Chicago Zoological Society - Brookfield Zoo Library

Lecture: Linking Zoos to the Wild

2007-01-08T09:51:00.000-06:00

Join Dr. Jeffrey Bonner, president and chief executive officer of Saint Louis Zoo, as he looks at how successful zoos can be as field conservation organizations. He will also explore what zoos are doing to care for some of the most exotic creatures in the world, and how the role of zoos plays out in today's society.

For more information or to make reservations, call (708) 485-0263, ext. 297. Tickets are $16 per nonmember, $13 per member, and free for Bison Circle, Supporting, Sustaining, and Living Legacy members. The lecture will take place on Tuesday, January 23 at 7:30 p.m. in Brookfield Zoo's Discovery Center.

Bonner is the author of Sailing With Noah: Stories from the World of Zoos, a travelogue and collection of animal short stories interwoven to illustrate the larger story of conservation and education programs within the zoo community.

This title is available in the CZS-BZ Library collection via SWAN: http://swan.sls.lib.il.us QL76.B66 2006.

Database Recommendation: Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA)

2006-12-22T13:58:00.000-06:00

The Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA) is a comprehensive database of the nearly 6,000 known amphibian species, along with their conservation status. It is searchable by common or scientific species name; taxonomic tree; country, region, or habitat; threatened status on the IUCN (World Conservation Union) Red List; or type of threat, such as habitat loss or disease. Combinations of these criteria can also be searched.

The data is compiled by scientists from the World Conservation Union and other conservation agencies, with contributions from over 600 specialists worldwide.

The database's release in 2004 marked the first complete assessment of the coonservation status of amphibian species. One of the assessment's key findings is that 32 percent of amphibian species are currently threatened with extinction - a much higher percentage than birds or mammals.

GAA's search interface is easy to use. Search tips and help links are prominent and clear. The search screen refers users to the Amphibian Species of the World Online Database for detailed taxonomy information. The search results for a particular species include a precise map of the geographic range; comments on habitat, threats, and conservation efforts; and a bibliography.

The site links to Google Images for finding photographs and to Amphibia Web for accounts of life history and other aspects of the species. A glossary spells out the two-letter country abbreviations used in describing species ranges.

Brookfield Zoo Teacher Classes

2006-12-22T13:23:00.000-06:00

To register please send fees (check payable to Brookfield Zoo) with your name, address, e-mail and phone number to: Teacher Workshops, Brookfield Zoo, 3300 Golf Road, Brookfield, IL 60513.

Classes are each 2 days, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. unless noted. Teachers outside the recommended grade ranges are welcome to attend and adapt materials for their own use.

Please note: costs includes a $25 non-refundable registration fee, optional graduate credit ($100 per hour through Aurora University) is available for most classes for an additional fee.

Natural Habitat Series: Grades K-8, $125 per individual 2 day class, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 ceu’s, optional CPS Lane credit. 8:30-a.m.-4:30 p.m. each day. Fee includes materials and AV.

Rainforests January 20 (Chicago Botanic Garden) and 27 (Brookfield Zoo)
What’s the difference between a temperate and a tropical rain forest? Find out the answer to this and information about soils, insects, energy transfer, and the plants and animals that inhabit these lush green ecosystems.

Deserts February 10 Chicago Botanic Garden) and 17 (Brookfield Zoo)
Learn about deserts worldwide and the survival strategies and adaptations that have been developed by desert inhabitants.

Teachers for Tigers: February 2 (4:30- 10:00 p.m.) & 3 (8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.)
Grades all grades (curriculum materials emphasize grades 4-6)
$125, 3 CEU’s, 1 optional graduate credit

Receive the beautiful “Teacher for Tigers” curriculum and join with staff from the Wildlife Conservation Society (Bronx Zoo) and Brookfield Zoo as we study the role of predators in ecosystems around the world. Classroom activities range from ideas for young children to High school, with an emphasis on the middle grades. Participants receive pictures and a CD of predators in our animal collection.

Animals of the Night: February 23 (4:30-10:00 p.m.) &24 (8:30 a.m. -4:30 p.m.), Grades Pre-K – 4, $125, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s.

Is Halloween your favorite day? Then you need to learn more about bats, owls and the other creatures that fly, swim, slither and crawl through the darkness! Have fun as we focus on animal information and reading / writing activities.

Predator Conference: Lions and Tigers and Bears!!! Saturday March 3 (8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.) and Sunday (noon-4:30 p.m.), All Grades, $125, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s.

Join us for our annual animal conference: a Saturday morning of teacher activities followed by two afternoons of engaging speakers, exploring social structures, nutrition, genetics and husbandry. We will focus on some favorite zoo residents the big cats and bears! Learn about the care that Brookfield Zoo provides for these wonderful animals and how this impacts the conservation of their species.

Animal Colors: Friday, April 13, 4:30-9:30 p.m. and Saturday April 14, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. All grades, $125, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s

Camouflage, warning colors, attracting a mate, and declaring a territory: color plays many roles in the animal world. Discover the purpose of a zebra’s stripes, a fish’s white belly and the dots on a tiger’s ears through activities and guided animal observations. Take home AV and activities for your classroom.

Marine Mammals and Birds
April 28 at Lincoln Park Zoo & May 5 at Brookfield Zoo, K-8, $125, 1 optional graduate credit, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s.

Two great zoos are right in your city! Explore animal collections at both zoos to find out why marine animals have the same shape and are adapted to life in a salty, wet and often hostile environment. Take home activities and more!

Exploring Nature with Children
May 12 at Brookfield Zoo, May 19 at Spring Valley Nature Center, Schaumburg. K-8, $125, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s. (Please note this class was offered in previous years as Play Zoo Adventures, Aurora #OEDW6374)

You don’t have to be an “expert” to share nature with children through activities ranging from nature yoga, crafts, and games to nature walks, collecting and identifying plants, and guided observations. Discover the fun that you can find in Brookfield Zoo’s Hamill Family Play Zoo or the natural world: in your own back yard and nearby Nature Centers and Forest Preserves.

Animal Communication: Do you hear me now?
May 18 (4:00-10:00 p.m.) & 19 (8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.), $125, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s., recommended for grades 6-12

From the obvious roaring lion to the nearly undetectable infrasound used by elephants, from the bright colors of the male peacock to subtle postures of some species as individuals meet, animal communication is a fascinating topic! Observe animals and experience learning activities for your classroom.

The Secret Life of Dolphins
June 8 (4:00- 10:00 p.m.) and 9 (8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.), $130, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s, recommended for grades 6-12.

Explore Brookfield Zoo’s newest CONNECTIONS unit, an inquiry based learning opportunity for middle and High school students. Discover dolphin characteristics, analyze scientific data and learn how our research can be useful in maintaining healthy dolphin communities in the wild and in zoos. Fee includes unit and software. Please bring a laptop computer to this class.

The Good Life: Animal Behavior and Training
June 29 (4:00 – 10:00 p.m.) and 30 (8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.), $130, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s

Find out about work done in zoos to ensure quality of life for our animal residents. From the Dolphin Show to training predators to show their teeth on command, training and enrichment programs improve animal husbandry and the environment our animals live in. Participants receive activities for classroom use and the “Training Game” video.

Reading Connections
July 10 and 12 at Fullersburg Nature Center
Grades 3-7, $130.00, 1 optional graduate credit, 3 CEU’s

Staff from Brookfield Zoo, Dupage County Forest Preserves, the Conservation Foundation, Jurica Nature Museum and Fermilab, are collaborating to offer this fun filled class that focuses on teaching reading with non-fiction and teaching science with fiction resources You’ll experience a mix of hands-on, indoor and outdoor, activities for your class. Participants will receive take home activities, posters, and fiction and nonfiction resources. To Register: please contact Sue Sheehan at Fermilab, 630-840-8258.

Animal Senses
July 16-20, Grades K-8, $325, 3 optional graduate credits, 9 CEU’s.

The focus is on the amazing world of animal senses from the echolocation of bats and dolphins to touching and feeling animal fur, skins and scales. Learn stories from keeper staff about some of our special residents such as Leah bald eagle who is blind in one eye and Harley California sea lion who is deaf. The class will work to develop curriculum materials for teaching about the senses.

Photo credit: Amur tiger, Chicago Zoological Soceity @ Brookfield Zoo

http://www.brookfieldzoo.org

Endangered Wildlife Ringtones

2006-12-19T13:04:00.000-06:00

Center for Biological Diversity Offers Free Endangered Wildlife Ringtones
By: Center for Biological Diversity

The Center's free ringtones allow cell phones to come alive with the haunting hoots of rare owls from around the world, the sensational songs of tropical birds, the crazy croaks of more than a dozen imperiled amphibians, or the underwater orchestras of Orcas and Beluga Whales.

The free Web site allows users to listen to the wildlife ringtones, send ringtones directly to their phones with one easy click after entering an e-mail address, and download photos and fact sheets for each of the featured wildlife species.

Users who download any one of the fact sheets can take action - with just one click - to save endangered species worldwide.

"Animal Coverings" -- Educational Offerings from CZS - Brookfield Zoo

2006-12-15T09:34:00.000-06:00

The Conservation, Education, and Training Department of the Chicago Zoological Society - Brookfield Zoo has developed many tools to assist educators in sharing information about animals, science, and caring - the things that form the basis of conservation at the zoo and in the wild. We encourage educators to use the information gathered by the zoo to share concepts about data gathering and scientific research, and to use the zoo's charismatic animals to help inspire excitement for learning.

Ann Roth, School Partnerships Coordinator, developed an educational program for students with disabilities called, Do the Zoo. Students “learn by doing” and using all of their senses. Brookfield Zoo continually strives to make the zoo accessible for guests with disabilities. The zoo is a leader in services to people with disabilities, and was recognized in 1999 with the American Association of Museum's Accessibility Award for having a universal design that accommodates all people, regardless of ability.

Most recently, two of the program’s instructors, Tara Alamilla and Lou Tomes, taught a class entitled “Animal Coverings” to blind and visually impaired children in grades K-8 from Chicago’s James Otis Elementary School.

“Animal Coverings” is a tactile class that encourages students to explore real animal artifacts to find out how different animals use their fur, skin, or feathers. Alamilla and Tomes modified the traditional class for James Otis Elementary by adding additional animal artifacts and matching sounds to enhance the sensory experience. Students are encouraged to handle a variety of skulls to compare the sizes and shapes. In this class, the students handled many artifacts including: a lion mane and lion skull, snow leopard pelt and skull, beaver skull, bear claw, porcupine quills, feathers and a giant python skin. The students also listened to specific animal sounds while handling artifacts of the specific animal. The instructors played a dolphin sound and passed around a replica of a dolphin’s body; an elk sound and passed around elk antlers; a mule deer sound and passed around antlers for comparison. For most of the students, it was their first opportunity to interact with several different live animals. Jim Painted Turtle, Slinky Boa Constrictor, Puff Bearded Dragon, and Gus Guinea Pig were a huge hit.

“Brookfield Zoo is so visual. Providing a class like “Animal Coverings” to students with disabilities is a great opportunity. The students benefit from the sensory experience and we’re able to reach out to all audiences,” says Alamilla.

If you’re interested in the educational opportunities offered at the Chicago Zoological Society – Brookfield Zoo, please visit www.brookfieldzoo.org for more information.

OARE: Online Access to Research in the Enivronment

2006-12-07T16:17:00.000-06:00

Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE), an international public-private consortium coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Yale University, and leading science and technology publishers, enables developing countries to gain free or low cost access to one of the world’s largest collections of proprietary environmental science literature.

Launched in October 2006, OARE has a mission to improve the quality and effectiveness of environmental research, education and training in low-income countries. In doing so, OARE will help achieve four primary development objectives:

Growth in the number of national scholars and experts who will, through their knowledge and reputation, integrate into and facilitate the development of more progressive, science-driven policy development processes, regulatory frameworks, and governance structures.
Strengthen the intellectual foundation of universities so as to enable faculty to perform research on a par with peers in industrialized countries, develop their own publishing record, and enable students to conduct research and seek education in new and emerging subjects.
Build the capacity of independent national organizations to gather, interpret, and disseminate to the public global scientific research.
Increase the participation of developing-country scholars and experts in international debates relating to the management of global natural resources.

Many organizations are participating in the OARE consortium. Partners providing scientific content through the program include the world's leading publishing houses and the world's most prestigious scientific societies and associations. Today, over a thousand scientific journal titles owned and published by OARE partners are now available to environment institutions in 70 eligible low income countries.

Research in a wide range of disciplines is available through OARE, including biotechnology, botany, climate change, ecology, energy, environmental chemistry, environmental economics, environmental engineering and planning, environmental law and policy, environmental toxicology and pollution, geography, geology, hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, urban planning, zoology, and many others. OARE also provides access to important Abstract and Index Research Databases (A&I Databases), intellectual tools the scientific and professional community uses to search for specific information within thousands of scholarly publications.

