I work at Carnegie Mellon University in the Operations Research Department. One of the professors here who knew of my interest in ferrets showed me the latest copy of the journal "Operations Research". [Vol 45 No 4, July/August 1997, pp 495-507] The paper is entitled: "Spatial Optimization of Prairie Dog Colonies for Balck-Footed Ferret Recovery" (by Bevers, Hof, Uresk and Schenbeck) Basically, operations research deals with optimizing (or minimizing) a schedule. For example, scheduling communications satellite transmissions, crew scheduling, travel routes, etc. What this paper did was take how many prairie dogs were needed to support a ferret and map out various tactics. They pretty much only dealt with prairie dog variables. The upshot of the whole thing was that if we stop poisoning the prairie dogs, the plains will support the released ferrets. Otherwise, they'll die out quickly. Duh. But it was fun finding a paper done on ferrets! --Barb-- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- Barbara Carlson Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA [log in to unmask] Work: (412) 268-1342 Home: (412) 481-5927 http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/andrew/bcarlson/home.html (under construction) Thought for the day: If "boring women have immaculate homes," I must be very interesting! -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- [Posted in FML issue 2054]