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UW-Madison Nets More Than $511,000 In Annual Flamingo Fundraiser

A sea of pink flooded Bascom Hill Friday as Badger donors brought in nearly $511,877 during the annual fundraiser paying homage to one of UW-Madison's most memorable pranks.

The Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association fundraiser, dubbed "Fill the Hill," encourages alumni and other university benefactors to donate to an educational program, student assistance fund or scholarship chapter of their choice for 24 hours, which started at 5 p.M. Thursday. For each donation received, the Alumni Association planned to stick a pink plastic flamingo in the ground in front of Bascom Hall facing Library Mall.

Donations were still coming in Friday evening, with 3,334 gifts as of 5:30 p.M.

"We are deeply grateful to our many UW-Madison alumni and friends for their generous contributions this year," Betsy Popelka Massnick, Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association director of annual giving, said in a statement. "The return of the flamingos to Bascom Hill symbolizes not only the whimsical spirit of this event but also the crucial support it generates for the University of Wisconsin."

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The Great People Annual Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to students who are admitted to UW-Madison but cannot afford the cost, topped the leaderboard at $40,922 from nearly 500 donors. Second was the School of Business, with about $31,462 from 127 donors; third was the Chancellor's Fund, with $28,772 from 177 donors.

Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association member Colleen Peters places one of an anticipated 3,000-plus plastic pink flamingos on Bascom Hill during the association's annual Fill the Hill fundraising event Friday on the campus of UW-Madison.

JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

The School of Engineering was fourth, with $19,363 given by 115 donors; the School of Human Ecology wasn't far behind with $18,900 given by 80 people.

Just over 43% of donations came from people currently living in Wisconsin, with California and Illinois residents second and third. A handful of gifts came from outside the U.S.

The class of 1985 had the most donors, with 70 alumni opening their wallets for a collective $9,393, while the class of 1991 gave the most money, with a total of $24,748 donated by 64 people. The largest donor group was alumni, who gave a total of $324,160 and represented 65% of the donor pool.

The amount raised this year is slightly lower than last year's $513,142, but it's still up sharply from five years ago, when the 24-hour fundraiser brought in just over $202,000 from about 1,500 donors. Over the annual fundraiser's 12-year history, 21,000 total donors have raised a collective $3.5 million.

There's no set fundraising goal for Fill the Hill, Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association spokesperson Tod Pritchard said. There are no specific areas of emphasis, with donors determining which of the more than 100 programs they want to support.

Donors who gave $350 or more received a pink flamingo from Bascom Hill. In previous years, donors automatically received multiple flamingos if they donated enough; now, the default is just one as the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association aims to reduce plastic consumption. Donors can still receive more than one if they donate $700 or more — they just have to contact Foundation staff.

On the first day of classes in 1979, students were greeted by 1,008 plastic flamingos on the law.

The prank was led by Leon Varjian and Jim Mallon, members of a mock political party, the Pail and Shovel Party, that had seized control of UW-Madison's student government. They chose to use a budget of $80,000 to pull a series of pranks that year, which included the installation of a papier-mâché replica of the Statue of Liberty on Lake Mendota.

Wisconsin Foundation Alumni Association member Jennie Casavant assembles one of the plastic pink flamingos.

JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL Pink flamingos, Statue of Liberty, boombox parade: The legacy of Madison prankster Leon Varjian Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian in 1980

HENRY A. KOSHOLLEK - Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian flamingos prank

Bascom Hill, the first day of classes on a sunny September day in 1979, there sat student Joan O'Donnell eating lunch with 1,008 of her blushing, plastic friends. The flamingos, which were delivered unassembled, courtesy of a Wisconsin Student Association prank. The lawn ornaments quickly disappeared, but the legend lived on: In 2009, the City Council made the plastic pink flamingo the city's official bird.

Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian, 1978

Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian leads a boom-box parade down State Street on June 2, 1980. Varjian, then a UW-Madison student, helped orchestrate some of the biggest stunts on campus in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Varjian was vice president and Jim Mallon was president of the Wisconsin Student Association.

Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian Statue of Liberty prank

Scholarly life never sank to mundane levels with Leon Varjian and Jim Mallon's Pail & Shovel (political) Party running the show at the Wisconsin Student Association, UW-Madison's student government. That was never so evident than in February 1979, when the top of a faux Statue of Liberty emerged through the ice of Lake Mendota, conveniently within walking distance of Memorial Union. 

