In Darwin’s Footsteps – Birds, The Galapagos and Evolution

My family travelled to the Galapagos in 2010. We hoped to return but that may not happen.

So, today we’ll travel to the Eastern Pacific Island group in our memory aided by our photos and a short piece I wrote for Empty Nest magazine.

As you know, these remote islands gained fame as a result of a visit by British naturalist Charles Darwin in September and October of 1835.

Finches

After landing at Seymour Airport (GPS) on Baltra Island, following a nine hundred kilometre, two hour plus flight from Quito, our attention was drawn to several nondescript birds just outside the terminal .

“They are some of Darwin’s finches,” Chris Eckert, a biology professor from Queen’s University in Kingston told us back in February 2010.  Chris was along as a resource person for our expedition. “This is the mecca for evolutionary studies,” he enthused. 

There are 17 different types of finches (cactus finches) on the Galapagos.  These finches have different beaks, depending on which island the reside.  That demonstrates they have adapted to different types of food.  They’ve changed over time through natural selection.

Darwin’s analysis took many years.  He turned his bird specimens over to ornithologist John Gould.  Soon Gould delivered the “unexpected and startling news” that the finches “belonged to a new group of birds previously unknown and found only in the Galapagos,”  

Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 twenty-four years after visiting the Galapagos on his five-year journey. There was, of course, pushback from the scientific community. Perhaps surprisingly, there wasn’t significant opposition from UK Christian Church community.

More recently, in 2005, Dr. Eckert noted that: “even though the theory of evolution dominates academia, 47 per cent of Americans are creationists, and creation science is taught in 15-20 per cent of U.S. schools? How about the fact that 40 per cent of Americans believe human beings were formed in the exact state we are now, or that 52 percent believe dinosaurs co-existed with humans?”

Hmm!

Back to our trip.  Shortly after we boarded the M/V Santa Cruz and in the coming days visited several other unique Galapagos Islands. North Seymour, for example, featured blue footed boobies (below) and frigate birds.

The Galapagos, a province of Ecuador, and is made up of 18 main islands. Ecuador is a poor country so that it is remarkable that decision makers and environmentalists are invested in protecting the sustainability of the islands in a way that I wish we could do here. 

One way they do this is by limiting the number of visitors and requiring they be accompanied by a local guide. The year we travelled just 80,000 visitors were permitted.  In 2023, a record-breaking nearly 330,000 tourists explored the islands.  Concerns have been expressed with this escalation. 

What’s Going on with those Eastern Island Tomato Plants?

In the last month new research has put forward the idea that some tomatoes in the Galápagos actually seem to be going backwards, not forwards in evolutionary terms Call it De-evolution, or reverse evolution,

“It’s not something we usually expect,” Adam Jozwiak, a molecular biochemist at UC Riverside and lead author of a study said.  “But here it is, happening in real time, on a volcanic island,” he told Newsweek magazine.  Tomato plants on westerly warmer islands don’t seem to be experiencing this change.

It isn’t a concept that easy to explain.  The theory is that modern tomatoes and other plants all make use of alkaloids. These tomatoes seem to be making the wrong alkaloids. 

“Instead of creating the alkaloids that the researchers expected to see in a tomato, the de-evolving plants are churning out a version of alkaloids that have the same molecular fingerprint as eggplant relatives from millions of years ago,” Newsweek reported.

It is hard to say whether devolving tomatoes are a good thing, a bad thing or just a new challenge to further understanding of evolution. *

Most visitors come to the Islands to see the unique wildlife, like blue-footed boobies and marine iguanas, that you can’t find anywhere else.  Al Purdy visited around 1980.  He must have gone to North Seymour as you can imagine from the ending of his poem Birdwatching at the Equator.  

                                           The blue booby’s own capsule

                                                          comment about evolution:

                                                          If God won’t do it for you

                                                          do it yourself: 

                                                          stand up

                                                          sit down

                                                          make love

                                                          have sone babies

                                                          catch fish

                                                          dance sometimes

                                                         admire your feet

                                                         friggit:

                                                         what else is there?

*A good description of the de-evolving tomatoes can be found at Scientists Stunned As Tomatoes “De-Evolve” in the Galapagos

It’s Climate Change, Stupid

Evacuations brought on by wild fires out west find me recalling when my family was forced out of our home by the Mississauga Train derailment in 1979.  

On November 10th our bedroom lit up like a 24th of May aerial fireworks display.
From a second floor we could see flames. They were coming from the Clarkson Go Station about a half mile away, we thought. In fact, the fire originated due to a derailment that had just taken place on Mavis Rd. at Dundas Street about 8 kilometres as the crow flies from our home.

