The collector who fell from the tree and died (that Aaron was talking about)
was Peter Rankin who died in 1979.
I have been talking to Aaron today about the show (which he has not yet
seen... they didn't send him his tape as promised!!) and he said 2 weeks of
filming boiled down to less than 30 minutes... a lot was removed. He said
that the Directors had a hard time understanding some thing, including that
the rough-nose from the new island is NOT a new species, but already has a
species name assigned to it... the DNA analysis is just to confirm if it is
genetically unique or not. so the whole "instant conservation need" thing
was really over-kill and a lot extra glam for the "Animal Planet" audience.
I do wish they would have shown some of his great South Park impressions
though. They are much better than his gecko calls. ;-)
Greg
--
Gregory J. Watkins-Colwell
Dept. of Biology
Sacred Heart University
5151 Park Avenue
Fairfield, CT 06432
and
Yale Peabody Museum
Dept. of Vertebrate Zoology
170 Whitney Ave
PO Box 208118
New Haven, CT 06520-8118
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