Lori Robinson's Blog, page 9
April 19, 2017
Improving the World One Bird Box at a Time
This bird box story was told to me by Janie Chodosh, the co-author of my new book, Wild Lives. I loved the story so much I asked her to write it up for all of you to read. I think it’s a perfect inspirational tale in celebration of Earth Day.
Improving the World One Bird Box at a Time
My husband has gone crazy—but not in the way you might think.
After finding a dead bewick’s wren that he had accidentally killed in our garage, he decided to make amends by building a bird box to give these lovely songbirds a place to nest. His logic made perfect sense to me: if he could make a home for a pair of bewick’s wrens to nest and fledge young, he’d add to the population and feel less horrific about the deceased bird.
One trip to the lumber store later, he built a beautiful nest box, put it up in a tree, and together we admired his work. But making one bird box, it turns out, wasn’t enough for my husband. If one box was good, one a week for a whole year, a total of 52, would be better.
Bird box inspection from a black-capped chickadee.
Twenty nesting boxes later, some with smaller holes for chickadees and titmice, others with larger holes for tyrant flycatchers (and one for a downy woodpecker who whittled out the hole to her own liking), I convinced him to stop. Some species, it turns out, won’t nest if too many other birds of the same kind are in close proximity, and our yard was already maxed out in the bird box sense. It was on the verge of becoming urban crowding for the bird world.
He didn’t want to stop, though, so I suggested he gift his ongoing supply of nesting boxes to other people who adore our feathered companions as much as we do.
Gifting bird boxes, it turns out, wasn’t enough for him either, so he coined phase three of the project: building nest boxes and surreptitiously placing them in open spaces around town. This project morphed from his project to our project. I love the whole idea of guerilla habitat improvement. It reminds me of Miss Rumphius, the picture book I used to read to my daughter about the woman who planted lupine flowers across her community as a way to make the world more beautiful. With the fabulous Miss Alice Rumphius as my mentor, my husband and I placed our first nest box in a cottonwood tree in the open space behind our house— a perfect location for some habitat improvement. Next we plan to adorn unsuspecting trees in city parks, places where there are birds, but no habitat for cavity nesters to have a good tree hole in which to raise their young.
I don’t know what will happen in these guerilla locations, but I know what has happened in my back yard. With the water, seed, nesting fluff (a ball of wool offering for birds to line their nests) and 20 nest boxes, our yard has become a bird sanctuary, a back yard habitat where any bird is welcome and none is turned away.
We might not be saving the world with our bird boxes, but certainly some chickadees, wrens, titmice, and woodpeckers are enjoying a little extra help this spring in finding a place to raise their young.
I like to think that the bewick’s wren that died in the garage would be pleased.
The post Improving the World One Bird Box at a Time appeared first on Saving Wild.
April 17, 2017
Asian Elephants and the Man who is Saving Them
With more than eight hundred large tea estates and thousands of smaller tea gardens yielding more than seven hundred million pounds of black tea annually, Assam, India is the most productive tea-producing region in the world. The state is also home to more than 10 percent of the world’s remaining Asian elephants.
With an explosive human population and hardly any habitat available for a mega herbivore that requires six hundred pounds of food and one hundred gallons of water each day, the elephants of the region tend to congregate in what space is available: tea plantations.
Unfortunately, tea and elephants don’t mix.
Wild Asian Elephants in Apeejay tea garden.
“Tea plantations are death traps for elephants,” says Dr. Kushal Konwar Sarma, India’s beloved elephant doctor. “There’s not a blade of grass for them to eat. There are pesticides on the leaves, weedicides on the ground, and little or nothing for them to drink—and if there is any water, it is highly contaminated with harmful chemicals. There are trenches elephant calves often fall into and sagging electric lines.”
