Its been way too long.

It has been almost a month since my last blog post!  Lets just say things have gone haywire.  I am sure all of your lives have too.   It was holiday time for crying out loud.  Instead of boring you with the ins and outs of the last month and my conservation random thoughts over that time I will limit myself to three items.  I have challenged myself to only list three highlights from the last month.   May I mention how incredibly hard that is for myself.  On an hour basis my brain runs through a little over 1000 thoughts, multiply that by one month and now three seems like an incredible mystifying feat!  And even more phenomenal I will limit myself to a few pictures from the last month... GULP!  In traditional countdown form here we gooo:

3.  Turpentine Creek.  In December, while I was in Arkansas, I was set up with a special tour (Thanks Carrie) of Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge that takes in mostly big cats from around the country.  I lived in Arkansas for about three years and for about two of those years drove by Turpentine Creek on an almost daily basis en route to my job.  I never stopped.  I never went.  I was scared.  I have stopped at many "wildlife refuges" in the past that ended up to be more of a horrid roadside attraction in which I left in tears.  After a few of those experiences I am quite picky about the places I go to.   Although, I know they are not all bad.  I worked as a keeper at a place in North Carolina that housed some animals that were confiscated pets and the habitats were natural, extensive and beautiful.  Probably the best habitats I have ever seen.  I just did not want to run into another bad one again and feel as if there was nothing I could do. 

I went.  All of the animals have their individual story but the overall theme is the same.  Some dumbass (it's my blog I can swear!) decides an exotic animal would be super cool in their house... and then the animal grows up and has to eat and be taken care of.  One lion was bought for a measly 150 bucks.  Turpentine takes in as many animals as it can house.  The director made a statement at one point: as soon as the habitats for these animals are built the current exhibits they are in now will be destroyed so that we physically can not accept more to fill the old exhibits.  The problem is, if they have room they can't turn the cats down.  There are few sanctuaries that have the facilities to take in large cats and other exotic animals.  There are too many exotic animals that need a home.  Yet, you can buy all kinds of exotics online and some states have no laws against owning them!  Here is a summary of state laws regarding exotic animal ownership by private owners.  How does your state rack up? 

In some habitats mountain lions rotate days out in the big habitats.

Turpentine does have many old exhibits but they are working on building more natural habitats.  They have received many donations to build new habitats and have the space to do so.  It just takes time and they still need more donations.  They are starting to move towards a capital campaign where they will be able to collect the kind of money they need to make things happen and give the animals the habitats and space they need.  I will check back in often to see how they are doing.  But for now, check out their website.  If you live near Eureka, go visit and donate some cash.  I am pretty sure that locals get in free! 


What Turpentine really needs is more laws regulating the ownership of exotic animals.  Remember the ridiculous situation in Ohio recently, which is one of the most lax states when it comes to exotic animal laws.  Click here to sign a petition to ban the sale, ownership and harboring of exotic animals in Ohio. 



2.  Work Work Work.  Here is a quick update at the zoo:  It snowed over an inch and melted within a day.  The animals were all fine and probably enjoyed some snow. 

January:

Career Days - probably around 600 kids coming for career days at the zoo which is a day full of educational animal programs, career day presentation, scavenger hunt, animal encounter, conservation and of course fun!  For all of you that know me, I am a mammalogist, lots of experience wrangling bats, raccoons, gray foxes, mountain lions, black bears, ringtails... but not too fond of snakes.  I blame my two older brothers for tormenting me when I was young.  But I am becoming much more comfortable and here is the prooooof: Local newscast about the career day with miss snake and me. 

A Biodiversity of the Chihuahuan Desert Teacher Workshop.  Interactive activities, lesson plans, behind the scenes, and more to inspire teachers to engage their students with what is right outside their front doors!

Year of the Bat Kickoff Celebration - an event to bring awareness to the plight of bats, rid them of their negative reputations and educate people about local bats.  So much bat fun!  

1.  Arkansas.  Yes, I visited Arkansas for Christmas.  I love the trees but do not miss the bitter humid cold winter weather.  Although I hear that yesterday was 60 degrees!

This mailbox perfectly describes the town of Eureka Springs in Arkansas.

We spent the Xmas hanging out with family and friends.  Some of the kids got the all time BB gun for Xmas and everyone had a blast taking their turn hitting some cans.  I miss David's family and I miss my friends from Arkansas.  I am extremely thankful for all of their kindness and hospitality and love that they are all in my life.  But... I will be back when its warm.  :)

BB gun Christmas.

