New Orleans Chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology

New Orleans Chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology

September 10, 2007 6:00pm meeting

University of New Orleans Biological Sciences Building Room 100

Greetings to our new members, Jennifer and Sunny from UNO, Michelle from Loyola Thanks for coming. Anne, Ashley, Scott, Rachel, Chad, and Kim as also in attendance.

Membershipdues are five dollars per year and payable to Dawn or Scott, but preferably Dawn. This covers food and drink during meetings, with extras going towards activities and projects. This applies to new members and renewing members. T-shirts are available in Medium and Large.

Outreach Program will continue this year with lectures at NewmanCenter uptown and Ben Franklin on UNO’s campus. Last year, we had great success in lecturing at the Newman center and look forward to returning there. We are also looking forward to visiting Ben Franklin, located on UNO’s campus. Many of the students at Ben Franklin go on to go to UNO, so this will be a good opportunity to introduce them to SCB at UNO and get them interested in Conservation Biology. If you are interested in presenting at either of these schools, send Scott an outline of the material you would like to cover in your talk and your availability. It seems to work best when we tag-teach, presenting an hour long lecture with several presenters with related interests.

Anne Johnston and Stephan Ntie’s travelogue of Conservation Field Work in Central Africa will be held on Thursday, September 20 at 4:45 in UNO Biology Room 100. Anne, undergraduate, and Stephan, graduate, traveled together in Gabon, Cameroun, and Equatorial Guinea to gather samples for their research project. This project uses DNA sequencing and other molecular techniques from non-invasive faecal sampling to better understand patterns of speciation in Central African forest antelope. The talk will include a travelogue of their two months in the African tropical rainforest, an explanation of the conservation issues threatening this area and the African forest duiker especially, as well as a presentation of their research findings to date.

Volunteer Opportunity at BayouSavageBeach Sweep. This Saturday, September 15th at 8:15, we will meet in from of the UNO Biology building and caravan over to the Bayou Savage to participate in a beach clean-up from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. After the clean-up, we will head back to campus and meet up with the Lake Pontchartrain group for a picnic and, I believe, beer. Contact Scott (his phone is broken) or Anne 390-3538 if you can make it, or just be at school by 8:15 to catch the bus.

Native Plant Initiative is attempting to collect seeds of plants native to Louisiana to build up a seed bank. Native plants are recommended for restoration efforts due to their naturally adapted resilience. In this project, we will be going out to harvest local seeds near Lake Charles, LA. We are looking at the dates of Friday September 21 and Saturday, September 22, considering doing an overnight trip if there is enough interest. We spoke to someone in charge of the project over the phone during the meeting and she said that it would be best to have workers come out on Saturday because there would be reporters on site that day and this would be the best time to have people come if we could only be there for one day. Email Chad regarding interest and availability and he will coordinate the dates and rides. If we do make the trip overnight, lodging and meals except dinner will be provided for us.

Recycling on Campus is being discussed. There seems to be no easy solution to this problem. We considered the possibility of having a large bin on campus to be serviced by Phoenix recycling company. This is complicated because there is nowhere on campus that administration will allow us to put the bin and they are not interested in offering funding that would be required to maintain this idea. We would like to collaborate with UNO Society of Earth and Environmental Sciences and UNO Greens to work on a solution to this problem. Curb side recycling was recently restored to New Orleans by a company called Phoenix. If anyone is interested in curbside recycling, visit to sign up. They offer biweekly pick-up for $15 per month. Contact Anne Johnston at if you would like to bring your recycling to her at school, or to drop it off at her house in MidCity biweekly pickup.

Meetings may be moved to Tuesdays at 5:00. Stay posted for the time and date of our next meeting.

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