Cats, Dogs, Walruses and a Bit of Sex

I've always been a bit antisocial, preferring the company of animals, even though I've never possessed a pet, and with my ecological background I am sensitive to what might be termed an animal's safe space. So it was stories from yesterday in the papers attracted me.

Let's start with the good new for the cats of Walldorf, Germany ... they are out of lockdown for this year!

Near Walldorf, crested larks breed, or try to. Trouble is, they are ground-nesting birds and now very rare (just three breeding pairs at Walldorf). They have been extirpated from previous breeding areas in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden. Cats are interested in birds, and ground-nesting ones are easy game, so the authorities in Walldorf have decreed that for the next three years, cats must be kept under close control (indoors or on a short leash) during the crested lark rearing season. This should be until the end of August, but has been brought forward by a couple of weeks, probably due to climate change!

Even better news for Maggie, a Turkish Akbash dog that had been taken for a walk up Ben Nevis by three women. Sore paws and exhaustion led to it not being able (or simply refusing, as dogs do) to get back down the mountain and although the women tried carrying her down, she is 35 kg, so the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team were called out to stretcher Maggie down! It was that, or stay on the mountain overnight.

Now, for upsetting news. Freya, the young Walrus who had been enjoying lounging on boats in Oslo fjord was euthanased killed because of a perceived public danger caused by the public. There could have been, there should have been, a better solution ...

Now for a bit of sex ... from the MIT Techology Review:The quest to show that biological sex matters in the immune system.

Research immunologists at John Hopkins are looking at the role sex (chromosomes, sex hormones, reproductive tissues) has in immune responses and Sandeep Ravindran has written a lengthy and interesting piece on this.

One of the aspects in the piece that relates to my previous blog entry is a hypothesis that takes on board  certain higher immune responses in females compared to males and suggests that "a stronger immune response in female mammals could help transfer more antibodies to their babies in utero and through their milk, thus protecting offspring from infections. The same heightened immune responses that help keep babies alive also increase the risk of autoimmune diseases when females are older, but the trade-off may be worth it from an evolutionary standpoint."

There's a lot to digest in the MIT piece. The above demonstrates how interactive everyday life and evolution may be. It's a long way from Mendel and his beans.