#Wild Animals 🦎 🐇 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

xtruss · 2 years ago

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The sound of army planes can be traumatic for Colorado checkered whiptail lizards, which have a small range in southeastern Colorado. Photograph By Ken Holtgrewe Getty Images

How Wild Animals Cope With Stress—From Overeating To Sleepless Nights

We’re not the only Animals that Suffer Anxiety. From Lizards to Song Sparrows, Challenging Situations can have Long-lasting Impacts on Species.

— By Liz Langley | April 25, 2023

Many of us react to stressful situations by drinking too much coffee, sleeping too much or not enough, or overeating.

As it turns out, several wild animals also experience physical reactions to stress. The main challenges faced by wild animals are whether they’ll find enough food or whether they become someone else’s food. But sometimes, it’s people that cause the trauma.

For instance, a new study shows the rare Colorado checkered whiptail lizard stress-eats in response to noise. Part of their habitat includes the Fort Carson Army Base, where low-flying aircraft regularly produce sounds louder than what they’d experience naturally.

After observing some of the wild reptiles and taking their blood, the scientists found that during flyovers, the lizards released more of the stress hormone cortisol, as well as moved less and ate more. Eating more likely compensated for the energy lost while experiencing stress, the authors say.

Here are some other ways animals react to challenging situations.

Sleep Troubles

Sleep, for all mammals, is key—and not having enough can be harmful.

“Sleep deprivation, a form of stress, can elicit increased eating in humans and some non-human animals alike,” says Barrett Klein, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse who also studies sleep biology.

In lab studies, fruit flies subjected to social isolation slept less and ate more, and sleep-deprived mice ate more during their recovery. Some butterflies that don't get enough rest forage poorly and lay their eggs on the wrong types of plants.

If some bee species don't get enough sleep, they'll perform their waggle dances, the bee equivalent of GPS, "with a less precise direction component," Klein says via email, giving their spectators less helpful information on where to find food.

Passing on Trauma

Scott Heppell, a fish ecologist at Oregon State University, stops short of saying other animals react to stress like we do.

“That’s a bit too anthropomorphic for me,” Heppell says via email. “But I might say that other animals have somewhat analogous responses,” for example, when stressful events experienced by parents “can affect performance of their offspring.” In humans, that concept is called generational trauma.

Small freshwater fish called sticklebacks appear to pass trauma down to their babies, though the impacts are different among males and females.

In research published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, scientists showed that sons of stickleback fathers who had been exposed to predators were risk takers, but the trauma had no effect on daughters. Mothers exposed to predators had anxious offspring of both sexes—but why remains unknown.

Predator Danger

The mere presence of predators can make animals anxious. Take the song sparrow, a study subject of Liana Zanette, a population ecologist at Western University in Ontario, Canada.

In a 2022 study, Zanette studied wild song sparrows on British Columbia’s Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, where they have few predators. During the study, she put up barriers to ensure that nothing would happen to the birds.

For 18 weeks Zanette’s team intermittently played recordings half of the study birds of friendly animals like Canada geese. No harm, just fowl.

The other half of the birds heard recordings of crows and ravens, which eat sparrow eggs and nestlings.

The results showed that a fear of phantom predators caused these birds to produce 53 percent fewer offspring than the birds that didn’t hear the scary soundtrack.

“The parents are really skittish when they think there are predators around,” Zanette says, so instead of spending their time incubating their eggs or feeding chicks, they flush from the nest.

That all might sound like a bad thing, but evolutionarily the birds’ response is just right. Surviving and producing fewer offspring beats dying and producing none, Zanette says.

Such predator-induced fear can also cause lasting changes similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, she says. In a 2019 study, Zanette found that black-capped chickadees exposed to predators had elevated brain activity and a heightened sensitivity to danger for at least seven days afterward.

Snowshoe hares are the primary prey of Canada lynx. Photograph By Robbie George, National Geographic Image Collection

An Ancient Dance

In Canada’s Yukon Territory, snowshoe hares don’t need simulations—they have very real predators to worry about. The animals are the main prey of Canada lynx, and the dance between them has been evolving for millions of years, says Rudy Boonstra, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, who has been studying both species for four decades.

Both species go through a 10-year cycle during which each species’ population fluctuates. When the hare population is high, lynx have a lot to eat and their population goes up as well.

