, we humans will be winding our bipedal way across pitch and ditch, enduring a serpentine slog through a bog, meandering through meadow and marsh.

We use birds to mark the current time, to anticipate that which is to come, to presage behavior.  Thus, the cuckoo proclaims the hour and the chanticleer announces the dawn.  The owl inquires and the raven quotes. The robin heading north is our harbinger of spring; the literate Canada geese V-ing south etches in the autumn sky their tell-tale mark of fall.   The ostrich hides its head in fear in the sands; the phoenix rises in defiance from the ashes.

But one avian metaphor is no mythical or literary construct, but rather it sprang from a genuine human invention:  the canary in the coal mine. The bird’s physiology makes it more susceptible than humans to deadly carbon monoxide gas in the air we breathe. Their greater vulnerability made canaries an early warning system, but unlike Mel Blanc’s talkative Tweety, these birds were a silent klaxon alerting miners to impending deadly conditions.

The metaphor and the reality continue with this week’s talk, except this time the birds are giving us early warning not of methane per se but rather of the impacts of the higher temperatures and changing climates resulting from methane and other greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.

 
Description:  The evidence that wildlife are responding to modern climate change is now overwhelming. There is strong scientific consensus that environmental tipping points are being crossed, and many species are adapting (or failing to adapt) to novel climatic conditions. Birds serve as the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to climate change. For this presentation, I will cover how birds are responding to a rapidly changing climate as well as extreme events. From changes in behavior to range-wide shifts, birds are the winged sentinels of modern climate change.  
 
Bio:  Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Zuckerberg arrived a bit late to the wonderful world of ecology. He was, however, lucky enough to start studying birds as an undergraduate at Connecticut College, and went on to receive his Masters from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Ph.D. from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry where her focused on studying range shifts in bird distributions as a consequence of climate change. He then spent three great years as a postdoc and research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Dr. Zuckerberg joined the faculty at UW-Madison in 2011 and has built a lab focused on studying how modern climate change impacts birds and mammals. He remains a strong advocate for the role of the public in collecting data on wildlife and feels that citizen science has opened entirely new fields in ecological research.
 
Link:  https://zuckerberg.russell.wisc.edu/