click to donate free food to animals rescued in japan

FreeKibble donates pet food to animal shelters all over the world. You answer trivia questions, and right or wrong, your click provides 10 pieces of kibble to a homeless animal.

Today, all the food donated through FreeKibble will go to animal rescue efforts in Japan.

Click now! It's free, and the more you click, the more food is donated.

(And don't forget to test your vocabulary and support the World Food Programme by clicking on FreeRice.)

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trying to save wolves, close the tar sands, and not lose hope

Of all the email alerts I get about various important causes, I find the updates from NRDC's Save Biogems the most alarming and depressing. Taken together, the subject lines read like chapters in a book entitled "How Humans Are Killing the Planet". Or, more accurately, "How Capitalism is Killing the Planet, since, globally, most humans are the victims, not the culprits, of these crimes.

Sitting in my inbox from NRDC from the last few weeks: mountaintop removal, the continuing war on wolves, tar sands, polar bears, oil and gas exploitation of the Rocky Mountains, energy exploitation in Patagonia. Of course the emails all contain action alerts, easy clicks to contact representatives, speak out and donate. But with energy and financial interests controlling the governments of the world's major nations, it's difficult to feel hopeful.

Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre, Ontario, 2009

I haven't posted any updates about the terrible situation regarding wolves in a while. After an excellent ruling in August which restored federal protection for the gray wolf, wolves in the US are once again threatened by "delisting" - removal from the endangered species list. This time it's something called the "Northern Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf Recovery and Sustainability Act of 2010," known as the Baucus-Tester bill, sponsored senators from Idaho and Montana. If passed, the bill would sidestep that positive ruling, strip wolves of federal protection and throw wolf "management" back to the states. That will almost certainly translate into mass wolf kills in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

The Baucus-Tester bill is being heavily lobbied; many senators who appear to care about the environment are expected to vote for it. If you're in the US or have friends who are, you can help by contacting your senators or circulating this link: go here. If you can't participate in the campaign, but you love wolves as I do - or if you simply care about wildlife - click through for info and some great photos.

Readers on both sides of the Canada-US border can raise their voices against the tar sands expansion that threatens millions of migratory birds.

All four major flyways in North America -- the aerial migration routes traveled by billions of birds each year -- converge in one spot in Canada's boreal forest, the Peace-Athabasca Delta in northeastern Alberta. More than 1 million birds, including tundra swans, snow geese and countless ducks, stop to rest and gather strength in these undisturbed wetlands each autumn. For many waterfowl, this area is their only nesting ground.

U.S. demand for tar sands oil is causing Canada to ramp up tar sands oil extraction in the boreal forest just south of the Peace-Athabasca Delta, including sites upstream on the Athabasca River. Water extracted for tar sands mining could reduce flow into the delta, killing fish -- a food source for birds -- and disturbing habitat. Wastewater discharge could also contaminate the river, creating a toxic food web and leading to reproductive problems in wildlife. In 2008, 1,600 ducks died after landing in a tar sands waste pond.

Tar sands oil development also contributes to global warming, which is reducing ecologically important flooding in the delta. A number of developments are threatening the Peace-Athabasca Delta, including the Bennett Dam on the Peace River. Tar sands oil extraction exemplifies how our addiction to oil is causing loss of critical bird habitat in the delta and throughout Alberta’s boreal forests and wetlands.

The U.S. State Department is on the brink of approving a new trans-boundary pipeline that would bring tar sands oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast, leading to additional mining and drilling for tar sands oil in the boreal forest. NRDC and our BioGems Defenders are fighting to stop the expansion of tar sands oil extraction and to protect bird habitat in the boreal forest. We are calling on the State Department to say No to new tar sands pipelines in the United States and encouraging a switch to cleaner forms of energy production that would reduce global warming and protect North America's last great forests.

In the US, click here to contact representatives about the tar sands pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, 2008

In Canada, one of the best groups fighting tar sands expansion is the Indigenous Environmental Network. I've heard Clayton Thomas-Muller, who chairs the IEN's Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign, speak a few times. The group makes clear the connections among human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, labour conditions and the health of the planet. More information on the campaign here.

The Council of Canadians is another group leading the fight against tar sands expansion; their tar sands section is here.

* * * *

It's hard for me to feel hopeful about these issues. The interests we're up against are so huge and so powerful. I need to remember a story I heard Thomas-Muller tell earlier this year. I'm sure some of you have heard this before, but it was new to me.*

The blue whale is the largest animal on earth. It's so large that it can take 10 minutes to turn 180 degrees. A school of sardines - a great mass of tiny creatures - can be nearly as big as a blue whale. But an entire school of sardines can completely change directions in a matter of seconds. First a few sardines swim in the opposite directions, then a few more... and if only 15% of the sardines turn around and swim the other way, the entire school will follow.

