The Urban Pantheist

We did not plant this sunflower--probably some bird or rodent did. Whatever they did, it seems to have worked, this plant is about 9 feet root to crown. (just took the tape measure outside, it's just about 8 feet)

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Saturday: Narcissus is my Co-pilot.

Yesterday I gave two presentations to two different groups at the zoo. I spoke to a gathering of zoo volunteers, who were being appreciated with baked goods and snacks, and gave them a presentation about the zoo hospital. They all got to take home potted mini-daffodils. I brought one home for Alexis and some for my volunteers.



The other group I spoke to was our second annual Science and Conservation day attendees. Our keynote speaker was the leader of the North American Species Survival Plan for Gorillas; I learned that her hardest challenge was the fact that an equal number of male and female gorillas are born, but the ideal gorilla collection is one male and multiple females. She advocated strongly for bachelor groups--young males can be put in pairs or small groups and grow up together, and outgrow the high-testosterone years (15-20), and live peacefully as mature males. We have a bachelor pair that is on exhibit every other day, with the females.

After she spoke, there were a group of us who work at Zoo New England who made short presentations: Our head of horticulture spoke about our efforts to support the recovery of the Karner blue butterfly in New Hampshire, the assistant curator of Bird's World talked about his 15 year study of spotted turtles in the Stonybrook reservation, and my presentation was about what I do to reduce pesticide use in the zoo's pest control program.

Last day with our vet student :(
She cuddles a stinky wormcat, still sleepy from its dental procedure.

They're much bigger and ganglier than this now.