QuestChat April 18,2002
featuring
Mike Legare
[ Lori/QuestChatHost
- 232 - 16:59:19 ]
This chat room has been created to accept your questions for the April
18 chat with Mike Legare. Questions may be placed here at any time. They
will be held in a queue until the time of the webcast and will not be
visible until that time. Please do not repeat your questions.
[ Lori/QuestChatHost
- 233 - 16:59:39 ]
Please be sure and identify yourself in the body of your message as the
"Your Name/Location" window is not working at this time -- Johnny/6th/TX
or Pam/4th/Mr.Johnson (Remember, don't use your last name). For example
-- Jesse/6th/Mr.Green - How many people live on the ISS?
[ Lori/QuestChatHost
- 234 - 17:00:25 ]
Remember to read Mike's bio at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/people/bios/space/legare.html
before attending so you can ask appropriate questions. If for some reason
you cannot join us for the live chat, you can input your question ahead
of time, and then read the archive later to see if your question was answered.
It's not as cool as being there live, but it is very helpful when there
are scheduling conflicts.
[ Lori/QuestChatHost
- 241 - 17:01:04 ]
Welcome everyone to today's webchat with Mike Legare. He will be chatting
with you today about ecology measures used at the Kennedy Space Center
concerning Florida Scrub Jays and Eastern Indigo Snakes. Welcome Mike!!
[ Mike_Legare -
242 - 17:02:21 ]
Hi, Lori and Everyone Else!
[ Mike_Legare -
248 - 17:04:27 ]
RE: [unknown] Wesley/7th -- Do the snakes
lay eggs or have life births?
Wesley, Some of each. Indigos lay eggs, but some other snakes give live
birth. Rattlesnakes, for example have well developed live young.
[ Mike_Legare -
250 - 17:06:20 ]
RE: [unknown] Natalie / What is SCRUB?
Natalie, "scrub" is sort of a generic term for short shrub lands. Coastal
places where plants are growth limited by salt spray, and sandy habitats
of Florida where plants are limited by water (believe it or not) are two
examples of "scrub". Basically short (chest high) shrubs.
[ Mike_Legare -
251 - 17:07:54 ]
RE: [unknown] Jeff/7thgrade ö Mike,
I missed your webcast. How did you get such a cool job?
Jeff, I'm lucky, I guess. A lot of times, getting a job depends as much
on where you are, and what you've done in the past, as much as anything
more formal.
[ Mike_Legare -
254 - 17:09:35 ]
RE: [unknown] Michelle -- How did you
get involved with Eastern Indigo Snakes and Florida Scrub Jays?
Michelle, Both those species are endangered, and my job here at Dynamac/NASA
is to try and learn more about why species are endangered and learn what
we can do to help them out. So I guess the reason I'm working on them
is because they're declining (endangered).
[ Mike_Legare -
255 - 17:11:52 ]
RE: [unknown] Anna -- How does the Black
Rail bird act more like a mouse than a bird?
Anna, Black Rails are small, and while they fly long distances to migrate,
they are not agile or graceful fliers... So they stay on the ground during
most times and walk through the grass to eat, build nests, etc. They don't
fly to catch food, plus they're about the size of a mouse.
[ Mike_Legare -
258 - 17:13:33 ]
RE: [unknown] nazifa/india/how u handle
so many snakes at a time?
Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean, but we can keep "track" of about 100
different Indigos with the telemetry equipment that we have. Each is assigned
a unique transmitter frequency so they don't get confused.
[ Mike_Legare -
260 - 17:16:40 ]
RE: [unknown] JP/6th/Ms.Hunt How is
overdevelopment further endangering animals?
JP, Development removes that land from the animals use. That's one impact.
Another impact is that development usually cuts some intact habitats into
smaller pieces, that's fragmentation. Many animals that can only live
in certain habitats like "scrub" or that have large home ranges (they
use a big area) are the most hurt by development.
[ Mike_Legare -
261 - 17:18:28 ]
RE: [unknown] William-8th -- What is
fragmentation?
William, See the previous question. Fragmentation is really just the break
up of animals habitats by roads, houses, canals, railroads, etc. It takes
what was one large piece of undivided land and divides it.
