Green Options

A day at the zoo brings back classic kiddie flashbacks for just about everyone. Who doesn’t remember an afternoon of lions, tigers and bears? But – oh my – as our eco savvy radar grows savvier over the years, the zoo experience can be a bit of a conundrum: How can we justify the variety of issues zoos bring to the plate – from cages to carbon footprints – for today’s world?

One approach: Select your zoo destination carefully and make a conscious effort to make your experience as green and educational as possible. One suggestion:

Head for the San Diego Zoo. Sure, the San Diego Zoo has been heralded as a zoological leader for decades and remains a southern California pillar of tourism. But there are reasons for that as the San Diego Zoo keeps redefining and reinventing the zoo experience. With a dash of educational effort, your family zoo outing can evolve to an inspiring environmental educational experience.

At their core level, the San Diego Zoo – like other zoos – bring a global array of animals directly in front of one’s eyes. Kids naturally form a magical connection with animals – the challenge is how to further this fascination into a lifelong habit of stewarding the planet and taking the conservation message to heart. The San Diego Zoo offers various approaches to do just that, as my family and I experienced during a recent trip to sunny southern California, escaping the Wisconsin winter back on our farm.

Here’s four tips from our San Diego Zoo outing on greening your zoo experience with kids:

1. Prep Beforehand
A dash of preparation beforehand can significantly enhance the zoo experience.

British conservationists are ecstatic over what they hope is the return of the Large Tortoiseshell butterfly, thought to be extinct in Britain. The butterfly, once common, dwindled in numbers in the early twentieth century to the point where it disappeared entirely.

Some experts fear that sightings of the Large Tortoiseshell may in fact be of migrants from mainland Europe (where the butterfly is still common), or of escaped specimens from breeders. Conservationists, however, are hopeful that the butterfly is breeding again in England.

Climate change and habitat loss blamed as eight more species join the seriously endangered list

Three baby hedgehogs.

The hedgehog, water vole and hazel dormouse are among a number of British mammals that face becoming seriously endangered, research published today reveals.

Climate change and habitat loss have led to a dramatic increase in the number of mammals whose future survival is a cause for concern among conservationists, the study commissioned by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species concludes. The Bechstein’s bat, one of the country’s rarest mammals, has shown a marked decline while the number of soprano pipistrelle bats has fallen by 46% in six years.

The report, the seventh annual assessment of the state of land mammals in Britain, says that more effort is needed to help the endangered species, which now number 18 - more than 30% of Britain’s mammal species - up from 10 last year. Only two species on the UK Biodiversity Action Plan list, the otter and the lesser horseshoe bat, have increased their numbers.

Most scientists are now in agreement that global warming is happening, and that, in the not too distant future, we may all have to get used to living in a world of mass species exctinctions, population explosion, resource scarcity and rising oceans. The question on many people’s lips is, how will mankind adapt to this drastically different future world?

One possible solution to this dilemma has come from a collective of New York based artists, who have proposed a mass shift towards a waterborne, nomadic existence. In May 2009, the team will launch a new work called Waterpod, a floating eco-habitat designed to support a fully sustainable community (more pics after the jump).

“Long ago, when tigers smoked long pipes… ” begin folk tales in South Korea. The stories recall a time at the farthest reaches of living memory when Korean tigers, the world’s largest cats, still prowled the Korean peninsula.

Korea’s national creation myth also tells of a tiger and a bear who asked the son of the ruler of Heaven if he would make them human. He agreed, but only if they could endure 100 days in a cave eating nothing but garlic and mugwort. The steadfast bear endured and became a beautiful woman, who gave birth to Tangun, the legendary father of Korea in 2333 BCE. But the tiger grew hungry and impatient. He left the cave early, unable cope with the hunger and waiting, and has been slinking through the Korean mountains ever since.

That is, until the last century when hunting and habitat loss pushed the Korean tiger over the brink of extinction in the wild in South Korea. With it went an important symbol of Korea’s identity.

Once severely endangered, elephants in South Africa now thrive, causing some to worry that their population could threaten smaller species.

While some are calling to reinstate culling of elephants for the first time since 1994, other conservationists worry that the effects of killing elephants run deeper than we understand.

In 1900, the elephant population sunk to only 200 due to hunting; now, the population is estimated to be 17,000. This soaring number combined with their individual demand for feed can result in over-grazing, which hurts the rhinoceros and gazelle populations first.

When winter’s frigid weather rolls in (or “crashes down” might be more appropriate), we humans have the ability to head inside into comfy little dens stockpiled with plenty of food and kept snugly warm by various measures. Things are much harder on the various critters forced to endure the cold, the precipitation, and the widespread dearth of edibles in this “dead” season.

Winter is the perfect time, then, for you to practice a little cold-weather kindness by helping wildlife make it through these dark, grim days when survival is a constant challenge. With a little planning and effort, you can make your entire yard into an oasis in the icy desert, a shelter from the freezing storm, a larder filled with sustaining, tasty tidbits.

Here are some of the best methods for making your homeplace a wildlife-friendly winter habitat:

1. Keep your birdfeeders full and spread extra seed on the ground. Feeder birds are still plentiful in winter and will need the easily accessible, highly nourishing (and fattening) seeds available in birdfeeders. But if you spread some seed on the ground, too, you will ensure that birds and other critters (including squirrels, like it or not) get something to eat as well. Many winter birds will not venture up to the feeder itself; examples include sparrows of all sorts, juncos, and towhees, which are a joy to watch as they scratch and kick in snow or leaves to find little bits to eat.
2. Drop extra-special winter treats around your yard. For example, smear peanut butter in pine cones and hang them up or just throw them about. Dried corn cobs (with kernels, of course) will feed squirrels, deer, and some birds. Suet is a favorite of woodpeckers and other birds–and squirrels, if you let them get to it.

An endangered giant African bat has been spotted again in swelled numbers by conservationists who think it may have emerged from near extinction.

Under the constant watch of environmental conservation groups for more than two decades, the fruit bat with a wing span of almost 6 feet wide has faced numerous odds to recover its numbers which now stand at a remarkable 22,000, according to a newly released research finding.

On Monday, the Bush administration proposed a policy that threatens to weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to the point of extinction. This comes as no surprise. Like the war in Iraq, removing the fetters of environmental protection has been an administrational goal since 2001. Unlike the war in Iraq, this time Bush and his cronies could very well succeed.

Few places on Earth are as untouched as the "Crown of the Continent" — a 10-million-acre expanse of mountains, valleys and prairies in Montana and Canada. The area has sustained all the same species — including grizzlies, lynx, moose and bull trout — for at least 200 years.

Now — in one of the most significant conservation sales in history — The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land have preserved 320,000 acres of forestlands in western Montana

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I remember vividly the sight of my dad running for cover, making slow groaning sounds, thrashing wildly at the air like some madman from a B-movie.

I was a mere toddler, blanket in one hand, thumb in mouth (think Linus) - wondering what all the fuss was about.

It was dusk and the bats were out, darting this way and that, catching insects as the summer’s sun slid from view, leaving that beautiful blue light before darkness descends.

I shrugged in an awfully precocious manner, looked at mummy, then turned my eyes back to the bats.

And today, Defra (the UK’s Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs) have announced that bats are to be used to help measure the biodiversity of the UK.