But as the hare population declines the hares are not just being killed by lynx, they’re being stressed by being pursued, even if they escape. These hares produce fewer offspring and their offspring produce fewer offspring, until there are so few hares the lynx begin to starve and their population plummets as well.

Boonstra and colleagues showed that when lynx numbers were high and hares were in decline, levels of cortisol in snowshoe hare blood spiked. This stress takes a toll on female hares’ physical condition, which leads to weaker offspring.

This decade-long prey-predator cycle is a truly wild phenomenon, Boonstra notes, with no human creating the stress.

That’s partly why, like Heppell, Boonstra also doesn’t think human and wild animal stress responses can be compared.

“Their environment has been the same or similar for many, many generations, and ours changes all the time, every day.”

#Wild Animals 🦎 🐇#Song Sparrow #Lizards 🦎#Overeating #Sleepless Nights #Long-lasting #Impacts #Species #Sleep Troubles #Trauma #Predator #Ancient Dance

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goldie90 · 3 years ago

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The day we lost grandpa (and how he came back).

One of the very few things we can actually do with grandpa (besides from watching tv📺, or just sitting next to him and staring at the wall😩) is to go on a walk with him, which is something I really like to do from time to time. I´m never sure if grandpa enjoys the nature around him,🌳🌻🌞🐦 if he appreciates the opportunity to spend a bit time outside and get some fresh air, because there´s simply no way to tell with him, but it´s still a nice way to spend some time with him. I really enjoy these moments and even more so when my dear husband is accompanying us. Then we taking turns with pushing the wheelchair, talking to each other and to grandpa (even though, it´s hard to tell if he´s even listening😅) and Nubbins always takes some pictures📸 of random things like plants🌼 and trees🌲 and sometimes even wild animals🐇🦎🦔 and of course, of me and grandpa. It´s always fun and this time wasn´t any different.

“Smi - smile, grandpa.” Nubbins said, just a second before he took another picture of his grandfather and me together. Unsurprisingly, grandpa didn´t smiled. In fact, he didn´t even looked into the camera. His eyes were closed and it was hard to tell if he was even awake. The only one who was smiling (well, beside our photographer himself) was me, while I was standing behind grandpa´s wheelchair, my hand on his shoulder, facing the camera directly. I always love to pose for my darling, so of course I immediately agreed when he told me that he wanted to take some pictures of me alone, too. We walked a few steps away from grandpa, to an huge old tree and Nubbins took a few pictures of me leaning against it, before he told me to walk over to another tree, so he could also take some pictures of me there. Then it went on like this for a while. He ordered me from one spot to another, told me to pick some flowers💐and act like I wasn´t even aware of the camera, before he made me pose on a smaller rock for him and so on. While we were busy with our little photo shoot, we walked further and further away from grandpa and at some point we didn´t even thought about him anymore.

Once my darling decided that he had enough pictures, we stopped and sat down on the rock where I had posed for him before, to look at the pictures together, before we slowly walked back home, hands locked in each others and all the way chatting happily, neither of us realized that we forgot something...

It was only when it was time for dinner and Drayton told Bubba and Chop to go upstairs and get grandpa, that we realized our mistake. Shortly after Drayton send them upstairs, my two brothers in law came back into the dining room, where the rest of us was already settled at the table, both looked pretty confused and when Drayton asked them why they didn´t brought grandpa, Chop just said: “He - he isn´t there.” Next to him, Bubba nodded his head, making some confused noises, while Drayton stared at them in disbelief. “What do you mean, he isn´t there?” he asked, already sounding a bit anrgy. “He is - isn´t in his ro - room.” Chop explained and Bubba nodded again, as if to confirm his words. Now Drayton seemed also confused, while I started to get a little bit nervous. Could it be...? No, that wasn´t possible, or was it? I looked at Nubbins, who returned my gaze, he seemed nervous, too. Chop then turned to us and asked: “Di - didn´t you two to - took him on a wa - walk today? Where is he?” Suddenly all eyes were on us and I exchanged another glance with my husband, while I was feverishly searching my mind for a good explanation. “Well...this is a kinda funny story...” I began, even though I was pretty sure that the family wouldn´t find it all too funny.😰 Next to me, Nubbins laughed nervously. “Ye - yeah, it is. See, grandpa is...umm... well, he...” Drayton interrupted him. “Where is he?” he asked angrily and I could see how his hand reached for the broom.🧹😨 There was no way to get out of this, we had to tell him the truth, even if that meant that we would receive the beating of our lifetime. I looked directly at Drayton and told him a bit sheepishly: “It seems like we forgot him outside.” I didn´t dared to tell him where exactly we left the old man, that it was quite a bit away from our property and that was probably a wise decision, because Drayton´s reaction was already bad enough. He started to yell at us how we could be so irresponsible and demanded an explanation for how it was even possible that we forgot grandpa in the first place. When Nubbins told him that it was because we were busy with taking some pictures, Drayton finally lost it. He grabbed his broom and jumped out of his chair. Nubbins reacted very fast by jumping on his feet as well, grabbing my arm and yanking me out of my chair. “Run!” he yelled and the next second we were both running out of the dining room and into the hallway, with Drayton close behind us.

