PhD Research: The Loneliest Road

I miss classroom interactions.

I miss the beginning of each semester in grad school where someone would inevitably set me off by saying things like:

"But at least the women in the Bangladesh sweatshops don't have to be prostitutes anymore!"

Or:

"Who are we to put our values on another culture that practices female circumcision?"

Or:

"NAFTA wasn't that bad in Mexico..."

And then the sparks would fly.

In order to fill this great void in my life I have taken to picking fights with random people who leave irksome comments on Gawker, Jezebel and New Zealand's Fairfax Media aggregate "Stuff.com."

When a commenter on Stuff made a daft remark about Mexicans who emigrate to the U.S. I couldn't wait to type out a nasty response.

My angry keystrokes must have given me away because Nick leaned over and said, "You're attacking someone in the comments section, aren't you?"

The PhD process requires independent (lonely), original research and the only time you can geek out about it is when you meet with your supervisors who are probably (accurately) going to point out that your theoretical framework is a bit weak and that in New Zealand the word "program" is spelled with two "m"s and ends in an "e."

In the beginning I was going to study indigenous autonomy with ethnographic studies of the Maori and Mapuche but there were some logistics and theory issues that I couldn't resolve so I changed topic.

I was quite amused though when one of the other PhD students who is from Iran asked me if I was still going to study the "Capuchins."

I immediately had images of Amy Farrah Fowler and her nicotine addiction in primates study.

Instead, I've decided to look at young urban Maori's attitudes toward farming. I plan to study schools in Auckland to see what sort of programs (programmes) and career counseling they offer in beef, sheep and dairy farming because there is a high unemployment rate for young Maoris in the city while the farming industries mentioned are hurting for employees.

Regardless of the actual opportunities, I think it's the perception that these kids have that matters most because if they see farming as standing around in cow poo all day it doesn't really matter what sort of perks the jobs actually offer.

There is also the lure of big money in Australia's mining sector which has caused a huge exodus of young Maoris to that country.

Most importantly there appears to be a pretty huge knowledge gap on the subject which will allow me to do what PhD's do; nerd up on one subject and become insufferably pedantic about it.

Anyhoo, I'm in the proposal phase now and if everything gets approval I'll have the future pleasure of working with sassy urban teenagers. Huzzah!

Why didn't I study ornithology again? I could be performing a Jane Goodall out in Arthur's Pass with Kea if only I had aimed my focus more toward ethology.

Sigh.

On Seeing Kea in the Wild

I am a huge fan of the Kea. I can spend hours sitting in the Kea enclosure at Willowbank just watching them interact with each other. (Just ask the NPR who was once forced to hang out in the cafe while I did so.)

I've been to the Willowbank enclosure so many times that I am familiar to the Kea there. I've worn different outfits and hairstyles whenever I go there but I am always recognized by the birds. 

I know this because one of the them has a little trick he does where he will grab his beak with his foot. He will always fly over to me and give me a long searching glance before grabbing his beak so I know it's him. Sometimes he make low cooing noises to me as well. 

Visiting with captive Kea at Willowbank

I had my first ever visit to Arthur's Pass to see wild Kea last week. Nick stopped at the little cafe in Arthur's Pass village so I could use the restroom and I saw my first wild bird perched on one of the outdoor tables. I could hear other Kea calling from the trees.

It's important for me to mention the following; There are signs everywhere at this cafe saying "Don't Feed the Kea."

Whether or not human beings are actively feeding the Kea, the birds have learned to exploit this location and the humans at it as a food source.

They snatch food left unattended, root through garbage cans and are hand feed by some of the cafes outdoor patrons.

To see a disturbing example of this just Google "Coffee With Keas." In it, a stupid tourists allows the birds to drink from his coffee cup while saying "hey" and "no" at them. He's at the same cafe where we stopped.

Other videos show the birds eating unhealthy fried foods at both that cafe and several ski fields in the area.

I'll come back to the reason why this is important in a bit.

After using the WC, I crossed the street to where Nick had parked and he pointed out a wild Kea perched in the tree above him.

I sat on the grass under the tree and took out a small packet of split walnuts that I had bought just for the occasion.

Soon an adult male came over to investigate and I put a walnut down in the grass near me. He grabbed it and then ran into a little clearing under some nearby bushes to eat it.

I was in heaven.

Kea are sexually dimorphic with the males usually having a longer beak and the females having one which is shorter and more curved. Juveniles have yellow around their eyes, nostrils (or cere) and lower beak.

A group of three people happened to be passing by and the woman who sounded American asked me if I was waiting for the post office to open. I told her I was observing some Kea and pointed out the one above me in the tree and the one in the little clearing to my right. They were both so well camouflaged that none of the group had seen them.

The lady and her husband were delighted as was the man with them who appeared to be a tour guide. They said this was their second visit to Arthur's Pass and they thought they were going to have to come a third time before they saw a Kea.

