Long Island is an ideal environment for many species of ticks, specifically the deer tick.
By Matthew Kearns, DVM
I commonly get the question, “What month can I stop using tick preventatives?” My answer is always, “That depends.” It used to be that somewhere around late October/November until late March/early April one could stop using flea and tick preventatives. However, with changing climate conditions and parasite adaptation this is no longer true.
The tick life cycle contains four stages: egg, larval, nymph (young adult) and adult. After the larval stage hatches out from the egg, it must feed and go through a molt between each successive stage. Ticks are sensitive to environmental changes throughout their life cycle but, ironically, are most resistant to temperature changes. It has to be below 35°F for ticks to even “overwinter.”
Overwinter is a term that refers to a process many species use to pass through the period of the year when “winter” conditions (cold or sub-zero temperatures, ice, snow, limited food supplies) make normal activity or even survival difficult or near impossible. During the overwinter period all activity nearly completely ceases until conditions become more favorable. If conditions become more favorable (above 45°F) ticks will set out in search of a host.
To kill a tick temperatures must be consistently below 10°F for many days in a row. If the tick is able to bury itself in the vegetation below a layer of snow, even below 10 degrees may not kill them. It is pretty routine even in January to have one or two days that are in the 20s during the day, dropping to the teens or single digits at night followed by a few days in the 50s.
Ironically, as resistant as ticks are to colder temperatures, they are much more sensitive to higher temperatures and humidity (or lack thereof). Eggs will desiccate, or dry out, and die during hot dry periods. The other life stages are at risk for dehydration due to increased respiratory rate in an effort to thermoregulate (control body temperature) and questing (looking for hosts).
Hotter, drier temperatures mean less vegetation. Less vegetation causes multiple problems for ticks: less protection from the elements and less vegetation for hosts.
The white-footed mouse is the primary host for the larval stage of the deer tick. This mouse survives on vegetation, and less vegetation and less resources for the mouse means a subsequent decrease in the mouse population. A decrease in population means less hosts. Less hosts, less ticks survive from the larval stage to adulthood. Fortunately, and unfortunately for us, the northeast United States rarely sees prolonged droughts. Even if we have hot, dry periods during the summer, we usually make up for it in the fall. It is an ideal environment for many species of ticks, specifically the deer tick.
In summary, it is my feeling that the tick season is 9 to 10 months out of the year. You may be able to stop applying preventative during the months of January, February, and March (this depends on temperature), but the rest of the year ticks are active.
Dr. Kearns practices veterinary medicine from his Port Jefferson office and is pictured with his son Matthew and his dog Jasmine.
One of the marvels of being a conscious organism is our capacity to interpret the things we do.
By Elof Axel Carlson
Elof Axel Carlson
Nedra had her right knee replaced on Sept. 13, 2017, and our daughter Christina and I waited in Indiana University’s General Hospital in Bloomington. She was groggy after some of the anesthesia wore off, and I was surprised that during the same day she was shown how to get out of bed and use a walker to get to the bathroom.
The next day she learned from an occupational therapist how to dress and undress. Also that second day she learned about 10 different exercises in bed to move her right leg. This included sliding her foot along the bed back and forth with her knee elevated and doing a half snow angel movement with her right leg.
I vaguely knew that the mechanics of body motion were first worked out by Giovanni Borelli (1608-1679). Borelli was taught by one of Galileo’s students and was skilled in mathematics, physics and medicine. He also used a microscope for his studies and discovered the stomata of plant leaves and the corpuscles in blood. He did experiments and claimed all body motion is caused by muscle contractions and he worked out the mathematics of animal motion, identifying where the limbs were in relation to the body’s center of gravity.
One of the marvels of being a conscious organism is our capacity to interpret the things we do. Many of those things — like walking, running, holding things or grooming our bodies — we do without a knowledge of the science that is involved in making them possible. We also assign other functions to body motions besides their pragmatic uses. Nedra and I both take Tai Chi for Arthritis at our local YMCA and the slow graceful motions provide exercise of all our joints. The “chi,” or vital energy, I equate in my mind with the same sensation as phantom limbs for amputees, which is neurologically based and not a psychiatric lament for the slow withdrawal of that feeling.
