falconspace

Endangered falcon feared poisoned , This is London, 14 May 2005

Wildlife campaigners working to protect one of Britain's most endangered birds of prey, the peregrine falcon, said they fear a female may have been poisoned after she disappeared during nesting.

The bird was last seen just days after laying eggs in a nest at the disused Hanson quarry in Clee Hill, near Ludlow, Shropshire.

At the same time last year, a male peregrine falcon was found dead at the top of the cliff. Tests showed the bird had ingested rat poison which had probably been set in a deliberate trap.

Dan Farber, from the RSPB, said they had been optimistic about this year's breeding programme because a new male had moved into the territory and paired with the resident female.

"This spring everything looked promising for the birds, the pair had mated and chosen a nest site, but this time the female bird suddenly disappeared. Sadly, the female peregrine has not been seen for days," he said.

John Hughes, a local peregrine enthusiast and RSPB volunteer, added: "Once a female peregrine has begun to nest, nothing would take her away. I am very worried that she may have been poisoned."

Peregrine falcons have nested successfully at Clee Hill for the last decade and the RSPB was planning to allow visitors to the site this summer to watch the transformation of young birds through telescopes and binoculars.

The birds, which feed on medium-sized birds such as pigeons, starlings and wading birds, are the fastest in the world, having been recorded at more than 160mph.

But egg collectors rob their nests and falconers steal their chicks. The birds are also trapped, shot and poisoned by gamekeepers and pigeon fanciers. In 2003, eight peregrines out of a total of 58 birds of prey were illegally poisoned.

Anyone found guilty of killing peregrines, which are protected by law, runs the risk of a fine of up to £5,000 and imprisonment for up to six months.

London auction house to sell chimp artwork
by Mike McDonough, Associated Press, 11 May 2005

Congo the chimpanzee led a brief artistic career and enjoyed little critical success, despite the patronage of his contemporary and fellow abstract painter, Pablo Picasso. But nearly half a century after Congo's artistic career, some of his paintings are going on sale at a prestigious London auction house alongside works by Andy Warhol and Renoir.

Three tempera on paper works — brightly colored compositions of bold brushstrokes — will be featured as a single lot in the sale of Modern and Contemporary Art at Bonhams on June 20, the auctioneer said Wednesday. The lot estimate is between $1,130-$1,500.

Bonhams said it believed the auction is a first.

"I would sincerely doubt that chimpanzee art has ever been auctioned before," said Howard Rutkowski, the auction house's director of modern and contemporary art. "I don't think anybody else has been crazy enough to do this. I'm sure other auction houses think this is completely mad."

Congo, who was born in 1954, produced some 400 drawings and paintings between the ages of 2 and 4. It was not immediately known if he was still alive, a Bonhams spokeswoman said.

In 1957, animal behaviorist Desmond Morris organized an exhibition of chimpanzee art at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, including works by Congo. Critics reacted with a mixture of scorn and skepticism, but Picasso is recorded as having owned a painting by Congo, Bonhams said.

"Paintings by apes may be seen as humorous or as a derisive commentary on modern art," the auction house said in its lot description. "However, Morris' studies were a serious attempt to understand chimpanzees' ability to create order and symmetry as well as to explore, at a more primeval level, the impetus behind our own desires for artistic creativity."

Congo quickly learned how to handle a brush and pencils, instead of knocking them over or trying to eat them. He painted within the boundaries of the sheet of paper and never allowed the paint to spill over the edge. He also appeared to know when he had finished a painting: He refused to pick up his brush or pencil over the work.


Untitled by Congo [AP Photo-HO Bonhams]

Very interesting. I painted several hundred paintings between the ages of 2 and 4, too.

I wonder what Picasso was thinking when he looked at Congo's pictures.

Winners chosen for 'name the chick' contest
Green Bay News-Chronicle, 12 May 2005

Two winners will share the honor of naming the latest peregrine falcon chick to hatch in the nesting box at the Pulliam Power Plant near the mouth of the Fox River, Wisconsin Public Service announced Wednesday.

Only one chick hatched this year, and the two winners will provide a first and last name for that bird. The winning names are:

"Aurora," submitted by Kim Irion, 8th grader at Notre Dame of De Pere. Kim chose her name because Aurora Borealis (scientific name for the Northern Lights) is "beautiful sights" in the sky, just like birds in flight.

"Snow Drop," submitted by Taylor Kaderabek, 1st grader at Monroe Elementary School in Manitowoc. Taylor chose the name because the peregrine falcon in flight reminds her of snowdrops.

The contest, open to grades kindergarten through eight, was sponsored by WPS and the Neville Public Museum. More than 800 contest entries were received from individuals and classrooms throughout northeast Wisconsin.