Wild Kea in Arthur's Pass Village

The other Kea in the tree came down too and I put a walnut in the grass on my right. This allowed me to get a close-up shot:

I was absolutely in raptures by that point and experiencing an enormous sense of Kea Zen but unfortunately, it was not to last. 

Suddenly, a woman appeared from behind Nick's car and proceeded to lecture me about feeding the Kea in a tone that people who are convinced they are morally superior often use.

She said feeding them turned them into "pests" and that there were signs everywhere saying not to do so. 

She was British, which is not a crime, but she seemed to be an employee of the cafe across the street- and this, I feel, should carry a hefty fine in the court of hypocrisy. 

Ms. High and Mighty had the huevos to get onto me about feeding the Kea when her establishment provides them with a steady source of fried, caffeinated and fatty foods.

She actually had the gumption to suggest that I was the reason why they came around and "bothered people." 

That's pretty rich. 

First of all, the Kea are natives of Arthur's Pass and if anyone is a pest it's the human beings who have come in and built up houses and businesses in their territory. 

Second, Kea are neophiles and actively seek out human beings due to an insatiable curiosity. 

The adults have learned that where there are humans, there are usually delicious treats to be acquired (by theft, cunning, or offering). 

During the winter months when food sources are scarce, they supplement their diets heavily with edible human refuse. 

I've seen videos of them drinking from a can of Red Bull and tearing into leftover french fries. 

The adults will take their young to garbage dumps (known in NZ as rubbish tips) in order to teach them how to scavenge. 

For a fascinating video of them getting into garbage bins in Arthur's Pass see the BBC Documentary "Kea: The Smartest Parrot."

After the telling off, I folded up my little bag of walnuts and walked over to Nick. 

He suggested we drive to a nearby overlook so we might see some more birds there. 

I got into the car in a humbled state but soon began to fume. All the way to the overlook I railed against the woman.

When we arrived there were no Kea but the view was lovely. I went off a little ways on my own and sat on a large rock. Nick decided to give me a few minutes to cool off before he came over.

The moment he walked up behind me I fired up again with a, "I mean, how dare she!"

"Take me back to the cafe!" I said.

"Nope." he said.

I promised that I wouldn't make a scene and even tried to act like I was over it but Nick wasn't fooled. 

We drove through the little town without stopping.

In hindsight, this was probably for the best.

Should I have fed the wild Kea? No, I shouldn't have.

Is that woman a flaming hypocrite who can kiss my bum? Yes, she is.

There is one final point I would like to make about the Kea and the Department of Conservation here in New Zealand; In an effort to control introduced pests like the opossum, rat and stoat DoC performs areal drops of a pesticide known as 1080. 

New Zealand is the only country I know that uses this poison and where ever it is dropped there is usually absolute silence afterwards because it kills everything-rats, stoats, opossums and all bird life, including Kea. 

The fur of the opossum is warm and luxurious. Pelts still command a decent price and with a little bit of funding from the government a campaign to hunt and kill them would be infinitely better than a pesticide program that has such fatal consequences for all forms of wild life exposed to it. 

Also, a small price for dead rats and stoat pelts would help keep their numbers down as well. 

Recently a news article spoke about how scientists are trying to flavor the 1080 in a way that will make it less attractive to Kea. They are not expecting to have this done by the time the next round of 1080 is dropped by DoC which means more Kea will die unnecessarily.

Interestingly, "The Book of the Kea" published by Philip Temple in 1996 says,

"The Kea's tongue has few taste pits and it appears that it selects foods by shape, size, color and texture rather than by taste and smell."

If this is accurate then it doesn't really matter what flavor the poison is given. 

New Zealand's wildlife protection agencies have used extreme eradication tactics in the past.

From 1958-1963, all the rabbits on Motunau Island were killed off and the island was overrun by invasive boxthorn (the rabbits had been keeping them pruned back by feeding on them constantly). Boxthorn impales native birds on the island.

A 1997 survey of the island conducted by G.S. Beach, K. Wilson and C.A. Bannock of Lincoln University found that:

"When rabbits were present they may have maintained a less dense vegetation which was beneficial to the small petrels. Grazing by mammals can be beneficial to burrowing birds, as ungrazed vegetation may block burrows, prevent construction of new burrows or trap birds 

(Gillham, 1957; Norman, 1970a).Fleming suggested that a shorter vegetation as maintained by sheep may benefit the breeding of White-faced Storm Petrels (Fleming, 1939 cited in Norman, 1970b). The distributional change in petrel burrows from the plateau to the slopes may reflect a response to the current vegetation's difficulty for burrowing. The petrels may have been impacted less by the presence of rabbits than they are by the grass sward and box thorn that has established in their absence."

