Da Beers!

Da Beers!

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

New birder movie?

IMDB suggests there's a new movie about birding on the horizon.  At least in Canada.

It stars the always enjoyable Graham Greene and Fred Willard.  

The plot summary says: "A mild mannered birder seeks revenge on a younger rival, after losing the highly coveted Head of Ornithology position at the National Park"

Hmm.  Birder on birder action?  Sounds like a typical day in ever-collegial San Diego!

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Laysan Albatross in Anza-Borrego Desert

From Philip Unitt of our great San Diego Natural History Museum, via SDBirds (membership required):
On 26 June, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park ranger Steve Bier found the remains of a Laysan Albatross near the confluence of Fish Creek and Lycium washes in the Split Mountain area of the park. Bob Thériault brought it to the San Diego Natural History Museum last Wednesday. A predator had evidently scavenged the carcass, but it left the head neck, wings, feet, sternum, coracoids, furcula, and scapulae, as well as some chunks of feathers. So there is ample preservable material to attest to the identification, and I have catalogued the specimen as SDNHM 53922. Steve had last been in the area on 21 June and had not seen the carcass then, so it may have come down shortly after that date. The remaining skin was quite dry, but how long would a scavenged carcass take to reach that stage in temperatures that reached 121° F?

This is at least the 10th occurrence of the Laysan Albatross in SE California/SW Arizona, all in late spring/early summer. Two of the previous reports are for the Anza-Borrego Desert (Blair Valley, Coyote Creek), but this is the first for which the identification can be verified independently. It’s inferred that these albatrosses are moving north from the Gulf of California, although to my knowledge no migration of the Laysan Albatrosses has been described that would account for the concentration of occurrences at this season.


I can just see the albatross cruising over the Anza-Borrego Desert, looking down, and saying “Fish Creek?! I was duped!”

Thanks to Steve and Bob for recovering this remarkable specimen and getting it to the museum!
That's pretty cool.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Craft brewer saturation?

A recent article at Time on-line suggests that we may be reaching in America a point of craft-beer saturation.  Are Time's concerns premature?  

Here in San Diego County in California, we sure seem to have a bad case of irrational exuberance when it comes to opening new craft breweries.  That trend seems to have been further encouraged by a fast-growing industry involving brewery tours patronized by customers who don’t seem to know a whole lot about beer, but who are always looking for a new way to kill a weekend afternoon that'll make them seem cooler and hipper at work come Monday morning (i.e., not just wandering the mega-mall with all the other Zekes).

Based on that evidence alone I’d say, yes, we may already have surpassed market saturation.  In my book, the only worthwhile market entry in San Diego County over the past year has been BNS in Santee, California.  And half BNS’s attention will be paid to distilled spirits!

However, consider that the last “peak” in numbers of American breweries appears to have been the year 1870, when 3,286 breweries produced an average of 2,009 barrels (which are amazingly accurate numbers for a time of such generally poor record-keeping!).  See Stack, Martin. "A Concise History of America's Brewing Industry". EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. July 4, 2003. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/stack.brewing.industry.history.us (citing data from the United States Brewers Association, 1979 Brewers Almanac, Washington DC: 12-13).

By 1980, the number of American breweries had shrunk to a mere 101.  Although per capita beer consumption had grown over the century from just 5.3 gallons annually in 1870, to a whopping  23.1 gallons annually in 1980!

Granted, in 1870 there was no Anheuser-Busch, Miller-Coors, or Pabst Brewing – at least not on their current scale.  And those mega-brewers still dominate the brewing market in America.

Still, if we start with the 1870 numbers, and scale up for per capita consumption increases, and also scale up for population increases, we see that America in 2013 could conceivably support as many as 114,650 breweries.  That’s a far cry from the current national stock of 2,500 craft breweries reported by Time.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Personal Grooming Products May Be Harming Great Lakes Marine Life

Scientific American reports that three of the Great Lakes—Huron, Superior and Erie—are awash in plastic. But it's not the work of a Christo-like landscape artist covering the waterfront. Rather, small plastic beads, known as micro plastic, are the offenders, according to survey results to be published this summer in Marine Pollution Bulletin. 

Where does all this plastic come from?  Turns out some cosmetics manufacturers use these micro beads, or micro exfoliates, as abrasives in facial and body scrubs. 

These particles are too small for water treatment plants to filter, so they wash down the drain and into the Great Lakes. 

The biggest worry: fish such as yellow perch or turtles and gulls think of them as dinner. If fish or birds eat the inert beads, the material can deprive them of nutrients from real food or get lodged in their stomachs or intestines, blocking digestive systems.  

These wee bits of plastic, essentially "solid oil," also absorb chemicals "like a sponge."  The pollutants can remain in the environment for more than 50 years and can accumulate in fish and other organisms, proceeding up the food chain on ingestion by other species (e.g., humans) where they can cause DNA damage, which, in turn, can lead to cancer or physiological impairment.

This doesn't mean people should stop washing.  Some folks are pleading the case with cosmetics manufacturers to simply replace the plastic micro beads with natural exfoliating materials, such as pumice, oatmeal, apricot or walnut husks, that cosmetics companies like Burt's Bees or St. Ives already employ in their products.


The Body Shop and L'Oreal have already announced discontinuation of plastic micro beads in their facial and body cleansers, and Johnson & Johnson has just announced it will cease using micro beads in all of its products. Unilever has also announced that it will stop using micro beads by 2015. 


That leaves Proctor & Gamble.  But with more than $80 billion in annual sales, P&G is a very glaring exception to an otherwise hopeful trend.

And with a ~50-year environmental lifespan, it would always be better if we didn't do these things in the first place, yes?