Tag: Mammals

Camping near Dumoine River

Join us for a journey to the Ottawa Valley’s last wild river – the Dumoine! A land of mature and old-growth forests, countless lakes, streams and wetlands – home to moose, bear, wolves, and over 160 species of birds. We are organizing a trip for naturalists, photographers and nature lovers to capture the beauty of this place on Canada Day.

The early summer is an amazing time in the taiga, full of cares and worries about the growing offspring of numerous forest inhabitants, the unique colors of flowering plants, the noise of running waves of a full-flowing river, piercing colorful sunsets and sunrises…

In summer, the taiga comes alive. It is filled with the voices of birds returned from distant wintering places and is colored with the variegation of flowering plants. We invite people open to the beauty or just nature lovers to share with us the unique moments of immersion in the wild nature of this amazing place. Birds returned to their breeding sites and occupied their personal “households”. In this time, they are most visible and heard. We’ll learn how to recognize birds by call and sight. At this time, amphibians are also very vocal; their chorus is more prominent at the dusk – early morning, and evening. We’ll learn how to identify various species of frogs and hope to see some of them during our trips to forests and along the river.

Our trip will take place on the Canada Day from July 1 to July 4. We will stop close to the cabin on the Lac Pinniseault and at a colorful place on the banks of the Dumoine River – close to Robinson Lake. Our team of three people organizes leisure activities and hikes for participants on the territory. We will observe the birds and animals that live in the area, as well as get up early to catch the unique morning light over the river and lake.

We invite a group of 10-15 people for this trip. We can provide transportation for people to the territory, and we also provide guidance on hikes to observe wildlife. We will stay close to John’s cabin, providing you with hot fragrant coffee, and tea at any time. We also will serve a small breakfast for everyone and dinner at the end of the day. We also have a special camouflage tent that can accommodate 4 people to watch birds and other inhabitants of the taiga. We have several equipped places for observation of nature in the Dumoine area, where photographers can stay to observe wildlife and take photos. We have several canoes for observation of nature from the water. We provide basic food, but we advise everyone to take additional food, whatever you like.

You need to bring a tent and camping essentials, flashlights, safety vests for canoe trips, your cameras, and protection against mosquitoes and other insects. Please, watch for the weather forecast and prepare your rain jackets and boots accordingly.

The cost of the trip – $ 150 per full day per person includes – registration, place in the camp, escort, breakfast, and dinner, as well as lessons in nature observation, identifying birds and mammals by voices and footprints.  In addition, we will provide you with transportation to our field camp from Swisha, ​​where you can leave your car, to the base camp, and back. We’ll charge half the price for the day of arrival and the day of departure.

Sunset in Gatineau Park: Evening hike around P8 (Chem. du Lac Meech)

This event is organized for those who like adventures. This is a guided hike to Gatineau Park for evening nature observation.  We invite amateurs to explore the evening life of Gatineau Park in the area near Meech Lake. We’ll meet on Friday evening, April 15, at 6:00 pm on the P8 in the Park.  This guided hike will be in English and Russian.

Place and Subject of the Excursion:

We invite you to participate in a sunset adventure in Gatineau Park. We organize an evening hike to a small lake in Gatineau Park. The snow had just melted or still remained in some places in small clumps in shady places. But spring is rapidly approaching, and with it, migratory birds return to their breeding sites. In the evenings, silhouettes of flying Wilson’s snipes and American woodcocks can be seen above the lakes at the edges of the forest. They fill the neighborhood with their characteristic sounds. The typical winnowing flight of Wilson’s snipe resembles the sound of an airplane. The sound of American woodcock flight is also very distinctive. Amphibians wake up and we hope to listen to the chorus of the first Spring Peepers. Spring peepers are “heralds” of the spring season. These tiny amphibians came out from ponds and sing from the branches of trees, where males climbed up quite high. Salamanders come out of their hibernation places on the forest floor – they rush to reservoirs and vernal pools to lay eggs and give rise to offspring. In the evenings, beavers become active, they leave their huts to feed and find construction materials for the renovation of their lodges after a long winter season. Later, in the forest, you can hear the dialogue of barred owls or calls of eastern screech owls. This is the time when owls are still very active and you can not only see them but also hear them.

