Lifelike Flying Toy Fools Nature

Christmas morning, he went for the biggest present under the tree. Sure enough, it was the FlyTech Dragonfly, a remote control flying wonder that flaps its wings like a real dragonfly. But this high-tech version is much bigger, with a 14-inch Styrofoam body and a 16-inch wingspan.

Danny is a fifth-grader at Shelter Rock Elementary in Manhasset, a suburb near Queens. He digs high-tech stuff. "The (Dragonfly's) wings flap pretty fast. If you put it on a flat surface, it will take off," he says. "It looks cool."

The next day, Danny took his flying wonder outside for the first time. The Dragonfly bobs up and down as it flies around-it takes some skill to fly it well. What Danny didn't know was that he and his Dragonfly were being watched. From up high, a red-tail hawk eyed the two. Danny and his brother had seen it earlier that month, feasting on a squirrel in their backyard.

Danny's first flight outside wasn't pretty. "I let go of the controls and it fell to 2 or 3 feet from the ground. Then I flew it up to about 5 feet...and then a hawk just swooped down from a tree behind me and grabbed it with its talons!" Danny says.

Without ever touching the ground, the red-tail flew its prey to the top of a tree across the street. Danny could still see the glowing green eyes of his Dragonfly.

"I was just shocked and didn't believe what just happened," Danny shares. "Then I got mad and sort of sad, but then it just got funny." Danny ran inside to tell his parents. He and his dad went to the tree while Danny's mom grabbed a camera.

With the controller, Danny could still make the wings flap a bit in the hawk's talons. "He probably thought it was still alive, so he attacked it more," Danny points out. "It was pecking at it and tearing it apart. You could see foam falling down from the tree. All I (got back) was a piece of the wing and a little bit of Styrofoam from the body."

Jim Dawson is the new raptor conservation biologist for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Raptors are birds of prey, which include birds like hawks, eagles and owls. He says the young red-tail did what comes naturally.

"Red-tails mainly (hunt) ground-dwelling prey, although they will take some birds," Dawson says. "They also are opportunistic. They might take a pigeon, especially if it is wounded and flying funny like the Dragonfly. That toy kind of goes up and down and looks like a wounded bird that's in trouble.

When a hawk catches a bird, it will take it up to a spot and pull the feathers off to work down to the actual food. "So it was shredding the foam (and wings) much like it would pull feathers out," Dawson explains.

This clash between nature and technology has done a lot for Danny. He wrote about his misadventure in his local newspaper and recently shared his story on National Public Radio! He also appreciates the wildlife that lives in his neighborhood.

The company that makes the Dragonfly never offered him a replacement, but his parents bought him a new one. He still loves the product, but thinks it should come with a warning that birds might attack it!

Another Egg-stra Special Bird Story

And speaking of birds, we have a lot of them here in Arizona. Three million of these fine, feathered friends are owned by one elderly couple-Bill and Gertie Hickman, who own Hickman's Family Farms.

Two weeks before Easter, the Hickmans arrived at the Community Food Bank in Tucson with a Hickman's truck loaded with eggs. In all, the Hickmans donated 5,800 dozen eggs to help people throughout Southern Arizona!

William Carnegie, head of the Food Bank, carefully unloaded the first pallet of eggs with a forklift. He says that more people than ever are relying on the Food Bank. Since the holidays, the Food Bank has seen a 25 percent rise in the number of people who need help.

Hickman's Family Farms is located in Arlington and Maricopa, south of Phoenix, and has enormous automated buildings that house the Hickmans' 3 million laying hens. That many hens produce about 2 million eggs a day! "We sell eggs all the way from South Dakota to Hawaii," explains Bill Hickman.

Gertie Hickman says she and her husband got into the family business after they got married in 1957. They started out with just 500 chicks.

Is Shaq Sinking Suns?

There's a new big man in town; the Phoenix Suns are betting he's the spark they need to win the playoffs.

One of the biggest stars in the NBA universe, Shaquille O'Neal, is now wearing purple and orange. And both Shaq and the Suns have a lot to prove. Shaq, who just turned 36 and has endured knee and hip injuries, wants to show he's still a big force in the NBA. His critics say that the Diesel is too old and too slow for a high-octane, blazingly fast team like the Suns.

During the regular season, the Suns are one of the toughest teams in the West. And while fans love the Suns' exciting and high-scoring brand of basketball, led by two-time League MVP point guard Steve Nash, the team has never won the NBA Finals.

The Suns believe that Shaq is the piece that's been missing. At 7 feet 1 inch tall and 325 pounds, Shaq gives the Suns a true center who grabs rebounds, plays tough defense and passes the ball well. Up till now, Amare Stoudamire has been stuck playing center for the Suns, even though he's really one of the best power forwards in the game. With Shaq in at center, Stoudamire is freed up to do what he does best!

"Psychologically it really helps us out. Guys are much more willing to go to the boards and fight around the basket with Shaq in there," explains Head Coach Mike D'Antoni.

Fans love Shaq's superstar qualities. The big guy has won four NBA Finals and was MVP for three of them! But the Suns have lost their winning ways since Shaq started playing on Feb. 20. In the trade for Shaq, the Suns gave up All-Star forward Shawn Marion, who said he wanted to be traded at the beginning of the season. For years, Marion had been a clutch scorer. As of press time, the Suns have won just two of their last six games and have fallen to fifth place in the Western Conference. Fans wonder whether it's growing pains with the big guy or could it be a bad fit?

'Doomsday Vault' Opens for Business!

SVALBARD ARCHIPELAGO, Norway-Imagine a bank that's so far north that polar bears outnumber the people living there! The bank is located on Norway's Svalbard archipelago just 620 miles from the North Pole. As you may have guessed, it's cold there. During winter's around-the-clock darkness, temperatures can fall to -22° Fahrenheit.

The bank was blasted into the side of an arctic mountain and has reinforced concrete walls to help protect its valuable deposits from natural disasters, global warming and even a nuclear explosion. Welcome to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault-also called the "Doomsday Vault" by the press!

You can find seedbanks all over the world. Native Seeds/SEARCH is a seedbank here in Arizona. Its mission is to protect the diversity of local seed used in farming and their wild relatives. "We have nearly 2,000 varieties in our seedbank, mainly corn, beans and squash," explains Carolyn Owens, who works on grants for the seedbank. "Just like the seedbank in Norway, the seeds need to be kept cold, so they're stored in a freezer," she says. Seeds for the bank come from southwestern states and northern Mexico.

Seedbanks help protect our food supply from the "what ifs" in life-like what if there's drought; what if a disease attacks a certain kind of wheat, or what if global warming changes what can grow around here?

Modern farming has led to fewer and fewer varieties of crops. This has brought about many varieties of food crops being lost forever, and Owens says it's alarming. "It's just more cost effective to grow a single variety...but you don't know what disease is going to come along down the road," she says. A disease could wipe out an entire variety of a crop, leading to food shortages. But if there are enough other seed varieties, like wheat for instance, one of those types of wheat may turn out to be resistant to the disease.

Owens points out that a lot of seedbanks are in politically unstable areas like Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and have been looted or destroyed. In the Phillipines, a flood wiped out the country's seedbank.

That's why the Svalbard Global Seedbank was created-to protect the diversity of seeds no matter what happens in the world. Countries can "deposit" different varieties of seeds. If a disaster jeopardizes crops, the country can make a "withdrawal" of seeds.

The vault was built by Norway at a cost of about $3 million. Because seeds are so small, the "Doomsday Vault" can hold up to 2 billion seeds!