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FIRST, they filled a little plastic Easter egg with radio telemtry equipment and other high-tech stuff. Then, they coated it with epoxy to match the size and shape of a white-naped crane's egg. Then they planted their little device under and unsuspecting female crane to get preceise readings of temperature, humidity and how often she turned it over.
It was in a good cause - figuring out how to best artificially incubate real eggs, to maximize propagation in captivity of the endangered Asian bird. But Fred Koontz, a mastermind of the fake-egg scheme, isn't sure how the white-naped crane felt about it.
"It was acually kind of mean," chuckles Koontz, head of the Scientific Research Center at the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo. "Making her spend the whole incuabation period trying to hatch a radio transmitter."
Founded in 1895 by a groupd or wealthy, conservation-"minded big-game hunters, the society - formerly known as the New York Zoological Society - has expanded from its original roots in the Bronx to oerated zoos in Central Park, Queens and Prospect Park, an aquarium in Coney Island, and a wildlife breeding center off the Georgia coast.
It is through the five urban wildlife centers, which attract more than 4 million visitors a year, that most New Yorkers know the society. But as the organization prepares to kick off a yearlong 100th-anniversary celebration with a series of special events at its zoos this week, it is the work of little-known scientists like Koontz that continues to provide an equally critical link to the organization's past and what it sees as its broader mission.
The original founders are credited with restocking the American plains with bison, threatened with near-extinction at the turn of the century. Today, the society's $67-million budget supports activities ranging from cutting-edge research in wildlife health and breeding and conservation genetics to 270 field projects worldwide and a crucial role in establishing protected reserves around the world.
The principle, says Koontz, is simple. "We just believe the world's a more interesting place if we have animals to see," he notes. "I think New...