Eagle Cams, Human Connection with Nature, And the Robotic Future

As much as I would love to say that this podcast is my main source of income, it’s not, at least not right now. Currently, I work at your everyday, boring office where people get excited about the free coffee and being nose deep into their computers. Like most companies that foster the cubicle life, they tend to require you to change your password every few months.

I get the notion, but from a personal standpoint, not only does this totally screw with the seamlessness of things, it can just be a hassle for people like me who just don't have the drive to type in a password every single day. So, if there is an easier way to manage my days, you bet I am going to do it. To solve this "issue," my co-workers and I came up with the idea of playing looped YouTube videos to keep our screens active, so when we come in each day, we can just get right to it. But for me, I decided to play a live Kenai Alaska eagle cam, and it completely changed my naturistic views.

Watching Live Eagles

Watching live nature is very different from what you would see on the Discovery channel. You see, on TV, those documentaries cut out all the sad, scary, and heart pulling scenes that you can witness from a live cam. The stakes are high when watching real life, and it is something I suggest anyone doing if they want to see what nature is really like.

Some videos to check out:

·         Eaglet Falls Out of Fraser Point Nest (survived)

·         Big Bear Eagle (does not survive)

For the past couple of months now, I have been watching this eagle family (one eaglet and the mother), but just starting out, I was not exactly the ideal bird advocate. When I got involved, the mother, Aurora, was missing, and the baby was seemingly left to die as the father was already gone. She was missing for 22 hours, and I must say, everyone in the chat was freaking out. Me, being an instigator without the backstory (there once was two eaglets, one of which fell to their death), I posted a comment with a link to the song Mad World by Tears for Fears. At a time where people were getting banned from the group for saying negative things about the mother not coming back, I am still amazed they let me stay.  And I am glad they did because I have learned so much about eagles.

Eagle Facts:

·         Eagles use nesting material with antimicrobial agents to protect against insects and other adverse bacteria that can harm their babies.

·         While growing, babies have blood feathers. Blood in those hollow spots in their feathers keep pumping out cells for the feather to grow. Once they stop growing, the blood seeps away and seals off to become a solid feather.

·         The top human-made reason why eagles die is due to lead poisoning from bullets. When hunters big-game in Alaska, they carve the organs after hunting the animal, and the organ pile usually contains bullets, which the eagles eat. Most birds can pass the bullet, but eagles are able to digest them. This results in the lead circulating in their body and causing rapid death.

Myth 1: Humans are Separated from Nature

There is a movie called the Blade Runner, which is based on a book by Phillip k. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and these are both steamed from the idea that animals become endangered/extinct and are replaced with robots or fake animals to take their place. And it raises the question of, is fake the same or better than the real thing?

There was an application developed by King's College Ph.D. students called Urban Mind.  This app was a research project that measured the effects that urban and rural environments had on mental health. What they found was that the sound of birds alone made people much happier and upbeat than those who just stayed within the city boundaries. As humans, we tend to think we are above nature. We believe that we are separated from it, and that is a good thing. However, based on studies, the more connected we are to nature, the better out wellbeing is overall.

Myth 2: As Humans, We Set Our Own Schedule

Here I want to talk about blue light and how it affects our brains. The primary source of blue light was always from the sun, and it has a powerful way of programming our bodies to respond to that light. During the day, people tend to have boosted energy levels, better mood, are more alert and have better memory retention. In summary, the sun is what signals us that we should be up and about. In addition, the very color blue fosters creativity, which is why it is often used on software and platforms.

However, with the rise of technology and artificial blue light, it tends to do more harm than good. According to Harvard Health, prolonged exposure to blue light illuminating devices can affect your sleep, cause cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and throw off your body’s rhythm.

Myth 3: Politics Arguing About Nature and Global Events Is Foolish and Faulty

I am not going to get into the debates or display any projections here. I am going to focus on the facts, and the facts show that 37 countries from 1961 to 2017 that have experienced land loss due to rising waters. The place that had the most impact was St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, which shrunk 90 square kilometers, equating to about 34.7 square miles, since 1961.

Based on a New York Times article, there are currently 150 million people living on land that will be below water by the year 2050.

Final Thoughts

In the end, the mother bird did come back. She was having a hard time finding fish since the tide was out and ended up coming back with another bird. She was welcomed with open wings from her eaglet.

Phillip K. Dick imagined a world where animals were so rare, and nature was destroyed so severely that we desperately tried to restore our connection with animals through science. In his dream, and in Blade Runner, they forged a connection with fake animals to fill the void. If you think I am crazy about associating our world with fake animals, in 2019, Pokémon was the top-selling game, robot pets like the Japanese comfort seal are expected to become a marketing boom by 2023. Even robot dinosaurs are coming back and in new models.

Global warming may or may not have been caused by man, but 80% of people believe it is real. Though that is okay, that percentage should be at 100 because this topic should never have been a politicized issue in the first place.

As a final note, go out and find a connection with nature. Go on a hike, stream a live eagle cam, or maybe even buy a kitten like Todd just did. Just make sure you do it before all we have left are Pokémon and smart pets, as Phillip K. Dick inadvertently predicted for us.

Written by Todd Lemense presented by Joe Anthony