Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Large Mouth that were never stocked

This thread got interesting. And if anyone is interested, I'd like to add:

In 2007 and in the-middle-of-nowhere AZ just south of the Grand Canyon, I sat in my car eating a Wendy's cheeseburger. There were three ravens digging around the dumpster. One raven emerged from under the lid with something sizeable in its beak and hopped down to the ground. The other two ravens immediately started chasing it. That first raven went around the back of the dumpster, and one of the other two stopped, turned around, and cut it off on the other side of the dumpster. I can remember that strategy working as a young child, which tells me that ravens can come up with strategies somewhat on-par to very young human children.

Also, there's video documentation of another wild raven in the UK taking bread from the area where people were feeding ducks at a park, flying over to a rock in the middle of a pond with that bread, and then tearing off and throwing small pieces into the water to bait a fish, which it then caught and flew off to eat.

There's yet another documented case of either a crow or raven, under scientific observation, gathering small stones and dropping them into a narrow cylinder with a tray of food floated part-way up the cylinder in order to raise the water level and access the food. They also showed these crows/ravens bending a hook onto the end of a stick or piece of wire or something and reaching into a cylinder to get food out of it.

I don't know how smart other birds really might be when compared to ravens and crows, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit of birds that make their entire living by eating fish either intentionally move fish for stocking purposes, or maybe even coincidentally move fish because over millions of years there was an evolutionary advantage that favored individuals who happened to be sloppy about dropping their food.

I will also say that a starling knows damn well that when you walk out of the house carrying a rifle/shotgun, it should relocate a couple hundred yards out into the field. And yes, I did attempt to "test" this as a kid by walking out of the house with and without a rifle. They flew away immediately at the sight of a rifle, or if they could tell that I was looking at them/hunting. They'd sit undisturbed if I simply walked out of the house unarmed and seemingly uninterested.


One last thing- what are the chances that a bird might transport eggs that could then hatch? Doesn't seem far-fetched to me that a bird might slowly wade through a shallow spawning bed, which I assume would be a likely/preferable place to fish, pick up a couple eggs in its feathers- especially if it makes a strike and gets its head/neck wet or splashes the water/gets splashed by a fish, and dislodge those eggs into another body of water. That wouldn't require any intelligence/instinct/evolutionary programming at all, as long as it would be viable for eggs to hatch after transport.

To be clear, I do not discount any of these behaviors, but simply point out that many claims are simply not evidenced, while others are well documented. Birds use tools (sticks and stones) to carry out tasks, and they learn to recognize a threat and take action to avoid it. With all the cell-phone video cameras around these days, I suspect many new animal behaviors will get documented. As a scientist, I have been trained to be critical and evaluate the evidence in an unbiased manner, including my own observations. The first question that I ask myself is whether there is a simpler alternate explanation that is well supported by evidence. If so, I remain critical of my speculation on a new explanation. We have had German shepherd dogs for my whole life, and I do not discount the intelligence of animals, but rather try to look at animals (and people) without confusing my speculation on a behavior with what is actually happening. This is easier said than done.

For an event like fish colonizing a new body of water, there are multiple possible causes. For any particular BOW, one or a combination may apply but in many cases a particular cause cannot be ruled out. Ruling out what isn't possible is big part of what science is about. It's about testing a scientific hypothesis by experiments designed to isolate the hypothesized effect.

Some questions are not scientific questions. How an unwanted fish got into a BOW isn't an scientific question if multiple causes are plausible. Remember a scientific hypothesis is one which can be proven false. With science we gain knowledge of the world by understanding what it isn't, not necessarily what it is. With a great deal of confidence I propose that how we see the world 200 years from now will be different in profound and fundamental ways.

Ultimately, even scientists are human. Scientists make mistakes. For example, one may take on a non-scientific debate and try to win the debate with pseudo-science. He could let is predispositions shape his acceptance and criticism of other ideas. Scientists, like every human, resort to the types of things humans are capable of doing ... whatever they may be. I recommend a blend of skepticism and curiosity to all. The world is more complicated than it may seem.

Some think that the scientific method is all of science. Observation can in fact scientifically establish with high confidence that something occurs. Classic statistical hypothesis testing formally attempts to disprove a hypothesis with a given probability, but science is more than that, and a single experiment does not suffice to disprove a well supported hypothesis. The experiment must be well designed, properly interpreted, and reproducible. As indicated, "parallel science" and "alternative facts" permeate our society.

I would just urge you not to rush to judgement. These do permeate society (even some science where consensus isn't achieved) and I would suggest that they are not necessarily a bad thing when subjected to the scientific method. Great advancement has arisen from parallel thinking. Consider how the understanding of celestial motion has been improved by new ideas which directed their arguments at small anomalous observations that many supporting a consensus deemed unimportant and insignificant. Not less that 5 theories have been applied over the last 2000 years. Each seemingly the perfect answer for a time. Given this track record, would you venture a guess as to the likelihood that it is all figured out?