Thomas-Muller said:

You don't have to convince everyone. You don't have to turn around a whale by yourself. No one should have to carry that burden. But if each of us reaches a few others, we can be that 15%, enough to change the direction of the world.

Long ago, I used to love these words made popular by Martin Luther King, Jr., originally written by Theodore Parker: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." I still love the sound of that sentence, but now I recognize it as magical thinking. I don't believe in a moral universe. And I don't believe that justice is in any way inevitable or preordained.

But I struggle to have hope, and to believe that change is possible. I remind myself that whether we are pessimists or optimists - whether we are filled with hope or filled with despair, or see-sawing between the two - none of us knows the future. The future is still unwritten. And I know one thing. To paraphrase Gandhi on the sidebar of this blog: if we take no action, there will be no change.





* The blog The Committed Sardine takes its name from this parable.

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project maddie lives

Earlier this week I got the sad news that Project Maddie - the pet-food food bank that is the brainchild of my friend Kim Ford (a/k/a Dharma Seeker) - was forced to shut down. PM supporters were hoping it wasn't true, or would at least be a temporary situation.

Temporary it was. One great article in the Toronto Star, animal-lovers rising to the occasion, and Project Maddie lives to see another day. And hopefully, many days.

Wellesley St. E. apartment building fire in September that displaced more than 1,200 people has claimed another victim” a pet food bank that helped supply food to the building’s pets is closing.

Project Maddie — which delivered about 900 pounds of cat and dog food to the Wellesley Community Centre, which had been temporarily set up to help residents who had been forced out of their homes — cannot meet its operating funds, says director and founder Kimberley Ford, who lives in Oakville and works as an insurance company underwriter.

Supplying food to the pets of the Wellesley apartment residents wiped out the supplies in the food bank, said Ford, who did all the deliveries to Toronto in her 2000 Mazda Protégé. Most of the food was donated by a commercial retailer and consisted of food past its expiry date, which is still safe for consumption but cannot be sold.

Ford estimates that Project Maddie helped about 300 pets from the fire and another 200 since she started the organization last April. It helped people at risk of losing their pets due to short-term financial instability, as well as seniors and people living with disabilities on fixed incomes.

People would contact her through the website by sending emails or leaving phone messages asking for help.

Ford was able to replenish through more commercial donations of pet food and now has 300 pounds, but there is no money to pay operating costs to cover the cost of a postal box, run the website, www.projectmaddie.com or pay for gas to deliver food.

More here, plus click through for a great pic of Kim and two family members.

Many thanks to Star reporter Valerie Hauch, and to La Zerbisias for helping to make this happen.

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celebrate 2011 with the swans of stratford

For those uber-organized people who (like me) are already thinking ahead to 2011, or who (unlike me) have a list of holiday gifts to buy, I have a recommendation. The good folks at Across the Bridge B&B of Stratford, Ontario, have created a beautiful calendar showcasing their town's famous swans.

Eric and Kelly are originally from the US, now Ontarians running one of the many family businesses that live around the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. I'm totally biased towards this calendar: I love Shakespeare, Stratford, Across the Bridge, and the swans, and Eric and Kelly are our friends. But even without that list, it's a lovely gift idea that helps support a local, family-run business in a beautiful part of Canada.

You can see the photos and order a calendar here on their website.

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they grow up so fast: jungle cat world wolf pupdate

Do you remember these guys? This was in Jungle Cat World in June, only four months ago.

Look at them now! We weren't there, but we sure wish we had been!

In the US, despite the court ruling re-listing the gray wolf as an Endangered Species, wolves are still in grave danger. At least four states are attempting to pass laws that make an end-run around the Act and single out the wolf for extermination. Read about it here: "New wolf bills: bad science, bad policy, and bad legislation".

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monbiot: ethical meat eating is possible - and better for the earth

I have two pieces to post, both of great interest to me, both of which confirm my own point of view.

I realize in some sense I'm suffering from an echo-chamber effect, reflecting and enlarging on what I already believe. But in another sense, seeing others more knowledgeable in a field use their research and experience to confirm my beliefs is not only comforting, it's illuminating. It's not as if the beliefs that are being reinforced are thoughtless or knee-jerk. My beliefs are the result of years of reading, observation, challenge, debate and internal conflict.

The first piece was sent to me by very-longtime reader and internet friend deang: George Monbiot writing about ethical meat-eating.