A follow up report after a DoC poison drop on Enderby Island states that two thirds of the skua population on both Enderby and nearby Rose island were killed by the poison put out to kill the mice and rabbits. Even so, the report concludes that the loses of skua and teals were lower than expected and worth it in the long run. 

This report seems to assume that poison has no lingering effect on the land and water table.

In the late 70s, before DoC was formed, the Maritime Parks Board, Forestry Service and Minister of Lands, Ven Young all decided it would be a good idea to cull the herds of wild goats on Arapawa island, while denying the whole time that they would ever do such a thing. 

DNA tests later proved what locals had claimed the whole time -that the goats were a rare breed from England that had become extinct everywhere else in the world. 

It took the efforts of organizations like Willowbank and the NZ Rare Breeds Association to remove a small number of goats and relocate them off the island. While all this was going on, ministry members were making contradictory pronouncements about the animals. 

In the grand scheme of things, I don't think my unsalted nut offerings are really the thing other Kea lovers should be worrying about.

Anyway, I've decided to volunteer down at Willowbank which should eventually enable me to work with/around the Kea. 

In this way, I will be able to feed them through officially sanctioned channels and no self righteous passerby will ever be able to make me feel horrid about it again.

Dr. Haruko Obokata: A Tale of Scandal and Disappointment

Dr. Haruko Obokata

Pictured above is a Japanese scientist named Dr. Haruko Obokata. She became famous for supposedly discovering that subjecting normal mouse cells to a week acid bath for 30 minutes would cause them to revert back into stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are "non differentiated" which means they can be transformed into any sort of cell and used to repair damaged organs and body parts. Adult stem cells also serve a regenerative function but have a more specific role in adult tissues.

The only problem was that no one was able to duplicate her results in subsequent lab tests and people began to assume she had faked her results.

According to TIME:

"Peer-review websites accused her of falsifying data and doctoring images, and supervisors were accused of lax management. Obokata, 30, was forced to retract her scientific papers, and the government-sponsored research center where she worked launched a formal investigation."

Sadly, Obokata's supervisor and mentor, Yoshiki Sashai, committed suicide over the scandal.

I was excited when I first read this story because women in the STEM fields are still underrepresented.

Even thought this story does not have a happy ending, I know there have been, are and will be more fantastic women in science and I can't wait to learn about their work. 

Song of the Week: Fenech Soler "Lies" (The Phantom's Revenge Remix)

One of these days I'll get to play my kind of music during a DJ gig.

Admittedly, it will mostly be French House remixes.

Until I get that invite from the local gay bar, I guess I'll just keep posting a few of my faves here:

2014 Grammy Overview

I watched the Grammys so I could see how New Zealand's beloved Lorde would do with her four nominations.

The first thing I saw was Beyonce sitting in a chair and singing. Then all of that faded away and there was just this fantastically mesmerizing butt floating around on stage. I don't remember anything else really, just the butt. Eventually the butt went away and some awards were given out.

Lorde performed "Royals" and sounded very good. She did a bit of a twitchy dance but it wasn't too bad.

I was so proud. New Zealand was so proud. Go Kiwis!

Some other people performed too.

Katy Perry sang her pseudo dangerous hit "Dark Horse" and started the number encased in a giant crystal ball. This momentarily got my hopes up that it might malfunction like Derek Smalls' pod in "This Is Spinal Tap" but alas....

Macklemore pissed everyone off by winning four awards, including "Best Rap Album" and then made everyone sigh happily by performing "Same Love" whilst a host of same sex couples were wed.

For a delightful take down of the situation read Jack Hamilton's piece at Slate:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/01/macklemore_grammy_wins_don_t_hate_the_thrift_shop_rapper_because_he_s_white.html

Pink sang "Just Give Me a Reason" with a tone-deaf and circus ring master mustachioed Nate Ruess. If anything, Nate's off key wailing made listeners more appreciative of Pink's vocal talents and her ability to maintain a game face while having someone belt out atonal noises at close proximity to her ears.

Taylor Swift tried to channel Tori Amos when she whipped her head around at the piano a few times.

I wasn't all that tuned in to her performance because I'm not really interested in cheer captains and couples who are never ever getting back together. I must say though, "Casual cruelty disguised as honesty" was a clever line aimed at all those assholes out there who say nasty things and then try to couch it as "just being honest." Good one Tay-tay!

Ringo Starr sang a song that made me feel like he was one of my uncles who used to sing in the church choir was grasping desperately at having members of his congregation think he was "hip" "contemporary" and "with it."

He did perform on drums with Paul McCartney to one of the latter's more upbeat and likable tunes and it was nice to see them playing together.

Pharrell wore a hat that was obviously lent to him by Dudley Do-Right and took home a couple of awards himself.

