San Jose Mercury News (CA)
October 17, 2004
Section: Local
Edition: Peninsula/S.F.
Page: 3B

Two-day event brings actress, others to Foothill College to help promote efforts to defend endangered species

A STAR SHINES AT ANIMAL EXPO

By Truong Phuoc Khánh
Mercury News

It's not often that actress and renowned beauty Isabella Rossellini can step out in public and not be mobbed. But there she was, a star of galactic wattage, strolling undisturbed around Foothill College in Los Altos on Saturday, while menacing, scaly Odo was getting all the attention.

Odo, a 40-inch-long, beaded black-and-white tegu lizard native to South America, was among the threatened animals on exhibit at the third annual Wildlife Conservation Network Expo at Foothill College.

The two-day event, which is open to the public and concludes today, is attracting hundreds of animal enthusiasts from the Bay Area eager to hear stories from front-line conservationists who devote their lives to preserving endangered wildlife in Asia and Africa.

Rossellini, a board member of the wildlife network, was in town to promote the three-year-old organization, founded by Charlie Knowles and Akiko Yamazaki, both of Los Altos Hills, and John Lukas.

"It's a double-edged sword,'' Rossellini said of her star power. "People say I'm an actress, I should stick to acting.''

But she's also a mammal, she noted with a throaty chuckle, which might explain her lifelong interest in the wild kingdom and present work with the conservation group.

The business model Knowles and his co-founders employ was successfully launched in Silicon Valley some time ago: Find people with good ideas, become their partners, give them money. The network, in a way, provides the venture capital behind environmental entrepreneurs, said Knowles, who founded Rubicon, a software company that he sold 10 years ago.

"Just like a venture capitalist supports Silicon Valley entrepreneurs,'' Knowles said, "we try to support'' conservationist entrepreneurs.

High in the Himalayas in Central Asia, for example, lives the snow leopard. It attacks livestock that farmers depend on for food. The Snow Leopard Conservancy, one of eight projects sponsored by Knowles' network, helps turn farmers into conservationists. Farmers now learn to erect enclosures with wire-mesh roofs to keep the leopards away from goats.

"For about $500 for a corral, we can prevent an angry herder from putting out poisons or traps and save at least five snow leopards,'' said Rodney Jackson, director of the leopard conservancy.

There are some 4,000 to 6,000 snow leopards left in the world, he said.

Knowles's conservation network helps connect conservationists like Jackson with Silicon Valley donors, of whom there are about 2,400 in the Bay Area. The organization has a budget of $1.2 million this year.

Besides Rossellini, the event features Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants; Laurie Marker of the Cheetah Conservation Fund; Cynthia Moss of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants and others.

Rossellini joined the network, she said, after being dissatisfied with other non-profits that offered her little access to see the groundwork, she said.

"Everything is filtered through a foundation. I only talked to staff'' or attended lectures, Rossellini said. With Knowles' group, Rossellini ventured to Kenya last year and this Christmas plans to visit Bolivia and Peru.

Rossellini said she's often asked, of all the problems in the world, why does she think wild animals are important? Her answer, she said, is "Everything is intertwined.''

"You do what resonates in you,'' she said.

Rossellini also participates in a seeing-eye dog program where she adopts a puppy and raises it until it's mature enough to move on to training for work with the blind.

The Expo also featured radiated tortoises, which have high-domed shells with pyramid-like tops and are native to Madagascar; a bearded dragon from Australia; a monkey-tailed skink, which is an herbivore nocturnal lizard; and a red albino corn snake.

Hamina Kang, a 37-year-old jewelry designer from Fremont, got to hold and pet almost all of them.

"I'm getting a massage from this guy,'' Kang giggled as a snake wrapped its lengthy body around Kang's neck and snuggled in her hair.

Copyright (c) 2004 San Jose Mercury News