Postcards for Kiska

This past year grade 4 students at Clairlea learned all about orcas in their Awesome Orcas Keep It Wild! workshop. Students spent a long time discussing the differences between the natural habitat of orcas and life in captivity. 

Here's a great message for Marineland from Iyanna:

I love your rides and all, but your whale shows concern me. I think you should make the whales happy. 

Picture by Avri

Kamal thoughtfully comments on the educational value of keeping whales in captivity:

A greeting! I would like to talk about orca whales. I think you shouldn't keep them in captivity because children aren't learning what whales are. In the wild they are the number 1 predator. 

Picture by Sankavis 

And Gowtham comments about the risk of keeping these highly social and intelligent animals in captivity:

Orca whales in captivity don't get enough space. They get no communication with other whales [when kept isolated, like Kiska]  and they don't get to hunt. The orca whales might go crazy and kill their trainers. 

Picture by Maddy 

Orcas - Keep Them Wild! 

New Postcards coming this fall

We are working on some new postcards for marketing our workshops. Here's a great parrot painting by one of our KIW student particpants that would be great for our newest workshop, coming in 2015, a grade 6 workshop on Biodiversity and Exotic Pets. We're looking forward to delivering the new postcards and to meeting some grade 6 classrooms in the upcoming school year. 

Fun With Dung!

Keep It Wild visited a summer camp today to present our Gorilla Trackers workshop. Kids had a lot of fun measuring and dissecting their gorilla dung and finding seeds. Gorillas play an important role keeping the forest healthy by dispersing seeds of several different fruit trees. The kids also shared their great ideas about how to help wild gorilla habitats by reducing, re-using and recycling paper. 

Dear Zookeeper

     Dear Zookeeper. Please give Yupi some toys. from Elvis.

Wildlife in the City

Narwhal graffiti, Sheffield, England. Image: KylaBorg

Check out this link to Earthtouch, featuring 10 graffiti murals that bring wildlife to the city. What a great way to bring nature into an urban setting.

Update on Yupi the Polar Bear

Yupi in Captivity by Ronan, grade 2, Reesor Park PS

Yupi is a female polar bear living in Parque Zoologico Benito Juarez in Morelia Mexico. Her concrete enclosure has very little shade and nothing to do. The soaring temperatures in Mexico are difficult for a polar bear to deal with as they are adapted to survive in Arctic conditions and overheat easily. One of the worst parts of her captivity is that for the majority of the day, as much as seventeen hours, she is locked off-site in a barren concrete cell. 

But more and more people are becoming aware of her plight. There is currently a wildlife park in South Yorkshire that hopes to provide a new home for Yupi on a ten acre reserve. Learn more about  Project Polar, the Yorkshire Wildlife Park Foundation's plan to rescue Yupi. 

The grade 2 students at Ressor Park recently participated in a Keep It Wild workshop about polar bears, and they learned about Yupi's plight. To learn more about our workshops, check out our website  Here are some of their comments:

I do not agree for her to be in this hot zoo.  - Isabella

Free Yupi, pretty please. 

We want Yupi to have a better place to live and give her a friend.  - Tristan

Dear Zookeeper. Please give Yupi snow and a colder place. - Hayden

I could help Yupi by telling the zoo keeper that he could help Yupi to put her in a colder place. 

 - Raymond

Please move Yupi to a better polar bear habitat. She is too hot!! - Matthew

Dear: Zookeeper. Please send Yupi to a sanctuary please!  - Cam

Keep following our blog for more comments and pictures from students at Reesor Park PS.