Monthly Archives: April 2013

Second Semester Blog Portfolio

Civic Issues:

For my civic issues blogs, I chose to discuss sustainability because I am very passionate about this topic. I think that the Earth is truly our most precious resource. Too many people live their everyday lives without even noticing the effects humans have on the planet. It is almost scary to think that some individuals don’t realize that we depend on the earth for literally everything we need, and if it is damaged beyond repair, the human race will cease to exist. It is therefore hugely important for us to stop the actions that harm our planet and instead work to live more cohesively with the natural elements of Planet Earth.

Sustainable Living

A “Green” Diet

Go Green for Spring!

Vegetarianism

Passion Blog:

Meerkat Madness

I chose to write about Meerkats mostly because I think they’re such a cool animal.  I remember watching Meerkat Manor on PBS when I was younger, and I was always so amazed at how smart and cooperative the little critters were.

A Word to the Wise

Owls have, for centuries, represented wisdom. The majestic creatures are found worldwide, and their brilliance is something I have always admired.

Proud as a Peacock

“Peacock” is actually not a breed of animal – the word only describes male Peafowl. Females look completely different from the common image of the bird, but the male’s vibrant array of colors is what give’s it so much attention. I always love a bit of drama, so it’s no surprise that this bird is one of my favorite!

You Think I’m Cute?! Get Otter Here!

As I wrote my passion blogs, I realized my love of animals may in fact be due to the amount of children’s shows with animal characters. Otters were HUGELY present in one of my favorite children’s shows, PB&J Otter. The real-life otters are just as cool as the pack of cartoon otters who lived on a boat.

Lovable Lions

Who doesn’t get chills watching a lion with a huge mane let out a roar? I know I do. Plus, female lions pretty much rule everything in the wild, and I can’t think of anything better than Female Domination.

The Tortoise

When I was little, I went snorkeling in the open waters near Turks and Caicos, and I was instantly calmed when I saw a huge Sea Turtle smiling at me. Ever since, I’ve been in love with all things turtles. And, as one of the longest living animals (some up to 150 years) it’s pretty cool to realize that tortoises will probably see way more decades than most humans.

Vegetarianism

For my final civic issues blog, I plan to educate all of you on the wonders of vegetarian living. Now, let me be perfectly clear: I’m not a vegetarian, and I’m not going to tell you to be one either. However, the environment strongly benefits from a vegetarian diet, so what I will suggest is that you consider taking steps each day to reduce your consumption of meat (or increase your consumption of vegetables, fruits and grains).

The trend is actually spreading, and “Meatless Mondays” are becoming a common occurrence. But why?

First of all, as a nation, Americans consume WAY more animal-based products than just about any other country in the world. In fact, individuals in North America currently consume ten times more animal protein than necessary for a complete nutritional diet. If everyone ate the way Americans do, we would need about five planets just to keep up. The reason for this comes in the steps required for food to be produced. A meat-based diet requires up to ten times the land area to feed someone relative to a plant-based diet. This is because rather than growing something and eating it, a meat-based diet requires farmers to grow something (grain, for example), feed it to something else (maybe a chicken) which lives on a whole other area of land, and then take that something (still the chicken) and feed it to someone else (us). The extra step requires a huge portion of land mass not necessary to produce plants. This contributes to increased expansion and utilization of natural resources. In fact, a significant portion of the 13 million hectares of tropical forest lost each year goes to land for animals or for producing animal feed.

Another problem stems from how some animals are caught for food. Let’s take shrimp, for example. In order to catch shrimp, or really any other type of marine animal for that matter, huge nets are cast into the ocean. These nets pull up the target species, but they also bring up many others. In fact, up to ten pounds of fish are destroyed in catching each pound of shrimp. Nets for catching shrimp and other fish are also responsible for injuring thousands of turtles and dolphins each year.

Eating a completely meat-based diet, especially one of a typical American size, has several detrimental effects on the earth. Even if one is not concerned with animal welfare, there are clearly many reasons to reduce the consumption of animal-based products. Even by switching the types of animal-based products you eat, you can help the environment. The Monterey Bay Aquarium posts best seafood buying practices on their Seafood Watch web site. The Environmental Defense’s list of the best food to choose and the types to avoid is also available.