We managed to get to the front door and out of the house, without being hit by the broom and when we were out in the yard, Drayton gave it up to chase us and instead stayed on the porch, waving angrily with his broom and yelled at us that we should go and get grandpa and that we shouldn´t even dare to come back without him. I don´t think that I have ever seen him this angry before (which definitely means something), but I have to admit that it was very understandable. We had really fucked up this time and I can´t even describe how guilty I felt about the whole thing.😟 How could we forgot grandpa? The poor old man was completely helpless without us and we had just left him all alone outside for hours. When I thought about it, I had to admit that we would definitely deserve a beating with the broom for this, but of course, I prefered to avoid this. The only good thing about the whole situation was that grandpa wouldn´t be able to move away from the spot we left him at by himself, which meant that we would definitely find him if we just went back there, or at least that was what we thought.

When me and Nubbins got back to the spot where we left grandpa, we should experience a surprise, because the old man and his wheelchair weren´t there anymore.😲 Needless to say that we were both pretty shocked and also confused about this, because there was simply no way that he moved away from here by himself. For a moment we started to wonder if this was really the right spot, even though we were both pretty sure that it was. But then again, grandpa wasn´t here, so maybe we were wrong after all? We started to search around the area, walked past the trees and the rock where I had posed for my husband only a few hours ago, but grandpa was nowhere to be found. At this point we became both really nervous and therefore we started to search more frantically, hurried through the area and looked behind every bush and tree, while it got darker and darker around us. Nubbins started to call for grandpa and even though I knew that it was pointless, that the old man would neither be able to answer, nor to follow the sound of our voices, I followed his example. At this moment I was simply desperate, so of course I was willed to try almost anything to find grandpa, even if it was completely pointless and maybe even stupid. I could tell that my dear husband was just as desperate as I was, maybe even more so, considering the fact that it was his grandfather who was missing. He even crawled under a small bush while searching for him, but of course, grandpa wasn´t there. At some point, it became too dark to see much and we didn´t had a flashlight with us and so we had no other choice than giving up and walking back home, confessing to the rest of the family that we weren´t able to find grandpa.

Needless to say that the others weren´t happy about the news. In fact, Drayton immediately started to yell at us again and again we had to run away from him and his broom.🧹😠 Meanwhile Bubba started to cry, he probably thought that he would never see his grandfather again. Chop asked us multiple times and in a quite reproachful way, how we even could have forgot grandpa in the first place and while my husband got pretty defensive and even claimed that it could have happen to anyone, that people forget other people all the time, I didn´t said anything. I knew that there was simply no excuse for what we did. Of course, it was an accident, but an accident that shouldn´t have happened. Once everyone calmed down a bit (which took quite some time), we tried to decide what we should do now. Should we go to the police? The thing was that, because there was simply no way that grandpa rolled away with his wheelchair by himself, we had to consider the possibility that someone had kidnapped him, even though it seemed very unlikely that someone would kidnap an old man. But still, the possibility was there and due to the circumstances, it was maybe one of the most plausible explanations. When we talked about this, Chop got suddenly very excited and said: “It - it must ha - have been the aliens! The al - aliens have abducted him!” He smiles like this was the most amazing thing ever, while the rest of us just rolled their eyes. We were so used to Chop´s endless speeches about stranger life forms in the universe, that none of us even listened anymore when he was talking about this topic again, but right now it was pretty annoying and Drayton had to smack him with the broom to make him stop, even though it didn´t lasted for long, because after a short moment he started to talk about it again.😩

