How Does the Summer Solstice Affect Animals?

The summer solstice, which marks the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, happens today (June 21) at 6:07 a.m. EDT (1007 GMT). This event happens when Earth's tilt toward the sun is at its maximum and the sun points directly over the Tropic of Cancer.

That extended daylight makes it difficult for people in northern latitudes to know when to go to sleep if they aren't looking at a clock, but the midnight sun is no problem for many other animals.

On this day, which provides a full 24 hours of daylight above the Arctic Circle, people in northern latitudes are celebrating with special events, like an overnight golf tournament in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, and a camping festival at England's Stonehenge. But without a watch, those partiers may ignore their bedtime, as humans are terrible at telling time during mostly light or mostly dark periods, according to a 1974 study in The Journal of Physiology. That's because light has a major effect on the human body's circadian rhythm, or sleep-wake cycle. [Photos: Stunning Summer Solstice Photos]

But many animals in northern latitudes can naturally control their sleep-wake cycles in extreme daylight conditions, said Cory Williams, a biologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

"There are animals that stop having a prolonged period of sleep," and they abandon their usual daily rhythm during this time of year, Williams told Live Science. For example, semipalmated sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) — small, brown-and-white shorebirds that breed above the Arctic Circle — are unfazed by the long periods of daylight. They alternate sleeping and waking hours with their nesting mate throughout the day. "When the male is active, the female is at the nest and vice versa," Williams said. "It's not on a 24-hour schedule."

Reindeer also ignore the absence of a light-dark cycle during the summer months. Instead, their sleep cycles are governed by ultradian rhythm, which means they sleep whenever they need to digest food. "They lose that long stretch of sleep they would normally have," Williams said. "They take lots of naps during the day instead of one concentrated bout of sleep.

This happens only in polar species, because their behavior is not entrained by light and dark cycles, Williams said. During this time of the year, the advantage for animals to be active at a particular time of day is lost. For instance, foraging at night doesn't save energy or provide protection from predators since it's daylight all the time.

But not all polar species abandon their circadian rhythm. For example, arctic ground squirrels (Spermophilus parryii) stick to their sleep schedules all year long. They retreat to their burrows during the darkest part of the day in the summer (which still isn't that dark, more like twilight) to save energy, Williams said.

Scientists such as Williams are still working to figure out what is different about polar animals that maintain entrained sleeping rhythms. As average global temperatures increase, animals are relocating to higher latitudes, Williams said, "so it will be interesting to see how animals that haven't been exposed to polar conditions will respond as they move north."

Inside the Pet Prosthetics Company That's Changing Animals' Lives

When Chi Chi the dog was found on the side of the road in South Korea, animal rescuers weren’t sure if she would survive. She had been badly abused and suffered severe blood flow loss to her legs, rendering them immobile. The normal course of action in that situation would have been euthanization, but Chi Chi made it clear that she wasn’t ready to give up. “I always say that her smile saved her,” Derrick Campana, founder of Animal OrthoCare, tells Mental Floss. “She was just so friendly and lovable that she got noticed.” The decision was made to amputate all four of her legs, and it wasn't long before a viral video telling Chi Chi's story caught the attention of a couple in Arizona. Shortly after moving to her new home in the U.S., Chi Chi was outfitted with prosthetics designed by Campana that allowed her to move around freely for the first time since she was rescued.

Campana and the work he does for disabled animals like Chi Chi were the focus of the first episode of Dodo Heroes, a new Animal Planet series that highlights inspiring stories of animal strength and survival. The prosthetics designer fell into the veterinary field by chance: He was working as a doctor specializing in prosthetics for people when a canine patient was brought in to his practice. The doctor the dog was supposed to see wasn’t in, so Campana decided to build an artificial limb for the pooch himself. “I got so much satisfaction and fulfillment out of it that I knew it was something I wanted to do forever,” he says. He launched Animal OrthoCare, his animal bracing and prosthetics company, one month later.

There aren’t many options out there for pet owners looking to provide comfortable, effective prosthetics to their disabled animals. A dog amputee might be fitted with a canine cart, while larger wild animals with missing or dysfunctional limbs are often put down. And when prosthetics are available, the choices are usually limited, sticking pets with something that can exacerbate their pain and discomfort.

Animal OrthoCare is different: It’s the only company in the U.S. that offers custom animal braces, and it’s one of only a handful of custom animal orthotics companies on earth. Animals in need around the world can take advantage of its services. For most requests, Campana mails out a casting kit to the owner or veterinarian of the animal patient. After a cast is made of the patient’s limb, it’s mailed back to Animal OrthoCare’s shop in Virginia, where Campana and his team use it to build a custom prosthetic from medical-grade foam. It takes about a week on average before the final product is ready to ship to the customer's home, where they can attach it to their pet themselves using a hook-and-strap system that can be adjusted for maximum comfort.

