LSP Environmental Studies Community Event Reports

     Well, this past Wednesday, (October 15th) I decided to go to the Bronx Zoo. Not only do I love the zoo, it is suggested donation on Wednesdays and who can say no to a $1 zoo trip? Not me, that’s for sure. So anyway, I got there at about 2 PM after a riveting trip aboard the 5 train. The tone of this event I guess would be nature appreciation but really, it was just a trip to the zoo.
     I set out camera in hand, actually, in bag, but whatever the case the zoo was my oyster for the day. After giving my generous donation to the ticket office I strolled into the zoo to plot a route, a journey, through the expanse that is the Bronx Zoo. And what did I see immediately after examining the zoo’s map? Wildlife!

Here we have a common pigeon walking around a heavily pine-coned area just outside the “Wild Asia/Camel Riding” section. A true marvel of the natural world, this specimen seemed to have escaped its designated location and repopulated all over the park – odd.
     I went from section to section with assorted groups of middle-schoolers trying my best to not take pictures of them and escape the wrath of the omnipresent chaperones. My first stop after the giant Indiana Jones gate thing

was an oddly quarantined bird exhibit of the Waldrapp. The Waldrapp almost went extinct and now has a population of a little more than 400 within the world’s zoos and even less than that in the wild. These creatures, apparently ½ turkey, ½ vulture, and all ugly, were in a prohibitively small space, which seemed to be a recurring theme throughout my trip to the zoo. I am all for interanimal interaction, more death at the zoo would undoubtedly bring in the crowds, or at least shift the average age from around four to maybe, I don’t know… seven?
     “JungleWorld” and some monorail followed the exhibit of the ugliest bird that humans haven’t seemed to kill yet. “JungleWorld” although enticing with its ever-present Malarial odor, was an indoor exhibit so that station was skipped and the monorail you had to pay for so you can probably guess what happened there.
     Onwards and upwards.
     My journey through the oasis that is the Bronx Zoo next took me to the “Africa Trail” – a panoply of fantastically fatal, but still charmingly cute animals:

Here we have the Indian Peafowl, and according to the sign, Peacocks do not mind the New York winter, which is good to know because this very bird above was thrown into my bag immediately after this picture was taken and made into a winter coat for yours truly. JUST KIDDING, I look terrible in blue.
     There were multiple animals in with the Indian Peafowl, namely the Nyala (a deer-like animal) so seeing them interact made this exhibit much more interesting. After almost getting pecked to death by another Peafowl while taking pictures of this lovely dame I decided to make my way to a tamer and more civilized animal, the lion. It turns out that lions are pretty boring in the zoo – lots of yawning and rolling around little roaring and mauling. But, here are some facts I learned: Male lions leave the pride at age three while females tend to stay with their “natal pride” their entire lives, females have anywhere between one and nine cubs, and the average lifespan is fifteen to twenty years. Yay lions!
     After the lions failed to do much of anything for ten minutes despite my jeers and continued offerings of preschoolers I decided to move on to the baboons. The baboons were also up to literally, no good, so I was forced to read a sign about them. I read a really enlightening sign about the rare animals in Ethiopia; it turns out that the topography creates “isolated pockets of habitat” so the animals have evolved and changed within these microcosms – pretty cool. The zoo had also posted the requisite facts and bits of information below the viewing window but to my surprise, and disgust, they had also created a fairly large sign about tracking the signs of baboon pregnancy, urine samples and all; that was about enough baboon information for me so I trekked onwards.
     After almost vomiting while reading about baboon pregnancy I decided it was time for a change of scenery and what better than … THE WORLD OF DARKNESS!!! AHHHH!!

     This place was really cool. I learned that most of the action on earth occurs at night. That came out wrong. I mean most of the creatures on earth are nocturnal. This exhibit was jam-packed with deadly animals and facts like this: all scorpions glow in ultraviolet light. Yup, true. You just learned, deadly. So yeah, there were a fair share of unmoving and therefore unexciting things like frogs but there was also a bat cave that was verging on scary, bats cannot seem to make up their mind as to their purpose so they just fly all over the place, kind of like my writing. After my eyes had adjusted and I stopped walking into and knocking over little kids I decided the fun was over and went outside. The next stop: bears!
     Bears, like most big animals at this zoo, are boring.
     Next.
     Next, was the turtle pond. This was actually the most moving part of the trip for me. The pond was full of trash.

I could not help but be disappointed in this, at a zoo of all places. Pitiful.
     I walked around a bit more at the zoo and I’d love to describe the remainder in person to you but I’ve already gone way too long with my description of the event so I must move on.
     This event was both familiar and new to me because, although I had been to many zoos in my life I had never been to the Bronx Zoo. I learned lots of interesting facts about animals that I had no real knowledge of before. The community might benefit from my visit to the zoo because I am now even more conscious of how fragile the environment is. As for further interest, I don’t really see myself feeding monkeys although it did look fun, so I’m not sure that my visit had any direct effects on me aside bolstering my opinions and ideologies about the environment with more information. This event might have been more beneficial had I had a tour guide who could have walked me through the zoo and given me a deeper understanding of each species in the ecosystem as opposed to the basic information stated on the placards. The image of the trash floating in the turtle pond will remain the poignant memory of the trip for me because that trash is something tangible that I can change right now and those changes with definite solutions are nice to have every now and then.
     Overall I thought the experience was fantastic. I loved walking around the zoo with all the younguns and just going where the breeze took me. I learned a bit and thought about the environment for a solid three hours so I’d say that it was a worthwhile and successful trip.