OARE leverages proven information and communication technologies, recent digitization of vast quantities of proprietary scientific literature, and an international public-private co-operative structure to help reduce the North-South scientific gap, an objective of both the United Nations Agenda and Millennium Development Goals, with unparalleled efficiency and scale. The OARE portal is built and managed in close cooperation with initiatives launched by the WHO servicing the medical and health community HINARI, and FAO and Cornell University servicing the agricultural and food science community AGORA.

Enabled by technology and guided by shared vision, the OARE consortium is increasing in the number and diversity of its participating organizations and in the richness of its scientific holdings. The partners encourage developing-country organizations to explore the resources available in OARE, and encourage institutions interested in joining the consortium to contact them to learn more about how they can contribute to the OARE mission and UN millennium development goals (MDGs).

PASSWORDS and REGISTRATION
Institutions that would like to access full-text articles and use the A&I database search tools must register with OARE and receive an institutional password. Upon successful completion of the registration process, all employees, staff, faculty, administrators and students of that institution may use the password to access OARE resources. A password is not required to access journal abstracts. To register click here.

Contact OARE
OARE United Nations Environment Programme P.O. Box 30552 Nairobi, Kenya Email: adminunep@oaresciences.org

Contact OARE
OARE Yale University P.O. Box 20710 1New Haven, CT 06520 USA Fax: 203-432-8527 Email: adminyale@oaresciences.org

Resource Recommendation: National Primate Research Center

2006-12-05T09:39:00.000-06:00

National Primate Research Center
http://www.primate.wisc.edu

Devoted solely to the primatology literature form 1940 forward, this Web site has documents found nowhere else: journal articles, book chapters, dissertations and fact sheets (complete with references and photos). An additional 1,000 fact sheets have been identified from various Web sites around the world and links to these are provided.

The Washington and Wisconsin Regional Primate Centers are responsible for this content.

New title: Essays in Animal Behaviour

2006-11-17T11:24:00.000-06:00

Essays in Animal Behaviour - edited by Jeffrey Lucas and Leigh Simmons

To celebrate the recent 50th anniversary of its publication, the journal Animal Behaviour published a series of essays by prominent behaviorists each presenting a critical and celebratory summary of their own specialties- a roll-call of the most influential names in the field. These contributions are both retrospective and prospective, asking where the field of behavior has been, where we are now and where we are going?

Essays in Animal Behaviour presents revised versions of these 12 original essays - plus seven entirely new ones to offer a glimpse of the study of behavior which looks in all directions. Blending history, present and future, the essays capture the development, the relevance, the excitement and the challenges of a subject that entwines and integrates some of the greatest themes in modern biology.

Unique personal reflections on the history of animal behavior are provided from John Alcock, Stuart and Jeanne Altmann, Steve Arnold, Geoff Parker, and Felicity Huntingford. Gene Robinson discusses the enormous promise of modern molecular biology in studying the genetic basis of social behavior.

The development of behavior is covered by Bennett Galef, Judy Stamps, Patrick Bateson, and Meredith West, Andrew King, and David White.

The adaptive significance of behavior, emphasing sexual selection and animal communication, is addressed by Malte Andersson, Andrew Barnes and Linda Partridge, Patricia Gowaty, Michael Greenfield, Peter Slater, Roswitha and Wolfgang Wiltschko, and Amotz Zahavi.

In the last chapter, Marian Dawkins shows us the importance of studying animal behavior for animal welfare.

This title is available in the CZS-BZ Library collection via SWAN: http://swan.sls.lib.il.us. QL 751.E65 2005

RFP: Chicago Board of Trade Endangered Species Fund

2006-11-09T15:41:00.000-06:00

Chicago Zoological Society
Chicago Board of Trade Endangered Species Fund

The Chicago Zoological Society is soliciting new proposals for the Chicago Board of Trade Endangered Species Fund for the first grant cycle of 2007. The Committee is looking for projects that will be conducted between June 2007 and February 2008.

Grants are open to SSC Specialist Group Chairs and Officers, AZA/WAZA Chairs and Officers, and all interested researchers. Each group should select and submit only one proposal that has been ranked as the highest funding priority and endorsed by the group. The Fund will support small projects, usually up to $5,000 (smaller requests will fare better).

For more information or to obtain the grant application format and review criteria,

please contact Courtney Lavery.

Deadline: March 1, 2007 (early submissions welcome)

Proposals should be submitted via e-mail to:
Courtney Lavery
Manager of Library Services
Chicago Zoological Society Brookfield Zoo
E-mail: colavery@brookfieldzoo.org
www.brookfieldzoo.org

Global Map & Extinction Risk

2006-11-01T14:47:00.000-06:00

The most detailed world map of mammals, birds and amphibians ever produced shows that endangered species from these groups do not inhabit the same geographical areas, says new research published today.

Contrary to conservationists’ previous assumptions, the map shows conclusively that geographical areas with a high concentration of endangered species from one group, do not necessarily have high numbers from the others. This new finding has far-reaching implications for conservation planning by governments and NGOs, and their decisions about where to focus conservation spending. These decisions have typically been based on the assumption that investing in an area known to have a high concentration of endangered birds, for example, will mean that large numbers of endangered mammal and amphibian species will also be protected. The new study shows that basing conservation decisions on just one type of animal can be very misleading.

The study, out in today’s issue of Nature, is the culmination of many decades of work by field biologists and analysts, during which the planet was divided up into 100km x 100km grids, and all mammal, bird and amphibian species within each grid square were counted, using a variety of pre-existing, but never-before combined, records. The result is a comprehensive worldwide map of all species in these groups, on a finer scale than ever before.

Professor Ian Owens, one of the paper’s authors from Imperial College London’s Division of Biology, and the Natural Environment Research Council’s Centre for Population Biology, said: “For the first time ever this global mapping has divided the planet up into small grid squares to obtain a really detailed picture of biodiversity. By looking at the numbers of endangered mammals, birds and amphibians in these squares, we have been able to see how this real picture varies from assumptions that have previously been made about global biodiversity of endangered species.”

Professor Owens adds that this geographical discrepancy in hotspots of endangered species from different groups can be explained by the different factors that threaten mammals, birds and amphibians: “Endangered bird species are often at risk because their habitats are being destroyed. However, different factors entirely may affect mammals such as tigers which are under threat from poachers, and amphibians which are being diminished by diseases brought into their habitat by non-native fish.

“This means that even if a mountainous area has a real problem with endangered amphibians in its creeks and rivers, mammal and bird species in the same area might be flourishing. It’s really important not to assume that there are simply a number of hotspots across the globe where everything living there is endangered – the picture is far more complicated, with mammal, bird and amphibian numbers being threatened by different things, in different locations.”

Examples of geographical locations in which the distribution of endangered species is different include: - New Zealand is a hot spot for threatened birds because of the danger posed by introduced rats and cats. - Mammals are highly threatened across eastern Africa due to hunting and the bush meat trade - The tropical, rainforest-clad mountains of northern Australia are home to many declining frog species, although the precise causes of these declines often remain enigmatic.

Citation: “The global distribution and conservation of rare and threatened vertebrates,” Nature, 2 November, 2006.

Source: Imperial College London

Status of Pollinators in North America

2006-10-20T15:29:00.000-05:00

Status of pollinators in North America, new from the National Research Council (NRC), assesses population trends among bees, birds, bats, and other animals and insects that spread pollen so plant fertilization can occur.

European studies have documented declines of certain pollinator species, raising concerns that crop yields could drop or that ecosystems could be disrupted as a result. And last year, honeybees -- millions of colonies of which are leased by farmers to ensure pollination -- had to be imported from outside North America for the first time in decades because of a shortage in the U.S.

The report released in conjunction with a North American Pollinator Protection Campaign meeting held at the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Oct. 18. Research Council committee member GENE ROBINSON, director of the neuroscience program and G. William Arends Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, presented the report's findings at the meeting. Also at the meeting, USDA announced a public awareness campaign, and the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a "pollination" stamp series.

"Although there is "no strong evidence for a current pollination crisis," there may be one looming, reports an NRC committee led by entomologist May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign." (Science, 20 October, p. 397)

Photo credit: U.S. Postal Service

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

2006-10-13T09:18:00.000-05:00

Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, is a journalist focused on family, nature, and community.

His latest book addresses the critical links between access to nature and healthy childhood development, and to the physical and mental health of children and adults. In Last Child in the Woods, Louv makes the connection between an absence of nature and trends such as attention-deficit disorder, obesity and depression, and addresses the barriers between children and nature and what can be done to remove them.

Louv, currently a columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune who has also written for the New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers and magazines, has been addressing environmental issues in his work since the 1970s and is also the author of The Web of Life and 101 Things You Can Do for Our Children's Future.

He will speak at Lutkin Hall on the campus of Northwestern University from 7-8pm on November 15, and will be available to sign books afterward. The event is free but space is limited; reserve your seat by calling 312-580-2137 or send an e-mail to cbendowitz@chicagowilderness.org. This event is sponsored by the Chicago Wilderness consortium and the Chicago Park District.

Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods is available in the CZS-Brookfield Zoo Library collection via SWAN: http://swan.sls.lib.il.us.

For more information:
Richard Louv
Biophilia Hypothesis
Grist interview with Louv
Salon.com interview with Louv

Conservation Psychology

2006-10-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

ANNOUNCING THE ONLINE PUBLICATION OF:

Teaching Psychology for Sustainability: A Manual of Resources

by Britain A. Scott and Susan M. Koger

This instructor's resource is now online at www.teachgreenpsych.com.

The site includes:

An Overview with a list of general resources that identify connections between psychology and environmental issues;
Instructor Resources (including lecture and discussion topics, class activities, multimedia resources, and suggested readings for students) organized by psychology subdisciplines;
Comprehensive Site Bibliography with links to publisher sites for authored books and tables of contents for edited volumes;
Compendium of Syllabi from instructors who currently teach psychology for sustainability.

Creation of the site was supported by a 2005 Instructional Resource Award from the Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP). OTRP provides an online link to the site under the header "Conservation Psychology" in their list of Teaching Resources at http://www.lemoyne.edu/OTRP/index.html.

(FREE) Hazardous Waste Collection Event: 9.30.06

2006-09-28T12:50:00.000-05:00

DuPage County and Illinois EPA announce a fall 2006 household hazardous waste collection event.

DuPage County Board Chairman Robert J. Schillerstrom and Environmental Committee Chairman Michael McMahon invite residents to properly dispose of mercury thermometers, used oil, old gasoline and expired lawn chemicals and other hazardous household waste at this upcoming collection event.

DOWNERS GROVE - SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2006
8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Belmont Commuter Parking Lot
Ogden Ave.5000 Belmont Avenue
Between Ogden Avenue and
Maple Avenue.

Access the site from Curtiss St.

Acceptable items include:
Cleaning solvents
Mercury
Acids
Oil Based Paints
Thermostats
Insecticides
Propane cylinders (gas grill size only)
Wood Stain & Varnish
Pool Chemicals
Fertilizers/Pesticides
Fluorescent Light Ballast
Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Poisons
Household Batteries
Car Batteries
Automotive Fluids
Asbestos
Mercury Thermometers Expired/Leftover Medicines
** CELL PHONES ARE ACCEPTABLE TOO.

Waste should be kept in the original container whenever possible.

Please DO NOT Bring:
Electronics
School wastes
Fireworks
Business wastes
Agricultural Wastes
Explosives
Regular Garbage
Fire Extinguishers
Ammunition
Smoke Detectors
Radioactive
Material Medical Waste
Other Gas Cylinders
Latex Paint

For more information on recycling, please visit CZS Brookfield Zoo's holdings in the SWAN Catalog.

Royal Society Journals - Free Access [expires December 2006]

2006-09-21T15:32:00.000-05:00

The complete archive of the Royal Society journals, including some of the most significant scientific papers ever published since 1665, is to be made freely available electronically for the first time.

[VISIT THE ROYAL SOCIETY JOURNALS ARCHIVES]

The archive contains seminal research papers including accounts of Michael Faraday's groundbreaking series of electrical experiments, Isaac Newton's invention of the reflecting telescope, and the first research paper published by Stephen Hawking.

The Society's online collection, which until now only extended back to 1997, contains every paper published in the Royal Society journals from the first ever peer-reviewed scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions in 1665, to the most recent addition, Interface.

Professor Martin Taylor, Vice President of the Royal Society and Chair of the Publishing Board, said: "The Royal Society archive is a unique source of information for practicing scientists, science historians and indeed anyone with an in interest history. The rich, varied and sometimes entertaining archive documents the earliest accounts of the seventeenth centurys new experimental philosophy', through which an understanding of the natural world was acquired by experiment and observation. This provided the foundation of the modern scientific method."

The archive provides a record of some key scientific discoveries in the last 340 years, including Halley's description of his comet' in 1705, details of the double helix of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1954 and Edmond Stone's breakthrough in 1763 that willow bark cured fevers, leading to the discovery of salicylic acid and later the development of aspirin.

