Elephant Sanctuary-Hohenwald-Tennessee

If Shirley Could Talk...

If Shirley could talk, what a story would she tell?  Would she remember her family in Sumatra?  Would she tell of hardship and about the fire on a ship that she escaped from?  Would she carry anger at the humans that ripped her from her family, that made her perform most of her life that deprived her of the company of other elephants?  Shirley has had a whirlwind of a life.  From being caught in the wilds of Sumatra to ending at her forever home here at TES, her life has been a true inspiration of perseverance.

Shirley, now ~66 years of age, now lives in Hohenwald, Tennessee, at a The Elephant Sanctuary (TES) with large acreage of land where she has green grass under her feet and a warm barn to sleep in at night.  Several years ago she was reunited with Jenny, another performing elephant after 22 years apart.  Shirley and Jenny were together at a circus when Jenny was just a calf and Shirley in her 20ties, her surrogate mother for a short time.  When they were reunited in Hohenwald, the remarkable reunion was documented – you can see the video here – and now they inseparable while they live out their life at the sanctuary.

Below is the biography of Shirley with all its twist and turns.  But only recently, her remarkable rescue from a burning ship in Nova Scotia surfaced with the pictures taken in 1963 - more than 50 year ago.  A truly remarkable story of her life of perseverance at the hand of humans.

As I contemplate how we humans treat these highly intelligent and sensitive elephants in captivity under often the most unnatural conditions, we need to ask ourselves what rights do we have to impose such a life?  With excellent documentaries – films – videos available, with increased travel to the lands and forests that elephants call their home, it is time to stop keeping elephants and large wildlife species captive and abuse them just for the entertainment of our human species.

I invite you to read the below biography of Shirley and to watch the remarkable video of Shirley’s and Jenny’s reunion here.

Jenny, at TES

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Shirley

Born: 1948
Birthplace: Sumatra
Birth status: wild born

• Captured from the wild: 1953
• Life before the Sanctuary: performed for twenty-four years with the Carson and Barnes Circus, then lived at the Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo for another twenty-two years
• Reason for coming to the Sanctuary: crippled and living alone
• Shirley moved to the Elephant Sanctuary July 6, 1999

Height: Nearly 9 feet
Favorite Food: Apples

Shirley is our oldest elephant, wild caught in Sumatra over fifty years ago.

Her back right leg was broken thirty years ago when she was attacked by a fellow circus elephant. She is missing a large section of her right ear as result of a fire which not only injured her ear but also left several scars on her back, side and feet.

Hohenwald, Tennessee (June 9, 1999) - Shirley, a rare Asian elephant who has spent most of her life entertaining audiences all over the world, will retire July 6 to the Elephant Sanctuary, the nationally renowned, natural-habitat pachyderm refuge located in Hohenwald, TN.

"We're overjoyed that after such a storied career Shirley will be joining our other elephants," said Carol Buckley, founder and executive director of The Elephant Sanctuary. "Yet, making way for her arrival will be both emotionally and financially demanding."

"The transport and care of an elephant like Shirley doesn't come cheap" she adds. "We'll need the help of our supporters and volunteers, as well as new sources, to provide a seamless transition to this new chapter of Shirley's life."

Shirley was fifty-one when she was retired to The Elephant Sanctuary. She has quite a colorful past. At age five, she was captured from the wilds of Asia and was purchased by the Kelly–Miller Circus. In 1958, while the circus was traveling through Cuba, Fidel Castro seized power. Shirley and the entire circus were held captive by Castro's forces for several weeks before being set free. Unfortunately that was not the end of Shirley's saga. A few years later, her circus ship was docked in Nova Scotia, when a fire broke out in the engine room. This incident caused the ship to sink, killing two animals. Luckily, Shirley was rescued without harm.

Story and photos about the ship fire in Nova Scotia.  -- Pl scroll below!

In 1975, at age twenty-eight, while performing for the Lewis Brothers Circus, Shirley was attacked by another elephant. Her right hind leg was seriously broken. It was not set and healed poorly, causing everyday life to be somewhat difficult. Regardless of her injury Shirley was forced to perform in the circus for nearly two more years before being sold to the Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo in Monroe, LA.

Usually female elephants live in-groups, but for safety concerns related to her injury, Shirley was kept apart and lived alone at the zoo for twenty-two years. According to the Sanctuary Founding Director Carol Buckley, the Zoo was generous to Shirley by providing her with a loving environment, but the time came when the Zoo felt Shirley could lead a healthier life in a natural habitat. That is when the Zoo contacted The Elephant Sanctuary.