The power plant nesting spot has produced more than 30 Peregrine chicks since the nest box was built on the roof in 1995. The birds had previously nested on the Leo Frigo Bridge nearby.

Aurora Snow Drop and her mother can be viewed by visiting www.wisconsinpublicservice.com/news/falcons.asp via a Web cam that was installed last year.

Winners of the naming contest and their families will be invited to attend and participate in the banding of the chick tentatively scheduled for May 25. They will have their photograph taken with the falcon chick and receive a class field trip to the Neville Public Museum.

Falcon fortunes suffer setbacks
by Bill Zajac, 12 May 2005

The first pair of peregrine falcons to make Holyoke their home in a half-century have failed to produce eggs this spring.

Meanwhile, in Springfield, the first peregrine falcon chick to hatch this season in the office tower nest died before making it to its third day.

Massachusetts wildlife officials yesterday failed to find any eggs yesterday when they inspected the Holyoke City Hall ledge that has become home to a pair of falcons.

"We'll be back soon to measure the ledge and then place a tray there that should encourage the falcons to nest. Also, the tray will provide a secure place for the eggs to sit," said Ralph E. Taylor, state wildlife officer.

This is the first known pair of peregrine falcons to nest in Holyoke since about 1948, when the state had its largest falcon population with 14 breeding pairs. Currently, there are 12 pairs of nesting peregrine falcons in the state.

In the late 1940s, wildlife enthusiasts discovered the first evidence of pesticide DDT harming the falcon population. By 1966, there were no peregrine falcons breeding east of the Mississippi River.

In Springfield, where falcons have been nesting since 1988, its first hatched chick this spring was found dead early yesterday, according to Andrew House.

House is head of maintenance for the Monarch Place office building, where the nest is on a 21st floor window ledge. The cause of the death is not known.

Three eggs remain in the nest and are expected to hatch in the order in which they were laid.

The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife was contacted about the dead chick, and the bird, which broke out of its shell Monday, was collected from the nest for an autopsy, House said.

There are also nesting falcons at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and Sugarloaf Mountain in Deerfield.

Staff writer Stan Freeman contributed to this report.

One of the missing peregrines [photo: Natalino Fenech]


Peregrine falcons breeding in Gozo 'disappear' by Natalino Fenech
TimesofMalta.com, 12 May 2005

A pair of peregrine falcons breeding at L-Irdum Il-Kbir, in San Blas, Gozo, have suddenly disappeared.

The pair were first noticed displaying in the area in February and by early March only the male was seen as the female was probably brooding the eggs. Towards mid-April the two adults were sometimes seen returning to the nesting site with prey to feed the young but no birds have been observed for the past 15 days and no fletched young have been spotted either.

When peregrines were observed breeding in the past, eggs were laid in late February or early March. The eggs hatch at a time to coincide with the peak migration.

A bird watcher who was discreetly monitoring the falcons said it was not unusual for the birds to sometimes venture inland and on at least three occasions he saw the bird stooping at turtle doves, catching them in flight, on the other side of San Blas Valley.

"It is not too difficult to understand what has happened. The falcons have disappeared at the peak of the hunting season," the bird watcher said.

Peregrine falcons have been associated with Malta for a long time and a number of place names still bear their names, such as Ras Il-Pellegrin and Rdum Il-Bies.

Maltese peregrines were important because trained falcons were used to hunt other birds such as partridges. Falconry, was an important activity in the Middle Ages and continued to enjoy a degree of importance until 1798, when the Knights left and were replaced by the French.

Falcons trapped from Malta were held in high esteem and when Emperor Frederick II annexed Malta to Sicily in 1239, he had sent a team of 18 falconers to Malta to report back to him on the number of falcons on the islands and how many had been caught from the wild in that season.

The Knights of the Order of St John, who were granted the islands in fief, were obliged to pay a yearly nominal rent of a falcon or hawk on November 1, All Saints Day.

It later became customary to send a number of falcons to the kings of France, Spain, Portugal and Naples. The custom of sending falcons to kings existed before the Knights of St John were given Malta. Written documents dated 1446 indicate that falcons were already being sent to the King of France. In the mid-1500s, falcons were trapped both in Malta and in Lampedusa, where the Grandmaster used to send falcon trappers during the migration period.

The obligation to send falcons compelled the Order to create the rank of the Grand Falconer. The duties of the falconer were to prepare the falcons, to issue hunting licences and determine the dates when the hunting season was to open and close.

There were 20 official falcon trappers in Malta in the 1700s. Records of the number and types of falcons that were trapped exist and date back to 1431, when 14 falcons had been caught, of which 11 were peregrines and one was a saker falcon. The number of falcons trapped varied and up to 50 were caught annually but there were years when much fewer were caught.

