Ill-fated expedition

This March will be remembered forever as a time of tragedy, of sorrow, of heroism, wrote Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef in a letter to thecampus community, voicing feelings shared by many following the death of five researchers during an expedition in Mexico's Sea of Cortez.

A boating accident took the lives of Gary Polis, chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy; postgraduate researcher Michael Rose; and three ecology professors from Kyoto University in Japan, Takuya Abe, Masahiko Higashi and Shigeru Nakano.

The scientists were visiting the Sea of Cortez to study the ecology of spiders and scorpions that inhabit the area's islands. The accident occurred after a day of research on Isla de Cabeza de Caballo, located about four nautical miles from shore, when the 15-member group was returning in two open boats. The boats became separated when the wind whipped up four- to six-foot waves; the one carrying expedition leader Polis and eight others capsized.

The nine, who had life jackets and buoyant seat cushions, clung with great difficulty to the overturned boat for two or more hours. During that time, Polis apparently died of a heart attack as he exerted strenuous effort to keep the group together and with the boat, say survivors.

Eventually five people struck out for land, swimming against big waves and strong currents. Postgraduate researcher Gary Huxel, undergraduate student Sarah Ratay, graduate student Becca Lewison and graduate student Ralph Haygood made it to two nearby islands where they were rescued the next day.

When the second boat arrived in port and those aboard realized their friends had not returned, a group returned to search but was initially unalarmed, assuming that the Polis boat had gone into an island cove to wait out the bad weather. When the boat could not be located, officials were notified and the Mexican Navy, later joined by the U.S. Coast Guard, searched for survivors for several days.

"We want everybody to know that Michael and Gary gave their lives in helping to save people who were involved in this accident," said survivor Huxel on his return to the Davis area. "Both of them wore themselves out." Huxel also credited Nakano for repeatedly pulling people back to the boat as rough seas pushed them away.

Gary Polis, 53, was relatively new to the campus, having arrived in June 1998 after teaching at Vanderbilt University for more than 20 years. During a sabbatical at UC Davis in 1992, he and his family found that they loved the community and so returned six years later.

Polis literally wrote the book on scorpions, including Biology of Scorpions,Scorpion Biology and Research and a children's book about scorpions, as well as other works about food webs and ecology of desert communities.

His research took him to Mexico two or three times a year. During this last expedition, which was funded in part by the Earthwatch Institute, he was accompanied by Earthwatch study tour participants, in addition to the UC Davis students and Japanese visiting scholars.

Michael Rose, 27, had studied ecology with Polis at Vanderbilt University, where Rose earned a bachelor's degree, cum laude. After earning a master's degree, magna cum laude, from Northern Arizona University and working in Missoula, Mont., tutoring special-needs high school students in science and math, he was hired by Polis as a postgraduate researcher. He conducted studies, wrote grants and journal articles and coordinated Polis' research program with the Earthwatch Institute program.

A video recording of a memorial service held on campus, additional information about the accident and tributes to those lost are available on the Web at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/ accidentnews/.

Vet Upgrades for Accreditation

UC Davis has drafted a comprehensive $354 million long-range facilities plan for the School of Veterinary Medicine, designed to restore the school's full accreditation status, as well as to prepare for enrollment and academic growth anticipated for the next decade.

The need for improved teaching and research facilities for the veterinary school became acute in 1998 when the American Veterinary Medical Association's accreditation committee found that the school—though strong in the areas of faculty, research, curriculum, clinical resources, library resources, students, admissions, continuing education and organization—failed to make the grade in the area of facilities.

The accreditation committee also recommended that the campus unite all veterinary faculty and staff with the rest of the campus's health-science programs. Currently, core veterinary programs are housed in Haring Hall and a collection of long-term temporary buildings on the central campus, while clinical service and additional research programs are located at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital and Tupper Hall.

As a result of the facilities deficiencies, the AVMA placed the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine on limited accreditation, meaning it would be reviewed again after two years, rather than the normal seven years, to make sure the school is in compliance with accreditation standards.

During the past 18 months, the veterinary school and campus administration assessed the magnitude of the need and drafted a facilities plan designed to correct the deficiencies and equip the school to handle anticipated enrollment growth.

