BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Front Royal -- Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) -- Red Pandas

VA -- Front Royal -- Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) -- Red Pandas:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Description of Pictures: Behind-the-Scenes at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Please join us for an unforgettable day in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains at the National Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) near Front Royal, Virginia. You will have the opportunity to participate in special tours that showcase SCBI’s conservation science and endangered species breeding programs and learn how we’re partnering with George Mason University to train the next generation at our "Conservation Campus."

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.191.84.32 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

Share: Facebook Twitter Digg
[1] RPANDA_111015_022.JPG	[2] RPANDA_111015_024.JPG	[3] RPANDA_111015_042.JPG
[4] RPANDA_111015_044.JPG	[5] RPANDA_111015_052.JPG	[6] RPANDA_111015_057.JPG
[7] RPANDA_111015_058.JPG	[8] RPANDA_111015_061.JPG	[9] RPANDA_111015_073.JPG
[10] RPANDA_111015_115.JPG	[11] RPANDA_111015_120.JPG	[12] RPANDA_111015_122.JPG
[13] RPANDA_111015_124.JPG	[14] RPANDA_111015_126.JPG	[15] RPANDA_111015_132.JPG
[16] RPANDA_111015_135.JPG	[17] RPANDA_111015_150.JPG	[18] RPANDA_111015_156.JPG
[19] RPANDA_111015_167.JPG	[20] RPANDA_111015_180.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. RPANDA_111015_135.JPG: Red panda @ Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI)
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Conservation and Research Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Conservation Research Center (CRC) is a unit of the Smithsonian Institution located on a sprawling 3,200-acre (13 km²) campus located just outside the historic town of Front Royal, Virginia. An extension of the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., the CRC has played a leading role in the fields of veterinary medicine, reproductive physiology and conservation biology since its founding in 1974.

The Site:

The land on which the CRC lies has a long and rich history, dating back to 1909 when the U.S. Army leased some forty-two area farms. In the years predating World War I, the land served as a series of cavalry remount stations, supplying horses and mules to the military. The Federal Government ultimately purchased the land in 1911 and began construction on the Ayleshire Quartermaster Remount Depot. Completed in 1916, the Depot consisted of eleven barn and stable facilities, hundreds of miles of split-rail fencing, many miles of access roads, and even a rail yard facility for the import and export of animals. The Ayleshire Quartermaster Remount Depot remained in operation throughout both world wars, and was eventually expanded to include a canine training facility and detention barracks for 600 German and Italian prisoners of war.

In 1948 Congress passed legislation transferring ownership of the land to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which redeveloped the property into a beef cattle research station. In conjunction with the Virginia Polytechnic Institution and State University (a.k.a. Virginia Tech), the USDA experimented with various environmental and husbandry conditions, designed to quantitatively and qualitatively improve the meat production of various cattle breeds. The U.S. Department of State leased part of the compound from USDA for use as an emergency relocation and communications site, with support infrastructure for the Secretary of State and 700 other departmental employees. The USDA closed the station in 1973, leaving the site temporarily vacant.

The Conservation and Research Center was founded in 1974 when the director of the National Zoo, Dr. Theodore Reed, recognized the need for a captive breeding facility and initiated negotiations to obtain the land. The title was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1975, and work was begun immediately on developing the site into a zoological research facility.

Programs:

Amongst the CRC’s most well known research programs are those based on the captive breeding, and reintroduction, of such endangered species as the Black Footed Ferret (Mustela nigripes), the Clouded Leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), and the Matschie's Tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus matechiei). However, despite its accomplishments, the CRC has not been exempt from controversy. Most recently the former Smithsonian Secretary, Lawrence M. Small, backed by former Zoo Director Dr. Lucy Spellman, proposed the closure of the facility as a cost-saving measure. Opposition from the public and the scientific and conservation communities forced Secretary Small to back down from this decision.

The Collection:

Currently, the CRC’s collection of animals stands at over 400 specimens, including 17 mammalian and 15 avian species. This diverse menagerie is cared for by Dr. Mitch Bush, Chief of Veterinary Services, and the veterinary support staff. In addition to maintaining a healthy population at the CRC, Dr. Bush also makes frequent field trips to Kenya, South Africa, and other African nations, where he conducts research on anesthetization techniques on large free-ranging animals such as giraffes and rhinoceroses.

Ordinarily closed to the public, the Conservation and Research Center hosts an annual open-house event each fall. The “Autumn Conservation Festival” is sponsored by Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ) and provides an opportunity for members of the public to tour the grounds and veterinary facilities, interact with the staff and learn more about the research conducted at the CRC.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].