A Passionate Primate

For a while now some friends of mine have been encouraging me to write. They know how deeply I care about wildlife and the natural world and have suggested I share my knowledge, thoughts, stories and experiences.  If you don’t know me personally you will likely be wondering who I am. Let me introduce myself:

My name is Lenore, I live in Toronto and as I mentioned above, I am passionate about wildlife and the environment. My love of animals started at a young age and like many kids I grew up with pets at home. There was also the occasional wild, injured bird in our kitchen while my mom tried to nurse him or her back to health. Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom was a favourite in our house (I guess that dates me somewhat!) and I was glued to the TV for that half hour. That show was a big reason I fell in love with wildlife, African wildlife in particular and I vowed to one day travel to the Serengeti.

Yet even with such a strong passion for wildlife, I had no idea what I wanted to be ‘when I grew up’, and let’s just say I took the long road to get here! I’ll spare you the gory details but after some bumps and bruises along the way, I was able to turn my passion into a career. I’ve been very fortunate to have worked for several conservation organizations over the past eight years and I’ve been a zoo volunteer educator for almost 13 years. I’ve had some absolutely AWESOME wildlife experiences like travelling to Africa, observing and working with wild polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, bird banding, releasing Ontario turtle hatchlings into the wild and helping with the rehabilitation of injured wildlife for re-release.

My experiences have taught me many things and I’m excited to share them with you. My hope for this blog is that it inspires those who read it. I hope you will learn things you consider interesting and amazing about animals and that you will come to care as much about them and the natural world as I do. And fingers crossed, that will lead to changes in the way you do things day-to-day. After all, every living thing needs a healthy planet to survive, and that includes us.