Later we learned that an east bound CP Rail Train carrying hazardous chemicals (Of most concern was liquid chlorine.) derailed and caught fire.  The derailment and fire were caused by a failure of the lubricating system. 

What followed was a mass evacuation of 240,000 residents from an area stretching from east-end Oakville to west-end Etobicoke. Three hospitals were evacuated.  

There were no deaths and apparently only one injury.  Mayor Hazel McCallion sprained her ankle overseeing the City’s response and was carried into a meeting by a city official - a great photo-op for the Mississauga rookie mayor that undoubtedly contributed to her political longevity. Her worship was re-elected eleven times until retiring in 2014.

As for us we were out of our home.  For many that evacuation lasted six days.  We sneaked in earlier after lasting three days with in-laws.  I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that living with family for those few days was quite disruptive.  A temporary relocation was a great inconvenience. But, of course, nothing like what many across Canada are experiencing right now.

Western Canada on Fire

The number of Canadians displaced by wildfires this spring is a moving target. As I write, the estimate is in excess of 20,000 and climbing.  A few examples:

Pelican Narrows Saskatchewan, a town of 2,000, was evacuated on May 28th.

Across the border in Flin Flon that city’s 5,000 residents had to leave that day as well.  Reports indicate no “assets” have been lost in Flin Flon, so far.

Denaire Beach (only 22 kilometres south west from that northwestern Manitoba city) was not so lucky.  On Monday this week half the town burned.  

Three hours drive to the west (under normal conditions), La Ronge Saskatchewan, a town of 2,600 north of Prince Alberta, was evacuated. 

"There were lineups and lineups of people at all the gas stations in La Ronge. It was actually quite a scary thing," Tom Roberts told CBC's Morning Edition.

After travelling about 40 kilometres south Roberts was stopped by RCMP and firefighters.

"We sat there for two hours waiting for an opening in the fire. The fire was going just all over the road just south of there."

Apparently, the smoke was so thick at one part of his journey that it was impossible to tell where he was, but kept remembering what the firefighters and RCMP had told him: "Don't stop, just keep going."

Yesterday, Ruth Bonneville from the Winnipeg Free Press reported that hundreds of wildfire evacuees were expected to fly to Ontario Tuesday, where a third-party organization has arranged for them to stay in hotel rooms. 

A security and evacuation support service firm called Xpera (Who knew there was such an organization?)  had already organized flights for 793 evacuees who are already staying in Niagara Falls. As many as 800 additional evacuees were expected to make the journey on Tuesday. 

What Now?

The year 2023 was a bad one for wildfires.  This year might be worse. The future looks bleak.  Natural Resources Canada estimates that fire-suppression costs could double by 2040 as Canada attempts to keep up with the worsening risk.

On Sunday Lori Daniels, a wildfire Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), was interviewed on CBC’s Sunday Magazine. 

“We know that climate change is one of the drivers of (the wildfires). It is bringing to us earlier springs that dry out the forest early making them more susceptible as we are seeing this year.”

We’re victims of our success at putting out fires, notes professor Daniels. There has been an unintended consequence of this success. It is called the fire suppression paradox. We have actually added to uniformity of the forest by allowing fuel to accumulate.
 
Reponses to wildfires must be more coordinated.  But governments must be proactive in the off season as well, Daniels asserts. Unfortunately. government leaders are talking a different language.

In the midst of the wildfires Prime Minister Carney and the Premiers met in Saskatchewan this week and came together around the concept of decarbonization.  Unity is nice.  We need more of it.  However, decarbonization would appear to be more political jargon rather than a proven scientific fact.  

“There is no such thing as decarbonized oil and gas,” says Simon Donne a Climate Scientist at UBC and Scientist Co-chair of the government’s Net Zero Advisory Body.

Indeed.   We need to tell our politicians to get serious about climate change.  That means leaving gas and oil in the ground.  Lives depend on it.    

Jackie Robinson - April 15th

Spring is here and the Major League Baseball (MLB) season has begun.

In 2004 a special day was launched to honour Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s colour barrier in 1947.  On April 15^th every major league player and umpire wears the number #42.

 Other than Robinson himself, Branch Rickey, a baseball executive, was the person most responsible for that breakthrough. I read about Rickey in Pulitzer Prize Columnist Jimmy Breslin’s last published book Branch Rickey.  Breslin’s book took a lot from Arthur Mann’s earlier work on Rickey that had formed the basis of The Jackie Robinson Story, a 1950 film (starring Robinson himself and Sandra Dee).

