This is my summer to learn much from the natural world. In Alaska, I learned that a mother brown bear can deliver three cubs from three different fathers at the same time! She just decides to hold each zygote until she determines there are enough and then she implants the zygote from each in her womb and–VOILA! Three cubs emerge. Likewise, if she senses there is a food shortage, she can spontaneously eject the zygote and bear no cubs that season.
Ummm… if only humans had that ability.
At a time when climate change and polluted air is all our concern, consider the lowly oyster. A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water each day. That makes an oyster bar a vital component of our coastal estuaries. Sadly, oysters are declining from over-harvesting and poor water conditions.
Enter Yamaha Rightwaters and Toadfish, manufacturers of eco-friendly fishing products. Yamaha supports the Billion Oyster Project in New York to replant oysters in the Hudson River as well as a citizen-science oyster-seeding initiative in Texas. Volunteers collect and bag shells and place them where oysters are in decline. The shells attract oyster larvae floating in the water and eventually, a living reef is formed.
Who knew? Let me know what lessons you learn from nature this summer.