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07/08/05
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
It's a lofty goal bringing Bald Eagles back to these offshore islands, but can good intentions conquer years of DDT?
Kate Faulkner>> The challenge is whether or not the environment is clean enough at this point to support the Bald Eagles where they can reproduce and bring off healthy eggs and healthy young and we're just not sure yet if that's the case.
Val>> And then, never before seen portraits of the star whose name alone conjures up images of glamour and mystery. We preview an exhibit of Garbo's favorite photos of Garbo.
These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.
Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val>> For the past forty years, something has been missing on the Channel Islands off the coast of Ventura: Bald Eagles. They were once plentiful until millions of pounds of contaminants, including DDT, killed them off. Well, now biologists are reintroducing Bald Eagles to the islands and, as Hena Cuevas tells us, the success of the project depends as much on technology as it does on nature.
Hena Cuevas>> Seven-thirty a.m. and a boat leaves the Ventura Harbor on its way to the Channel Islands carrying precious cargo. On it are seven pet carriers on the last leg of a journey that began at the San Francisco Zoo. An hour and a half later, Santa Cruz, the largest of the eight Channel Islands, appears through the fog. Once docked, the carriers are unloaded and, on this special media day, these babies are on the red carpet.
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Hena Cuevas>> They're eight week old Bald Eagles arriving at their new home in the wild as part of the ongoing restoration program at the Channel Islands.
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Hena Cuevas>> The eaglets are loaded onto a pickup for the thirty-minute ride over the hills.
Kate Faulkner>> It's wonderful to be bringing Bald Eagles back to the islands.
Hena Cuevas>> Kate Faulkner is one of the managers of the Channel Islands National Park where these eagles once ruled the skies.
Kate Faulkner>> The Channel Islands were a stronghold for Bald Eagles in Southern California. There used to be about two dozen nesting pairs of Bald Eagles on the park islands.
Hena Cuevas>> But not any more. For over forty years, there have been no wild-born Bald Eagles on these islands.
Peter Sharpe>> "These are some big birds."
Hena Cuevas>> That is why today is so important. From the 1940's to the 1970's, chemicals and pesticides such as DDT were dumped from mainland sewers contaminating the waters surrounding the Channel Islands. As the birds fed on the contaminated fish, their reproductive systems were damaged. Because of the chemicals, they laid very thin-shelled eggs. The shells would break before the chicks were fully developed.
Peter Sharpe>> So there were no chicks produced probably after the late 1940's and, when the adults died of old age, the population just disappeared.
Hena Cuevas>> Peter Sharpe, a biologist with the Institute for Wildlife Studies, has been working for eight years to re-establish the population that was wiped out.
Peter Sharpe>> They are a missing part of the ecosystem. They were here. Humans, through their actions, caused them to disappear, so we do have the ability to bring them back.
Hena Cuevas>> The chemical companies were sued and, in 2001, they settled for thirty-eight million dollars. That money is now being used to restore many of the lost animals back to the islands, including the Bald Eagle.
Lotus Vermeer>> They were very important players as part of the overall health and balance of the islands' ecosystem.
Hena Cuevas>> Lotus Vermeer is a project director for the Nature Conservancy. It owns over seventy-five percent of Santa Cruz Island and is one of the groups administering the funds.
Lotus Vermeer>> It's like if you have a large card house and you pull out some of the key cards on the bottom of the cards, the whole system collapses. The whole structure collapses.
Hena Cuevas>> For example, once the Bald Eagle disappeared, the Golden Eagle moved in. This bird feeds on the Island Fox, which is now itself in danger of disappearing.
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Hena Cuevas>> One by one, each young bird is carried up to this eight by eight cage called a high tower where they will remain for about a month. The group is making sure the conditions are optimal.
Peter Sharpe>> We chose spots on the island that had good views. So if you look out from the towers, the eagles can see the ocean, they can see the island, they get good breezes coming up the slopes so they can exercise their wings.