Conversations about omnivorousness, vegetarianism and veganism often leave people feeling bruised, if not attacked. So I feel I must emphasize that I am not arguing for anyone else. I have tremendous respect for anyone who chooses not to use animal products out of respect for animals.

Regular readers of wmtc already know the drill. I was a vegetarian for slightly more than two years. It didn't work for me personally, in terms of health and diet, but beyond that, I came to realize that I don't believe eating animals is wrong. However, I've learned too much about the horrors of industrial food production - on animals, on the earth, on labour, on our health - to eat in ignorance. So I'm striving for conscious, ethical, sustainable omnivorousness. It's an imperfect system, but it runs on the theory that whatever we do is worth doing, and the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Long ago, I had a co-worker-friend who was active in the animal rights movement. She decried my emphasis on animal welfare, because, to her mind, it enabled cruelty. She believed we should not improve animal-farming conditions; we should eliminate meat production altogether. We should not try to pressure McDonald's into sourcing meat from farms with better practices; we should shut down McDonald's. I appreciated her radicalism, but after our conversation, I moved further into the animal-welfare camp. Withdrawing from the system started looking like a cop-out.

George Monbiot, who formerly preached that a vegan diet was the most ethical choice, now believes otherwise. In doing so, he does what so few of us can manage: he decides he was wrong, admits it publicly, and agrees with someone who has previously excoriated him. That's a rare and impressive feat in this world.

I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat – but farm it properly

This will not be an easy column to write. I am about to put down 1,200 words in support of a book that starts by attacking me and often returns to this sport. But it has persuaded me that I was wrong. More to the point, it has opened my eyes to some fascinating complexities in what seemed to be a black and white case.

In the Guardian in 2002 I discussed the sharp rise in the number of the world's livestock, and the connection between their consumption of grain and human malnutrition. After reviewing the figures, I concluded that veganism "is the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue". I still believe that the diversion of ever wider tracts of arable land from feeding people to feeding livestock is iniquitous and grotesque. So does the book I'm about to discuss. I no longer believe that the only ethical response is to stop eating meat.

In Meat: A Benign Extravagance, Simon Fairlie pays handsome tribute to vegans for opening up the debate. He then subjects their case to the first treatment I've read that is both objective and forensic. His book is an abattoir for misleading claims and dodgy figures, on both sides of the argument.

There's no doubt that the livestock system has gone horribly wrong. Fairlie describes the feedlot beef industry (in which animals are kept in pens) in the US as "one of the biggest ecological cock-ups in modern history". It pumps grain and forage from irrigated pastures into the farm animal species least able to process them efficiently, to produce beef fatty enough for hamburger production. Cattle are excellent converters of grass but terrible converters of concentrated feed. The feed would have been much better used to make pork.

Pigs, in the meantime, have been forbidden in many parts of the rich world from doing what they do best: converting waste into meat. Until the early 1990s, only 33% of compound pig feed in the UK consisted of grains fit for human consumption: the rest was made up of crop residues and food waste. Since then the proportion of sound grain in pig feed has doubled. There are several reasons: the rules set by supermarkets; the domination of the feed industry by large corporations, which can't handle waste from many different sources; but most important the panicked over-reaction to the BSE and foot-and-mouth crises.

Feeding meat and bone meal to cows was insane. Feeding it to pigs, whose natural diet incorporates a fair bit of meat, makes sense, as long as it is rendered properly. The same goes for swill. Giving sterilised scraps to pigs solves two problems at once: waste disposal and the diversion of grain. Instead we now dump or incinerate millions of tonnes of possible pig food and replace it with soya whose production trashes the Amazon. Waste food in the UK, Fairlie calculates, could make 800,000 tonnes of pork, or one sixth of our total meat consumption.

But these idiocies, Fairlie shows, are not arguments against all meat eating, but arguments against the current farming model. He demonstrates that we've been using the wrong comparison to judge the efficiency of meat production. Instead of citing a simple conversion rate of feed into meat, we should be comparing the amount of land required to grow meat with the land needed to grow plant products of the same nutritional value to humans. The results are radically different.

. . . .

He goes on to butcher a herd of sacred cows. Like many greens I have thoughtlessly repeated the claim that it requires 100,000 litres of water to produce every kilogram of beef. Fairlie shows that this figure is wrong by around three orders of magnitude. It arose from the absurd assumption that every drop of water that falls on a pasture disappears into the animals that graze it, never to re-emerge. A ridiculous amount of fossil water is used to feed cattle on irrigated crops in California, but this is a stark exception.