A fun aside is the pastor of our church loves to use the scientific method to get deeper understanding of the New Testament. Some of the things he has come up with... wow. His sermons are great for engineers and scientists! (He was a engineer by trade before his calling).

Sometimes, like in the case of the fire birds, it will be a very long time before answers are scientifically tested due to the complexity and difficulty of testing in a controlled manner. I cannot imagine how well that would go for researchers if they started a wildfire to get solid recorded evidence, and in the process created a catastrophe.

For fish and fire transport with birds, I would suspect that a single recording of the event still would not be enough for most scientists. It would have to be many documented events in different settings before it became accepted, and this may be impossible due to the infrequency of these events.

Like any good investigation, if you ask several different people who have no relationship to each other a set of questions that result in the same answer, you have a fairly good shot at having reasonable source events. Perhaps they are all wrong, but the chances of incorrectness diminish with a greater sample set.

We know how well this multiple observation goes with alien abductions... so I guess we will never know for sure and rack all this up with wive's tales.

The theory of evolution and its contribution to speciation has reached the highest level of acceptance (no laws in biology) even though it can not really be formally "tested" (at least for macro-evolution). It gained this level of acceptance due to observation (including assembling fossil records) as well as great leaps in the field of molecular biology which identified the mechanism to support the observed biology of natural selection. The compartmentalizing of all science as being only that which can be tested in controlled experiments is a common tactic of those that want to cast doubt on the evolutionary process. None of us were there when species were evolving, but that does not mean science does not support it. I have used some obvious ridiculous examples to drive home some points, and must also say that Lemarck turned out to not be completely wrong either based on our recent understanding of epigentics (but pretty darn wrong on speciation). Traits (genes) can indeed be turned on by environmental conditions and then transferred to offspring. BTW -"parallel science" and "alternative facts" are not the same as "alternative thinking" or postulating reasonable alternative hypotheses. They are rather postulates that run counter to the mass of evidence based on cherry-picked evidence taken out of context. These terms have actual definitions that are not "alternative definitions":)

So in other words...."It depends"

Just couldn't help myself. You guys make me feel so inadequate!! Lol

Yes they do have actual definitions. I would simply ask this, are you judging ideas and inferences based on your "view of correctness" or are you applying acceptable science? I'll not get into the thick of how counter-intuitions have shaped the current world view. But I will provide an example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall

An excellent example that I was alive to see. They found a reproducible link between ulcers and a microbe and forwarded both science and health care. No alternative facts there!

Either of you two scientists happen to read my post? I was hoping maybe someone would weigh in about the viability of fish eggs being transported.

The discussion is really not whether it is possible or even whether it occurs rarely, but really about far more likely causes of unwanted stocking of ponds. Why start with an unlikely explanation when far more likely and substantiated causes are known. It is almost certain that bird-caused stocking very rarely occurs, just like water spout tornado stocking. Whether from eggs or multiple fish is not really the focus. Its possible and has almost certainly occurred. The real question is whether it is so rare as not to be likely in any specific case.

There is more to this story than everyone knows. The idea that a microbe that was _always_ found in association with peptic ulcers was the cause of the ulcers was counter intuitive. Dr. Marshal treated patients with antibiotics and cured them of their ulcers. When he tried to publish his findings he found great resistance. He was persistent. His professional reputation was attacked. In order to demonstrate that microbes caused the ulcers, he used himself, yes himself as a guinea pig. After consuming the microbes he developed ulcers that he subsequently cured with antibiotics.

It wasn't an easy row he had to hoe. When I saw his interviews on a nationally syndicated news video journal, he seemed heavily worn with the experience and greatly disappointed with how the system worked for him.

Here is an interesting interview with Dr Marshall in 2010. Glad to see some old wounds are healing.

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer-solved-medical-mystery

I understand all the inference to needing substantiated proof, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me that my pond, as insignificant as it is, wasn't stocked by bird traffic. As I've stated before, I've been able to see my pond 365 days a year since the day we broke ground. Other than the Harvey flood, there was no way the fish that were in my pond prior to the storm could have gotten there without being carried in by birds. The gators turtles and frogs obviously just walked in and walked out of their own accord as all were small enough to pass thru the fence. With only one exception that I'm aware of, fish don't walk over land. Just call me hard headed.

Jason, it is certainly possible and generally accepted to occur over large time scales. To date little real science has been conducted to understand the role birds play and the time scales required. The general acceptance of the the hypothesis is being challenged and calls for research are being made. One of the reasons that research hasn't been conducted is because there is broad agreement that the time scales involved are large. In other words, a scientist might not live long enough to observe it in an experiment he has devised to eliminate the possibility of other more frequent causes of fish transport.

I am not a study of this hypothesis and I have only recently been exposed to the debate. I did find some research and some research dialogs online that are referenced in this thread if you are interested ...

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=156829&page=4

Jason, I once tried to replicate that. I bought a duck, killed it, and tried, with both feet and feathers to get BG eggs to stick to them. They didn't. Of course, this was neither scientific nor peer reviewed. Just one curious Texas redneck who couldn't make it happen.

