Featured Post

Click HERE to learn about Kristy's Massage Therapy Services

Greetings Everyone! Here is the general scoop on the services I offer as a massage therapist.  I live by the motto of simplicity so I will...

Monday, October 31, 2016

Kristy's Saw Whet Owl Release: The Ultimate Owl-ween!


Part of the perks of being a wildlife ecology student at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, is the privilege of being a part of a very active chapter of The Wildlife Society.  I am able to participate in a variety of special events, research projects and workshops which enable me to develop skills as an educator, researcher and scientist.

Kristy Holding A Saw Whet Owl Extracted From A Mist Net
The month of October has brought one of the wonderful opportunity of banding Saw Whet owls as they migrate for the season.  A loud call is placed at the center of a triangular mist net arrangement in the middle of the forest (in this case located at Linwood Springs Research Station).  The birds that are lured into the net are quickly and gently removed, and a small numbered band is placed around their "ankle".  Information such as weight, the length of the wing, feather molt, fat, age and sex of the bird is recorded.  All of which allows researchers to learn more about the movement patterns of the birds, among other information when the band numbers are noted again either by recapture or death.

In the spirit of Halloween, I am posting a short video of a newly banded Saw Whet Owl being released, which occurred on a perfect October evening with the ideal timing of a coyote calling in the background. In moments like these, I feel most at home in nature.....even, in the dark!




Sunday, October 30, 2016

Birds and Climate Change: The Alaskan Common Murre Die Off of 2016

Photo Credit: Tamara Zeller, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
I was privileged to work as a volunteer at the avian rehabilitation clinic in Anchorage Alaska, The Bird Treatment and Learning Center.  Among the various daily activities of incoming and outgoing birds that are treated for various natural and unnatural conditions it was brought to my attention that hundreds of Common Murres were taken in less than a few weeks during January 2016.  This event is now known as the Common Murre die off of 2016, where an overall estimated number of 100,000* birds were found ashore dead over a nine month period where a majority of those occurred during the winter.  The photo above illustrates how massive of a die off this was, however to imagine 7,800* birds on just over 1 mile of beach is horrific.  Imagine the shock to see and (perhaps) smell such a thing! What might have caused these birds to be washed up onto the shore dead from starvation?  The theories are present, but scientists are still evaluating the possibilities.

As in any case like this one must evaluate what is known, in order to begin to formulate more questions to find answers to.  A few days after I was told about this massive die off and the immense effort that the clinic had put into tube feeding hundreds of birds in a short amount of time, I took a train to the Alaska Sea Life Center where I went behind the scenes to view the care and treatment areas for their captive sea birds.  While I was there I was able to view the Common Murres playfully diving deep down to the bottom of their aquariums, and I pondered the daily life and acquisition of food that the birds go through. A Common Murres are pelagic (living most of their lives on water) and has a diving range of 600 ft where it must gather and eat 40 to 50% of its body weight in order to survive.  One of the theories states that the increase in water temperatures from what is known as "the blob" which is an unusually warm mass of water moving along the Pacific coast of North America. The higher than normal temperatures cause a variety of normal ocean life processes to be altered.

Let me draw you a picture.  Imagine you are a small fish that prefers to live closer to the shore in water that is particularly cool at about 500 ft.  This is also the ideal place to survive and spawn creating more offspring to contribute to future generations.  Suddenly a massive warm "blob" moves in, subject to the forces of ENSO (El Nino Sourthern Oscillation), which means the only way you can find cooler water for your immediate survival is to swim deeper -- say 700 to 800 ft.  Your whole world just shifted into an area where other new predators, and environmental challenges exist, but it was your only choice!  That being said, it remains this way for just over two years, and if you don't reproduce within two years your chances of having babies is over, and the overall population of your species declines.  Good thing you are not a species that is threatened or endangered!

Lets look at another part of this equation. The small schooling fish I mentioned above (no name in particular, there are many this could apply to), are the food source for the Common Murre. Remember that the bird can only dive down to 600 ft!  Well, what do you do when your food is forced to move out to 700 - 800 ft? You starve, and eventually die.

If this was not bad enough news, there was a storm that swept through in January producing high winds and if you are a pelagic bird (again, living life out on the ocean), it takes an incredible amount of energy in order to keep afloat, to move about trying your darndest to capture the food that is too deep to capture.  In a frantic desparity, you take to the Eastern wind and fly inland disoriented and hoping to find a food source but you run out of energy, land in places where you are now rendered immobile because your legs are situated so far towards your rump you can not walk on the frozen areas you have landed on. This would describe those birds that were strangely found off of the areas on the shoreline.