The Udalgari district of Assam is thought to have the highest rate of human-elephant conflict in the world. In this densely populated area, desperate and hungry elephants trample homes, raid rice paddy fields, and sometimes a stressed animal kills a person. For the elephants, the situation is no easier. They face an obstacle course of threats, including poisoning by pesticides, trenches, electrocution, and an overall loss of habitat.
Asian Elephants Revered
Elephants have an important role and a complex history in India, where they are revered as the incarnation of the elephant-headed god Lord Ganesha in the Hindu religion. Aside from the approximately five thousand to six thousand wild Asian elephants in Assam, and ten thousand in the region, there are an additional one thousand two hundred captive ones. Not only does Dr. Sarma look after and care for the majority of these captive elephants, but he often risks his life to save them—and to save villagers.
Restraining and treating aggressive elephants is a physically demanding task, but at age fifty-seven, Dr. Sarma shows no signs of slowing down. With his deep brown eyes, thick mustache, and baseball cap, there is youthfulness to the elephant doctor, who says that in his thirty- year career he has never taken off a weekend. Weekend highlights have included getting defecated on by an elephant to whom he was giving an enema, being covered in leeches as he hiked through forests to track a rogue, and, more than once, nearly getting killed—all to save elephants. While he could make a lot more money working full time with dogs and cats in an air-conditioned office, it is not money that motivates him.
“What elephants have done for me I could not repay in ten lifetimes. My heart is with the forest, with the land, with the people, and most of all, with the elephants, the last of the greatest creatures on earth. Without the elephants, I am nobody.”
Although deforestation and population growth go hand in hand, what Dr. Sarma would like most is for the remaining forests to be left untouched. “One should not just think of the forests as a source of livelihood, be it collecting fodder for animals, firewood for our kitchen fire or fireplace, and clearing the forest for cultivation and settlement,” he says. “We must think about the value of forests for our source of oxygen and water and for the very survival of all species on earth, and we must educate young people.”
**This excerpt about Dr. Sarma and his asian elephants is just one of the twenty stories of leading conservationists in my new book (co-authored with Janie Chodosh), Wild Lives. Take a look inside here:
The post Asian Elephants and the Man who is Saving Them appeared first on Saving Wild.
April 12, 2017
Nature Words Go Extinct – You won’t believe why
I recently attended a talk by eco warrior and nature words writer Terry Tempest Williams. Although she is a great speaker I can only remember one thing from the two-hour event.
About half way through her talk Terry told the audience that the following words have been removed from the new version of the Oxford Junior Dictionary:
Acorn, almond, apricot, ash
Beech, blackberry, bloom, bramble, buttercup
Carnation, cauliflower, cheetah, clover, colt, crocus
Dandelion
Fern, ferret, fungus
Gooseberry, goldfish
Herring
Ivy
Mint, monarch, minnow
Nectar
Otter, oyster
Panther, pelican, porcupine, porpoise, pasture, primrose
Raven
Thrush, tulip
Violet
Willow, weasel, wren
Removed. All these rich, alive, nature words…now gone.
Terry then told us that when the editor of the Dictionary was asked why these words were pulled out, the editor replied, “Because these words no longer have a role in our children’s childhood.”
I was stunned. And sad.
When we don’t have a word to describe something (or some being), doesn’t it make it easier to detach ourselves from it? Or not even have an awareness of that un-named ‘thing’ in the first place?
Without words for buttercup, panther and otter, won’t it be easier for our children, who are already struggling from nature deficit disorder, to never know a buttercup, panther or otter?
Mother and baby otter.
In what realm does a buttercup, panther or otter exist if there is no word to describe it?
Does the editor believe these words are no longer relevant for our children because she thinks these species are on the verge of extinction? Does she think by the time the children reading the Junior Dictionary reach adulthood that blackberries, porpoises and monarchs will no longer exist? Is her rationale: why bother learning the words of something that won’t be around much longer?
Does the dictionary editor think she is doing our children a favor? Does she believe that not having names for cheetah, pelican and wren will make our children less likely to notice when the last cheetah, pelican and wren leave this earth forever? Or when the last acorn, crocus and pasture get covered over? Will it make them less sad?