Body motion is paramount for those who dance, relating motion to music and the bonding and unbonding of partners as they go through a dance routine. Judo and tae kwan do are martial arts and can be used for aggressive or defensive activities among combatants. Yoga provides a spiritual aspect to body motion accompanied by meditation for those who practice it. Virtually all of us enjoy spectator sports whether watching baseball, football, basketball, tennis or the myriad of activities in winter or summer Olympic Games.
Anatomists today are well acquainted with the way muscles and bones and their tendons interact for any motion of our limbs, neck, head, hands, feet or other parts of our body. The one activity I did not include in this list is one that I find particularly appealing. The name given to it was by Thoreau who tells us in his Walden diaries that he enjoyed sauntering. It is walking with no direction or goal in mind, just wandering about in the woods or along a stream to take in the delights of nature and to stimulate thoughts for his writing.
When I was in high school and as an undergraduate, I loved solitary walks through Central Park in Manhattan, and my favorite discovery was a spot where I could sit and there were no buildings from Central Park West or Fifth Avenue visible to my eye. I thought of myself as an urban nature boy.
Nedra spent three days in the hospital and she then moved to a rehabilitation facility in a retirement community called Bell Trace. It is nice to see Nedra doing her exercises, converting pain into progress, and we look forward to her returning to our home which will be safety checked before she arrives to prevent slips and falls. For those coming days and weeks our daughter Erica, followed by two of our granddaughters and their husbands, will be out to enjoy Nedra’s progress to experience the confident walking by those with successful knee surgery enjoy.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
Insomnia is frustrating because it does not necessarily have one cause.
Untreated insomnia can have long-term health effects
By David Dunaief, M.D.
Dr. David Dunaief
Insomnia is an all-too-common complaint. Though the statistics vary widely, about 30 percent of Americans are affected, according to the most frequently used estimate, and women tend to be affected more than men (1). Insomnia is thought to have several main components: difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, waking up before a full night’s sleep and sleep that is not restorative or restful (2).
Unlike sleep deprivation, patients have plenty of time for sleep. Having one or all of these components is considered insomnia. There is debate about whether or not it is actually a disease, though it certainly has a significant impact on patients’ functioning (3).
Insomnia is frustrating because it does not necessarily have one cause. Causes can include aging; stress; psychiatric disorders; disease states, such as obstructive sleep apnea and thyroid dysfunction; asthma; medication; and it may even be idiopathic (of unknown cause). It can occur on an acute (short term), intermittent or chronic basis. Regardless of the cause, it may have a significant impact on quality of life. Insomnia also may cause comorbidities (diseases), two of which we will investigate further: heart failure and prostate cancer.
Fortunately, there are numerous treatments. These can involve medications, such as benzodiazepines like Ativan and Xanax. The downside of these medications is they may be habit forming. Nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics (therapies) include sleep medications, such as Lunesta (eszopiclone) and Ambien (zolpidem). All of these medications have side effects. We will investigate Ambien further because of its warnings.
There are also natural treatments, involving supplements, cognitive behavioral therapy and lifestyle changes.
Let’s look at the evidence.
Heart failure
Insomnia may perpetuate heart failure, which can be a difficult disease to treat. In the HUNT analysis (Nord-Trøndelag Health Study), an observational study, results showed insomnia patients had a dose-dependent response for increased risk of developing heart failure (4). In other words, the more components of insomnia involved, the higher the risk of developing heart disease.
There were three components: difficulty falling asleep, difficulty maintaining sleep and nonrestorative sleep that is not restful. If one component was involved, there was no increased risk. If two components were involved, there was a 35 percent increased risk, although this is not statistically significant.
However, if all three components were involved, there was a 350 percent increased risk of developing heart failure, even after adjusting for other factors. This was a large study, involving 54,000 Norwegians, with a long duration of 11 years.
Prostate cancer
Prostate cancer has a plethora of possible causes, and insomnia may be a contributor. Having either of two components of insomnia, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep (sleep disruption), increased the risk of prostate cancer by 1.7 and 2.1 times, respectively, according to an observational study (5).