In addition to being convenient, the treatment is also relatively affordable, with dog prosthetics starting at $750. Since founding Animal OrthoCare, Campana has helped roughly 20,000 animals walk again—and walk more comfortably.

Chi Chi the Golden Retriever and Jabu the elephant, the two patients featured in Campana's episode of Dodo Heroes, represent two of his biggest challenges to date. Chi Chi is a survivor of the South Korean dog meat trade, and she had been hung upside-down by her legs for so long that it cost her all four of her limbs. According to Campana, quadriplegic dogs are very rare, and dogs with four prosthetics are even rarer. By visiting Chi Chi in her home and adjusting the fit of her artificial limbs, he makes sure she can walk freely without doing any further damage to her body.

Jabu, a 31-year-old elephant living in Botswana, is another extreme example of the animals Campana gets to work with. After Jabu fell into a ditch and injured his leg, the caretakers at the wildlife preserve where he lives reached out to Animal OrthoCare for help. Campana says the leg brace he constructed for the 6-ton creature is likely the world’s first elephant brace. Without it, Jabu may not have survived even another minor injury. “A dog can have this type of injury and live a fine life, but for an animal like Jabu in the wild, it's life-threatening,” he says. “If you're lame out in the African bush, you're not going to live.”

Delta updates comfort-animal policy to one per passenger—and no pit bulls

Delta Air Lines has revised its animal policy again, this time limiting emotional-support animals to one per customer and banning "pit bull type dogs" as either comfort or service animals.

The changes go into effect July 10. The airline said the updates resulted from safety concerns, after several workers were bitten. Delta said it carries about 700 service or comfort animals daily, or nearly 250,000 per year.

The revisions are the latest examples of the major airlines grappling with how to serve passengers who want to bring animals with them in the cabin. Delta had previously updated its animal policy in March, after a 70-pound dog flying as a comfort animal bit a passenger in the next seat on a June 2017 flight from Atlanta to San Diego.

"The safety and security of Delta people and our customers is always our top priority," said Gil West, Delta's chief operating officer. "We will always review and enhance our policies and procedures to ensure that Delta remains a leader in safety."

Each of the major airlines has updated animal policies in recent months, after the Transportation Department was unable to reach a consensus on emotional-support animals between travelers, advocacy groups for the disabled and airlines.

The department is collecting comment about potential changes in animal regulations, after failing to reach a compromise between passengers, advocacy groups for the disabled and airlines. Nearly 3,000 comments have already poured in, with a deadline of July 15.

Airlines basically have at least four ways for passengers to bring animals on flights. But uncertainty about standards for the different categories has led to conflicts between passengers and airlines.

Most airlines allow passengers to ship animals in crates with luggage. But occasionally pets die under those circumstances, and high-profile incidents raised concerns. The department counted 506,994 animals transported in cargo last year, including 24 that died, 15 that were injured and one that was lost.

Airlines generally allow passengers to bring smaller pets in containers in the cabin, so long as they fit beneath the seat. But that option costs $75 to $125, depending on the airline.

The dispute over regulations and airline policies is about what animals can travel for free with passengers in the cabin without cages.

The Americans with Disabilities Act recognized dogs and miniature horses as trained service animals. The Air Carrier Access Act then said service animals could fly in the cabin with passengers, while also opening the door to broader range of emotional-support animals, which assist passengers with mental-health issues.

Airlines typically require travelers to have a note from a medical provider describing the need for an emotional-support animal and documentation of the animal's health. But some crew members and passengers suspect that travelers bring pets as comfort animals to avoid fees.

In recent years, the variety of emotional-support animals exploded to include monkeys, pigs and ducks as emotional-support animals, although airlines didn't have to accept reptiles, ferrets or rodents. These comfort animals, which didn't require specified training, sometimes upset other passengers.

As the variety of animals on flights multiplied, so did complaints. The department received 2,443 complaints from travelers with service animals on U.S. and foreign airlines in 2016 and another 2,499 last year.

Can lab animals be studied in the wild?

The environment a laboratory animal lives in can have a dramatic impact on whether it’s a good model for human disease. A mouse that lives in a shoebox-size cage, for example, gets less exercise than its wild relatives, and thus may not be the best model for studying obesity.