Nature Words Replaced
These are some of the words that have been newly added to the Oxford Junior Dictionary:
Allergic, analog
Boisterous, block
Conflict, chatroom, classified, compulsory, creep, cut & paste
Database, donate, dyslexic
MP3 player
Vandalism, voicemail
How long before the editors remove elephant, whale, bluebird and nature from our children’s “relevant” word list?
And what new words will replace those nature words?
The post Nature Words Go Extinct – You won’t believe why appeared first on Saving Wild.
April 4, 2017
When is Earth Day? Every Day.
When is Earth Day? This year it falls on April 22. It is a day to celebrate, praise and notice Mother Earth. A day to remember all she is, all she does, and all she gives. A reminder that without Mother Earth, none of us would be alive.
For Earth Day, and every day for that matter, go outside. Take some deep breaths. Soak up the sunlight. Taste the air on your tongue, feel the wind kiss your cheeks, let your bare feet meet the dirt, grass, and sand.
Go for a walk. Look, listen and smell the world around you. Engage all of your senses and notice what you often don’t. Notice the breathtaking display of flowers and bushes, grasses and trees – everywhere. Breathe in their scents. Notice the chirps, buzz and clicks of birds, insects, and squirrels. What are they saying? Notice the colors – every shade of every color, everywhere.
Say outloud, hello natural world, I see you.
And then try to comprehend the miraculous biodiversity of life. Try to imagine all that Mother Nature is, all that Mother Nature has and all that Mother Nature does for us. Really try to understand—reach and bend and stretch until your heart and mind are gaping.
Then celebrate her.
Kiss the trees. Dance in a meadow. Sing with the birds. Play in the dirt. Join the animals and the birds and the angels, the silent song of the flowers and trees in praise of her.
And honor her with a commitment to action.
Pick up litter, plant a garden, feed the birds, remove a fence, let a weed grow, let a raccoon share your patio, save a spider.
Let her know you are grateful…. So grateful.
Wish Mother Earth a happy Earth Day and make a promise that when people ask when is Earth Day, you will answer, “Every day!”
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March 31, 2017
Wild Lives
Wild Lives, Leading Conservationists on the Animals and Planet They Love.
Luckily for all of us, there are human superheroes. More than you know. More than you might think. More than you’d guess. And when a species doesn’t go extinct, when birds still migrate, where giraffes still run and lions still rule and elephants continue trumpeting to the sky—it’s because of them.
It’s because of them that many whales once near extinction are now common again in some parts of the ocean, and falcons are back and eagles soar in greater numbers and wolves again roam where they were missing for a hundred years. Only a super human could do that. And they have. That’s what they do, and they’re doing it at this very moment.
So get ready. You’re going to meet them in Wild Lives. *
Wild Lives is a compilation of the personal stories of twenty leading conservationists across the globe. Some of the people in Wild Lives have been thrown in jail and thrown out of countries, are hated by hunters and hunted by rebels. They work in some of the remotest areas in the world, in all kinds of weather. They have used sea ice for a pillow, been charged by elephants and buffalo, bitten by snakes, and chased by rhino. “I can’t even recall how many times I’ve had malaria or nearly died,” says Dereck Joubert. All of them are breaking boundaries, trying new ways of doing things, and challenging the status quo, such as Yossi Leshem, using birds to bring peace in the Middle East; Farwiza Farhan, speaking out against corporations to save the Leuser Ecosystem; and Megan Parker, training dogs to stop poachers.
Wild Lives is devoted to the notion that conservation can, does, and will work. This book is for everyone who has a passion for saving wildlife and wild places.
Thomas Lovejoy believes if something is not yet gone, it can still be saved. We are facing a dark time, but as Mike Chase reminds us, like the twenty human super heroes in Wild Lives, we must all be stubborn optimists; otherwise we all lose.
