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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Major New Prize for Animal ConservationThe Indianapolis Zoo (Indiana, USA) has established the Indianapolis Prize, an unrestricted $100,000 award to be given every other year (beginning in 2006) to an individual who has made significant strides in animal conservation. Individuals working in animal conservation worldwide are eligible for the Prize. Nomination information is available from Myrta Pulliam, mpulliam@indyzoo.com. Evaluation criteria will include achievements in the conservation of one or more animal species; measurable outcomes from the work; scientific quality of the work; the number of years the nominee has dedicated to the work; and the spirit of cooperation the nominee has demonstrated with various zoological and conservation institutions.
Nominations Sought for Mammal Conservation AwardsIn 2002, the American Society of Mammalogists established two conservation awards to recognize outstanding contributions to the conservation of mammals and their habitats. The Aldo Leopold Award is awarded to a well-established individual who has made a lasting scientific contribution to the conservation of mammals and their habitats. Previous Aldo Leopold Award recipients were E.O. Wilson (2003) and R.A. Mittermeier (2004). The William T. Hornaday Award is awarded to a current undergraduate or graduate student who has made a significant scientific contribution as a student to the conservation of mammals and their habitats. The previous Hornaday Award winner was Brent Sewall (2004). The recipient of each award will have contributed substantially to (1) conservation of one or more mammalian species, subspecies, or populations, (2) conservation of mammalian assemblages and communities, and/or (3) advancing the field of conservation biology through focal research on mammals. Those contributing to the conservation of land and/or marine mammals are eligible for consideration. We interpret "contribution" broadly to include (1) scientific research or political activism that has resulted in the preservation of an imperiled species, (2) development of protective management recommendations, (3) acquisition of new knowledge regarding the conservation status or causes for declines of mammalian species or populations, (4) protection of significant mammalian habitat, or (5) promotion of the conservation of mammals through public education. All persons are invited to submit nominations for these awards. For each award, the nomination packet should include
Send completed nomination packets by 15 March 2005 to Steven Sheffield, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030, USA, srsheffield@att.net, (301) 593-6251. Electronic submission is strongly encouraged. For further information, please see www.mammalogy.org/committees/index.asp. Awards will be announced during the annual ASM meeting.
New Worldwide Coral Reef LibraryA collection of 1490 coral reef images has become the basis for a new Internet-based library for the Millennium Coral Reef Project. The collection was created in a partnership with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), international agencies, universities, and other organizations to provide natural resource managers a comprehensive world data resource on coral reefs and adjacent land areas. The integrated Remote Sensing of Coral Reefs and Millennium Coral Reef Mapping projects have many partners including NASA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the University of South Florida (USF; St. Petersburg, Florida, USA), which are providing funding, data, or manpower. Current knowledge about the total area and locations of coral reefs worldwide is not adequate to see changes that occur in them. Accordingly, remote sensing of coral reefs has been a rapidly developing research area. NASA has contributed funding and satellite data to the project, the purpose of which is to develop global reef maps as a base for future research. The project also will serve as a library for the coral reef remote sensing data. From 1999 to 2003, the Landsat 7 satellite (managed by the U.S. Geological Survey) took the 1490 images of coral reefs to complete the required global coverage. The images and data were assembled at USF. The final map products are due for release in early 2005. Currently, the raw archive is available at http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi/landsat.pl. The archive and online data interface were developed by the SeaWiFS Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. USF in collaboration with the Johnson Space Center (Houston, Texas, USA) is characterizing, mapping, and estimating the extent of shallow coral reef ecosystems in the Caribbean-Atlantic, Pacific, Indo-Pacific, and Red Sea using the Landsat images. The archive highlights similarities and differences between reef structures at a scale not considered by traditional field studies. For more information contact Gretchen Cook-Anderson, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., (202) 358-0836; William Jeffs, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, (281) 483-5111; Rob Gutro, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, (301) 286-4044; or Randy Filmore, University of South Florida, (813) 974-9051. To directly access the Millennium Coral Reef's Landsat archive, visit http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi/landsat.pl.