Records held in the archives of the National Library shows that between 1646 and 1789 between one and 12 falcons were sent annually to the kings of France, Naples and the King of the two Sicilies.

Falcons were trapped by vertical nets called paragni, which already existed in 1492, as in May of that year, the Viceroy of Sicily, who governed Malta, had recognised the privilege of keeping paragni.

The Maltese falcon was made popular again internationally in 1941 through one of the most classic detective mysteries ever made by Warner Bros. studios, and featuring Humphrey Bogart.

Like all birds of prey, peregrines became protected by law in 1980 but they still suffer the face sad fate. Several pairs attempted to breed after 1979, when the last pair were recorded breeding and had raised three young at Ta' Cenc. But with the introduction and escalation of shooting from seacraft, no more breeding peregrines were observed.

Illegal hunting continued to take its toll on protected birds over the past week.

A heavy passage of honey buzzards were seen flying inland from the south against the strong northwest wind last Friday. Some 200 honey buzzards were seen in small parties at Xrobb l-Ghagin and practically all were shot.

A mortally wounded grey plover was seen at Ghadira on Monday. A nightjar with a broken wing was found at Xemxija on Monday.

....Nothing to look at here folks, move along please, absolutely nothing at all. Move along now please, absolutely nothing, nothing at all....

It's Science, Not a Freak Show, New York Times, editorial, 11 May 2005

The latest focus of apprehension over the headlong rush of biotechnology involves the creation of animal-human hybrids, known as chimeras. Distinguished groups of ethicists and scientists have been pondering what steps should be taken, if any, to head off the nightmarish possibility of a human brain's becoming trapped inside an animal form, silently screaming, "Let me out," or a human embryo's being gestated by mice. It is fascinating - some would say terrifying - to contemplate, but these weird, far-out possibilities should not distract us from welcoming more mundane experiments with chimeras that will be needed to advance science.

We are already partly down the path of mixing human and animal cells or organs. Although it once seemed odd and unsettling, no one worries much anymore about transplanting pig valves into human hearts or human fetal tissue into mice. The key reason may be that these manipulations don't visibly change the fundamental nature of either the human or the animal. People become much more concerned when they think a transplant may alter the mind or appearance of the recipient. Nobody seems eager for a human with an animal tail, or an animal with human hands or sensibilities.

Fortunately, real-world scientists have much more prosaic experiments in mind. In the superheated area of embryonic stem cell research, for example, they want to put lots of human-brain stem cells into mice to see how they perform in a real body as opposed to a laboratory culture, possibly shedding light on how to treat neurological diseases. The researchers appear to be proceeding cautiously, and the scientific community is erecting ethical barriers to guide such research. This is hardly a freak show. If stem cell therapies pan out, the Food and Drug Administration will almost certainly require animal experiments before they can approved for the public. Research that some consider scary today may be required by regulators tomorrow.

Falcon parents greet newborn
MassLive.com, 11 May 2005

SPRINGFIELD - It wasn't quite a Mother's Day baby, but Springfield's peregrine falcons were probably not disappointed.

The first of the pair's four eggs hatched late Monday in the window ledge nest on the Monarch Place office building's 21st floor.

Andrew D. House, a bird enthusiast who is also head of maintenance at Monarch, saw a small hole appear in one egg about noon Monday.

"You could see the beak wiggling around in there. The male brought back food to the nest and was trying to put little pieces of blue jay in the hole to feed it, but wasn't able to get it in there," he said.

A pair of peregrines initially set up house on the building in 1989, marking the first time falcons had nested in Western Massachusetts since the early 1950s. Between the nest at Monarch Place and an alternate nest beneath the arches of Memorial Bridge, falcons have now produced 31 chicks - with three more possible this season - in Greater Springfield.

The Springfield nest is one of four known active falcons nests in the valley, according to Thomas W. French, assistant director of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

Another falcon pair has a nest atop Holyoke City Hall, still another has a nest on a wild site on the face of Mount Sugarloaf in Deerfield, and a fourth pair is believed to be nesting atop the University of Massachusetts library, he said. In total, there are 11 falcon pairs nesting in the state.

Comcast has been broadcasting events in the nest on channel 15 of its cable system in Springfield using a stationary camera positioned just inside the 21st floor window. The broadcasts will continue Sunday through Friday, 6 a.m.-6 p.m., and Saturday, 6 a.m.-3 p.m., until the chicks have flown and the nest is empty.