All of the pieces and parts to this story summarize the need to be aware of climate factors and how they impact the survival of various species.  More so....what is it that we humans are doing to accidental cause negative environmental disruptions.  The end of this story concludes without a definitive answer, but yet a need for heightened awareness to climate matters and some of the chain reactions in our environment that are caused by the humans....their consumption of resources and production of waste.  To date, scientists are unaware of the exact cause of the die off, but the fact is that this occurrence is not the only of its kind.

Soon I will be interviewed regarding this matter and will discuss more about its connection to climate change.  Stay tuned!

*Numbers provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Saturday, October 29, 2016

The Importance of Bees: Basic things to know

Photo credit to http://thinkaboutnow.com/2016/09/like-its-been-nuked-millions-of-bees-dead-after-sc-sprays-for-zika-mosquitoes/
 A few weeks ago I wrote about how I had been disheartened by those attempting to lay blame on others who don't understand the situation with the decline in bees, and how it is impacting our food sources.  In summary, the claim stated that "when all of the bees are gone, you will no longer have avocados, and strawberries and this is YOUR problem".  It was a sort of post that was trying to use shock value to entice one into the action of preventing bees from dying.  I mentioned how I once was intimidated by people who I regarded as scientists or those in the "know" about a variety of topics. Instead of feeling the ability to ask questions, I felt inadequate in my basic understanding, and so without the courage to ask I often found myself learning alone through books and other resources I could access.  Imagine, if scientists with the knowledge could only remember that they too were once unaware, and had to begin with simple questions to understand any given topic.  As I progress down my path of learning more about science and evolving as a scientist I want to make sure I keep the doors open to share what I learn, to save others from the fear of asking questions even if they seem basic.  Scientists are the minority, and the majority need the minorities help to understand some of the complex environmental and scientific topics of today.
    It is no secret that bees are in trouble.  The media does an exceptional job of making sure the negative side of situations is represented.  But if one does not understand a thing or two about bees, and what the issues are, little can be appreciated regarding their demise, nor can one take a personal responsibility to aid the situation that they are being blamed for as mentioned above.
    So, lets start by understanding there are two fundamentals we need to know a little bit about.  #1 the life of a bee and #2 how plants make what we would call "food".  For the sake of simple understanding I will not delve deeply into matters (scientists, I am not speaking to you here so have mercy), but I will give the average reader enough of a picture to allow them to understand what they need to know in order to understand why bees are diminishing, and what they can do about it.

How Plants Make Food
There is no romance story here, but often what we would call "food" (like fruits and vegetables) is a byproduct of the reproduction of a plant, often an embryo -- that's right foodies, your food is a plant baby waiting to be conceived.  So how do plants have sex?  How do these plant embryos (fruits and veggies) come about? Since the average male plant can't walk over to a female plant and woo her into late night activities that lead to plant babies, they need someone or something present to help them distribute their sperm onto the female parts of the plant, so that she can then produce the fruits and veggies that we eat. This is what we would call a pollinator (the job title indicates "one who collects & delivers plant sperm". (***please note not all plants reproduce in this way, but most that are our food sources do.  Some plants actually have sex with themselves! Whoa.)  Now....this is why bees are important and so it's important for me to discuss the life of bees and their role in the process of growing food.

The life of bees
Understand that their are bees and wasps.  Wasps are aggressive, they have the ability to sting multiple times and live.  Wasps do not make honey and eat mostly other insects and larva, BUT have been known to also seek pollen and nectar.  Wasps do NOT produce honey.  Bees are less aggressive because if they sting once, they will die and their job is to collect massive amounts of pollen to bring back to their colony so honey can be made to serve as a food source for larva and those living within the colony.

Because of the bees honey production, and the need to collect pollen,  bees are very special, and assist many different plants in the ability to have sex as mentioned above.  So this is my ultimate message....No bees, no plant sex, and if there is no plant sex, then there will be no plant babies (fruits and veggies -- or seeds to keep the plants reproducing generation after generation), all ending in less human plant, fruit and vegetable sources.

So why are all the bees dying? There are many factors that are acknowledged in the scientific community but I will focus on the one that most of us can help with.  Chemicals.  Many of us want to eliminate pests in our lives and we do so by the use of chemicals that are designed to "target" one pest or another.  BUT almost always, there are many other living things that are harmed in that process.  Chemicals act on cells, and living things have cells.  It is very hard to isolate a chemical that knows only the cell type of the living thing we are trying to get rid of (this also includes bacteria and fungi).  So when we use a chemical, just about anything living that it comes in contact with will suffer a cellular alteration (adjusting the way a normal living thing functions -- eats, breaths, has offspring etc).  

