Predicting the Next Outbreak

  • The program is supposed to identify new viruses in animals before they spread to humans. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

A new coalition wants to set up an
early warning system for diseases
that pass between animals and humans.
Samara Freemark reports
some research institutions and conservation
groups are launching the PREDICT program:

Transcript

A new coalition wants to set up an
early warning system for diseases
that pass between animals and humans.
Samara Freemark reports
some research institutions and conservation
groups are launching the PREDICT program:

Organizers hope the program will help prevent the spread of diseases like avian flu, ebola, and swine flu. PREDICT researchers will work in disease ‘hotspots’ overseas.

Program director Stephen Morse is an epidemiologist at Columbia University in New York. He says the program will identify new viruses in animals before they spread to humans.

“We don’t even know how may emerging viruses, let alone other infectious organisms there are out there in nature, but the number must be large.”

The PREDICT program will also create better global disease warning systems.

“This is really essential to our survival as well as something very important to understand if we want to be able to control infections in the future.”

Morse hopes the program will help governments stop local outbreaks before they become global pandemics.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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Migrating Monarchs Face Obstacles

  • Each year, monarch butterflies make a perilous migration from Mexico up to the Midwest. (Photo by Deb Walker)

Monarch butterflies are on their way north once again. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman has an update on the threats facing
the monarchs on their long journey from Mexico:

Transcript

Monarch butterflies are on their way north once again. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman has an update on the threats facing the monarchs on their long journey from Mexico:


The annual migration from Mexico to the upper Midwest takes several months. The butterflies that ultimately arrive here are the second and third generation of those that spend the winter in Mexico.


Matt Douglas is a professor of zoology at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan. He’s studied monarchs for more than 25 years and has visited their wintering grounds in Mexico several times. He says monarchs so far have been able to withstand threats from nearby logging operations there. But he says the butterflies are far from invincible.


“You never know what’s going to hit you or when. If you have multiple bad experiences with weather or with parasites and predators, you’re not going to have many monarchs.”


Douglas says if all goes well, people in the Midwest should begin to see monarch butterflies starting in late May.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris Lehman.

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ZOOS SET STAGE FOR WILDNESS (Part 1)

  • Today's zoo exhibits attempt to immerse visitors in the scene while also enriching the animals' lives. Some zoos are criticized for emphasizing appearances instead of the animals' well-being.

Zoos across the nation are putting their animals in more natural settings instead of cages. For some zoos, it’s done to make the animals’ lives a little more comfortable. But for others, it’s simply done to draw more people rather than to give the animals a better place to live. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the details in the first of a two-part series:

CONSTRUCTING NATURAL HABITATS (Part 2)

  • This grizzly at the St Louis Zoo is displayed in an exhibit that mimics its natural habitat. A whole industry has emerged to manufacture these exhibits.

At your local zoo – if you can suspend disbelief for a moment – you might find yourself in the middle of a tropical rainforest. Or a dusty African plain, watching the animals in their natural habitat. Of course, those wild settings are merely a façade. Clever construction techniques covering up concrete cages. In the second of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… the thought and planning behind the displays can be nearly as intricate as nature itself:

Field Biology Adopts a Gentle Touch

In field biology courses across the country, students collect samples of
plants, insects and fish. The specimens are then killed, preserved and
studied. But at one university, they’re trying something new: they’re
saving the lives of specimens. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy
Nelson reports: