Posted on 25th March 2008 by Judy Breck in biology | environment
care, gorilla, medicine, monkey, primate, veterinary, wildlife
In this learn node focusing on mountain gorillas, good news is an important bottom line. The website of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project reports the good news that the gorillas’ numbers have grown from 248 to over 360 individuals in the Virunga Massif in Rwanda alone. The illustration for this learn node is from the veterinary project, showing one of its patients: Magayane, a 6.5-year-old female mountain gorilla who was found to have a wire snare her left hand. The project team operated successfully to remove the snare and gave her a complete physical exam while she was under the anesthesia.
Anyone across the world can study and learn about Primate Medicine at the OpenCourseware published online by Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. The course materials are an excellent introduction to non-human primate medicine. The Primate Medicine webpage is also important reading for anyone who has thought about having a monkey as a pet: powerful reasons for not doing so are explained.
The Wildlife Conservation Society provides a Mountain Gorilla webpage describing the status of these great apes, discovered only 100 years ago by western science: “While mountain gorillas remain highly endangered, thier resurgence stands as a powerful example of what committed conservation efforts can accomplish.”
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Posted on 25th February 2008 by Judy Breck in art | biology
audubon, billed, cornell, ivory, ivory-billed, ivorybilled, pileated, search, wildlife, woodpecker, woodpeckers
This learn node is about one elusive bird: The Big Woods Conservation Partnership is on the hunt to spot more Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. You can follow the search or join it to attempt your own sightings by clicking here where you will learn about the search and how you can spot the difference between ivory-billed and pileated woodpeckers. Long thought to have gone extinct, the Ivory-billed woodpecker seems only to have gone into hiding. The present hunt’s many aspects includes this recent story of attempting spotings from a helicopter: Onward and Upward in the Search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The illustration show in this post is by John James Audubon, who drew these biggest woodpeckers of North America in the 19th century when they were plentiful. You will be successful in hunting this beautiful bird in New York City in the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art where a painting by Joseph Barthomew Kidd, based on Audubon’s drawing hangs in the American Wing.
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Posted on 19th January 2008 by Judy Breck in animals | biology
cameroon, collar, elephant, location, medicine, radio, ungulate, veterinary, wildlife
Illustrating this learn node is the beautiful elephant named Oldiri, who wears a tracking collar that lets scientists know his locations as they study him and his herd. The Current Elephant Locations page of the Elephants of Cameroon project describes the work. Under the umbrella of Field Trip Earth, Elephants of Cameroon for several years has been one of the finest online environments for learning about wildlife. The monitoring of elephant locations is explained in detail and includes many accounts of the adventures of the actual teams doing the collaring and monitoring. Work going back several years is available. The Cameroon Field Diary: Winter 2008 is currently unfolding online, as it is written by Dr. Mike Loomis, Chief Veterinarian at the North Carolina Zoological Park who left the United States on January 6th to begin the 2008 collaring season.
Good things can have a long life on the Internet as the following review of Elephants of Cameroon shows. It was written in April 2000 for HomeworkCentral.com’s Top Eight newsletter:
Dr. Mike’s departure for Cameroon on April 12, 2000 begins an expedition whose purpose is to save Africa’s vanishing giants, and that can be followed as it unfolds through the Internet in these pages. Supported by the North Carolina Zoological Park and other wildlife organizations, the Web project is a big one, like it’s subjects. There are sections describing Cameroon and elephants in general, and another on the place of the elephant in the culture and oral tradition in Northern Cameroon Dr. Mike’s diary provides updates and questions can be emailed to him. Current sightings of individual elephants are given, along with listings of previous sightings accompanied by maps. These and other pages make this a Web site rich in learning opportunities for a wide range of students, and for anyone interested in elephants.
For a different view of elephant study, the Tufts University Veterinary Medicine Open Courseware provides a detailed lecture outline on Ungulate Medicine. The lecture includes a focus on elephants.
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Posted on 20th October 2007 by Judy Breck in animals | biology | ecology | sciences
bird_migration, butterflies, migration, monarch, wildlife
The bird in this learn node is Crane #722 who is now participating in her first Journey South. She hatched on May 21, 2007 and is a member of 2007 Autumn Release Group III of captive-born whopping cranes who this fall are on their 1st migration, led by ultralight planes . She is part of the Journey North Whooping Crane adventures in which new online participants (you) are invited to take part. The wonder of the many Journey North global studies of wildlife migration and seasonal change in which many thousands of students and nature enthusiasts have participated for more than a decade is that their subjects are real. You can, for example, visit the Journey North monarch butterfly migration map to see where the great winged beauties have been sighted this fall as they are moving toward Mexico to winter there.
Crane #722 is playing a role in efforts to reestablish whooping cranes, who had almost become extinct in the 20th century. We are learning from her more general lessons about migration of birds. For more on that, there is a student project on The Mystery of Bird Migration in these MIT engineering class materials and even more in this lecture on migration and navigation.
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