We’ll meet at Parking 8 (P 8) at 6:00 pm, which is very close to the Visitor Center of Gatineau Park in Chelsea. There is an opportunity for carpooling from Ottawa (2 places).

Dress:

It can be humid after rains in the last few days. It is recommended to have waterproof shoes and rainy jackets. Prepare a flashlight or headlamp for observations in dark.

Forest dwellers in your neighborhood

Do you know where to spot porcupines this wintertime? How many bird species stay around us in the cold weather? How to recognize animal footprints on snow? You can answer these questions during our guided nature tour to the Stony Swamp area on Sunday, December 19.

Place and Subject of the Excursion:

We organize our next seasonal guided tour for families with kids. We hope to spot during our hike many squirrels and many birds. We also hope to see many animal footprints near our path. We’ll learn how to identify species by call and sight. If we’ll be lucky we’ll see porcupines. We’ll have also the opportunity to feed chickadees and nuthatches often lending on the open arms with seeds.

We’ll meet at 9:30 am on Parking lot 8 along Moody Drive, Stony Swamp Area: Moodie Dr, Nepean, ON K2R 1H8. We plan to walk 3-4 km around – visiting a beaver pond and porcupine woods. If we’ll have enough time, we’ll move to Jack Pine Trail (Parking lot 9) to explore this path as well.

Dress:

Winter is just starting. The weather is still unpredictable. So, we suggest you be prepared for a frosty day. However, we’ll walk in the forest, therefore, we suggest wearing warm, but light enough jackets and shoes. Do not forget your gloves or mittens! You can take a snack for your walk, but remember that all active forest dwellers will follow us hoping to profit from a delicious treat. Food for birds, sunflower seeds, or other treats is welcomed.

Guided Nature Watch Tour to South March Highland Area (in Russian)

This time we organize a nature watch tour to South March Highland area. We explore the trail and look for birds, mammals, and other animals who just recently arrived or waked up after hibernation. We’ll also explore how to use the Merlin Bird ID guide for the identification of bird species and talk about citizen science and existing opportunities to be involved in bird and other species studies and monitoring. The guided tour will be in Russian.

Дорогие друзья,

На этот раз я организую экскурсию в субботу на охраняемую территорию в Канате, которая называется South March Conservation Forest. Территория большая, но мы сделаем круг по одному из наиболее известных маршрутов, который пересекает лес, несколько водоемов, небольшое нагорье и болото. Обычно, я всегда вижу у этой тропы древесных дикобразов. В этот раз мы также посмотрим какие другие млекопитающие появились в связи с ранней весной. Конечно же, нас будут сопровождать американские красные и серые белки, а также недавно вышедшие из спячки бурундуки. Не исключено, что мы сможем увидеть бобров и ондатру. О том – проснулись ли они – мы узнаем по следам их жизнедеятельности.

Также мы будем учиться определять птиц по их виду и голосам, используя электронный справочник Merlin Bird ID Guide и поговорим о том, как каждый желающий может участвовать в сборе данных о видах животных. Информация о месте встречи и времени экскурсии приведена ниже. Эта тропа – средней тяжести, маленьким детям будет тяжеловато ее всю пройти. В некоторых местах будет сыро, поэтому лучше надеть сапоги.

Необходима предварительная регистрация на ивент, которая доступна по этой ссылке на Eventbrite.

