John Griffith, The Nature Nut

Have you ever gone to a nature preserve or park and received a talk from an interpretive ranger about respecting the park and its resources and then a hour later you see someone else who got the same exact talk harass, injure, capture, collect, or kill an animal or plant that you came to see?!

Sadly there are many different reasons why people poach. As the human population continues to sky rocket, so do the incidences of poaching from the pet trade, ivory trade, sell of skins, horns, and teeth as trinkets/souvenirs, real and perceived medicines, bush meat, and ignorance and fear.

In this episode of Griff’s Wild Tips, I address one aspect of poaching: reporting it.  Poachers need to be reported every time they’re spotted. Your safety is the most important though, so I advise extreme caution. Do not attempt to stop the crime yourself. In this episode of Griff’s Wild Tips titled, “Report Poachers! They Suck!” I will give you some tips on where to report poachers and how to do it safely. Check out this episode so that you are ready the next time you see a crime against native plants and wildlife in progress.

There are lots of different agencies to report poachers too. Below are some links to help you find the most appropriate conservation officers in your area.

A group called The Quality Deer Management Association has provided some information about reporting poachers as well as a list of numbers for reporting poaching activity in most of the US states. Here.

To report a poacher on federal or state land, you can contact the US Fish and Wildlife Service at 1-844-FWS-TIPS or email them at FWS_Tips@FWS.GOV  Check out their poaching page here.

To report a poacher or polluter in my state: California, call  1 (888) 334-2258 or 1 (888) 334-CalTIP. To learn more about California Fish and Wildlife’s anonymous poacher reporting program click here.

Here is a link to an article/interview with a conservation officer from South Africa who works in very dangerous conditions to try to save rhinos from groups of terrorists and opportunists. The interview/article was conducted by one of my favorite conservation thinkers/writers and friend Jason Goldman. Check out this very interesting and alarming piece titled,

“A Q&A with a Ranger on the Front Line of the War with Rhino Poachers”

 

Don’t be a fawn napper! I’m Griff and welcome to Griff’s Wild Tips. This blog post accompanies the video on my YouTube channel titled, Griff’s Wild Tips: Don’t be a Fawn Napper. I hope the video helps you, help others, help fawns.

Why do fawns need help?

The problem is that every Spring and Summer wildlife care centers receive a bunch of fawns from compassionate people who don’t realize that they’re actually fawn nappers.

Yeah, I said it: fawn nappers.

These kind-hearted and ignorant people believe that the fawn they see sitting quietly is helpless and orphaned. So they pick it up and take it home. Bless your compassionate hearts, but that’s rarely ever actually the case. Momma deer have been leaving their fawns unattended for hours at time for millions of years. By taking that fawn home, you are most likely dooming it to a short life of suffering. I know that’s not what you intend, but it’s probably what will happen.

“Mother deer know that their presence near their babies alerts predators to the fawns’ existence, which puts them at risk. In order to keep her young safe, a doe will leave her fawn in a secluded area, often for as long as 12 hours, distracting predators away from her baby while she forages for food.

Fawns’ camouflage, and their ability to stay still, keep them safe from predators while their mother is away. When approached by a perceived predator (humans, pets or wildlife) a fawn’s instinctual response is to lay very low and not move at all. People often mistake this defensive behavior for injury, weakness or illness, but in fact it is the behavior of survival.”

To learn how you can become more fawn savvy, check out these four relevant resources:

If you want to donate to, volunteer, or learn about fawn rescue, visit Kindred Spirits Fawn Rescue. I have visited the facility and met and worked with the founder Diane Nicholas. She is an amazing person who I am happy to be on the planet with at the same time. I am beyond impressed and grateful for her efforts. Please check out her website and support her anyway you can.

Here is a short and helpful article titled, Found a Fawn: What to do written by National Wildlife Federation’s spokesperson David Misejewski.

And if you ever encounter a fawn and have a question, contact your local wildlife care center. You can find one near you here on this wildlife care center online directory.

You can always get excellent information about coexisting with wildlife from the wildlife care center called, WildCare. I am familiar with the staff and facility, and I am very grateful for their efforts to help wildlife 24/7.

Thanks for caring about wildlife and their habitats (aka homes). In each webisode and blog post, I will help you understand what you can do to create a better world for wildlife one Griff’s Wild Tip at a time.

(Photos by Teresa Baker and Suzi Eszterhas)

 

 

 

I travel a lot, and I’m almost always in a hurry when doing so. Sometimes I forget my water bottle or coffee mug. I never bring a plate or a fork. But guess what? One-time-use plastics are to the rescue, and they are so convenient. And they’re everywhere. In fact, they’re practically pushed on me. But that’s not really a great thing. It actually sucks.  If I don’t catch clerks or wait-staff in time, I will have a whole dump’s worth of plastic bags, straws, and plastic lids in my hands or on my lap. I’m definitely not the worse offender, but I can do better. Our wildlife, our health, and our children’s’ prosperity are being compromised for our conveniences. Many of us feel like we are in too much of a hurry to worry about plastics and their hard-core impacts. We often feel like we’re too busy trying to pay the rent/mortgage, car payment, credit cards, and student loans to reflect on the impacts of our lifestyles. We most often don’t feel like we have time to maintain (remembering to bring and wash) reusable cups/forks/knives/straws, or to carry cloth bags with us, or to remember to ask for “no straws, please.” But we do. Look at what we are doing to wildlife. That’s not who we want to be. Right?! We have time. We can do better. We must. Shout out to you compassionate folks who are miles ahead of me on your reusables usage. You rock! And shout out to the innovators and law makers and voters who find low-impact options for us, or encourage us to find options for ourselves. Shout out to you very busy hustling folks that still have time to be compassionate. Shout out to you folks who vote with your dollar by purchasing the most environmentally friendly options. You inspire. Keep it up.

