Tagmemic
Tagmemic Analysis sample: Grey Wolves
Creativity is looking at the same thing as everyone else, and seeing something different, that is, from a different point of view. Similarly, often, creativity is synthetic, putting things together that most people would think of as unrelated. This is related to metaphor, which involves seeing/creating non-obvious similarities. Breakthroughs are often made by someone drawing on different domains (in Freud's case, applying ideas, including metaphor from the then-current hot new technology, steam engines, from physiology to the mind).
You can increase your chances of making connections by systematically thinking about something from different perspectives. Heuristic Tagmemic questions allow you to do this. In the original science fiction TV show Star Trek, almost every episode begins with the starship scanning a planet for geology, atmosphere, life forms, energy sources. Tagmemic questions allow you to scan any THING (Pentadic questions are for people).
Tagmemic questions had their origin in the work of Kenneth Pike, who studies languages from all over the world. He noticed an underlying pattern in all of them: we can talk about a thing, isolated and unchanging. We can also speak about how a thing changes, and how it relates to other things. Because these were universal, Pike concludes they are fundamental, essential to human survival. With his partners Young and Becker, they expanded these three fundamental ways of seeing a thing into nine questions.
Here's a quick run at how to think about how grey wolves will be affected by climate change (note; what i'd usually do is read a bunch of stuff then play with these questions longhand, but i'm cutting and pasting here, with some added commentary, so you can read it):
1. Particle: What is it in and of itself? (What are its features? What features differentiate it from similar things?)
Basic Facts About Gray Wolves: Wolves are an integral part of an ecosystem as a top tier predator The wolf is the largest member of the canine family. Gray wolves range in color from grizzled gray or black to all-white. As the ancestor of the domestic dog, the gray wolf resembles German shepherds or malamutes. Wolves are making a comeback in the Great Lakes, northern Rockies and Southwestern United States.
Diet:Wolves eat ungulates, or large hoofed mammals, like elk, deer, moose and caribou. Wolves are also known to eat beaver, rabbits and other small prey. Wolves are also scavengers and often eat animals that have died due to other causes like starvation and disease.
Height: 26-32 inches (.7-.8m) at the shoulder.
Length: 4.5-6.5 feet (1.4-2m) from nose to tip of tail.
Weight: 55-130 lbs (25-59 kg); Males are typically heavier and taller than the females.
Lifespan: 7-8 years in the wild, but some have lived 10 years or more.
What features differentiate it from similar things?
Wolves can range in color, from pure white in Arctic populations, to brown, gray, cinnamon and black. do bevaviors/diet different between (sub-Species? can/do they interbreed? [with huiman assistance?)
2 Wave. How is it changing over time? (How much can it change without becoming something else? What is its position in a temporal sequence?)
Population: There are an estimated 7,000 to 11,200 wolves in Alaska and more than 5,000 in the lower 48 states. Around the world there are an estimated 200,000 in 57 countries, compared to up to 2 million in earlier times.
There are roughly 6,000 gray wolves in the continental U.S., according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. About 8,000 to 11,000 roam Alaska, where they go unprotected. The wolves were one of the most common mammals in the country until unregulated hunting nearly led to their extinction. When the Endangered Species Act was introduced in 1973, there were practically no remaining gray wolves in the West.
OR7 Lone Wolf Returns To California http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/or7-lone-wolf-california_n_1407984.html?ref=topbar
3 Field: How is it part of a larger system (either physical or abstract)? (How do its sub-components interact?)
Abstract: wolves are charismatic megafauna, totemic (soldiers, boy scouts and sport teams name themselves for wolves) which is both a benefit and a drawback: mythic doenside; evil, scary menace of little red riding hood, Disney movies.
Range: Wolves were once common throughout all of North America but were killed in most areas of the United States by the mid 1930s. Today their range has been reduced to Canada and the following portions of the United States: Alaska, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Mexican wolves are found in New Mexico and Arizona.
Thanks to the reintroduction of wolves in 1995, Yellowstone National Park is one of the most favored places to see and hear wolves in the native habitat. Behavior
Wolves live, travel and hunt in packs of 4-7 animals on average. Packs include the mother and father wolves, called the alphas, their pups and several other subordinate or young animals. The alpha female and male are the pack leaders that track and hunt prey, choose den sites and establish the pack's territory. Wolves develop close relationships and strong social bonds. They often demonstrate deep affection for their family and may even sacrifice themselves to protect the family unit.
Wolves have a complex communication system ranging from barks and whines to growls and howls. While they don't howl at the moon, they do howl more when it's lighter at night, which occurs more often when the moon is full.
Reproduction: Mating Season: January or February. (How are moates chosen? what natural inhibitions to inbreeding? Gestation: 63 days. Litter size: 4-7 pups. Pups are born blind and defenseless. The pack cares for the pups until they mature at about 10 months of age.