L. ROGER TURNER — Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian leads a boom-box parade down State Street on June 2, 1980. Varjian, then a UW-Madison student, helped orchestrate some of the biggest stunts on campus in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

STATE JOURNAL ARCHIVES Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian, 1978

Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian, 1979

Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian, 1979. While Iranian students and their supporters held a rally on the UW Library Mall, Leon Varjian, Vice President of the Wisconsin Student Association checks on the condition of the WSA's hope to free the hostages. Vern the Mouse, a gray and white lab mouse, is waiting to fly to Tehran to gnaw his way into the Embassy to free the Americans held inside. The WSA is taking donations to cover the $1568 cost for the round trip coach airfare from Chicago to Iran. The plan was unveiled on the Library Mall, several dozen yards from where the protest was taking place.

NORRIS KLESMAN -- Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian, 1979. Leon Varjian, left, stands next to the winner of the Dalai Look-a-like Contest, Chris H., a '75 grad of the UW, as he accepts the cheers of the throngs on Langdon Street.

Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian with Jim Mallon, 1978

Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian, 1989

The Capital Times archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian, 1984

The Capital Times archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian, 1979

Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Leon Varjian with Jim Mallon, 1979 

HENRY A. KOSHOLLEK -- The Capital Times archives Leon Varjian

Math Teacher Leon Varjian at Midland Park High School in New Jersey Monday, February 5, 2007. 

PETER FOLEY -- Wisconsin State Journal archives Leon Varjian

Varjian in 2015

Ben Strand

Donors get to determine which of the more than 100 programs they want to support.


Counting Flamingos In Makgadikgadi

There are about 532 197 flamingos on the northern basin of Sua Pan, the eastern pan in the Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana.

Image: Pexels / Ingrid Dietrich

ALSO SEE: WWF reports 'catastrophic' 73% decline in average size of monitored wildlife populations

It's a lot of birds to count by hand – probably way too many. So that's where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in handy.

Scientists from the University of New South Wales Sydney's Centre for Ecosystem Science have used AI to accurately count the birds using aerial photographs collected in June 2019, making future surveying of numbers of this species and potentially other bird and mammal species – much easier.

Citizen Scientist Mike Holding made the project possible, with the help of others, by rigging up a Cessna aeroplane and flying it systematically across the pans at a height of 500-600 m and speed of 175- 195 km/h, taking 3 715 photos.

It was a tricky business, given turbulence, but importantly, the machine learning was just as good as a small sample of photographs counted manually by one of the researchers who pored over the flamingo dots, counting each one.

The aim of the project is conservation, of course, as the Makgadikgadi Pans and Nxai Pan National Park and their flamingos are an important bird area, for lesser flamingos especially, which are Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List.

'We need to protect the flooding regime by making sure water from the Nata River in the north and other rivers to the Makgadikgadi Pans, such as the Boteti River, are maintained,' said Professor Richard Kingsford, one of the authors of the study.

This article, written by Lorraine Kearney, was originally published in a print issue of Getaway Magazine. Find us on shelves for more!

ALSO SEE: Why your guide shapes the safari experience and how to find the right one

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Norfolk's Biggest Zoo Welcomes Its First Flamingo Chicks After Seven Year Wait

Norfolk's biggest zoo has welcomed a new bundle of feathers amongst its flamingo flock – the first time in seven years.

The brand-new Chilean flamingos have hatched at Banham Zoo, which is run by the Zoological Society of East Anglia.

A spokesperson for the zoo, sister to Africa Alive! Near Lowestoft, said: "We are delighted to welcome the new Chilean flamingo chicks to the zoo and be able to share this incredible news with all our visitors and guests.

"The chicks are thriving in their environment and can be seen by guests in the Flamingo house and outside in the habitat finding their feet."

Banham Zoo is delighted to welcome the new chicks (Image: Banham Zoo)Read more: Banham Zoo shares details of its 2024 Christmas experience

This is the first time this has happened at Banham Zoo in the last seven years and has been described as "a true testament to the amazing welfare and care" by the Bird Team at Banham Zoo.

The new hatchlings have now joined the rest of the flock (Image: Banham Zoo)

"Three of the four Chilean flamingo chicks were hand-reared by our incredible keepers after undergoing incubation in our specially controlled incubators.

"One of the youngsters, however, hatched naturally amongst our flock of flamingos."





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