#thomas egan

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Little NCIS Thing #1990

Lieutenant Commander Thomas Egan

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Thomas Egan

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Demise of Broome's Weld Club Hotel

Demise of Broome’s Weld Club Hotel

Broome, September 22,

The Weld Club Hotel (pictured), and the residence of Mr. Rodriguez, which adjoined, were entirely destroyed by fire at 3 o’clock this morning.

No lives were lost, but Mr. Thomas Egan, formerly of Kalgoorlie, had a narrow escape from death. He was aroused from his bed after the flames had obtained a firm hold of the premises, and had to rush across the roof of the…

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DomeStar @ PEX Summer Festival 2016

Photos by Thomas Egan

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Tap Jam - Thomas Egan

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Liquid Destiny by Thomas Egan

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The Mongolian Dust Bowl

Andrew Jacobs, Winter Leaves Mongolians a Harvest of Carcasses

Mongolia and its 800,000 herders are reeling from the worst winter that anyone can remember. According to United Nations relief officials, nearly eight million cows, yaks, camels, horses, goats and sheep died, about 17 percent of the country’s livestock. Even if the spring rains arrive soon, 500,000 more animals are expected to succumb in the coming weeks.

[...]

The last serious zuds, three consecutive harsh winters between 1999 and 2002, sent thousands of destitute nomads streaming into the capital, Ulan Bator. A decade later, their tattered yurts still crowd bleak neighborhoods on the city’s fringe as the former herders struggle to fit into the modern world. The United Nations estimates that the current disaster may prompt as many as 20,000 herders to abandon their nomadic life and flee to the city.

[...]

In the past, sheep made up 80 percent of small-animal herds and goats the rest. But as the price of cashmere soared over the last decade, that ratio reversed, with devastating results for the ecology of the steppe. Voracious eaters, goats often destroy the grass by nibbling at the roots. Their sharp hooves also damage fragile pasture by breaking up the protective tangle of grass and lichens, allowing the wind to sweep away topsoil and encouraging desertification.

The other wildcard is climate change, which many herders blame for the increasingly inhospitable weather. Winters are longer and colder, the winds blow stronger and the summers, they say, are drier. “I don’t know what happened to the mild spring rains that the grass needs to drink,” said Degkhuu, 62, a lifelong herder who lost his entire flock. “Now, when the rains come they are heavy and create flash floods.”

A recent World Bank study found that hundreds of rivers and lakes had disappeared in Mongolia, and the diversity of plant species had plummeted by a third since 1997, although researchers partly blamed the proliferation of goats.

For the moment, the government is focused on clearing the millions of dead animals that litter the grasslands and are beginning to decompose now that spring has finally arrived. A work-for-cash program, financed with a $1.5 million grant from the United Nations, pays herders to gather the carcasses and bury them in pits. It is grim work, but those lucky enough to get a spot on the crews are happy for the income.

I am reading Thomas Egan's The Worst Hard Time, about the US dust bowl on the high plains in the late '20s and through the '30s. It was the home of the southern buffalo herds and the Comanche, and after the native Americans were defeated and the buffalo killed off, the farmers turned the soil, breaking the grasslands. Then the drought came, and the winds blew the dirt away. The black dusters dropped dirt as far away as Chicago and St Louis, and all the animals -- including people -- choked on dust, and no crops could be grow, even if people elsewhere would buy them.

I have just gotten to the section where the US government is buying dying, emaciated livestock, and shooting it, in May of 1934. They killed tens of thousands, but nothing like the millions that died in Mongolia this winter.

In Mongolia, the herders are raising more goats than formerly, and these are destroying the grasslands, instead of how we did it here, by overtilling the soil. But it is being killed by overuse, in any case.

There is a theory that the Sahara desert is the result of overgrazing by goats, a species that should be exterminated to the very last animal.