So imagine this.....we have a pesky beetle that eats all of the buds on the plants in our garden. (The buds will eventually be the flowers, also know as the sex organs for plant reproduction).  As the plants just begin to grow and develop the buds, we want to get rid of the beetle so the plant can live,, grow flowers and have bees land on them spreading their sperm to the other female flower etc) so we spray a chemical that is meant to target the beetle.  The chemical lands on the bud, the bud later opens into a flower, the bee lands on the flower and the pollen AND the chemical sticks to the bees legs and both the pollen and chemical are brought back to the hive where all other bee babies (larva) and worker bees, drones and queen eat and become sick and die.  

This is not the only chemical death, some chemicals that are sprayed can cause death on contact (as we find in stores)! Many have heard about the aerial spraying for the Zika virus in Florida which killed off more bees than I can assign a number to (see photo above).  Other causes of bee death are seemingly more subtle such as poor nutrition and disease.  So you might be thinking, well, I don't use chemicals, but the reality is that chemicals are everywhere in our lives and we don't always understand where those chemicals end up.  This topic is very technical but i'll simply point out the chemicals under our sinks generally end up going down the drain, or out with our trash and where do those things end up?  Back in the environment.  And what is in our environment ends up in soil and water which gets cycled back into the earth and where PLANTS soak up particles of what ends up in the soil and from rain or other bodies of water.

A scientist or ecologist (one who looks at the interactions between everything I mentioned above), will try to develop ways to keep the needs of people, animals and the planet working in harmony, but nature always wins and reacts according to the stresses placed upon it.  Its sad to see where we are trying to alleviate one problem, we actually create another.  This is not a matter of just the scientists who are creating compounds like chemicals, it is also the responsibility of the user (like us) to ask where we can begin to minimize our use of ANYTHING chemical.  

Some actions you can take:

1. Always evaluate the need for pesticides or fertilizers.  Can you eliminate or replace them with natural substitutes?

2. Can we replace a chemical in our daily lives with something less harmful?  Perhaps a cleaner could be substituted with apple cider vinegar, baking soda OR eliminated completely.

2.  Can I share basic knowledge with someone else who might not understand all of these things?  After all, once upon a time I didn't know or understand, maybe there are others who don't as well. 

Knowledge is the most powerful tool we have to create a better future, so share this post, share what you know....that is where change can begin!

Written by Kristy Medo - Naturalist & Massage Therapist

Monday, October 17, 2016

Click HERE to learn about Kristy's Massage Therapy Services

Greetings Everyone!

Here is the general scoop on the services I offer as a massage therapist.  I live by the motto of simplicity so I will generalize for ease of reading and then I will elaborate at the end. :)

Rate = $1/Minute 

(Any Service - Chair, Relaxation or Deep Tissue Massage)

What do we do next? How do I schedule?

1. Contact me directly at 715-574-9031 or kristinemedo@gmail.com
2. You select the duration of time needed (30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes) or anything in between.
3. Location.  We will discuss the service location and other personal or event specifics.  Additional charges may apply based on your location or venue.  (After all, if I am to provide massage on-site, travel expenses become a part of the equation).
4.  Schedule.   Together, we will decide on a time that works best for our schedules.  Planning in advance is always best. Please notify me 24 hours in advance if cancellation is needed, otherwise a cancellation fee of 50% of the original service charge will be applied.

What is On-Site Massage?

Through the years I have provided on-site massage as a way to bring massage therapy services to clients who prefer to relax and simply desire to do so in their home, work or travel location. Examples of this are corporate chair massage being offered to employees, a family who all receive massage therapy (adults and children) where family treatment in the home saves the expense of child care, or those who can not drive or simply find the spa atmosphere might be intimidating.

I do offer chair massage for unique events such as weekend retreats where up to 80 participants elect to sign up for 10 to 60 min massage increments on either the chair or the table!  These events are pre-planned so their special weekends are reserved in advance.

Additionally, I travel out of state for those who have assembled groups who wish to have a massage therapist with them (sporting event participants, dance teams....and even recreational travel groups)!

Need help fundraising?  I offer on-site chair massage at fundraising events!
If you have a fundraising activity that will have a substantial number of participants that would like to receive chair massage, I am happy to offer my services on a 50/50 basis.  That means for every $1 made for massage therapy services, I will contribute 50% of the sum to your cause.  Please understand that if I gave 100% my efforts would surpass my own ability to sustain myself and my practice, otherwise it would be a joy to do so.

My regular clients have the privilege to visit me in my beautiful home for massage therapy services as well.  I am also happy to accept referrals from my existing clients, so if you are a new client please let me know how you heard about me!  My humble abode is a little gem situated on Lake Wausau, where the wild birds can be easily viewed and appreciated.

Contact me anytime by email at kristinemedo@gmail.com or by phone at 715-574-9031 and I will be happy to talk with you about your massage therapy needs!