Wolf Pack

We are finalists in the Toyota 100 Cars for Good Program!!!

Exciting News!!! Our nonprofit, 501 (c) (3) organization, the Web Of Life Foundation is a finalist in the Toyota 100 Cars for Good program. Each day, for 100 days, the public gets to vote for one out of 5 organizations. The one with the most votes that day wins. We have a 1 in 5 chance to win a Toyota Prius to do our educational outreach work with. Please vote for us on July 19th!!! And for the other wonderful organizations from now until August. We travel many miles each year to go to wolf and wild country to talk about our wolves and other endangered animals and to draw awareness for their situation.  Just recently I came back from wolf country in Arizona. One of the participants in one of my talks about coexistence with the Mexican Gray Wolves came to me afterwards and said: " I come from a ranching background and have always been taught that we cannot coexist with wolves and have to kill them. It is either the cattle or the wolves. Now I know that coexistence is possible and that we can have both, cattle and wolves." To vote for us on July 19th please go to:  Toyota100CarsforGood   Before that date go to the VOTE button and then to day 67 in July and there we are. You have to be 13 years of age, have a facebook account and live in the US. If you click on the Web Of Life there will be a "Remind ME" button that you can activate to remind you to vote on July 19th.  THANK YOU!!!

 

Lobo Love

In honor of our Wolf Nation

 

Buffalove...

In honor of our Bison Nation:

Buffalove Video

The fat dormouse-A story of interrelatedness

Dormice are rodents that are predominantly found in Europe. Their numbers are connected to beech nuts and during years with lots of beech nuts they become abundant. What is so fascinating about them is that their numbers do not go up during the year following the abundant nut harvest which is the case with other animals, like the mice, but they seem to show up in droves right when the nuts are ready to be eaten, that very same year. And if there is not enough food the following year then their numbers correspond to that situation right away and there are far fewer dormice than the year before. 

People noticed this fact in the past and attributed it to the “work of the devil” like it is illustrated in this drawing from Europe.

Fortunately we have moved on from that notion of the past. New research has shown that it is the animals’ innate intelligence and instinctual nature that is working to their benefit. Dormice go into hibernation in October and do not wake up until April/May. Upon waking up they check the beech nut food situation for that year probably by checking on the abundance or lack of beech nut flowers. If there happens to be enough food coming they stay awake and are out and about in large numbers. If that is not the case they go back to sleep and most of them do not wake up until the next spring to check on the food situation again. The overall number of dormice does not change that much like it does with mice i.e., but the number of ACTIVE dormice changes drastically every year depending on their food source situation. Their reproduction rate, unlike that of mice is slow and they live a relatively long life of up to 10 years. They are immensely important to the ecosystem as they are a major food source for lynx, fox, owls, weasels and birds of prey. 

But they also affect the food chain in many other ways: If there are lots of beech nuts, many dormice decide to stay awake and hence become food for the lynx. That year the lynx will not kill as many deer and the deer population will go up. It is the beech nuts that determine via dormice and lynx how many  deer will survive. It is that simple: Everything is truly interconnected and we cannot take anything out of the web of life. 

 

Stories of Wolves-Film screening and Q&A

Wild Wolf Film Newsletter

Please check our latest newsletter for date and time of our next film screening.

 

Please join us for a special event if you are in the area:

Wolf Fest at UNM in Albuquerque

Working together

It always makes me really happy to learn, see and experience how many people on this planet are working together for the common good of All Life on this planet. There are different angles to this: some are working on the betterment of the life conditions for humans, some for the animal and plant world and others yet for the rights of our Mother Earth, our Madre Tierra. 

The amazing thing is that even children and young adults are making their love, care and concern for this world and her creatures, humans, plants and minerals known. They present in front of others, inform, teach and create to raise awareness and transform old ways of being and behaving towards each other, the animals and our environment in general. They know instinctively that they are not doing this for themselves, but for the Whole of Creation. That all is really one and that we are all interconnected and when one part of creation suffers, the rest of us feel it, too...

Izilwane, an organization  that aims at connecting the human animal to the global ecosystem just recently expressed that they wanted to include us in their blog. See for yourselves what great work they are doing:

Izilwane blog

Happy Spring!!!

HUMANS AND WOLVES

We are creating and living a new story around our relationship with the wolves... Episode I of a series of HUMANS AND WOLVES episodes. wildwolffilm.com weboflifefoundation.net

 

Winged Ones

Here is the link to my newest creation, a video about our Crane and Bird Nations at Bosque del Apache Refuge in New Mexico. Thousands of birds winter there every year and the fly-outs in the mornings and the fly-ins at night are a sight to behold and a sound that deeply touches the soul. We are so lucky to have them with us....

Winged Ones Video

Big Blaze howling

It is wolf mating season right now and new puppies will be born in April and May. Little wolves take about 63 days to grow in the mother's womb and are born blind and in need of protection from their family members. They stay in the den for about 3-5 weeks and then come out to greet this world. During my recent trip to Yellowstone we received the wonderful blessing of being able to hear Big Blaze, the black male of the Blacktail family howling to some female wolves from the Agate family that had lost their male. It looks like there is a good chance of puppies coming along this spring... I will keep you posted. Hearing a wolf howl in the wild is the most incredible, whole and intact sound. I had the good fortune of being able to film it. Enjoy Big Blaze and his song:

Big Blaze howling