Meet the Rock Star Frog Breeder Vying to Save Southern California's Rarest
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YOUR PAGE, YOUR STAGE! Community invites you to to send your contributions with contact details and complete description of the images to [email protected]. Select images will appear in both the print edition as well as Community Instagram page @communitygt. — PHOTO ESSAY, Page 10 Thursday, August 29, 2019 Dhul-Hijja 28, 1440 AH Doha today: 320 - 410 To the rescue COVER STORY SPOTLIGHT: Ian Recchio wades into an amphibian tank at the Los Angeles Zoo where he leads a captive breeding programme for endangered frogs. Meet the rock star frog breeder vying to save Southern California’s rarest amphibian. P4-5 SHOWBIZ BACK PAGE Not easy to recreate Serbian basketball coach iconic songs: Tanishk making his mark in Qatar Page 15 Page 16 2 GULF TIMES Thursday, August 29, 2019 COMMUNITY ROUND & ABOUT PRAYER TIME Fajr 3.53am Shorooq (sunrise) 5.14am Zuhr (noon) 11.36am Asr (afternoon) 3.06pm Maghreb (sunset) 5.58pm Isha (night) 7.28pm Angel Has Fallen Banning must evade the FBI and his own agency to fi nd the DIRECTION: Ric Roman Waugh real threat to the president. Desperate to uncover the truth, he CAST: Gerard Butler, Piper Perabo, Morgan Freeman soon turns to unlikely allies to help clear his name and save the USEFUL NUMBERS SYNOPSIS: Authorities take Secret Service agent Mike country from imminent danger. Banning into custody for the failed assassination attempt of US President Allan Trumbull. After escaping from his captors, THEATRES: The Mall, Landmark, Royal Plaza Emergency 999 Worldwide Emergency Number 112 Kahramaa – Electricity and Water 991 Local Directory 180 International Calls Enquires 150 Hamad International Airport 40106666 Labor Department 44508111, 44406537 Mowasalat Taxi 44588888 Qatar Airways 44496000 Hamad Medical Corporation 44392222, 44393333 Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation 44845555, 44845464 Primary Health Care Corporation 44593333 44593363 Qatar Assistive Technology Centre 44594050 Qatar News Agency 44450205 44450333 Q-Post – General Postal Corporation 44464444 Humanitarian Services Offi ce (Single window facility for the repatriation of bodies) Ministry of Interior 40253371, 40253372, 40253369 Ministry of Health 40253370, 40253364 Super Bear son Xi Ha, but when the young cub is captured by a human Hamad Medical Corporation 40253368, 40253365 DIRECTION: Wang Qi criminal and sold in the black market. Father bear ventures Qatar Airways 40253374 CAST: Zhengjian Guo, Liang Xiaoqiang, Mengjuan Xu, Lin into the big city to search for him. Qiang, Kang Liu SYNOPSIS: Father bear lives in the wilderness with his THEATRES: The Mall, Landmark, Royal Plaza ote Unquo u te Q “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confi dence.” — Helen Keller Community Editor For movie timings and Kamran Rehmat further details please scan e-mail: [email protected] the QR code above with your Telephone: 44466405 mobile phone camera or visit qatarcinemas.com Fax: 44350474 Thursday, August 29, 2019 GULF TIMES 3 ROUND & ABOUT COMMUNITY The olympic sport using horizontal bar, Hobby Classes rings and fl oor exercises on mats for the WHERE: Mamangam Performing Art children from age 4 till 16. Centre WHEN:Saturday – Friday Mamangam is an art and performance centre started with a vision of spreading our knowledge, interests and experience in various disciplines in arts across diff erent countries for children and adults. Mamangam has become the favourite centre for learning. We off er regular classes in the following disciplines like traditional classical and folk dance forms, art and craft, drawing and painting, personality development and public speaking, Bollywood dance, contemporary, hip hop styles, music both vocals and instrumentals. To develop health consciousness, we train them karate, yoga with special sessions for kids and adults. Mamangam has also come up with chess and robotics in regular batches in an attempt to give a better learning experience, as they sharpen their minds and brains too. For those who wish to register for more details, visit www.mamangamqatar.in Ballet Lessons WHERE: Music and Arts Atelier WHEN: Ongoing TIME: 4pm – 8pm For more info e-mail at registration@ atelierqatar.com or call on 33003839. EVENTS Yoga Class Painting Class WHERE: Lululemon, Mall of Qatar WHERE: Qatar National Library WHEN: Every Saturday WHEN: September 22 TIME: 8:30am – 9:30am TIME: 11am — 12pm Join the complimentary in-store yoga Paint with a rolling ball, or a rolling car, classes. No registration or mat is required. or just stomp and drag your fi ngers, hands The class runs on fi rst come fi rst served basis. and feet! Little children will explore color Arabic Calligraphy Workshop and motion using diff erent media in this fun, WHEN: Saturday – Wednesday hands-on activity. Please dress your little TIME: 6pm ones accordingly. Arabic Calligraphy workshop is back. Come and learn the artistic practice of Arabic The Moon and Beyond