[ Mike_Legare -
264 - 17:21:22 ]
RE: [unknown] Christopher/6th How many
eggs do the scrub Jays lay and how often? How many survive?
Christopher, The Jays usually lay a clutch (what's in the nest) of 4 eggs.
Most eggs that are laid never survive to the next really important time
step, which is when they are adults that lay eggs. Probably something
like 1 out of 200 eggs will live long enough to have they're own clutch.
That's why the Jays live for a long time -- they need too just to replace
themselves in the population.
[ Mike_Legare -
267 - 17:24:54 ]
RE: [unknown] What types of classes
did you have to take to learn your job in high school & college?
I liked biology in high school, so I took every bio class I could. I also
went to a summer program for high school students called "environmental
biology and computer simulation". There are a lot of programs for students
of all grades to learn more. NASA has several programs - check the websites
- one of them is SLSTP, another is SHARPS. In college, I was in a specific
program for Wildlife Biology Majors. They told me what classes to take,
the program was outlined by The Wildlife Society. You can check them out
too, www.tws.org.
[ Mike_Legare -
268 - 17:26:55 ]
RE: [unknown] Mona - How do you monitor
these species? What are the population numbers of each at KSC?
Mona, Monitoring the exact numbers of animals is a really hard thing to
do. We try to find out if animal populations are stable, increasing or
decreasing.
[ Mike_Legare -
269 - 17:27:43 ]
RE: [unknown] How big can the Indigo
snakes get?
The largest indigo recorded from the wild was 8 feet, 4 inches! They are
the largest snake in the U.S.
[ Mike_Legare -
273 - 17:29:44 ]
RE: [unknown] Erika -- How many young
can the snakes have at once? Do many grow to be adult snakes?
Erika, Indigo's lay about 10-12 eggs. I wish we knew how many lived to
become adults, that's a question we're working on right now! It's probably
a relatively small number, because the adults live so long. If most of
them survived to be adults, we'd have a lot more.
[ Mike_Legare -
275 - 17:31:22 ]
RE: [unknown] Christopher/6th - How
long is their (scrub jay's) lifespan?
Christopher, Good question, we've got some Scrub Jays here that are known
to be at least 14 years old and they're still breeding and doing fine.
Probably around 15-18 years is a max, though.
[ Mike_Legare -
276 - 17:33:09 ]
RE: [unknown] Ms.Jones_6th -- What are
the predators of the scrub Jays? The snakes?
The Scrub Jay eggs and nestlings (the hatched birds that are still in
the nest) get eaten mostly by yellow rat snakes. Fledglings (after they
leave the nest) and young, and adults are mostly eaten by birds or prey
like the Cooper's Hawk.
[ Mike_Legare -
277 - 17:34:43 ]
RE: [unknown] Ms.Jones_6th -- What are
the predators of the Eastern Indigo Snakes?
The only indigo predation we've had was caused by a dog. The adults really
don't have predators, they're a top predator in their world. The young
are probably predated by birds, and other snakes, like king snakes.
[ Mike_Legare -
279 - 17:37:42 ]
RE: [unknown] Mona -- No, I mean how
do you monitor the individual animals you monitor at KSC -- tags, radio
collars, what??
Mona, OK. We use implanted radio-tags in the indigo snakes. We've used
radio-tags, constant video recording, and colored leg bands on the Scrub
Jays. The radio tags for the snakes last for 1 year and I can find the
snakes up to about a mile away. The video data and telemetry on the Scrub
Jays let us determine how they were being predated.
[ Mike_Legare -
282 - 17:40:01 ]
RE: [unknown] Where do the snakes and
the Jays nest?
The Scrub Jays nest is scrub oaks, that are about 4-8 feet tall, and have
vines growing over the top for cover. They build a stick nest that has
a lining of fiber from the cabbage palm trees. Indigos probably nest in
old gopher tortoise burrows, but we don't know that for sure! There are
many, many interesting questions about these species that are not known,
we need people to help answer them.