However, when looking at a subset of data related to advanced or lethal prostate cancer, both components, difficulty falling asleep and sleep disruption, independently increased the risk even further, 2.1 and 3.2 times, respectively.
This suggests that sleep is a powerful factor in prostate cancer, and other studies have shown that it may have an impact on other cancers as well. There were 2,102 men involved in the study with a duration of five years. While there are potentially strong associations, this and other studies have been mostly observational. Further studies are required before any definitive conclusions can be made.
What about potential treatments?
Ambien: While nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics may be beneficial, this may come at a price. In a report by the Drug Abuse Warning Network, part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the number of reported adverse events with Ambien that perpetuated emergency department visits increased by more than twofold over a five-year period from 2005 to 2010 (6). Insomnia patients most susceptible to having significant side effects are women and the elderly. The director of SAMHSA recommends focusing on lifestyle changes for treating insomnia: by making sure the bedroom is sufficiently dark, getting frequent exercise and avoiding caffeine.
In reaction to this data, the FDA required the manufacturer of Ambien to reduce the dose recommended for women by 50 percent (7). Ironically, sleep medication like Ambien may cause drowsiness the next day — the FDA has warned that it is not safe to drive after taking extended-release versions (CR) of these medications the night before.
Magnesium: The elderly population tends to suffer the most from insomnia, as well as nutrient deficiencies. In a double-blinded, randomized controlled trial (RCT), the gold standard of studies, results show that magnesium had resoundingly positive effects on elderly patients suffering from insomnia (8).
Compared to a placebo group, participants given 500 mg of magnesium daily for eight weeks had significant improvements in sleep quality, sleep duration and time to fall asleep, as well as improvement in the body’s levels of melatonin, a hormone that helps control the circadian rhythm.
The strength of the study is that it is an RCT; however, it was small, involving 46 patients over a relatively short duration.
Cognitive behavioral therapy
In a study, just one 2½-hour session of cognitive behavioral therapy delivered to a group of 20 patients suffering from chronic insomnia saw subjective, yet dramatic, improvements in sleep duration from 5 to 6½ hours and decreases in sleep latency from 51 to 22 minutes (9). The patients who were taking medication to treat insomnia experienced a 33 percent reduction in their required medication frequency per week. The topics covered in the session included relaxation techniques, sleep hygiene, sleep restriction, sleep positions and beliefs and obsessions pertaining to sleep. These results are encouraging.
It is important to emphasize the need for sufficient and good-quality sleep to help prevent, as well as not contribute to, chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and prostate cancer. While medications may be necessary in some circumstances, they should be used with the lowest possible dose for the shortest amount of time and with caution, reviewing possible drug-drug and drug-supplement interactions.
Supplementation with magnesium may be a valuable step toward improving insomnia. Lifestyle changes including sleep hygiene and exercise should be sought, regardless of whether or not medications are used.
References: (1) Sleep. 2009;32(8):1027. (2) American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2nd edition, 2005. (3) Arch Intern Med. 1998;158(10):1099. (4) Eur Heart J. online 2013;Mar 5. (5) Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 2013;22(5):872–879. (6) SAMSHA.gov. (7) FDA.gov. (8) J Res Med Sci. 2012 Dec;17(12):1161-1169. (9) APSS 27th Annual Meeting 2013; Abstract 0555.
Dr. Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com or consult your personal physician.
The white petals of Large-Cupped N. 'Roulette' are a perfect foil for the orange and yellow frilled corona.
By Kyrnan Harvey
No need to panic, there’s plenty of time to order bulbs. True, some varieties might be sold out, but the importers ship through December and bulbs can be planted as long as the ground isn’t frozen. I have, in the past, gotten away with planting after New Year’s.
Above, fragrant Narcissus ‘Kedron’ (jonquilla class) naturalized with other daffodils and myrtle
I once had a garden with soil on the sandy side, enriched in the early years with wood-chip mulch, which eventually decomposes into humus. Here many kinds of tulips were naturalized. They need good drainage, and no excessive irrigation, in the summer months when they are dormant, or else they will rot. If I had planted five of one variety in 1998, by 2008 bulbs had increased with offsets that were flowering size. Tulips growing informally through forget-me-nots and among many other spring flowers and shrubs — as opposed to a stiffly formal throwaway mass display planting — are incomparably charming. But they are said to be caviar to deer.
