Final Video Reflection

Final Reflection

 

 

 

 

 

Would you love to interact with wolves such as this one? Then volunteer at Wolf Run! To learn more about volunteering at Wolf Run visit: http://www.wolfrun.org/#!get_involved/c1yzj

Wolf Run Final Reflection

Click here to read an awesome article published by the Kentucky Kernel about Wolf Run and their hybrid ambassadors Jericho and Nyeli!

And Happy Thanksgiving from Raz! :)

More weeding....and other interactions

So today we did more weed pulling. Yes, it seems repetitive, but its extremely gratifying. These wolf dogs are dependent on humans for their livelihood as well as their environment. It’s actually a very tragic thing; these are beautiful animals whose instinct is to be loose in the wild. They are meant to hunt their own food, find their own shelter, venture to get water. It’s like having a brilliant mind that is capable of amazing thought and talent yet being restrained to only think certain thoughts within a small range. This restraint is all due to a lack of responsibility. Back yard breeders or puppy mills are what have created this problem for wolf dogs. Wolf dogs are not a natural animal. You don’t find them in the wild, point blank. They are man made. These irresponsible breeders also give a bad reputation to responsible dog breeders. Puppy mills and back yard breeders are people who breed for money. They do not look out for the best interest of the dog. They are not looking to improve the health, structure, beauty, and temperament of the animals and this is how they differ from true breeders. Puppy mills and back yard breeders are responsible for the vast majority of dogs in animal shelters. 

Today we got to play with a wolf dog named Raz who was purchased by a young couple, from a wolf dog puppy mill, who were uneducated about wolf dogs. The couple quickly learned that this dog was beyond their control and training. Raz is probably one of the most friendly and outgoing dogs I have ever met. He is considered mid to low content meaning he is more than 20% wolf. They are able to tell this by his characteristics such as the shape of his tail, color of his eyes, and coat color. He is a beautiful animal however his full wolf instincts will never be met because he will always live in captivity. That to me, is tragic for that animal. Breeding domestic animals is a very different situation than breeding wolf dogs. A domestic animal is mentally programmed to like the indoors, attention, and interaction. 

We also watched two wolf dogs rough house and play together. It was a male and female, The female was trying to get the male to run around and play . They were pretty much playing tag!The male was also quite a bit chunkier than the female who was athletic and lean. She would grab his leg as if to punish him for not exercising with her. Their interactions were adorable and beautiful. I also noticed how different they interacted than domestic dogs. If two domestic dogs tried to play like these wolf dogs, they would end up in a very aggressive fight however wolves see it as play. Everything is in perspective just like in different cultures how hugging and the volume of your voice can be interpreted in different ways.

Weeding- Day 4

Enclosure in which we pulled weeds 

On Friday, November 15, two other volunteers and I went to Wolf Run once again. Once we arrived, we were greeted by animal care staff manager, Savannah. It seemed as if she didn't know what to have us do, so she insisted that we pull weeds in the "middle enclosure." I have only had to pull weeds at Wolf Run one other time, but Bridgid and Char were used to this work. We first thought pulling weeds wouldn't be so bad, until we saw the size of the enclosure.

What we suspected to be almost an acre of space with weeds almost as tall as us, we decided to get to work. After attempting to pull weeds with our bare hands, we decided tools would help us better. After almost an hour, and being frustrated with how much work lay ahead of us, we decided to quit the task we had been assigned. We looked at the work we had done, and it didn't even look like we made a dent in the sea of weeds.

Bridgid, Char, and I decided to find a more entertaining task to do. Kara, one of the senior staff members, needed to let Razz out of his small enclosure, so we decided to help. Razz had been whining at us while pulling weeds. We knew he wanted to play with us, and at that point, we wanted to play with him too. Razz is a low content hybrid wolf dog and acts as any dog would. He was so excited to have new visitors.

We may have left Wolf Run feeling unaccomplished, but interacting with the dogs reminds me why are doing the work we do. Many of the wolf dogs come from abusive pasts and now bring so much joy to everyone at Wolf Run. I am excited to continue working with Wolf Run and all of the amazing animals.







Day 4- More Weeding

        On Friday three of us volunteers made the trek out to Wolf Run for another day of volunteering. In the car we were discussing how we were hoping that they would assign us to a task that different than weeding because we had spent already the majority of our days doing that--which doesn't make for very interesting blog posts!
       But sure enough, when we arrived and found Savannah (the volunteer coordinator) we were instructed to do more weeding. She led us to an enclosure that did not have any animals in it but was instead covered front to back in three foot tall weeds. Her words: just start weeding, avoid the tree because its got thorns, have fun. Paige, Brigid and I looked dubiously at each other and I think I speak for us all when I say we were considering possibly crying or screaming in frustration. They gave us no tools or gloves and expected us to pull the fairly stubborn weeds with our bare hands. I ended up with some nasty blisters on both of my hands and was exhausted by the end of our time there. We worked for about an hour or so and when we stood back to study our work we realized that we had hardly made a dent in the vast sea of weeds.  It was the job that no one wanted to do, and was left to the novice volunteers who didn't know the amount of fun they could be having working on other projects.