Some of the more obscure papers explore rudimentary prototypes of modern day technology. Trials proposed by Robert Boyle in 1665 hypothesize on the possibilities of blood transfusions, pondering "Whether a fierce dog stocked with the blood of a cowardly dog may not become more tame?". A forerunner for ventilators was also discussed in a paper by Robert Hooke in 1667 entitled "An account of an experiment made by Mr. Hook [sic], of preserving animals alive by blowing through their lungs with bellows".

The archive also contains more amusing experiments and observations such as the use of electrical conductors to cure muscle stiffness and a bizarre description of a "Very Odd Monstrous Calf" which illustrate the inquisitive nature of science's early pioneers.
Professor Taylor added: "In addition to being a valuable scientific resource, the journal archives are also a rich historical record documenting a time which is hard to imagine given the knowledge we have today."

The electronic archive contains papers documenting the discovery of new planets, the first descriptions of organisms through a microscope, and the first account of photography. Early journal papers contain fascinating descriptions of how Captain James Cook preserved the health of his crew aboard the HMS Endeavour and the astonishment of 18th century Society by the performance of a eight year-old Mozart.

The archive will be freely available online until December 2006 and, following this period, will be available as part of Royal Society journal subscription packages or alternatively on a-pay per-view basis.

A Feast for the Senses

2006-09-15T15:20:00.000-05:00

Might a gorilla want to smell the flowers? A tapir try an artichoke? Chicago Zoological Society professionals at Brookfield Zoo really push the envelope when it comes to animal well being. And what they come up with is always eclectic, exciting, and of course, extremely eco-friendly.

Giant banana leaves, assorted fruits, orchids, bamboo, grapevines. These are just some items harvested from the zoo grounds during the year and delivered to animals as part of the weekly Browse Program.

So, what is “browse” exactly?

Traditionally, this word refers to trees, leaves, bushes, and other plant life that is consumed by “browsers,” or animals that feed on these items rather than graze from the ground.

Some famous browsers include elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and okapi—each of which are equipped with special adaptations to make leaf-picking a cinch. Elephants have that long, sensitive trunk to reach up high and grab branches. Black rhinos have a hooked lip for pulling, and giraffes and okapi have a special tongue for stripping leaves.

Nontraditional browsers, however, also benefit from the program at Brookfield Zoo. Carnivores, primates, birds, and reptiles receive special deliveries from keepers each week to provide sensory enrichment.

Not Just for Eating

The Browse Program aims to spark curiosity and encourage the animals to explore their senses with unique smells, tastes, and textures.

“Although a lot of the animals do consume the leaves and flowers we give to them, “says Tim Sullivan, Chicago Zoological Society Behavioral Husbandry Manager, “our goal is not only to moderate their diet and spark play. We are also looking to interest them in exploring the smells and visual aspects of each browse item.”

“Think of how we humans might hold up a flower or candle to smell it. This isn’t play necessarily, but a simple exploration that enriches our life experience.”

Creating Connections
Arborists, grounds crew, keepers, and even children, get involved with the Browse Program. The arborists cut back trees as part of their seasonal care. Grounds crew members gather the removed branches and leaves, and keepers help with the delivery and maintenance of special browse gardens throughout the zoo. This is where the kids come in.

Children of all ages pitch in by growing plants and flowers at the Hamill Family Play Zoo greenhouse. Then, during special events, they form harvest parades and help carry items off to the animal exhibits.

“It’s amazing to see the looks on their faces,” says Dave Becker, Associate Director of Learning Experiences. “The kids are just thrilled to watch a gorilla playing with leaves from a banana tree that they helped grow. The connections make an impact that I hope will inspire for a lifetime.”

The Women’s Board of Chicago Zoological Society also plays an active role in the program. They help fund browse gardens around the zoo, and this year they also supported and planted a new one outside the Butterflies! exhibit. Guests can view the lovely flowers and watch as native birds and other creatures feast and explore. This garden is on a trimming schedule as well so that the blooms and leaves are shared with animals across the zoo.

Browse in Your Backyard*
If all the browse talk has you excited, then take a look at this list of things you can do at home to enrich life for your pets!

Grow cat nip for your favorite feline.
Try planting a variety of herbs for your dog to explore new scents.
If you have a rabbit, or simply love the wild ones, consider leaving the dandelions for them. Or grow some carrot tops and parsley.
Flowering plants are a favorite of pet birds, and native wild ones alike! Color your garden with all sorts of flowers and you will attract butterflies, too.

When you visit the zoo this summer or fall, likely on a Wednesday or Thursday, you may be lucky enough to find an animal with a newly delivered bundle of browse! Their reactions are really awe-inspiring to witness. And fear not, in the winter the Browse Program forges on. Keepers and other crew members have collected excess items to store for later use. This bulk supply will be kept fresh all winter long in a special seasonal area, a place only left empty in cold weather: the ice cream freezer.

Photo credit: Chicago Zoological Society at Brookfield Zoo

Recommendation: New Titles

2006-09-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

Recent titles added to our collection:

Amphibian Decline: An Integrated Analysis of Multiple Stressor Effects by Greg Linder, Sherry K. Krest, Donald W. Sparling/ QL 669.8.A46 2003

It is now widely accepted that some amphibian populations are declining around the globe, but in many cases the causes of these declines remains unknown. In an effort to analyze the amphibian population decline, scientists, researchers, and resource management professionals from diverse fields participated in a Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) - Johnson Foundation Wingspread conference. A result of the Wingspread conference, Amphibian Decline, examines the ecotoxicology and stressors of amphibians in an attempt to address issues related to declining amphibian populations and the role that various stressors might have to those losses. It identifies gaps in critical data, interprets information into an existing framework, and points toward critical areas for future research. Through the combined efforts of research and resource managment communities, recommendations can be developed to change current policies and management actions to address the problem of amphibian decline.

City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America by Laura J. Lawson/ SB457.3.L39 2005

Since the 1890s, providing places for people to garden has been an inventive strategy to improve American urban conditions. There have been vacant-lot gardens, school gardens, Depression-era relief gardens, victory gardens, and community gardens - each representing a consistent impulse to return to gardening during times of social and economic change. Rarely considered as simply places to grow food and flowers, the gardens and their associated programs intend benefits far beyond gardening. Yet as appealing as they are, garden programs have been difficult to sustain. In this critical history of community gardening in America, the most comprehensive review of the greening of urban communities to date, Laura J. Lawson documents the evolution of urban garden programs in the United States. Her narrative focuses on the values associated with gardening, the ebb and flow of campaigns during times of social and economic crisis, organizational strategies of these primarily volunteer campaigns, and the sustainability of current programs.

Invasive Plants of the Upper Midwest: An Illustrated Guide to Their Identification and Control by Elizabeth J. Czarapata/ SB 612.M54.C93 2005

Invasive plants are a growing threat to ecosystems everywhere. Often originating in distant climes, they spread to woodlands, wetlands, prairies, roadsides, and backyards that lack the biological controls which kept these plant populaitons in check in their homelands. Invasive plants crowd native plants out of existence, decrease biological diversity, degrade wildlife habitat and food sources, diminsh timber production, overtake pasture land, alter the aesthetic quality of native natural areas, hinder recreation, decrease property values, and drain billions of dollars annually from the global economy. This book is an inforamtive, colorful, comprehensive guide to invasive species that are currently endangering native habitats in the region. It is complete with more than 250 color photos that will help anyone identify problem trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, sedges and herbaceous plants (including aquatic invaders). The text offers further details of plant identification; manual, mechanical, biological, and chemical control techniques; information and advice about herbicides; and suggestions for related ecological restoration and community education efforts.

Visit Brookfield Zoo Library's online catalogue at http://swan.sls.lib.il.us

From Making a Killing to Saving a Species

2006-09-01T09:53:00.000-05:00

From Making a Killing to Saving a Species:

A Profile of Thomas Kaplan

by Diane Garcia and Erik Stokstad

[Science 1 September 2006, 313(5791)]

A retired financier turned philanthropist is making an unprecedented investment in conservation science to help save the big cats.

Thomas Kaplan was a long way from his usual Wall Street habitat. The wealthy financier spent 4 days last year tracking a 3-year-old leopard named Ngoye in the humid woodlands of northern KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa. Along with Luke Hunter, a wildlife biologist for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and Guy Balme, a graduate student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, Kaplan was silently willing Ngoye to cross from private lands, which were off-limits to the trio, into the Phinda Game Reserve so they could replace her radio collar. Just as they were about to give up and head back to Cape Town, Ngoye finally entered the reserve. Balme quickly tranquilized her and replaced her collar.

The trek turned out to be a pivotal experience--and not just for the 43-year-old Kaplan, who was fulfilling a lifelong dream to study big cats. After he learned that Balme was struggling to find the money to complete his master's degree, Kaplan wrote a $20,000 check to cover Balme's expenses for 2 years. That philanthropic act was just the start: Kaplan decided there and then to launch a grants program with WCS for graduate students working on cat conservation. So far, he has given $307,000 to 20 students at institutions all over the world, with a goal of spending $500,000 a year. Balme says he now plans to pursue a Ph.D. in zoology.

Graduate students aren't the only beneficiaries of Kaplan's largess. Since his trek, Kaplan has pledged $13 million over 10 years for a variety of cat-related conservation efforts, making him quite possibly the largest individual source of research support for such efforts around the world. Conservation scientists say that his long-term philanthropic commitment promises not only to give them more tools with which to save these magnificent beasts but also to nurture the next generation of conservationists. "I don't think anyone else is in this bracket," says conservation biologist John Seidensticker of the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

Cat lover
Kaplan, who grew up in New York City, says books such as Jim Corbett's The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag fueled his passion for big cats. By the age of 11, he had tracked bobcats in Florida, sighted a panther, and searched for jaguars in the Amazon. "Their gait is self-assured, their bearing confident, their coats are brilliant and practically glow with the richest hues," he enthuses.

Despite his interest in animals, Kaplan decided to make his mark in the financial world. After finishing a Ph.D. in history from Oxford University, Kaplan managed hedge funds before founding Apex Silver Mines in 1993. Helped by an investment from the Soros family, Apex became one of the world's largest silver-mining companies; Forbes magazine estimated that Kaplan's 20% stake in the company was worth $70 million in 2000. In late 2004, Kaplan retired from Apex; since then, he has founded an energy company and another firm that explores for precious metals around the world.

However, those interests leave him plenty of time for philanthropy. He endowed The Lillian Jean Kaplan Renal Transplantation Center at the University of Miami, Florida, after his mother died of kidney disease in 2002 and helped set up a prize for research on the disease.
Kaplan was introduced to modern conservation efforts through reading Jaguar, a book by WCS wildlife biologist Alan Rabinowitz about setting up the world's first jaguar preserve in Belize. "I felt an immediate, indeed, filial, affection for the man and a knowing connection to the depth of his passion," Kaplan says. "I resolved one day to help him fulfill his biggest ambitions in the way that he had unknowingly lived all of mine."

After leaving Apex, Kaplan called Rabinowitz, who suggested that Kaplan familiarize himself with WCS by visiting Hunter's project in South Africa. "I've dealt with donors since 1978 … I could tell he was real," Rabinowitz says. "It's very rare for someone to say big cats have been a lifelong passion."

Setting targets
Experts warmly welcome Kaplan's decision to continue supporting the work of students he has funded. Explains Seidensticker: "The problem for many graduate students is that they get a degree, go back to their countries, and there are no support bases. They get drawn away from the field." The 20 graduate students currently receiving funding are conducting research on wild cats in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and elsewhere.
Their projects include a conservation plan for the 15 remaining Armenian leopards and a study of how young cougars disperse through developed lands around Yellowstone National Park.

The scholarships are funded through Panthera, a foundation Kaplan created that is also contributing $10 million (half of it from Michael Cline, a venture capitalist in Greenwich, Connecticut) toward a conservation project in Asia called Tigers Forever. The project works with local governments and landowners to address conservation issues and is modeled after Rabinowitz's jaguar conservation program in Latin America. (In April, Rabinowitz helped persuade eight governments in the region to incorporate a jaguar corridor within the ongoing Mesoamerican Biological Corridor initiative, running from Mexico to Panama.)

The novelty of Tigers Forever, Rabinowitz says, is the setting of specific recovery targets--an average 50% increase over 10 years across the nine sites at which WCS works. "It holds our feet to the fire and makes us more accountable than anything ever done in conservation before," Rabinowitz says. "That's an extraordinary thing to do," says Seidensticker. Two months ago, Kaplan finalized plans with WCS for Project Leonardo, which will evaluate the status of lions in Africa and plan for their conservation. Kaplan and WCS have each committed $750,000 over 3 years for the effort, named for Kaplan's 4-year-old son, and he anticipates extending his commitment if the project meets its goals.

This fall, he plans to start an annual $50,000 lifetime achievement award for big cat conservation, joined next year by a $25,000 young scientist award in the field. With other projects in mind, Kaplan expects his commitment to top $20 million within 5 years. "I hope to collaborate with likeminded people who have passion for big cats," he says. "I'm willing to put serious money to get this done."