The photo of the adult loggerhead turtle (above) was taken by John White.

Check out this video of a baby turtle that was rescued after pooping plastic.

This week I wrote a post on Facebook asking you for some good news. At the time that I asked for your good news, I was suffering from what some folks call, “ecological depression.” I define it as the state of hopelessness that I feel when I witness wildlife and their habitats losing ground against humans’ continuously spreading impacts.

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In my late teens and twenties, I felt this despair often enough that it radicalized me for a while. But thanks to some good mentors, I learned that those tactics that arose out of despair/anger weren’t as helpful as I wanted them to be. So, I switched it up. I followed in the steps of people who were using empathy, compassion, and peaceful community action to help wildlife and their habitats (environmental educators, wildlife rehabilitators, ecological restorationists, and natural resource interpreters).  That is how I became a practicing Solutionary.

Still… once in awhile I get sucked into the hopelessness and despair and anger. That’s when I need to identify things to be grateful for. I was having a problem going into that mode this week, so I asked y’all for help. You came through in a big way. Thank you! There were way more comments than I expected and all of them were celebrations of good news! It only took reading a few comments to notice that I was starting to feel better. And each one after brought me further out of the rut. They also helped to demystify some of you who I only know from social media, but now I see you beyond the profile pics. Being grateful with you made me feel like we were somehow connected. Thanks to all of you who participated.  And it’s not too late to add your celebrations/good news! See my post from March 28^th or put them in the comment section under this blog entry.

Today (thanks you you), I feel like a Solutionary again. I’m making two Griff’s Wild Tips videos where I will explain how you can help wildlife from your home, work, and/or local area. One video will be about preventing bird strikes and the other will be about how to organize a fishing line clean up.  Both are coming to my YouTube Channel and blog soon (links to both in first comment box).

 

Making native plant seed bombs (AKA seed balls) is a great way to engage friends and family into helping you save the world! Well… you will at least save some pollinators and maybe some of the plants and predators that depend on them. Native plants evolved with the other players in their local eco-game, which means that some insects (like moths and butterflies) have evolved  to resist some of the natives’ toxins. Those plants that they have evolved an “immunity” to become the plants that they lay their eggs on. It’s the plants their larvae (caterpillars) feed on. (Think monarch and milkweed).  Many moths and butterflies can only lay their eggs on one or a handful of related plants that they evolved with. Once those plants are gone, so are the butterflies. And since songbirds feed insects (especially caterpillars) to their young, less native plants also means less songbirds. So let’s plant the plants that are native to our regions!!! Seed bombs are a fun way to do that.

I recently made a bunch of seed bombs with some young adults in the California Conservation Corps, and was stoked to see them enjoying themselves. I think they liked putting the seed balls out as much as making them. Making native plant seed bombs and distributing them outdoors opened the gates for many different conservation conversations among them: like why native plants are far better for local wildlife than non-native wildlife, and where are the best sites to place our “bombs” to ensure the seeds would have the right amounts of sun and shade, water availability, etc, in order to sprout.

Seed bombs are balls made of equal parts clay and soil that encase seeds. They solve some of the challenges that casting native wildflower seeds frequently have. When you cast seeds on the ground, they often get baked by the sun, blown away by the wind, washed away by heavy rains, or eaten up by birds and/or rodents.  Seed bombs protect seeds from those challenges.

On YouTube you can find several different seed bomb recipes which may include professed insect, fungal, and/or animal repellants like cayenne pepper and cinnamon. I’m not sure if those spices actually help protect the seeds, but if you have had good experiences with different seed bomb recipes and secret ingredients, please let me know in the comment section.

Also, if you have a better name than “seed balls” or “seed bombs,”  let me know. Both sound funny to me, but it’s not a big deal.

Now check out my first video in the series “Griff’s Wild Tips” titled, How to Make Seed Bombs/Balls.

To find out which native plants grow in your area, check out the native plant society in your state. For example, in my state we have the California Native Plant Society.

Here is a succinct article from the Audubon Society about how and why to make seed balls, titled Making Seed Balls to Help Birds.

Here is another interesting articles about Seed Bombs.

For more information on why you should plant native plants, check out this book by Dr. Tallamy titled, Bringing Nature Home. I highly recommend it for everyone, but especially for those of you who advocate for wildlife/human coexistence, native plant gardening and restoration, pollinators, and wildlife corridors.