Robinson was some athlete. It is arguable that baseball wasn’t even his best sport.  In his rookie season on July 26^th at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field he stole home and hit a home run.  Achieving that feat in the same game is perhaps a good indicator of his athleticism.  In his rookie season with the Dodgers he had a .297 batting average, an on base percentage of .383, twenty-nine stolen bases and twelve home runs.  He retired with a lifetime .311 batting average and a 409 OBP. 

1956 World Series.  Robinson stole home. 

I have vague memories of Robinson at the end of his career but certainly didn’t fully appreciate what he had to endure in order to break into the league and then excel over 10 seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Rickey and Robinson faced incredible bigotry.  Significant portions of white America at large, sportswriters and the other owners weren’t interested in change.

MacPhail Report 

The owners, for example, issued a statement in the summer of 1946, the year that Robinson was tearing up the International League playing second base with the Montreal Royals. 

"Certain groups in this country including political and social-minded drumbeaters, are conducting pressure campaigns in an attempt to force major league clubs to sign Negro players. Members of these groups are not primarily interested in Professional Baseball. They are not campaigning to provide a better opportunity for thousands of Negro boys who want to play baseball. . .. They know little about baseball -- and nothing about the business end of its operation. They single out Professional Baseball for attack because it offers a good publicity medium…."Signing a few Negro players for the major leagues would be a gesture -- but it would contribute little or nothing towards a solution of the real problem."

The report went on to say:

"A major league player must have something besides great natural ability. He must possess the technique, the coordination, the competitive attitude, and the discipline, which is usually acquired only after years of seasoning in the minor leagues

That required seven years in the minor leagues, according to the owners.

“The young Negro player never has had a good chance in baseball. Comparatively few good young Negro players are being developed. This is the reason there are not more players who meet major league standards in the Negro Leagues."

Fifteen of sixteen owners voted for this declaration.  Rickey’s was the only opposition.  I guess you could call him a social-minded drumbeater.

This particular statement the owners issued was in response to the Ives-Quinn Act of 1945.  Sponsored by the New York Republican Irving Ives, it was the first state law to prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin. Rickey, a Republican, had lobbied hard for this legislation.  Its passage meant that the Dodger boss had the legal backing to bring Robinson up to the majors.

 Rickey earned a law degree, practiced for a day or so before returning to his alma mater to coach baseball.  And baseball was where he stayed. Branch Rickey invented the baseball farm system changing the “look of baseball long before he ever heard of Jackie Robinson.”

 Rickey understood better than anyone that there was a business case for Negro League players to play in the major leagues.

 He did a great thing in American life, says Breslin.  Later in the McCarthy era, together with Robinson, he got caught up in attacking actor/singer Paul Robeson’s alleged communist views and later threw in with Richard Nixon. Breslin would have told them that “the wise shoemaker sticks to his trade and maintains a mouth filled with nails.”

 Rickey argued that, “ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game.” 

 That was a tough case to make and he made it.  It would seem though that case still needs to be made. Afro-American participation in the national pastime has declined. After reaching its peak in 1991 when 18% of big leaguers were black now only 7% are.   There are many reasons suspected for the decline but lack of access to facilites and rising costs of registration are two barriers often cited.

 On the other hand, stats from the seven Negro leagues have recently been merged with  

Baseball’s historical records - “long overdue” say MLB officials.  Josh Gibson, who played in the Negro Leagues mainly from the Homestead Grays, has replaced Ty Cobb as the greatest hitter.  Cobb’s great grandson approved calling the development “exciting.”

Not sure what his great grandfather, the Georgia Peach, would have thought.

 In 1952 he told the Sporting News that “The n**** has the right to compete in sports and who’s to say they have not?”

 Baseball – its the American Pastime.

Seniors Say, “Let’s Get Serious about Climate Breakdown”

I'm a member of a group called Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN!).

We have strong feelings about the provincial election that is underway in Ontario.  

The climate crisis is here. It’s costing us money. The cost of living is skyrocketing. rent food heating and cooling insurance 

What’s the link to climate breakdown?

Let’s Get Serious about Climate Breakdown.  We can’t afford Ford. Later is too late for the climate.

Here is one of a number of leaflets we have produced related to the election.

Check out Fossil Fuels are Costing You Money We need cheap, reliable energy · Wind and solar are cheaper than gas. Ford chooses gas and subsidizes their companies. · Wind and solar are much cheaper than nuclear. Ford chooses nuclear. Ford’s climate policies mean we

February 10/25