Photo: Tom Kaplan (left) helps Guy Balme change Ngoye's radio collar after sedating the leopard inside Phinda Game Reserve in South Africa.
Photo credit: Luke Hunter, WCS

In the Bag

2006-08-30T10:14:00.000-05:00

I haven't met a Librarian who isn't a bibliophile. In the interest of bibliophilia and sustainability, rebound-designs makes bags formed from old books.

You will find bags with book titles such as: Botany, Popular Science 10, Management: Theory and Practice, Carpenter's Geographical Reader: Africa ... and many more.

Other sustainable bag ideas include:
Messenger bags made of old vinya billboards from Vy & Elle
Handbags woven out of candy wrappers from Ecoist
Plastic-bag purses from EcoChicInc
Duct-tape totes from MiMi Marie
... and solar handbags that can recharge your cell phone from Solarjo

Do Elephants Run?

2006-08-23T09:26:00.000-05:00

Veterinarian Confirms Elephants Do Run...Kind Of
[by Sara Goudarzi, LiveScience / Fox News (8.22.06)]

When John Hutchinson, now at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London, was in graduate school, it was still an open question whether an elephant moving at high speeds could be considered to be running.

Hutchinson's new study finds that, although they're no greyhounds or cheetahs, fast-moving elephants have a springy step that qualifies them as runners within the animal world.

"No one knew," Hutchinson said. "But as the largest land animals, elephants were a study group that we needed to know more about, in order to interpret how dinosaurs might have moved, and uncover the basic rules about how giant land animals move."

Click here for entirety of article.

This research appears in the current issue of BBSRC Business, a magazine published by Britain's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

"Elephant Speed and Gait: The Locomotor Mechanics of the Largest Living Land Animal" by J.R. Hutchinson, Royal Veterinary College.

Photo credit: Young elephant steps out at Whipsnade Wild Animal Park while cameras record the movement on the disc shaped markers on its legs and back. John Hutchinson, Royal Veterinary College

Bat Rabies

2006-08-21T15:41:00.000-05:00

Bat Rabies Threat Rises with Summer Temperatures
[Ben Harder, National Geographic News]

The so-called dog days of summer—a muggy stretch from early July to early September—might also be called the season's bat days in the United States.

This is the period when the flitting critters most frequently turn up in attics, bedrooms, and camp cabins across the country, sometimes carrying rabies.

A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, says that 46 percent of U.S. rabies cases in humans are caused by bites or scratches from infected bats—more than the 31 percent attributed to dogs.

Five of every six infections from bats occur between July and September, and the frequency peaks in August.

While the threat of rabies provokes fear, transmission from bats is actually rare, according to the Austin, Texas-based nonprofit Bat Conservation International. Only 48 confirmed cases of rabies from bats have occurred in the United States in the past 55 years, the group reports.

But recent bat activity at a Girl Scouts camp in Virginia's Loudoun County caused health authorities to offer rabies shots to nearly a thousand campers—and brought the bat-rabies connection strongly to the public eye.

More than two dozen campers will reportedly receive the preventive treatment, a series of six to nine shots given over a month. Such shots are often administered even when people have not been conclusively bitten, says biologist Barbara French of the bat conservation group. Doctors and health officials tend to err on the side of caution, because the rabies virus becomes incurable once a victim displays symptoms and can kill in as little as ten days after that.

August's Bat Days
Bats disappear from much of the U.S. during colder months, either hibernating or migrating south for the winter.

It's the summer months that provide plenty of good reasons for bats to be out and about, experts say.

"The majority of the bats in the U.S. are insect eating," French said. "Their food supply is most abundant in the late spring and early summer."

Pregnant females give birth around that time. By July or August most of the babies finish nursing and begin to leave the roost. But the young fliers aren't yet skilled at navigating. "They're much more likely than other bats to end up in the wrong place"—like someone's bedroom—"this time of year," French said.

Furthermore, people's summertime behavior, such as leaving windows open at night to cool their homes, can invite unintentional encounters.

"An ill bat could find its way into a house that would otherwise be shut," said Charles E. Rupprecht, who heads the rabies program at CDC. Some kids and other vacationers spend the summer in rustic cabins that have structural holes large enough for bats to squeeze through, he adds.

"Camps are ideal roosts," Rupprecht noted. In effect, "people are inviting themselves into the bats' house. You're invading the bats' domain." He urges people to exercise common sense and, for instance, not pick up a sick or wounded bat. "Some people make the mistake of wanting to take care of it," he said.

But simply seeing a bat in one's home isn't usually cause for alarm.
"People sometimes mistakenly believe you couldn't feel a bat bite," French said.
"I've had lots of bat bites, and they hurt. They feel like sharp needle jabs. Any conscious adult is going to know if they're bitten."

Bat bites don't always leave a mark on the skin, so experts worry about possible rabies transmission when a person awakens to find a bat in his or her room.

Unattended children, mentally disabled people, or intoxicated adults might also not notice or properly report a bat bite.

Heat Waves and Hot Zones
Although some people have speculated that intense heat drives more bats indoors, there's probably no link between the recent incident in Virginia and this summer's heat wave, experts say.

But if summers continue to become consistently warmer, it could conceivably increase the frequency of human contact with bats.

That's in part because vampire bats, which now occupy tropical parts of Mexico, might move north under the right conditions, the CDC's Rupprecht says.

"You have to have the right kind of habitat—rain forest-type habitat," French, of Bat Conservation International, noted. "[But] there are just too many factors to say if that could happen." If blood-feeding bats were to spread north, French's hometown of Austin might be among the places they'd end up.

"This is the place, of course, where we have 1.5 million bats right in the heart of the city," she said. "We have the biggest urban bat colony in the world." And, she added, "we've never had a rabies case here."

For more information:
Bat Conservation International
Brookfield Zoo Library SWAN catalogue [QL 737.C5]

Image: Hoary Bat forBat Conservation International by Merlin D. Tuttle

Avian Flu - Public Forum @ Brookfield Zoo

2006-08-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Zoological Society, which manages Brookfield Zoo, is partnering with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and Cook County Department of Public Health to host a lecture regarding the latest information about avian influenza. The free public forum will be held at Brookfield Zoo’s Discovery Center on Thursday, August 10, at 7:00 p.m.

Presenters during the evening are John Herrmann, DVM, MPH, of the UIUC’s College of Veterinary Medicine; Joanna Shisler, PhD, of UIUC’s College of Medicine, Department of Microbiology; Catherine Counard, MD, MPH, assistant medical director of Communicable Disease Control for the Cook County Department of Public Health; and Tom Meehan, DVM, director of veterinary services for the Chicago Zoological Society.

This informative lecture will feature an overview of the avian flu virus, how animals contract it, what it would take for humans to become infected, what can be done to prevent its spread, and the precautions in place should an outbreak occur. Following the presentation, there will be a question and answer session.

Registration is not required. Those attending the lecture should enter the zoo via the south gate entrance, which is located off First Avenue near Riverside-Brookfield High School. For further information about the public forum, call Brookfield Zoo at (708) 485-0263, ext. 351.

The Chicago Zoological Society (CZS) has been a leader in working with public and private partners to study wildlife disease ecology. More than a decade ago, CZS developed support for a program in which the University of Illinois veterinary pathologists study wildlife disease in Cook County. In 1999 the Society joined the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine to form the Conservation Medicine Center of Chicago (CMCC). This collaboration was established to study the relationship among animal health, human health, and our changing global environment.

The mission of the Chicago Zoological Society is to inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature. Open every day of the year, the zoo is located off First Avenue between the Stevenson (I-55) and Eisenhower (I-290) expressways and is also accessible via the Tri-State Tollway (I-294), Metra commuter line, CTA, and PACE bus service. Brookfield Zoo is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer M/F/D/V. For more information about Brookfield Zoo, visit www.BrookfieldZoo.org.

WorldCat.org

2006-08-09T16:43:00.000-05:00

WorldCat is the world's largest library network!

WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their free resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.

At the heart of WorldCat is a database of information about the things libraries own that is constantly updated by information professionals. Whether you're searching for something yourself or a librarian is working on your behalf, WorldCat makes it easier to find and obtain reliable, validated information.

WorldCat's coverage is both deep and wide. You can search for popular books, music CDs and videos—all of the physical items you're used to getting from libraries. You can also link to many new kinds of digital content, such as downloadable audiobooks you can listen to on many portable MP3 players. You may additionally find authoritative research materials, such as documents and photos of local or historic significance; abstracts and full-text articles; and digital versions of rare items that aren't available to the public. Because WorldCat libraries serve diverse communities in dozens of countries, resources are available in many languages.

This Web site lets you find an item of interest and then locate a library near you that owns it. WorldCat search results usually link you directly to the item record on the library's Web site, and often point to the library's other online services, including "Ask a Librarian." The library's Web site may allow you to join a waiting list, reserve an item, check it out and even have it shipped or delivered. These services will vary from one library to another, and a login associated with an active library membership is commonly required to use them.

Click on WorldCat to discover the worldwide network of libraries!

Sustainable Tourism Database

2006-08-03T10:20:00.000-05:00

The Sustainable Tourism Resource Database
Source: North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation

"The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation's Sustainable Tourism Resource Database is a searchable online database containing information on tourism services and facilities in North America that link tourism activities with the conservation of natural areas." Depending upon where you look, you can find all sorts of statistics about ecotourism and its share of the overall tourism market worldwide.

The whole topic is not without its share of controversy. Long story short: While ecotourism can bring in badly needed income to developing countries that have few other resources, it may result in undesirable environmental and cultural impacts. Also, ecotourism, nature-based travel and sustainable tourism are not all the same.

According to a Sustainable Tourism Info-Sheet found via the WWW Virtual Library on Urban and Environmental Management: Ecotourism is "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people." Sometimes it is defined as a sub-category of sustainable tourism or a segment of the larger nature tourism market.

While nature-based tourism is just travel to natural places, ecotourism provides local benefits - environmentally, culturally and economically. A nature-based tourist may just go bird watching; an ecotourist goes bird watching with a local guide, stays in a locally operated ecolodge and contributes to the local economy.

Sustainable Tourism embraces all segments of the industry with guidelines and criteria that seek to reduce environmental impacts, particularly the use of non-renewable resources, using measurable benchmarks, and to improve tourism's contribution to sustainable development and environmental conservation.

The Sustainable Tourism Database "includes over 50 certification schemes, guidelines, codes of conduct or charters that are relevant to the sustainable tourism market in North America." In the left navigation frame, you'll see the various topics; click the small plus signs to expand the topics until you find what you want. Note that these are divided into four main categories:

1. "Activity-specific codes of conduct which comprise principles for either the tourist engaged in a specific activity or for the tour operator who is involved in showcasing the activity."

Example: American Birding Association Code of Birding Ethics

2. "Certification programs or lodging associations, that list the criteria for third party certification programs and/or 'green' lodging associations."

Example: Sample Guidelines and Ideas for Guestrooms from the Green Hotels Association

3. "Global/general codes of conduct, principles and charters that are either developed at a global scale or general scope that can be applied to any destination worldwide."

Example: Dos and Don'ts for Environmentally Conscious Eco-Tourists from the World Resources Institute

4. "Region specific codes of conduct and guidelines that relate to a specific geographic area location or geologic setting."

Example: 8 Ecotourism Guidelines from the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association

Related Resources:
Conservation International: Ecotourism
The International Ecotourism Society Online Library
National Geographic Society Center for Sustainable Destinations
Nature Conservancy: Nature Ecotourism and Conservation Sustainable
Tourism (WWW Virtual Library) United Nations Environmental Programme
Sustainable Tourism Home Page
World Tourism Organization: Sustainable Development of Tourism

Shirl Kennedy, ResourceShelf

Mammal Species of the World

2006-08-01T12:20:00.000-05:00

Mammal Species of the World (MSW) is the online version of the important Wilson and Reeder text published in 1993 plus subsequent updates. Compiled by a team of international experts under the auspices of the American Society of Mammalogists, MSW is considered an authoritative checklist of all recognized mammal species.

MSW is a database of mammalian taxonomy and can be used as a convenient on-line reference for identifying or verifying recognized scientific names and for taxonomic research. The names are organized in a hierarchy that includes Order, Family, Subfamily, Genus and Species. Records include the following fields:

Scientific name
Author's name and year described
Original publication citation
Original name
Common name
Type Species
Type Locality
Distribution
Comments
Status

Species recognized in this database are limited to existing or recently extinct species (possibly alive during the preceding 500 years); in instances where the persistence of a species is doubtful, the comment field so indicates. Scientific names applied to domesticated mammals, and to the natural ancestors of domesticated forms, are the earliest valid names as called for by the Code of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN, 1985).

An updated Third Edition of Mammal Species of the World was published late in 2005:

Wilson, D. E., and D. M. Reeder (eds). 2005. Mammal Species of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2,142 pp. (Available from Johns Hopkins University Press, 1-800-537-5487 or (410) 516-6900 http://www.press.jhu.edu/.)

