A Visit to Zoo Atlanta

Last month I visited Zoo Atlanta, where I took tons of pictures (like I always do at zoos). For some reason, quite a number of them struck me as perfect candidates for funny captions, so I wrote the captions and created a slide show to share the fun. I hope you enjoy it!

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6jiDJQVDBs

Obviously, it was all in fun -- but something that isn't "fun" is the conservation status of many of the animals in my show. For example:

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED: facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild
Western lowland gorilla
Giant panda
Sumatran tiger
Sumatran orangutan

ENDANGERED: facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild
Komodo dragon
Bornean orangutan

VULNERABLE: facing a high risk of extinction in the wild
Rothschild giraffe
African lion
Aldabra tortoise

Sources: 
- Zoo Atlanta website: www.zooatlanta.org
- IUCN. (2001). IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria: Version 3.1. IUCN Species Survival Commission. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. ii + 30 pp.

If you are interested in contributing time, energy, or money toward the conservation of any of these animals, there are many wildlife conservation organizations you can support. Biologist, ecologist, and science writer Laura Klappenbach shares her list of the Top 10 Wildlife Conservation Organizations on About.com:http://animals.about.com/od/wildlifeconservation/tp/wildlifeconserv.htm

I send a portion of my royalties from my children's book Big Cat, Little Kitty [http://bigcatlittlekitty.blogspot.com/ ] to The Snow Leopard Trust [ www.snowleopard.org/]. 

I also send 25 percent of all of my jewelry sales to the Humane Society of Central Illinois, where I used to volunteer. 

Scotti Cohn
Jewelry by Scotti
http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/JewelryByScotti