Educational OpportunityEcosystems management field courses will be held in South Africa from 17 May-7 June and 9-30 June 2005. Students will learn about managing African wildlife while traveling through African parks and participating in hands-on projects. Course instructors are from the University of Pretoria's Centre for Wildlife Management. Topics includes wildlife management techniques, sustainable resource utilization, ecosystem and biodiversity conservation, reserve and resort management, African local community cultures and conservation perspectives, and Africa tourism principles and historical sites. Students will receive eight academic credits from the University of Pretoria. Cost is US$2990. For details contact education@ecolife.co.za.
New PublicationCABI publishing is pleased to offer a 20% discount to SCB members on a new book, Seed Fate: Predation, Dispersal, and Seedling Establishment (edited by P.M. Forget, J.E. Lambert, P.E. Hulme, and S.B. Vander Wall; ISBN 0-85199-806-2), issued in December 2004. The book presents current knowledge of seed fate in both natural and human-disturbed landscapes around the world, from temperate-zone mountains and deserts to tropical savanna and lowland rain forests. Particular attention is devoted to conservation of plant diversity when seed removal is affected by factors such as hunting, habitat fragmentation, or intensive logging. Contributors include leading researchers on seed ecology, animal-plant relationships from the perspective of both primary and secondary seed dispersal, and predation. SCB members may obtain the book for £60.00 / US$112.00 (list price: £75.00 / US$140.00). Contact Oxford University Press, 2001 Evans Road, Cary, North Carolina 27513-2009, USA, (800) 451-7556, FAX (919) 677-1303, orders@oup-usa.org, www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general. To obtain the SCB member discount, quote reference L175.
Meetings and WorkshopsThe American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) will hold its 2005 annual meeting in Houston, Texas, USA from 16-25 March. An array of panels from all over the world will explore the meeting theme, Energy, Space, and Time. A plenary session will feature former directors of the U.S. National Park Service; Wilma Subra, a chemist and environmental advocate who investigated the Love Canal case in New York, will be the keynote speaker. The meeting will include a mini-festival of environmental films. Two of these films will be featured: The Greatest Good: A Forest Service Centennial Film and Borderline Cases: Environmental Matters at the United States-Mexico Border. Producers will be present to introduce their films and participate in subsequent panel discussions. The meeting also will offer field trips exploring historic Galveston, Armand Bayou Nature Center, Oil Industry Landscape and Ship Channel, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and birding at Brazos Bend State Park. For a copy of the program and information about registration, see www.aseh.net or contact Kathleen Brosnan, Kathleen.Brosnan@mail.uh.edu. The Center for Biodiversity and Conservation's tenth annual spring symposium, New Currents in Conserving Freshwater Systems, will be held 7-8 April 2005 at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA. This forum for scientists and conservation practitioners will highlight recent successful initiatives in freshwater conservation, discuss cutting-edge ideas and tools, and investigate how and where these innovations might be implemented on the ground. The symposium will showcase projects that are rooted in the best available science, integrate across scientific fields, and link science with other disciplines. This cross-disciplinary integration will generate a fertile landscape for discussing the way forward in freshwater conservation. The symposium is sponsored by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation in collaboration with World Wildlife Fund and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Additional funding is provided by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, The Nature Conservancy, and the American Fisheries Institute. For more information or to register visit http://cbc.amnh.org or telephone (212) 769-5200. To receive updates, e-mail biodiversity@amnh.org. A limited number of posters will be accepted. Poster topics must relate to the symposium's general theme but are not limited geographically. Case studies are encouraged. The abstract submission deadline has been extended--contact biodiversity@amnh.org for guidelines. A conference on science and the U.S. Northwest Forest Plan, Knowledge Gained Over a Decade, will be held 19-20 April in Portland, Oregon, USA. The conference will develop awareness and understanding of scientific information gained from the Northwest Forest Plan monitoring programs, describe advances in the state of knowledge over the last decade, and explore policy and management implications of these findings. For details, visit http://outreach.cof.orst.edu/nwforestplan/index.php or contact Oregon State University, College of Forestry, Outreach Education Office, (541) 737-2329. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center will host a technical symposium and workshop, Threatened, Endangered, and At-Risk Species on DoD and Adjacent Lands, from 7-9 June 2005 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Abstracts are sought for technical session presentations on ongoing or recently completed research on at-risk species that is relevant to DoD lands and waters. Abstracts should address one or more threats such as land use and land management, invasive species, and urbanization encroachment. Taxonomic groups of focus are birds, bats, tortoises, amphibians, freshwater fishes, mammals, and higher-level plants. Although DoD uses extensive off-shore ocean and coastal ranges, ocean species will not be addressed at this workshop. Topics may include but are not limited to species inventory and monitoring technologies; species and habitat management; population recovery and viability; stressors, with special emphasis on stresses caused by military activities; quantification of DoD training restrictions due to at-risk species; mitigation measures identified through research; and methods to achieve transfer of research results to the user community. Abstracts must be received by 28 February 2005. Decisions will be announced by 15 April. Selected abstracts will be included in technical proceedings that will be provided to all workshop attendees. Instructions for abstract submission, registration information, and details about accommodations are available at www.serdp.org/tesworkshop/. For more information, contact John Thigpen, (703) 326-7822, TESWorkshop@hgl.com. The Natural Areas Association will hold its eighth international workshop 5-16 March 2005 in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Participants will visit ten different protected areas to observe and understand local flora and fauna; discuss research, management, and conservation initiatives with natural areas staff and scientists; and exchange ideas and resources. Vegetation types that will be studied include mountain fynbos, strandveld, limestone fynbos, renosterveld, coastal fynbos, succulent karoo, temperate forest, dry fynbos, and coastal thickets. For more information, vist www.naturalarea.org or contact Abigail Rome, abirome@earthlink.net. An international workshop, Biological Invasions in Inland Waters, will be held 5-6 May 2005 at the University of Florence under the auspices of the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group, Unione Zoologica Italiana, and the Italian Ministry of the Environment. Through analyses of empirical data from diverse freshwater ecosystems, the workshop will aim to determine what information is necessary to quantify the costs (ecological, economic, and social) of biological invasions and to improve controls of aquatic nuisance species. The deadline for registration and submission of abstracts is 20 February 2005. Contact Francesca Gherardi, gherardi@dbag.unifi.it, or visit www.dbag.unifi.it. Participants also are invited to attend the Final CRAYNET Conference, European Crayfish as Heritage Species--Linking Research and Management Strategies to Conservation and Socioeconomic Development, from 2-4 May. CRAYNET is an EU thematic network with representation from 11 European countries. The conference will summarize the most relevant themes from the previous CRAYNET meetingsand develop common guidelines for the conservation of indigenous crayfish as heritage species. Papers will be published in a special edition of the Bulletin Français de la Pêche et de la Pisciculture. For more information, visit http://univ-poitiers.fr/craynet. The fourth North American Ornithological Conference will be held 2-7 October 2006 in Veracruz City, Mexico. Joint organizers are the American Ornithologists' Union, Cooper Ornithological Society, Society of Canadian Ornithologists / Société des Ornithologistes du Canada, Association for Field Ornitholologists, Raptor Rsearch Foundation, Wilson Ornithological Society, Waterbird Society, and CIPAMEX (local host). The conference will feature a rich scientific program, symposia, plenary lectures, business meetings of societies, and social activities. Pre-and post-conference activities will include training workshops and birding, culture, and nature tours. Veracruz is home to a diverse avifauna. More than 700 species have been reported for the state, of which more than 230 are Neotropical migrants and more than 20 are endemic to Mexico. The conference is scheduled to coincide with the peak of the migration season in the world's largest raptor migration bottleneck. The Circular of Information will be mailed in early 2006. For updates, visit the NAOC Web site, www.NAOC2006.org.
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