If George Butterstein felt like his life was a zoo some days, well, that's because it was.
The Florence B. Sherwood Professor of Life Sciences will give a faculty colloquium, “A Research Safari at the San Diego Zoo,” on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 4:30 p.m. in Hale House Dining Room, during which he'll talk about his year as a visiting scientist at the zoo's Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species (CRES).
While there, he researched alligator and panda reproduction and postpartum stress in killer whales and gave a seminar on “Hormones, Adiposity and Reproduction.”
“My job was to understand reproductive cycles and patterns in endangered animals,” he said of the 2002-03 sabbatical.
On Wednesday, he'll show his colleagues two videos: one in which he is seen collecting alligator eggs and one that features two pandas, Gaogao and Bai Yun, mating.
“I knew it was going to be my last sabbatical, and I wanted to do something exciting,” said Butterstein, whose wife, Kathy, a biology teacher at Guilderland High School, taught students in the zoo's education program.
“We used to get in before the zoo opened, early in the morning, and take walks,” Butterstein said. “That's the best time, when all the animals are active.”
A Union faculty member since 1971, Butterstein holds a Ph.D. in zoology/endocrinology from the Rutgers. He has studied a variety of species over the years, including baboons, black bears, rhinos, giraffes, rats, tad poles and brine shrimp.
“Most scientists go in and focus on something forever. I've spread out in a lot of different areas my undergraduates could get involved in. I've worked with rat colonies most of my life, but I've got panda urine in the lab refrigerator downstairs, elephant blood samples… you don't want to know what else.”