UC Davis has committed approximately $45 million in campus and gift funds and plans to spend an additional $79 million in state funds to bring the veterinary school into compliance with accreditation standards.

The campus already has completed $2.8 million in facilities maintenance and upgrades, financed by deferred maintenance funds from the state, in Tupper and Haring halls and in the veterinary school's temporary buildings.

Additionally, the comprehensive five-to-10-year facilities master plan provides for expanding two buildings and adding six new facilities to the vet school. When construction is completed, the core veterinary school programs will all be located next to the School of Medicine in the campus's health-sciences district.

The plan's first two projects, an instructional laboratory and an athletic performance laboratory for horses, are now going through the environmental review process and should be constructed by 2002.

Other projects outlined in the immediate plan to restore full accreditation include a $12.5 million expansion of the Center for Companion Animal Health; a new $13.6 million building for classrooms, instructional laboratories and faculty offices; and a new state-funded $75 million teaching, research and clinical building to be constructed northwest of the veterinary teaching hospital.

Following completion of these construction projects, the school and campus administration believe that the specific deficiencies identified in the accreditation report will be corrected.

Additional facilities projects have been planned to exceed the accreditation requirements and position the school for future growth, including a $9 million upgrade and expansion of the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital and two new veterinary school buildings for research, clinical and office space.

Four-legged lessons

If you want to whet kids' appetite for science, introduce them first to animals.

That's one of the basic tenets of "Animal Ambassadors," a pioneering educational outreach program from the School of Veterinary Medicine, now being pilot-tested with urban 4-H members and elementary school students.

"The program is designed to teach kids about care and responsibility for both domestic and wild animals," explained Martin Smith, director of Animal Ambassadors. "At the same time, we hope to help them develop critical thinking skills and encourage them to explore future career options."

During the past year and a half, Smith has been designing the curriculum, working with UC Davis interns in collaboration with the campus Public Service Research Program. The curriculum, which ranges from animal habitats to family pets, is being customized for three levels of students: kindergarten through second grade, third through fifth grade and sixth through eighth grade. It is being pilot-tested in 14 inner-city 4-H after-school programs in the Los Angeles area.

Long known for its educational activities in agricultural animal science, 4-H is adjusting to dramatic demographic changes in California. With 25 percent of the state's children now living in Los Angeles County, a new, more urban, approach is needed.

Due to the concern for animal well-being, and because pet ownership is not possible for some children, Animal Ambassadors brings no live animals when it visits classrooms or 4-H clubs—an initial disappointment to the kids, Smith admitted.

But hand those kids a dozen mysterious, rubbery animal tracks and they soon forget the lack of furry and feathered critters.

While emphasizing both science and the environment, Animal Ambassadors aims to be a cross-curricular program, also weaving in geography, art, math and reading. For example, after matching animals and their habitats with the appropriate rubber tracks, students use the tracks to create stamp paintings.

Said Smith, "The challenge is first and foremost to make learning fun for kids."

Bug Bonanza

In an encounter that only an entomologist could love, Bohart Museum scientist Steve Heydon gets acquainted with a walking stick in the jungles of New Guinea. It was just one of the many specimens collected for the entomology museum in a project that will further New Guinea's conservation efforts and develop the economy of the tiny village of Tekadu. Former entomology student Terry Sears '71 helped secure funding for the project from a wealthy patron, allowing them to hire villagers to collect and preserve bugs for the Bohart. The local people are expected to collect as many as 2 million specimens by the time they finish their two-year job.

Entomology professor and Bohart Director Lynn Kimsey stresses that the project will not harm the region's insect population but will provide baseline information about the area. "The Papuan government needs to know about the biodiversity of its country," she said, "but it will never have sufficient infrastructure to employ enough taxonomists to be able to do so on its own, particularly since insects represent the bulk of that diversity. Only international collaborations will make this possible."

The museum will send a share of the specimens back to New Guinea to build its collection, as well as disburse specimens to other museums in the United States and overseas.

Specimens the Bohart retains will significantly increase its collection and further its mission to preserve the DNA of species that are declining due to habitat lost to development. With some species, like the walking sticks, there are no experts to study them, Kimsey said. "By the time there is someone, some of these may be extinct."