Just by altering your diet a little bit – not eating meat one day a week or switching from shrimp to scallops – you can help to increase sustainability of our Earth and its resources.

http://www.conservation.org/act/simplesteps/green_home/Pages/eat_lower.aspx

South African Penguins

The closest relatives of the South African Penguins are the Humboldt and Magellanic Penguins, and all are found near or south of the equator. South African Penguins are found on the southwestern coast of Africa, but they live in colonies on 24 islands in colonies. These colonies are suitable habitats for African Penguins because they lay their eggs on rocky and sandy coastal islands, but they need close shores to hunt in the nutrient-rich cold waters.

South African Penguins have several natural predators, including sharks, seals and killer whales. Land-based enemies include mongoose, genet and even cats and dogs. Additionally, Kelp Gulls often steal the eggs and newborn chicks of African Penguins.

Unlike many wild animals, South African Penguins are one of the only few species to mate for life. The animals begin mating between 2 and 6 years of age, and the lifelong partners take turns caring for the chicks and protecting the eggs. Sometimes, the partners return to the same colony and even the same nest year after year to lay eggs and raise their young. After chicks are hatched, they are under constant watch by their parents, and at about 30 days old, both the chicks and parents can go to sea together. Sometimes, chicks stay on the beach, but form groups called creches to reduce attacks on chicks.

African Penguins typically live 10-15 years in the wild. They may travel a great distance for their food, possible up to 110 km. They can swim about 7 km/hour and can reach maximum speeds of about 20 km/hour. When they dive for fish, their average dives last about two and a half minutes. Typically, these dives are about 30 m deep, but dives as deep as 130 m have been recorded.

b1a7ef0b42cfb2cd6bedd098efbb-473x315

Greg-Henry-Denver-Zoo_

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_penguin

http://www.penguins.cl/african-penguins.htm

http://www.neaq.org/animals_and_exhibits/animals/african_penguin/index.php

http://blog.goodosphere.com/?p=723

http://www.citynews.ca/2012/03/09/baby-penguin-born-at-toronto-zoo/

 

 

 

Advocacy Project

My advocacy project is now complete. I chose to create a brief video detailing simple changes that college students can make every day in order to influence the environment in a positive way. My video will be posted on the Penn State EcoReps website, and it will be accessible to anyone who goes to the web page. Since I was addressing college students, I made the video short and humorous in order to keep attention throughout the entire video.

This makes my video more effective because it keeps attention on the subject while entertaining individuals at the same time. The lessons are more likely to stick with the audience in this way.

College students have the ability to catalyze great change, and since they live in such close knit communities, it is possible for this change to spread very quickly. Additionally, college students go on to get jobs and have families who they can teach environmentally-friendly habits. Educating young individuals on environmentally-friendly habits creates a mass of people who can implement their knowledge for the rest of their lives. They are also more susceptible to changing environments. They adjusted their environments when they moved to college, and adjust it every year after when they get an apartment or move in with new people. It is often much easier to change the habits of young , malleable individuals than it is to influence older people who are stuck in their ways.

For all of these reasons, I think I was able to create a very effective advocacy project, and I hope many people watch the video and change to be more environmentally friendly!

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax

Mountain Lions

6a00d8341c630a53ef011278fa147428a4-800wi

Technically, the mountain lion is classified as a “small” cat based on its tendency to purr instead of roar, but the cat is still a fierce predator that can be found from Canada to southern South America in forests, prairies, deserts and swamps. A subspecies of the mountain lion is even found in the swaps of Florida, but the subspecies is extremely endangered and only around 50 cats remain.

Mountain lions all have slender frames and a flexible spine. Their color varies based on their home climate: reddish brown cats live in warm climates while cats with grey, longer hair are found in colder environments. Like most cat species, males weigh more than females do, and all cats have strong hind legs that give them the muscles needed to pounce on prey. Consequently, mountain lions tend to kill by surprising prey with a fierce jump. The animals commonly hunt deer, raccoons, rabbits, and squirrels, but they may sometimes attempt to take down a larger animal, like a moose. The mountain lions may even bury part of their food after a kill to save it for later.