The two pictures on the left show the field of weeds in the enclosure. The photo on the right shows the pile of weeds we pulled.

        When we were satisfied with the work we had done, we met up with Savannah and several other volunteers who all dispersed to play with dogs and different enclosures. We followed Kara into the enclosure of a hybrid named Raz. He is a fairly low content hybrid and was extremely friendly and excited to have company. He jumped up to greet us, even tearing Brigid's jacket in the process and covering her face in mud from his paws. He allowed us to pet him for several minutes and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the attention. Then he discovered the meat that was meant to serve as his breakfast and became distracted by that. We stayed and played with him for a few minutes after he was finished eating and then called it a day.

Raz, the low content hybrid

     Heading home, we discussed how disappointed we are with the Wolf Run organization. My group members and I agree that their cause is very special. But they do not have sufficient resources and thus their grounds are lacking. With the right tools, one volunteer could quickly clear the enclosure that three of us spent over an hour trying to clean up and with little result. Wolf Run needs help and that is evident. And asking us to clear almost an acre of land with our bare hands is not realistic assistance for us to give and I believe that our time could have been better utilized.  

TED Talk Analysis - Sheryl Sandberg December 2010

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, speaking at TED Women

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Sheryl Sandberg speaking to a woman-dominated audience

In December of 2010, TED hosted a TED Women conference in Washington D.C. At the conference, Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, spoke on the lack of women in the workforce with her TED talk, “Why we have too few women leaders”. The purpose of her talk was to draw attention to the deficit of women in the higher tiers of the corporate, government, and even non-profit sectors of the workforce. Because the TED talk was given at TED Women, the audience was primarily women who attended the conference. The audience expected to learn about the consequences of not having enough women in higher leadership roles in the office. As women in the workforce, the audience understood the background for Sheryl Sandberg’s talk and related to her assertions, but it is likely that they were not previously aware of the statistics that she presented. 

When speaking about her children, Sheryl Sandberg pointed toward herself to show her personal connections.

Sandberg opens her speech by presenting a series of startling statistics pertaining to the number of women in senior positions in different sectors of the work force, such as the fact that there are “190 heads of state; nine of them are women”. From there, Sheryl Sandberg continues by adding a personal anecdote about her children, and the struggle for both men and women to leave their children to return to work. She later uses this same anecdote to conclude her presentation, providing a summary of her ideas in a way that connects to the audience on a deeper level by advocating not only for the current working generation, but also for those of the future. 

Sheryl Sandberg articulates her three main points: sit at the table, make your partner a real partner, and don’t leave before you leave in a way that is simple, memorable, and unique. By not clouding her main ideas with superfluous words, she creates points that are easy to remember and stick out from the more complex ideas often presented in TED talks. During her point about sitting at the table, Sheryl Sandberg uses a personal story about her experience during a senior meeting. She describes how two women who accompanied a large corporate officer chose to sit against the wall, rather than engage in the discussion and sit at the table. She described how this situation perpetuates the problem of women dropping out of the workforce before climbing the corporate ladder because they excluded themselves from the important conversations due to a feeling that they lacked qualification for the job.  

Sandberg used hand motions to emphasize her main argument

There were no visual elements to the presentation, and I feel that using one or two simple graphs or pictures could have better illustrated some of the statistics given at the opening of the presentation. Sheryl Sandberg did use effective hand gestures throughout her presentation, providing natural accompaniments to her statements to add emphasis and show her passion for the topic. Overall, this TED Talk is one of my favorite presentations because of the topic, the means through which she presented her ideas, and the personal connections and stories she used to connect to the audience.

To view the TED talk, please visit:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders?language=en