Sirens, Temptresses of the Sea:

Similarly Apollonius Rhodius (Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.898ff.) describes the Sirens as partly virgins and partly birds. Aelian tells us (Ael., Nat. Anim. xvii.23) that poets and painters represented them as winged maidens with the feet of birds. Ovid says that the Sirens had the feet and feathers of birds, but the faces of virgins; and he asks why these daughters of Achelous, as he calls them, had this hybrid form. Perhaps, he thinks, it was because they had been playing with Persephone when gloomy Dis carried her off, and they had begged the gods to grant them wings, that they might search for their lost playmate over seas as well as land. See Ov. Met. 5.552-562. In like manner Hyginus describes the Sirens as women above and fowls below, but he says that their wings and feathers were a punishment inflicted on them by Demeter for not rescuing Persephone from the clutches of Pluto. See Hyginus, Fab. 125, 141. Another story was that they were maidens whom Aphrodite turned into birds because they chose to remain unmarried. See Eustathius on Hom. Od. 12.47, p. 1709. It is said that they once vied with the Muses in singing, and that the Muses, being victorious, plucked off the Siren's feathers and made crowns out of them for themselves (Paus. 9.34.3). In ancient art, as in literature, the Sirens are commonly represented as women above and birds below. See Miss J. E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey (London, 1882), pp. 146ff. Homer says nothing as to the semi-bird shape of the Sirens, thus leaving us to infer that they were purely human."

....the sirens were creatures who sang so sweetly that they attracted sailors to their death. The Sirens are a threat because they give the choice of hearing about life instead of experiencing it. Sirens were temtresses who with their sweet voices represent the distractions that keep you from your goal. The Greeks thought the Sirens were daughters of one of the Muses and were perhaps related to Hera. Odysseus brought about their destruction by listening to them while he was tied to the mast. Their fate was only to live as long as they were successful in their lure. Odysseus listened but was not lured. They ceased to exist as a result.

The fact that they are half human and half bird suggests that they came from the goddeses of another mid-eastern land. The deites of the other countries, such as Egypt, are more commonly of this form.

Siren [photo: Maria Daniels; Harvard University Art Museums, 1990]


...for me, she comes always as a falcon.

Kangaroo Attacks in Australia Spotlight Growing Turf War
by Stephanie Peatling, National Geographic News, May 6, 2005

"Roo mauling!" the headlines screamed after a 13-year-old boy was attacked by a kangaroo as the boy looked for a lost golf ball on a green in Grafton, Australia.

Urban myth? Not this time.

The boy suffered facial wounds and cuts to his abdomen, back, and legs. The 9-foot-tall (1.5-meter-tall) kangaroo grabbed the boy as he was searching bushes on a New South Wales golf course in 1996.

Australia's Supreme Court eventually ordered the Grafton District Golf Club to compensate the boy not only for his injuries but also for the emotional damage he suffered when schoolmates taunted him with the nickname "Skippy" (a play on the hopping gait of kangaroos) after the incident.

The court found that the club was negligent, because it had known its kangaroo population was aggressive but had not done enough to warn visitors.

The case did much to make Australians think about how they approach wildlife, says Guy Ballard, a doctoral candidate at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales.

"In many communities the line is blurred between people's territory and kangaroo areas," Ballard said.

"The people live on the edge of rural land, and the kangaroos want to take advantage of natural resources like green grass and water …," he said. "[P]eople need to give animals their space. But that's hard if you come around the corner of your house and there's one right in front of you."

Animal Bites

Three years ago Ballard began researching how people react to wild horses, fruit bats, and, of course, kangaroos.

In some of the northern New South Wales towns he surveyed, Ballard found that 100 percent of people saw kangaroos every day. Of those surveyed, three-fourths had kangaroos in their backyards. Ballard documented 15 reports of contact where kangaroos had either growled at people or chased them away.

"In some cases it was people coming between a mother and her children, and so she reacted aggressively," Ballard said.

"One man was jogging along a bush track, and a kangaroo jumped out. Another woman was picking lemons, and [a lemon] fell down and hit a kangaroo underneath it—and so the kangaroo interacted with her," he said. "We have also had reports of dogs being attacked and killed."

Australia's cities are expanding. At the same time, urbanites are also leaving cities for smaller regional towns. Ballard believes this migration will likely cause confrontation between humans and animals to increase.

In his work on fruit bats, which are called flying foxes in Australia, Ballard found that "there was a trend for people who had higher levels of contact with flying foxes to be less positive about them."

"You give people a lot of contact with wildlife and there's a theory they will grow to love them. But with flying foxes it's not that simple."

Ballard notes that people dislike the bats feeding on the homeowners' fruit trees, not to mention the noise, mess, and odor the mammals make.

Please Don't Feed the Animals

Ballard is currently collating his research. But he says his preliminary findings match work done by Darryl Jones, a senior lecturer in ecology at the Australian School of Environmental Studies at Griffith University in Brisbane.