 

 

About bats and COVID-19 by Heliana Dundarova

Posted on by Elena Kreuzberg

Heliana Dundarova, PhD, an expert in bat studies; a scientist at IBER-BAS (Bulgaria) and a guest researcher at Osh State University (Kyrgyzstan) during field work

Bats (order Chiroptera) are the second largest order of mammals (1411 species). They are the only mammals capable of flying actively, which allowed them to be globally distributed. In general, flight has led to high refinement of order Chiroptera, and orientation through echolocation, which allows them navigate in reduced visibility environments. In-flight body temperature rises, which speeds up their metabolism and puts their bodies in a constant state of high fever. The temperature varies from 38 to 41 °C. This type of energy production and consumption is huge and intolerable for other mammals. High energy potential leads to the release of huge amount of free radicals, which damage DNA molecules and kill the cells of mammals. However, this does not happen to bats and scientists have found out why. They have a mutation which accelerates the cell’s ability to find and repair damaged DNA molecules. In addition, their cellular mechanism practically does not allow the damaged cells to multiply, as is the case with all other mammals, and cancer is rare.

The colony of Rhinolophus lepidus in the mine

In all mammals, the immune system triggers a group of signaling proteins called interferons. When a virus enters a cell, interferons produce signals to warn the other cells to activate their antiviral mechanism and prevent the virus from further multiplying. In bats, interferons are constantly activated and there is no mechanism to switch them off and thus they constantly control the viruses. Therefore, extreme energy production, high body temperature, mechanisms for the rapid recovery of damaged DNA, and the specific immune system make bats a suitable reservoir of different types of RNA viruses. These viruses are adapted to the dynamic cellular life of their hosts as well as to bats. RNA viruses from bats cannot be transmitted directly to humans because their fine-tuning requires other organisms (intermediate hosts) in which the cells viruses adapt to the final host. Similar examples from the recent past are SARS-CoV coronaviruses and the MERS-CoV virus. In 2002, SARS-CoV caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and has affected about 30 countries, of which, for 800 people, the outcome was lethal. It is established that similar coronaviruses are carried from bats but the infection to people did not happen directly. The source of the infection is civets, a species of rare predator that is sold freely to markets in China. The virus has long been spread by the intermediate host in Chinese markets.

In 2012, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) appeared. The intermediate hosts are camels, who have been carrying the coronavirus for about 30 years. MERS caused an epidemic in the Arabian Peninsula, about 2000 people were infected, and the death rate was 50%. The scenario for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the COVID-19 syndrome, is similar. The virus genome is most similar to the CoV RaTG13 coronavirus known from the intermediate horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus affinis), which inhabits the Yunnan province, China and Southeast Asia. The virus binding receptor at the intermediate horseshoe bat and other horseshoe bats cannot directly bind to the human ACE2 receptor located on the outside of the lung cells. There was a tuning time (mutation) period in the intermediate host that took years to separate SARS-CoV-2.

The Horseshoe Bat – Rhinolophus ferrumequinum

Globally, mammalian organisms, including humans, are full of different corona-viruses. They are divided into specific groups, and interspecific transmission is extremely rare, since the virus must adapt to the specific cellular receptor of the final host. Therefore, direct transmission from bat to human with SARS-CoV-2 is excluded.

Bats are the natural “biopesticides” on Earth. Globally, one bat consumes a huge amount of the known pests on forests and farmlands such as the insect pests on coniferous plantations, cereals and fruit orchards. Bats regulate the numbers of the Greater Wax Moth; whose larvae are parasites on beehives.

The Lesser Mouse-eared Bat – Myotis blythii – species widely distributed in Eurasia

Many bat species control the mosquito populations, which are the main reservoir and vector of Zika, Yellow fever and Dengue. One bat colony can eat about 100 tons of insects per night.

The danger does not come from bats or other animals, but from the human beings. People penetrate into previously virgin places, destroy natural habitats at unimaginable speeds, and move quickly from one to another point of the world. All this allows pathogens to overcome the interspecies barriers that previously prevented them from emerge and spill-over uncontrollably.

References:

Simmons N. B. 2005. Order Chiroptera. In: Wilson, D. E., Reeder, D. M., editors. Mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference. 3rd ed. Baltimore (MD): The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 312-52

Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, Robert F. Garry. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9

Zhou, P., Yang, X., Wang, X. et al. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7

Ji, W., Wang, W., Zhao, X., Za, J., Li, X. Cross-species transmission of the newly identified coronavirus 2019-nCoV. Journal of Medical Virology, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25682