Sunday, January 31, 2016

28 January 2016

San Diego Zoo (click here) is one of three international zoos to join an international program to revive stocks of one of the world's most endangered insects; the Lord Howe Island Stick Insects.
To begin the program, the zoo's Director of Invertebrates Paige Howarth is taking 300 eggs in her carry-on luggage on a flight from Melbourne to LA.
The eggs' trans-Pacific flight marks the latest chapter in a breathtaking story that has seen the insects discovered on a remote and perilous rocky outcrop in the Pacific in 2001 and since then nurtured back into existence with many hair-raising twists and turns along the way.
Paige joins RN Drive with Melbourne Zoo keeper Rohan Cleave, who has overseen a breeding program that started with a single breeding pair and today numbers 13,000 insects.