Ted Talk Analysis: The Heartbreaking Text that Inspired a Crisis Helpline

I watched Nancy Lublin’s speech, “The heartbreaking text that inspired a crisis help line.” The speech was given at TEDWoman which took place in Monterey, California in May of 2015. Being that this speech was given at TEDWoman, the audience was all women. Nancy Lublin used this to her advantage by talking about a couple crisis examples that involved issues that affect mostly woman which were rape and bulimia. She was smart to do this because women are generally emotional and are usually sympathetic. This worked in her advantage because it got the audience’s attention. When she began her speech she definitely seemed nervous because her voice was slightly shaky and she paused to swallow. Within the first couple sentences she broke her nervousness with a little joke or slander. Lublin gave a statistic and said, “…That’s bigger than the Boy Scouts of America, and we’re not homophobic.” The audience responded well with a laugh. As she continued she had a couple funny parts but also several emotional parts. She had the audience invested in her anther speech. They were paying attention, clapping, nodding, their heads, and what was possibly most important, was that she had the emotionally invested. Nancy achieved all of this through excellent eye contact, hand gestures, the occasional joke, statistics, and compelling stories. As you can see in the picture below, she was engaged in the audience with her eyes as well as her hand gestures.
 She gave specific examples of why she cares so much about her organization which then made the audience care. Another thing that helped her gain their attention was when showed tell a compelling story or example and then pause; it’s almost like she was letting the sadness sink in. She was extremely excited, interested, and passionate about what she was saying and it came across to those in the room and even to myself as I watched. Nancy not only talked about the types of people who used her crisis line such as those with depression, addiction, sexual abuse, bipolar disorder, and more, but she discussed what her trained counselors do and say to help these people in the different situations and how different cases vary. For example, if there is a wait list of people texting, key words such as death, suicide, killing, will place those people in the front of the line as priority because of the severity of their cases rather than chronologic order. This is an effort to save people’s lives. When she started to close her speech it was almost a disappointment. It was ruled intriguing to listen to her talk about her organization, it made the audience care and she did an excellent job of making the audience want to listen to her. She spoke about why she loves this organization and why she is passionate about it. She doesn’t use technology for unnecessary reasons such as catching a convenient cab, getting a quick date, or finding the closest starbucks, she wants to use technology to help those who need it. She talked about inspiration and what inspires her. She left the entire audience with inspiration to help others. Nancy even received a standing ovation.  There are one or two places she could have possibly improved. The first would be her introduction, she was talking about collecting peanut butter jars and Valentines day cards and I honestly had no idea what she was talking about until I listened again. The other time she could have possibly improved was during her pauses; sometimes she cut them short when people were still laughing or clapping. Overall the speech was very impactful and extremely well done. I have attached her talk below, enjoy!

https://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_lublin_the_heartbreaking_text_that_inspired_a_crisis_help_line#t-64997

TED Talk Analysis: Life Lessons from Big Cats



Beverly and Dereck Joubert

"We no longer have the luxury of time when it comes to big cats." -Dereck Joubert

The TED talk I analyzed was given by Beverly and Dereck Joubert entitled “Life Lessons from Big Cats.” Beverly and Dereck Joubert are award-winning documentary filmmakers that have worked to conserve wildlife for over 25 years. The Joubert's gave this talk as part of the "TED Women" conference in Washington D.C, in December, 2010. As part of the TED Women conference, the audience in attendance were men and women who are as accomplished and fascinating as the speakers. Beverly and Dereck gave a very interesting talk on the importance of animal conservation, which touched the audience and everyone who has viewed the talk, in several different ways.

The Joubert's begin their talk with the question, "Why would one worry about a few cats?" They answer this question throughout the talk they give by referring back to one cat in particular, a leopard they named Lakadema. They have followed this leopard throughout its entire life, and in their presentation, Beverly and Dereck use Lakadema to show how every individual animal has a personality, just as humans.

Image of Lakadema, the leopard

Another aspect they examined was lions and elephants together. For years, the Joubert's could not capture these two animals together, but on one stormy night, they did just that. A pack of lions attacked an innocent elephant, who almost gave up hope. Just as any human would do, the elephant fought back and eventually escaped the pack of lions. The Joubert's wanted to display this image, not only to show one of the highlights of their career, but to show animals display these hopeful characteristics and humans should do everything they can to conserve these species.

The last thing I found interesting in this presentation was when Beverly and Dereck began explaining how Lakadema took care of a baby baboon, after its mother had died. Still only a cub, Lakadema wanted to play with the baboon. The first thought that comes to mind would be a predator, like Lakadema, would try to kill the baboon, but this did not happen. She cared for the baboon, showing Lakadema's true personality. The Joubert's truly get their message across that humans need to be concerned with the conservation of these wild animals. Just as humans, these animals have personalities. Also, as male lions are killed, it messes with the dynamic of a pack. The Joubert's estimate that as one male lion is killed in the pack, over thirty others will be killed because of fighting and new male lions joining the pack. This messes with the ecosystem in Africa, and the Joubert's truly get their message across about the importance of why this is important.

The Joubert's do an excellent job with the presentation of their talk. They show pictures and videos they have personally taken of Lakadema and other animals throughout their time in Africa. The use of personal images and stories makes the audience feel as if they are there with them, as well as more empathetic with the individual animals. Also, their use of transitioning between who is talking makes the presentation more interesting. They are very well rehearsed, and their passion for what they do and their message truly shows.