Pronghorn Migration

2006-07-25T12:48:00.000-05:00

Humans Put Squeeze on Ancient Pronghorn Migration
by Nicholas Bakalar [article excerpt below]

Pronghorn—antelope like animals native to the United States—have followed the same migration routes through Wyoming's Greater Yellowstone region for more than 6,000 years. The animals' 100-mile (160-kilometer) seasonal journey is the longest land-mammal migration in the continental United States and is second only to the Arctic caribou's trek for long-distance migration in the Western Hemisphere.

But now the pronghorn's ancient routes between calving and wintering grounds are in danger from human development, and the future of Yellowstone's pronghorn herd is uncertain (pronghorn photo and profile).

Joel Berger, a senior scientist with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, recently led a study of changes in the pronghorn's migration routes.

Using global positioning systems, Berger and colleagues tracked the movements of migrating pronghorn. They also estimated the maximum width of geographical bottlenecks along the animals' paths.

Their results, published in the latest issue of the journal Biology Letters, show that six of the eight historical pronghorn routes have vanished, and bottlenecks along the remaining routes have narrowed.

"The issue is critical," Berger said. "Any alteration in the bottlenecks through which pronghorn travel will only have serious negative effects and further squeeze the passage zones."
What's more, the scientists found that when the bottlenecks are blocked, the animals don't seek alternate routes—they just stop migrating.

Experts fear that if further development closes off these migration paths, it will interfere with the pronghorn's life cycle, eventually causing the species to disappear.

For more information:
Biology Letters
National Geographic
North American Pronghorn Foundation
Animal Diversity Web - Pronghorn factsheet
Yellowstone National Park

Photo credit: Raymond Gehman, NGS

Recommendation: New Titles

2006-07-21T09:06:00.000-05:00

Recent titles added to our collection:

Facing the Wild: Ecotourism, Conservation and Animal Encounters by Chilla Bulbeck/ G156.5.E26B85 2005

At first glance, Facing the Wild: Ecotourism, Conservation and Animal Encounters appears to be the most recent contribution to the growing literature on the history of sociology of zoos and other places where people watch animals (see Mullan and Marvin 1999; Hanson 2002; Rothfels 2002). However, it quickly becomes clear that Bulbeck, a professor of Women's Studies in Australia, has a greater aim in mind with this fascinating book: her goal is to understand why modern urbanites seek out wild animals in their "natural" environments, and what that says about such visitors and their attitudes towards animals, and indeed, towards nature itself. [Antrozoos, 19(1) 2006]

A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America by J. Reese Voshell, Jr./ QL365.4.A1.V67 2002

A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America meets the needs of naturalists, environmentalists, anglers, teachers, students, and others by providing substantive information in easy-to-understand, nontechnical language for many groups of invertebrates commonly found in streams, lakes, ponds, and other freshwater environments of North America. Section I provides background information on the biology and ecology of freshwater organisms and environments and explains why and how invertebrates can be studied, simply and without complex equipment, in the field and the laboratory. Section II describes nearly 100 of the most common groups of invertebrates, and for each group a whole-body color illustration is provided along with brief text pointing out the most important features that identify members of the group. Section III contains in-depth descriptions of the life history, behavior, and ecology of the various invertebrate groups, and explains their important ecological contributions and relationships to humans.

A Handbook for Stream Enhancement & Stewardship by The Izaak Walton League of America/ QH75.H364 2006

Decades, or even centuries, of changing and competing land uses have left many of the world's streams degraded, in poor health, and out of balance with the ever-shifting dynamics of their watersheds. A Handbook for Stream Enhancement & Stewardship is a basic resource intended to help individuals, groups, organizations, companies, communities, and governments plan and carry out environmentally sound, cost-effective stream corridor assessment, enhancement, and stewardship programs. The handbook will be of value to the myriad of volunteers who devote their time and resources to the study, protection, and enhancement of watersheds and waterways at the local level. It will also be of great value to professional resource or property managers, planners, educators, landscape architects, naturalists, conservationists, and others whose work includes stream management, assessment, or enhancement work, or the mentoring and advising of those who do this work.

Handbook for Wetlands Conservation and Sustainability by Karen Firehock (Izaak Walton League of America) / QH76.H367 1998

Hanbook for Wetlands Conservation and Sustainability explains wetland ecology, functions and values. It provides tips for organizing your community to monitor, conserve and restore local wetlands. Includes monitoring instructions, wetland project ideas, regulatory avenues for wetland protection, case studies and an updated and extensive resource section.

Mass Vaccination of Grevy's Zebra Against Anthrax in Northern Kenya by Thomas Manyibe, Belinda Low, Geoffrey Chege / QL 737.U62.M53 2006

Grevy's zebra is an endangered species and a near-endemic to northern Kenya which holds over 90% of the global estimate of 2,200 individuals. An outbreak of anthrax that was confirmed in the Wamba area of northern Kenya began in December of 2005; it appeared to be disproportionately affecting equines and in particular Grevy's zebra. As of 28 February 2006, 52 Grevy's zebra were confirmed dead; at least 50% of all cases were located therefore the total number of deaths would be estimated to be >100 Grevy's zebra. Although the situation was being closely monitored, consensus among wildlife and anthrax epidemiology experts was that a broader vaccination program for Grevy's zebra should be implemented targeting those populations that were most at risk from the disease. In order to ascertain the safety of the anthrax vaccine in Grevy's zebras, a controlled experimental vaccination trial was done on a small group of animals, with no observed adverse effects. Mass Vaccination is an account of the experiment and provides emergency plan recommendations and an understanding of the ecology of the disease.

Visit Brookfield Zoo's online catalogue, SWAN: http:swan.sls.lib.il.us

Science News

2006-07-20T09:46:00.000-05:00

Knight Scientist Journalism Tracker is a relatively new service for science writers and editors, which provides ongoing access to work being done by others in the same field. “Our goal is to provide a broad sampling of the past day’s science news and, where possible, of news releases or other news tips related to publication of science news in the general circulation news media, mainly of the U.S. Our goal is to have a new batch of posts up each day by 1 pm Eastern time.” Here, journalists can “suggest stories and…comment constructively on one-another’s work” — the goal being “peer review within science journalism.”

While this resource specifically targets science journalists, my guess is that you’ll find it useful and/or interesting as well — even if you don’t work with science information.

Each posting here includes “brief descriptions of news stories with occasional commentary, headlines and links to their publishers’ Web sites…. Priority goes to stories that report or analyze new scientific research, and to reports on science policy and issues.”

Assorted stories posted on Knight Tracker at the time of this posting include: stem cell news, global warming, archeological digs, bird reintroductions, Arizona wildlife, Java quake and Tsunami, invertebrate habitats, etc.

Archives here go back to April 2006, and the entire site is keyword searchable. You can browse through a collection of Petit’s Picks — e.g., stories highlighted by the “head tracker.” Links on the right-hand side allow you to view only environmental, health & medicine, or general science stories. An RSS feed is available; RSS is the perfect medium for keeping up with a site like this.

If you wish to post to the site, you must register.

Source:
<http://digbig.com/4maqr>

EarthTrends: Environmental Information

2006-07-14T11:48:00.000-05:00

EarthTrends is a comprehensive online database, maintained by the World Resources Institute, that focuses on the environmental, social, and economic trends that shape our world.

EarthTrends gathers data from the world’s leading statistical agencies, along with World Resources Institute -generated maps and analyses, into a single database for rapid searching and retrieving. To facilitate the comparison of data from different sources, EarthTrends supplements its content with detailed metadata that reports on research methodologies and evaluates the information’s reliability. All of these resources are made available to the public at no charge.

Recently, EarthTrends updated a number of indicators in the searchable database, including those relating to income inequality, the number of threatened species, and agricultural production and trade. For a list of database updates, click on Earth Trends Databases.

In addition to databases, EarthTrends offers the following tools: maps, country profiles, data tables, and features (including articles). Their comprehensive themes include: Coastal and Marine Ecosystems; Water Resources and Freshwater Ecosystems; Climate and Atmosphere; Population, Health & Human Well-being; Economics, Business & the Environment; Energy and Resources; Biodiversity and Protected Areas; Agriculture and Food; Forests, Grasslands and Drylands; Environmental Governance and Institutions.

The World Resources Institute is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to create practical ways to protect the Earth and improve people’s lives. Their mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment for current and future generations.

Asian Carp: An Electric Hope for the Great Lakes

2006-07-13T12:35:00.000-05:00

Imported from China in the '70s, silver and bighead carp have now spread throughout the Mississippi River basin. An electric barrier has so far prevented them from entering the Great Lakes.

An Electric Hope for the Great Lakes by David Schaper
NPR.org, July 11, 2006 ·

The last, best hope for keeping voracious Asian carp out of the Great Lakes appears to be an electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which connects the Illinois River with the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.

Though fast-moving and fast-multiplying (some call carp the "rabbits of the water"), the fish apparently still haven’t advanced past the Brandon Road lock and dam near Joliet, some 50 miles from the mouth of the Chicago River and the entrance into Lake Michigan.

There is real concern that the invasive species could seriously alter the food web and the entire ecosystem of the Great Lakes if they ever get through.

"Asian carp [pose] one of the most serious threats to our way of life in the Great Lakes region in the next 100 years," says Cameron Davis, executive director of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, a non-profit advocacy and educational organization.

Biologists and ecologists say Asian carp consume massive amounts of phytoplankton and zooplankton -- as much as 40-percent of their body weight or more each day. That's the same food source relied upon by many native fish species and other aquatic life.

Competing with carp would put native species at a huge disadvantage. Asian carp can grow to 80 pounds, and they reproduce rapidly: Females can carry up to 2 million eggs.
"If carp get into Lake Michigan, it has the potential to completely undo the food web, much like a computer virus can wipe out a network," says Davis. “We’re like a computer system without an anti-virus."

At stake is a $4.5 billion-a-year fishing industry.

A temporary and experimental electric barrier was put in place four years ago on the canal near Romeoville, about 30 miles southwest of Chicago, in hopes of turning back the Asian carp. It consists of 13 cables across the bottom of the canal that send electric impulses at split-second intervals to startle and turn back fish.

In trial runs with common carp, the experimental barrier has appeared to work well. But it is beginning to corrode, and one of the 13 electrodes has failed. A new, bigger and more powerful electric barrier is being constructed; last month, Congress appropriated $10 million for its completion and operation.

The new, permanent barrier consists of 46 electrodes. It would create a much stronger electrified field, three times larger than the experimental one.

Still, the barrier won't be foolproof. Some observers fear the powerful wake left by big barges could pull fish through the barrier, or that Asian carp larvae could ride along like stowaways in ballast tanks and be discharged into the Great Lakes.

For more information:
National Public Radio
Upper Midwest Environmental Science Center
US Environmental Protection Agency

Illustration by Doug Beach for NPR

Black Rhino Extinction

2006-07-12T15:58:00.000-05:00

According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the West African black rhino (Diceros bicornis longpipes) appears to have become extinct.

"A mission to their last known habitat in northern Cameroon failed to find any rhinos or signs of their existence, " reports Richard Black for BBC NEWS.

"The sub-species (one of four) has declined in recent decades due primarily to poaching, which has also brought the northern white rhino close to extinction. In East and Southern Africa, numbers of related sub-species are rising with the use of effective protection measures. But after two decades of warnings, the western black rhino has apparently met its final end, according to the findings of an extensive expedition by three specialists earlier this year."

"They mounted 48 field missions, patrolling for 2,500km, working block by block," said Richard Emslie, scientific officer with the African rhino group in IUCN's Species Survival Commission.

The IUCN reports that another sub-species of rhino, the northern white, is also on the brink of extinction. Just four animals were found by ground and air surveys in its last refuge, the Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For more information, please visit:
IUCN
IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species
BBC NEWS
Times Online UK
New York Times (story pertains to Javan rhino)

Photo credit: Hubert Planton

Animal Cognition

2006-06-27T15:36:00.000-05:00

In the June 23 issue of Science, Elizabeth Pennisi address the issue of animal cognition in two articles (see below). Science, 23 June 2006: 312 (5781).

Social Animals Prove Their Smarts (p. 1734)
A new generation of experiments reveals that group-living animals
have a surprising degree of intelligence. What was once
considered a sharp line separating humans from all other animals is
becoming a blurry gray area, with various animals possessing
certain parts of the skill set considered to be advanced cognition.

Full story:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/312/5781/1734?etoc

Man's Best Friend(s) Reveal the Possible Roots of Social
Intelligence (p. 1737)
Recent controlled experiments show that some social animals have
evolved the flexibility and intelligence to deceive and benefit from
others and even predict what their peers may do (see main text).
But why did these and related abilities evolve?

Full story:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/312/5781/1737?etoc

NatureServe Explorer

2006-06-22T13:27:00.000-05:00

"NatureServe represents an international network of biological inventories -- known as natural heritage programs or conservation data centers -- operating in all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. Together we not only collect and manage detailed local information on plants, animals, and ecosystems, but develop information products, data management tools, and conservation services to help meet local, national, and global conservation needs. The objective scientific information about species and ecosystems developed by NatureServe is used by all sectors of society -- conservation groups, government agencies, corporations, academia, and the public -- to make informed decisions about managing our natural resources."

www.natureserve.org

"Search the database for species or ecological communities & systems." The customized search forms make it simple, with a variety of check boxes, radio buttons, drop down menus... And on both search forms, you’ll find tabs at the top that take you to pages where you can specify geographic location and/or status (e.g., extinct, imperiled, secure, etc.). Note that these options are also available as live links as you scroll down the search page.

