I Stand with Aisha White

I read something a couple of days ago that troubled and saddened me in so many ways. It was a personal account by a young woman of how she was sexually assaulted. Various search engines and social media platforms brought this article to my attention because it involved birders. In her blog post, Aisha White told of how she began exploring the world of birding in 2020. Among the many people she met included a prominent figure in the birding community where she lived. This person is a science communicator, he leads birding tours, has a large online platform, and he hosts a successful documentary series on birding with a large following.

He raped Aisha.

You can read the full story in Aisha White’s own words, here.

Now, the person who did this terrible thing to Aisha White is black and I am white. And, I realize that as a white person, I may be accused of racism when I denounce a black person. I hope that does not happen. But I am also a man, and as such have a responsibility to hold other men accountable for their actions.

So, let me be very clear. Sexual violence is intolerable and has no place in the birding community.

Additionally, I am a science communicator, and play a small role in the birding community as well (though no where near what the man in question has held). As a birder and science communicator, I want to bring more people into the birding community. I want to share knowledge of the fascinating world we live in with them. I want to inspire people to want to learn more! The actions of this man taint such efforts by the all the rest of us.

The various organizations that had worked with this man have canceled those associations. He was fired from the American Bird Conservancy, where he worked, and the documentary series has been canceled. Legal investigations will move forward to determine the facts of the case, and what paths forward could be taken. But, I think dissolving the associations with the man in question were appropriate actions for those organizations to take.

I think that stepping forward and sharing an experience like this with the public takes a lot of guts. Aisha White, if you ever read this, I see you, I hear you, and I am sorry that this ever happened to you. I hope that you find a way to continue exploring the world of birds and that your love for them continues to grow. Know that there are many people in the world who will stand by you and will be happy to help, if you like. I am one of them.

A GoFundMe page to support Aisha White’s legal costs can be found here.

This is a developing story and may be edited and adjusted as more information becomes available.

Read Full Post »

A Second Lizard Helps Prevent Lyme Disease

A few years ago, I wrote a post called Lizards, Ticks, and Lyme. It explained how Western Fence Lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis) have a blood protein that kills the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease, and this is one of the major explanations of why Lyme Disease is so much less common in the Western USA.

Well, new research (see references at the end) has added a really intriguing facet to the Tick-Lizard-Lyme story. This new research focuses on the southeastern USA. The southeast is another area where Lyme Disease rates are very low. But why? The southeastern USA has populations of Black-legged Ticks (members of the genus: Ixodes), which are the ticks that can carry Lyme Disease. The region has the mammal species such as deer and mice that act as reservoirs for Lyme Disease. People in the southwest get bitten by ticks, just like other parts of the country. So why is Lye Disease so much more common in the northeastern USA than the southeastern?

Well, once again, it looks like we can thank lizards. Skinks are a group of smooth-scaled rather lovely looking lizards and they are one of the preferred hosts for ticks in the southeastern USA. In the northeastern USA mice are the much more common host to ticks. And this sets up a roadblock for Lyme Disease in the southeast because skinks have been shown to be really bad transmitters of Lyme Disease. Mice, on the other hand, have been shown to be very effective transmitters of Lyme Disease.

A Southeastern Five-lined Skink (Photo credit: Animal Spot)

It is not yet known if the stinks blood contains proteins that actually kill the Lyme Disease-causing bacteria, or it there is something else about skinks that reduces transmission rates, but this difference in host does help to explain why Lyme Disease rates are so much lower in the southeastern USA as compared to the northeastern USA.

So, fence lizards and skinks both contribute to reducing Lyme Disease in the areas where these lizards are found. Pretty fascinating stuff! I am very much looking forward to learning more about this subject as more research is done. Do other lizard species also reduce the occurrences of Lyme Disease? Does skink blood kill the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease? What is the blood protein that the fence lizards produce that kills the bacteria, and can it be synthesized? So many questions!

I hope you follow this story, and are as intrigued by it as I am. I will certainly write more as more is discovered.

Here are some sources for further reading: a Science News article, and an SF Gate article.

Read Full Post »

Best Version Media – Part 6

What follows is a series of interactions between myself and a publishing company called Best Version Media (BVM) that I found to be unsettling and distasteful. It has resulted in me withdrawing my contributions to BVM publications. This story gets a little long, so I will be posting it in several parts. Here is part 6.

In part 5, I shared a letter that I wrote to PERSON 3 (name not included for sensitivity reasons), and senior manager of BVM. That letter was part of a set of back-and-fourth emails between me and BVM employees. Here is PERSON 3’s final response to me which was sent on 9/15/2020.

Dear Aaron,

You are entitled to disagree with our company’s policy as you clearly already had.We have never been a platform to discuss race or other social issues and that will not change. 

If you are telling me that you are not racist or sexist I will believe you. The way in which you expressed your views could have been more clear though as I was not the only one who read them as I did.  

As far as contributing writers, BVM does not pay any contributing writers. Most pay us. Many want to contribute because they know how much notoriety they get from our magazines or they just really enjoy writing about a particular topic. If you took issue with this then 4 years ago would have been the more appropriate time to do so.

In the spirit of understanding it is probably best and most accurate to say that neither one of us wants either discrimination or mertitless recognition based off of race, gender, etc and leave it at that. 

Have a great week

PERSON 3 name and title
www.BestVersionMedia.com

So, that is that.

After reading this response, and thinking about it for a bit, I decided that I could no longer contribute to BVM publications.

I continue to stand by everything I wrote in my article and subsequent letters. And I think that the responses from PERSON 3 display a thinking that I find very distasteful. The fact that PERSON 3 represents and speaks for BVM is why I have stopped contributing to their publications, and why I am publishing this whole exchange here.

I leave it to a candid world, and you dear reader. If you made it through all six parts of this story, you have my thanks. What conclusions do you draw from these writings? Was I out of line? Was PERSON 3? What do you think about all of this? If anyone wants more details and names of the individuals involved in this exchange, comment below and we can discuss further.

Read Full Post »