Daffodils though are 100 percent deer proof. Nor do squirrels dig for them as they do for tulips. I like to plant them in a similar style: many different varieties, each segregated from other varieties. I don’t like daffodil “mixes” — five or 10 bulbs, spaced a few inches apart, randomly arranged (meaning asymmetrically, nongeometrically). In two or three years these bulbs will have a dozen or more flowers. Daffodils increase and naturalize far more reliably than tulips.
There are many more varieties of Narcissus than will be seen at Home Depot or a garden center. Thirty years ago, when I was employed as a gardener at Mrs. Whitney’s Manhasset estate, we participated in a flower show at Macy’s Herald Square. The head gardener, my boss, presented an instructional display with examples from each of the 13 divisions of daffodils, as established by the Royal Horticultural Society: trumpets, large-cupped and small-cupped N. triandrus, N. jonquilla, N. poeticus and so on.
Above, the charming Narcissus jonquilla ‘Kokopelli’
You can find, via numerous stateside bulb importers (Brent & Becky’s, John Scheepers, White Flower Farm), splendid cultivars from any and all of these classes. Moreover, within each division, there are many variations of form and diversity of color: white perianth (the petals) with yellow or orange or pink corona (the cup, or trumpet); yellow perianth/orange cup; white perianth/white cup. The rims of the cups can have different colors too and the cups and petals can have various forms.
It is easy to fill your garden with many different long-lived daffodils, each of which has its own distinctive charm and all of which, when viewed collectively in the vernal garden, harmonize with their compadres. You can do better than merely more ‘Mount Hood’ and ‘King Alfred.’ Many are delightfully scented, which is not, by the way, the cloying odor of the florists’ tender paperwhite narcissus. If you plant a dozen varieties this year, in five years you will be able to fill vases with bountiful, perfumed bouquets.
Daffodils tolerate full sun and part shade. The pink-cupped ones prefer the latter because it preserves their color. Deep shade and water-logged soil must be avoided. Cut the spent flowers but the leaves must be left uncut, unbent, and unbraided for weeks after flowering is finished. Finding companion perennials that disguise this unsightly phase of the growth cycle — and that won’t be chowed by deer! — is a finer aspect of horticulture best left to another day.
Kyrnan Harvey is a horticulturist and garden designer residing in East Setauket. For more information, visit www.boskygarden.com.
Mark Twain, that delightful old curmudgeon, called cauliflower “a cabbage with a college education,” a proclamation that today would probably be found politically incorrect in some way by someone. I prefer to call cauliflower a vegetable with autumn in its soul — especially here on Long Island where cauliflower farms still exist out on the East End. For me, no autumn is officially ushered in until I have made a pilgrimage to the North Fork, until I have bought too many enormous heads of cauliflower for a couple of dollars a piece at most from some roadside flatbed truck.
Heading home with the late afternoon sun slanting against the windshield, there will also be baskets and sacks of late season tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, Brussels sprouts and peppers, of Seckel pears and cider and gourds and weird shaped pumpkins all wedged into the car’s trunk.
But it will be the cauliflowers I covet most as I watch the russet leaves drift roadward. It will be the cauliflower I single out for that night’s dinner as I stuff the refrigerator’s vegetable drawers with my afternoon’s harvest. For dinner there will very likely be a pasta with cauliflower and sausage. Another night there will be a savory cauliflower salad or hearty cauliflower mashed potatoes. The following weekend I will get out my canning equipment and put up jars of chow-chow with many more little cauliflower florets than the recipe calls for. And my husband, who is also a big cauliflower fan, will nevertheless be relieved that my annual cauliflower fest is over.