At the far right side of the screen, for each result, you can choose summary (report), distribution (map), status, image (if available), or a comprehensive report which includes everything. You can also retrieve a comprehensive report by clicking on the name of the species in the list of results. A drop-down menu allows you to move around to different sections of the report.

If you’re looking for information "on the birds, mammals and amphibians of Latin America and the Caribbean," a link on the home page will take you to InfoNatura, a similar site that is also available in Spanish and Portugese.

Besides Explorer and InfoNatura, there are other databases available from the NatureServe site:

+ Local Program Data from "natural heritage programs and conservation
data centers" in the U.S. and Canada

+ Global Amphibian Assessment, which is the "first-ever comprehensive
assessment of the conservation status of the world’s 5,918 known
species of frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians"

+ Ecology Data, including Ecological Systems of the United States,
Ecological Systems of Latin America and the Caribbean,
Geographically Isolated Wetlands in the U.S., Coastal and Marine
Classification, and Ecological Integrity Assessments of Wetlands

+ Animal Data, including digital distribution maps of birds, mammals
and amphibians; and Distribution of Native U.S. Fishes by Watershed

+ Plant Data, including invasive species distribution

Bird Rehab

2006-06-21T16:04:00.000-05:00

In this month's Conscious Choice, Susan DeGrane writes about Chicago's Bird Rehabilitation Center which opened April 1 in a Chicago Park District building at 1400 S. Lynn White Drive on Northerly Island. Located east of the Chicago skyline, the 91-acre peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan contains lush open prairie and parkland once occupied by the Meigs Field airstrip.

The center started with six volunteers and plans call for adding another or so before summer's end, said Dawn Kelly, director of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, Inc. Flink Creek, a not-for-profit with a primary location in Barrington, has an agreement with the Park District to operate the facility.

If you find an injured or abandoned bird in Chicago, call the Flint Creek number: 847.602.0628. Animals are accepted by appointment only.

"Many people jump the gun when it comes to taking in injured, fallen, or seemingly abandoned birds. In many cases, the mother birds are nearby. It's much better to allow them to come to the rescue, " Kelly explained.

"If a bird is not in any immediate danger, it's best to leave it alone, but certainly if a bird is on the sidewalk and there's the threat of it [being in greater danger], it's good to put it in a box and keep it in a dark, quiet place," she said.

DeGrane writes that of the 80 or so birds taken in during those first two weeks, most suffered head trama. Only a few had broken wings or legs. Some were well enough to be on their way in just a couple of days.

"We released at least one bird a day, sometimes as many as a dozen in one day, depending on how quickly they recovered," Kelly said. "One morning I was releasing a brown creeper. I had just released several brown creepers earlier. He made this beautiful brown creeper sound, and brown creepers started calling out to him all around the peninsula. So he got to be with his buddies."

June brings the stragglers from most migrating species and several warblers, including Tennessee warblers, common yellow-throated warblers and others known for their brilliant plumage and beautiful songs. "As we progress through the migratory season, the composition of those we treat will change," Kelly said. "It's kind of nice that they grace us with their presence for a while," she said.

For more information, visit www.flintcreekwildlife.org.

Photo of Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) credit: JA Spendelow, US Geological Survey

Library Phone Answerers Survive the Internet

2006-06-20T16:03:00.000-05:00

One of the responsibilities of the Brookfield Zoo Library is to answer calls from the public. Calls are answered by two very resourceful docents on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The docents field phone calls, emails, and letters with inquiries ranging from general animal information to how-to-handle wounded or abandoned animals to historical infomation about Brookfield Zoo. To leave a message on our docent hotline, please call: 708.485.0263, x. 580. We receive hundreds of inquires a year!

A recent New York Times article ("Library Phone Answerers Survive the Internet") highlights a similar service performed by New York Public Library staff. Anyone, of any age, from anywhere can telephone (212) 340-0849 and ask New York Public Library researchers almost any question.

This service, provided by Brookfield Zoo, New York Public and many other libraries, is a testament to the fact that we need such resourceful detectives to suss out the good information when Google just won't do. A BIG THANK YOU to our docent detectives!

Brookfield Zoo's Trumpeter Swans

2006-06-16T17:51:00.000-05:00

In March 2006, two zookeepers from Brookfield Zoo took a trip to Clinton, Iowa, to assist in releasing one of the zoo’s trumpeter swans to the wild as part of the state’s Trumpeter Swan Restoration Program. The bird hatched at the zoo in June 2005 and has spent the winter months at a holding facility managed by Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The swan from Brookfield Zoo along with one from Lincoln Park Zoo was released at Gomer’s Slough, a backwater wetland along the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.

On Wednesday, June 14, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the first pair of nesting trumpeter swans in Illinois in more than 150 years was successful. Steve Bailey, ornithologist for the Illinois Natural History Survey, reported the Carroll County pair had at least one young hatched by last week. The nesters come from the reintroduced swans in Iowa, which Brookfield Zoo assisted.

Brookfield Zoo has been a long-time partner and leader in swan breeding and reintroduction programs with neighboring states. As a participant in Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project, the zoo had provided 10 eggs and 28 cygnets between 1984 and 1992. The zoo has been a participant in Iowa’s swan restoration since 2001 and has released four birds as part of that program. A cygnet that hatched at the zoo in 2004 and was released in Iowa last spring has been sighted numerous times with another bird also released last spring along the Mississippi River in and near Clinton.

The parent swans at Brookfield Zoo were introduced to each other last April. The male swan was brought to Brookfield after the female lost her previous mate the year before. He is from Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, a rehabilitation center in Michigan. His left wing is slightly curled with feathers sticking out at an unusual angle caused by a fused fracture he sustained prior to coming to the zoo. The injury prevents him from flying, which would be critical for his survival in the wild.

Trumpeter swans are the largest North American waterfowl, weighting up to 30-35 pounds with up to an 8-foot wingspan. The distinctive trumpet-like call that gives them their name at one time resonated throughout the upper Midwest and central Canada.

The recovery of wild swan populations throughout North America is one of the outstanding conservation success stories of the 20th century. Trumpeter swans were driven to the brink of extinction in the early 1900s due to a combination of indiscriminate hunting and loss of breeding habitat as the human population expanded. As recently as 1932, there were fewer than 70 swans in the lower 48 states.

Through coordinated captive breeding and reintroduction programs overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and managed at the state level, wild swan populations in the region have now grown to an estimated 4,000.

Discovery: Eight Anthropod Species

2006-06-14T11:12:00.000-05:00

A unique and isolated ecosystem has been discovered in a subterranean lake in a cave 100 metres (328 ft.) below a limestone quarry in central Israel.

Hanan Dimentman, a zoologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, collected specimens of eight previously unknown anthropod species, including four kinds of crustacean, a springtail and a scorpion. DNA tests are being done to determine when the animals might have diverged from their marine and freshwater relatives.

The lake was discovered by a geography masters student, Israel Naaman, as he explored the groundwater beneath the quarry. [Nature magazine, 8 June 2006]

For more information, click on Science Daily.

Photo credit: Hebrew University, Sasson Tiram.

Call for Writers

2006-06-13T12:27:00.000-05:00

If you know a thing or two about animal behavior, remote sensing, pollution, or related topics, you might want to contribute a chapter to the nascent Encyclopedia of Earth. Bucking the trend toward user-written-but sometimes inaccurate- content, the environmental reference will feature some 1000 peer-reviewed articles penned by experts. Sponsored by the nonprofit National Council for Science and the Environment, the project seeks writers and editors.
www.earthportal.net/about/steward

Okapi

2006-06-12T11:42:00.000-05:00

Seventeen distinctive tracks in eastern Congo's Virunga National Park have heralded the reemergence of the shy okapi, a kissing cousin of the giraffe that hasn't been seen in the park in nearly 50 years. The rare species, which has an elongated neck and the striped legs of zebra, has gone unnoticed because rough terrain and civil war have made the area hard to patrol, according to World Wildlife Fund conservationists, who announced the find on 9 June 2006. To ensure the okapi's long-term protection, conservationists advocate environmental education and more clearly marking the park's boundaries.

Brookfield Zoo has a long and successful history with okapi. The first okapi - and the first in any U.S. zoo - arrived at Brookfield Zoo in 1955. And, in 1959, Brookfield Zoo was the first zoo in the U.S. to have a baby okapi born.

Visit the okapi at Brookfield Zoo, Habitat Africa! The Forest. For more information, please visit the Brookfield Zoo Library.

(Photo: Peter J. Stephenson/WWF-Canon/Reuters)

MarineBio.org

2006-06-05T15:57:00.000-05:00

Anyone intrigued by ocean life can hook plenty of information at
MarineBio.org. Founded by geoscientist David Campbell of Houston,
Texas, the site holds a multimedia encyclopedia that describes more
than 200 species, with accounts on another 800 in the works.

Visitors can cue up audio snippets of blue whale songs or read
about the dining habits of the bearded fireworm (Hermodice
carunculata) a bristly relative of earthworms that slurps
up reef-building coral animals.

Galleries let you tag along on expeditions to havens such as Bonaire in the Caribbean and the coast of Honduras. At the Plankton Forums, browse the latest marine science headlines or discuss newly discovered deep-sea critters with scientists and other ocean fans.

The site also features backgrounders on conservation issues such as sustainable fishing and invasive species.
www.marinebio.org

[SCIENCE 312(5779)]

Recommendation: New Titles

2006-06-01T15:33:00.000-05:00

Recent titles added to our collection:

Edens Lost & Found: How Ordinary Citizens are Restoring Our Great American Cities by Harry Wiland and Dave Bell/ HT175.E34 2005

Edens Lost & Found highlights practical solutions to improve the environment and quality of life in cities, for ourselves and future generations. From gardens blooming on Chicago's rooftops to river restoration in Los Angeles, from farms and murals in Philadelphia to citizen empowerment in Seattle, this book highlights the many small acts of heroism, activism, and leadership that bring citizens together to restore their communities and create sustatinable urban ecosystems. For more information, see the previous blog post: Recommendation: Chicago: The City of Big Shoulders.

Groundswell: Stories of Saving Places, Finding Community by Alix W. Hopkins/ HD205.H67 2005

Groundswell: Stories of Saving Places, Finding Community, celebrates the role of land conservation in preserving community character and connecting people to the land and to each other. The author tells six stories: creating a community forest in Bellingham, WA; restoring a river in the Bronx in New York City; collaborating witih ranchers along the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana; building community-supported agriculture in Wisconsin and Minnesota; undertaking meaningful economic development in rural, coastal North Carolina; and the author's own experience in growing Portland Trails, a vibrant urban land trust in Maine. The book is co-sponsored by the National Park Service Rivers & Trails Program, The Conservation Fund, and The Nature Conservancy, all of which employ collaborative conservation as part of their missions.

Hormones and Animal Social Behavior by Elizabeth Adkins-Regan/ QL775.A4 2005

Research into the lives of animals in their natural environments has revealed a rich tapestry of complex social relationships and previously unsuspected social and mating systems. The evolution of this behavior is increasingly well understood. At the same time, laboratory scientists have made significant discoveries about how steroid and peptide hormones act on the nervous system to shape behavior. An exciting and rapidly progressing hybrid zone has developed in which these two fields are integrated, providing a fuller understanding of social behavior and the adaptive functions of hormones.

Hormones and Animal Social Behavior is a guide to these fascinating connections between animal social behavior and steroid and peptide hormones--a synthesis designed to make it easier for graduate students and researchers to appreciate the excitement, engage in such integrative thinking, and understand the primary literature. Throughout, Elizabeth Adkins-Regan emphasizes concepts and principles, hypothesis testing, and critical thinking. She raises unanswered questions, providing an unparalleled source of ideas for future research. The chapter sequence is by levels of biological organization, beginning with the behavior and hormones of individuals, proceeding to social relationships and systems, and from there to development, behavioral evolution over relatively short time scales, life histories and their evolution, and finally evolution over longer time scales. The book features studies of a wide variety of wild and domestic vertebrates along with some of the most important invertebrate discoveries.

Visit Brookfield Zoo Library's online catalogue: http://swan.sls.lib.il.us

Papillon

2006-05-26T10:35:00.000-05:00

Butterflies! opens this Saturday, May 27, where you can check out over 25 North American species. Brookfield Zoo's seasonal exhibit (located just west of the Carousel near the North Gate) will feature more pathways and water features, along with a new pupa room so that you can get an up-close look at pupae before they emerge as adults.

There are approximately 20,000 species of butterflies in the world. About 725 species have occurred in North American north of Mexico, with about 575 of these occurring regularly in the lower 48 states of the United States, and with about 275 species occurring regularly in Canada. Roughly 2000 species are found in Mexico.

