GREENZINE - news on various wild animal species

Ranger Rick, Feb, 2000

ANIMALS in the NEWS!

A Not-So-Batty Idea

Lots of bats are losing their natural homes, so people are trying to help them out.

Now here's a company that has built a whole "bat cave"! The people who work for the Echo Bay Minerals Company in Nevada have built a home for bats. How? By recycling! They lined up old tires to make a long cave- shaped space (right). It's nearly as long as a football field. Every- one's hoping that bats will move in soon.

Crocodile Comeback

Things looked bad for American crocodiles in 1975. People had taken over most places in South Florida where crocs lived, so only 200 were left. The animals were put on the U.S. endangered species list.

After that, people worked hard to save special places for the crocodiles. Now, scientists think there may be as many as 800 crocs in South Florida. That's more than have been around for a long time. Some crocodiles are even turning up at parks and on golf courses!

Good News Wolves

The news about wolves gets better and better. In 1995 and 1996, wolves were brought back to Yellowstone National Park--the first to live there in 60 years. It didn't take long for these new wolves to settle in and have pups.

Last year, two sets of these grown pups moved south near Grand Teton National Park. And another Yellowstone pair moved east near Cody, Wyoming. All three sets had pups. Way to go, wolves!

Great Backyard Bird Count 2000

Scientists at Cornell University need info about U.S. birds. Want to help? It's easy: You and your family, group, or class just need to keep track of the birds that come to your backyard, park, or school from February 18 to 21. Then send the information over the Internet to the scientists. To learn more, go to www.birdsource.org and click on the "Great Backyard Bird Count" button, or call 1-800-843-2473.

School

Nature _________

Wild Fun

What kinds of things do you have around your school? A playground covered in blacktop? Some soccer and baseball fields?

That's the way it is at most schools. But then there's the Polaris K-12 School in Anchorage, Alaska. The schoolgrounds there have things like nesting geese and visiting moose calves! Why?

Because students, teachers, parents, businesses, and many volunteers worked together to make a habitat for wildlife at the school.

Like Polaris, more than 850 schools in many areas of the United States have turned part of their schoolyards into special habitats. Big or small, all of these habitats help wildlife. The schools learned how to build their habitats from the National Wildlife Federation, and you can too. Just go to this site: www.nwf.org/habitats/schoolyard/index.html

SHE'S A WINNER!

Here's Yva Momatiuk, nibbling on a caribou bone--just as many people who live in the Far North do. Yva likes to hang out with these people and write stories about them.

One of those stories--about kids who save seals--appeared in last May's Ranger Rick. The editors thought it was the best story of the year, so they gave her the "Trudy Farrand and John Strohm Magazine Writing Award" for 1999. The prize includes $1000.

The award honors two great people. Trudy Farrand was Ranger Rick's first editor. And John Strohm was the first editor of two other magazines--National Wildlife and International Wildlife.

We told Yva that she'd won this award as soon as we could find her. She was in Wyoming working with wild horses. The next thing we knew, she sent us an e-mail from an Inuit hut in northern Canada! Yva, where are you now?