Hena Cuevas>> Even though the disappearance of the Bald Eagle from the Channel Islands wasn't caused solely by the pesticides, scientists say that it might be difficult to bring them back because they're not sure how much of the contaminants still remain. They fear there still might be high concentrations of DDT in the area.
Kate Faulkner>> The challenge is whether or not the environment is clean enough at this point to support the Bald Eagles where they can reproduce and bring off healthy eggs and healthy young. We're just not sure yet if that's the case.
Peter Sharpe>> We are farther from the pollution source up here on the Northern islands, so there is a relatively good chance that at least some of their eggs will hatch in the nest.
Hena Cuevas>> Sharpe says Bald Eagles are the best way to detect pollution levels.
Peter Sharpe>> We can take samples from these things, from marine mammals, sea lions, and analyze them for their contaminants, but the eagles themselves are the best measure of their ability to breed.
Hena Cuevas>> But there's another problem. How do you keep the young eaglets on the island? According to Sharpe, a few of the younger ones have tried to fly to the mainland, but because they weren't strong enough, they drowned. Others have either moved to other islands and have even been spotted as far away as Utah and Oregon.
Peter Sharpe>> It's just what young Bald Eagles do. They're free to roam wherever they feel like it. They don't have territories to defend, so they can move freely pretty much anywhere.
Hena Cuevas>> So how do you fight that tendency?
Peter Sharpe>> The best way to keep the birds here is to provide a lot of food. They're primarily scavengers for the first year, so by providing carcasses around the island, that helps keep the eagles here on the island. If they're finding a lot of food, then they really don't have much of a need to leave the islands.
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Hena Cuevas>> To keep track of them, each bird is tagged with a number and outfitted with a global positioning system. This GPS unit records its location every hour for ten hours a day.
Peter Sharpe>> Then every three days, it uploads to a satellite and we're able to download the data from our computer and it gives us the exact location that this bird has been. So we can follow each bird for maybe two or three years and we can re-trap them later and attach another transmitter if we still need to.
Hena Cuevas>> For now, the babies will remain in the towers. Using ropes and pulleys, scientists will be able to feed and observe them as they grow stronger. Then in about a month, it will be time to encourage them to fly on their own.
Peter Sharpe>> We'll just open the door and, when they're comfortable, they'll come out on the door, on the perch on the front of the tower, and fly when they're feeling comfortable and get the guts.
Hena Cuevas>> Once out, there's nothing left to do but wait. Bald Eagles take four years to mature, so this group won't be ready to mate until 2009. However, a group of eagles released back in 2002 should be ready to breed next year. How difficult is it to wait?
Kate Faulkner>> It is hard to wait. It will be another year or two before we have adult birds that have the white head and the white tail and that start establishing nests. But it will be a great comeback when the Bald Eagles are able to reproduce here.
Hena Cuevas>> It costs about $250,000 a year to support the program and they've been able to release an average of twelve chicks a year.
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Hena Cuevas>> Money, technology and the right conditions can help these chicks grow. But in the end, nature will decide whether the Bald Eagle will soar over these islands once again. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.
Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".
Sam Louie>> Lunada Bay Elementary School here in Palos Verdes Estates is thousands of miles away from China, but a new language program is quickly closing that gap. Principal, Joan Romano, gives us some background on this unique learning opportunity. Joan, thanks for joining us on Life and Times. I understand you have a very unusual program here.
Joan Romano>> Yes, we do. We have what is called the FLAP program, which is a Chinese PE program where the students are being exposed to Chinese language through their physical education program.
Sam Louie>> Now how did this all start?
Joan Romano>> Well, this is the result of a national grant from the Department of Education. It's called a FLAP grant, which is the Foreign Language Assistance Program. It's designed to be a K-12 program to support the acquisition of the Chinese language for students coming through the system. So the elementary piece of it is really designed to give them exposure to the language and the culture so that, by the time they hit middle school and high school, they're readily prepared and excited about taking Chinese language.
Sam Louie>> Right now, the program is offered just to the kindergarten through third grade. What do they learn at such a young age?
