WERC Highlights -- July 2000

Media Swarm to Africanized Honeybee Seminar: Although Africanized honeybees have not yet reached San Francisco, USGS ecologist Mike Kunzmann brought news of them to Menlo Park July 20 in a USGS evening seminar about the biology and geographic spread of Africanized honeybees. Africanized honeybees originated by a genetic accident in Brazil in 1956, and after escaping captivity in 1957 they spread throughout much of South America, north through Central America and Mexico, and since 1990 into the United States. The seminar attracted news coverage by four San Francisco Bay Area TV stations and one major radio station; mention in local papers July 19 and 20, and calendar notices in the Sunday papers. The free lecture was attended by more than 150 people. (Mike Kunzmann, Tucson, AZ, 520-621-7282)

USGS Shares River Expertise with International Group: USGS research geologist Mary Ann Madej has been invited to give a presentation on the development of channel structure and roughness following large pulses of sediment at the Fifth International Gravel-bed Rivers Conference to be held in New Zealand, August 25-September 3. In this symposium, Madej will present her work on the response of rivers to large sediment pulses. After the conference, Madej will assist her New Zealand colleagues in assessing the potential of landslide break floods and future damage from sedimentation in the Waiho River. (Mary Ann Madej, Arcata, CA, 707-825-5148)

USGS Shares Amphibian Expertise with Chinese Biologists: USGS research biologist Gary Fellers has been invited to give a presentation on declining amphibians at the Fourth Asian Herpetological Conference in Chengdu, China, July 16-20. In a symposium on amphibians, Fellers will review his work on declining amphibians in the California Sierra Nevada. Chinese biologists hope to use his work as a model for their own efforts. After the conference, Fellers will assist his Chinese colleagues in assessing their ongoing studies of three species of amphibians found in scattered ponds and marshy areas on the Tibetan plateau. In 1998, he assisted these biologists in establishing a research program to evaluate amphibian declines. (Gary Fellers, Point Reyes, CA, 415-663-8522 x 236)

Vanishing Sea Otters in Alaska: Research biologist Jim Estes was interviewed by the Anchorage Daily News, Reuters News Service, and ENN.com regarding the decline of sea otters in the Alaska Aleutians, recently reported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Following an aerial survey this spring, USFWS said declines of 70 percent since 1992 and 95 percent since the 1980s have occurred in the Aleutian Archipelago. About 6,000 sea otters remain. Before these declines, the Aleutians were regarded as a major haven of sea otters. Predation by killer whales is among the likely causes of decline. The recent survey of the threatened California sea otter remained in the news with an interview of wildlife biologist Brian Hatfield for a news brief in Sunset Magazine. (Gloria Maender, Tucson, AZ, 520-670-5596)