Jones has focused much of his research on why people persist in feeding wildlife despite the best efforts of the Australian federal and state governments to convince the public that, for example, spicy french fries are not good for pelicans.

"There is a huge proportion of people who feed wildlife," Jones said.

"Even though it's frowned on, everyone has done it. When we asked people why they did it, the majority of people said they enjoyed it," he said. "An enormous number of people said they feed wildlife because they're really conscious that humans have done enormous damage to nature, and they're trying to give something back."

What makes Jones's work even more interesting is his definition of feeding. It does not mean the tourist who flicks a bit of bread to a seagull but people who spend money with the specific purpose of feeding wild birds and animals. Neither does his definition include giving food scraps to wildlife instead of putting scraps in the rubbish bin or on the compost heap.

Jones's surveys indicated that between 40 and 60 percent of people are feeding wildlife.

"It's totally unpoliceable. [People] are concerned about nutrition or the animals becoming dependent. … People are convinced there are whole ecosystems dependent on them."

As cities and towns eat up more undeveloped land in Australia, previously wild species are finding themselves living in urban environments. Birds such as currawongs are increasing in number and competing with smaller birds for food and habitat, while ibis are growing bolder in their dealings with people.

At the same time, some Australians are complaining about animal disruptions, such as the pungent smell of fruit bats or the loud noise made by rainbow lorikeets.

"A big philosophical problem is getting the community to see it's their problem," Jones said. "The animals are the easy bit, because they are doing things pretty much the same way all the time."

Dog cared for abandoned baby, 9 May 2005

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A newborn baby abandoned in a Kenyan forest was saved by a stray dog who apparently carried her across a busy road and through a barbed wire fence to a shed where the infant was discovered nestled with a litter of puppies, witnesses said Monday.

The baby girl, named "Angel" by hospital workers, was clad in a tattered shirt and wrapped in a plastic bag when the dog found her Friday, according to Aggrey Mwalimu, owner of the shed where the baby was discovered in a poor neighborhood near the Ngong Forest in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

"When the dog picked up the baby in a dirty bag, it came and dropped her behind the wooden building where the dog has its puppies," Mwalimu told The Associated Press Monday.

The 7-pound, 4-ounce infant was taken to a hospital and "is doing well, responding to treatment. She is stable ... she is on antibiotics," said Hannah Gakuo, spokeswoman of the Kenyatta National Hospital.

The baby was found after two children reported hearing an infant's cries near their wood-and-corrugated-metal shack.

"I followed them outside and we started looking around the compound and a nearby plot," said Mary Adhiambo, the children's mother.

They eventually found the tan mixed-breed dog lying protectively with a puppy beside the mud-splattered baby wrapped in a torn black shirt, Adhiambo said. The short-haired dog with light brown eyes has no name, residents said.

Adhiambo told the Daily Nation newspaper that she used warm water to wash the baby, cleaning the umbilical cord with rubbing alcohol, then dressed her in fresh clothes and fed her as neighbors gathered at the shack on hearing news of the discovery.

Residents took the infant to a nearby police station before taking her to the Kenyatta National Hospital, officers at the station told the AP.

Doctors believe the baby had been abandoned about two days before the dog discovered her, said Gakuo, the hospital spokeswoman.

"She cried a lot during admission, because her umbilical cord was infected," Gakuo said. "She is now very quiet. She just feeds and sleeps. I was there this morning and she looked at me and yawned, looked at me again and yawned."

Dozens of Kenyans have visited the baby, who has curly black hair, in the hospital after learning of her rescue, Gakuo said.

"She is now fine. She is warm. She is in a separate room ... with a lady who is also nursing a baby admitted in hospital for treatment," Gakuo said. "The lady is looking after her as if she is her own child."

Infant abandonment is a problem in Kenya, where poverty and the inability to care for the child are blamed. Most people who abandon babies are never caught.

Officials were not able to immediately provide figures on abandoned babies, but Gakuo said that each month, about two infants are brought to the main public hospital in the capital alone.

"Abandoned babies are normally taken to the Kenyatta National Hospital because it is a public hospital," Gakuo said. "People are now donating diapers and baby clothes for this one."

Sounds like we got a bunch of overpaid eggheads who have been getting their jollies watching two giant pandas - Bai Yun and Gao Gao - do the dirty, according to this story [63] from the Associated Press.

"Two giant pandas at the city's zoo retired to their favorite spot under a few bushes and mated over the past two days."

Two days. Geez, that's gonna make more than a few housewives wistful.

OK. Says here, "Bai Yun had displayed signs of being receptive to mating in recent days, including yipping and raising her tail, walking through water and scraping pine tree bark onto her head and face."