Pasta with Cauliflower and Sausage
Pasta with Cauliflower and Sausage
YIELD: Makes 4 to 6 servings
INGREDIENTS:
1 pound pasta, preferably ziti or shells
3 sweet Italian sausages
1 medium cauliflower broken into small florets
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1½ pounds fresh Italian plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried
Salt and crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
¾ cup freshly grated pecorino or romano cheese
DIRECTIONS: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta and cook according to package directions. Meanwhile in a medium skillet, cook the sausages over medium heat until browned on all sides; remove and set aside to keep warm. When they are cool enough to handle, cut them into bite-size pieces. Steam the cauliflower until it is al dente (slightly resistant to the bite), about 3 to 5 minutes. Set aside.
In same skillet used to cook sausages, heat half the olive oil over medium heat: add tomatoes, half the garlic and the thyme. Season and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat until most of the liquid is evaporated. In another medium skillet, heat the remaining oil, add the remaining garlic and steamed cauliflower and sauté until cauliflower is slightly golden. Add the sliced sausages to the cauliflower and continue cooking until sausages are reheated.
Pour cooked pasta into a large bowl, top with tomato mixture, then sausages and cauliflower. Adjust seasoning, then sprinkle with grated cheese. Mix at the table and serve with fried peppers, crusty bread and a crunchy green salad.
Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
YIELD: Makes 8 servings
INGREDIENTS:
1 medium head cauliflower, in pieces
6 potatoes, pared and coarsely chopped
½ stick butter
¹/3 cup milk or cream
2 eggs
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
¼ cup golden raisins
¼ cup pignoli nuts
DIRECTIONS: Steam the cauliflower and potatoes until they are very soft, about 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease a large soufflé dish or casserole. Mash cauliflower and potatoes by hand to break up pieces. Transfer to large bowl of electric mixer. Add butter, milk or cream, eggs and salt and pepper. Beat slowly at first, then increase mixer speed gradually until mixture is smooth. Stir in raisins. Transfer to prepared casserole dish. Sprinkle top with pignoli nuts. Bake until mixture is hot and pignoli nuts are golden, about 30 to 40 minutes. Serve with meat or poultry and a mixed salad. This is a revision of an article written by the author and published in this newspaper in 1989.
Cauliflower Salad
YIELD: Makes 6 servings
INGREDIENTS:
1 medium head cauliflower, broken into bite-size florets
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained
4 flat anchovy fillets, minced
½ cup oil-cured black olives
¼ pound feta cheese, diced
¹/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 to 3 tablespoons wine vinegar
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced, separated into rings, then chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped
DIRECTIONS: Steam the cauliflower until just tender, about 5 minutes; let cool to room temperature. In a small bowl combine the capers, anchovies, olives and feta cheese with the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Combine with cauliflower. Cover and let the cauliflower marinate at room temperature at least an hour. Just before serving, add the onion, tomatoes and dill. Serve with meat or poultry, pasta or eggplant.
Most people have something they dislike about their appearance at one time or another. Diane Melidosian is no exception, struggling with a stubborn cowlick for her entire life. In the spring, she released her first book for children, “Cornelius & the Cowlick,” which recounts a young boy’s efforts to tame his unruly hair. In the end, kindness from his friends and classmates allow Cornelius to embrace the things that make him unique and special.
Tell me a bit about yourself. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in East Northport, but I’ve lived in Stony Brook for more than 30 years. I went to college in Michigan but returned to Long Island when I got married in 1974. I studied special ed, and when I was in undergrad, Eastern Michigan was one of the few schools in the country to offer that program, so off I went. My husband and I were both special ed teachers, but later on I became a reading specialist. We’re both retired now.
Did you always want to be a writer?
I didn’t really want to be a writer when I was a kid — I just had a very active imagination.
What inspired you to write this book?
Above, the cover of Diane Melidosian’s first children’s book
I have a cowlick myself, and it’s always been a problem. All the things that Cornelius does to try to deal with it are things I’ve tried myself. Nothing works! To this day I struggle to keep my hair down, so that’s really where the inspiration came from — having lots of bad hair days. Somewhere along the line I decided to write a story about it.
How did you go about getting the book published?