Enriched environments with bigger cages and more toys can help, says Garet Lahvis, but the best way to make animals good models is to take them out of the lab—and, in some cases, study them outside in the great wide world. This could be accomplished with cutting-edge electronics and remote sensors, says the behavioral neuroscientist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. He’s presenting his proposal today at the Behavior Genetics Association’s annual conference in Boston.

Lahvis chatted with Science about what studying lab animals in the wild could look like, and why some researchers think it won’t happen. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: Why did you become interested in this idea?

A: Our lab studies social behavior in mice. We’ve shown that mice have the capacity for empathy when they hear other mice getting an electrical shock, and that mice are gregarious—they like to hang out with each other. But we were studying them in these small, relatively sterile cages—not anything like they’d encounter in the wild. About 6 or 7 years ago, I started thinking, “How could it be normal for you to spend your entire life with only three other individuals in a small room? Are the mice we’re looking at really normal?” Once that door opened, I started to think about everything else that could go wrong with lab animal research.

Q: What’s wrong with current housing for lab animals?

A: Animals have to deal with a massive landscape in the wild. They need to hunt for food, avoid predators, seek mates, and deal with complex environmental variables, from rain to shifting light conditions. If you live in a cage, even a cage with lots of toys and companions, everything is the same. You’re not using your brain.

We haven’t had any big breakthroughs for psychiatric diseases; even with cancer drugs, the success rates have been very low. I think a contributing factor is that we’re keeping these animals in such unnatural conditions.

Q: What’s the solution?

A: We need to make the lives of these animals as close as possible to what their lives would be like in the wild. If you’re studying something on a macro level—like how an “autistic” animal responds to its companions—you have to put the animal in a situation where it’s dealing with a ton of social and environmental variables, and those variables need to constantly be changing. You can’t just put a couple of mice in a cage for 4 minutes and ask how long they spend sniffing each other’s butts.

Q: So take the animals out of the lab?

A: One option is to put the animals in an outdoor pen, so they’re dealing with things like foraging and weather that they don’t have to in the lab.

But we could also do some of this work in the wild. For example, [some] mice live in barns. So we could construct a real barn in the wild, one that would have all the challenges and opportunities of real barn living, except perhaps we’d try to make sure the barn never got too hot or too cold, and that the animals couldn’t escape. Then you could introduce, for example, a bunch of mice that were genetically predisposed to breast cancer.

Q: But how could you study such free-roaming animals?

A: You could tag them with a radio frequency tag to keep track of them, and implant them with devices that would allow you to measure physiological variables like heart rate. Then you could inject them with a drug and catch them with traps at regular intervals to see if their tumors were shrinking.

Pretty much everything we can do in the lab, we can do in the wild through remote telemetry and other electronics. You could even use camera traps, for example, to see how animals solve puzzle boxes in the wild. Or you could use probes implanted in an animal’s brain to remotely turn genetically modified neurons on and off.

We’ve done this ourselves with ground squirrels. We’ve used video cameras to compare how these animals behave in the wild to how they behave in the lab.

Q: What are the limitations?

A: I wouldn’t modify the genes of animals we’re studying in the wild, in case they escape. Some critics say it’s also a lot more expensive and labor intensive to study lab animals in the wild.

But we also spend a lot of money on infrastructure, cage cleaning, and other things in the lab—and we spend money on experiments year after year that have no relevance to human health. We should spend more money and do it right. Instead, we’re putting monkeys in mop closets.

Q: How have scientists responded to your proposal?

A: Most of them don’t question the science. They realize this is a better way to do things. But they do question the accounting. They think it will cost too much. So the pressure to change has to come from the outside—from an organization like the National Institutes of Health.

Q: What’s the next step?

A: I’ve convened neuroscientists and wildlife biologists in Oregon to explore how use of naturalistic environments can improve research. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University, and the National Science Foundation have all expressed interest in exploring this.

Q: Have you stopped doing animal research in the lab?

A: I ended my mouse colony and stopped writing grants to study animals in cages a couple of years ago. If this doesn’t work out, [laughs] my days are probably numbered.

Event raises funds for animals in need of forever homes

Every year thousands of homeless animals are in need of a forever home in mid-Michigan.

Sunday the "Paws in the park" event, hosted by the Capital Area Humane Society, didn't only raise money for a local shelter, but it hoped to raise awareness.

The event had little dogs, big dogs, dogs up for adoption and dogs in costumes who flooded the Cooley Law Stadium for a day of games, endless doggy treats, and a good cause.

Julia Willson, the President & CEO of the Capital Area Humane Society said these events are a fun way to attract dogs and their owners. She said, "This type of event funds our activities, including finding new homes for animals that don't have homes, spay and neuter services and providing a wide range of care for the animals in our community."