In most parts of the United States, you can find roughly 100 species of butterflies near your home. The number is higher in the Rio Grande Valley and some parts of the West, somewhat less in New England. As one goes northward into Canada the number decreases, while as one goes southward into Mexico the number greatly increases.

Most adult butterflies drink nectar from flowers through their tongues, which function much like straws. A minority of butterflies almost never visits flowers, instead gaining sustenance from tree sap, rotting animal matter, and other organic material. Butterfly caterpillars almost all eat plant matter. Mainly the caterpillars eat leaves, but some species eat seeds and seed pods while others specialize on flowers. Most species will eat only a small group of related plant species -- for example Pearl Crescent caterpillars will eat species of asters. Some species, such as Gray Hairstreaks, will eat a wide variety of plants and some will eat only a single plant species. Although they eat plants, very few butterfly caterpillars are agricultural pests and if caterpillars are destroying some of your garden plants, it is unlikely that they are butterflies (unless you planted those plants specifically to attract butterflies). The caterpillar of one North American butterfly,the Harvester, eats aphids.

...and an interesting fact about butterflies - they have chemoreceptors at the ends of their antennas and on the bottoms of their "feet" which enable them to smell.

If you're looking to learn more about butterflies, Brookfield Zoo Library recommends:
An obsession with butterflies: our long love affair with a singular insect by Sharman Apt Russell/ QL 544.R87 2003
Butterflies: how to identify them and attract them to your garden by Marcus Schneck/ QL542.S36 1990
Field Guide to Butterflies of Illinois by John K. Bouseman/ QL 551.I3.B68 2001
Flying flowers: the beauty of the butterfly by Rick Sammon/ QL 542.S36 2004
Other titles available in the SWAN catalog: http://swan.sls.lib.il.us

Butterflies of North America (USGS)
Children's Butterfly Site (USGS)
Electronic Resources on Lepidoptera
Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network
North American Butterfly Organization (NABA)

New Orleans Public Library Book Pledge: Tax Deductible Contribution

2006-05-25T13:55:00.000-05:00

Brookfield Zoo Library often purchases books from Powell's for our collection. Powell's roots began in Chicago, where Michael Powell, as a University of Chicago graduate student, opened his first bookstore in 1970. Encouraged by friends and professors, including novelist Saul Bellow, Michael borrowed $3,000 to assume a lease on a bookstore. The venture proved so successful that he managed to repay the loan within two months. Today, you can browse their online store at www.powells.com for new and used titles.

Be part of Powells.com's fundraising drive to help rebuild the New Orleans Public Library. Your contribution will put books and educational materials back into the hands of New Orleans families!

How It Works:
Purchase a book pledge (or pledges) for $8.95 each.

Suggest a book for the New Orleans Public Library collection during the check-out process.

Your pledge is delivered to the New Orleans Public Library Foundation, a 501(c)(3) educational and charitable organization whose mission is to support the New Orleans Public Library.

Donors will receive an email confirmation from Powells.com and, subsequently, a letter acknowledging their tax deductible contribution from the New Orleans Public Library Foundation.

For more information, visit Powells online.

What Lies Beneath: Researchers Explore Gulf Floor

2006-05-25T13:15:00.000-05:00

When most people think of Louisiana as being unique, they think of Mardi Gras, crawfish and Cajun culture. Few realize that what lies beneath the Gulf of Mexico along Louisiana's coast is also unique, from the terrain and habitat to the animals living there. And two LSU researchers are diving down some 3,000 meters to explore it.

Researchers Harry Roberts and Bob Carney are combing the most unique continental slope in the world to study some of the most unique animal communities on the planet -- all just off the coast of Louisiana.

Roberts and Carney are studying 14 different sites where oil and gas seep up from the bottom of the Gulf. In particular, they are studying the animals that live near these "seeps." These organisms include bacteria that feed on hydrogen sulfide gas, a by-product of the oil and gas seepage; tube worms, mussels and clams that serve as hosts to those bacteria; and shrimp, crabs, fish, snails and starfish that, in turn, feed on the worms, mussels and clams. These animal communities are unique because they only exist near these seeps, and because the bacteria at the base of the food chain are "chemosynthetic," or grow without sunlight.

The large number of oil and gas seeps and the vast amount of salt under the Gulf floor near Louisiana's coast, along with all the sediment dumped into the Gulf by the Mississippi River, make the continental slope off the coast of Louisiana unique.

The entire article can be found in Science Daily via this link:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060525120715.htm

How to Recycle Practically Anything

2006-05-23T14:51:00.000-05:00

No matter where you live, you can recycle a wide range of discards...perhaps more than you realize. In the May/June issue of E: The Environment Magazine, Sally Deneen in "How to Recycle Practically Anything" tells you just that and provides a guide to help you recycle all those items you can' t bear to throw away.

The recycling industry has evolved since the mid-1990s and now not only can you recycle more things, but your discards are very much in demand.

"Without recycling, given current virgin raw material supplies, we could not print the daily newspaper, build a car, or ship a product in a cardboard box.... Recycling is not some feel-good activity; it is one of the backbones of global economic development," states Jerry Powell, editor of Resource Recycling magazine.

FACT: Recycling one aluminum can conserves 300 watt-hours, enough to run a 100-watt bulb for three hours. It talks five percent of the energy to make a new aluminum can out of an old can compared to making a new can out of raw materials.

FACT: In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage. This means that each adult will leave a legacy of as much as 100,000 pounds of trash for his or her children.

For more information:
Container Recycling Institute
Earth 911
Electronics & Books Recycling Days in Kane County, IL.
Illinois Recycling Association
Recycle Electronics @ Illinois Locations

Recommendation: Secrets of the Savanna

2006-05-19T10:19:00.000-05:00

Owens, Delia & Mark. Secrets of the Savanna: twenty-three years in the African wilderness unraveling the myseteries of elephants and people. Foreword by Alexandra Fuller. 230 p., 10 color photographs. 2006. Published by Houghton Mifflin Books.

From Booklist:
Mark and Delia Owens, who have studied lions in the Kalahari Desert (Cry of the Kalahari, 1984) and elephants in Zambia and Mozambique (Eye of the Elephant, 1992), now write more fully of their years in Zambia.

When the Owenses arrived at North Luangwa National Park in the mid-1980s, the park had been abandoned to poachers. Corrupt local officials, and even the scouts who were hired to protect the park, were making huge profits while decimating the park's elephants. The couple began to work with local villagers, hiring people to build roads and start fish farms and helping with health care and education. They also continued their study of the elephants, documenting how the social structure changed when numbers were very low and how the survivors rebuilt their lives.

The Owenses also saw strong parallels between human and elephant societies. This community-based approach to conservation, coupled with firsthand reporting of fieldwork in Africa, will find many avid readers.
-- Nancy Bent, Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

On Sunday, June 4 at 4pm, Border's Books in Danada Shopping Center will host a book signing for Secrets of the Savanna with Delia and Mark Owens.
Border's Books @ Danada Shopping Center: 101 Rice Lake Square, Wheaton, Illinoi s - 630.871.9595

Brookfield Zoo Library catalog: http://swan.sls.lib.il.us

Recommendation: Chicago: City of the Big Shoulders - WTTW

2006-05-18T14:34:00.000-05:00

Chicago: City of the Big Shoulders hosted by NPR's Scott Simon premieres May 18th at 8 pm on WTTW-Channel 11 (check for local schedule)

EDENS LOST & FOUND is a four-hour PBS series that will showcase extraordinary stories of environmental rebirth in very different American cities. The Chicago program highlights Chicago Wilderness; with several CW members featured in the show. (Chicago Zoological Society is one of the founding members of Chicago Wilderness and the organization’s Communication office is housed at Brookfield Zoo.)

· Each one-hour program examines the environmental, economic and social issues that face one of the country's great cities and the innovative solutions developed there that can help solve problems.

· Stories and interviews with citizen activists, politicians, urban planners, and just plain folks who contributed to their city's urban renaissance reveal how passion combined with innovative strategies can address the widespread problems facing many of America's urban environments today.

Edens Lost & Found - Chicago - City Hall and grass roots groups in Chicago are working on open space, green buildings and an educated citizenry to create a sustainable city.

Edens Lost & Found - Philadelphia - Faced with severe budget limitations, Philadelphia's rebirth is being brought about by a network of community-based volunteer organizations.

Edens Lost & Found - Los Angeles - Is it possible that the City of the Angels can tell a story to the world about environmental rebirth? (RELEASE 10/06)

Edens Lost & Found - Seattle - Recognizing that the human community is growing faster than the aging infrastructure, the city of Seattle created an Office of Sustainability and Environment. (RELEASE 10/06)

To find out more information, visit http://www.edenslostandfound.org/
& Bullfrog Films

How Toxic Are You?

2006-05-17T10:43:00.001-05:00

Are you a pure, a tainted, or a potentially toxic person?

The World Wildlife Foundation is asking,

how toxic are you?

Hazardous man-made chemicals used in every-day products are contaminating people and wildlife. They are found in the tissue of nearly every person on Earth and exposure to them has been linked to several cancers and to a range of reproductive problems, including birth defects. Between 1930 and 2000 global production of man-made chemicals increased from 1 million to 400 million tons each year.

Find out what you can do to stop this at: http://detox.panda.org/the_problem/

Take this online test to find out how potentially toxic your life is!

For more information:

Photo credit: World Wildlife Organization for more information

Dragonfly Migration

2006-05-16T14:59:00.000-05:00

Simple rules guide dragonfly migration
(by Martin Wikelski, David Moskowitz, James S. Adelman, Jim Cochran, David S. Wilcove, Michael L. May)
Biology Letters 10.1098/rsbl.2006.0487 (9 May 2006)

ABSTRACT: Every year billions of butterflies, dragonflies, moths and other insects migrate across continents, and considerable progress has been made in understanding population-level migratory phenomena. However, little is known about destinations and strategies of individual insects. We attached miniaturized radio transmitters (ca 300mg) to the thoraxes of 14 individual dragonflies (common green darners, Anax junius) and followed them during their autumn migration for up to 12 days, using receiver-equipped Cessna airplanes and ground teams. Green darners exhibited distinct stopover and migration days. On average, they migrated every 2.9±0.3 days, and their average net advance was 58±11km in 6.1±0.9 days (11.9±2.8kmd−1) in a generally southward direction (186±52°). They migrated exclusively during the daytime, when wind speeds were less than 25kmh−1, regardless of wind direction, but only after two nights of successively lower temperatures (decrease of 2.1±0.6°C in minimum temperature). The migratory patterns and apparent decision rules of green darners are strikingly similar to those proposed for songbirds, and may represent a general migration strategy for long-distance migration of organisms with high self-propelled flight speeds.

In the article below, Corey Binns addresses the recent article published in Biology Letters about how scientists have found that the bugs follow the same migratory patterns that birds do.

Dragonflies migrate just like birds
(MSNBC, 15 May 2006)
Small animals have been migrating since ancient times, but scientists still don't know very much about where most of the wandering critters come from or where they're going. "We're just about as ignorant as Aristotle was 2,000 years ago," said biologist Martin Wikelski, referring to the Greek philosopher's false claim that birds hibernated in marshes during winter. Wikelski knows more than Aristotle now, at least on one topic.

In a recent study, he led a team of Princeton researchers who found dragonflies and songbirds share long-distance travel habits, suggesting migration behaviors are less complex and could be more than 100 million years older than previously thought.

The scientists stuck tiny radio transmitters to the wings of 14 green darner dragonflies and followed the radio signals in an airplane and with handheld devices on the ground.
"They migrate exactly like birds—or birds actually migrate like insects," Wikelski told LiveScience.

Although dragonflies are 140 million years older than birds, according to fossil records, they abide by the same temperature and wind rules. Both groups stay put on blustery days and travel only after two days of cooling temperatures. They even use the same markers on the landscape, and rest on the same beaches.

"We saw other similarities as well, which makes us wonder just how far back in Earth's history the rules for migration were established in its animals," said Wikelski. Radio transmitters attached to flying, migrating insects and birds can tell researchers a lot about how small animals travel. Wikelski is now using the technology to study bat migration.

Hooked up to satellites, the transmitters could track small animals on a global scale. The information would help scientists make plans for conservation, predict locust swarms, and protect people from introduced species and diseases.

"We need to spend some time observing animals on this planet," said Wikelski. "This importance has been brought home with avian flu. We don't know where it comes from or where it's going."

Photo credit: Phil Sandlin/AP file

Quagga Mussel

2006-05-15T13:50:00.000-05:00

According to an Associated Press article, the population of an invasive mussel species in Lake Michigan is declining - but only because a more prolific relative appears to be taking its place.

The quagga mussel (Dreissena bugensis) seems to have nearly annihilated the zebra mussel population, said Russell Cuhel, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Great Lakes WATER Institute. "Right now, if you go out and suck up 1,000 mussels, you're lucky to find a couple of zebra mussels," he said.

The zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha), a native of the Caspian and Black Sea region, was first found in the Great Lakes in the late 1980s. The mussels quickly made their presence known, hogging the plankton upon which so many fish species depend. They also filtered nearshore waters to unnatural clarity that spawned excessive algae outbreaks, and they clogged industrial water intake pipes.