A walk down the road in Eureka.

I also got a chance to meet up with several friends from my old job.  I worked at the Ozark Natural Science Center (ONSC) for about three years.  It is a residential environmental education facility.  Kids embark on an overnight adventure to explore the great outdoors while being led by a highly knowledgeable, inspired and motivated Teacher Naturalist.  What I miss most about ONSC is the people and the campfires.  The people kept me thirsty for a quest for knowledge by always finding new plants and animals to discover while the campfires kept me sane and warm.  On this past trip, they gave me a scrapbook of my times at ONSC and I flipping LOVE it. 

Liz (ONSC co-worker) and Zac's cute baby girl... or lamb?

Honorable Mention.  A future number 1:

Zoo Story.  Life in the Garden of Captives.  By:  Thomas French

I read the book in five days.  I had never heard of the book before it was in my mailbox thanks to my Aunt Mary!  The book takes you inside a zoo and inside the animals and keepers thoughts.  The author eloquently writes about the positive and negative of zoos and compares zoos to the wild and vice versa.  The book gets you thinking as it describes the rise and fall of the Lowry Park Zoo in Florida.  The author never takes a side although at times you think you know where his beliefs lie.   I loved the book for the story itself but also for the journalism.  I related to several stories throughout and reminded me of several zoos, coworkers and animals.  Even if you are not in the field it is still an important read as zoos are part of communities around the country and world. 

Although this deserves to be my number one, I am not ready to tackle my entire thoughts and opinion about zoos and the wild in this blog.  I will give you a chance to read the book first. 

Silly giraffe picture I snapped during a Behind the Scenes Tour.  Characters.

A busy busy past month and even more busy days ahead.

"Recognize the challenge and do something about it!"


Challenge.

Can I convince you?

Alright.   If you do not already know, I am very passionate about recycling.  A little to the point of crazy.  It just makes a lot of sense.  Recycling is an easy way for the everyday person to re use products and not have to do any of the work!  But it is excruciatingly hard to engage people to do it.  I must admit, my boyfriend sort of recycles, mostly because I am constantly watching him like a hawk.  Also, I have yet to convince my best friend who does not recycle.  If I can't convince them then can I convince you?

Here is my attempt:

First of all, let us remember, the resources used to make everything you have whether your simple Kleenex box or your fancy car, all of the materials come from the environment.  Let's trace something back... A watch.  What is your fancy watch made of and where does it come from?  Well your watch is made of stainless steel, gold, platinum, titanium and plastic.   Stainless steel is a mix of minerals such as chromite and nickel which are harvested from the ground in mainly Russia and Canada.  Gold, we all remember the "gold rush" from elementary school, so we can easily associate gold with harvesting it from the Earth.  Platinum is a chemical element found in some nickel and copper mined in mainly South Africa.  Titanium is a chemical element found in a number of minerals and widespread in the Earth's crust.  Titanium is often mixed with iron to create a lightweight strong compound.  And guess what titanium is harvested from the Earth.  Lastly, plastic.  Everyday I am shocked by the number of people that do not know what makes up plastic.  Plastic is made from petrochemicals... OIL!  So if we think of plastic as oil we can easily associate it with drilling the Earth to harvest the raw material.

Basically my point is, we harvest raw materials from the Earth, manufacture them and send them around the world to make the products we use everyday.  The process of collecting the raw materials from the Earth is environmentally degrading.  Have you heard of mountaintop removal?  Exactly what it states is what they do.  Companies remove mountain tops to expose coal.  The leftover hill is like a moonscape, no vegetation, no wildlife, no life.  By the way, this is happening here in the United States in the Appalachian Mountains.  Destructive mining has led to loss of biodiversity in many areas around the world.  Need more proof?  In East Africa mining is threatening the coastal forests that are considered a hotspot for biodiversity.  Don't believe me?  Click here.

With every new product you buy, try and remember that you are adding to the mining and collection of the these materials.  It is extremely hard to connect to the Earth when you are standing in the middle of a mall, department store, grocery store or other building.

But, if you recycle the product, or packaging, that means the materials will be broken back down into their raw materials and made into another product.  Taking out the need to mine for more raw materials, destroying more wild habitat.