Buy Wild Lives before April 18th on Amazon for the pre-order price ($7 less than retail).
Love, Lori R
*Excerpt from the foreword by Carl Safina for Wild Lives.
Featured photo is Mike Chase. Photo credit Kelly Landen from Elephants Without Borders.
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March 1, 2017
Wildlife Day
Although we here at SavingWild.com celebrate and work towards protecting animals every day of the year, designating a wildlife day for one species, or a group of animals – as in Endangered Species Day or International Primate Day – has become popular. It’s a day to focus your efforts, collaborate with others who share your love for a particular species, and for the animal to get extra worldwide attention on the plight of their species.
What does it take to start a day in honor of a species? Sometimes the celebrated day is a social media event started by a passionate individual like yourself. In other cases it is a more formal affair. For instance beekeepers in the USA petitioned the United States Department of Agriculture in 2009 for an official day (August 20th) for honey bees.
The list below includes the days celebrating wildlife, but not the weeks that are sometimes designated – as the third week in September for Sea Otter Awareness Week.
Although a designated day, or a week a year, for wildlife is a good thing, our goal here at SavingWild.com is for every animal to be celebrated, respected, and acknowledged as an equally important part of the ecosystem, and our lives, EVERYDAY of the year.
LIST OF WILDLIFE DAY DESIGNATIONS
January 5 National Bird Day
January 31 International Zebra Day
February 27 International Polar Bear Day
March 3 World Wildlife Day http://www.wildlifeday.org
March 14 National Learn About Butterflies Day
May 4 Bird Day
May 13 International Bird Day
May 20 Endangered Species Day
June 21 World Giraffe Day
July 28 International Tiger Day
August 10 World Lion Day
August 12 World Elephant Day
August 13 International Wolf Day
August 20 World Honey Bee Day
August 26 Mountain Lion Day
August 27 Dog Day
September 1 International Primate Day
September 21 Rhino Day
October 1 Raccoon Appreciation Day
October 4 World Animal Day
October 23 International Snow Leopard Day
November (1st Saturday) National Bison Day
December 4 International Cheetah Day
December 4 International Wildlife Conservation Day
I hope you will let me know in the comments below of any dates I am missing on this wildlife day list.
*Featured photo by Henry Holdsworth, Wild by Nature Gallery
The post Wildlife Day appeared first on Saving Wild.
February 20, 2017
The Best Wildlife Blogs
In the world of wildlife blogs SavingWild.com is lonely.
You can find hundreds of blogs about cooking, fashion, and makeup. But try finding even a dozen good wildlife blogs. Believe me, there aren’t that many.
That’s why I decided to highlight my favorite wildlife blogs for you. I went searching so you don’t have to. My list includes wildlife blogs I have been following for quite a while and some I collaborate with.
I love them each for different reasons.
Five of my Favorite Wildlife Blogs
My Green World
Based in Australia, the founder of My Green World is Natalie Kyriacou. She is a powerhouse herself having won awards for being among the young movers and shakers in conservation. I love her blog, not just because she interviewed me and SavingWild is a partner, but because she covers a wide variety of topics that are written well.
Read it for great coverage on timely topics.
The blog from one of America’s largest wildlife NGOs. Super informative about issues facing wildlife across this country.
Read it for their weekly wildlife news wrap up.
They have been my favorite magazine for years. They have gone from a paper edition to an online magazine and years ago when they started their blog I was thrilled that they asked me to write for them. When my book Saving Wild came out they did a feature in their typical style of amazing photos and great editorials. As their name implies their coverage focuses on Africa.
Read it for information about Africa and for amazing photos of wildlife.
4. The Featured Creature
When Featured Creature reached out to me to be a guest blogger on SavingWild.com I was curious. I love what they do, highlighting all the beings (creatures) in the world, especially those that are most over-looked, for their magnificence, intrigue, beauty and strangeness.
Read it for weird facts.