Similarly daft assumptions underlie the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's famous claim that livestock are responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, a higher proportion than transport. Fairlie shows that it made a number of basic mistakes. It attributes all deforestation that culminates in cattle ranching in the Amazon to cattle: in reality it is mostly driven by land speculation and logging. It muddles up one-off emissions from deforestation with ongoing pollution. It makes similar boobs in its nitrous oxide and methane accounts, confusing gross and net production. (Conversely, the organisation greatly underestimates fossil fuel consumption by intensive farming: its report seems to have been informed by a powerful bias against extensive livestock keeping.)

Overall, Fairlie estimates that farmed animals produce about 10% of the world's emissions: still too much, but a good deal less than transport. . . .

The meat-producing system Fairlie advocates differs sharply from the one now practised in the rich world: low energy, low waste, just, diverse, small-scale. But if we were to adopt it, we could eat meat, milk and eggs (albeit much less) with a clean conscience. By keeping out of the debate over how livestock should be kept, those of us who have advocated veganism have allowed the champions of cruel, destructive, famine-inducing meat farming to prevail. It's time we got stuck in.

Read the column here.

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it's about time: private member's bill seeks to end horse slaughter in canada

Bill Siksay - who seconded Bill C-440, the private member's bill in support of US war resisters in Canada - has sponsored a historic private member's bill to include the rights of transgendered people in the Canadian Human Rights Act. Bill C-389 is only one of Bill's many excellent private member's bills, which include calling for the establishment of a Department of Peace, and supporting conscientious objection to paying taxes for military purposes.

Yvon Godin's private member's bill would require justices on the Supreme Court of Canada to be bilingual.

Libby Davies continues to work on behalf of people with AIDS, sex workers, murdered and missing women, substance abusers, and members of other marginalized and invisible communities.

I could go on. There are many other examples. I have my problems with federal NDP leadership and the direction the party is going - what progressive Canadian doesn't? - but individual New Democrat Members of Parliament are out there fighting the good fight.

Now Alex Atamanenko (also a stalwart supporter of war resisters from the very beginnings of the campaign) is sponsoring a private member's bill to curtail (and hopefully end) the disgusting and unnecessary practice of horse slaughter in Canada by banning the sale of horse meat for human consumption.

Horse slaughter isn't only cruel to horses, it's dangerous for humans. None of the safeguards or food safety practices, such as they are, for meat production for human consumption apply to horse meat. Horse meat often contains the drug phenylbutazone or "bute". Bute is a known carcinogen and causes a toxic reaction in humans.

At least half the horses slaughtered in Canada originate in the US, where horse slaughter has been banned. (For some background, see this old wmtc post.)

From HSI Canada:

Horses are our loyal companions, and they captivate us with their spirit and grace. But too often, these sensitive creatures face the ultimate betrayal at the hands of people.

I'm talking about Canada's horse slaughter industry, which in 2009 alone killed nearly 94,000 horses to produce products nobody needs. Pending legislation would put an end to this cruel Canadian industry -- please act today!

Horses suffer horribly in slaughterhouses. They are an extreme example of a "flight" animal -- the panic and instinctive desire to escape that horses experience in the kill chute causes them to thrash frantically, making it very difficult to stun them. Video footage from a recent undercover investigation reveals the kind of cruelty that horses are routinely subjected to in Canadian slaughterhouses.

And the horses aren't the only ones who need protection. Consumers are at serious risk of ingesting a banned chemical found in horse meat. Horses are not raised as food animals, and many of them come into contact with a drug called phenylbutazone, commonly known as bute. Phenylbutazone is banned for use in any animal intended for human consumption because it can cause toxic reactions in humans. Mechanisms to ensure the removal of horses treated with substances such as bute from the food chain are inadequate at best.

For years, Canadians have called for a national ban on horse slaughter in our country. At long last, we have a historic opportunity to achieve this win for horses.

Last month, NDP Agriculture Critic Alex Atamanenko put forward a bill that would shut down the cruel and dangerous horse meat industry in Canada. Please help increase support for this crucial legislation.

First, send an email to your Member of Parliament, urging support for this bill.

After sending the email, you'll see instructions for downloading our petition. Gathering signatures in your electoral district, mailing them to your MP and asking that he or she read it in the House of Commons will be a huge help in this effort to safeguard horses.

Together, we can build enough support for Bill C-544 to stop the cruel Canadian horse slaughter industry for good.

The Canadian Horse Defence Coalition calls Bill C-544 "a huge step forward in the movement to abolish a cruel, archaic and unnecessary industry".

Please support Bill C-544 by going here and sending a message to your MP. If you want to get further involved, you can download a petition (English, French), gather signatures, and speak to your MP about presenting it in the House of Commons.