Unlike some cat species, mountain lions are solitary. Each cat has its own home range which may overlap, but cats tend not to interact. They instead communicate their presence through scent marks, scratches in trees or by letting out a “call,” that is similar to a high-pitched whistle. The cats are most active around dusk, and find shelter all over their home ranges – from caves to thick brush.

One to six mountain lion cubs are born at a time and are cared for by their mothers. They are born with spots, which help to hide them from predators, but the spots fade when the cubs are about six months old and learn to hunt. Although they cannot hunt until six months of age, they can eat meat at about six weeks. The cubs will go off on their own between a year and 18 months of age.

Here is a video of mountain lions at the Cincinnati Zoo!

http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/mountain-lion-puma-cougar

Advocacy Project For Real

I have finally figured out a game plan for my advocacy project! This is exciting because this time last week I had actually no idea what I was going to do.

My persuasive essay was written about the importance of zoo’s for various reasons, and it was written to persuade corporations to create mutually beneficial relationships with zoos through the creation of corporate sponsorships or advertising campaigns. This is a great, untapped market for corporations, but it also helps the zoo to obtain funds that are not directly from the government.

An advocacy on this exact same topic could be difficult, because I don’t really have any ways to directly contact corporations and I’m not sure how I could turn my essay directly into a multimedia project or something of the sort, so I slightly altered my topic for the advocacy project.

One of the major benefits of a zoo is that it provides a place where conservation of animals can occur. More and more animals are being classified as “threatened” or “endangered” as the human population increases and we expand to cover more of the globe. Animal habitats are lost due to development or utilization of resources for housewares, and so on.

For my advocacy project, I am going to make a mixed multimedia project (some like a Ted Talk and others like an iMovie) addressing the everyday Penn State Student. I plan on discussing the issues of loss of animal habitat as well as several simple things that people can do every single day to help slow the rate at which these habitats are being destroyed. I am going to get my project “out there” by posting it on the EcoReps website at Penn State. Luckily, Shqiponja runs the website and offered to post the video for me!

Hopefully, this will “advocate” to the public easy ways that they can make a difference in the world. Since Penn State is literally HUGE, if everyone adopted only one simple change, the effect could be great.

Proud as a Peacock

I don’t know if you really count peacocks as cute, but I think they’re beautiful and super interesting sooooo. They’re in the blog.

Although most people think that “peacock” is the name of the species of bird, the word actually only describes the males. The whole species is referred to as peafowl, and the birds are members of the pheasant family. Just so you know, females are referred to as peahens (they aren’t nearly as colorful as peacocks because they must blend in with brush to keep their eggs safe) and babies are called peachicks (not chickpeas).  There are three types of peafowl that can be found in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and Africa, but most people are familiar with the Indian peafowl, which is the breed that is most likely to be seen in zoos. In the wild, peafowl may live in open or rain forests.

The peacock is most famous for his train, and the oldest peacocks – those that have survived the longest in the wild and are therefore better suited evolutionarily to mate – tend to have the longest trains. Because that’s what all that fuss is for! Attracting the ladies. The long feathers are actually not the peacock’s tail – they cover the base of the tail. Normally, a peacock’s train drags on the ground behind him, but when he is trying to attract a male, he lifts up his train by propping it up on the shorter base feathers. The train can span seven feet across by three feet tall in peacocks that are about six years old. To put on a real show, the peacock can quiver, which makes his feathers shimmer. And, just because I know you’re dying to know, those little round dots on the tail that look like eyes are called ocelli.

While you may think that peacock trains make them more susceptible to predator attacks (mongooses, leopards and tigers all attack the birds), when a predator catches the peacock tail, the feathers easily fall out and the bird can fly away. Plus, peacock’s are famous for their loud calls which easily alert other animal species of a predator in the area.

Peahens are (yet again) responsible for raising their children all on their own. They sit on their eggs for about four weeks, but as soon as the peachicks hatch, they are able to walk around and forage. They are not, however, able to fend for themselves and they can’t even fly to the safety of a tree to roost until they are about two weeks old. By two months, the peachicks – male and female – look just like their momma.

Okay, that’s probably enough about peacocks, peafowl and peachicks. Here are some videos!

http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/peafowl