As Lauren Bacall suggested, famously, "If you want anything, just yip. You do know how to yip, don't you?"

They've got to get it while they can, these giant pandas. Only in heat one or two days a year.

Geez, sounds like my wife....




Panda love, AP photo



OK. So they spend all this money to get these wild animals to get it on, get 'em pregnant...here come the little ones and whaddya know? Momma wild animal doesn't know how to take care of baby wild animal. Could it get any worse?

Well, yes.

Also from the Associated Press: "Test Tube Gorilla Not Bonding With Newborn."

"The world's first test tube gorilla...."

That's right, "world's first test tube gorilla is not bonding with her new daughter, zoo officials said Saturday. Timu, a 9-year-old Western lowland gorilla, took care of her newborn for a few hours after Friday's birth, but then lost interest, said Dr. Lee Simmons, director of the Henry Doorly Zoo....The baby will be hand-raised and given to a surrogate gorilla mother in hopes that Timu will learn from watching that relationship and will be a better mother when she has another baby."

And this isn't the first time, either.

Continuing: "Timu also failed to bond with her first baby, Bambino, who was born at the zoo. That baby also had to be hand-raised."

So much from learning from the past. "The surrogate mother is expected to be Rosie, the gorilla who gave birth to Timu in 1996 through in vitro fertilization."

Test-tube gorillas!



Gorilla keeper Janice McNearny holds a newborn Western lowland female gorilla at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Neb. The gorilla's mother Timu, the world's first test tube gorilla, took care of her newborn for a few hours after Friday's birth, but then lost interest, not unlike more than a few human mothers. [63]

Meanwhile, back in the era of mad avian pranks...

"Emperor penguins look up at a giant imposter at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, Japan. Zoo director Teruyuki Komiya dressed up for a stint in the penguin enclosure for the annual April Fool event to display a human being at the zoo." (AFP/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

...from the archives, New York Times [71]:

When New York City set out to bring bald eagles back to Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan three years ago, parks officials chose a colorful character to head the program: Thomas Cullen, a master falconer whose showmanship had made him the region's acknowledged expert on birds of prey.

Mr. Cullen was well known for hiring out his birds to shoo sea gulls from Kennedy International Airport and chase pigeons (and one unsuspecting Chihuahua) from Bryant Park. He had hunted with luminaries like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and worked briefly with the naturalists who established an urban eagle program in Washington, D.C.

But Mr. Cullen, who has run the New York City program for the past 33 months, also has a history of questioned activity, and at times criminal activity, involving exotic birds. On Friday, after city park officials were questioned by a New York Times reporter about bird smuggling charges that Mr. Cullen faces, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe summoned Mr. Cullen to his office and suspended him, without pay, from his $53,951-per-year job, pending an investigation into the current indictment.

In 1984, Mr. Cullen was arrested in Australia and pleaded guilty to participating in an international bird smuggling ring that included a publishing magnate and the former animal keeper from the Playboy mansion.

He is under indictment on federal charges that he orchestrated a scheme to illegally import three goshawks on a British Airways flight into Kennedy Airport in 2000.

Beyond those legal issues, Mr. Cullen has also been accused by officials in New York and New Jersey of mistreatment that led to the death of two bald eagles. Last month, New Jersey's attorney general charged him with violating regulations protecting endangered species by harassing an eaglet to the point of death on an island in the Delaware River. He had been working for a developer who wanted to build a resort on the island. And records with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation show that during the early days of the Inwood Hill Park program, an eagle died of dehydration while it was locked in a cage outside Mr. Cullen's home in Goshen, N.Y.

Mr. Cullen said in an interview last week that he was confident he would be cleared of the federal charges, and insisted that after devoting his life to raptors, he would never intentionally harm an eagle.

Many wildlife advocates say they are relieved that Mr. Cullen has finally received scrutiny for what they call a cavalier attitude toward endangered birds.

But other naturalists argue that Mr. Cullen has been the victim of professional jealousy, bad luck and reaction to his rather aloof demeanor.

"Tom's like a lawyer or a doctor: he views the birds professionally rather than trying to bond with the persona of each individual bird," said Alexander Brash, the former New York City Parks official who hired Mr. Cullen for the eagle program. "But he has always treated birds well, and he's been incredibly successful."

Mr. Cullen's suspension on Friday was the latest odd twist for a man whose 30-year career has veered through the peculiar extremes of the bird world, from the Australian Outback to Petty's Island, a political minefield on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River where developers and environmentalists are fighting over whether to build a golf resort or establish a wildlife refuge.