"We knew we could trust The Elephant Sanctuary to offer Shirley the kind of life she deserves," explained The Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo Director, Jake Yelverton. "It was in Shirley's best interest to retire her to a place that was more suitable."

"It goes to show after everything Shirley has been through, what survivors these animals really are," said Buckley.

Shirley moved to the Sanctuary July 6, 1999 joining Tarra, Jenny and Barbara, the three residents.

September 9, 2003
This dear note was sent by a three year old after he met Shirley on our site.

Dear Shirley:
I will give you ice cream on a plate.
I will give you one motorcycle. ONLY ONE!
I will kiss you on your ear.

Love Cyrus

Shirley at TES

[ Ref: http://www.elephants.com/aboutSanctuary.php]

Story and photos about the ship fire in Nova Scotia.

Story and photos about the ship fire in Nova Scotia.

Shirley — A Place in History

Shirley was one of dozens of circus animals rescued from a vessel destroyed by fire in Yarmouth harbour.

We are grateful to Bob Brooks/Yarmouth County Museum Archives, 
Nova Scotia, Canada for these photographs.

Shirley, on the left, shares a bucket of water

Residents never forgot elephants

One of three pachyderms that are part of Yarmouth folklore has been located: Shirley, last survivor

September 19, 2001 - Richard Foot, National Post

HALIFAX - For thirty-eight years the people of Yarmouth, N.S., have been talking about elephants—pecifically three Asian elephants who came to town on board a circus ship in 1963, and were rescued from the vessel when it was destroyed by fire in Yarmouth harbour.

The animals were marched from the ship through groups of gawking fishermen and awestruck onlookers. Firemen rescued tigers, llamas and leopards, too, but it's the fate of the elephants that has long intrigued the locals.  After the fire, dozens of the exotic animals were loaded on to trucks and driven back toward Florida, home of the Kelly and Miller Bros. Circus.  En-route, the trailer carrying the elephants crashed, and news reached Yarmouth that the pachyderms who survived the fire had perished on the highway.

"That's the last we heard," says Laura Bradley, archivist at the Yarmouth County Museum, who says the tale of the three elephants has remained a popular part of Yarmouth folklore.

Today, however, the tale has changed. Ms. Bradley has learned that one of the beasts from the 1963 fire is alive at an elephant refuge in the deep, verdant woods of western Tennessee.  Her name is Shirley—she is an old and haggard creature—but her existence and whereabouts have electrified the staff at the Yarmouth museum.

"I was surprised and thrilled to know she had survived," says Ms. Bradley. "I had written those elephants off when I read they'd been in a road accident. I felt it was the end of their story. But now the story lives on." 

Shirley (on the left) on board the ship

Yarmouth historians and staff at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Ten., are eager to swap notes. The museum has archival photographs of Shirley's dramatic rescue from the circus ship; the sanctuary has the remaining details of Shirley's extraordinary life.  Says Carol Buckley, director of the sanctuary: "The museum has a booklet on the fire and photographs -- I'm very anxious to get any of that, it's part of Shirley's history."

News of Shirley reached Yarmouth through the Internet when a museum volunteer received a message from someone who had stumbled across the Web site of The Elephant Sanctuary.

The sanctuary claimed it had an old elephant that once survived a ship fire in Nova Scotia.

"I went to the Web site," says Ms. Bradley, "and when I read Shirley's story, I sobbed."

The elephant's biography, pieced together by the sanctuary from a succession of zoo and circus owners, says Shirley was taken from the wild as a calf and sold to the Kelly-Miller circus. For the next 25 years she trained and travelled across North America, often in wretched conditions, entertaining crowds under the big top. She was in Havana in 1958 when Fidel Castro seized power.

In June, 1963, the circus loaded Shirley and a menagerie of other animals on a cramped and ramshackle steamship, the Fleurus, for a summer tour up the East Coast of Canada. After three harrowing weeks at sea, the Fleurus reached Yarmouth, first stop on the tour.

The ship sinks

Bob Brooks, a celebrated Canadian photographer who started his career in Yarmouth, recorded the visit with photographs and a diary that remain in the care of Ms. Bradley.  "He went on board when the ship arrived," she says. "It was listing badly to starboard, there were rotting chickens being fed to the carnivores, the place was full of flies and dung. The elephants were chained and struggling to stand straight on the tilting ship. Bob said they looked poorly."