By: Melissa Aragon

While I was at home over break, I ventured down from Albuquerque to Carlsbad, New Mexico to see Carlsbad Caverns National Park. This was something I had done a few times before, once with my parents when we also visited White Sands National Park and the Atomic Museum in Alamogordo. This time I went to southern New Mexico with one purpose, and one purpose only, to see caves and bats.

The Drive from Albuquerque to Carlsbad is about a three and a half to four hour drive, depending on traffic (it was about five hours on the way back because of traffic in Albuquerque). The drive from Carlsbad to the park is another hour and a half. The actual time I spent in the cave was about four hours, from 9:00am-1:00pm.

The Park itself is situated on a very tall hill, or a very small mountain depending on how one looks at it. Upon entering the actual park, it’s about a half an hour drive from the base to the top, where the welcome center and all attractions are located. Right before the park entrance, I saw laid out alongside the road a few buildings, basically an overpriced gas station and a plaza with a gift shop. I drove through the gates welcoming me to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I thought to myself how excited I was that we were finally there, but little did I know about the long drive up to the top. We winded up this mountain, yes, I would call it a mountain, until we reached our destination.

I went with the intention of seeing the bat flight the evening before I went into the cave, but it was rained out, and I did not get to make it to the amphitheater. Those raindrops were huge- and not by New Mexico standards, either. The drive up the mountain into the greeting center and the path towards the amphitheater to see the bat flight had the densest fog I had ever driven in. Come to think of it, it was the only fog I had driven in. With visibility at what seemed of only five feet ahead, I left the greeting center, which never officially canceled the viewing- I mean, they could never tell the bats “NO,” but as I talked to people in my tour group the next day, the rain only got worse and it made for a less than enjoyable bat flight- with the park ranger less than enthused about speaking to a small group of huddled umbrellas.

I started out early the next morning, and with a long drive ahead of me, and a less than optimistic view of what the Carlsbad Caverns were, overrated and not worth the drive. Day two was definitely a much more productive day. I arrived at the Caverns around 9:00am and was in the depths of the cavern by half after. I had the option of taking the ‘original route,’ in which one enters the way the first group of explorers did, through a steep and narrow path about a mile and a half long. I chose instead to take the path more traveled- the approximately two minute elevator ride. We descended over 700 feet, and were still far above sea level, even at the lowest part of the cave.

I first took a self-guided tour around the Big Room, where there were placards spaced out, describing possible theories as to cave formation, information of preservation, chemical makeup and descriptions of stalagmites and stalactites. The one and a half mile path of the Big Room took about an hour, and after wandering through the cave in as near authentic silence that I could get in a National Park, it was time for the guided tour I bought earlier that morning to start.

I left the Big room and met my tour guide, along with about 30 other people of my tour. While the tour guide was waiting for everyone to show up, he asked us all where we were from, and in our tour alone we had people who had traveled from as far as Taiwan and Germany. I would never had thought of New Mexico, let alone the small town of Carlsbad, which takes about fifteen minutes to drive through, and is surrounded by desert, would be a place worth traveling 7000 miles or more for, but this was one of those times when I was proven wrong.

Before taking us through the guided section of the cave, our park ranger gave us two explanations as to how this cavern was formed millions of years ago. One explanation was that sulfuric acid, which came from below slowly rose to where we were, dissolving large pieces of rock, and leaving the large cavern we see today. Our tour guide described how he had tried an experiment in which he dropped either sulfuric acid, or hydrochloric acid (I can’t recall now) on a rock, and that within a week, signs of erosion and breakdown of the rock had occurred. He even had the rock with us, and showed us a dent in the rock, and he explained that that’s where he had been putting his chemical. Though the validity of his individual “experiment” may be doubted, the theory behind it seemed to be a credible one. Another theory was that the cavern was formed by dripping water. Slightly acidic water that trickles down onto rocks such as limestone has the power to erode it over time, and many geologists believe this, along with the prevalence of sulfuric acid is what formed the cavern we can see today.

We proceeded through the tour, and at one point we were shown a large room in which, during a time when cave preservation was not as an important issue is it is now, senate meetings were held, and even the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth was filmed, and a wedding and reception that took place, completely flattening and sanding out the part of the cave the size of about two the size of Coles gym floor. The park ranger explained that the process to restore the effects will take thousands of years to recover, if it ever recovers at all.

The park ranger talked about all the ways the National Park Service tried to help preserve the cave, and in some instances ended up degrading some of it instead. He explained how the parking lot and welcome center were situated right over the cave, and how though this road allows visitors into park, the asphalt has completely stopped the ability for water to drip down into the cave from that area. Usually, he explained, ground water will trickle down into the cave, but because a large piece of asphalt does not let the water be absorbed, water cannot flow down and continue to create formations.

The tour ended with one last speech by the park ranger, one that I distinctly remember from my last trip to Carlsbad. He discussed problems that the park was having with the preservation of the cavern. There are new parts of the Cavern that are still being discovered and explored for the first time, and they are finding that the cave may extend past the park’s boarder. Recently, certain companies, as the ranger explained, have been building closer and closer to the parks boarders. One of these companies in particular have become very interested in drilling very close to the boarder, near where this cave lies, and Cavern preservationists are concerned that drilling could either disturb the rock around the cave, or actually puncture part of a cave that has not been mapped out yet, completely disturbing and even destroying the cave’s ecosystem. He ended the tour saying something along the lines of, “during this election, make sure you vote wisely, or else you may elect someone who will let this cave be destroyed.”

I took more from this trip than any other, as I actually paid attention to what the park ranger had to say. Taking this last trip made me realize that I come from a place where even a hole in the ground is something pretty special.