I realize that few wmtc readers will gather signatures on a petition for this bill. But let's all ask our MPs to support the bill.

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in which a bear learns i have ptsd

Yosemite National Park and the surrounding area are full of bears. Bears and people are an uneasy mix, at best. Many years ago when we were in Denali National Park, in Alaska, the Park's visitor education instilled in me a very healthy fear of bears. The ranger said, "Bears are mostly vegetarian. But the thing about bears is that they are highly intelligent, and every bear is unique, has its own personality. A bear who is mostly vegetarian could wake up one day and think, 'I have a taste for meat'. And you're meat."

Then there are the highly dangerous bears. Bears who have been injured and are in pain. Bears who have learned that human campsites are food sources. And, most dangerous of all, mother bears who believe their cubs are threatened.

In Denali, we learned about proper response to a nearby bear. You are to stand still, not run, because if you run, you will look like prey, and you will not be able to outrun this massive animal. You're supposed to stand your ground, make yourself look big by waving your arms around, and make a lot of noise. When you hike through a bear territory, you're always supposed to make noise. There we were in the quiet solitude of the tundra, talking loudly and jingling our "bear bells" to announce our presence! We felt silly, but in summer the cubs are out, and you do not want to surprise their mama!

In Yosemite, signs on all the roads remind you that Speeding Kills Bears. (I love the design of the sign.) As we entered the park, a sign told us that 27 bears were killed on the Yosemite roads in 2009. Given the pressures all wild animals are under, with habitat destruction and poaching, that bears should be killed by cars in a national park seems so awful to me. So the Park does heavy bear education, especially at the campsites and lodges.

We stayed in a "tent cabin" in the White Wolf area (more on this in the next post). Like all outdoor accommodations, the tent cabin came with a "bear box," which is a misnomer. It is an anti-bear box: a metal box with a complicated hook-and-eye and pin closure in which to store food.

The problem is that "food," to a bear, includes many things that humans do not consider food, such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste and water bottles, either empty or full. Storing food in the bear box, removing it only to eat, is no big deal. But having to store all your toiletries - unlocking the box, removing what you need, relocking the box, using what you need, then unlocking the box, returning the item, and relocking the box - with each open and close a difficult procedure - every time you need something - is very inconvenient. As much as we tried to think of everything at once and coordinate our bear-box activity, we ended up opening and closing the box with great frequency.

The closure on our box was warped, misshapen and rusty. The first time I opened it, I ripped the skin on one finger, sending blood running down my hand and arm. The first time Allan opened it, the exact same thing happened to him in the same spot on his hand. After that, I had the brilliant idea of using a washcloth as you would a glove. This spared our hands no end of abuse, but opening and closing this bear box was still a royal pain in the butt.

On Tuesday evening, our second night in Yosemite, we decided not to eat dinner at the lodge (again, more on that in the next post), to give ourselves more time out for the day, and also to use more of the food we had with us. We sat on folding chairs outside our tent cabin, using the tree stump table for our candle, wine and food. We were sitting about six feet away from our cabin door; the bear box was on the side of the cabin, about 15-20 feet away from us. Because we were so nearby, we had closed the bear box but not locked it.

We were eating and talking as the light faded and the dusk sky grew darker. We heard a noise - a clamoring of metal. I jumped up, grabbed the flashlight, and shined it towards the bear box. We both saw - or thought we saw? - a rounded shape, brown, in front of the box. I jumped back in alarm, and when I re-shined the light on the same place, the shape was gone.

Making plenty of noise, we walked over to the box. The door was wide open. The contents were undisturbed - but we had all the food at the stump table; only travel bags of toiletries were in the box. Maybe we hadn't seen the shape. Maybe the door to the bear box had swung open.

We calmed down finished our dinner. Deconstructing the incident, we decided the door to the bear box had swung open. Then, about an hour or so later, someone else staying at the site told us a bear had been seen in the camp "about 45 minutes earlier".

Let me tell you, I was afraid. My old PTSD hypervigilance kicked in. When Allan went to use the washroom, I lit two candles, held the flashlight and sang to myself to make noise. That night, I was really scared, despite knowing full well that a bear will not enter a food-free tent just to snack on humans. The PTSD was mild, nothing horrible. Mostly it was interesting to me to see that it could be triggered that way.

The next day, driving around, we realized there almost certainly had been a bear at the box. There was no wind, and the metal door of the box would not have swung open by itself. And we both saw the same shape. As there wasn't great food in the box, the little commotion we made must have scared it off.

To wmtc readers who go camping and are outdoorsy, I'm sure this story is commonplace, even silly. But to this non-camper, it was a little too exciting!

