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The Power of Cute - Pediatric Office Art

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Knowing you are heading out the door to visit the doctor or dentist can make even the bravest of us a little nervous.  And we are adults!  Imagine how it must feel to your child.  They are going into an unpredictable situation. Will they get poked or prodded?  That idea alone is enough to send some kids into a meltdown.

Most pediatricians or pediatric dentists go into their chosen profession because they love children, so their goal is to make you feel as calm as possible.  Fortunately, many pediatric offices have gone to great lengths to make your brief stay in their office as comfortable as possible, such as providing books, games, toys and even occasionally video entertainment.  Walls are often forgotten though, with big blank spaces or perhaps medical posters advertising vitamins or tips on eating more fruits and veggies.

Cuteness Calms and Focuses

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Just ask anyone who spends gobs of time online how they feel when they come across photos of cute puppies or kittens in their social media feed.  They can be a real time suck, making us smile, coo, and even laugh out loud.  Advertisers know that cute animals are compelling, which is why record numbers of dollars are spent on animal advertisements during prime-time events, such as the Super Bowl.  

But science shows that the cuteness goes beyond just being cute.  Scientists from the Hiroshima University in Japan have demonstrated that “cute” pictures of baby animals can have powerful effects on attention and concentration.  I don’t know about you, but I’d love for my doctors and nurses to be attentive and detail oriented when it comes to my care, and that of my kiddos.  If walking into an exam room and seeing an adorable animal photograph eases the mind of our medical professionals, why not use baby animal photos on all the walls?

Calming the Nerves: Animals and Anxiety

Everybody knows that petting an animal can lower your blood pressure and release a spurt of oxytocin, a nurturing hormone present in nursing mothers, into the blood.  But it turns out that seeing animal photographs can elicit a similar response!  Researchers in Korea used an MRI to watch brain activity of people looking at different images.  When people looked at natural scenes, parts of the brain associated with empathy and altruism became active.  If your kids get a case of the jitters when they visit the doctor or dentist, baby animal prints on the walls can help to calm their nerves and help them to be kind to the staff.

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Baby animal photographs are adorable, of course.  But they can also be a wonderful and calming distraction.  Help your child use her imagination.  What if the two of you stepped inside the photograph of the baby sloth?

  • What kinds of sounds would you hear?
  • What would you see?
  • Would you be in a tree? On the ground?
  • If you were hungry, what kinds of food would you look for?

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What do the walls look like at your pediatric medical offices?  If you, your kids (or even the staff!) might benefit from looking at baby animal prints, please let the office manager know!  We offer generous discounts to pediatric clinics, birthing suites and children’s hospitals.  Details can be found at Baby Animal Prints on our Medical Office page.

Springtime Backyard Baby Animal Rescue

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Springtime is the season of renewal, complete with fresh blooms on foliage, the buzz of pollinators and the flutter of butterfly wings.  It’s also the time of year when animals are seeking the safety of your backyard to give birth and raise their young.  It’s an excellent time of year to spend some time with your children outside, learning about the critters that share our environment.  If you and the kids should happen to stumble upon some wildlife that looks like it might be in distress, there are some simple guidelines you can follow together to bring relief to the animal or to reunite it with its family.

While your yard may be a safe haven most of the year, regular springtime maintenance can make it particularly dangerous to our furry and feathered friends.  Here are some tips on how to keep backyard wildlife safe, and what to do if you should find a baby animal in distress.

Protecting Backyard Wildlife

While you may get the urge to do some spring cleaning (in your yard), see if you can hold off until mid-summer.  Spring and early summer are prime nesting seasons for many songbirds and squirrels.  Your regularly scheduled tree trimming services are likely to disturb or destroy their nests or to orphan the babies.  

It is also very common for larger animals, such as raccoons or skunks to seek shelter in your attic, basement or crawl space to give birth to their young.  Unfortunately, if pest removal services are not careful (and most are not), they may remove the adult without her young, leaving them orphaned. Opt for humane exclusion services and WAIT until the babies are old enough to survive without their mother.

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Fortunately, there are many amazing wildlife rescue organizations who are ready to help.  Not only are they experienced with rehabilitating sick and injured animals, but they can also reintroduce them back into the wild when they are ready.

How Do I Know If An Animal Needs Help?

