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Bay Area Zoos and SSU Continue Working with the Western Pond Turtle

Western Pond Turtles have been receiving a lot of attention lately, as has biology professor Nick Geist. Both the turtles and Geist were featured in an SFGate.com article last week, and appear in a three-minute video on the San Francisco Zoo YouTube channel (see below). Last year, Geist hatched several dozen Western Pond Turtles collected from a Lake County location. Upon hatching, the baby turtles were no larger than a quarter. SSU, the Oakland Zoo and the San Francisco Zoo began working together to save the reptile—currently listed as a “species of special concern”—from extinction in California.



Now, the once miniature baby turtles range in size from a sand dollar to a coffee mug, and more than a dozen have been released back into the wild. But, the cycle continues, as Bay Area zoos have recently received new clutches of Western Pond Turtle eggs, to be raised and examined in captivity before their eventual release into the wild. To view pictures of the turtles, visit the San Francisco Zoo Flickr page. (Picture and video courtesy of the San Francisco Zoo)

Utarid Receives Governor's Safety Award for Dousing On-Campus Fire

Congratulations to University Locksmith Mark Utarid, a recipient of high honors for the Governor’s Safety Award. In June 2008, Utarid was passing by the south entrance to the University Commons when he smelled smoke. He noticed that the landscape bark in the Commons flowerbed was on fire. He looked in his electric cart for something to douse the flames, but found nothing. At that moment, an employee from the landscape department passed in his cart. Utarid stopped him for a bucket to fill with water, then ran to the pond directly across from the Commons to fill the bucket with water and extinguish the fire. Thanks to Mark’s effort, there was no damage to the University. Congratulations and thanks to Mark Utarid.

Kessel Publishes Guide for Developing Collections of Native American Art

Karen Kessel, Visual Resources Specialist for the Art and Art History Department, recently published a guide for developing collections of images of Native American art for academic programs. The 116-page guide was edited by Wendy Holden, formerly of the University of Michigan. Entitled "Finding and Cataloging Images of Native American Art," it is Volume 15 of the international Visual Resources Association's Special Bulletin series addressing issues concerning visual resources curators. The volume comprises an annotated bibliography of image and reference sources including books, films, videos, DVDs, and websites; a list of museums and historic sites that offer visual materials, a chronology of Native American cultures, 19 maps, a suggested core image collection, essays on identifying works by subject content and style, and a glossary of basic terminology. The publication is being sold in PDF format for downloading from the Visual Resources Association website.

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