After discussing for a while, we all agreed that we should firstly go and search for grandpa on our own again, before we would contact the police. We still had the hope, that maybe me and Nubbins had just searched at the wrong spot and that grandpa was still outside there, sitting in his wheelchair and most likely not even aware that he was left behind and so we grabbed some flashlights and went outside. We decided to split and search in two groups. Drayton and Bubba went in one direction, while me, Nubbins and Chop (who was the only one who was willing to go with us) took the opposite way. We searched for almost two hours, but without any success. It was as if grandpa had simply disappeared and at some point, we had no other choice than to accept the fact that we wouldn´t find him, no matter how long we searched and so we went back home, exhausted, disappointed and pretty worried, but still with the slight hope that maybe the other two had more luck than we had.

They hadn´t, as we realized as soon as we met up with them again. Drayton, and Bubba had also couldn´t find grandpa and Chop was now talking about how this was only logical, because the aliens had abducted him,🛸 and therefore we would of course not be able to find him.🙄 He also said that we shouldn´t be too worried, because the aliens would most likely bring grandpa back to the earth at some point. “They - they always bring the peo - people they abducted ba - back.” he told us proudly, even though no one wanted to listen to him. In fact, he went on with this topic for quite some time, until Drayton smacked him again with the broom to finally shut him up. Then our broom man told us that he would go to the police in the morning, to report grandpa´s disappearing. He wasn´t very fond of the idea, but there was no other option. At this point, it seemed actually very possible that someone had kidnapped our oldest family member and no matter what Chop said, me and the rest of the family were pretty sure that it wasn´t the aliens. So it was simply unavoidable to contact the police, or so we thought.

It shouldn´t come to this, because the next morning something very unexpected happened. We had just finished our breakfast and Drayton was about to drive to the police department to report grandpa as missing. He had one of the pictures of grandpa that Nubbins took the day before with him, so the police officers would know what he looks like. But just when he wanted to leave the house, he suddenly stopped, standing right in the doorframe and called for the rest of us to come over to him. When we did, we couldn´t believe our eyes.👀 There was our beloved grandpa, sitting in his wheelchair👨‍🦽 just in front of the porch steps, like he was never gone in the first place. After staring at him in shock for a moment, we all hurried over to greet him and to make sure that he was alright, Bubba ahead. The youngest Sawyer was so happy to have his grandpa back, that he almost started to cry again, while he kissed the old man´s forehead and simultaneously stroked his shoulder. Meanwhile, Chop got very excited, because he was now absolutely convinced that he was right about his alien abduction theory. “See, I was rig - right, they brought him ba - back!” he said happily, before he started to ask grandpa a bunch of question. He wanted to know what it is like to be on board of a spaceship. If the aliens talked to grandpa and if so, what did they say? Also, did they say something about him? Maybe that they planned to abduct him next? Of course, grandpa didn´t answered any of these questions, but that didn´t kept Chop from asking him again and again, until Drayton gave him a hard smack with the broom and told him to stop bothering grandpa with this nonsense. Then he told me and Nubbins that we should apologize to grandpa, which of course resulted in only me apologizing (also on my husband´s behalf), because Nubbins never apologizes for anything, not even for forgetting his grandfather all alone outside.😅 I´m not sure if grandpa accepted my apology, because he showed absolutely no reaction (most likely he didn´t even noticed that I was talking to him in the first place.😞) But it doesn´t mattered. The only thing that´s really important is that we´ve got our grandpa back, cause even though there´s not much we can actually do with him, even though it is not possible to have a actual conversation with him, our life wouldn´t be the same without him.

We don´t know how he came back to us and most likely, we will never know. Chop is still convinced that the aliens brought him back. I think it must have been some nice person who, for some reason, prefered to stay anonym, but whoever it was, I think I can speak on behalf of the whole family, when I say that we are more than grateful to them, because of what they did.

Also, after this whole incident, Drayton established a new rule, which only applies to me and Nubbins. It´s the no - walks - with - grandpa - rule. It says that we are not allowed to take grandpa on a walk, unless another family member accompanies us. It´s a bit sad, because I really liked the walks with the old man, but considering what happened the last time, I have to admit that maybe it´s best that way.😔

#grandpa sawyer #nubbins sawyer #chop top sawyer #drayton sawyer #bubba sawyer #texas chainsaw massacre #domestic fantasies #self insert

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