Wisconsin School of the Air; Afield with Ranger Mac; 14

It's 9:30 and the Wisconsin School of the air invites you to go afield with Ranger Mac. And other Christmas Vacation is over boys and girls. Ranger Mack returns to the school of the air with a talk about mammals in the water quarters. And here is your guide Ranger Mack. Hello boys and girls. We're standing at the threshold of another year. Each of us starts the pilgrimage over the trail of 1952 Ranger Mike Hope you had a Merry Christmas and wish is that each day of the year ahead may bring you many and many fine joyous things that no matter what else goes on in the world your days may be full of the joys that rightfully belong to the youth time of life. You boys and girls are old enough to know now that there is much trouble much confusion and uncertainty in the world as we start the pilgrimage of another year.

You read about it in your current events and here mother and dad talk about it in the home. And most people are wondering and wondering and wondering with troubled minds what lies behind the curtain of the horizon that hides our path ahead. But no matter what takes place in the world that man has created for himself the world of nature goes on in its shore and silent way. There are many fairy tales that have considerable meaning. Now take for instance the story of the Sleeping Beauty. She was a delightful maiden of vigorous beauty and joyous Grace now but a shadow hung over her life. She was doomed to an early death. But it kind Providence changed her death to a sleep and not to dying but in spite of all the watchful care given her the spindle of death

pierced her hand and she fell into a deep sleep so deep that it was next to death's door but the prince whom she loved came to her bedside and kissed her and this kiss awakened her. The meaning of this story is clear. The Sleeping Beauty was our fair earth with its glow of life. And her youth were some of the spindle that pierced our hand was the piercing cold of winter. The spellbound sleep. Was winter's long rest and the kiss that awakened hire was the first strong sunshine of spring. This fable is an acted in a marsh I like to visit frequently in the spring it is bright with the flash of birds wings and the air is vibrant with their singing. The peepers and toads fill the evening air with their

mating songs. Dragon flies catch mosquitoes in the sunshine and over the surface of the pond and chipmunks scamper to cover that my approach. The whole area teams in the spring with uncountable light. But now as I visit the area held in the grasp of winter it is as silent as a tomb. Next spring after the warm kiss of the some the area will again be teeming with lives which in some manner survive the winter. It is nothing short of a miracle. This return to life and whatever else happens in the world of man. We know that this Miracle is waiting for us down the trail of 1952. So each Monday morning at this hour we will take the keys and try to one lock some of nature's

mysteries. Ranger Mack has called your attention repeatedly to how Mother Nature has provided her children with ways to carry on the business of living of securing food and preventing being made of keenness of the senses speed and cunning. Claws beaks tails and wings of different kinds according to the manner of securing food. Clever devices like the traps of the spider and doodlebugs. Tools of defense like the spray of the skunk and the quills of the Porcupine. But the day Ranger Mack is going to take you out into the winter and point out a common hardship that all creatures must meet if they are to remain on this earth. This hardship is the piercing night of winter and the scarcity of food that

winter brings. Each of nature's creatures must meet this challenge or disappear from the face of the man. One of nature's creatures does it by putting on clothing or finding refuge in a room warmed by the sunshine of millions of years ago stored in coal. And then he pulls his chair up to a table and eat it. Grown in the sunshine of the previous summer. Most of our birds escape the danger of winter by flight. Birds are the emblems of freedom. A few of the hardy birds migrate migrate to us from the colder north and feed upon the berries and seeds and way of insects the thermostat's of their bodies if we can call it thermostat. Of their bodies is raised to provide more body heat. And they

spend the days hunting food to stock their premises and shelter from the night. From the night wind in thickets evergreens holes in trees and even under the snow. No bird or animal could stand the winter without shelter at all but they are a courageous lot. Our concern today is with a few of the mammals that escape winter by hibernation but hibernation is meant going into a deep sleep called by the Indians the long sleep. Or little death. The best example of hibernation is the woodchuck. It has the soundest sleep of all the sleepers. Other hibernating mammals are the bat black bear. RIKOON dad your Jumping Mouse skunk

and the ground squirrels like the Chipmunks and the Gopher. The squirrel that of the tree is not a true hibernate Ergo it is often put in the list of hibernate years when walking through the woods last week I saw the cracks of square miles in the snow. Some of the hibernate or sleep more deeply than others. Some are for the whole winter some for only a part of it. The chipmunk for instance wakes up at times to eat of food it stores away and the Chamber of its burrow and having it curls up and goes to sleep again. The skunk may come out of its shelter on warm winter days and forage about maybe to visit a chicken coop. The woodchuck is the best example of a hibernate or and so we will discuss what he does in getting ready for the long sleep and the changes

that take place in his body during hibernation long before winter sets in. Johnny Chuck knows instinctively that the days of cold and scarcity are ahead so he gets ready for hibernation by eating a great deal and getting very packed. This fact is stored around his chest and shoulders and in the axles of his legs. Now he extends one of his summer burrows and builds a nest chamber at the end of it and witty lines with hay as the days grow shorter and the nights grow colder. He remains in his sleeping chamber drowsy and slow moving gradually as the days approach winter. He pulls up his body into a compact ball. His nose touching his tail tip. And his hind legs tucked in and his poor legs folded. He now goes

into a sleep that lasts for six months. He must live for six months on the planet stored in his body. A baseball player can lose as much as two pounds during a game. Johnny Chuck must make two pounds of fat last him six months. How does nature provide for this. First of all he curls up in a compact ball. To conserve his body heat next his temperature fall slowly as winter approaches a few degrees each week until finally the body temperature gets as low as 40 degrees. The less the temperature you know the less the food the less the fuel required. Such a low temperature would be fatal to ma'am. Cats dogs all domestic animals and all animals that do not hibernate.

When the airplane was wrecked on the snow covered mountain side on that code day of December 29 about a little over a week ago the 11 who survived the disaster were allowed. They were not allowed to sleep more than five minutes at a time. The stewardess would awaken them in their snowy bed after a short sleep. And oh how they wanted to sleep could hardly keep from it in fact she would awaken them to move about to get there but their blood circulating just to keep their body temperatures at normal to let the body temperature of a man Paul to 60 degrees would be fatal. But here is our woodchuck whose body temperature falls as low as 40 degrees with appalling of body temperature. There is a slowing of the heartbeat and of

breathing. In the summertime the heart of the woodchuck beats about 80 times a minute. But in the deep sleep of hibernation it beats about five times a minute. Just enough to keep the sluggish blood in circulation and breathing which normally is 30 to 35 times a minute becomes one in every five minutes. So you can see that nature has slowed down all the activity within the body in order to make the fuel last. It is like turning down the wick in a lamp in order to make the oil last just burning enough to keep the flame of life. A hibernating woodchuck can be rolled across the floor without awakening. But many a hunter who has stumbled on the den of a bear in Winter has reason to know that the bear is not such a deep sleeper.

The favorite wait for the Black Bear to make its winter Dan is to dig out a hole at the butt end of a log rake in some leaves and then crawl in himself. And interesting event takes place during the Black Bears hibernation. About six weeks before they mother black bear leaves her winter Dan sometime in January. Her cubs are born right in the middle of winter. A poor time to have babies. We all agreed happily. The Cubs are very very small considering the size