Nevertheless, a good observation.

It seems to me that eggs have a very short period of time at which they are sticky anyway. I am quite skeptical of the sticking eggs theory, regardless of the species of fish and the extent of the stickiness of their eggs. We shouldn't overlook the role substrate could play, particularly for wading birds whose feet may sink partially into soft muddy bottoms potentially mixing eggs with a substrate that retains sticky properties indefinitely and that might serve to slow desiccation.

The one piece of research that really piqued my attention was that ducks can eat pike eggs and pass them in a viable state after which they have been observed to hatch. Such a mechanism also requires that they spawn when ducks are present and that the do so at depths available to ducks consistent with their feeding behaviors.

I would certainly like to know more as to how the pike eggs may be adapted to withstand the digestive track of ducks. It is certainly well known that plants induce vectors to spread their seed by encasing them in fruit. For fish, this type of vector mechanism would seem parasitic in that the ducks may receive no benefit. Nevertheless, an egg adapted to survive the digestive system of waterfowl might prove a very useful adaptation for a fish.

It is less a question about how remote lakes were stocked (Man has been doing it for a very long time anyway) and more a question of the risks birds may pose for distributing invasive species.

Speaking of invasive species, I think birds are fairly likely to be involved in the spread of invasive mussels, as their larvae are very small and can live in mere drops of water, or even on wet surfaces.

+1 for observational science!

I won't take this any further because PB isn't really the right forum, but whether "evolution" is established depends on how we define "evolution."

If it means change over time, this is well established. Heck, we can see the fossil record that this is true. If it means variation within limits, microevolution, this also is observed. Bacterial antibiotic resistance is just one example, but we can also see it in fish that are well adapted to local conditions. Think Fla LMB in warm climates versus N LMB in cooler climates.

If it means major changes, or macroevolution, this has never been observed via random natural processes. Neither has abiogenesis, life from non-life. Given what molecular biology has shown about the complex functionally specified information systems needed to run even a "simple" single celled organism, the failure of randomness/blind chance is to be expected.

So far as we can tell from thousands of years of observations, such systems are built solely by an intelligent agent. But that scientific fact is not compatible with philosophical materialism, so is rejected.

For anyone interested in delving into intelligent design theory, I recommend evolutionnews dot org or uncommondescent dot com

That's all I have to say on the subject here.

Life was dropped here by a meteorite bearing a suspicious resemblance to a great blue heron. Duh.

Not your point, but I couldn't pass that one up. Although in all seriousness, that would be my bet about how we got here. Where life originated, I'll never know. The universe and time are on a scale that I don't believe humans are capable of understanding.

When I suggested eggs being transported, I wasn't picturing them being sticky enough to hang onto the slick exterior of a duck. I was imagining eggs becoming lodged in amongst the feathers and then becoming dislodged later. Surely not every individual feather of all types of feathers on every species of water-frequenting bird lays flush and smooth at all times...

That's interesting about the pike eggs being passed, and was indeed my follow-up thought. Although I haven't read the study and my initial pondering is whether like eggs are adapted to survive a duck's digestive tract, or if it was simply that only pike eggs happened to be in the specific area where the ducks in the list one study were feeding to be consumed in the first place. Are birds' digestive systems fairly inneficient? Has there been any further research about other types of eggs being able to stay viable?

To quote(maybe paraphrase) Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, "Life, uh, finds a way."

Jason,

The reference I saw used that study as a reference. The experiments were originally conducted in Germany I think. Pike are native there.

I've yet to see inefficient bird digestion. What I have seen is that they typically expel feces that looks nothing like what they ate. Can't really speak for ducks specifically but I wonder how it could be possible that fish eggs might survive the GI tract of a duck OR other creature. That is why I referred to it as an adaptation. Pike wouldn't have had to have developed the adaptation for pike to possess the adaptation. If it really can happen, (I assume the referenced work is legit), then it probably developed in more primitive life and may be an inherited adaptation that is shared by other animals as well. Eggs are adapted to resist penetration by more than one male gamete so it may not be too large of a stretch that life developed a strategy to protect eggs from digestion and to aid in their distribution.

Look, I think we've much to learn and much of what we will learn just might amaze us.

I am not going to pretend to comprehend how they get in there. I do know if you want to catch bullheads the best ponds were ponds that had very recently been cleaned out. I also know of ponds that went been dry in the 80s and didn’t fill until the late 90s. My father claimed before they went dry they were awesome bass ponds. When they filled they were never stocked. However when a buddy of mine finally fished them the amount of 5 lbs+ bass that came out of the pair was amazing. They were at the top of the watershed with no nearby ponds out in the middle of the flint Hills.

I suppose it is also possible that when momma bird regurgitates its catch for chicks, fish, eggs, seeds, whatever, and some is missed there is another chance for stocking.

Who knows. Until recently, I didn't realize that tree frogs can tell that a pond had game fish in it and go somewhere else. First two years, tons of tree frogs. After stocking, I have not seen any even near it. I suppose they could be getting eaten, but I don't have bass.