Features

Experts design system 

to save Humboldt County tree 

STAFFORD — The redwood that once housed an environmental activist for two years has gotten a girdle to help hold itself together after a recent chain saw attack endangered its life. 

Arborists and engineers have splinted Luna, the vandalized tree, with coils of half-inch steel cable secured to three nearby trees in hopes of keeping it upright. 

They also slipped wooden blocks between the cables and the tree’s bark to protect its cambium – the thin layer of tissue that transports nutrients and generates new wood and bark. 

Though the experts say they are unsure if the cables will provide enough support for the tree to outlast windstorms, their noninvasive approach has the approval of Julia “Butterfly” Hill. 

Motion filed to delay trial for accused synagogue arsonists 

SACRAMENTO — Federal prosecutors say delaying a trial for two brothers accused of setting fires at three Sacramento synagogues will harm the case. 

In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento on Monday, the prosecutors said there is no reason to delay Matthew and Tyler Williams’ trial. 

The brothers also face murder charges in Redding. Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, a gay couple, were found shot to death in their bed on July 1, 1999. 

The arsons happened on June 18, 1999. 

The Williams brothers’ attorneys say the murder trial must be handled first so that information from the arson trial cannot be used against the brothers in the murder case. 

The brothers could be put to death if convicted of the murders. The trial is scheduled for Sept. 19, but could be delayed by additional motions. 

Both men have pleaded innocent to the murder and arson charges. 

$4 million settlement proposed for child with brain damage 

LOS ANGELES — The county should pay $4 million to care for a child who was left severely brain-damaged because her foster mother fed her Prozac, Xanax and other drugs for years, a panel recommended. 

The lawsuit settlement, if approved by the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 9, would be among the largest the county has ever paid to a single plaintiff, County Counsel Lloyd W. Pellman said. It was recommended Monday by the county claims board. 

The money would provide overall care for the 4-year-old girl, who is in a round-the-clock care facility, said attorney Richard Voorhies, who filed the negligence lawsuit in Superior Court on the girl’s behalf. 

“What happened to this child was absolutely horrendous,” Voorhies said. 

— The Associated Press 

In a memo to supervisors, county lawyers said the county failed to follow its own guidelines for supervising the girl, identified in legal papers as Baby S. 

The girl, then 6 months old, was placed with Lynette Harms of Carpinteria in 1996. According to the lawsuit, Harms, who had adopted Baby S’s older sister, was a drug addict and over several years gave the child Phenobarbital, the sedative Xanax, the antidepressant Prozac, the sleeping drug chloral hydrate and other drugs. 

Some drugs were prescribed by a local pediatrician but required court approval was never sought, according to the lawsuit. 

In 1999, the comatose girl was taken to Santa Barbara Hospital, where she was found to have brain and liver damage. 

The lawsuit, alleging negligence, said some of the five social workers on the case failed to make legally required visits to the home. None were made between April and October 1998, according to a claims board document. 

Harms was convicted of shoplifting in Santa Maria in 1998 and her foster license was revoked the next year, the lawsuit said. 

Harms, the pediatrician and pharmacies previously agreed to settle their parts of the lawsuit for $3.45 million. 

Researchers find that bowhead whales can live 200 years 

SAN JOSE — Evidence of ancient harpooning methods combined with modern scientific research shows that a bowhead whale can live as long as 200 years and is possibly the oldest mammal on Earth. 

Three bowhead whales killed by Inupiat Eskimos in northern Alaska were estimated to be 135 to 172 years, while a fourth bowhead was believed to be 211 years old, researchers concluded. 

“This is just incredibly interesting,” Jeffrey Bada, a marine chemistry professor at the Scripps Institution in San Diego, told The San Jose Mercury News. “Maybe what we’re looking at are the survivors, the males who escaped hunting all those years.” 

Scientists figured out the whales’ ages by studying changes in amino acids in the lenses of the eyes. The age estimates were bolstered by native Alaskan Inupiat hunters in Barrow and other villages along the frozen north coast of Alaska who found six ancient harpoon points in the blubber of freshly killed bowhead whales since 1981. 

Modern harpoon points are made of steel but the ones found in the bowhead were made of ivory and stone, which haven’t been used since the 1880s. 

Bowhead whales, which live in the Beaufort and Bering seas between Russia and Alaska, are a species of baleen whale, which eat by using baleen bristles to filter krill and fish from the ocean for food. 

Most whales are believed to live between 80 to 100 years. Previously, the oldest whales were believed to be southern hemisphere blue and fin whales, which can live up to 114 years. 

If Bada and colleagues at the University of Alaska find that bowhead can live 150 years or more, the whale would be oldest mammal on the planet. 

“This just about doubles what everybody thought was the longevity of a large whale,” Steven Webster, senior marine biologist and a co-founder of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, told the newspaper in a story published Tuesday. 

“It’s pretty astounding that whales swimming around out there now could have been swimming around during the Battle of Gettysburg when Lincoln was president,” Webster said. 

The findings were first published last year in the Canadian Journal of Zoology and more recently in Science News and New Scientist. 

The Inupiat have hunted whales for more than 4,000 years with harpoons and for decades told of whales that several generations of hunters recognized by their markings. 

When the ivory and stone harpoon tips started appearing, Craig George, a wildlife biologist with the county government in Barrow, located 730 miles northwest of Anchorage, had theories about the bowheads’ hardiness but couldn’t prove it. 

“It seemed too fantastic at the time,” said George. “Then these really beautiful ancient stone harpoons starting showing up, and we realized something really interesting might be happening here.” 

It is unclear why the bowhead can live so long. 

One theory suggests that harsh living conditions have forced bowheads to evolve in order to survive long enough to breed over several years to keep the species from extinction. 

“This all adds luster to what is already a very compelling, charismatic animal,” said Webster. 

“We compare everything to our human terms, and things that grow to old, old ages seem to grow in value. Isn’t that the way it is with wines and antiques?” 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://nmml01.afsc.noaa.gov/CetaceanAssessment/bowhead/bmsos.htm. 

About Inupiat: http://www.co.north-slope.ak.us/ihlc/