News Review: Coral, Chytrid, and Discovery Channel Changes?

We aren't doomed! Yay! I mean, uh, "ribbit".

A chytrid fungus that is too long to type out has been the villain behind a recent decline of amphibian species. And by "decline", I mean over 1/3 of all amphibian species have either gone extinct or are now listed as "threatened", or worse, because of it. A recent study from the University of South Florida revealed that oak toads can develop an immunity to the chytrid fungus! This immunity could be the key to saving the world's amphibians, which is great news! And now for a frog joke: Why are frogs always happy? They eat whatever bugs them!

Remember in my last blog I talked about being an activist? Well, here's your chance! The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Deep Sea Corals Amendment 16 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan (great Odin's raven, what a mouthful!) is a law that will help protect corals on the East Coast of the US from trawling, a destructive type of commercial fishing. On Earthjustice, you can send a quick message supporting this amendment! I'm not going to explain right now how important corals are to the ocean, or how important the ocean's health is to us, but to put it simply, IT'S IMPORTANT! So please just take a minute and support the protection of our ocean. 

The existence of aliens is more logical....

This is not the first time I've mentioned the Discovery Channel on my blog. Recent rants have included Shark Week, Eaten Alive, and their fake megalodon and mermaid specials. Long story short, the Discovery Channel has strayed from their educational programming, to say the least. Now, Rich Ross, Discovery Channel's new president, claims they will stop making things up. "I don't think it's actually right," he said. NO, REALLY? Do you know how many people actually believe megalodon exists, or worse, that mermaids exist, thanks to your programming?? Too many!!! There are so many fascinating things that are true about animals. Although I am doubtful, I really really hope he keeps his word. 

As always folks, thanks for reading! I have some more posts in the works so keep checking back! 

Careers in Wildlife Conservation

Howdy folks! I wanted to write a quick post about careers in conservation, and what you can do to help outside of a formal career. 

Picture credit: reserveamerica.com

Careers 

Wildlife conservation is a very rewarding career field because these professionals really make a difference in the world! There are many areas you can explore:

Wildlife Management: invasive species control, habitat restoration- check out US Fish and Wildlife and the US National Park Service 
Research: population biology, ecology, resource management, habitat preservation- try the EPA, and a great place to look for jobs is the Texas A&M Job Board, they have internships and volunteer opportunities too!
Education: nature centers, zoos, aquariums- take a look at the Association of Zoos and Aquariums

Keep in mind, I'm just brainstorming here, trying to give you a few suggestions, and there are a whole lot of jobs that I'm sure I haven't even thought of! But if you are interested in any of these topics, the links I included are great places to start. My best advice is don't be afraid to reach out! For example, I went on the Texas A&M Job Board and found an internship in Colorado. Even though I couldn't commit to it, I sent an e-mail to the listed contact, and, thanks to a wonderful park ranger, ended up volunteering for two weeks at Rocky Mountain National Park! 

I'm very proud of this picture I took in Colorado! 

Education 

If you're really interested in a career in wildlife conservation, take a look at educational institutions that will prepare you for one. If anyone reading this is around college age, these school programs are definitely worth your consideration (there are plenty more around the country, go ahead and Google it!)

Conservation and Wildlife Management at Delaware Valley College (my favorite!) 
Ecology and Evolutionary Science at Rutgers University
Fish and Wildlife Biology and Management at SUNY
Natural Science at Colorado State University  

I thought this was a cute picture :)

Volunteering

Don't want a career in this field? No problem! Many organizations use the help of volunteers to help promote conservation! Check with your local zoo or aquarium for volunteer opportunities, the National Park Service again, or even your local town may have something! The Texas A&M site I linked before is helpful too. If you want a real adventure, go on an Earthwatch expedition- you can participate in hands-on research in some of the most exotic and beautiful locations around the world (and if anyone wants to take me on one, I can be packed in about twenty minutes!). You could always just play with sea turtles, too. 

...which is what I would be doing if I could afford it!