And in the community here in mid-Michigan, Willson said she cares for hundreds of animals on any given day at the shelter. She told News 10 this major issue is not just a local one but extends on a much larger scale. "It's really a national problem, I think many communities experience the fact that many animals don't have a home," Willson said.

With a lot of animals living in shelters, owners at the event said they suggest people look at shelters before purchasing their pet from anywhere else.

Marilyn Jackson, a rescued dog owner, got her dog Miles from a family that could no longer care for him. "There are so many loving dogs that are great with family and kids who need homes, and its best sometimes to adopt and not shop," Jackson said.

Sarah Dobbrastine is another dog owner who is also no stranger to having her own rescued dogs, "There are always going to be animals looking for homes."

Dobbrastine has welcomed 10 huskies into her home, all of which she rescued or were given to her from people who know she likes that breed.

She told News 10, "more than half of mine have been abused or abandoned so that's how they came to be, or just people who gave them to me because they knew I dog sledded." She said she loves huskies for their personalities and comforting quality.

Sunday was a walk for animals in need, a walk animals took one paw at a time.

How the Love of a Dog Saved My Life

Two things that have been a part of who I am for as long as I can remember are a love of dogs and a tendency to depression, the first of which can sometimes help to take the sting out of the second. But around the time I turned 30, I went through a period of depression so profound that I could barely function. Spiraling toward oblivion, I made the painful decision to check myself into a psychiatric hospital and to give away my dog, Lou. Though I eventually climbed my way back to health, I remained shaken by the encounter with my own fragility and ashamed that I had fallen to the point where I was unable to take care of not just myself but a dog who depended on me.

After that, the idea of ever getting another dog seemed out of the question. But in the fall of 2012, my significant other, Charlotte, with whom I'd lived for fifteen years, said that she wanted a dog. A few years earlier, we had talked about having a child and, for various reasons, it hadn't worked out. Now, our relationship was going through a difficult time, and in the way some couples look to a baby to save a faltering marriage, Charlotte and I each hoped that adopting a dog would draw us closer. And as soon as she texted me a picture from the North Shore Animal League of a tiny 12-week-old terrier mix—fluffy and white with brown and black markings, a black gum drop of a nose, and giant brown eyes—I instantly texted back: "Bring that dog home! Now!! I think her name is Quincy!"

When Charlotte arrived at our rented cottage on Eastern Long Island, carrying Quincy wrapped in a blanket, I felt a rush of love. As I watched her pad clumsily around the living room—sniffing the skirt of a couch here, mouthing a coffee table leg there—it seemed to me that this could be a new beginning. I vowed to myself that this time I would take good care of my dog. It would be my way of putting things right for abandoning Lou all those years ago.

For a while, Quincy seemed to be a dog designed more for looks than loyalty. (One night, as Quincy was snouting a tennis ball under a table rather than snuggling on the couch with us, Charlotte started crying and said, "I think there's something wrong with her.") But over time, as she saw that we understood and would meet her needs, a powerful bond developed between us and she lavished us with affection—all the sweeter because it felt earned, though she remained an independent little creature who lived and loved on her own peculiar terms.

We soon settled into a routine: Awakened by Quincy's melodic whine—we called it "warbling"—we would take her to the dog run when we were in the city, where we watched her go from a timid puppy cowering by our sides to a fearless scrapper, or to the beach when we were on Long Island, where she developed into a dazzlingly fast runner, obsessed with chasing down tennis balls and various creatures of the land and air. Quincy attracted attention wherever we went—women started smiling at me on the street when I was with her—and passersby routinely stopped to ask what kind of dog she was. I would proudly announce that she was a mutt; Charlotte told people that she was a "Tricolor Snowball," adding, "they're very hard to find."

I was besotted, and my Instagram feed became all-Quincy, all the time. I spent dozens of hours researching dog food on the internet, settling on a brand that consisted of raw, grass-fed meat and organic vegetables, a bloody mess that I delighted in watching Quincy devour. I even wrote a song about her, whose lyrics I will spare you.

As a writer who works at home, I had spent most of my adult life allowing my days to unspool as a series of jazz improvisations. During my unhappy young adulthood, Lou's routine was dictated by my vagaries, to both our detriments. Now, I was submitting to Quincy's rhythms, and she gave my days a structure and order that went beyond meeting her needs. Every morning after her walk, I began meditating for half an hour and sitting down at my desk to work by 9:00. I also started going to CrossFit five times a week and adopted a Paleo diet, which turned out to be much like Quincy's, though I preferred my meals cooked and free of offal. Getting a dog may not be a panacea for all human problems, but to take care of Quincy, I had to take care of myself, and that was a lot.