If we don't recycle, where does your trash go?  I have asked this question to thousands of people, kids and adults and I would say about 25% know where their trash goes.  No one is hiding it, we just don't want to think about it.  Your trash goes to a landfill or the ocean.  Yes, they load your trash on a boat and take it out into the middle of the ocean and drop it.  Anyone remember the "the solution to pollution is dilution."  We still have that mindset.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, because of ocean currents there is an area in the Pacific ocean that is collecting trash in mass quantities, about the size of Texas.  Gross!  Or maybe you like the landfills better.  Here in El Paso we have more than one landfill in the area, but the biggest one is about 95 feet deep and covers about 600 acres!!  Now that is some trash!  In the United States there are 3,091 active landfills and over 10,000 old municipal landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.  Landfills are hazardous sites that leach pollution into the air and ground which leads to our water supply. 

 

Trash washed up on a beach

But here is the thing.  We can easily reduce the amount of trash going to our landfills and ocean by recycling.  But most people don't.  Less than 1% of plastic bags are recycled.  And don't give me the "it's hard" excuse.  Most cities have curb side recycling programs and if not they have drop off locations.  It is not hard to set up two bins in your house and put the recyclables in one and trash in the other.

Ok still not sold on the idea?  Here are some eyebrow raising statistics that should put you over the edge.

• Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!
• Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year!  (I mean, surely when you read this your heart goes out to them.)
• Mining and transporting raw materials for glass produces about 385 pounds of waste for every ton of glass that is made. If recycled glass is substituted for half of the raw materials, the waste is cut by more than 80%.
• Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be composted.
• The US population discards each year 16,000,000,000 diapers, 1,600,000,000 pens, 2,000,000,000 razor blades, 220,000,000 car tires, and enough aluminum to rebuild the US commercial air fleet four times over.
• A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.  Motor oil never wears out, it just gets dirty. Oil can be recycled, re-refined and used again, reducing our reliance on imported oil.
• On average, each one of us produces 4.4 pounds of solid waste each day. This adds up to almost a ton of trash per person, per year. 

Approximately 60% of the garbage we throw away could be recycled!  If you are inspired to recycle please find out how to in your town.   The easiest way is google "recycle and the name of your town and city".   If you have a smartphone the Treehugger app lists recycling in many places around the country.  It is free and has lots of other helpful information on it as well.

El Paso, Texas:  www.recycleelpaso.org

Or still too much work... ASK ME!  I will find out what you can recycle, where and if you have curbside recycling where you live for you!  Email, comment, facebook me... just contact me!

Recycling is step one and I hope that everyone feels a bit encouraged to participate.  My next step is to encourage you to buy recycled products and compost!  But baby steps.  Let's recycle.

I am excited about an upcoming recycling/conservation project I am creating at my work that will hopefully inspire visitors and the staff to think, care and take part in our effort to recycle all we can!  Stay tuned. 


Recycle!

What are your little things?

The little things really do make me smile, think, appreciate and laugh at life.  I am constantly noticing and yearning for a million little things!  Here are some of my recent little things that have inspired me in one way or another.

• two old men playing dominoes at Whataburger today.  I can not help it, but I can not stop thinking about them!  I really hope that I have a dear friend when I am older that I can hang out with, drink coffee and chat with.  Honestly, I would love the opportunity to be accepted into their club right now.  To be able to sit and hear their stories and relax and enjoy the day would be amazing.  Although I fear my rambuctiousness would quickly get me kicked out of the club.  They remind me to slow down and take in life and just breathe. 

• A lion stalk.  Not many people's job allows them to step twenty feet outside their office door to be stalked by lions.  A playful pounce on the glass is all I need to make me giggle and take a step back from frustrations and realize what is important to me.   About a month ago, I received some very good advice that I hope to hold on to.  "Do not ever lose your spirit".  And those lions definitely help me accomplish that.  I love animals, but more than just loving them I feel a pull to help conserve them in their natural habitats.  I am fortunate to feel the connection between conserving resources in our everyday lives and saving wildlife habitat.  The huge problem is not a lot of people feel that connection. 

• Random rock in my coat pocket.  I am pretty sure that I picked up this rock in Denmark when I was there years ago.  It has stayed in the same coat pocket and whenever I put my hand in the pocket it surprises me.  It reminds me of the world and traveling and how much I want see, experience and explore every inch on our planet.  Not only do I want to explore the world but I want to see the health of the environment around the world and conservation initiatives on the ground.  If I could share those experiences with everyone, wouldn't they feel inspired to?  But for now, every time I touch this silly rock, I imagine where I would go and what I would do.  Stupid little rock! 

So what inspires you?  I am fortunate to have many passions and am very easily distracted by "shiny things" that I desperately want to learn more about.  I love being inquisitive.   Are you?

my rock.

Inquisitive.