Being an Activist

While not a true career for many people, one of the easiest and best ways to help out wildlife conservation is by being an activist. What do I mean by that? I mean showing your support for causes such as recycling, habitat preservation, and endangered species protection. You don't have to go start a rally, helping can be as easy as clicking a button. Here are some websites where you can sign petitions to help conservation:

Earthjustice
Change.org (includes petitions of all kinds) 

You can also support organizations like United for Wildlife and World Wildlife Fund through monetary donations. 
Another easy way to help is just by spreading the word! Post a link to a conservation article on your Facebook page, or tweet something to raise awareness (United for Wildlife uses #WhoseSideAreYouOn), and of course, you can always tell your friends to read my blog! =P 

Thanks for reading everyone! 

Movie Review: The Rescuers Down Under

Howdy everyone! I'm writing my very first movie review and I hope you like it! My goal is to keep these reviews short, sweet, and entertaining, with clips and pictures, and four sections: Summary, Animals, Conservation, My Favorite Part. I might tweak this format a bit in the future, but I think it worked well for this movie. And without further adieu (wow, I never knew how to spell that word...) here is my movie review!  


The Rescuers Down Under is a Disney movie about two mice who travel to Australia in order to rescue a boy kidnapped by a poacher. Sounds a bit ridiculous, but I really enjoyed the story line and the stunning imagery. If you haven't watched it since you were little, it's definitely worth a re-watch, or at least watch this scene where I get extremely jealous of the main character because he gets to RIDE AN EAGLE: 

Animals

No Disney movie would be complete without talking animals! The confusing part of this film is that some animals talk and some don't, but hey, who questions details? I'm very happy that their animal characters were accurate with their origin- goannas, kangaroos, koalas, crocodiles, and even a kangaroo rat  all make appearances in their native Australia. I also found it cool that the mice used an albatross for travel across the sea, like an airplane, especially since, in real life, these birds can glide for hours above the ocean without beating their wings! It makes the whole international-travel-for-rodents concept slightly plausible! 

Conservation

The villain of The Rescuers Down Under is a poacher. Oh, and he is a mean poacher too! He has all sorts of animals locked away in chains, he drives a monstrous cage-truck, and even abuses his faithful lizard/pet/sidekick Joanna. Not to mention he tries to feed a poor little blonde boy to the crocodiles. While all this makes it easier to despise him for the sake of the story, I can't help but mention that poachers are not always evil. I know, I know- blasphemy! But sometimes poachers are people who have no other way to feed their families, or who don't know any better, or who are forced into it. I am definitely going to get back on this topic and expand on it in the near future, but regarding this film, we all love to hate McLeach the poacher. 

My Favorite Thing About the Movie

Joanna the goanna was definitely my favorite aspect of the entire movie! In my opinion, she is more comedic relief than Johnny Depp was in Into the Woods (sorry Mr. Wolf!). Her constant antics are entertaining no matter what age you are! For your enjoyment, to end this review, I have included a scene of her stealing eggs:

I hope you all enjoyed this post, and please feel free to leave me feedback! I know it's a bit different than my previous post styles, but if you like my movie reviews, and my posts on Disney, I'll be happy to continue with those topics! Thanks for reading everyone! 

News Review: Butterflies, Betty White, and More

Hello everyone! I hope your new year is off to a great start! One of my resolutions is to write more blog posts, so here we go- I've looked at some interesting articles on the interwebs and have summarized them very briefly here for your reading pleasure: 

Butterflies Going Extinct in the USA
Just like virtually every other animal species in the world (except squirrels) monarch butterfly populations are declining. The rate of loss is so dramatic, it's like "losing every living person in the United States except for those in Florida and Ohio". 

Bindi Irwin Grown Up
Well, this isn't really news, but Steve Irwin was a huge celebrity in the world of wildlife conservation and education. His daughter, Bindi, had her own TV show, and so to see her and her brother getting older tugs at my heart strings. 

The Pope and Climate Change
Pope Francis and his teachings are a huge influence on the lives of many people, and he plans on using that power for the good of the planet. I'll give a thumbs up to that!

Seagrass Is In Trouble
Not many people are familiar with the importance of seagrass. To be honest, many of the facts on the titled link surprised me, and I plan on writing more in detail on this subject sometime. For more info, go to Project Seagrass.

