1950 - Environment

Environment

Forest rangers find a badly burned little orphan black bear cub clinging to a charred tree in New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest, they fly him to Santa Fe, he is nursed back to health at the home of a game warden, and shipped to the National Zoo at Washington, D.C. Given the name Smokey, he will be used to animate the 6-year-old message, "Only you can prevent forest fires." Smokey will be officially retired as the Forest Service symbol in May 1975 and die in late 1976.

The Ecologists Union created 4 years ago changes its name September 11 to the Nature Conservancy and receives tax-exempt status November 29. Former National Audubon Society conservationist Richard Pough, now 46, has suggested the change (see house finch, 1940); he joined the American Museum of Natural History in 1948 as chairman of conservation and general ecology, he becomes the Conservancy's first president, and it will be incorporated next year at Washington, D.C., where it will share office space with the Wilderness Society; its membership will top 1,000 by May 1953, and in 1955 it will make its first land acquisition, purchasing a 60-acre expanse along the Mianus River Gorge (see 1956).

An earthquake rocks Assam, India, and parts of Tibet August 15; registering 8.7 on the Richter scale; it creates floods, landslides, and topographical changes that leave 1,530 dead.