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huge victory for wolves and the people who love them

I just received this from NRDC. I'll just reprint the whole thing; details here. Great news!

* * * *

VICTORY!
Victory for Wolves

It's fantastic news: yesterday a federal court ruled in our favor and restored endangered species protection to wolves in Montana and Idaho!

The ruling effectively returns ALL wolves in the Northern Rockies to the endangered species list and puts a halt to the wolf hunts that were planned for this fall, starting next month.

As you know, the states' management of wolves has taken a terrible toll over the past year and a half. Since the Obama Administration stripped these wolves of federal protection, more than 500 of them have been gunned down by hunters or government agents.

In response, NRDC -- in partnership with Earthjustice and 13 other conservation groups -- sued the government in federal court and demanded endangered species protection for all 1,700 wolves across the Northern Rockies until their population is able to fully recover.

A federal judge agreed, saying that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted illegally when it removed wolves from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana but left them on the list in Wyoming, splitting the population along political, rather than biological, lines.

Now that the courts have called off the guns, you and I can breathe a sigh of great relief that the public hunting of wolves will not resume this fall. Hundreds of wolves that would have been killed will instead be spared.

For that, we have you to thank. You sustained us through this long legal battle with your donations, your online activism and your absolute commitment to restoring wolves to their rightful place in Greater Yellowstone and across the Northern Rockies.

We can only hope that the Obama Administration will now go back to the drawing board and come up with a solid plan that ensures the sustainable recovery of wolves over the long term.

But if they do not, you can be sure that we will be ready to come to the defense of wolves once again. In the meantime, on behalf of everyone here at NRDC, I want to extend my deepest thanks for helping to make this great victory possible.

Sincerely,

Peter Lehner
Executive Director
Natural Resources Defense Council

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"the national parks: america's best idea," a film by ken burns

In honour of the fact that I'll be in Yosemite National Park the week after next, I'm writing something that has been sitting on my to-write list since last winter: about the documentary film "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," by Ken Burns. This was mostly an excellent film, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in history and in conservation - with one big, fat caveat.

* * * *

Ken Burns is not as well known in Canada as he is in the US, so I'll give some background. Burns is a documentary filmmaker known for his long, multi-part films about different aspects of US history. His films debut on PBS (public television) and have become a staple for PBS viewers, beginning with "The Brooklyn Bridge" in 1981. But he became nationally recognized and achieved an unprecedented stardom with PBS fans with "The Civil War" in 1990, a nine-part series in which he pioneered the use of using sound and photography techniques to create an illusion of movement in still images, interspersed with actors reading first-person accounts of participants.

In a similar vein, he's done a nine-part series about baseball and a ten-part series about jazz, as well as shorter films about US historical figures such as Lewis and Clark and Frank Lloyd Wright. Burns looks at each of his subjects through the lenses that forged America: race, labour, the struggle for democracy. A full list of his films is here, on the website of his production company, Florentine Films.

Many people feel Burns' style has become a cliched, and he does use similar techniques in every film. But although his style may be easily parodied, to me it is truly outstanding and can be thrilling. Each film has a distinct point of view and emphasis, so students of the particular subject tend to be hypercritical. Amateur baseball historians picked apart "Baseball," and hardcore jazz aficionados decried "Jazz". But to my knowledge, Burns doesn't claim to be telling a definitive history. He's more interested with placing his subject in historical context - teasing out how it was shaped by the forces of its time and in turn changed those times - and with offering first-person accounts to make the history real.

* * * *

We rented "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," from Zip, and spent weeks engrossed in it. I traveled to many US national parks as a child with my family, and continue to try to visit national parks in both the US and Canada. Since travel is one of my greatest passions - and since I enormously value the beauty and majesty of nature - and since I really dig Ken Burns' films - this seemed like a natural for me. And in many respects it was.

But. There is one big but. "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" is shellacked with a nauseatingly thick layer of America-worship and American exceptionalism.

Every episode begins with a heavy-handed patriotic ode, connecting the very idea of nature conservation and parks for the average citizen to the core values of America itself, in purple prose dripping with hyperbole. Then the stories in the film go on to completely demolish the rhetoric, proving that the truth is exactly the opposite!

Every single story in the history of the US's vast and spectacular National Parks System is the story of ordinary people wresting a piece of their country from corporate interests, attempting to save and preserve it from certain destruction, privatization and profit-making enterprises. Every. Single. Story.

Left to their own American devices, industrial and corporate interests - mining, oil, lumber, sugar, railroad, real estate, you name it - would have destroyed, paved over or privatized every single scrap of natural beauty and historical significance in the the United States. There wouldn't be a tree standing, a river left undamned, a mountain not covered in billboards or a vista without a private company charging admission.