My favorite performance was by Daft Punk. Seeing them in their robot suits brought back fond memories of buying their album "Discovery" in a Virgin Mega store in Paris back in 2001 and all the adventures I had in that city. I've loved this group since I first saw their Michel Gondry-directed video for "Around the World."

I felt so proud of young Lorde as she took to the stage for her first win and wore a look of wide-eyed disbelief. She was more composed for her second win but no less lovable in her acceptance of it.

The NPR bought her album and I must say, it's one of the few you can listen to from first to last track and enjoy throughout.

Finally, my favorite part of the event was watching Robin Thicke NOT win anything for his disgusting little ditty "Blurred Lines."

Hopefully his cheesy ass will fade into obscurity and the term "blurred lines" will only be associated with something a myopic sees when they look at the eye chart in an optometrist's office.

Taming Archimedes

I decided it was time to buckle down and get serious about training Archimedes.

Mostly I have been letting him out of his cage and then enduring his rebukes when I catch him in a t-shirt and put him back in his cage.

This method was not helping our relationship. It was making him fearful of me and causing him to fly away and use his scolding call whenever I got close to him.

All I could think of was all the wild birds I had tamed in Monterey and the one factor that made our interactions possible: edible treats.

The nature and condition of the bird counts for a lot as well.

An injured Pine Siskin I once found hopped right up to my hand when I placed a bowl of seeds in his container. Pine Siskins are highly social and will build nests near each other.

Western Scrub Jays are highly intelligent and are in the Corvid family. I was able to train one to take Cracklin' Oat Bran pieces right out of my hand. It was fun to watch him hide them in his various caches around the yard.

When I fed the ground squirrels at Lover's Point, several Brewer's Blackbirds would take peanuts from my hand and the adult California Seagulls would actual use their juvenile begging gestures to get me to feed them. This was particularly fascinating to me because it is an example of a bird using its own communication methods in an interaction with another species.

The hummingbirds that came to my feeder in Tomales got so used to me that they would perch on the feeder before I had finished hanging it up.

One bird that was notoriously difficult to tame was the Crow. Crows are capable of facial recognition with humans and can learn to manipulate all manner of puzzles in order to gain a food reward. That said, I found getting close to the local Crow family impossible. They would come to my balcony or kitchen window but would always maintain their distance and only go for the food when they were sure I wasn't near. They would watch me through the large picture window in my living room and call to each other when the coast was clear.

My favorite bird of all and one that I am sure is the most intelligent, is the mountain parrot known as the Kea. Kea are the only Alpine parrots in the world and they are only found in the mountains of the South Island of New Zealand.

There is a large collection of them at Willowbank and I love nothing more than to sit down in their enclosure (which visitors can walk through) and watch them interact. They dedicate a lot of time to exploring their surroundings and playing. One of them has been taught to grab his beak with his claw when he wants a treat and he is my favorite bird out of the lot.

I discovered a training method on the YouTubes called "The Power Pause" where you stick out your finger like a perch and work on getting it closer and closer to the bird.

It worked very well and I was able to get my finger nearer to Archimedes without him scolding me.

Next I took a large broccoli floret and placed it close to him. He sidled right on over and nibbled on it.

Happy days!

I'm pleased with the progress we have made and hope to have Archimedes perching on my finger soon.

I may have to change out the edible treat though- the broccoli gives him wicked gas.

Being Xena For A Day

I met my boyfriend Nick two months ago. We had been talking online for some time and decided to meet for dinner at a nice little spot up the street from my house. 

I arrived first and was attempting to pose myself in an intriguing way when Nick came stomping up the three stairs to our table and startled me with the words, "How ya' goin'?"

Throughout the meal he wouldn't look at me and he never once tried to initiate physical contact. 

In other circumstances this might be a depressing turn of events but with your typical Kiwi male, it probably means the bloke's burning up with fiery passion.

We survived our first date and Nick invited me to attend his company Christmas party in Wellington. 

It was a costume party.

New Zealanders love to dress up in costumes. Any excuse will do. 

My search for the perfect costume led me to a place called the Malthouse. 

I was immediately drawn to their hand made Xena Warrior Princess costume. 

Nick helped me zip up in the leather apron that made up the costume's foundation and I was instantly hooked. 

"I never want to take it off," I whispered.

Someone had lovingly crafted metal-looking boob covers and shoulder adornments as well as leather wrist and arm bands. A wig and round metal weapon rounded out the effect. 

The costume was a success in Wellington although two people asked me if my American accent was real, which was strange.

There is something about prancing around in a leather singlet that is very empowering.

Returning the costume was emotionally difficult, but in the end, I knew that other women would get to have the leather scented pleasure of being a warrior princess for a day, and that satisfied.

Xena heroically adjusts the thermostat for maximum hotel room comfort

After a day of fighting crime, Xena relaxes with a cool Steinlager.

Fighting ne'er do wells makes one thirsty.