Just because you find a baby animal, it doesn’t mean that it is in distress. Every species is different.  Some animals, like deer,  leave their young alone for several hours at a time, while they look for food.  Other wildlife babies are highly supervised.  

Birds of a Feather…

If you and the kids find a featherless (or mostly featherless) baby bird that has fallen from its nest, but appears unharmed, put it back in the nest, if you can reach it safely.  Contrary to popular belief, birds will NOT abandon their young if a person has touched them. If the original nest has been destroyed or if you can’t locate it, please contact your local wildlife rehabilitation center. If you find a young bird hopping around with most of its feathers, that is good news! This little one is probably learning to fly and is most likely being supervised by its parents.  It might be a good idea to keep your dog or cat at a safe distance, until the fledgeling is able to move itself to safety.

Believe it or not, baby squirrels are a lot like baby birds.  They can fall out of their nests or sometimes their entire nest falls out of a tree.  If a baby squirrel appears to be uninjured, keep an eye on it and see if the mom comes back to claim it.  If it’s a particularly cold day, put the squirrel into a shallow box on top of a warm water bottle wrapped in a dish towel.  If mama doesn’t return by sunset, you should contact a wildlife center for advice.

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Duck, duck…goose!  

It’s hard to imagine finding a baby duck wandering around all alone, but it happens. A lot!  Ducklings are mobile as soon as they hatch, but they still depend on their moms for warmth, guidance and protection.  They often have to walk over a great distance to find water, sometimes causing them to cross busy streets, backyards, and storm drains.  If you see a mama duck with her babies out on the town, step aside and let her do her job.  But if you find a single duckling all alone, it may need your help!  Look around for the rest of the family. If you find them, bring the baby as close to them as you can.  If not, you may need to bring it to your local rescue center.

Oh, deer!  

It can be confusing to find a fawn lying, partially hidden in your backyard.  Is it okay? Did its mama abandon it?  Be sure to reassure your children that the baby has been intentionally hidden by its mother while she goes to look for food.  Unfortunately, deer can’t hire babysitters, so she finds a place that seems secure, leaves baby for awhile, and then returns to feed it.  It’s best if you slowly back away, making sure to contain your pets, so that the baby can rest quietly until its mother returns.

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When to Get Help

Here are some simple guidelines to help you and your children know when to get help if you find a baby animal:

  • The animal is clearly bleeding or injured
  • Your pet delivers it to you proudly (there may be internal injuries that you can’t detect)
  • It is alone, shivering, crying, and wandering, as if lost
  • If the parent has died (by the side of the road, under a tree, or near your home)

If you decide it’s necessary to bring the baby to the rehabilitation center, you will need to transport it safely.  The last thing you need is a baby animal on the loose in your car!  Prepare a cardboard box or an animal carrier with padding, such as paper towels, washcloths or old dish towels.  Wearing gloves, carefully put the baby inside.  Please do not give the animal any food or water to protect it from choking or drowning.

Have you encountered any baby animals in your backyard? We’d love to hear your story, so please tell us about it in the comments below.

Many thanks to the following organizations for allowing Suzi to photograph their valuable work:

Orangutan Rescue in Sumatra

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In October Suzi traveled to Sumatra, the large island in Western Indonesia to photograph the rescue of orangutans by the Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit of the Orangutan Information Centre in Sumatra. The OIC’s focus is to “save the lives of Sumatran orangutan from life-threatening situations and to sustain their survival by partnering with the local communities who live alongside orangutan habitat.”

This project is part of Suzi’s work as a patron of the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS), a UK based charity working to save these critically endangered primates. There are only 13,000 Sumatran orangutans left in the world, mostly due to deforestation of their habitat.

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Clear cutting of the Sumatran rainforest is being fueled by a global demand for palm oil, the most widely used vegetable oil in the world. In the West  most of us are unaware that we consume palm oil everyday. Not only is it found in a surprising number of foods including cooking oil, baked goods, chocolate, potato chips, microwave popcorn, margarine and milk, it’s also widely used in cosmetics, shampoos, detergents and household cleaners.

On many parts of the island, the dense, verdant jungle, typically teeming with plant and animal life, has been seriously degraded and threatens the survival of many species, including the endangered Sumatran orangutans. They’re forced onto farmlands in search of food putting them at risk for poaching for the illegal pet trade and into conflicts with humans because of damage they do to crops in search of food.

