Ornithologists in the news: AOU President Sue Haig on CNN

[Fern Davies]

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/03/science-seat-haig/

 

Of note:

 

 

Haig’s efforts to reintroduce the California condor in the Pacific Northwest are detailed in her upcoming book “The California Condor in the Pacific Northwest,” which she cowrote with Jesse D’Elia, one of her Ph.D. students. The book comes out next month.

Another thing we’re doing is, we have DNA samples, we believe, from every condor that’s been in a museum in the world. We think! I’m not sure if we missed any. We have around 400 or more condor samples that were collected from the 1800s all the way up to the birds that are present in the zoos today. We’re doing what’s called an ancient DNA analysis to try and figure out several things: Were there different species of condor in North America? … Were the birds that Lewis and Clark saw here in Oregon genetically different from the birds that were seen down in California, and if that’s the case, how does that relate to genetic diversity and the genetic identity of the birds that are alive now, in the zoos and in the wild?  And the reason we’re doing that is to try to determine … the most appropriate types (of condors to be) brought back to Oregon.