The Albatross and the Mouse

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(November 17, 2019. Photo credit: Forest and Kim Starr) To understand the story of the albatross and the mouse, you need to understand the story of Pacific atolls. And of Wieteke Holthuijzen, a master’s student at Northern Illinois University. If you want to pronounce that name, try Vee-ti-kuh Holt-high-zen. Piece of Dutch cake. Anyway, I get pitched by PR types a lot. But when I received an email that contained the words “albatross,” “mice,” “Northern Illinois University” and “Midway Atoll,” I said, “You had me at ‘albatross.'”

An atoll, “sometimes called a coral atoll, is a ring-shaped coral reef including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely,” according to Wikipedia.

NIU’s own newspaper has more about Wieteke’s work.

A biological sciences graduate fellow at NIU, Holthuijzen may spend her time these days in a lab, but she’s never really far from Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.

One of the most remote atolls in the world, Midway lies at the far end of the extensive Northwest Hawaiian Islands. It’s perhaps best known as the historic site of The Battle of Midway, where the United States Navy successfully defended the land from a Japanese invasion in 1942 during World War II.

But these days, to Holthuijzen and other stewards of the environment, it’s one of the most critical areas for biological conservation in the world.

It’s home to the world’s biggest colony of albatross, large endangered seabirds often called “gooney birds.”

On a blog post for Island Conservation, which is a partner in her work, she writes about how house mice and black rats were introduced to this paradise during World War II. The black rats were eradicated in 1996, but the mice remained. And, suddenly, in 2015, deployed cameras revealed

something unexpected, a nasty night-time surprise of house mice (Mus musculus) swarming over Midway’s most iconic and beloved wildlife species—Laysan Albatross. Not having evolved with aggressive mammalian predators, albatrosses lack a defense mechanism to this type of attack. Albatrosses tried to shake off the predatory mice, but most would remain steadfast on their nest while others abandoned their egg after repeat attacks, and some albatrosses even died on their nest. Coupled with their unyielding devotion to their egg and a slow cycle of reproduction, any losses could have cascading effects on the population for years to come.

Those attacks increased the following year. Left with no alternative, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which assumed control of the atoll in 1996, implemented control methods, which were largely successful. However, they realized that the only permanent solution was to eradicate the mice, much as the rats were removed twenty years ago.

But it doesn’t explain why the mice, which have been around for decades, suddenly started attacking the albatross.  Holthuijzen speculates on this development.

There are lots of different ideas behind this Midway mouse mystery, most of which revolve around landscape-level changes in habitat, food availability, and weather anomalies. Golden crownbeard (Verbesina encelioides)—an invasive species from the sunflower (Asteraceae) family—once covered upwards of 70% of Midway’s islands but now is virtually absent since control efforts started in 2011. Some think that golden crownbeard might be an important food resource for mice; others think that when golden crownbeard was abundant and formed dense stands, the plants might have supported a thriving population of insects—tasty morsels for hungry mice. So, as field technicians and volunteers sprayed and pulled golden crownbeard, the weed became scarcer and scarcer—and perhaps, too, food resources for mice. And when food became especially uncommon during the winter months, mice may have switched to a new and widely available food source: albatross. It’s certainly not unheard of, similar and shocking phenomena have been observed on Gough and Marion Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean, with predatory mice targeting seabirds when food plummets during the winter.

Whatever the reason, it’s a fascinating story, and we’re delighted that Wieteke Holthuijzen joins us in the WCGO studios this morning.

The complicated passage to solar energy in Illinois

Clean energy development is just one of the environmental issues we discuss on The Mike Nowak Show with Peggy Malecki. And one of our go-to people is Lisa Albrecht. For long-time followers of this show, she was a co-host when we were on progresso radio down the dial. Since then, she has started her own company, All Bright Solar, which focuses on residential and small commercial, ensuring that solar energy is affordable. And she has been an occasional contributor to our show at WCGO.

Lisa is back today, to talk about the future of solar–and other renewable energy–in Illinois. The door to a lot of this was opened in 2016 with the passage of the Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA). As we approach the end of 2019, however, as the Sun-Times reports, there are a few problems.

• To reach the goal of 25 percent of renewable energy by 2025, the state should hit about 17.5 percent by the end of next year. Yet it looks like that percentage will be more like 7 percent. More investment is needed in renewable energy.

• The biggest emitter of carbon is transportation, primarily automobiles and trucks. Illinois needs to build up its infrastructure of charging stations, which would encourage people to buy electric vehicles.

• Solar and wind energy companies that have come to Illinois or expanded their operations fear they might have to scale back or move out of state if FEJA is not updated.

Lisa Albrecht says that a bill called The Path to 100, which is supported by the Illinois Solar Energy Association (ISEA), among others, could help solve the problem. She says it would

• Provide adequate funding to meet existing policy requirements
• Avoid boom and bust by establishing stable policy for continued job growth
• Allow shovel-ready renewable energy projects to move forward
• Expand Illinois’ Renewable Portfolio Standard to 40% by 2030
• Create an estimated 21,000 new jobs, $2.8 billion in new property taxes over 20 years, $1.95 billion in landowner payments over 20 years
• Create electric bills savings for community solar and distributed solar customers
• Expand successful programs encouraging a diverse and equitable workforce

There is also another proposal, called the Clean Energy Jobs Act, but neither seems likely to move forward right now.

Lisa joins us on the show today, and we will also discuss the many players that have entered the Illinois energy market. Some are good and some are not-so-good, and we hope to be able to help you tell the difference in energy suppliers.