On this trip, the OIC’s goal was to rescue 8 isolated orangutans from a small fragment of forest suffering from greatly diminished sources of food. Ultimately, due to death threats, Suzi and the team had to abort the rescue mission and leave the village in a hurry. They then relocated to the Aceh province, a remote part of the island, where they were able to successfully evacuate one female, and release her into the Gunung Leuser National Park where the rainforest habitat is still in tact.

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The rescue process is a harrowing endeavor that includes frightening the animal up into a tree so they can shoot her with a tranquilizer dart. (If the tree is too tall the team risks injuring the orangutan when she falls to the forest floor.) Once she’s sedated they hoist her into a cage to transport overland to a safe location, wait for her to come to and watch her make her way back into the jungle.

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Suzi’s photographs of the rescue mission not only document the brave and compassionate work by the team from the OIC, as well as the work of SOS, they help increase public awareness of their efforts to save this magnificent animal. She plans to return to document more rescue work in the future.

What can you do to help Sumatran orangutans?

- Support the work of the Sumatran Orangutan Society      here: https://www.orangutans-sos.org/front-page/donate-2/

- Become aware of what food products contain palm oil and avoid buying them, especially the ones produced by companies using unsustainable palm oil (typically the corporations with the worst record for deforestation). Because it’s disguised in over 80 different types of ingredients, it’s not always easy to know which products contain palm oil. Here’s a snapshot of the worst offenders:

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Adventures with the Colombian Cotton-Top Tamarins

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Suzi recently traveled to the rainforests of Colombia to photograph cotton-top tamarins. Comically cute and diminutive primates, the tamarins live in small areas of preserved tropical forest. In Spanish they’re known as mono tití cabeciblanco, or “little monkey with the white head”; Titi for short. Tamarin populations were decimated in the 1970’s when 20,000 - 40,000 were rounded up in large numbers for biomedical research, and now, due to deforestation for agriculture, fuel and housing, they remain critically endangered.

Suzi’s special mission was to locate and photograph baby tamarins who, because of their size, (1.5 - 1.75 ounces at birth), and the protective nature of the adults, are difficult to capture with a camera. Adult tamarins only grow to be about the size of a squirrel, weighing in at about 400 grams (less than one pound).

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Suzi’s efforts were supported by a wonderful organization known as Proyecto Titi, as well as the Wildlife Conservation Network (one of the main funders of Projecto Titi). The Project is a conservation program that combines field research, education initiatives and community programs to make the conservation of natural resources economically feasible for local communities in Colombia. For decades Proyecto Titi has not only helped inform the public about the tamarin’s plight, it has brought money in to the local economy through their community-based projects. Both the Executive Director, Rosamira Guillen, who joined the organization after being the Director of a zoo in northwest Colombia, and the Project’s founder, Dr. Anne Savage, believe that developing effective long-term conservation programs requires a multidisciplinary approach. The Project achieves that by combining field research, assessment of habitats and community programs that involve local people. Their goal is to use the cotton-top tamarin as the flagship species for the conservation of Colombia’s natural resources.

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Cotton-top tamarins are social animals who live in tight-knit matriarchal family groups and spend a lot of their time high up in the trees. They have a unique cooperative breeding system where males, and other group members, play a major role in caring for the young by carrying the babies on their backs, grooming and playing with them, and protecting them from danger. Only one female in the group breeds and typically gives birth to twins who, tiny and virtually helpless, need a lot of care if they are going to survive.

Tamarins use a fascinatingly complex system of chirps and whistles to communicate with one another and produce over 38 different vocalizations to “speak” to their family group, defend their territory from neighboring family groups, talk about food, and more. Their communication is so sophisticated that Ted-Ed was inspired to collaborate with Proyecto Titi to create this animated video lesson about their unique “language”.

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Proyecto Titi has fitted one of the tamarins in each family group they study with a small radio transmitter that allows them to track the animals over long distances and periods of time. Suzi worked with the project’s field research team, Francy Forero and Felix Mendina, who took her into the forest in search of tamarins. 

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Also on the team was Becky Cliffe, world renowned sloth expert and all around jungle adventurer, who came along to assist Suzi in the field. Savvy enough to recognize new people, the cotton-tops immediately knew that Suzi was a stranger and not one of the familiar researchers they are used to seeing. This made them a bit frightened and shy at first and also meant they took their babies higher into the treetops for safety. After a few days though, the tamarins relaxed and Suzi was able to capture a lot of compelling images of these adorable primates.