Mr. Cullen, 53, was raised in Goshen, N.Y., and said he became entranced with raptors as a child, when he saw the Disney film "Rusty and the Falcon." During the 1970's and early 80's, he spent seven years lecturing at the Falconry Center, in Gloucester, England, a world-renowned center for exotic birds.

After returning to the United States, however, Mr. Cullen soon found himself enmeshed in the aviary underworld. In 1984, Australian authorities arrested Mr. Cullen, who was carrying a hatchet, 100 feet up a tree, trying to snatch eggs from the nest of a red-tailed cockatoo. Nearby were Mr. Cullen's accomplice and an incubator, powered by a car battery, containing 29 eggs with a black market value of $2,000 to $5,000 each. Mr. Cullen pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, and the investigation eventually encompassed dozens of arrests in an intricate network of smugglers around the globe.

Testimony in the case offered a rare peek into the shadowy market for exotic birds, revealing how an army of poachers used specially designed vests and underwear to keep their pilfered eggs warm and concealed on transcontinental flights. If any eggs hatched during the flight, the smugglers were instructed to flush the chick down the plane's toilet before its chirps blew their cover.

In the late 80's and early 90's he built a lucrative business breeding saker falcons and Eurasian eagle owls and conducted dazzling falcon displays at fairs, parties and bird shows. When Ron Nixon, a bird expert he had met in England, set up the eagle program in Washington, Mr. Cullen worked briefly as a consultant there. In 2002, when New York City Parks officials contacted Mr. Nixon, saying they wanted to bring eagles to New York City to symbolize the city's recovery from the 9/11 terror attack, Mr. Nixon suggested they hire his old friend Mr. Cullen.

After consulting with the federal wildlife experts, city parks officials decided that a misdemeanor criminal record from 18 years earlier should not disqualify a man with Mr. Cullen's experience handling raptors. On July 23, 2002, amid patriotic fervor, Mr. Cullen appeared on the nationally televised program "The Early Show" along with Mr. Benepe and a bald eagle named Betsy, who had been leased to help promote the program.

But a week later, Mr. Cullen informed Betsy's caretaker that he had found the bird dead in its cage. An autopsy found that she had died of dehydration.

During an interview on Friday in the office of his lawyer, Peter Ginsberg, Mr. Cullen said that the death was a fluke, most likely attributable to the withering heat wave that gripped the Northeast at the time. In addition to providing Betsy with ample water, he said, he bathed her with a hose every night, including the night before she died.

"This bird was a rehab bird that may have done something stupid to get itself injured in the first place," he said. "So could it be that it did something stupid on the day it died?"

But Ward Stone, the New York State wildlife pathologist who conducted an autopsy on Betsy, said he believed that the bird received inadequate care.

"They survive in the wild," Mr. Stone said. "So they don't die of dehydration in captivity if they are given water and the proper food."

City and state officials never publicly disclosed the dehydration death. Despite opposition from some naturalists, who considered the city's program a mere publicity stunt, New York's eagle program was still widely regarded as a success, because only 2 of the 12 birds released into the wild had died - a better-than-average survival rate.

So last year, when Cherokee Investment Partners, a development company, found its plan for Petty's Island stalled by the fact that eagles were nesting there, they contacted Mr. Cullen, whose company, T.C. Management, described him as an expert in urban eagles.

Cherokee paid Mr. Cullen $45,760, according to the contract, to observe the nest using binoculars, from locations off the island. Several weeks into the program, however, Mr. Cullen moved closer - watching them while paddling by in a kayak, and on the island itself.

Even though most wildlife protocols call for humans to keep 1,000 feet or more from eagles during breeding season - and Mr. Cullen's Inwood Park program used plastic tape and fences to keep the public 100 feet or more from the eagles' nests - he eventually set up a small duck blind 94 feet from the eagle's nest on Petty's Island. The investigator's report said that Mr. Cullen made repeated observations from that site, including one on June 4, the last day that volunteer eagle watchers saw the chick in its nest.

A week later, when a truck driver found the eaglet on the side of the road, clinging to life, investigators for New Jersey's Department of Environmental Conservation discovered the tent and eventually tracked down Mr. Cullen. In an interview with the lead investigator, Lt. Todd Eisenhuth of the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, Mr. Cullen said he played no role in the eaglet's death. He did acknowledge, according to the investigative file:

"I don't like eagles. They have an attitude."

Mr. Cullen said on Friday that he did consider eagles more difficult to handle than falcons, but said it was ludicrous to suggest that he had frightened an eagle to death on a place as bustling as Petty's Island.

"These eagles set up between two big cities, not in the wilderness," he said. "There are trucks and traffic on that island. A tent is not going to disturb them."

Thomas Cullen, 2003 [ New York Times]

The old gods never die,
They don't fade away.