Joan Romano>> Well, as we said, they're learning it through their PE programs. So they're learning everything from counting. So if they're doing calisthenics, they're learning the numbers, they're learning body parts, they're learning action verbs, they're learning commands and direction. Also, we integrate it with some classroom work as well, so they're learning some of the cultural aspects of China, through song. So it's really a general exposure to the language and understanding of the culture.
Sam Louie>> With the PE portion, do you feel that helps them learn even faster?
Joan Romano>> Well, absolutely. Because, again, second language acquisition we know through what's called TPR, total physical response, is easier to acquire when you're using the whole body. So it seemed like such a natural fit. For us, we didn't want to disrupt the instructional day. We had to find a place to make this work without taking away from our focus on standards and academics. This seemed to be a perfect fit because we know that through physical response, second language acquisition comes easier in these children.
Sam Louie>> Why Chinese?
Joan Romano>> Well, the grant was offered to school districts who were interested in implementing a program in either Chinese, Russian or Arabic. Those three are being offered, but Chinese really, as we're seeing in the news and everything you open these days, is becoming a very formidable force in the economy and globally and we really believe that our children are going to enter a world when they enter the work force where China plays a very important part of the world that they will be working and living in.
Sam Louie>> How much of an advantage do you think this will have if they know Chinese?
Joan Romano>> I think it will be tremendous. I mean, I'm really excited about the fact that we're giving them this opportunity because our children here in Palos Verdes are definitely going to go out and work in medicine and business and sales and manufacturing, and China is going to be involved in everything that they're doing. I really think that, having this opportunity, it's going to give them a greater understanding hopefully of the language as well as the culture and the business world.
Sam Louie>> With the kids having this exposure, Joan, how have you seen that affect just their learning process?
Joan Romano>> Well, first of all, they're so excited by it. It's just really fun to go into the classroom and see their enthusiasm, their engagement, in what's going on. At this age, children are just sponges and, to see them soak it up and be able to imitate it and get the intimation, it is really exciting.
We know through brain research that second language acquisition enhances learning in all areas. Have we seen it yet? No. It's too soon, but I know through the years of this program that it's going to only support their learning in all subjects because it just creates all of those brain connections that make that happen. So we're excited about offering them that as well.
Sam Louie>> Lunada Bay Elementary School only has a small percentage of Chinese students. Was there any resistance at all from parents?
Joan Romano>> Well, for the most part, the community was incredibly supportive. We have a community that's always looking for ways to provide extension and enrichment to our students. But there was some skepticism. There were two questions: why China, which is one that you asked. We've really been working with the community to help them understand the importance that China is going to play in the lives of the students as they move into the workforce.
But I think that, once some of that skepticism was addressed, now I have parents coming up to me saying, you know, I wasn't quite sure about that program, but, boy, is it wonderful. My child is so excited. They're coming home, they're counting, they're talking to us in Chinese. It's really a fascinating program and we're really supporting it. So I think we've won over most of the skeptics.
Sam Louie>> Joan, where do you find the instructors and do you get any more outside help?
Joan Romano>> Well, we're very fortunate. Through the grant, we have a partnership with UCLA and their Asian Studies Institute, and also a partnership with Cal State Long Beach. They actually have a bilingual Mandarin Chinese Teacher Education Program. So through their support, we have been able to find the teacher that we have working now. Actually, she's an instructional aide and she is a multi-lingual Mandarin, Chinese and English speaking person. She's actually the one teaching the classes.
Sam Louie>> This program just started in February. How long will it run?
Joan Romano>> It runs for three years. The grant lasts for three years. We're hoping to be able to keep it going beyond that. There are other grant opportunities out there that we're looking into to possibly expand the program, but at least for three years. I think what's nice about this program is the way that we've implemented it has made it a very affordable way to teach second language especially at an elementary school level. So even if the grant ran out and we didn't get another grant, I think we can continue the program through various school funds that are available to us. That's certainly our commitment.
