Image courtesy of cnn.com
One of the key factors in establishing PDXSeafood, our sustainable seafood program, is the declining status of the worlds overfished oceans. I recently came across an article that was informative and worth a read. Click on the link below to access the article.
Overfished and under-protected: Oceans on the brink of catastrophic collapse, by Tom Levitt of CNN.com.
Thanks to the Xinbin lab of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for analyzing our samples in record time. The results of the analysis completely surprised us. Every sample was nearly ten times lower than the World Health Organizations recommended limit.
This great news sparked us to take a further look as to why the levels are so low. At first glance, as was previously thought, the pandas are eating bamboo covered in deposited soot from a smog covered sky. You can rub your fingers over the bamboo and they come off black. What we discovered next explained the pandas clean bill of health.
I will reveal their secret in a future post as we get closer to writing up the results.
Meghan & David Geeking Out on a Sidewalk in Chengdu, China
As an advisor for Meghan’s PhD panda project, it was an extreme delight to spend a few days with David touring the facilities here in Sichuan, China. David is an extremely knowledgeable scientist and quite the accomplished traveller given his ability to handle a 16 hr. time difference with little effort.
David works as a Conservation Program Scientist for the Oregon Zoo in Portland, Oregon. In order for him to make the trip to China, he had to endure 18 hours of flights covering 7000 miles. We sincerely appreciate him for taking the time to visit.
All images taken by my Canon 60d
After the partial destruction of the Wolong panda center during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, plans were laid out to build a new facility a few kilometers away. Additionally, a disease control center was to be built closer to Chengdu.
It has now been five years since the earthquake and with a substantial donated amount of ~$500,000,000 USD, the two facilities are nearly complete. We were allowed inside both locations for a brief tour. Continue reading