My Other Favorite

So, I'm going to switch gears and post about my other favorite animal, the animal that lured me into this wonderful world of biology and animal behavior, Orcinus orca, the killer whale. Like most people, my first experience seeing an orca was at a marine park, but it wasn't 'til I saw a free-living killer whale that I was truly smitten. As much as I love the tucos, nothing takes my breath away like this magnificent blackfish. I had signed up for a whale watching trip while camping in the San Juan Islands off Washington's coast and found myself on a boat with whales jumping and spyhopping (like you see in the pic to your left) and tail lobbing and swimming under our boat. It was the most amazing thing ever.... until I discovered kayaking.

Kayaking opened my eyes to the world of sea life in an up-close personal way. Whales, birds, inverts, and all manner of critters who made their living in a salty environment thrilled me. One day I was looking through a book and saw a picture of a kayaker with an orca swimming right by him. I said to myself, "I want to be that kayaker someday!". And those of you who know me, know that is exactly what happened and what I do every summer. I become that kayaker... enjoying the beauty of the Pacific Northwest in the presence of orcas.
It has changed my life. Really. Kayaking with orcas inspired my return to school and though I chose not to study them (for reasons I won't go into now), I find that each year, hanging out with orcas in the San Juans, I am re-energized, re-focused, and reminded why I study biology in the first place. We live in a magnificent world, one which we share with the most amazing beasts. How lucky we are! And what responsibility we have to make sure that we care for this great, blue planet that houses us all. I could write a ton more on this topic but the last thing I want to mention is that the Southern Resident Killer Whales, the pod I am privileged to paddle with, has been struggling for some time now because we've interfered with their food supply, the salmon. There's a lot of work to be done to be able to save that supply, which means sacrifices on our part so that both fish and mammal have a better chance at survival, and that, selfishly, I'll get to continue to find my joy in their midst for many summers to come.

Pups in the Field

So, even though I will miss most of the early days of the pups' lives in the lab, I do get to see pups and catch them in the field. They are pretty darn cute! I've attached my most popular video of two little pups emerging from their hole that I took several years ago. The clip gives a good idea of just how little they come out. Mostly, we are staring at holes, hoping for someone to show their face.

Things are moving rapidly for me now as it is only 2 weeks away. I'm gathering field equipment and packing for 2 1/2 months of living in a tent. It's amazing how fast the year has gone. I notice it more with each field season. Anyway, I'm not sure if anyone is reading this right now but hopefully, you will once I start posting from Argentina. For now, it's back to packing!

Puppies in Tuco World!

Every morning, when I arrive on campus, I go up to "Tuco World", located in the Behavior Suite of Valley Life Sciences Building and check to make sure no one escaped their system and that everyone is happy and healthy. However, as we enter into the austral spring season (aka spring in Argentina), I eagerly check the pregnant females to see if anyone has dropped their litter. I knew we were expecting a litter or two this week and was SO excited to find that female 7405 had come through! Five little wriggly cuties, covered in dark hair and waving short tails. Some have eyes already open and others are in the process. They crawl all over each other when mom isn't there and when she is, there's only one thing on their mind: FOOD! This is my favorite time of year and I am lucky to get to enjoy the first days of a litter before I head to Argentina. As much as I love going, I often miss the births of the pups in the lab. And of course, we don't get to see that part of the free-living tucos since they are all underground. I've uploaded this short video of what I saw this morning and answered those of you who have wondered, what is a tuco?

favorite critters

Today I am showing a picture I took this morning of one of my favorite critters. Those of you reading this probably already know me well enough to know that tucos and orcas top the list. Tucos came into my life unexpectedly when I went to school to finish my undergraduate degree in biology. They became the focus of my graduate work and I can proudly say that this critter, very similar to a gopher, will be the reason I can be called Dr. Woodruff some day. It's a crazy world.
This female tuco is pregnant and in about 1.5 months will produce a litter of ~4 pups, hopefully 2 females and 2 males so that I can look at early environment experiences in a gender-balanced way. I'm mostly interested in social behavior, and these animals, well the females anyway, live in kin groups. However, some disperse to live alone. My advisor, Eileen Lacey, looks at things like reproductive success and survival between those living in groups and those living alone. I, look at their poop. Well, I collect their poop and extract the "stress" hormones (the metabolites of corticosterone) that get excreted. I've found differences between the two social systems... what do you think? Which do you think might carry the higher concentrations of stress hormones, group living or lone?
The cool thing about my study is that I get to look at animals we have at Berkeley in the lab as well as the free-living ones in Argentina. Every year, for the past five years, I've traveled down to the southwest Patagonian region to catch or wait for tucos to pop up. Below is a picture of one in the process of digging her burrow. It's a pretty cool adventure and I'll be telling you more about it once I get down there next month. If you'd have asked me 10 years ago what I'd be doing with my life as I near the 50 year old mark, the last thing I might have said was going to South America to collect rodent poop, but there you have it... life's a funny thing.

Rain, rain, rain...

As anyone knows living here in northern California, we've had a storm sweep through with lots of rain, a bit unusual for this time of year. Because I live so far from school, I often try to stay at my advisor's rental house (dubbed "Catshack, a title bestowed honoring the former renters). However, they just filled their 3rd room with a guest from Indonesia and I thought it might be in poor taste to have some old lady bed down for the night in the living room. He may not understand. Thus, I missed the traditional night of watching "House" with John and Eileen and came back to my own house in Sebastopol. It was fortuitous... and I didn't hesitate one millisecond in clearing my Tuesday schedule so that I could "ride" out the storm that came blustering in the night in my own cozy space. That's it, pictured above. Yes, it's a mess. Yes, I study on my bed (supposedly not smart). Yes, I share my room with my daughter (saving money by renting out two other bedrooms in the house). But yes, I actually get stuff done once in awhile, and I did so today, working on one of my dissertation chapters, which has to be fixed to be acceptable for publication.

So, I'm relishing this day at home with a tummy full of thai food and the promise of some brownies with mint chips, which Beth is suppose to be making any time now ... tomorrow, I'll be back on the freeway at 5:30 am.

October 11, 2009

Today is "Day One" for this blogging thing. I'm not sure it's for me but I want to try this format for updating friends and family on my adventures. I feel very lucky to be on what I call my second journey. Having raised a family on my first journey, I returned to school and ended up finding a whole new life. More on that later, but for now, I'm going to play around with this thing. If anyone starts to actually read it, let me know what you think and give me suggestions. I will be headed to Argentina again (year 6) for field work and would like to post on this site instead of my 125+ emails I usually send out. Anyway, here we go...!