the Battalion
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1979
Page 3
campus
irds’ future questioned
14: F
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By MARJORIE McLAUGHLIN
Battalion Reporter
iBirds of prey are facing an uncer-
jjn future because of man’s misun-
Irstanding of their role in nature,
Jlid bird authority John Karger
fltiesday. Karger’s presentation was
onsored by the Wildlife Biology
Isociation.
Karger, who specializes in bird
rehabilitation, said most people coo
ler birds of prey as chicken and
ep killers that should be extermi-
jted, despite the work that they do
| scavengers.
ses wereoM| The hawk is here to clean up the
iters w! jyorld,” Karger said. “It gets damned
doing its job.”
ool, f One of Karger’s “patients,” a red-
ion is tool
ght by
ide enlij
programs,
e
r, but don’t
lly workti
y. Othei
i. graduals
who whet
;aritbms,i
:ed, man.
tailed hawk, attended the speech
perched on an assistant’s arm. The
hawk, missing an eye and three toes,
was injured in a shooting incident.
Karger also brought a black vul
ture, which hopped out into the au
dience.
“Vultures are good targets to shoot
at,” Karger said, “but they are the
garbagemen of the earth. You
wouldn’t shoot your garbageman
would you?”
At least 80 percent of all young
birds of prey are killed, 40 percent of
them by man, said Karger. In the
wild, the birds rarely live five years.
Karger, who has worked with
birds since he was nine, treats 85-125
injured birds a year, spending two to
three hours daily with each of them.
He receives the birds from the Texas
Parks and Wildlife Department and
from individuals who find them.
Working with veterinarians who
treat the birds, Karger’s job is re
habilitation. Different techniques
are used for the various birds that he
works with, he said.
Less severely injured birds are
placed into a large wooden box with
slatted sides, allowing some flight.
The birds are fed through a small
window and do not have contact with
humans. As soon as they are healed,
they are released.
“We don’t release a bird until we
are sure that it can provide for itself
and won’t come back to man,”
Karger said.
Birds requiring a longer recovery
time are trained to perch on Karger’s
arm, to accept food and, eventually,
to fly again.
When the bird is fully healed, its
contact time with men is shortened
until it is ready to go back to the wild.
Karger finances his work by giving
speeches about problems birds and
other wildlife face in today’s world.
He is presently working at the
Texas Renaissance Festival in Mag
nolia, giving falconry demon
strations and speeches about the fate
of the birds he said he loves.
“It is like we’re living on a big
wheel with each spoke being a part of
life,” he said. “If we continue to
knock out the spokes, how long be
fore the wheel collapses?”
eircV mime troup delights all
graduatei
By KATHLEEN McELROY
Battalion Reporter
f anyone in the audience of the
Mummenschanz performance in
Rudder Auditorium Wednesday
night expected the usual mime
outines of man-waiting-for-a-bus, or
jy-meets-girl, he might have been
appointed.
But probably that person would
been laughing too hard
hmghout the show to notice the
Review
Sference. Everyone — the old, the
young, and the college student —
^med to enjoy the show even if he
didn’t understand it.
■Mummenschanz, which in Ger-
Dan means “games of chance, ” is in-
ed a mime group. But the three-
mtmber group doesn’t act out
everyday situations — they turn
completely unrealistic things and
concepts into man’s emotions. For
istance, the first act of the show
mimes the evolution of man, and
such an attempt is no small feat,
r The act started with a gray clump
sitting on the modest set, a small
platform with a ramp on either side.
At first most people in the near
capacity crowd were trying to decide
what that “thing” was, but soon they
gave up and just enjoyed its rolling
and jumping struggle to the top of
the platform.
The sequence of the gray clump
was like most of the other scenes in
the performance. It was short —
three to five minutes — and alter
nately funny and sad. Though the
object looked totally inanimate, it
expressed feelings of excitement,
disappointment and even tiredness
by just rolling around the set.
The funniest scene of the first act,
and in fact the whole show, involved
a game of catch with the audience
and someone (or something) dressed
like a collapsible straw with a big
balloon ball. The “thing” played
catch by tossing the ball into the
crowd. It cheered a good throw and
ridiculed bad throws.
Mummenschanz will probably be
one of the few OPAS performers to
give a “halftime show. ” Two troupers
performed in the auditorium while
the third clowned with the audience
in the lobby.
' Dressed in black, as they were
through the show, they had boxes for
heads. Throughout, emotions flowed
from them to the crowd. (It’s funny
to see a box salute to a cadet or to
watch a female box cover itself in
masking tape.)
The second act has even more fan
tasy concepts than the first, and is
geared more for adults. It contains
the well known toilet tissue se
quence — a case of male tissue (yel
low in color) falling in love with
female tissue (pink). The tissue is
used for hair for the female, tears for
the male, and flowers for both.
Mummenschanz has performed
more than 1,000 times on Broadway
and has made several television ap
pearances — and after seeing it, it’s
easy to see why. It is a talented group
that expresses deep emotions with
weird props, or no props at all.
But to truly appreciate the beauty
of Mummenschanz you have to see it
in person.
*
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New drug is tested
for glaucoma victims
1 Medical researchers have
launched human testing of a new
drug for glaucoma, an ailment that
has partially or totally blinded over
250,000 Americans.
DMC, or demethylated car-
chol, may improve treatment for
illions of glaucoma victims by re
ccing or eliminating side effects,
id Dr. George C. Y. Chiou, head of
^Pharmacology in the Texas A&M
ill ||iniversity College of Medicine.
^ F Eye irritation and pupil contrac
tion are side effects of treatment with
,,a V pilocarpine, presently the most
i / widely used drug for fighting
1 sha Hlaucoma, said Chiou.
iersw E Chiou and Dr. Thom Zimmerman
"r Hf Louisiana State University’s Eye
people can develop the ailment as
young as age 20. It is caused by a
buildup of pressure in the chambers
of the eye. Untreated, the pressure
deadens the optic nerve head and
causes blindness.
About 178,000 new cases of
glaucoma are reported in the United
States yearly and disease has already
blinded 56,000 Americans and im
paired the vision of 200,000 more.
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Renter are testing DMC on 10 vol-
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ie faro'r- erm cooperative study.
I A report on the months-long study
; Post will be prepared for the Food and
|rug Administration, which will de-
iide if the drug warrants further test-
1* ng in hospitals. If successful at that
|A * a § e ’ DMC could be approved for
commercial marketing.
Chiou said another phase of the
Texas A&M-LSU study will be to ex-
lore a combined dosage of DMC
d timolol, a glaucoma drug already
the market.
It could be that a combined dosage
of the two — which work in a differ-
lit way — could reduce side effects
vvliole-t oven more because of the smaller
en( || amount of each drug used,
on the' * Glaucoma is primarily a disease of
, is the?* S 61-50115 over age 40, the Texas A&M
’gjounctoUsdical researcher noted, but
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