And the only reason this didn't happen, according to this film, is because individual visionaries dedicated their lives to fighting corporate interests. In every era and region, one person with vision, determination and tenacity marshaled public interest, found a friend in government, fought like hell, and managed to save at least a portion of the land that meant so much to them. The great John Muir was the first of these, but he is only the head of a long parade of men and women from all different backgrounds whose passions led to become crusaders for the land and the people's right to collectively preserve it. And even after the land was preserved, park superintendents in every era fought for even semi-adequate funding and against the constant intrusions of commercialism.

It may be possible to see this dynamic as very American, too - the individual hero as a force for change. But every episode begins with some gooey nonsense about the parks as America and America as the parks, freedom and coming home and rites of passage. Yet over and over, we see that the most American thing about the parks is that they almost didn't happen. They were almost lost to capitalist notions of "progress".

So if you love travel, history and nature, see this movie. But if you're less than keen on the US, don't say I didn't warn you.

* * * *

There were dozens of highlights in "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," but I want to mention one that was new to me: Adolph Murie, hero to wildlife, and especially to wolves.

Early conservation efforts viewed all predatory wildlife as pests that needed to be exterminated - especially, of course, wolves. Murie was the first person to study wolves in their natural habitat. He used facts to prove that not only were wolves not ruthless murderers, but that their extermination actually harmed the environment. Murie was instrumental in forming Denali National Park, one of the great treasures of the US that I've been fortunate enough to visit, as well as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I also credit Ken Burns with portraying Depression-era CCC workers in a positive light - a rarity - and for a particular poignant take on the Japanese-American concentration camps. Burns never glosses over the racism and labour struggles that are so much a part of US history.

The movie is about the formation and history of the parks, but also about how they were used or enjoyed in various eras. One thread was particularly meaningful to me. In episode four, we meet a couple who traveled alone and independently long before this was the norm - just them and their dog, actually a series of dogs as they grew old together.

They traveled first by train, and then by car, the man taking photographs and the woman keeping a travel journal. Starting from their home in Nebraska, they criss-crossed the country, and eventually visited every park that existed at the time, more than 30 in all, some several times. When the man died, the woman made one last trip without him before hanging up her traveling shoes for good.

Much of their story is told through her journal, which is the kind of work Ken Burns does best. I trust it isn't difficult to see why this story moved me so: Margaret and Edward Gehrke.

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whose park? not their park. canada geese slaughtered in brooklyn's prospect park

I just found out that while I was photographing waterfowl in Stratford, hundreds of their kind were being slaughtered near my former home.

New York Times: Second, and Third, Thoughts Over Killing of Prospect Park Geese

Globe and Mail: The Cleansing of Prospect Park

I understand that geese can overrun areas that humans want for themselves. But there's got to be a better way to deal with it than this.

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second annual all-star-break stratford trip

We had a nice, relaxing trip to Stratford, maybe less exciting than last year, but only because my first time was a revelation, and this year I knew what to expect.

Stratford is a lovely little tourist town, and I highly recommend the Across the Bridge B&B owned by our friends Eric and Kelly. It's a beautiful old renovated house in a great location; you can leave your car at their place and walk everywhere. But the real reason to stay there is Eric's incredible breakfasts, which will keep you going til dinnertime.

Besides theatre, none of our other plans worked out. We didn't meet our friends for dinner and didn't go to St. Jacobs. But we hung out with Eric and Kelly, walked along the Avon River and took photos of birds, browsed in bookstores and generally decompressed.

Neither of us particularly liked the production of As You Like It, but The Tempest was excellent, a real treat. The productions couldn't be more different. AYLI was crammed full of gimmicks, most of which struck me as superfluous, a bunch of meaningless clutter. The Tempest was spare and stripped down, highlighted by a few brilliant costumes - most notably for Ariel and Caliban - and a handful of light and sound effects that, because they weren't overused, were very effective.

AYLI, unfortunately, featured performances that weren't up to the high standards of a world-class Shakespeare festival; I wondered if the busy production values were supposed to compensate for that. The performances in the Tempest were so good that I heard the whole play anew.

Christopher Plummer was brilliant, living up to expectations, fully inhabiting the role. But the real show-stealer was Julyana Soelistyo, playing Ariel. Her performance was breathtaking. Scenes between the heavy, powerful, aging magician Prospero and the delicate, nimble spirit-servant Ariel were mesmerizing. At the breakfast table in our B&B the following morning, everyone was buzzing about Ariel.

