Who is this cute redhead? And why is she snuggled up to the Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, who actually looks completely slaughtered, when in fact he is just tired?It was the evening of the WW Sunday Dinner 2006, and I (I've had enough of trying to recount this story in the third person) was absolutely cream-crackered after what is always the most exhausting weekend of the year.
The girl is Tania Poole, an Australian pagan and fortean who was kind enough to say extremely nice things about us all after attending the event.
Indeed, by the end of the weekend she had joined the ranks of `Uncle Jon's girls` - an unofficial melange of young ladies who seem to take pity on this cynical old hippy, and help his long-suffering wife look after him whenever his manifold physical, psychological, and personality failings let him down.She went back to Oz a few days later, and although we have heard from her by email, and indeed she has even written for the bloggo, we haven't seen her since.
However, out of the blue a day or two ago came a parcel from her. As you may remember, I attained my half-century a couple of months ago, and am now officially in the old git brigade (although, if I am to be brutally honest, and there is no other
kind of honesty, really, I have been an old git for years). However, I digress, but regular readers of the bloggo will be used to that. The last thing that I was expecting as I unwrapped my post that morning was an affectionate letter from Tania, together with two lovely birthday presents (pictured on the left).The stamps will take pride of place in the crypto album, and the yellow roadsign has already been affixed to
the office door together with the `Beware of the Chickens` sign that Oll gave me for the same birthday.I am feeling extremely touched. Thank you, my dear, for being so kind to an ageing cryptodude. It means a hell of a lot to me, and I really do appreciate it. It is at times like this that I realise that my efforts to make the CFZ a truly global family, are
slowly but surely bearing fruit.Thank you, dear.
Truly there is a corner of a foreign field that is forever Woolsery.
One of the largest, rarest, and most ancient fish in existence earned 8.6 million acres of habitat protection in California, Oregon, and Washington last week due to a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit. The North American green sturgeon, which has remained unchanged since it first evolved 200 million years ago, declined by 95 percent between 2001 and 2006, largely due to loss of suitable spawning habitat. Only three spawning grounds remain, leaving the species dangerously vulnerable to extinction. The decision to designate key rivers, estuaries, and coastal areas as protected "critical habitat" will help the sturgeon to recover and live for another 200 million years.
Arguing that "the idea of saving the Florida panther really should not seem far-fetched -- just overdue," the Palm Beach Post endorsed the Center for Biological Diversity's scientific petition to establish a 3-million-acre reserve for the endangered species. "The request is staggering," the paper said, but if the Endangered Species Act saved the bald eagle and American alligator, it can save the Florida panther too -- if we use its powerful habitat protection tools.
Thanks to the Center for Biological Diversity's campaign to reverse Bush's legacy of tainted endangered species decisions harming 62 imperiled species and more than 8 million acres of habitat, last Friday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to protect nearly 109,000 acres for the endangered arroyo toad. Once a common Southern California resident, the toad has lost 75 percent of its historic range to sprawl, grazing, dams, mining, and off-road vehicles. But though the Service proposed to protect 478,400 acres of toad habitat in 2000, political interference in endangered species science left the amphibian with a disgraceful 11,695 protected acres in 2005. 
Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity and allies settled a lawsuit against the federal government compelling it to address three scientific petitions to boost protections for leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles. 
In bad news for gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park, last week the remaining four members of Idaho and Montana's Sage Creek wolf pack were gunned down from the air by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The pack was first targeted this summer for preying on a sheep on the secretive USDA Sheep Experiment Station west of Yellowstone Park, which grazes thousands of sheep on 100,000-plus acres. Through work in court, the Center for Biological Diversity and allies have already laid bare to outside scrutiny the sheep station's actions, compelling a comprehensive public review for the first time in the station's 94-year existence. But the station must be eliminated to help wolves and other wildlife survive in a crucial habitat corridor between Yellowstone and the wilderness of central Idaho.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, but I never thought I'd see the day when the Obama administration would join with the National Rifle Association to defend the killing of wolves. That's what happened last Friday when the NRA sought to intervene against the Center for Biological Diversity's lawsuit to put the northern Rockies gray wolf back on the endangered species list and save it from being gunned down in Idaho and Montana.
With developers planning to destroy Tejon Ranch's most biologically important area, an organized movement is now afoot to preserve the ranch forever as a national park. For many years, the Center has called for this amazing swath of biodiversity-rich land to be conserved as a state or national park. Now, the New National Parks Project has declared that it wholeheartedly agrees.
Thanks for helping the Center for Biological Diversity generate an amazing 83,000 comments asking the U.S. Forest Service to protect the endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn. The agency listened, and this summer pulled domestic sheep off three high-elevation grazing allotments that threaten bighorns with disease transmission. 
The Center for Biological Diversity is gearing up for the International Day of Climate Action this October 24. On that day, people all over the world will gather to take a stand for a safe climate future -- and you know what that means: getting atmospheric carbon dioxide levels down to 350 parts per million soon. The Center will soon launch a Web site describing 350 reasons to save the climate: 350 species being driven to extinction by global warming, from the polar bear to the Peck's cave amphipod to . . . well . . . you. Each species will have a profile and a photo.
If you were an endangered songbird, what would you do to bring your kind back from the brink of extinction? Trampas, a male loggerhead shrike, knows a pretty good way: Mate, mate, mate -- and mate some more. Since Trampas was hatched in captivity in 2001, he's definitely done his part for the loggerhead shrikes on California's San Clemente Island, siring 62 chicks. From those chicks have come 93 grandchicks, 61 great-grandchicks, and 25 great-great-grandchicks . . . and there are more on the way. Not long ago, loggerhead shrikes in the San Clemente Island subspecies were at barely a dozen, and now more than 80 breeding pairs fly free in the wild, with more than 60 birds in captivity -- largely thanks to Trampas. And don't worry, ladies, Trampas is (mostly) a one-bird guy: His favorite mate, Mrs. Trampas, deserves credit, too.