To find more information on the Joubert's and the animals they work with, visit their website at: www.wildlifefilms.com

 

 

Patricia Medici: The coolest animal you know nothing about...and how we can save it

Opening image from Ted Talk, Patricia Medici's Tapir

       
 Patricia Medici gave a Ted Talk in August 2015 entitled "The coolest animal you know nothing about...and how we can save it." Patricia is a well known Brazilian conservationist whose lifelong goal has been to save the endangered species of tapirs in South America. She gave her Talk at the 2015 Ted Fellows conference, which means that the audience that Medici was presenting to was a group of diversely educated individuals who had applied and paid to attend the conference and were therefore interested in what she had to say. This interest would have been unavoidable regardless, as the topic which Medici was discussing was, in fact, very interesting. And the interesting subject matter combined with the well crafted presentation made for an easy viewing.
        Medici began her speech with an overview of the personal work she had done for tapirs in South America and she showed several images of her posing with tapirs she had worked with.

Image which accompanied Medici's beginning annecdote

 By beginning with a short anecdote, Medici captured the audiences attention and made the remaining 10 minutes of her presentation much more enticing. Her vocal delivery was paced very evenly, and in spite of her Brazilian accent, she would enunciate every word she spoke to communicate it as clearly as possible. She did say "um" a few times, and there were moments where it seemed as though she had forgotten what she was about to say, but aside from those few short moments, her vocal delivery was fantastic. In addition to this, her body language followed very closely with Carmine Gallo's suggestions for effective communication. She did not stand rigid, but instead used motions with her hands near her midsection with suggested relaxation and receptiveness to the audience.
         Because Medici was discussing her own work with the tapirs, much of the evidence that she provided during her Talk was evidence she herself had gathered. She discussed first how they had gathered the information necessary to understand more about the elusive species of endangered mammals, next why they are endangered and why is it is important that they be saved from extinction, followed by what she and her fellow conservationists have been doing to save them, and finally what we can be doing to continue to save them. Though she packed a lot of her research and evidence into a short amount of time, she told very personal stories and used vast amounts of visual aids which made the information easy to follow. In addition to making the presentation easier to follow, the visual aids also created a powerful affect among the audience because of the emotions which they invoked.

For example, Medici displayed images such as the one shown below and followed it with saying: "how could you not want to save them? They're the cutest mammals on earth." This was obviously meant to create a very emotional reaction among audience members, which, at least for me, it did.

The only thing which I would suggest to Patricia Medici is to practice the fluency of her speech to eliminate the small pauses and "um"s which sometimes filled her silences. Aside from that, she was well spoken and the Ted Talk was both educational and interesting.

Communications Among the Wolves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93hZTKcwxy0&feature=youtu.be

In this video-blog I mentioned all of the wolves howling so here's a little clip of that as well, turn on the volume! :-)

A Day With Halo- Day 3

Halo, the youngest wolf dog puppy

Wolf Run Video Blog

Video Blog Post Link

Please visit the link below to access the most recent video blog by Megan Van Son:

Megan Van Son - Video Blog

Cleaning Up Wolfrun

Volunteering at Wolf Run Wildlife Refuge has been an incredible experience! The amount of team work, time, dedication, care, and love that is involved in this organization is overwhelming. There is not a single person that works with the facility who is not completely dedicated to the care of the animals. Everyone pitches in to get the animals fed, watered, and well cared for. The animals, especially the wolf dogs, are always excited to see their human friends. They are welcoming of people into their enclosures and are always excited for some interaction even if it takes them some time to decide if they want to interact. The past couple of times I have assisted with pulling weeds and cleaning a meat freezer. It's very rewarding to see the pile of weeds that have been removed from in and around the enclosures; it makes me want to do more and try harder. Even though these animals are obviously not able to give anything back other than the occasional affection, its extremely satisfying and motivating to take a step back and notice the large difference of the removal of the weeds. The animals look at us in a funny way; its almost comical. Sometimes we make up things of what they would say or think about us and it makes for a good time, especially when the weather is less than desirable. The wolf dogs are pretty entertaining in their interactions; last week Char and I went into an enclosure with two wolf dogs and a coyote. The coyote and the male wolf dog never interact but the female wolf dog will come pretty close and likes to watch us. So when we went in the female ran up to Char and wanted to play with her until she looked at her face and realized Char wasn't the person she thought! She just ran away but it was like one of those awkward moments when you see someone you thought was your best friend and you go to give them a high five or hug and then its actually some random person. This same wolf dog also enjoys watching us from the top of her shelter. She lays there with her paws crossed as if she is looking over her kingdom and we are her slaves yet she will not lower herself to us and actually interact but we are acceptable from a distance. Watching the wolf dogs interact with us and each other reveals a lot about how society works in the real world. It has been a great learning experience so far.