Wildlife group wants zoos, parks to be more green

Wildlife group wants zoos,
parks to be more green

NEW YORK — Saying it needs to live up to its name, the Wildlife Conservation Society is taking steps to make the Central Park and Bronx zoos and its other animal parks more environmentally friendly.

The 112-year-old organization conducts research and works to protect rare and endangered animals in various places around the world. Based at the Bronx Zoo, it also operates the Central Park, Prospect Park, and Queens zoos and the New York Aquarium.

The society has calculated that its power usage, heating, travel and even paper consumption are responsible for releasing a total of about 34,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming each year.

The organization’s efforts to shrink its so-called carbon footprint range from installing a water-saving system at the Bronx Zoo’s sea lion exhibit to altering that zoo’s power plant to use only natural gas, rather than burning both diesel fuel and natural gas.

New guide highlights
Va.’s historic markers

BRISTOL, Va. — An updated guide fresh off the press will help explain the occasionally inscrutable historic markers that abound in Virginia.

More than 1,850 silver-and-black markers are planted around the state, and “A Guidebook to Virginia’s Historical Markers” (University of Virginia Press, $19.95) is intended to decipher them.

The 366-page book, in its third edition, also contains references to nearly 900 new and replacement markers erected on roadsides since the last edition was published in 1994.

White Sands monument
reaches 75th milestone

WHITE SANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT, N.M. — White Sands National Monument — the world’s largest gypsum dune field — has turned 75.

President Herbert Hoover signed the papers Jan. 18, 1933, that turned the dunes over to the National Park Service. The monument preserves part of the dunes that have engulfed 275 square miles of desert and the plants and animals that have adapted to the unique environment.

The monument celebrated its anniversary Jan. 19.

Work Project Administration funds were used to build the monument’s pueblo revival-style visitors’ center, which was completed in 1938 and is still in use. In 1990, the center and seven adjacent structures built between 1936 and 1940 were designated the White Sands National Monument Historic District.

In its first year, the monument attracted 12,000 people. By 1965, more than 500,000 people annually were visiting the Tularosa Basin park southwest of Alamogordo.

Blues trail marker notes
birthplace of Johnson

HAZLEHURST, Miss. — A blues trail marker has been unveiled signifying the birthplace of legendary Delta blues musician Robert Johnson.

The city of Hazlehurst unveiled the marker Jan. 31 near the city’s historic train depot.

Johnson recorded only 29 songs during two recording sessions in 1936 and 1937, but his work went on to be performed by countless musicians since.

Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, but was living just south of Memphis by 1920.

He was only 27 when he died on Aug. 16, 1938. His and the history of other blues musicians draw hundreds of tourists to Mississippi each year.

Johnson’s legend is that he made a deal with the Devil to trade his soul in exchange for becoming a great blues musician.

Associated Press