Flora and Fauna's Year in Review
I have mentioned Flora and Fauna International before, and found this article of theirs really informative about what has gone on in 2014 (they talk about United for Wildlife, too!). Betty White is one of their honorary directors, and she did a PSA commercial for them- check it out below! 

Thanks everyone for reading, and I'll be posting more soon! 

Welcome 2015!

Happy New Year everyone! For all of you just starting to read my blog in 2015, welcome and thanks for checking it out! 

In 2014 this blog had 29 published posts with 869 page-views! Since I only started writing this year, I'm hoping next year will be even better! I'm going to try and diversify my topics a little bit, dabble, if you will, in some other areas. Here are some new categories I have in mind for 2015: 

Creature Features: Posts that are about a certain species (or group of animals) and their conservation.
Book Reviews: I've done two of these in 2014 already, and if I continue to read books that are relevant, I will certainly share. But at the moment, I'm reading Vanity Fair (great novel so far, by the way), and so there probably won't be any of these for a little while. 

News Reviews: Conservation, animal, wildlife, and environmental news stories! Super helpful in keeping up with terrestrial and aquatic current events. (Get it? Aquatic? Current? Ok, that one was a stretch....) 

Movie Reviews: A new fun category I thought of- looking at movies involving animals, and evaluating aspects such as scientific accuracy and relevance to conservation. AKA an excuse for me to talk about Finding Nemo. 

Dose of Disney: Speaking of Nemo, let me add some Disney to your day! I got a lot of positive feedback from my post on Pocahontas this fall, so why not keep it going?  *I am not affiliated with Disney in any way, so please don't sue me, Mickey. I'm a huge fan.* 

Guest Writers: Are you a nature lover? A writer? An I-have-everything-in-animal-print-because-I-love-cheetahs-and-zebras-er? I would love to get some fresh new ideas, so write a post for me! 

(I'm probably going to go back through my 2014 posts and title them with these categories where they apply, hopefully they will be convenient for you!)

Now, I admit I'm not a very technical person, but I just figured out I can add pages to my blog. So if you'll be so kind as to scroll to the top, right underneath my title banner, you'll see a tab that says About and I put a little description about this blog and its authors (me, myself and I). To get back to my blog posts again, simply click the page Home. In the future, I might add more pages...once I think of what kind of pages I should add!  

Alright, well that's it for now. Please keep checking back for new posts, I have a few I'm already drafting! As always, thanks for reading! 

New Ideas for a New Year!

In the world of wildlife conservation, a lot of news is depressing: this is going extinct, that habitat is being wiped out, ect. But this post puts all that aside for a moment to look at the bright side. Here's some cool ideas and new techniques that could really help wildlife in 2015: 

This upcoming year we really need to clean up the ocean, and on that subject, I'd like to introduce you to a new hero of mine. His name is Boyan Slat and he came up with an idea to clean up the ocean back in 2012. To make a long story short, there are humongous garbage patches floating in the middle of our oceans causing inexplicable damage to our environment. Slat has invented a clean-up system that will actually make money while cleaning up all the plastic floating around. Sounds pretty good to me!! His project has already raised more than $2,000,000, and is making some great progress, so check it out!  

Not exactly technology, but using one animal to help another is a concept we can certainly explore more in the upcoming year. For example, a population of rare little blue penguins in Australia is booming thanks to the protection of herding dogs: therainforestsite.com Imagine if we used dogs to help protect other vulnerable species from over-predation! 

Balloon releases pose a huge threat to wildlife, especially marine creatures. There are several alternatives, such as bubble-blowing, paper lanterns, and releasing butterflies. But for those people who are truly set on balloons, there is a more biodegradable brand called Bio-Doves. I'm not saying they're perfect, or that you should go out and buy a million, but are they better for the environment than traditional balloons, and the cool thing is they look like actual doves flying! Now there's no excuse for using regular balloons, and I'm looking at you Gibraltar.

Shark submarines? What? Yeah, Jacques Custeau's grandson, Fabien, made a submarine that looks like a great white shark to better study them. From this unique viewpoint, he got 170 hours of footage that will be extremely valuable for scientists to understand their behavior. Unfortunately, it will be aired on a TV series titled "Mind of a Demon". So he's doing a great thing trying to understand these creatures, but still defining them by their horrific Jaws-inspired reputation. Once again: SHARKS ARE NOT MONSTERS! As long as we stop promoting such gross stereotypes, technology like this could help us study all sorts of marine life and better educate the public on their importance. If you want to read more, here's Redbull's interview. 

