September 8, 2010 7:00pm

On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear With Richard Ellis

Polar bears—fierce and majestic—have captivated us for centuries. Feared by explorers, revered by the Inuit, and beloved by zoo-goers everywhere, polar bears are a symbol for the harsh beauty and muscular grace of the Arctic. Today, as global warming threatens the ice caps’ integrity, the polar bear has also come to symbolize the peril that faces all life on Earth as a result of harmful human practices. Tonight, the acclaimed science writer Richard Ellis will offer an impassioned and moving statement on behalf of polar bears—and all they stand for.

Mr. Ellis will provide for us a vivid and carefully observed picture of Earth’s largest land predators—including their hunting, mating, and hibernation habits. Polar bears are exceptionally well suited for hunting—especially when it comes to ringed seals, their favorite prey, which they can smell from over a mile away. But as the ice melts in the Arctic, the ability of polar bears to find the food they need to survive diminishes in spite of their incredible physical capacities. Unable to find food, some bears will vainly take to the water in search of ice on which to hunt—many of them swim until they drown. In the past twenty years alone, the world population of polar bears has shrunk by half. Today they number just 22,000.

Richard Ellis is one of America's leading marine conservationists and is the author of 18 critically acclaimed books and more than eighty magazine articles, which have appeared in such journals as Geo, Audubon, Natural History, Animal Kingdom, Curator, Smithsonian, Science Digest, and National Geographic. He has been the subject of cover stories in American Artist, Ocean Realm, Wildlife Conservation,Yale's Discovery magazine, and his alumni magazine, the Pennsylvania Ga­zette. He has appeared in numerous television specials, and has written screenplays on whales for PBS. His research has taken him to Quebec, Baja California, Newfoundland, Hawaii, Bermuda, Nantucket, South Georgia, the Azores, Alaska, Patagonia, Japan, South Africa, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Faroes, the Galápagos, the Falklands, the Aleutians, the Commander Islands, the Kuriles, the  Antarctic, Kamchatka, Spitsbergen and the North Pole.

October 13, 2010 7:00pm

Birds of the Ancient and Modern Maya with Robert Fergus, Ph.D.

Birds have played important roles in Mesoamerican cultures for thousands of years. Rob Fergus explores the connections between birds and various Mayan cultures as revealed in their ancient art and his ongoing field work with four modern Mayan communities in Guatemala and Belize. In addition to reviewing the songs and calls of Central American birds, if you want to know how the Turkey Vulture got its red head, which bird you can burn to a crisp to make into a love potion, why you can't have sex before you plant your corn crop, or how to cure warts, this is the program for you!

Rob Fergus studied urban bird conservation at the University of Texas, where he received his Ph.D. in 2008.  He is the founding director of the Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory, was the first executive director of the Travis Audubon Society, in Austin, Texas, and worked for the National Audubon Society for nearly five years as their Senior Scientist for Urban Bird Conservation.  Dr. Fergus currently teaches cultural geography at Rowan University in New Jersey, and conducts ethno-ornithological field work among various Mayan communities in Belize and Guatemala.  When he isn't watching birds...well, Rob is always watching birds. But sometimes he does it on his own time with his three kids in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

November 10, 2010 7:00pm

The Amazing Audible Courtship Display of Manakins
with Kimberly S. Bostwick, Ph.D

Tonight we learn about the incredible mating rituals performed by manakins, a family of small bird species of subtropical and tropical Central and South America. One species in particular, the Club-winged Manakin, which inhabits the western slopes of the Andes in Colombia and Ecuador, “violins” its wings in order to make sound, which requires both a special instrument (its feathers), and special “skills,” in this case extremely rapid wing motions (faster than the wings of hummingbirds or other manakins or the vibration of a rattlesnake’s tail), and unusual wing postures. Another species, the Red Capped Manakin performs an amazing (and hilarious) moon walk dance!!! Dr. Bostwick has captured sound-producing displays of numerous different species of manakin with high-speed video. These video recordings show that different evolutionary groups, or clades, of manakins produce sound differently and that even within a given species a male can use multiple mechanisms to produce wing-sounds.

Dr. Kim Bostwick is the Curator of Birds & Mammals at Cornell University. Her main interest is in understanding the evolutionary processes underlying macroevolutionary patterns, especially as they relate to sexually selected characteristics of organisms. Her dissertation research focused on both the morphological and behavioral aspects of a unique, sexually selected character found in the manakins. The high-speed videos can be accessed on the web at http://www.cumv.cornell.edu/staff/bostwick.html.