Hold on to that Balloon!

Students are often very excited to learn about things that they can personally do to help wild animals. Taking action, and knowing your actions are having a positive impact, can be very empowering. 

During our grade 4 Keep It Wild! workshop, Save our Seas, students learn about the impact that human pollution has on ocean animals. They also learn simple things that they can do to make a positive change for wild animals. One such action is to prevent the release of balloons into our environment. Once balloons break and come down to earth, they can be ingested by wild animals, and their attachments can entangle wild animals. 

 Take a few minutes to learn more about the impact of balloons at: Alliance for Balloon Education. Then take a few more minutes to tell someone else about the negative impact the release of balloons can have. 

Entangled Bird (Photo: Alliance for Balloon Education)

Chimps and Coffee

Last spring the grade 5/6 class at Downtown Alternative School participated in a Keep It Wild! workshop about chimpanzees. They had a chance to learn all about the similarities and differences between humans and their closest living relative. They also learned about some great ways to help chimpanzees in the wild and in captivity. Thanks to Abby for sharing her great chimpanzee artwork!

Did you know that in the last 100 years, the chimpanzee population has dropped from 2 million to less than 300,000 chimps? Each year their forest habitat is lost at a rate of four million hectares each year. The Jane Goodall Institute has launched a new Roots & Shoots campaign to help chimpanzees called What's in your cup? Find out more about the connections between coffee consumption and chimpanzee habitats, and find out what you can do to make a difference at: Roots & Shoots 

Animals in the Library

Thousands of amazing books about animals can be found at your local library. But did you know the Toronto Public Library also has lots of free programs and events about animals that are free! Learn more about our local spiders, find out about new dinosaur discoveries in Africa, take a class to learn how to draw animals and more!

Here are a few events this fall:

• Wildlife Wood Carving and Painting, Sept 29th @ 2 pm, McGregor Park
• Spiders of Toronto, Oct 2nd @ 12:30 pm, North York Central
• Chasing Electric Fish in the Amazon, Oct 24th @ 7 pm, Danforth/Coxwell
• Eggs, Nests and Baby Dinosaurs, Nov 26th @ 7pm, Northern District
• I Can Draw Animals, Nov 24 @ 2 pm, York Woods

 Pick up a copy of What's On, from your local library branch to find out more about upcoming talks classes and workshops. 

Another great resource available at the Toronto Public Library is the Biodiversity Booklet Series. This series of booklets is a great way to learn more about the city's birds, mammals, spiders, butterflies, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Pick up your free copy today at your local branch. 

Urban Animals

We often think that connecting with a wild animal is a rare event. We believe that it requires money and travel, or that it requires cages and captivity. Instead, we can pay attention to the magic and mystery of the everyday animals that we encounter, like this city sparrow, visiting a water fountain. 

A Frog in a Box?

Frog-O-Spheres, or EcoAquariums, are a current live animal fad in kid's toy stores. They are small plastic cubes (15 cm X 10 cm) that contain two dwarf African clawed frogs, a bamboo stalk, gravel, and a rock.

This captive habitat is lacking in several ways:

• the cube is much too small for two frogs to behave normally
• the cube doesn't provide places for the frogs to hide
• the cube does not come with a thermometer or a heat source 
• the care instructions suggest changing the water only every 3-4 months, which is not enough
• the care instructions suggest feeding only pellets, without any live food items, or any variety

Keeping a wild animal in captivity requires research and specialized care. It is important to consider all the needs of an animal before deciding to keep one as a pet. Just because these frogs are small, cute, and inexpensive, doesn't mean it's ok to sell them as a disposable toy. 

Learn a lot more about frogs in cubes, as well as how you can help, at: Zoocheck's Perspectives.

Reptiles as Pets

Did you know that at least 75% of pet snakes, lizards, tortoises and turtles die within their first year in a home? In the wild many of these animals would live between 8 - 120 years, depending on the species.

 Many pet owners mistakenly believe that reptiles are easy to keep and require little maintenance. But snakes, lizards, turtles and tortoises have lots of physical, behavioural and psychological needs. In captivity these pets often do poorly and die much sooner than in the wild.

There are lots of other problems with the exotic pet trade of reptiles too.  Lots of people release unwanted pets into the wild, which causes problems for the native animals. And exotic pets can cause human diseases, like salmonella.

You can learn more about the problems with exotic pets on  Zoocheck's website.

If you love reptiles and want to learn more about them, why not become an Ophiologist? (A scientist who studies snakes!) Check out this new book, Awesome Snake Science! by Cindy Blobaum.

The book has lots of snake facts and figures, but it also has 40 different snake-themed activities, like creating Viper Venom and crafting a Spitting Cobra Fang. You can also create a snake model for dissection, using candies - yum! Best of all, no actual snakes are required for any of these activities.