Not the best picture, but notice the wind turbines that look like kites.
These actually exist, and if you're interested, click the "wind turbines" link below. 

Alternative energy is a hot subject right now, especially since we're sorta in an energy crisis. In 2015, my hope is for more use of biodiesel, wind turbines, and other effective energy-saving methods. The above picture is from the new Disney movie, Big Hero 6, and imagines what we could do with this type of technology in the future. If we save energy, we save resources, and therefore we save habitat and wildlife. So make one of your 2015 resolutions to save energy!  


Since this is my last post of the year, I wish all of my lovely readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Please remember to celebrate responsibly and be safe out there tonight. Thank you so so so much for reading my blog this year, and I hope you'll come back to see what I have in store for 2015!! 

News Review: A Royal Cause

Prince William and Princess Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, were here in the US and I got to meet them!!!! Well I didn't get to actually talk to them... or see them at all....but they were in the same region of the country as I am so that kind of counts, right? No? Whatever. Anyway, the royal couple was in New York City for a few days in early December. Now, what does this have to do with this blog? Part of their visit was to campaign against illegal wildlife trade.

On the balcony of Buckingham Palace, right after their wedding, April 29th, 2011.

A Bit About Them

Will and Kate, as most people casually call them, have proven to be one of the most influential celebrity couples of our age. Third in line to the throne of England, and son of the late beloved Princess Diana, Prince William has always been in the spotlight. The media has eaten up his fairy-tale romance with Kate Middleton, and millions of people around the world tuned in to watch their wedding in 2011. Since then, they've had a son, George, and are now expecting another child. They can be found around the world in newspapers, magazines, and social media, promoting many different charity organizations. 

Picture from www.dailymail.co.uk

Prince William and the War on Wildlife Trade


I mentioned in an earlier post that Prince William is the patron of the Tusk Trust, that focuses on the ivory trade.  They also work to promote education and support communities in Africa, so definitely check them out, donate, or simply follow them on Twitter. 

Another organization I did not talk about previously is United for Wildlife. The description on its website reads: 
"United for Wildlife was created by The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. Led by the Duke of Cambridge it has brought together the world’s leading wildlife charities under a common purpose; to create a global movement for change. Whilst animals continue to be killed by criminals, whilst whole species are hunted to extinction, we will join together to ask one simple question: Whose side are you on?"
In other words, this organization brings together several other organizations, namely: Willdife Conservation Society, WWF, ZSL,The Nature Conservancy, IUCN, Flora and Fauna International, and Conservation International. They have a lot of FANTASTIC events and information on their webpage, so check it out! And like them on Facebook! You can even send an "elegram" to help baby elephants! How cute is that? 

Poke

Speech at the World Bank

On December 8th, Prince William made a speech at the World Bank on the illegal wildlife trade: 

"Corruption remains one of the most persistent and damaging impediments to the alleviation of poverty and, I believe, one of the most insidious forms of corruption in the world today is the illegal wildlife trade."

I certainly recommend watching his whole speech here- I really enjoyed it, and he made some great points. For example, the illegal wildlife trade is a threat to international security, and can promote the spread of disease. It has also greatly increased in the past decade, worth an estimated $20 billion a year, and is far more destructive than many people think it is. Wildlife trade is connected with illegal drug, weapon, and human trafficking, with "alarming implications" for global security. He also made this sad claim: some endangered species are worth literally more than their weight in gold. 

Prince William is basically the Harvey Dent of wildlife crime
(before the whole Phantom of the Opera-style injury)

I definitely can't hide the fact that I'm a huge fan of the royals for their efforts to make the world a better place. Prince William's campaign against illegal wildlife trade is, in my eyes, extremely important in uniting international organizations and really making a difference in the world. 

Here are a few more links about the royals' NYC visit from Tusk Trust, Daily Mail, and USA Today.

Thanks for reading everyone, and in the British spirit, cheerio! 

"Hahaha...but seriously, you still owe us tea."