The most common cause of death for wolves is conflict with people over livestock losses. While wolf predation on livestock is fairly uncommon, wolves that do prey on them are often killed to protect the livestock. Defenders is working with livestock owners to develop non-lethal methods to reduce the chances of a wolf attacking livestock. These methods include fencing livestock, lighting, alarm systems and removing dead or dying livestock that may attract carnivores like wolves. Another serious threat is human encroachment into wolf territory, which leads to habitat loss for wolves and their prey species.
Economic: ranching vs tourism: Gray Wolves increase tourism in Yellowstone National Park
Wolf-based tourism is proving to be highly profitable for small outfitters in and around Yellowstone National Park-$5 million or more for this year is expected.
In an April letter to the Montana governor and congressional delegation, outdoor educator Jim Halfpenny announced his 2005 survey results on “wolf ecotourism.”
Legal/political: 1st animal EVER to be delisted from endhangered species act by politicians:
the wolf body count continued to rise in the West. Hunters have killed 258 wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming since late August, including eight known to spend time within Yellowstone National Park. Five of them were wearing radio collars. Though no hunting is allowed within the park, wolves often cross the invisible park boundary in search of food or mates. Once out, they are no longer protected...The Humane Society filed a lawsuit in February to restore federal protections for gray wolves that were lifted last year in the Upper Midwest United States. Since the protections were lifted, hunters and trappers have killed an estimated 530 wolves in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
global warming: Most researchers agree that even small changes in temperature are enough to send hundreds if not thousands of already struggling species into extinction unless we can stem the tide of global warming. And time may be of the essence: A 2003 study published in the journal Nature concluded that 80 percent of some 1,500 wildlife species sampled are already showing signs of stress from climate change.
How Global Warming Affects Wildlife The key impact of global warming on wildlife is habitat displacement, whereby ecosystems that animals have spent millions of years adapting to shift quickly. Ice giving way to water in polar bear habitat is just one example of this.
Another, according to The Washington Post, is the possibility that warmer spring temperatures could dry up critical breeding habitat for waterfowl in the prairie pothole region, a stretch of land between northern Iowa and central Alberta.
Affected wildlife populations can sometimes move into new spaces and continue to thrive. But concurrent human population growth means that many land areas that might be suitable for such “refugee wildlife” are already taken and cluttered with residential and industrial development. A recent report by the Pew Center for Global Climate Change suggests creating “transitional habitats” or “corridors” that help migrating species by linking natural areas that are otherwise separated by human settlement.
Shifting Life Cycles and Global Warming Beyond habitat displacement, many scientists agree that global warming is causing a shift in the timing of various natural cyclical events in the lives of animals. Many birds have altered the timing of long-held migratory and reproductive routines to better sync up with a warming climate. And some hibernating animals are ending their slumbers earlier each year, perhaps due to warmer spring temperatures.
To make matters worse, recent research contradicts the long-held hypothesis that different species coexisting in a particular ecosystem respond to global warming as a single entity. Instead, different species sharing like habitat are responding in dissimilar ways, tearing apart ecological communities millennia in the making.
Global Warming Effects on Animals Affect People Too And as wildlife species go their separate ways, humans can also feel the impact. A World Wildlife Fund study found that a northern exodus from the United States to Canada by some types of warblers led to a spread of mountain pine beetles that destroy economically productive balsam fir trees. Similarly, a northward migration of caterpillars in the Netherlands has eroded some forests there.
Which Animals Are Hardest Hit by Global Warming? According to Defenders of Wildlife, some of the wildlife species hardest hit so far by global warming include caribou (reindeer), arctic foxes, toads, polar bears, penguins, gray wolves, tree swallows, painted turtles and salmon. The group fears that unless we take decisive steps to reverse global warming, more and more species will join the list of wildlife populations pushed to the brink of extinction by a changing climate.
--- 5.4 How will animals on land be affected by global warming?
5.4.1 Arctic animals on land include:
small plant-eaters like ground squirrels, hares, lemmings and voles; large plant-eaters like moose, caribou/reindeer and musk ox; and meat-eaters like weasels, wolverines, wolves, foxes, bears and birds of prey.
Climate-induced changes are likely to cause a series of cascading effects involving many species of plants and animals. If grasses, mosses and lichens no longer live in the same areas due to a changing climate, it will have implications for the animals that feed on them, and on the predators or human communities that depend on those animals.
In snow-covered areas, warming could increase the occurrence of repeated freezing and thawing which could lead to the formation of an ice crust thus preventing animals from eating grasses and mosses and sometimes even killing the plants. Lemmings, musk ox and reindeer/caribou are all affected. Dramatic population crashes resulting from this phenomenon have been reported increasingly frequently over recent decades.
Mild weather and wet snow lead to collapse of spaces between the frozen ground and the snow where lemmings and voles live and forage. Furthermore, when the surface of the snow melts and re-freezes the resulting ice crust reduces the insulating properties of the snow pack that is vital to the survival of these animals. Declines in their populations can in turn lead to declines in animal population that feed on them, such as snowy owls, skuas, weasels and ermine. When lemming populations are low, more generalist predators, such as the Arctic fox, switch to other prey species such as waders and other birds, increasing pressure on those populations. More...