The next day a parade of animals -- elephants, bears, llamas, zebras, lions, and cheetahs -- performed for the curious in a nearby field. After the show they were caged back up on the Fleurus, where a fire broke out in the engine room. There was a desperate effort by firefighters to release the live cargo from the ship, while local hunters stood guard with rifles in case an unruly animal bolted into the town.

"The sight of elephants, zebras and the leopard being walked along the wharf, with the chaos of the fire in the background, is something that Yarmouthians have never forgotten," says Ms. Bradley.

Brooks' photographs of the event made a two-page spread in the Toronto Star's weekend magazine.

The circus tour was abandoned and the stranded animals were eventually trucked back to the United States.  Although the elephant trailer did crash in a traffic accident, at least one of the elephants obviously survived.

Ms. Buckley says Shirley toiled in circuses until 1977, when another elephant attacked her and broke her hind leg.  Now a cripple, she was transferred to a Louisiana zoo, where she lived the next 22 years alone in a small, solitary compound, allowed not a breath of contact with her fellow kind.

In 1999, the zookeepers sent her to The Elephant Sanctuary, a private, 300-hectare haven established especially for sick or unwanted, female elephants.  When Shirley arrived there, she was 52, on the brink of old-age. Today she wanders freely and keeps the company of six other cow elephants, including Jenny, a younger animal Shirley first met in a circus barn.

Last year National Geographic featured Shirley in The Urban Elephant, a TV documentary on captive pachyderms.  Ms. Buckley says producers may want to do a follow-up program, after learning about the rich new details of the Yarmouth fire.

As for Ms. Bradley, she says she now has a complete and happy ending to add to the strange story of the circus ship that caught fire in Yarmouth harbor.  "Shirley is a symbol of hope," she says. "Every time I see an animal in a circus, I think maybe they, too, will have a happy ending and find their sanctuary."

The Fleurus was the last circus ship ever to reach Yarmouth. In 1997, the town became the first in Nova Scotia to ban all circuses, traveling by land or sea, with exotic animals in tow. Although at least four circuses still tour Canada each year with elephant acts, twenty-five other municipalities across the country—in British Columbia, Quebec and Newfoundland—no longer welcome them to town.

[Ref:  Bob Brooks/Yarmouth County Museum Archives]

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 What a remarkable story!  

Til next time,

Meggi

Nepal: Full year without Poaching

Good News for Animals in Nepal: A Full Year Without Poaching

A few years ago during my travel to Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan, I visited the Chitwan National Park in Southern Nepal.  I was fortunate to have 2 encounters with wild rhinos, and learned about the country's efforts to halt poaching in the National Parks and remaining wild lands.  I am very happy to read the below report published by Focusing on Wildlife and National Geographic.  It is a huge achievement that no rhinos, tigers or elephants were killed during the last year. Moreover, in the 2011 census, the country reported a ~20% increase in the rhino population from 425 in 2008 to 534 animals, and an increase of tigers from 121 to 198 (2009 to 2013).  But danger still lurks in this small mountain country between China in the north and India in the south since border control is difficult and organized crime focusing on wildlife trade could hone in on the increased numbers of rhinos and tigers.

However, for a small mountain country like Nepal the zero poaching is a huge achievement and needs to be celebrated!

Please read the full story below: 

On World Wildlife Day, March 3, Nepal celebrated 365 days with zero poaching. No rhinos, tigers, or elephants were killed. It’s the second year of such success in Nepal. In 2011 the country also had none, and in 2012 it lost just one rhino to poaching.

A greater one-horned rhino drinks from a river bordering Chitwan National Park, about 44 miles (70 kilometers) southwest of Kathmandu, Nepal – PHOTOGRAPH BY GEMUNU AMARASINGHE, AP 

This achievement is particularly notable in the face of increased poaching elsewhere. Since February 28, according to press reports, Kenya lost three rhinos to poachers in the span of one week in heavily guarded Lake Nakuru National Park, and one more in Maasai Mara Game Reserve.

On February 28 in South Africa, the epicenter of the rhino poaching crisis, tourists in Kruger National Park found a blinded and mutilated rhino wandering alive. That horror prompted a social media storm and generated intense interest from the Belgian ambassador to South Africa and senior members of the European Parliament. (The personal secretary and aide to Belgium’s deputy prime minister was one of the tourists.) In South Africa last year, 1004 rhinos were poached; so far this year, 146 have been poached.

