The kids are back in school, which is a good thing. Excellent education without COVID-19 infections is the hope of all.

Canada has good education systems with teachers dedicated to giving students the best education available. However, curriculums established to guide teachers on what to teach are outdated and do not address what our children must learn to face the future.

Their future will be challenging, to put it mildly. Realistically, their future could be catastrophic.

Today’s children, and tomorrow’s, face a future of more COVID-like viruses, devastating changes brought by global warming, and massive political upheaval. They will encounter crises that will test the limits of human capabilities and require the dynamic leadership not seen today in many countries, Canada included.

Most serious is climate change that can bring diseases and people migrations, which can worsen current political instability. And, anyone questioning why we should worry about political instability close to home should look to the United States where talk of civil war has moved out of the shadows and into everyday conversations.

Presumably we are teaching our children about global warming, its causes and the impacts on our weather, and therefore our lives. But is our education system providing a thorough understanding of biodiversity and its critical importance to future life?

A United Nations study has reported that one million animal and plant species face extinction over the next few decades because of climate change, habit loss and other human activities. Loss of species lowers biodiversity, which leads to changes in landscapes and creates conditions for new diseases to attack animals, including humans.

There is probably no better lesson on the importance of biodiversity than the story of the Yellowstone National Park grey wolves. Wolves were exterminated in the park because humans hated them and refused to acknowledge their important role in nature.

The Yellowstone wolves fed on elk which flourished without them. Growing elk populations destroyed river bank willow stands, which beaver need to survive. Fewer beaver changed the river systems.

Wolves were reintroduced the park to balance elk populations. The threat of wolves kept the elk on the move, leaving them less time to browse riverbank willows. Willow stands recovered, beaver populations grew and nature’s balance was restored.

A full story of the Yellowstone wolves can be found at: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolf-restoration.htm 

Today’s children need new mindsets, knowledge and skills that will help then find solutions to the problems they will face. They will be charged with finding how humanity can occupy the planet’s spaces without dominating and degrading them.

To achieve that they will need to learn how to live differently, ensuring that biodiversity does not continue to be degraded. Without strong levels of biodiversity there is no future.

They also will need to learn life changes required for the future. So much of life today is focussed on the individual and individual things such as money and status. The future will demand more collective thought and collective action.

Individual actions always will be important for creating change but the issues looming for the future demand dedicated collective action – people working together on critical common goals.

They also will require strong leadership focussed on collective goals and free of political thinking. 

Collective thinking and collective action, directed by strong, unbiased leadership, have helped to find solutions to other serious human problems. 

In the 1950s smoke from burning coal was destroying life in London. The air was made cleaner by finding alternatives to burning coal.

In the 1970s, smog was destroying life in Los Angeles. The invention of catalytic converters for automobiles helped to clear the smog problem.

Today’s children can live in a safer future world if they are taught the importance of how all lives are critical to nature’s balance. Even small, seemingly useless lives.

One life no longer aiding nature’s balance is the ivory-billed woodpecker. The bird is believed to be the inspiration for Woody Woodpecker, the iconic cartoon character with the famous Heh-Heh-Heh-HEH laugh.

The ivory-billed woodpecker was declared extinct in September of last year, a victim of industrial logging. 

Woody Woodpecker gone from our world forever. And that’s no laughing matter.

Spitfire: The wolf who should not have died

I’ve seen their tracks and heard their howls but haven’t met any wolves on my back 40 this winter. Not that I really expect to because it is rare to get even a glimpse of one.

I did get a glimpse last year. I was walking a trail when I saw it briefly on a low ridge ahead of me. It disappeared immediately and when I walked up to where it had been, tracks in the snow told me a story.

The tracks ended in skid marks. The wolf had been chasing a rabbit, was totally focussed on grabbing dinner and didn’t scent or see me as quickly as it might have in other circumstances. When it did, it came to a skidding halt and bolted in the opposite direction.

Perhaps that is how Spitfire, a famous Yellowstone National Park wolf, met her demise last November. She was shot by a trophy hunter just outside the Yellowstone no hunting zone. She was either distracted or unaware that she had left her safe zone and it cost her life.

Spitfire was a seven-year-old alpha female gray wolf revered by biologists and wildlife enthusiasts. She was the daughter of 06, another famous Yellowstone wolf shot by a trophy hunter back in 2012.

The killing of Spitfire was legal because she was outside a protected area. Legal but not logical, because trophy hunting is neither logical nor defensible.

Trophy hunting is not the honourable hunting that many of us enjoy. It is killing for ego. Killing for bragging rights. Killing to stuff and display an animal’s body, or to hang its skin or other parts on a wall.

Trophy hunting is a huge business. American trophy hunters pay big bucks to kill animals overseas. They import more than 126,000 wildlife trophies a year on average. 

