The Wildlife Conservation Society will host its semi-annual "Meet the Experts" on Wed., May 7, from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Central Park Zoo's board room. This briefing is for jornalists only, and offers a rare opportunity to meet some of the Society's field conservationists in an informal question & answer format. Research topics include:
EIGHT MILLION ACRES OF THORNS: WILDLIFE OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST DRY-FOREST PARK/Dr. Andrew Taber, Senior Conservation Zoologist. Nearly four times the size of Yellowstone, Gran Chaco National Park in southeastern Bolivia contains mostly dry forest and thorny scrub -- perhaps not the ideal spot for the family Winnebago. But this little-known, two-year-old park supports more mammal species (excluding bats) than any reserve on the continent, and contains the last great expanse of Chaco dry forest -- a South American habitat second in size only to the Amazon rain forest. Dr. Andrew Taber, whose wildlife surveys helped establish this massive reserve, has catalogued 46 species of large mammals in the Chaco, including 70-pound armadillos, maned wolves, several cat species, monkeys and the extremely rare Chacoan peccary, thought extinct until 1975. Taber will reveal how this new park blends the needs of both its wildlife and indigenous people who have called the Chaco home for centuries.
CHIMPANZEE WARS/Dr. Lee White, Conservation Biologist. Within the botanically rich Lope Reserve in Gabon, mechanized logging operations remove only about ten percent of the forest canopy, yet have caused a mysterious and dramatic decline in chimpanzee numbers. However, other large mammals living in Lope, such as gorillas, elephants and mandrills, remain relatively undisturbed. Dr. Lee White, who conducts wildlife studies from the Station for the Study of Gorillas and Chimpanzees in Gabon, will report on the suspected reasons for this die-off, as well as archaeological findings that have helped him piece together some of Lope's natural history.
WHERE THE TIGERS ROAM: BIG-CAT CONSERVATION IN INDIA/DR. Ullas Karanth, Associate Reseach Zoologist. A renowned expert on tigers, Dr. Ullas Karanth will announce the results of a country-wide tiger census in India, where half of the world's estimated 5,000 wild tigers still roam. Karanth's research has revealed that loss loss of tiger prey species, rather than direct mortality of tigers, plays a major factor in maintaining healthy tiger populations. He has also developed "camera traps" as a new censusing technique, replacing traditional (and inaccurate) counting methods. Karanth, an outspoken advocate for tiger conservation, disputes estimates that predict the tiger's imminent extinction, claiming that there is still time to save these huge predators.
Please RSVP by Monday, May 5 by contacting Stephen Sautner or Karen de Seve at the WCS communications office: phone 718-220-5197, fax 718-220-2685 or e-mail [email protected]. For more information visit our website at www.wcs.org.
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