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To see more of Suzi’s cotton-topped tamarin images, click here.

“Get Gutsy” Interview – Rejection Can’t Stop You

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Suzi is pleased to share her interview with spiritual business coach and host of the Get Gutsy podcast, Jenny Fenig. They talk about her career journey, how she started her business, and why you shouldn’t let rejection, debt, or fear stop you from living your dream. You can listen to the interview here.

Big Picture Natural World Photography Competition

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For the third year in a row, Suzi is honored to be the Jury Chair for the California Academy of Sciences’ Big Picture Natural World Photography Competition, and is thrilled to be working with an esteemed panel of judges including Ian Shive, Brian Skerry, Paul Hilton Photography, Neil Ever Osborne, Sophie Stafford and Kathy Moran. The competition boasts a $5,000 grand prize and is now open for entries. Suzi also assisted the Academy in developing the competition rules. This is a photographer friendly contest – no inappropriate rights grabbing.

Use promo code “EARLYBIRD20” for 20% off entry fees.

http://bigpicturecompetition.org/

New Book – Koala Stories

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Suzi is excited to announce the release of her new coffee-table style book, Koala Stories, in collaboration with Deborah Tabart, Director of the Australian Koala Foundation and internationally known as the “Koala Woman.” Since 1988, the Australian Koala Foundation has been the leading advocate for koala conservation around the world, working in partnership with governments, business, conservationists, and scientists. Their current goals include mapping koala habitat, enactment of the Koala Protection Act, and the establishment of koala conservation zones.

The book contains text by Ms. Tabart and images Suzi captured while spending months photographing koalas in the wild and in captive breeding programs throughout Eastern Australia.

A portion of the proceeds from this book benefit AKF. Copies can be ordered here.

Just Published: Pangolins Under Pressure

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In Suzi’s recently published photo story in BBC Wildlife, she was able to tell the story of an endangered creature little known in the Western world but prized and coveted elsewhere. Pangolins are mammals native to tropical regions of Asia and Africa, and large scales made of keratin – similar in substance to fingernails and talons – characterize the pangolin’s unusual appearance. These scales, used in Chinese medicine, have made the pangolin the most trafficked animal on Earth.


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While working in Vietnam, Suzi had the opportunity to meet one of the foremost champions for pangolin conservation. Nguyen Van Thai is now the Executive Director of Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, and first encountered pangolins while out hunting as a child in a rural village in Vietnam. When he pulled a mother and baby pangolin out of a hole, he felt great empathy for the small creature and over time began to advocate for its protection. Thai learned as much as he could about the animal and went on to run the Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Programme, which has been rescuing, rehabilitating, and then releasing pangolin back into the forests of Vietnam since 2006. The organization is now building a new education center that will be open to the public next year.

Suzi also worked at the Taipei Zoo, one of the only zoos in the world that has been able to successfully breed pangolins. The program was started with pangolins rescued from poachers.

With more public awareness and education, Suzi and Thai hope that pangolin poaching will someday come to an end and we will be able to protect this amazing creature.


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Just Published: Koala Hospital

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Koala Hospital is the first in Suzi’s new four-book Wildlife Rescue series from Owlkids Books. Each book introduces a species of animal in danger somewhere in the world and invites readers inside a rescue center that helps them. Suzi’s photographs give readers a rare view of the animals and the high level of care they receive.

Koala Hospital features a koala rescue center in Australia. It shows why koalas are in danger, how they come to be in the sanctuary, and the process of healing and rehabilitating koalas for return to the wild. Koala Hospital also focuses on the people who work at the rescue center and how they aid the animals. In writing the book, Suzi spent weeks at the hospital photographing their patients and orphans.

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The book includes a map showing the rescue center and the koala’s native habitat range, as well as an index, glossary, and author Q&A based on common questions from kids. An author’s note at the end introduces readers to small-scale ways that even they can help save koalas.
A portion of the royalties from sales of this book will be donated to the Koala Hospital. Find it here.

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HELP SAVE ORANGUTANS

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As a proud patron of the Sumatran Orangutan Society, Suzi helps raise awareness and funds for the organization’s work to save Sumatran orangutans from extinction. From now until September 1st, 50% of all sales of this print will benefit the Sumatran Orangutan Society  (http://www.orangutans-sos.org). Find this print here.