They do what they do.

That doesn't mean they're not paying attention

Pets of the future may be lifelike, but not real by Linton Weeks, 8 May 2005

WASHINGTON - There is something just so tomorrow about the Russian robo-therapists with their mechanical cats.

Alexander Libin softly strokes the orange-cream fur of NeCoRo — a semirealistic cat-robot packed with visual, auditory and movement-sensitive sensors and weighing 3.5 pounds — while his wife, Elena, serves tea and cookies.

"She's like a real pet," Alex says. He's petting a tabby nicknamed Cleo and, by gosh, it does look like a cat, or some come-alive stuffed animal from a high-end horror movie. It is much more lifelike than Sony's Erector-Set-like robo-dog, Aibo.

Cleo lounges on the dining table, stretches its paws, arches its back, twitches its tail, opens and shuts its eyes. When it turns its neck you can hear a creepy mechanical whirring sound.

Self-described robo-therapists and affiliated faculty members at Georgetown University, the Libins believe in the restorative value of animal companions. The catbot, they explain, is easier for many people — the elderly, the allergy-stricken, the autistic and disabled children and adults — to deal with than a real cat. Developed by Omron Corp. of Japan, the mecho-pets are not yet available in the United States, Libin says.

They don't have to be fed or cleaned up after. Other variations — a teddy bear and a baby seal — are in development at other labs, and some people believe robotic pets will be omnipresent in the near future.

Cleo meows obnoxiously and occasionally hisses unless you touch it a certain way, tripping special sensors, and then it closes its eyes, relaxes and purrs or mews contentedly.




"Cleo the robo-cat closes its eyes and purrs when rubbed." [Susan Biddle/Washington Post]



The whole scene makes you a little nervous. As you delve into the future of pets on this planet, you discover at least three possibilities: robotic, cloned and biologically reprogrammed. It's a foggy, uncharted world of cuddly robots, copycat puppies, nonallergenic cats, glowing fish, gargantuan guinea pigs, miniature hippos and the re-establishment of endangered or extinct species that could put us all in danger.

Because pets are not human but are endowed with personality, intelligence and emotion, they're the perfect foils — in-between beings — for our scientific curiosity. Think about it. Of course scientists are going to tamper with their genetic structures! You bet they'll tinker with their bloodlines! Breeders have been doing that for years. But now pet researchers can implant software, readjust the genome and conduct experiments in interspecies embryo transfer in ways that have never been done before.

"I'm not scared of the robots," says Alex as he pets Cleo. "I'm scared of the people."

Sherry Turkle, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and author of The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, believes there is a huge future for robotic pets. Like the Libins, she has been studying the effects of robotic pets on people. She's convinced that people are responding to the new generation of robo-pets because people are basically lonely and vulnerable. And though they may not want to feed and clean up after the mechanical animals, they do want more and more expressions of affection from the machines. "We are being asked to take care of these computers," she says. "And that is one of the most seductive things."

Of course, this puts us back into willing servitude.

Irony alert: As we build more-needy machines that act more like animals, we are also developing less-needy animals that act more like machines.

With pets, as with just about everything else, there is never just one future. There are many — varied and diverse. The futures of pets are less certain than our own. We will grow old, our memories will melt away, we will continue our quest for novelty, and community and love. Ultimately, the kind of pet we will choose in our own future says as much about us as it does about our options. Are we comfortable with machines or do we like the woodsy smell of a hunting dog's coat? Would we rather speak to our Internet-informed parrot or dangle yarn between a kitten's little paws?

"Robotic pets in some ways have advantages," says the Human Society's Martha Armstrong. But there's true joy "in seeing a person respond to a kitten or cat that purrs, sits in their lap, or a dog that licks its face. It's that heartbeat. It's that living thing. I hardly think a robotic pet makes somebody feel needed."

Or possibly robotic pets will create a whole new variety of relationships.

Back in the Libins' home office, Cleo the robot cat meows and meows. It's a cool day and the windows are open. Real birds twitter in the real trees as the real sun sets.

Alex Libin says living with robotic pets has given him an even greater appreciation for real-life animals. But he also appreciates the robot's gifts: Though Cleo is animatronically correct, it's strictly confined in its movements, and there's no chance it will accidentally walk across the table, knock over the plate of cookies, bump into cups of hot tea or interfere in any way with the couple's lifestyle.

As the Libins move around the room, Cleo's mechanical mewing becomes more pronounced. It's agitated and doesn't want to settle down. "She needs a lot of attention," Elena Libin explains.

Alex laughs and says his wife is now performing therapy on the robot. "The main idea behind these robots," says Alex, "was to create a model of a living creature."

The more lifelike the robot, the more people respond.