The United States Humane Society says that 1.26 million wildlife trophies were imported to the U.S. between 2005 and 2014.

Canadians also are fond of wildlife trophies killed abroad. Between 2007 and 2016 Canadians imported 2,647 mammal parts as hunting trophies, including pieces of 83 elephants, 256 lions, 134 zebras, 76 hippos and 19 rhinoceroses. Pieces such as feet, ears, tusks, skulls and horns.

Those figures come from the database operated by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species, which tracks animals on endangered lists and requires permits for these animals or parts of them to cross international borders.

That database also shows that another 280 mammals were imported intact after having been stuffed, including antelope, oryx, monkeys and lions.

Those numbers do not include animals brought back as trophies that are not considered endangered, and not requiring any kind of special permit.

Meanwhile, the killing of Spitfire last fall has renewed calls for a no-hunt buffer zone around some national parks. The idea is to protect wildlife such as wolves and grizzly bears that live in the parks but sometimes wander beyond their boundaries.

Wolves have been exterminated in many parts of the world, notably Europe and the United States, where wolf populations had been eliminated everywhere except Alaska and northern Minnesota. Canada and Russia are countries where populations continue to be relatively stable.

Efforts to restore gray wolf populations in the U.S. have been quite successful. They are protected in many states by the Endangered Species Act yet occupy only five per cent of their historic range. But now the Trump administration has signalled that it will end federal protections for all wolves in the U.S.

I understand and support the concerns of ranchers and farmers who must protect their livestock from wolves. I also understand the critical importance of wolves as necessary to the balance of nature.

I also believe we humans can learn to be better beings by studying the traits of wolf society. Wolves are social animals who despite their wildness demonstrate trust, team play, respect for family, kindness and compassion.

These are the same good traits that many people see in their family dogs. Human society would be much better if it demonstrated more of those traits.

Wolves are an important part of our natural world and should not be gunned down by trophy hunters.

Neither should any other animal.

                                                            #

Road Tripping with Ozzie - 10

   Wow, the scents here are all new and terrific! What a place. It’s a zoo of scents.

   We arrived at St. Nora Lake just before dark and I got my nose to the ground immediately. Raccoons, bunnies, deer, moose and yes, my ancestors, those brave and bold timber wolves. The Old Guy said he sat out here and listened to the wolves and coyotes howling three weeks ago. I can hardly wait to join that chorus.

   The final leg of our 3,000-mile journey to this fabulous place was uneventful with not too many exciting sights. A bit of a letdown after all the excitement of meeting relatives in Sault Ste. Marie. All of them of course loved me immediately.

   Checked out the water but it’s odd. No salt like our water in San Francisco Bay. But when you look out over the water you see an entire shoreline of wild and unpeopled forest. That’s where they say the wolves live but the Old Guy took photos of wolf tracks on his property here this spring. They were as big or bigger than mine.

   I think I’m going to like it here. Nana is at this place and she gives me lots of attention and has food all over the place. So far all I’ve done is look and drool. Part of my extensive education in California was learning not to snatch food when no one is looking. But you know even Malamutes have weak moments . . . .

   That’s it. Hope you enjoyed being along for the trip.

Ozzie

(P.S. What's with the photographer? The latest pictures are sepia. Hard to find good help anymore).

Check out Mom's blog at: http://goodtogojewelry.blogspot.ca/

Arriving at St. Nora Lake

Hmmm . . No Salt

The Cardinal

   It was just after dawn when I saw him, sitting contentedly on an evergreen branch outside the kitchen window. The sun slipping above the rock horizon across the lake poured even more brilliance over his bright red jacket, making him appear to be a sparkling light on a Christmas tree.

   This morning visitor was a shock. He was the first northern cardinal sighting at Shaman’s Rock in our 27 years here. Cardinals are not seen here because this is bush country, a bit too far north of their range. These beautiful little birds live in forests and patches of bush surrounding residential areas where they find more warmth and more food. Their range has been stretching north with human population growth.

   It was a coincidence that when he arrived I was reading a London Observer article on seldom seen wildlife showing up in British urban areas. The article had one ecologist warning that in future wild boars will invade British suburbs. It noted that wolves and boars are being seen in urban settings in Rome and Berlin.

   The article was not clear on why this is happening. Presumably a combination of pesticide bans, more conservation efforts and global climate change are creating more habitable areas for animals, birds, and insects whose lives all are connected through nature’s food chain.

   North American scientists have said that wild animals once seen only in wild areas are becoming more tolerant of urban settings. Coyotes are an example, and the scientists say we can expect to see wolves, mountain lions and wild dogs in the cities in future.

   I don’t know anything about that. I’m just happy that my morning was brightened by the unlikely visitor in the red jacket.