Against this backdrop, Nepal’s record stands out.

According to John Scanlon, secretary-general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Nepal’s success is the result of “strong and committed leadership, excellent national collaboration among enforcement entities and with parks agencies, very effective engagement with local communities, and targeted intelligence-led enforcement actions leading to arrests of key players at the top of the criminal chain.”

More than 700 criminals were arrested for wildlife-related crimes this past year, including many “kingpins.”

“Efforts on the ground have been intensified, with rangers and the Nepal[ese] army patrolling protected areas with support from community-based antipoaching units outside the parks,” notes Shubash Lohani, deputy director of the Eastern Himalaya Ecoregion Program at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

“In addition, active enforcement by the crime investigation bureau of Nepal’s police has been crucial to breaking down the presence of illegal wildlife trafficking networks.”

A joint operation in October 2013 by the Nepalese army and the special police led to the dismantling of a rhino poaching network and the arrest of Kathmandu-based kingpin Buddhi Bahadur Praja. Praja allegedly ran a cross-border smuggling enterprise from Nepal to Tibet and killed 12 rhinos over six years.

Also in December 2013, at Nepal’s request INTERPOL issued a Red Notice for another notorious rhino poacher, Rajkumar Praja, a 30-year-old Nepali wanted for killing 15 rhinos in Chitwan National Park. Praja was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison.

A photo of game rangers carrying a confiscated tiger skin drying on a rack – PHOTOGRAPH BY MAGGIE STEBER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Zero Tolerance for Wildlife Crime

“There is very much a zero-tolerance attitude to wildlife crime, whereby justice is often swift and harsh,” notes John Sellar, an anti-smuggling, fraud, and organized crime consultant and former CITES enforcement chief.

“Nepal’s forest law empowers district forest officers and chief wildlife wardens to deal with offenders and impose prison sentences of up to 14 or 15 years,” according to Sellar.

“Whilst this scenario might seem at odds with other judicial systems,” Sellar says, “probably its greatest advantage is that it means that any poacher who is caught can expect to be dealt with much quicker than in other countries suffering high levels of poaching, where court systems regularly have lengthy backlogs and where, currently, insufficient deterrence is present.”

Thanks to Nepal’s efforts, its current estimated population of tigers in national parks increased from 121 in 2009 to 198 in 2013, a promising uptick for a species that’s in desperate trouble globally.

A 2011 census of Nepal’s greater one-horned rhinos showed an estimated population of 534, up 20 percent from 425 in 2008, with more than 500 of them in Chitwan National Park.

The Nepalese army patrols the national parks to ensure their protection. But poaching increased during the Maoist insurgency from 1996 to 2006, when soldiers were redeployed and the number of army monitoring posts in and around the park fell from 30 to 7.

As a result, Chitwan’s rhino population reportedly fell from 612 rhinos in 2000 to some 380 in 2006, when a peace accord was signed.

Today, according to BBC reports, at least a thousand Nepalese soldiers patrol Chitwan from more than 40 posts.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GEMUNU AMARASINGHE, AP A Nepalese wildlife ranger riding an elephant holds an antenna as he tries to trace a rhino with a radio collar in Chitwan National Park.

Cooperative Approach

At the national level, Nepal’s Department of Forests, the country’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) anti poaching staff, and the Nepalese army all share information and work together to fight wildlife poaching and trafficking. At the local level, communities provide the DNPWC with information, which allows officials to target poachers and dealers.

“There has been collaboration across the board in Nepal to stop poaching by putting more rangers on the ground in a cohesive, sophisticated way, actively enforcing anti-trafficking laws to break down illegal wildlife trade networks, educating local communities, and building a shared ethic of conservation across Nepali society,” says WWF’s Lohani.

For years Nepal has ensured local communities benefit financially from the parks and ecotourism. Those benefits come not only from employment, but also from sharing revenue, such as entrance fees and license fees for tour and lodge companies, with local people.

“The government actually gives 50 cents of every tourist dollar to local communities, which makes them hold more value for rhinos alive than dead,” Lohani notes.

Further, Nepalese nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the National Trust for Nature Conservation, and international NGOs, such as WWF, have a long history of fruitful interaction with local communities. The result is citizens with a strong sense of ownership and commitment to wildlife protection.

Dedicated leadership at high levels has also been important. Nepal’s prime minister chairs the national wildlife crime control bureau. The country hosts the South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN) secretariat, and the director-general of DNPWC serves as SAWEN’s chief enforcement coordinator.

