Yale entomologist Charles Remington became a news media spokesman last June for 17-year cicadas when these unusual insects emerged by the millions with their biological clocks ticking loudly. The raucous mating call of the cicadas after 17 years below ground drew the attention of The New York Times, ABC's "Good Morning America," National Public Radio, CNN, the Associated Press, CBS Evening News, Scientific American, Japanese documentary teams and the local press.
In a talk titled "Reaching the Media and the Public with Urgent Environmental Issues: The Recent 17-year Cicada Emergence Case," Professor Remington and Cynthia Atwood, science information officer at the Yale Office of Public Public Affairs, will describe how they arranged two news media conferences and field trips for reporters. The free public talk, sponsored by the Yale chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology, will be on Monday, Jan. 27, at 5 p.m. in Bowers Auditorium at Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St.
Professor Remington, who is a biology professor and emeritus curator of entomology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, founded the world's first permanent preserve for the specialized cicadas on 90 acres of nearby land owned by the South Central Regional Water Authority. Residential and commercial development threaten the insect's habitats all along the Eastern seaboard, he says.