[ Mike_Legare -
283 - 17:42:14 ]
RE: [unknown] Debra - What kinds of
things do the snakes & Jays eat? Is that why they are becoming endangrd
because they donāt have enough food?
Debra, For those two, food is not a limiting resource. The Jays eat bugs
-- mostly grasshoppers, crickets, and moths. They also store acorns to
eat if we have a cold winter and there are no bugs. The Indigos eat frogs,
other snakes, baby gopher tortoises, mice, and almost anything else they
can overpower and swallow.
[ Mike_Legare -
287 - 17:44:18 ]
RE: [unknown] What is Ruderal habitat?
Is this Becky? Ruderal habitat is overgrown formerly developed unused
land, fallow farmland, etc.
[ Mike_Legare -
288 - 17:45:39 ]
RE: [unknown] Johnny -- I read the Eastern
Indigo Snake was once a common pet. Is that what made them endangered?
Johnny, That's what the US Fish and Wildlife lists as one of the reasons
for listing them as endangered. They think too many were collected from
the wild and sold all over the world.
[ Mike_Legare -
289 - 17:47:10 ]
RE: [unknown] Kelly -- What do you like
best about your job?
Kelly, Doing different things most every day. I've never done this before,
and its kind of fun. I also get to work on things that I think are interesting,
like the snakes and birds.
[ Mike_Legare -
293 - 17:50:18 ]
RE: [unknown] Mona - What exactly are
you doing to help each of the 2 species survive and produce more?
Mona, We're working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, they manage
our lands, to conduct prescribed burns for the scrub Jays. The Jays require
a lot of land work to maintain their habitat. Indigos are tougher, we're
not sure what to do to help them out. About the only thing that you could
do to really help out Indigos in a big way would be to reverse fragmentation
that has occurred. But we don't know how to do that.
[ Mike_Legare -
297 - 17:53:51 ]
RE: [unknown] Rebecca/10th -- Is there
any place that the 2 species you study flourish & do well?
Rebecca, Sure. We have some places here on KSC where the Jays are doing
well, that means they're population is growing. We also have some large
landscapes in Florida that Indigos are doing well in, too. I work on Indigos
at Avon Park Air Force Range in Avon Park Florida, and it is one of the
most unfragmented areas in Florida.
[ Mike_Legare -
298 - 17:54:59 ]
RE: [unknown] Tim - How often do the
snakes & Jays mate and have babies?
Tim, once each year. Indigos breed in the winter (December) and the Jays
are nesting right now, and until the end of May.
[ Mike_Legare -
300 - 17:56:02 ]
RE: [unknown] Sarah/7thgrade -- Do you
enjoy working at KSC?
Sarah, KSC is a very nice place to work. The area is beautiful, there
are lots of neat animals to work with, and the weather is unbeatable!
[ Lori/QuestChatHost
- 301 - 17:57:07 ]
RE: [unknown] what class's should i
take in high school to get a job such as yours? can you please explain
how you got started. ~thanks~ brad.
Hi Brad -- Mike has answered that question earlier. You can find it in
the chat answers. You can also read his bio at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/people/bios/space/legare.html.
[ Mike_Legare -
302 - 17:58:01 ]
RE: [unknown] 6th/Ms.Hunt Which is the
current most endangered animal in the world?
Ms. Hunt- That's a tough one. There are probably many species that are
down to just a handful of individuals, but probably the most endangered
group in the US is passerines of Hawaii. There are many, many species
of small birds in Hawaii that are on the edge of extinction.
[ Lori/QuestChatHost
- 303 - 17:58:42 ]
I believe Mike is answering his last question in the chat room for today.
I want to thank everyone for participating today! I especially want to
thank Mike Legare for sharing his time and expertise with us today about
the cool job he has at the Kennedy Space Center!
[ Mike_Legare -
304 - 18:01:50 ]
Thanks for the great questions! I hope I help out in some way. It was
fun. -Mike
[ Lori/QuestChatHost
- 306 - 18:03:17 ]
Please join us next week for a webcast on Tuesday and a full day's worth
of activities for Virtual Take Our Daughters To Work Day next Thursday.
For more details, see: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/calendar/index.html.
Have a great day :-)
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