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t h e t h r e e - m i n u t e o u t d o o r s m a n 222 ficult. The authors point out that swifts might have encountered DDT on their wintering grounds, where it was used much longer than in the United States, and not obtained it from local insects. Habitat loss may also have contributed to the decline of these birds. Alternatively, their numbers may have been depressed so far that it will take a longer time for them to recover. However, this assumes that beetle populations will reach sufficient densities to support populations of swifts as large as they once were. We have no reason to expect that effects of DDT were limited to birds that forage “on the wing.” The study of swifts teaches us a poignant lesson about the long-term effects of chemicals that we use to control our environment. Nocera and colleagues provide a good reminder to all of us who care about the environment that being good stewards of the land and water requires vigilance, care, and continual scientific input. Even I am amused, however, by what scientists can do when given enough guano. 58 shake, rattle, and spray, doggie style My English setter is great at finding birds and holding a point. I once watched a bird walk under him at a game farm, and he didn’t break point. He once pointed a wounded, but live, bird under four inches of snow with no visible signs that anything was there. When I hand signal to him to search for birds in places he doesn’t naturally head, he looks at me as if to say, “If you know where the birds are, why do you need a dog?” There is one thing my setter doesn’t like, and that’s water. He’s afraid of thunder (even from a stereo) and rain, and he will cross a stream only under the most dire threats. I’ve never bothered to send him on a water retrieve. One exception to his dislike of water is the kiddie pool at my local hunt club, in which on a warm day he loves to plop down to cool off. But then his expertise A N I M A L I N T E L L I G E N C E 223 with water shows up again when he stands up and shakes, still in the pool, and then lies down again. And, of course, we all have noticed that despite a nearly infinite number of places dogs can go to politely shake themselves dry, they prefer to shake themselves off as close to us as possible. I’m not sure why they feel compelled to share this moment. Maybe they’re wondering why you didn’t get in the pool too, and just want to share. I’d never really thought about the process of dogs shaking water out of their fur. It seems instinctive and just one of the things that dogs do. But after a moment, you realize that it’s a universal instinctive behavior, one they obviously inherited from their wild ancestors. Probably any behavior we see in an animal at least originally had a basis in natural selection that resulted in improved survival of those that do it, relative to those that don’t. Basics. Why, in the first place, is a dog wet? OK, seems a bit obvious, but the reason is surface tension that keeps the water attached to the dog’s hair. Why might being wet pose a problem to a dog? Is it more than just an inconvenience? A wet dog is a lot heavier than a dry one. So, one advantage in rapidly shedding water would be to get back to escape, pursuit, or cruising speed ASAP. Water in the fur also reduces its insulating capacity, and when it freezes, it has even worse. So having a rapid drying mechanism can be seen as a basic adaptation that evolved to compensate for having hair as insulation, hair that can get wet and retain water. But is there anything special about this process of shedding water? I recently saw a scientific article that actually studied how mammals like dogs shed water from their fur via that familiar shaking we’ve all seen a hundred times before. Researchers at Georgia Tech led by Andrew Dickerson decided to study this process of shaking water from fur. They began with...

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