For the latest news and emerging stories about the natural world go to Earth Touch News Network. Their writers, filmmakers and other contributors from across the globe bring you closer to the most urgent conservation issues of our time, and show you just how fun and fascinating the natural world can be.
Read it for latest news.
and SavingWild.com
Of course if I weren’t the one writing this I would include SavingWild.com in this list of best wildlife blogs. 
December 16, 2016
Magic in Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge [video]
The holiday ritual in the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge, here in New Mexico, is a spectacular gathering of sandhill cranes and snow geese. They appear en masse this time of year, ambassadors for wild things and wild places. Their numbers, about 10,000 of each species, is a reminder of what we have lost and what is at stake.
The birds fly in from Canada and the Northern plains of America. They will spend the cold months of November-March here in the Bosque eating grains, grubbing for insects and causing awe for the thousands of visitors that come to see them. They will stay until the weather changes in February.
The first time I ever heard a sandhill crane’s rattling call I was walking along a snowy road in the Teton National Park. The sound was strange, and very ancient. I strained my neck following a group of three cranes – thin slate gray silhouettes of six foot wing spans – against the winter clouds. Their calls faded out but imprinted upon me a wish for more.
Today my wish was granted, and surpassed.
Within two days of posting these videos on Face Book they had been viewed 2,200 times with comments like: breathtaking, gave me goose bumps, beautiful.
Experiencing these birds in the Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge was the best holiday gift I could have imagined and I want to share it with you.
Enjoy the two short videos and then share the magic.
Photos by Tim Mayo
Videos by Suzy Godsey
The post Magic in Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge [video] appeared first on Saving Wild.
November 30, 2016
Jane Goodall: An Insiders View
Working for Jane Goodall was 27 year-old Jacob Petersen’s dream job for as long as he can remember. And four years ago that dream became reality. As Dr. Goodall’s liaison, office of the founder, Jacob handles all the logistics for Jane’s lecture tours in the USA and travels with her several months each year during her spring and fall tours.
I talked to Jacob about what it’s like to work for the most famous animal advocate in the world. How did he get the job, what is Jane Goodall really like, and what has he learned from his famous boss?
Read on for his answers.
Q: How did you get this job?
That is the question I most often get asked when I’m on the road with Jane. I, like many other people, grew up loving, and wanting to be, Jane Goodall. I wanted to go to Africa and study animals. But after taking Biology and Math I realized I didn’t want to do field work.
Since the time I was in high school I would check the Jane Goodall Institute’s (JGI) website to see if there were any job openings. It was discouraging because the vacancies were usually high-level positions requiring degrees and work experience that I didn’t have.
Four years ago I was working in Los Angels and saw a post about the job I now have. I applied.
I was so nervous about interviewing with Jane (I had never even seen or met her in person) so I was relieved when a planned Skype interview with her got cancelled due to her schedule. But I got the job anyway. I had 2 weeks to move from LA to Washington D.C.
And then immediately I went on my first lecture tour with Jane. It was the busiest and craziest tour we have had in the four years I’ve been here. We were in a new place about every three days, and Jane did 15+ lectures during that two-month stint.
Q: What was it like to finally meet Jane Goodall in person after all those years?
I met her for the first time during a lecture she was doing in Ohio. I was with other staff members from the organization in her hotel room. I was sitting across from her and I was super nervous. We ate desert and hung out talking and I realized that this hero of mine who I had on a pedestal all my life is also a normal person.
Q: What are the most important things you have learned from Dr. Jane?
I have met a lot of celebrities (from working with Jane) and have never met anyone as amazing as her.
I have learned so much from being around her.
She is incredibly patient and detailed in all aspects of her life. She doesn’t rush through things, and she is a great observer of all that is going on around her.
Jane Goodall is a person who walks her talk.
She believes even small choices can have a huge impact, so she is doing everything she can to use and waste the least amount possible.
She is very aware that she flies a lot (300 days a year on average) and so she tries to constantly counteract that carbon footprint. On the road she is conscious about what she packs (the weight of it), and keeps her wardrobe basic, versatile and timeless.