Sam Louie>> Are you hoping this will be a model for other schools nationwide?
Joan Romano>> Well, we're hoping it will be a model for other schools in our own district. As I said, because you can replicate it in a pretty inexpensive way. You know, we're already talking with other principals of other schools about programs like this perhaps in other languages. They don't always have to be in Chinese.
Sam Louie>> Any major roadblocks or obstacles in the short span that you've had this program in place?
Joan Romano>> You know, it's been an incredibly easy implementation, I think, partly because the kids have just responded to it so well. The biggest challenge now is how far to take the program. You know, it's working very well. It's opened up all sorts of possibilities and options, so now it's sort of that process of how far do we really want to take it because it's pretty limitless. That's a little bit scary because we have other things we focus on here at the school. But also, as I said earlier, the opportunities for the kids are so great that we don't want to miss that either. That's the biggest challenge is managing how far we go with it.
Sam Louie>> Joan, thank you very much for joining us on Life and Times.
Joan Romano>> Thank you.
Sam Louie>> Continued success on the program.
Joan Romano>> Thank you.
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Val>> She's considered the most mysterious and enigmatic star ever to come out of Hollywood: Greta Garbo. And this year is the one hundredth anniversary of her birth. The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is exhibiting a stunning collection of Garbo portraits, most of them never seen before. The exhibit is called "Garbo's Garbos", eighty-five portraits chosen from more than a thousand from her personal collection. Robert Dance is guest curator. He chronicled the evolution of Garbo's image starting with rare photographs of Garbo at age nineteen.
Robert Dance>> First of all, she's young. You know, she's only nineteen and she's a little heavier in this photograph than we would recognize when she first came to the United States. There's a little bit of baby fat. There's also a slightly heavier makeup than she would have in Hollywood. Of course, her hair is curled.
Val>> So this is what she looked like before she came to Hollywood.
Robert Dance>> This is what she looked like on her way. Just after this photograph was taken, she went back to Sweden to say goodbye to her mother and then left for Hollywood in the summer of 1925.
Val>> So if that was Garbo before Hollywood, this is Garbo --
Robert Dance>> -- this is Garbo in Hollywood. She got to MGM in September of 1925 and I think the very first task that MGM put before her was to sit for Ruth Harriett Louise, who was their portrait photographer. It was through Louise's continual photographing of Garbo throughout the fall of 1925 and the beginning of 1926 that the face of Garbo that we recognize emerges.
Val>> This one you like in particular is unusual in its own way.
Robert Dance>> One of the reasons I like this photograph so much is it demonstrates that Ruth Harriett Louise and Garbo could have some fun together. You know, taking head shots day after day might have been a little bit tiring. Here's an example of a more imaginative composition. She is very casually attired. She couldn't possibly be any more relaxed and you might notice here that she's barefoot. I think this is probably the first photograph taken of a major movie star barefoot.
Val>> The exhibit also features a rare find, Garbo's second film called "The Joyless Street". She plays a poor office girl who gets unwanted attention from her boss. Half of all Garbo's films were silent.
Robert Dance>> She's here with John Gilbert. They had a famous pairing through silent films. The name Garbo and Gilbert really lit up the screen. Garbo was practically never photographed in the portrait studio with a co-star, but it was interesting that, for some reason, the studio decided that her picture had most currency when it was Garbo by herself. Unlike Garbo, he did not make a very smooth transition into talking pictures and Gilbert died in the mid-1930's. He died of drink.
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Robert Dance>> By 1928 when Ruth Harriett Louise made this photograph, Garbo was the most famous star in America and perhaps the world. At that time, her image was being avidly requested by fans. The city was sending out thousands and thousands of photographs a week and it's these sort of photographs that were the basis for the fan photos.
What Garbo did at this point was she allowed her portrait taken only one day per film. So as soon as production wrapped up, she met with her portrait photographer, in this case, Ruth Harriett Louise, for one long day of portraits, so all the associated publicity would come from that one day and that continued to the end of her career.