I did self-publishing through Amazon. One day, I visited the Ward Melville Heritage Organization’s Educational & Cultural Center in Stony Brook, and there was a woman there doing publicity for a book she had written. I don’t remember her name now, but I spoke to her and she told me about publishing through CreateSpace, which is a part of Amazon. I went online and it looked like something I could handle. It was pretty user-friendly, too.
What made you choose the name Cornelius for the main character?
I thought it was a good fit because of the alliteration with the word “cowlick.”
What do you want kids to take away from reading your book?
You know, it’s meant to be a silly book, but my cowlick was something that always troubled me. I figured there’s a kid out there that struggles with hair issues and they might be able to relate and get a laugh out of it. Having his friend and the other kids rally around him helps him to accept himself more. The message I would want them to walk away with is that nothing is insurmountable and don’t take yourself too seriously.
Who did the illustrations for the book? Were you involved in the process?
After I wrote the story, it sat in a drawer for 10 years because finding an illustrator was a big obstacle for me. I don’t have any artistic talent. But then a friend of mine suggested her niece, Kyra Slawski, who ended up doing it for me. She had just graduated from college with an art degree, but she had never done anything like this before. She was very hesitant at first, but I said, “Look, anything you do is going to be fine.” She did a wonderful job. We met a few times in person but did most of our work through the computer. She would send some illustrations to me and I would send them back with comments — sometimes Cornelius’ cowlick wasn’t in the right spot, or I had a different idea. We’d go back and forth until both of us were satisfied.
What was it like seeing Cornelius come to life?
It was so surprising. You can write the story and have an image in your head, but seeing it is different. I can’t say he was exactly as I pictured him — I had pictured a boy a bit more like Dennis the Menace — but when Kyra first sent me her illustrations, I was all for it.
What advice would you give someone who wants to write a book?
Don’t put you book in a drawer for 10 years! Work on it bit by bit and set a time for it to be completed.
“Cornelius & the Cowlick,” recommended for ages 3 to 8, is available on www.Amazon.com for $9.50. The book can also be found in the Local Authors Collection at the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library, 120 Main Street in Setauket.
MEET ROODY! Roody was rescued from Puerto Rico in an area where there was no electric power or water for the humans let alone dogs. Now safe at Kent Animal Shelter, he is a little shy because of his ordeal but will make a great pet once he gets familiarized with his new home. Roody comes neutered, microchipped and up to date on vaccines. Why not drop by and say hello? Kent Animal Shelter is located at 2259 River Road in Calverton. For more information on Roody and other adoptable pets at Kent, please call 631-727-5731 or visit www.kentanimalshelter.com.
The legacy of those women and men 100 years ago is democracy at work for all.
By Lisa Scott
On Election Day next week, you may be offered a blue sticker that says “I Voted.” If you take a closer look, you might wonder why it has a quaint and old-fashioned image with the words “Honoring 100 Years of a Woman’s Right to Vote.” For every one of us that struggle, the victory and the legacy made a tremendous difference in our lives, rights and American democracy today.
The sticker’s image, chosen by public vote across New York State, is Long Island’s Rosalie Gardiner Jones (yes, that Gardiner’s Island and that Jones Beach!). Far from being a grandmotherly, stern face in a photograph, Jones was a flamboyant young socialite from the Oyster Bay-Cold Spring Harbor area who, much to the dismay of her anti-suffragist mother, preferred campaigning for women’s suffrage over the performance of her social duties.
Always with an eye for publicity, in 1912 she joined fellow suffragette Elisabeth Freeman in a trek across Long Island in a horse-drawn carriage to distribute suffrage pamphlets and literature, and in December of that year received much publicity for leading a 170-mile, 13-day march in the midst of winter from the Bronx to Albany to deliver petitions to the governor, demanding a woman’s suffrage amendment in the NYS Constitution.
Jones believed that the movement should exhibit a more military stance and discipline and thus began calling herself “The General.” She carried the suffrage message into small towns and villages with a personal attention that was both impassioned and provocative. After suffrage was achieved, she continued to campaign for equal rights and social reform until she died in 1978.