She is a vegetarian.
In her hotel rooms she turns off the AC, uses only one trash can, reuses the toiletries, puts extra pillows and linens in the closet and leaves notes for the maids so they know when something doesn’t need to be cleaned.
I love that even though she is so famous and people recognize her wherever we go, she is still humble and approachable. In airports she will stop and talk to strangers and many times my colleague and I have to say, ‘we are going to miss our flight, we have to go’.
She is loving and caring. She has a lot of friends, family, and employees who mean so much to her. Despite having the busiest schedule of anyone I know, she will reach out to write an email to ask: How is your dog, How are you?
She is totally focused on her cause.
Q: How is this employer/employee relationship different?
Working for the founder is a very personal relationship. She is my boss yes, but she is also a mentor, a friend, and a grandmother figure. She has met my dog Theodore, my partner, and my family. She is part of my life beyond the standard workday.
Q: Thank you Jacob. It truly does sound like you have found your dream job working for your childhood hero, Jane Goodall.
Jacob and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Lots of Love,
Lori
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November 27, 2016
Make Your Giving Count, #GivingTuesday
Most charitable giving is done between now and the end of the year. In fact, November 29th is the global day for giving- #GivingTuesday.
That’s why I’m posting this – my top choices for wildlife donations. I want to make it easy for you to give.
Some of the best work in wildlife conservation is done by small organizations. Many are understaffed, overworked and short on funds. They are also hard to donate to. They often aren’t set up for international donations, and sometimes don’t even have non-profit status.
But there is a way to donate to them.
The easiest way to get funds to those smaller organizations is by giving your donations to Saving Wild. I will match all donations personally. Then I will do what it takes to get the money to those smaller organizations, the places it is needed most.
For an example of the unsung heroes and small organizations I am talking about check out this story I did for Africa Geographic magazine highlighting ten of my favorites.
Then, donate to SavingWild here:
If you have a bigger heart than bank account, and you shop on Amazon, here is another, easy way to help. Use Saving Wild’s Amazon link (copy it to your desk top or bookmark it) every time you shop on Amazon.
A small % of the proceeds will go to Saving Wild to donate to the smaller organizations. Every dime counts for these unsung organizations. That’s another reason I love them.
If, instead, you like giving to the larger organizations that are doing great work and are easy to donate to, here are seven (working in the USA and around the world) of my favorites.
National Audubon Society (Birds)
Audubon’s mission is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.
Wild Aid (Illegal Wildlife Trade)
Wild Aid is the only organization focused on reducing the demand for wildlife parts and products, with the strong and simple message: when the buying stops, the killing can too. Their mission is to end illegal wildlife trade.
Land Trust Alliance (Wild Places)
The Alliance brings its more than 1,100 member land trusts together — and increases each one’s success by advocating for the policies and incentives that it takes to save millions of acres every year.
Panthera (Cats)
Dedicated to conserving the world’s 36 species of wild cats, Panthera partners with local and international scientific institutions, communities, non-governmental organizations and government agencies to conserve endangered wild cats, including tigers, lions, jaguars, and snow leopards around the world.
The Great Apes Survival Partnership (Apes)
GRASP is an innovative and ambitious partnership comprised of great ape range states faced with an immediate challenge: to lift the threat of imminent extinction faced by gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans across their ranges in Equatorial Africa and Southeast Asia.
6. International Fund for Animal Welfare (all encompassing)
Founded in1969 and now with projects in more than 40 countries including China this organization seems to have no boundaries for it’s mission to save individual animals, animal populations and habitats all over the world.
7. Defenders of Wildlife (imperiled species in USA)
Defenders’ approach is direct and straightforward – they “protect and restore imperiled species throughout North America by transforming policies and institutions and promoting innovative solutions” –making a lasting difference for wildlife and its habitats.
Make your giving count!
Lori
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