In addition, Nepal was a major force in the early days of the Global Tiger Initiative, which assists the 13 tiger range states in carrying out their conservation strategies through planning, coordination, and communication.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GEMUNU AMARASINGHE, AP Tourists prepare to ride an elephant during a wildlife safari in Chitwan National Park.

Danger Lurks

Nepal’s location—between China to its north and India to its south, east, and west—places it at great risk for trafficking. The country’s rough terrain makes border control difficult, and Kathmandu Valley is believed to be a major transit point for the illicit wildlife trade.

“Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that Nepal’s growing tiger and rhino populations will inevitably continue to be targets,” Sellar warns. “Personally, my concern would be that we see the South Africa scenario replicated—i.e., heavily armed and determined foreign gangs entering Nepal’s national parks in search of horns, skins, and ivory.”

But Nepal is aware of the dangers. Already, it has sought to employ the Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit and collaborate with the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) to strengthen its approach to wildlife crime.

As Klairoong Poonpon, former chair of INTERPOL’s Wildlife Crime Working Group and senior technical officer of Thailand’s Department of National Parks, summarizes, “Nepal’s remarkable achievement at zero poaching for a second year gives lessons for other countries and hope for the future of our wildlife.”

This article was written by Laurel Neme for National Geographic.

[Ref:  http://focusingonwildlife.com]

Til next time,

Meggi

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For all Friends of Wildlife and Elephants, this Photo Tour is for you!

Did you know that we have an Elephant Sanctuary PAWS here in California?

Join me for an unforgettable day with the elephants at PAWS - 

read more about my 2012 visit at PAWS and the then 7 elephants at the sanctuary here.

A few spaces available for the October 2014 Photo Tour.

To read the full details, click here.

To register, pl email me at mraeder33@gmail.com.

How the Wolves Changed the Rivers

How the Wolves Changed the Rivers

This is a remarkable story how the reintroduction of the wolves into Yellowstone in 1995 changed not only the ecosystem, but also the landscape.

Pl watch the 4 minute beautiful video and rejoice in the ability of nature to regenerate!



Til next time,
Meggi

Joshua Tree NP_Night Astro-Landscape Photography

Milky Way over Arch Rock, Joshua Tree National park,  March 2014 at ~4am

Hello Friends,

In a continued effort to improve my astro-landscape photography, I recently traveled to Joshua Tree National Park, a dark area with bright night sky, in Southern California.

There, I participated in a workshops given by master astro-landscape photographer Brad Goldpaint and we were out in the park for two nights from sunset to dawn.  When I go out at night for astro photography, I typically tire by 1-2am and so the plan to stay up and out until dawn concerned me a little bit.  But it was an awesome experience photographing at 3 locations per night capturing startrails, and the Milky Way that rose after 3am on the southern horizon.  The unique landscape and vegetation in Joshua Tree National Park added to the rich compositional opportunities.  At night, it feels like being on a different planet walking to the desert landscape in search of beautiful rock formations and Joshua trees that might point to the North star.

If you would like to learn how to capture the night sky, please join me for an awesome night above the clouds in my next Night Photo Workshop on May 24-25, 2014. Please read all the details here.

Joshua Trees framing the North Star.  The yellow glow is light pollution 

from the city of 29 Palms – the entry to the park.

We were lucky that both nights were mostly clear and allowed seeing the milky way clearly as it rose over the horizon in the late night hours.  The quarter moon helped to illuminate the landscape - an extra bonus.

Milky Way over the Arch Rock

Clouds passing by.

On the last morning, clouds came rolling in in the late night hours but that did not hinder us to continue to capture the awesome landscape and the interesting patterns that formed int he sky with Venus and the stars peeking through.  

As the light came up early morning, the Joshua Trees seemed to be glowing in the early dawn.

The quiet landscape, the vastness of the sky and our Universe invites to meditation and after my camera is set up I often lie down and gaze at the sky  -  it makes all the efforts worthwhile.

I returned to my accommodations each night around 6 am, exhausted but happy with the wonderful experience during the night.

I hope you are enjoying the images and maybe join me for one of my photo workshops that I offer during 2014 - click here for the full listing.

Til next time,

Meggi

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If you would like to learn how to capture the night sky, please join me for an awesome night above the clouds in my next Night Astro-Landscape Photo Workshop on May 24-25, 2014. 

Please click for all the details here.

Book: However long the night

Hello to 2014!