New Yorkers have long led the struggle for women’s rights; a fight with diverse people and disparate ideas (people disagreed vehemently for years about goals, partners and methods to further the cause). Seneca Falls is considered the birthplace of the women’s rights movement, and some of its greatest leaders, from Susan B. Anthony to Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (who summered in Shoreham with her suffragist daughter and family), did their pioneering work in the Empire State. In passing women’s suffrage in 1917, New York fueled the momentum for the entire nation to follow suit three years later.
Women vote today because of the women’s suffrage movement, a courageous and persistent political campaign that lasted over 72 years, involved tens of thousands of women and men and resulted in enfranchising one-half of the citizens of the United States. Inspired by idealism and grounded in sacrifice, the suffrage campaign is of enormous political and social significance, yet it is virtually unacknowledged in the chronicles of American history.
For women won the vote. They were not given it, granted it or anything else. They won it as truly as any political campaign is ultimately won or lost. And they won it, repeatedly, by the slimmest of margins, which only underscores the difficulty and magnitude of their victories. It was a movement of female organizers, leaders, politicians, journalists, visionaries, rabble rousers and warriors. It was an active, controversial, multifaceted, challenging, passionate movement of the best and brightest women in America, from all backgrounds, who, in modern parlance, boldly went where no woman had ever gone before.
The suffrage movement holds a particular relevance now as it has helped lead us as a country and a people to where we are today. It celebrates rights won and honors those who helped win them. It puts women into our national history as participants. It reminds us of the necessity of progressive leaders, organizers and visionaries in every local community. The legacy of those women and men 100 years ago is democracy at work for all: civil rights, gender diversity, equality and civic engagement.
For more about our local suffragists, read Antonia Petrash’s book, “Long Island and the Woman Suffrage Movement.” For thought-provoking insights on the suffrage movement and its legacy, read Robert Cooney’s essay, “Taking a New Look — The Enduring Significance of the American Woman Suffrage Movement,” and his comprehensive book, “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement.”
Lisa Scott is the president of the League of Women Voters of Suffolk County, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government and influences public policy through education and advocacy. For more information, visit www.lwv-suffolkcounty.org, email [email protected] or call 631-862-6860.
The greater bamboo lemur will struggle to survive amid a shorter rainy season. Photo by Jukka Jernvall
By Daniel Dunaief
An elusive primate is living on a shrinking island within an island. The greater bamboo lemur, which is one of the world’s most endangered primates, now inhabits a small section of Madagascar, where it can find the type of food it needs to survive.
The greater bamboo lemur, which was one of numerous lemurs featured in the 2014 iMax movie, “Island of Lemurs: Madagascar,” is finding that the time when it can eat the most nutritious types of bamboo is narrowing each year amid a longer dry season.
Patricia Wright has dedicated her life to helping lemurs in Madagascar. File photo from SBU
In a publication last week in the journal Current Biology, Patricia Wright, the founder of Centro ValBio research campus, driving force behind the creation of Ranofamana National Park and a distinguished professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University, along with several other researchers, including Jukka Jernvall from the University of Helsinki and Alistair Evans from Monash University, showed that the population of lemurs is threatened by a changing climate. The bamboo that sustains the greater bamboo lemurs depends on water to produce shoots that are higher in nutrition.
Indeed, when the rains come, the new bamboo shoots are “filled with protein,” said Wright. Jernvall, however, predicted that the driest season will get longer by a day each year. By 2070, rains necessary for bamboo growth and greater bamboo lemur survival will be delayed by as much as two months.
This is problematic not only for the current generation of greater bamboo lemurs but also for the more vulnerable younger generations, who need their lactating mothers to eat more nutritious bamboo to help them grow. Bamboo shoots typically come up from the ground about two weeks after the rains begin, in the middle of November. Bamboo lemurs, whose annual clocks are set to the rhythm of an island off the southeast coast of Africa that is the size of California, are born around the time of these bamboo-shoot-producing rains.
“Any village elder will tell you that the rains used to come at about Nov. 15 and continue until March 15,” Wright said. “That’s the way the world was, even in the 1980s and 1990s and probably many years before that. Suddenly, we started to get some evidence of climate changes and periods of a longer dry season.”
