WERC Highlights -- April 2000

USGS Pintail Website Wings into News: The "Discovery for Recovery" website highlights a study that is using satellite telemetry to track female northern pintails from wintering grounds in California’s Central Valley through migration, nesting, and postnesting seasons to discover why the North American breeding population of northern pintails has declined over the last 30 years. The study was recently picked up by the Environmental News Network, and the study's team leader, USGS biologist Michael Miller, was interviewed for a local story in The Reporter of Vacaville, Calif. (Gloria Maender, Tucson, AZ, 520-670-5596) Official news release

Report by Scientific Panel to Play Role in Discussions about Venture Star Site and Fort Irwin Expansion: Recommendations made by an academic and agency team in a Blue Ribbon Panel report, soon to be released by the Bureau of Land Management, are expected to be considered in future legislation regarding the expansion of the military base and proposed location for a launch site for Venture Star. They concern measures necessary to ensure the recovery of the federally threatened desert tortoise in the West Mojave if Fort Irwin is expanded. William Boarman and Kristin Berry, USGS biologists from the Western Ecological Research Center, served on the panel. Boarman was recently interviewed for two related news stories in the San Bernardino County Sun. One concerns the environmental impacts of the proposed Venture Star launch site. The Venture Star is the re-use space vehicle that will soon be replacing the Space Shuttles. The other article is on the Blue Ribbon Panel report. News of the Blue Ribbon Panel report was first published in an April 9 story in the Los Angeles Times. (Bill Boarman, Riverside, CA, 909-787-5152)

USGS Recognized at Giant Sequoia Proclamation: On April 15, in Sequoia National Forest, California, USGS plant ecologist Nate Stephenson of the Western Ecological Research Center was one of about 200 invited guests present at President Clinton's signing of a proclamation creating the new Giant Sequoia National Monument. Stephenson was invited in recognition of the role he played as a subject matter expert providing biological information relevant to the monument. (Nate Stephenson, Three Rivers, CA, 559-565-3176)