Wild with Reason

If you think going wild means a loss of reason, you haven't been to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.

The people of the peninsula are passionate about keeping their area wild, and they've got their reasons for supporting the proposed Wild Olympics legislation. Next month, they'll share those reasons on the PBS television series, This American Land. Check out a trailer for the episode below:



We often hear that reason clashes with emotions and what is wild, but the video suggests otherwise. The various individuals who talk about the importance of protecting the Olympic Peninsula build their arguments upon the emotional connection they have to the area's wild places. Doing so gives their messages a firm foundation in personal values.

The statements made by the people in the video also highlight the logic of a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and nature. Although the Olympic Peninsula remains fairly pristine, human activity has impacted it in the past and continues to do so. At the same time, the area has helped shape the people that live there. (A little of the wild has become part of them.) That's why the Wild Olympics bill benefits both humans and nature.

Supporters of the Wild Olympics campaign are wild about it, and it's pretty easy to see why.

Art of the Heart

In art, some dogs play poker, but Mark Barone wants to raise awareness about the many dogs playing Russian roulette. 

Three years ago, Barone set out to draw attention to the fact that an average of 5,500 dogs are euthanized in animal shelters each day in the United States. With that number in mind, Barone created An Act of Dog, an art project featuring 5,500 dogs that have been euthanized. Check out a trailer for the documentary PBS is doing on the project:

An Act of Dog takes a sad and challenging issue and turns it into a powerful message and a labor of love. The number of pets in animal shelters strains the resources of those people trying to find homes for them, and we often overlook adoption as an option for getting a pet. All this amounts to some very difficult circumstances. Barone's project expresses the pain of the situation and calls for something better. For more information about his work, click here.

Considering the size of the problem, it's probably a good time to construct a better system for handling pets that need homes. It will take all of us and a new perspective about pets, but it promises to give Barone a more positive picture to paint.

Adopting a pet is simple, so we tend to forget the power it carries, but An Act of Dog finds a way to communicate just how meaningful it is.

That Hums

Yesterday, I came across a great video clip on hummingbirds. It is a promotional piece for a 2010 episode of PBS's Nature.

The images are stunning and enlightening, but what I really like is how the filmmaker talks about seeing into the birds' world and getting another look at an animal we thought we knew. Both of these ideas are important to developing our understanding of nature because we should always be prepared to learn from the natural world.

It's great that technology is allowing us to see more and more of nature. Check some out in the video below:

Nature in a Pod

For those of you looking for some online information about nature, one interesting way to access it is through podcasts.

Podcasts are recordings you can access on your computer. In particular, if you have Apple iTunes, you can use that application to subscribe to and download different podcasts. However, you don't have to have iTunes to listen. Often, you can just visit the Web page of the organization that has created the podcast.

BirdNote offers a great podcast. Each day, the organization packs a bunch of information about birds into two minutes. It's a quick way to pick up facts about birds and hints for birding and attracting birds to your home.

Also, Nature, the television show on PBS, creates video podcasts of its episodes.


If you prefer to access these podcasts in iTunes, just search for them by name in the podcast section of the iTunes Store. They are free. Also, you might want to look for other environment-related podcasts by doing general searches with words like birds or nature. iTunes has a variety of such podcasts.

Wild Child

For those of you who have young children or know someone with young children, you might be interested to know that in the first week of October, PBS will begin airing a new show called Wild Animal Baby Explorers.

The show is based on the National Wildlife Federation's magazine, Wild Animal Baby. Using a mix of animation and real-life footage, the show introduces children to the animal world. Consider it Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom for preschoolers.

Check your local PBS station's schedule for airtimes.