Endangered Species Day! (May 17th, 2013)

Yesterday, May 17, 2013, was Endangered Species Day! This day was started by the United States Senate in 2006, and is now recognized on the third Friday in May every year. Endangered Species Day is designed to increase public understanding of endangered plants and animals. Every year, thousands of people throughout the country celebrate Endangered Species Day at parks, wildlife refuges, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, libraries, schools and community centers!

Endangered Species Day is a great opportunity for teachers to educate about the importance of all animal and plant life, and to talk about how we can help these endangered species by doing a few simple things in our own homes and backyards. If you are a teacher, or if you are looking for some fun and easy activities for kids, check out this link... http://www.stopextinction.org/esd/195-esd-education.html.

Also, check this link below to learn about 10 easy things you can do at home to protect endangered species! Simple things like avoiding pesticide usage and planting native plants can make a huge difference for the species in our area.
http://www.stopextinction.org/10athome.html  The way that I celebrated Endangered Species Day was by spending some quality time with my favorite endangered species... our African Black-Footed Penguins! (Can you tell that I like the penguins, yet?). But we actually celebrated a day late (tonight, May 18th). We went to visit a company festival and Simon the penguin got to meet the UC Bearcat and Mr. Redlegs! Becky is one of the Biologists at the Newport Aquarium (and a WAVE Foundation volunteer) who is featured with Simon and Mr. Redlegs in the picture below! And I am in the picture with Simon and the bearcat. I told them both about Endangered Species Day and how important it is to help these penguins, and they each gave a thumbs up for penguin conservation!  If you love penguins as much as I do, and you want to make sure they stay protected, then check out the Seafood Watch program at http://www.wavefoundation.org/conservation/help/seafood-watch/. Eating sustainable seafood is one of the best ways to help penguins and Seafood Watch makes it easy! Check it out and help these endangered animals!