Quaggas have done the same thing on a larger scale, blanketing the lake bottom in many of the deep, cold places that the more delicate zebras can't survive. "Everybody used to say, 'Oh no, zebra mussels!'" Cuhel said. "Well, zebras don't hold a candle to what these guys are going to do to Lake Michigan."

Quaggas were first found in the lake in 1997 and are believed to have invaded the Great Lakes from the Caspian and Black Sea region from contaminated ballast water discharged from overseas freighters. Their shells closely resemble those of zebra mussels but the quaggas are more hardy and prolific. That worries experts who fear the lake could face serious ecological shock.

"With quagga mussels getting in and becoming established, it's a much different situation," said Tom Nalepa, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. "The changes occurring to Lake Michigan are going to be more significant because the mussel biomass is much greater."

A recent survey of 160 sites across Lake Michigan showed a reversal in the invasive mussel population, Nalepa said. In 2000, zebras comprised 98.3 percent of the mussel population. In 2005, quaggas made up 97.7 percent.

The quagga explosion may be responsible for the plummeting population of diporeia, a shrimp-like creature that is an important food source for some fish. The average density of diporeia dropped from 1,836 per square meter five years ago to 293 today. While no direct connection has been established between the rise of quaggas and the decline of diporeia, few doubt there's a link.

Experts say invasive species continue to find their way into the Great Lakes, with a new species discovered about every 6 1/2 months. Most arrive in the bellies of overseas freighters. Legislation to improve control over contaminated ballast water spills has stalled in Congress for more than three years.

For more information:
U.S. Geological Survey

Photo credit: Quagga mussel (Dreissena bugensis), B.May
The Sea Grant Nonindigenous Species Site (SGNIS)

A New Genus of African Monkey

2006-05-12T13:27:00.000-05:00

A new species of monkey identified in Tanzania's highlands last year is an even more remarkable find than thought -- it is a new genus of animal.

The new monkey, at first called the highland mangabey but now known as kipunji, is more closely related to baboons than to mangabey monkeys, but in fact deserves its own genus and species classification, the researchers reported in the journal Science. So they have re-named it Rungwecebus kipunji, and it is the first new genus of a living primate from Africa to be identified in 83 years.

"This is exciting news because it shows that the age of discovery is by no means over," said William Stanley, mammal collection manager at The Field Museum in Chicago, which has a dead specimen of the grayish-brown monkey." Finding a new genus of the best-studied group of living mammals is a sobering reminder of how much we have to learn about our planet's biodiversity," added Link Olson of the University of Alaska Museum, who worked with Stanley and others on the paper.

Tim Davenport, lead author of the paper, who is from the Wildlife Conservation Society and is based in Tanzania, said: "We first came across the monkey a couple of years ago - the realization that it was a new species was really exciting.

"Since then we knew it would only be a matter of time before we got hold of a dead animal - because they are hunted - and once we had and we started looking at it more closely, we realized it was a new genus. That was just incredible - it is something that really doesn't happen that often." This is the first species discovery for monkeys since 1927, when Allen's swamp monkey was discovered.

“The discovery of a new primate species is an amazing event, but the discovery of a new genus makes this animal a true conservation celebrity,” said Davenport. “The scientific community has been waiting for eight decades for this to happen, and now we must we move fast to protect it.”

For more information about this discovery, read "A New Genus of African Monkey, Rungwecebus: Morphology, Ecology, and Molecular Phylogenetics" published in Science (11 May 2006).

The Wildlife Conservation Society has set up a website dedicated to the protection of the species:http://www.kipunji.org.

Photo credit: A Rungwecebus kipunji (Tim Davenport/WCS)

Science Meets Art

2006-05-10T09:40:00.000-05:00

Wildlife has inspired artists for centuries. Naturally, we here at Brookfield Zoo share this historic fascination, and one would be hard pressed to find art here that isn't animal-themed.

In celebration of the art deco pieces that adorned the zoo when it opened in 1934, we have revamped Discovery Center to host a small public exhibit. Hanging along the perimeter of the lobby, geometric forms of animals peer down from Formica tabletops. A cast stone wall of animals sits at the lobby center. These pieces - examples of deco works that characterized the American Modern Art Movement from 1925 to 1940 - once graced the Refectory, now called Safari Grill.

Created as part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project, which was sanctioned by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the artwork delighted visitors and provided income for many artists during the Great Depression.

Visit Discovery Center to see the restored collection for yourself. You can also reserve the space for private events by calling the zoo at 708.485.0263, ext. 355.

Biodiversity Literature

2006-05-05T14:56:00.001-05:00

Biodiversity Heritage Library
Eight of the world's major natural history institutions and botanical libraries - including the Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the National Museum of Natural History - are working together to digitize the published literature on biodiversity that they jointly hold and make it freely accessible on the Internet.

The project, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, will establish a central resource of biodiversity publications drawn from their combined collections - some 2 million volumes collected during 200 years. Other participants include the Royal Botanic Gardens, England; the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and Harvard University Botany Libraries; the Natural History Museum, London; and the American Museum of Natural History, New York.

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
Anyone in the world with an Internet connection and an interest in the Earth's living species can now access worldwide networks of biodiversity data form his or her desktop, thanks to the Global Diversity Information Facility (GBIF). The world's biodiversity encompasses all living species of plants, animals and organisms on the planet Earth, as well as their genetic variants and the ecosystems in which they live.

For more information about GBIF, read "Earth's Biodiversity Now on Your Desktop" published by the National Science Foundation.

Recommendation: Sullivan, Hunting for Frogs on Elston

2006-05-04T11:49:00.000-05:00

Sullivan, Jerry. Hunting for Frogs on Elston, and Other Tales from Field & Street. Edited by Victor M. Cassidy. Illustrated by Bobby Sutton. Foreword by William Cronon. 320 p., 33 line drawings, 3 maps. 6 x 9 2004. Published by the University of Chicago Press.

A selection of savvy observations on urban ecology from one of the Midwest's foremost authorities on the subject, Hunting for Frogs on Elston collects the best of naturalist Jerry Sullivan's weekly Field & Street columns, originally published in the Chicago Reader. Engaging, opinionated, inspiring, and occasionally irreverent, Hunting for Frogs on Elston pays tribute to Chicago's natural history while celebrating one of its greatest champions.

Published in association with the Chicago Wilderness coalition, Hunting for Frogs on Elston comprehensively chronicles Chicagoland's unique urban ecology, from its indigenous prairie and oft-delayed seasons to its urban coyotes and passenger pigeons. In witty, informed prose, Sullivan evokes his adventures netting dog-faced butterflies, hunting rattlesnakes, and watching fireflies mate. Inspired by regional flora and fauna, Sullivan ventures throughout the metropolis and its environs in search of sludge worms, gyrfalcons, and wild onions. In reporting his findings to otherwise oblivious urbanites, Sullivan endeavors to make "alienated, atomized, postmodern people feel at home, connected to something beyond ourselves."

In the sprawling Chicagoland region, where an urban ecosystem teeming with remarkable life evolves between skyscrapers and train tracks, no writer chronicled the delicate balance of nature and industry more vividly than Jerry Sullivan. An homage to the urban ecology Sullivan loved so dearly, Hunting for Frogs on Elston is his fitting legacy as well as a lasting gift to the urban naturalist in us all. [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/16230.ctl]

Read an excerpt published in Chicago Wildnerness magazine: http://chicagowildernessmag.org/issues/summer2004/excerptsfrogs.html

Brookfield Zoo Library catalog: http://swan.sls.lib.il.us

Garlic Mustard's Effect on Forest & Species

2006-05-03T15:25:00.000-05:00

Garlic mustard is a cool season biennial herb posing an ecological threat. In the May 2 issue of The New York Times, Henry Fountain addresses three recent studies pertaining to garlic mustard in an article entitled, "Garlic Mustard Casts a Pall on the Forest": http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/science/02observ.html.

For more information on garlic mustard:
National Park Service:
http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/alpe1.htm

Rothman, JM, Van Soest Peter J, Pell Alice N. (2006) Decaying wood is a sodiuum source for mountain gorillas. Biology Letters (early publication online): http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1098/rsbl.2006.0480

Stinson KA, Campbell SA, Powell JR, Wolfe BE, Callaway RM, et al. (2006) Invasive plant suppresses the growth of native tree seedlings by disrupting belowground mutualisms.
PLoS Biol 4(5): e140:
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0040140

Polar Bears Sink Deeper Into Danger

2006-05-02T14:23:00.000-05:00

The 2006 edition of the global guidebook for species in danger, the IUCN Red List, published today, has officially upgraded the bears' status from 'conservation-dependent' to 'vulnerable'.

To read more about the effects of climate change, pollution, and human hunters on polar bear status, visit Michael Hopkins' article "Polar Bears Sink Deeper Into Danger" as published in today's issue of Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060501/full/060501-2.html.

Exploratorium

2006-04-28T11:48:00.000-05:00

The online presence of San Francisco's "museum of science, art, and human perception" is an experience itself, offering facts and fun through interesting articles, interactive features, and various multimedia tools. Although one might think of this site as the perfect source of activities for kids (who will get some great ideas for science projects), adults will find that mind-bending puzzles may help them think "outside the box" in their workday lives. The digital library offers resources for educational use. In addition to an "asset" database, in which there are over 11,000 documents, images, movies, and sounds, educators (and parents) can also search the Learning Resources Collection for activities and view webcasts related to the museum's exhibits. [information outlook 10(2)]

www.exploratorium.edu

Do You Want to be a Zookeeper?

2006-04-27T10:36:00.000-05:00

The American Association of Zoo Keepers, http://www.aazk.org/zoo_career.php, offers a description of what it's like to be a zoo keeper and the educational requirements of such a career.

You may also visit the American Zoo & Aquarium Society's career page for more information: http://www.aza.org/ForEveryone/Careers/

Contact Information

2006-04-27T09:20:00.000-05:00

The Brookfield Zoo Library is open to zoo staff, interns, volunteers and zoo members. Members of the general public may visit the library by appointment only.

Library Hours:
M-F: 830am-430pm; weekends by appointment

Please e-mail Courtney Lavery, Librarian & Archivist @ colavery@brookfieldzoo.org with any questions.

Good work!

2006-04-26T17:07:00.000-05:00

This is exciting. Now we can reach all our zoo library patrons and then some!

Global Amphibian Extinction Crisis

2006-04-26T15:46:00.000-05:00

Biologists at the Chicago Zoological Society Brookfield Zoo are working on an initiative to save amphibians from a deadly fungus. To learn more about the disease and extinction crisis, please read John Bierner's article "Deadly Fungus Devastating Populations of Amphibians" published in today's Chicago Tribune:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-060425fungalfrogs,1,2016792.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Brookfield Zoo Library Collection

2006-04-26T15:42:00.000-05:00

The Brookfield Zoo Library, a zoological research center, provides Zoo staff, interns and volunteers and members,and the general public (by appointment) with a core collection of books, monographs, and periodicals enabling their continuing education. The collection contains materials in the fields of: exotic wildlife (animal behavior, husbandry, conservation, ecology, veterinary medicine, pathology, genetics and nutrition), horticulture, and zoos (history, design, and exhibitry).

General Research Collection (Circulation and Reference)
The Brookfield Zoo Library contains more than 8,000 volumes and currently receives over 300 periodicals (print and electronic) devoted to zoology, botany, species’ biodiversity and biogeography. The Library maintains in-depth monographs on the animal families and genera; representative endangered species at Brookfield Zoo and in the wild; as well as materials that support the core collection. In addition, the Library has a special collection of publications from other zoos such as animal collection inventories, annual reports, guidebooks and miscellaneous pamphlets.

Special Collections
The Library’s special collections consist of archival material relating to the history of Brookfield Zoo, its scientists and staff, expeditions and research, Zoo exhibitions, education, and general administrative history. These archives also include personal papers and manuscript collections of individuals closely associated with the Zoo and/or the history of zoological science. In addition to textual material, are a large Photograph Collection, and the Art and Memorabilia Collection, including drawings by Ralph Graham, Ugo Mochi, and Karl Plath as well as Zoo memorabilia.

The Library also has a modest collection of rare books and periodicals that do not circulate.

Digital Collections
An initiative to create digital collections was launched in 2003. The goal is to create a database complete with Brookfield Zoo history that can be used by researchers around the world. The pilot project of the Digital Library is focused on the early years of Brookfield Zoo: 1920-1950. This has provided the Library with the opportunity to mount digital images, of photographs and correspondence, on the Metropolitan Library System’s Catalogue, SWAN (http://swan.sls.lib.il.us) as well as the OCLC catalogue, World Cat (http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org).

Brookfield Zoo Library Catalog

2006-04-26T14:18:00.000-05:00

Search the Brookfield Zoo Library Catalog via SWAN:

http://swan.sls.lib.il.us

The Brookfield Zoo Library is a member of SWAN, an integrated library automation system, shared by 77 member libraries within the Metropolitan Library System