162 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 60 



Dr. James F. Wright, veterinarian, went to Senegal, West Africa, 

 at the request of the Forestry Department of that comitry to instruct 

 its officers in the use of the "flying syringe." The Senegalese Gov- 

 ernment was interested in this method of immobilizing animals be- 

 cause of the necessity of relocating some of the herds of game, which 

 they wished to do with as little loss of individual animals as possible. 

 While in Senegal, Dr. Wright captured a def assa kob, which was sent 

 to the Zoo in Brazzaville, Congo. As far as is known, this is the first 

 example of a wild animal being captured by the projectile syringe for 

 exliibition in a zoo. 



Dr. Wright participated in a "Symposium on the Automatic 

 Projectile Syringe" at the University of Georgia, Athens, Ga., in 

 April 1960. He spoke on "The Projectile Delivery of Drugs in Zoo 

 Work" and (with Dr. Warren R. Pistey of the University of Virginia) 

 on "Immobilization of Captive Wild Animals with Succinylcholine." 



Malcolm Davis, associate headkeeper, spoke to civic and church 

 groups, and also to the Northern Virginia Ornithological Society. 

 He continued to write a weekly nature colunm for the Hemdon-Chan- 

 tUly Times and to edit the publication "Capsules" for the Woodard 

 Research Corporation in Hemdon, Va. 



Keepers Burgess, DePrato, Maliniak, and Widman brought Zoo 

 animals to the television screen repeatedly. Many of these programs 

 were broadcast on the "Time for Science" series from station WTTG, 

 sponsored by the Greater Washington Educational Television Asso- 

 ciation, and watched by 50,000 students in the District of Columbia, 

 Maryland, and Virginia. The same program also made a film in the 

 Zoo of mammals, birds, and reptiles, which was shown over WTTG. 



Ordinarily the Zoo does not conduct guided tours of the Park, but 

 exceptions were made for groups of handicapped children — orthopedic 

 cases, a small group of blind children from Hyattsville (IMd.) Ele- 

 mentary School, and 30 deaf children from Gallaudet College. The 

 largest of these groups consisted of 60 handicapped children who were 

 brought to the Zoo by the Kiwanis Club. In all cases police and 

 keepers escorted them. 



The Department of Zoology, University of Maryland, brought a 

 class of 12 students of vertebrate zoology to study the living animals. 

 This course, which was under the direction of Dr. Howard Winn, in- 

 cluded four visits to the Zoo, and studies were made of mammals, birds, 

 and reptiles. Tape recordings of sounds of small mammals and of 

 bird songs were made, to be played back later in the classroom. 



The Virginia Heqoetology Society met in the reptile house on No- 

 vember 14, 1959, and members were given a guided tour by Senior 

 Keeper Mario DePrato. Mr. DePrato also spoke to a class of students 

 from Taylor School who visited the reptile house. 