It's been a while since I have entered a new blog.  Since last December, I took a long journey to Antarctica and came back full of experiences,  memories and remarkable images that I will share with you in the coming months.  Coming home and not being greeted by my cat Georgie who died in October last year made me miss him so much again.  But I filled this void by following through with a plan to foster cats in need:  I am currently giving a home to Cat Mama Lillian and her 7 kittens, that came to me when the kittens were 7 days old and as of today - Day 14 of the Kittens life -  the little family is thriving and bringing me lots of joy!

But I want to start my 2014 blogging with a remarkable book that I just finished:

Book:  However long the night, by Aimee Molloy

I just finished reading the most remarkable book about bringing change to cultural traditions that don’t serve the people any more.  “However long the night” is an extraordinary story of one woman’s determination to create a movement towards change and better the future for millions of girls and women in rural Africa.

I have always believed that education is the way out of poverty and that educating women helps the family tremendously.  But this book showed me that implementing basic human rights: the right to have a voice, the right to be heard, the right to participate in decision making in the family and the community, freedom from violence and discrimination, and the right over your body, present a corner stone upon which all other education can rest.

The journey of Molly Melching to Senegal in West Africa and her remarkable determination to change the tradition of female genital cutting and to bring about changes to a hundreds of years old tradition is a journey of courage, perseverance and ultimate triumph.

If issues of women's rights in the developing world interest you at all, this book will give you insights of extraordinary events and it is a must reading!!

I want to end with a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt,
written on the tenth Anniversary of the Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948):

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world...  Such as the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination.  Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.  Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

I hope your year 2014 started well and will be an exciting year!

Til next time,
Meggi

Yosemite NatPark

Happy Holidays and 

All the Best for 2014!

Since I am leaving for a long trip to the end of the World - Antarctica - my holiday greetings come to you early this year.  I have dedicated my last blog entry for the year 2013 to the wonderful Yosemite National Park and have pulled together a lot of my images taken over the years of visiting there.  I have combined still images with timelapse video and I hope you will enjoy the journey.

As the year comes to an end, I want to thank all of you who have supported and encouraged me to pursue my passion of photography.  2013 has been a year of change as I have left my scientific career behind and am dedicating my time to being behind the camera, learning new techniques in my timelapse and video photography.  I have been fortunate to travel quite a bit internationally to South America, Patagonia and the Magellan Strait, as well domestically with road trips to Montana and Glacier National Park in early summer and to Utah and the national parks there in the Fall.

My yearly volunteering brought me to Kanab Utah.  The Best Friends Animal Society is a wonderful place to lend a hand and I certainly fell in love with all the wonderful cats that I took care of during my time there.  You can read my story about my time there in this link. My latest photo book "So Much Love" was conceived during my volunteering there and can be purchased here.

                 

     

               So much love - Best Friend Animal Society      

   

     Working with animals is inspirational.  This book was conceived during my volunteer work at Best Friends Society, the largest domestic animals sanctuary in the US and combines wonderful cat portraits with Wisdom Quotes for meditative reading.  Parts of the proceeds will benefit the Best Friends…    

   

                       

While at home I have enjoyed teaching photography through a variety of photo workshops. I have enjoyed meeting new photographers and sharing my knowledge.  However, I find it most satisfying when I get the feedback that my participants have learned new techniques and insights, and tell me that they will incorporate these new skills into their photography practice.  Thank you all!!
As 2014 approaches, pl check out my new photo workshops listings here.

My personal focus in my photography practice has been on night photography.  I took several astro landscape photography workshops with terrific teachers - Brad Goldpaint, Steven Christenson and Jon Fuller - and have gained confidence to capture the night sky and the milky way - this is truly my new nightlife.  Two recent blog entries showed more of my night photography:  City Lights and Mare Island Naval Shipyard at night.

Crater Lake under the Milky Way

I  hope your year was successful in all your endeavors!

For now, I am wishing you a Happy Holiday Season and all the best for the coming New Year!

Stay healthy and be well!  I hope to see you all sometimes during 2014!

Til then, Meggi

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2014 New Photography Workshops:

Under the Stars        --  Astro-Landscape Night Photography, Big Sur Coast
                                     February 28, 2014
Above the  Clouds   --  Astro-Landscape Night Photography, Fremont Peak Park
                                     May 24, 2014

Sonoma Hot Air Balloon Classic  --  Colorful & Unique Photo Opportunity with Tutorial in Timelapse                                                                    Photography
                                      June 13-15, 2014