Comments: Why migrate?
Animals migrate for food and sex. Why do you go on holiday?
User comments
Jackie
The seals are gathering again here on the Pembrokeshire coast and one pup has already been born on the beach near my house, almost a month earlier than the first last year. So, in th winter there are not so many seals around and from now until November there will be more and more as the cows are closely followed by the bulls and they pup and mate. Would it be right that the seals migrate to their pupping beaches or do they just move off shore a little? LOCATION: 51.9273,-5.2020 DATE: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:05:27 GMT
WOtM team: You will almost certainly be seeing Harbour Seals. Our other seal, the Grey Seal, breeds in Autumn. The Harbour Seal (once called Common Seal) is one of the most marine adapted seals on earth. They are almost whales! They only come ashore to pup and the pup rearing is kept to an absolute minimum. The pups are even born with an adult coat (unlike the white coat of the Gray Seal). We would regard the Harbour Seal movements as a migration from their breeding grounds. They do tend to return to the same area to breed each year. They will also find feeding hotspots through the year which again are largely in the same marine area from one year to the next.
Daniel McIver
Ddo you have a migration theme on tigers?LOCATION: 55.6109,-2.8152 DATE: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:11:12 UTC
WOtM team: Unfortunately, tigers are not known to migrate.
Sam Dixon
I really think World on the Move should have recently included the migration of 90 odd BBC staff from BBC Bristol to the Masaii Mara for Big Cat Live... Incidentally, how many individuals does it take for a movement to count as a migration? And how far must they travel? LOCATION: 51.4376,-2.5269 DATE: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:45:54 GMT
WOtM team: Migration is defined as the seasonal or periodic movement of animals in response to changes in climate or food availability, and/or to reproduce. It usually involves the whole population but with Bar-tailed Godwits for example, a percentage of the population skip the annual migration and remain in New Zealand all year. Also, the distance travelled does not have to surpass any "minimum requirement" - some creatures travel just a few hundred metres. In contrast, some travel a few thousand miles - like those working on Big Cat Live ;)
Olivia Curno
Excellent programme today - 9 September - with an interesting discussion of the Osprey migration. The presenter was clearly well informed, asking interesting questions about the strategy or migration given that the parents had already lost 50% of thier reproductive investment this year, but sadly signed off with a comment about "survival of the species, not survival of the individual". Survival of the species is no longer an accepted evolutionary process, as individuals within a species (or even more accurately genes) compete with one another in a struggle to leave the largest number of descendents. Natural selection does not act on species. This statement may have been misleading to listeners, especially given the high quality of the surrounding scientific discussion. Thanks, Olivia Curno, Behavioural Ecologist, University of Nottingham LOCATION: 51.4523,-0.0577 DATE: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 10:20:00 UTC
WOtM team: Thanks for your comments, apologies if we implied natural selection acts on species. It is well accepted that natural selection operates on individuals not species.
Kerri Lyons Neimeyer
At the close of Programme 20 guests were asked to name their favorite bird. I was only half-listening - being at work and all - so I didn't catch the species named by one of the guests but I did hear him say that he spotted them on a trip to Nepal and that they ride on the backs of cranes to migrate across the Himalayas. I went on a Google search frenzy to find more information about this unusual bird behavior, and came up with nothing. What was the species and where can I find confirmation of this ingenious (if perhaps lazy) migration behavior? LOCATION: 30.296101,-97.736900 DATE: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:06:17 GMT
WOtM team: Sorry Kerri, that doesn't sound like anything we've covered in WOTM - you can listen again via "Programmes" to check. It certainly sounds like an interesting story though!
Mariama Sisay
Animals also migrate because of the, climate or the weather to shellter them-self . And also to protect there young ones. LOCATION: 8.490000,-13.234200 DATE: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:40:38 UTC
John Lomas
We always seem to hear of birds that migrate North, to breed in the Northern Hemisphere summer.Are there any species that "overwinter" in the Northern summer and breed in the Southern Hemisphere during the Southern summer?
shyam
Millions of People in India ( many other parts of world) go on pilgrimage for austerity LOCATION: 51.6998,-0.4175 DATE: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:40:11 GMT
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