handwriting and calligraphy at Music and WHERE: Qatar National Library Arts Atelier. WHEN: September 18 The lessons will take place every Saturday, TIME: 6pm — 7:30pm Monday and Wednesday at 6pm. For Celebrate 50 years since the moon landing more information, contact registration@ with a special presentation at the Library, atelierqatar.com in collaboration with the US Embassy in Doha. Dr. Mary Ellen Weber, a former NASA astronaut who fl ew on two Space Shuttle fl ights, will talk about her experiences in space After School Activities and the future of exploring the fi nal frontier. WHERE: Atelier Dr. Weber is a consultant in technology, WHEN: Ongoing innovation, strategic communications and Music and arts activities for students high-risk operations, and serves on the Nasa taking place after they fi nish their day in Advisory Council Committee on Technology, school includes Group Music lessons, Hip- Innovation and Engineering.. hop, Ballet, Drawing and Painting, Drama Theatre & Taekwondo. Ages between 5 and 10 years old after school hours. Career Guidance WHERE: Right Track Consultants, Al Sadd WHEN: Sunday – Thursday TIME: 6pm – 8pm Career guidance for course, country, college and entrance for students of Grade IX-XII, of all curriculum. Career assessments administered for stream preference, career Dance and Instrument Classes test, branch preference, personality, WHERE: TCA Campus, Behind Gulf Times multiple intelligence and learning styles Building and productivity. For more information, WHEN: Wednesday – Monday 55448835. Learn the movements of dance styles in Bollywood, Hip Hop and also the musical Artistic Gymnastic Classes instruments such as Piano, Guitar, Keyboard WHERE: Qatar Academy Msheireb for adults as well kids and move in the world WHEN: Ongoing of music. For details, contact 66523871/ TIME: 3:15pm – 4:15pm 31326749. Compiled by Nausheen Shaikh. E-mail: [email protected], Events and timings subject to change 4 GULF TIMES Thursday, August 29, 2019 COMMUNITY COVER STORY Saving the day “This year, we hatched out more than 1,000 new tadpoles for the federal eff ort to recover one of the rarest amphibians on the planet,” Ian Recchio, Los Angeles Zoo’s curator of reptiles and amphibians, tells Louis Sahagun LIVING ON THE EDGE: Since the 1960s, nonnative trout, bullfrogs and crayfish have decimated these frogs. So have wildfires, extreme weather and hotter stream temperatures linked to climate change. With skin as permeable as a sponge, the frog is also highly susceptible to a skin fungus linked to amphibians vanishing around the world. t was happy hour at the “Frog Shack,” notoriously hard to breed in captivity and Act, fewer than 100 adults remained in a tiny building at the Los Angeles harder still to reintroduce into their native the region. The situation demanded an Zoo off ering all the amenities that habitat — the high-elevation streams of the emergency intervention, and Recchio is one Ian Recchio’s a no- Southern California’s rarest — and San Bernardino, San Gabriel and San Jacinto expert who answered the call. perhaps fussiest — amphibians might mountains. Clad in blue jeans, a baseball cap and nonsense, reliable Ineed to survive. “The success rate of reintroduced scuff ed leather shoes, Recchio, 48, moved Aeration and water fi ltration systems tadpoles and frogs … has not been great,” quietly through the Frog Shack on a recent guy who knows hummed softly in rows of temperature- added Fisher. “But it has kept this species weekday to avoid rousing its sensitive what he’s doing and controlled tanks, where tadpoles of the from blinking out of existence.” inhabitants. He surveyed the scene in the southern mountain yellow-legged frog Recchio is more humble about what 15-by-15-foot captive breeding facility like a gets the job done binged on a mix of algae fl akes and vitamins. the Frog Shack is accomplishing. “As long satisfi ed impresario. Fist-sized adult frogs, some of them bulging as yellow-legged frogs are needed, I can “Everything that happens here aims to with eggs, lounged on pebble beds after a produce them,” he said. mimic the conditions of the frog’s natural meal of crickets and wax worms. Named for the bright yellow on their life cycles of winter hibernation, spring — Robert Fisher, This is where Ian Recchio, the zoo’s undersides, southern mountain yellow- thaw and mating season,” he said. “And this biologist curator of reptiles and amphibians, is legged frogs once thrived in hundreds of year, we hatched out more than 1,000 new performing what some call miracle work in streams cascading down the high mountains tadpoles for the federal eff ort to recover one keeping alive a federally endangered species, that surround Los Angeles. of the rarest amphibians on the planet.” ‘ one of the rarest vertebrates on Earth. But since the 1960s, nonnative trout, Part of Recchio’s success has come Recchio might be unknown to the general bullfrogs and crayfi sh have decimated these through trial and error — learning from public, but in the eff ort to save and recover frogs.