Penn State is planning a phased return over the summer semester to a full on-campus learning environment for fall 2021. The University’s priorities continue to be the health and well-being of its students, faculty, staff and local communities, and the plans for expanded in-person classes have the flexibility built in to quickly respond to changing pandemic conditions, if necessary.
Penn State Beaver THON dancers, from left, Allyson Pinchot, Samantha Freed and Marissa King show their spirit during the annual THON weekend. This year, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the women danced in the Penn State Beaver Student Union Building Lodge.
Penn State Beaver THON dancers and supporters get ready for the weekend of dancing to begin. Dancers for the campus are Samantha Freed, Marissa King and Allyson Pinchot. They will be dancing in the Lodge on Penn State Beaver's campus.
The reintroduction of 32 bobcats to an island off the coast of Georgia more than three decades ago created an ideal experiment to examine the accuracy of a genetic-modeling technique that predicts extinction of isolated wildlife populations.
The research showed that without any human intervention to restore the loss of genetic diversity in the bobcat population on Cumberland Island — perhaps by introducing a bobcat from the mainland every four or five years — the animals will likely disappear from the island over time.
The researchers also assessed the bobcat population on Kiawah Island, off the coast of South Carolina. They determined that, unlike Cumberland Island, bobcats do occasionally travel on and off Kiawah, likely over a bridge for vehicles.
Since the 1989 bobcat release, researchers have returned to the island many times to collect bobcat scat like this from which to extract DNA to monitor the population’s genetic health.
There are now 24 bobcats on Cumberland Island, a barrier island off the coast of Georgia, which is separated from the mainland by open water that prevents bobcats from the mainland from immigrating.
As a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia in 1989, Duane Diefenbach — now an adjunct professor of wildlife ecology at Penn State — reintroduced 32 bobcats captured on the Georgia mainland to Cumberland Island. This photo he took back then shows one of the wild felines streaking to freedom in its new home.