Above, a mother greater bamboo lemur holds her infant, which weighs about half a pound at birth. Photo by Jukka Jernvall
Wright is currently in Madagascar, where she says there is a drought right now. “No water for our research station means no electricity since we are near a hydroelectric power plant,” she explained by email. In fact, in some years, the rains start as late as January, which reduces the food offerings for the mother lemur, who weighs about 6.5 pounds, and her offspring, who need considerable nutrition to grow from birth weights Wright estimates are less than half a pound. The lemur mother “has to have nutritious shoots to feed her baby milk,” Wright said. “She can survive on leaves and trashy stuff in the culm, but she can’t raise her babies” on it.
Wright and Jernvall worked together in 2005 on a study of climate and another type of lemur called sifakas, whose name comes from the alarm sound it makes. In their earlier work, Wright and Jernvall found that aging sifakas with worn teeth could still produce offspring, but that their infants typically died if the weather was dry during the lactation season, Jernvall explained in an email.
“This alerted us about the potential impact of climate change,” he continued. “The bamboo lemur were an obvious concern because they are critically endangered and because they eat the very tough bamboo.”
Jernvall said the work on bamboo lemurs combines Wright’s efforts in Madagascar with climate modeling he performed with Jussi Eronen at the University of Helsinki and an analysis of dental features conducted by Evans and Sarah Zohdy, who is currently at Auburn University. Stacey Tecot, who is on sabbatical from the University of Arizona, also contributed to the research.
Wright believes some efforts can help bring these bamboo lemurs, who survive despite consuming large amounts of cyanide in their bamboo diet, back from the brink. Creating a bamboo corridor might improve the outlook.
Growing bamboo would not only benefit the lemurs, who depend on it for their survival, but would also provide raw materials for the Malagasy people, who use it to construct their homes, to build fences and to cover their waterways.
Bamboo corridors could be a “win-win situation,” where scientists and local communities grew and then harvested these hearty grasses, Wright continued. She has started a bamboo pilot study near one of the small populations of lemurs and hopes the lemurs can expand their range.
The greater bamboo lemur will struggle to survive amid a shorter rainy season. Photo by Jukka Jernvall
Like other animals with unusual lifestyles, the greater bamboo lemurs offer a potential window into an unusual adaptation. Through their typical diet, lemurs consume a high concentration of cyanide, which is stored in the bamboo. Understanding the bamboo lemur could provide evidence of how one species manages to remain unaffected by a toxin often associated with spies and murder mysteries.
As a part of her efforts to improve the chances of survival for this lemur, Wright is considering moving some lemurs to a protected area. She needs permission from Madagascar officials before taking any such actions and recently met with Madagascar National Park official to discuss such remediation efforts.
In Madagascar, Wright said observing the bamboo lemur is challenging because it is such a “cryptic animal.” She has sat beneath a tree where a lemur is hiding for seven hours waiting for it to emerge, watching as a lemur brought in its legs and curled up its body to hide from the scientist’s inquisitive eyes. “I’d get really hungry, so they would win and I would leave,” Wright recalled.
She suggests that the data in the Current Biology article demonstrates the urgency to take action to protect these primates. “We are trying our best to help the bamboo lemur not go extinct,” she said. “Bamboo corridors should help, but we may have to irrigate the bamboo during November to January.”
PRETTY IN PINK Elisa Hendrey of Sound Beach captured this stunning image on her iPhone on Sept. 28. She writes, “This photo was taken at sunset at Mount Sinai Harbor, one of my favorite spots for viewing the setting sun.”
I commonly get the question, “What month can I stop using tick preventatives?” My answer is always, “That depends.” It used to be that somewhere around late October/November until late March/early April one could stop using flea and tick preventatives. However, with changing climate conditions and parasite adaptation this is no longer true.
To kill a tick temperatures must be consistently below 10°F for many days in a row. If the tick is able to bury itself in the vegetation below a layer of snow, even below 10 degrees may not kill them. It is pretty routine even in January to have one or two days that are in the 20s during the day, dropping to the teens or single digits at night followed by a few days in the 50s.
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