Environment: Challenges For Earth

Patriots Stalking dwarf hamsters in Siberia

Few people get that once-in-a-lifetime chance to study the sex life of the Siberian dwarf hamster; fewer still would deem it a privilege to pay a bundle for the opportunity. Yet that was the choice of Laura Farnsworth, an IBM marketing representative from Dallas, who shelled out $2,400 plus air fare last summer to spend three weeks trudging from dusk till dawn in the harsh steppes of Soviet Asia. Supervised by biologist Katherine Wynne-Edwards, Farnsworth, along with other similarly hardy amateurs, not only saw a remote part of the Soviet Union but also had the satisfaction of making a contribution to...

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