I don't want to say too much, because some of you may still catch this show. If you can, it's worth it.

Also in Stratford, lovely swans and some baby ducks.

These swans are big!

More here.

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wolf puppies and other adorableness

Our photos from Jungle Cat World are up.

This guy in his winter coat in March...







...is now dressed for summer.





This guy as a newborn...





...is this guy as a toddler.





This little guy who we met in March...





...is now a young adult.

There are also pics of a tiny baby lynx who we met in advance of the public (he lives in the owner's house!), some baby birds in a nest at the bottom of a trash barrel, some otters and a beautiful silver fox rescued from a fur farm. Go here.

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11-year-old artist vs capitalist disaster

Check out this amazing young person, Olivia Bouler. This is the kind of story I used to try to write about when I was writing professionally. (Past tense... wow.)

Olivia Bouler doesn’t have time for anything else these days except to draw and paint. But that’s OK for the artistic fifth-grader, because everything she does is for the birds.

The Islip, N.Y., girl, who turns 11 on Friday, has raised an estimated $80,000 by sending her sketches and paintings of birds to people who donate to organizations helping with relief efforts in the Gulf of Mexico spill disaster.

“I do some in the mornings and some in the afternoons, and weekends are really the time for me get cracking at them,” Olivia told msnbc.com on Thursday in a telephone interview as she and her parents were headed to the Gulf for a visit.

Olivia came up with the idea to help birds in the Gulf four days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the nation’s worst oil spill. Olivia's father's family grew up in Alabama, and she has spent vacations in the Gulf.

“Olivia heard about the oil spill and she immediately thought of the birds. She’s a bird lover. She knew they were nesting and she knew the spill would bring an incredible change to their habitat,” said her mother, Nadine Bouler.

So Olivia wrote to the National Audubon Society, saying she would like to help by doing drawings and giving the wildlife conservation group any money she raised. She signed it, a bit precociously, “Olivia Bouler, 11 years old and willing to help.”

Thus was born Olivia's "Save the Gulf" campaign. In addition to purchasing one of Olivia’s drawings, the Audubon Society collaborated with Olivia's family to create a fundraising program whereby Olivia sends one of her original paintings to anyone who donates to any of several organizations helping wildlife in the Gulf.

AOL got on board, giving Olivia her own artist’s gallery on its site and donating $25,000 to Audubon in her name. Appearances on local and national TV followed, and her "Save the Gulf: Olivia's Bird Illustrations" page on Facebook has now attracted more than 10,000 fans.

For political people, highlighting these kinds of individual efforts is always a tricky thing. Those of us who believe that we need wholesale, systemic change often eschew stories like this, and I understand why. It's like applauding volunteers at your local food bank without asking why there is still hunger in your community. One of the largest, richest corporations in the world murders our environment (along with 11 workers) and a region's livelihood for profit, and the media turns our attention to the efforts of a fifth grade girl.

Applauding individual efforts to help should never shift our focus from the criminal corporate irresponsibility that is destroying our planet.

But in war and all other human-made disasters, individual people with ideas, energy and determinism are out there trying to repair the damage these capitalist criminals create. And those heroes should be applauded and supported. While we try to create a world without hunger, people should not be allowed to starve.

An 11-year-old girl with so much concern, passion and focus should be hailed; her efforts deserve to be widely supported. Young people growing up with a strong sense of the fragility of the planet, our shared need to protect it, and the belief that they themselves can contribute, should give us all hope.

As long as we don't miss the opportunity to denounce the unchecked capitalism that caused the Gulf disaster. Which brings me back to my last post, and more on that when I can.

Olivia Bouler's gallery

"Save the Gulf: Olivia's Bird Illustrations" on Facebook

The Suzuki Foundation asks us to contact the government to prevent a similar disaster from happening in Canada: here.

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more birthday celebrations: wolf pups at jungle cat world

We're going back to Jungle Cat World today. And we're meeting these guys!








There's something wrong about humans touching and playing with wolves, something wrong about a wolf in captivity. It makes me uncomfortable. But I understand that there's a need for this, if species are going to survive. Jungle Cat World does a lot of education and conservation work, and they take very good care of their animals.

One of these lucky boys will be a mate for Bianca, the Arctic Wolf who honoured us with her howl on our first visit.

These photos of the new wolf pups are by the wildlife photographer WildByDesign. If you like them, I hope you'll visit his Deviant Art page. If you click on Gallery, you can sort by type of animal. I risk becoming obsessed with his wolves and foxes page. His work is amazing.





My post about our first trip to Jungle Cat World (with some photos and links to more) is here.

An update on the animals we saw there is here.

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