The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 19, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 12, 1978 Page: 1 of 8
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Rice Thresher
volume 65, number 19
thursday, january 12, 1978
Low bird turnout credited to defoliant use
by Gary Hamilton
Perhaps the most signi-
ficant event of the new
semester so far is the absence
of the putrid smell, noisy
chirping, and white rain Rice
students have come to expect
this time of year but have
never gotten used to.
The birds have not arrived
yet this year, and chances are
they won't return at all. In
fact, if Rice's three and one-
half year project has been
successful, they may be gone
forever. The project may prove
to be a major breakthrough in
the control of pest populations
of roosting birds nationally.
Heidi Good, a graduate
student in biology who has
been involved in the project,
claims the project had a
threefold emphasis—avoiding
extermination of the birds,
preserving the oak trees which
the birds find to their liking,
and keeping the overall cost
reasonable. The program
began during the winter of
1972-73 when an annoying
annual bird population
suddenly boomed to unbear-
able proportions. The number
of birds roosting on the Rice
campus that winter was
estimated at between 2 and 5
million.
Dr. Dan Johnson, former
Assistant Professor of
Biology, responded during the
1973-74 season by having
members of his population
biology class count the birds.
Having little information to
work with at the time on the
nature of a bird roost, Dr.
Johnson, with the help of
Physical Plant, began a major
scientific project to seek a
solution to the bird problem.
After three and a half years
and many thousands of
dollars, success may finally be
at hand.
The solution came in two
phases. First, the trees were
pruned to make them less
appealing as a roost by
eliminating the undergrowth.
The trimming was successful
but also expensive and had to
be repeated each year. The
pruning was first tried
experimentally during the
summer of 1974 and met with
such success that it was
expanded the next summer to
include all the trees except
those around the entrances to
the university. The trees were
not trimmed during the
summer of 1976, and the
necessity of annual pruning
was made painfully clear last
winter as the birds returned
with a vengeance.
This fall the second phase
was begun. Instead of pruning
the trees they were sprayed
with a commercial defoliant in
order to kill the undergrowth.
The damage done to the trees
is still unknown since
defoliant was never applied to
live oaks before. The small
flocks that have arrived so far
this year have found the
defoliant sufficiently objec-
tionable to avoid roosting
here.
Good also gave some of the
credit to Physical Plant for
improving the drainage
around some of the trees where
Hooding was most common.
For some reason, lack of
standing water makes the
trees less desirable to the
birds.
The birds have probably not
left the Houston area;
they have most likely found a
new roosting place. Good
believes this new roost may be
either downtown or with the
super roost at Manor Lake,
where some 10 million birds
already spend the winter.
There the 500,000 fugitive
birds from Rice would hardly
be noticed.
a
Fewer of these will be seen this
year.
Army ROTC steps up recruiting efforts
by David Butler
The Rice Army ROTC
program will begin an
"extensive recruiting cam-
paign" within the next
few weeks to attract more
sophomores and freshmen to
their program. Unless their
effort succeeds, the program
could find itself closed down
by the end of the 1978-79
school year.
According to the unit's
commander, Lt. Col. Elbert
Link '55, there are currently 32
students of all classes in the
w
—tw cook
Army program. Recently-
enacted federal legislation has
mandated that each school's
ROTC program have at least
seventeen juniors enrolled; the
Rice Army unit has eight at
present. While a cooperative
agreement with the Univer-
sity of Houston's ROTC
program has decreased the
enrollment requirements at
Rice, twelve students will still
have to enter the Advanced
Program—the final two years
of the Military Science
curriculum—at the end of this
year. Currently, only seven
sophomores are in the second
year of the Rice program.
Link hopes to increase the
Army unit's membership by
attracting students who took
Junior ROTC courses in high
school and veterans at Rice, as
well as current underclass-
men. Unlike the Navy ROTC
program, where 80% of those
enrolled are required to major
in technical (i.e., science or
engineering) fields, any major
is acceptable under the Army
program.
Those who sign up for the
advanced program and have
no previous military exper-
ience will be required to attend
a six-week summer camp to
learn the skills normally
acquired in the first two years
of the college program. Upon
entering the advanced
program, students will enlist
in the Army Reserve, entitling
them to a subsistence
allowance of $100 per month
during the school year. Some
scholarships—paying tuition,
book costs, and fees—may be
available, though Link
cautions that such scholar-
ships are not awarded through
Rice, but rather by the Army,
on a competitive basis.
Upon graduation, non-
scholarship ROTC cadets are
required to serve at least 90
days active duty, and then
spend the next four years in
the reserves. (Students who
delay their graduation for
fifth-year programs or other
reason will have their
commission deferred until
they actually receive their
degrees). Scholarship recip-
ients are required to serve four
years on active duty; non-
scholarship students who
wish to serve on active duty
may compete for openings in
the ranks. Currently, about 40
percent of Army ROTC
graduates nationwide are
commissioned into the active
military, with the remainder
joining the reserves or the
National Guard.
Link estimates that he "will
have to have some pretty hard
numbers (of the sophomores
planning to enter the
advanced program) by the
time school is over this year."
If the unit fails to meet the
expected levels, and is
subsequently "disestab-
lished," Link says that
instruction would continue to
be provided for those juniors
currently in the program, but
that no new students would be
admitted. Presumably, Rice
and UH might then establish
a program where Rice
students take their ROTC
courses at UH, in the same
way that students from
Houston Baptist University
and the University of St.
Thomas presetnly take their
Army and Navy ROTC
courses at Rice. (The UH Army
unit, according to Link, has
approximately 100 students,
and is not in any danger of
folding). A firm decision on the
fate of Rice's program—
whether it will remain in its
current state or be cut to a
skeleton force finishing the
senior curriculum—should be
known by the end of this
school year.
KTRU waiting for permit
If you have tuned to KTRU
lately and noticed that your
signal strength meter just sits
still, don't pull out your ■
Advent warranty. KTRU
is temporarily off the air
pending notification by the
Federal Communications
Commission that they have
granted the radio program test
authority in connection with a
license application tendered
recently.
The application is for a
change in the station's license,
required by last year's move of
the transmitter from the
top of Sid Richardson College
to a ground level location in
the building. This may not
sound like much, but in order
for the move to be made, the
cable connecting the trans-
mitter to the antenna had to be
changed, and that required a
license change.
Since June, KTRU haa been
operating on Special Tern
porary Authority from the
FCC. This expired in
December, and the program
test authority is not expected
before the end of next week.
There will be a meeting for
all new people interested (even
halfway) in working for
KTRU at 7pm., Wednesday,
January 18, in SH309.
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Parker, Philip. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 19, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 12, 1978, newspaper, January 12, 1978; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245356/m1/1/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.