“The Three R’s” Halloween is coming! And with it, several unique opportunities to demonstrate your love of wildlife and wild places. But what could a holiday built around costumes, candy, and spooky fun have to do with conservation? As it turns out, quite a bit. Remember “The Three R’s”? I hope so. The three R’s […]
Conservation Heroes! Our mission, here at Safari West, is to introduce our guests to the wonders of wildlife. We want to entertain the curious crowds that come through our gates, but more than that, we want to educate them. It is our fervent hope that our work will help inspire and nurture a new generation of […]
Our Feathered Friends Perhaps the most intimidating creature at Safari West might be the ostrich (Struthio camelus). While birds in general aren’t generally considered particularly frightening, there are exceptions. Surely some of you have had a regrettable pond-side encounter with a swan, or run afoul of a flock of geese. I myself was once ambushed […]
You hear a lot of talk about invasive species. You see signs about them all over these days. Drive anywhere near a lake and you’ll find notices about zebra mussels. Drive through Napa County and pass billboards about the glassy-winged sharpshooter. Each year, the list of invasive species grows longer and after a while, it’s easy to grow […]
Water, Water, Everywhere Plastic. What an amazing material. These days, we use it in virtually everything. Reading this on a computer, phone, or tablet? You can thank plastic. Wearing synthetic fabric? You’re actually wearing plastic. Eating right now? There’s a good chance something—utensils, a straw, maybe the food containers themselves—plastic. Ubiquitous and everywhere, plastic is […]
A Brief History of Naming Taxonomy, in its purest form, is simply a system of naming. It’s a scientific card catalog that says what everything is from the blue whale to the bumblebee. It begins with the broadest of categories—whether a thing is a plant, an animal, or something else—and narrows it down from there. […]
Once upon a time, the Wilbur and Orville Wright were hard at work inventing the airplane. Many of their fellow aviation pioneers imagined that controls for an airplane could and should work just like those in a carriage or ship. An aircraft, they imagined, should remain level and steady in the air while a rudder […]
As a safari guide at Safari West, one of the questions I am most often asked is: what is my favorite animal? There are two ways to interpret this question: what’s my favorite animal within the Safari West collection or what is my favorite species in the world? I usually answer the latter and I […]
Conservation is a critical part of what we do at Safari West. As a tour guide, I talk a lot (probably too much) about conservation. I am also very aware of the massive scope of wildlife conservation and how it can either be too big or too sad for most people to remember, let alone […]
The New World of the Gentle Giraffe Have you been following the news lately? If so, you may have heard that giraffes were recently declared “vulnerable”. This unwelcome news is shocking to many. It may also be a little confusing. What is “vulnerable” exactly? Is it the same as endangered? And perhaps most important of all, […]
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