Sunspots effect on predators

purdygood

purdygood

Active member
I was wondering if the activity with the sun we are having would or has an effect on predators.I know it effects the weather in some ways.Just curious if it had any direct effect on the animals?
 
Yep, fries em up real good, if they are within 1.6 million miles /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif But that is a interesting question, wonder if the government will give me a grant to study that. Might as well throw in a little extra to find out if more coyotes are killed on the highway by drunk drivers or sober.
 
Good question, for a number of reasons.

I still can recall one of those John Barrymore-narrated Bell Labs science films, from grammar school, describing a correllation between 11 year sunspot cycles and the hare/lynx peaks and crashes in the Arctic.

In the past 17 seasons I've casually noticed a rabbit/bobcat cycle, at least here in CA, that seems to mirror the sunspot cycle.

(Beaucoups bunnies were reported this Spring almost everywhere...good year to be a bobcat!!! Should still be a 6 mo old thread somewhere in the PM archives. )

I work with several PhD astronomers at the observatory I caretake. No consensus among them when I posed the question of a possible suspot cycle/predator-prey cycle relationship. One dismissed the idea outright, but another actually had the humility to admit there are some things as yet unknown to astromers.

Or were you asking about a the more immediate effect of a sudden magnetic disturbance from an Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection (or CME. Technical term for when sunspot explodes, and spews radiation)? I've heard one old-time houndsman state authoritatively that all lions throughout the entire state move at the same time due to changes in the magnetic field. Anybody else care to tackle that?

LionHo
 
I was wondering if the predators were sensative to the increase in the magnetic field or it would effect them directly?
 
Good question but I think it would be almost impossible to answer. One would have to set up a study that correllated with sunspot occurrences and you would also have to have a control to test your hypothesis. The control would obviously be during a time without sunspots and have similar predator numbers. Too many variables to come to a conclusion that had any degree of confidence.
 
Purdygood - Its well known in this area of the country that sunspots have a direct effect on how crabby my wife will be. The extra magnatism pulls on her brain, and she just seems to snap. This seems to happen about once a month around the same time. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Hope this helps, Sleddogg
 
We've been getting feedback on this proton event from the particle detectors on our on-orbit Geo sats. During non-events we record mostly noise with very little hits. Just after midnight the SOHO 5 minute average proton flux cronographs (CCDs) were pretty much totally snowed out with impact. Integral Flux exceeded 10,000pfu and the event was escalating. Still waiting for a summary.
 
OK. The satellites we build have radiation detectors (panels) on them. A 2 foot diameter panel normally records (for example) a few dozen impact "spots" in a 5 minute monitoring span. Kind of like a few flicks of white paint on a surface. But during this solar storm, the detector recorded so many "spots" in 5 minutes it looked like it had been spray painted white! That's a $$@# load of radiation coming at us.
 
Ok, here's the deal: Predators travel a great deal more during periods of solar flares . . . because their TV reception goes to hell. Therefore, they're off to go dumpster diving, picking up a couple packs of smokes, or at the mall. And don't tell me you've never seen predators at the mall. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
I would say "no" on the sunspots having any effect on coyotes let along anything else living, but, more study is of course need.
It's like asking this question: how far can a coyote see at night?
 
OK, I just can't stand it, I have got to jump in on this one. This topic is almost sci-fi. Two of the things I enjoy, predator hunting and sci-fi.

All right here I go; I was just reading on cnn.com about how the earth's magnetic field has weakened by 10% over the last 150 years; the sun spots we are experiencing are not part of the regular cylce, and the polar shift continues. Not to mention the hole in the ozone and global warming!

Does all of this mean that my grandchildren will be be hunting carniverous ground hogs here in Ole Kaintuck?
 
Graydog,
Don't believe everything you see on tv or read on the internet!! This global warming thing has most of us scratching our heads. Is it really warming or are we going through a cyclic trend? Who knows. I'm not going to worry too much about it though.
 
Where was all the "Global Warming" on the 2nd day of buck season? BRRRRRRRRRRR /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Wait I think I got it! The combination of global warming and the sun spots are melting the polar ice caps so fast that all the critters are runing for high groung so fast that they are splashing the water up into the atmoshere and thats why it won't stop raining here long enough for me to get a good days hunting in! I'm going to get some scubba gear and a harpon gun so I'm ready when they all come by! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 


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