The third room is what I call the apotheosis of Garbo. It is her greatest films and I think her greatest portraits and, since they're her greatest portraits, they're really the greatest portraits ever taken in Hollywood.
Val>> Garbo is probably best known for the 1932 classic, "Mata Hari". She plays a seductive dancer who's also a spy in World War I Paris.
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Bruce Dance>> At MGM, she was fortunate to work with perhaps the most famous of all Hollywood couturiers, Adrian, and he never served her better than he did in "Mata Hari" where he created something like four astonishing metal costumes. She was the most professional of all the actresses. She always knew her lines letter perfect. She appeared on time. There was never any temperament, but she didn't do any extraneous publicity.
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Bruce Dance>> The fourth room is Garbo's career from 1933 to 1941. She only made five or six films.
Val>> This one is especially stunning. What movie is this from?
Bruce Dance>> This is from the film "Ninotchka". This was Garbo's first comedy. She'd been an actress for fifteen years before she did a comedy and, in 1939, after she hadn't made a film in two years, the studio decided to try something a little different and it turned out to be a great success. It was one of her biggest box office hits.
[Film Clip]
Bruce Dance>> Garbo was the one actress in the 1920's and 1930's whose fans not only didn't mind seeing die, but in fact, I think relished seeing her die a bit.
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Val>> Greta Garbo's last film was in 1941. She was thirty-six and, contrary to popular belief, she did not simply walk away from Hollywood.
Bruce Dance>> Not at all. She had the bad luck to have what turned out to be her last film open on December 7, 1941.
Val>> Pearl Harbor.
Bruce Dance>> Pearl Harbor Day. At that point, she had a contract with MGM where she was making one film every second year, so she owed the studio a film in 1943. They actually looked at properties together, but they couldn't find a suitable script. The kind of movies that she was making at that period weren't the sort of films that were being released by the studios during wartime.
Val>> Wartime movies, happy, feel-good movies.
Bruce Dance>> Happy, feel-good, you know, teenage movies, family pictures, those sorts of things. Not the kind of roles that she was famous for.
Val>> There was only one color portrait ever taken of Garbo. It was taken ten years after her last movie and appeared on the cover of a French magazine. She was forty-six.
Bruce Dance>> That would have been one of the first times her fans or the world could see what she looked like in color.
Val>> And those gorgeous blue eyes. Now would they have touched those up or would that have been the real color?
Bruce Dance>> She did have very deep blue eyes. I can't promise they're not touched up a little bit, but it's a pretty honest photograph.
Val>> The paparazzi snapped plenty of photographs of Garbo, but this is the last official photo ever taken of her, for a passport. So interesting that she was so willing to be unglamorous after having an image that was all about glamour.
Bruce Dance>> I think that's right. I think at this point, she wasn't interested in glamour any more.
[Film Clip]
Val>> And she lived out the rest of her life. She had a long life?
Bruce Dance>> She had a long life. She died at eighty-four. Between 1941 and 1990, she lived I think the life that she wanted to live between the west coast. She had an apartment in New York all the years. She traveled extensively in Europe.
Val>> But never married, no children.
Bruce Dance>> Never married, no children.
Val>> So all these photographs are in the possession of her --
Bruce Dance>> -- her niece, who was her one surviving relative, and her niece has four children as well.
[Film Clip]
Bruce Dance>> I think she's as important as a portrait subject as she was as a movie actress and star and I think, especially now a hundred years after her birth, in 2005, that people really remember the great portraits as much as her film roles and I think that's an important legacy.
[Film Clip]
Val>> "Garbo's Garbos" will be on display at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art through August 21. You can go to their website or give them a call for details. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val>> Next time on Life and Times --
Critics said it would lead to layoffs and business closures. Were they right about the living wage?
>> The idea is that these companies that benefit from public funding should be providing high-quality jobs so that people could support their families.
>> The firms, in some cases, cut benefits, cut overtime, which is not good because overtime is nice to get.
Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.
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