WILDLIFE
CONSERVATION SOCIETY
Guests
Glitter at Tiffany Party
For
Wildlife Conservation
Story by Roger Webster
Photos
by Patrick McMullan
 HE
Wildlife Conservation Society was created 100 years ago and helped save
the American bison from extinction, will hold a black-tie dinner
dance on May 30 in the Central Park Zoo. The theme, Penguins and
Pearls, capitalizes on the biggest asset of one of the world’s
most beleaguered species, penguins, that have been so negatively
affected by global warming.
Ten of the world’s
seventeen penguin types are already on endangered lists. The
penguins, however, have an ace in the hole –their utterly
irresistible cuteness.
Tiffany
and Co., the sponsor of the benefit, and its president Michael Kowalski recently hosted a fabulous kickoff party in their
Fifth Avenue flagship store. There were exotic
dancers in fantasy mermaid costumes created by Angus Strathie, who designed for the film Moulin
Rouge.
Sotheby’s Jamie
Niven led an auction for such items as a white Tiffany keshi
pearl pendant coupled with a sleek black evening dress designed by
the gala’s chair, Carolina
Herrera, plus a scuba diving trip to the Belize Barrier Reef
with a WCS marine scientist, and even the naming rights to one of
the zoo’s baby penguins. The auction raised $60,000.
WCS
president Dr. Steven E.
Sanderson greeted
gala chairs and committee members such as Carroll
Petrie, Allison and
Leonard Stern, Norma Dana, Jamee
and Peter Gregory, Judy Price,
Fernanda Kellogg, Pamela Gross, Carol Mack,
Debby and Billy Bancroft, Kathy and
Rick Hilton, Helen and Tim
Schifter, Ashley Schiff, Dayssi Olarte
de Kanavos, Marissa Bregman
and Elizabeth Kieselstein-Cord.
The
hors d‘oeuvres, appropriately from the sea, were enjoyed by Jane Gammill, Tina Louise,
Chris and Grace Meigher, crisis guru Richard
Torrenzano, Amy Rosi,
Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia,
Grace Hightower, Nick and Jackie Drexel,
R. Couri Hay, Bettina Zilkha, CeCe
Cord, Dr. Suzanne Levine, Cindy
Webster with Jason Grant,
who is busy directing a new play called Last Laugh, set to
open off-Broadway (at TSI on Eighth Avenue) in March, Felicia
Taylor and Dylan Brown,
Elite model Heidi Albertsen,
pearly whites maestro Dr.
James Eisdorfer, Paul
and Jo Hallingby, Linda Buckley,
Kimberly Nesbit, Newsweek’s
James Wellford with
Bubble Lounge directrice Emmanuelle
Chiche,
Jonathan and Somers
Farkas, dress designer Kim
Hicks, House and Garden’s Laine
McRaney with
Richard
Siklos, David and Lisa
Schiff, Tom Gates and Mitch Douglas,
Montgomery Frazier and
Elizabeth Maas.
I learned a lot about
animals from my new friends at the Wildlife Conservation Society,
whose mission is to save wildlife and wild lands through science,
international conservation and education.
To
that end, they have many projects including managing
the aquarium and four zoos of New York City, supporting research on
all recognized gorilla species in Africa, and maintaining programs
of captive breeding for endangered animals such as the black rhino
and the Arabian Oryx.
This spring they will break
ground for Tiger Mountain, a tiger habitat and educational center at
the Bronx Zoo. WCS is a cause worthy of support.
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The
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