Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Miniscule, yet Mighty?

It never ceases to amaze me that there is someone out there

somewhere ...
Photo of Earth by NASA / Wikimedia
right NOW

who is working for a cause so small

that the world-at-large knows nothing about it,

yet so daunting

that even if we did, we might dismiss it as hopeless. 

Take, for example, efforts to save the most endangered animals on earth. As their populations dwindle to less than the sum of the numbers on our iPhone keypads, is there really any hope left?

The optimists among us shout, "Yes!" 

And they're not going down without a fight.

Learn how you can support conservation organizations that are striving to save 10 of the planet's most endangered animals HERE


Sunday, November 4, 2012

Taking Sides

As I mentioned in my last post, euthanasia (or "zoothanasia" as some call it) is a population management strategy used by many of the world's zoos. 

A mother cheetah with cubs in the wild.
Photo by Siddharth Maheshwari (CC-BY-SA-3.0) / Wikimedia

In short, animals are allowed to breed and raise their young as per nature, but then the offspring are killed when they hit puberty.

Hard to imagine here in the U.S., where we often rally around the individual at all costs. Zoos in Europe, however, argue that euthanasia is a kinder approach to raising wildlife in captivity while maintaining the genetic integrity of entire species. 

Learn more about both sides of the dilemma HERE.