Head to the Adoptions Section in the App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop! Get an Earth Rangers Field Notes Notebook FREE with a Plush Adoption Kit until April 30.
This week we’re shining a light on the American badger! Come back all week for badger crafts, games, facts and fun! First up, learn all about American badgers and why they need our help!
Head to the Adoptions Section in the App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop! Get an Earth Rangers Field Notes Notebook FREE with a Plush Adoption Kit until April 30.
Use the decoder key to find out the punchline to these hilarious narwhal jokes!
They may be called red pandas, but did you know these adorable animals are more closely related to weasels and raccoons than the black and white bears they share a name with? They’re also much smaller, weighing about as much as a medium-sized dog!
Making their homes in the Himalayan mountains and the forests of southern China and Nepal, red pandas are secretive, mostly solitary creatures. They spend most of their days climbing through trees and feeding on delicious bamboo. In fact, they are such big fans of bamboo that their bodies are actually BUILT to eat it! They have what’s known as a false thumb, which is actually a bone in their wrist that is bigger than normal and functions like a bendable thumb – pretty handy for their bamboo buffet!
Despite living in such remote locations, the habitat the red panda relies on is under threat. Deforestation means there is less land available for the red panda to live in, and it also makes it harder for it to move safely from one patch of habitat to another. Combined with the continued threat of poaching, there are only an estimated 10,000 red pandas left in the wild. That’s why these Endangered animals need your help!
Earth Rangers is working with the International Conservation Fund of Canada (ICFC), the Youssef-Warren Foundation, and the Red Panda Network on a project that will help train and support local communities in conserving red panda populations and their forest habitat in Nepal. Since their habitat is so remote, conservation work would be almost impossible without the help of the people that share their homes with these amazing animals – like the Forest Guardians! These are a group of incredible people dedicated to working together to protect what’s left of Nepal’s red panda populations. From learning about these amazing animals and why it’s so important to protect them, to setting up monitoring programs and anti-poaching initiatives in forests across western Nepal, the Forest Guardians – and you! – are helping to give the red panda a safe place to call home for years to come!
Head to the Adoptions Section in the Earth Rangers App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop to get your Adoption Kit and help make a difference today!
We need your help! These animals are trying to tell us something but we can’t figure it out! Do you know what these narwhals are thinking?
Head to the Adoptions Section in the App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop! Get an Earth Rangers Field Notes Notebook FREE with a Plush Adoption Kit until April 30.
When it comes to surviving the cold, no one does it better than our Arctic buddies. For the ones that live underwater, the secret to surviving these freezing temperatures is a fat called blubber. For today’s Eco-Activity, we’re going to be doing an experiment to see just how good blubber is at keeping you warm.
1. Fill the bowl with ice and cold water.
2. Put a bag on your hand and cover the outside of it with Crisco. Then carefully put another bag over top of it so the Crisco is covered. This will be the “blubber bag”. Set it aside for now.
3. Make the “control bag” by repeating Step 2 without the Crisco. This bag will help you see how cold the water feels when you don’t have blubber.
4. Put both bags on different hands and dunk them in the bowl of ice water. Feel how much warmer the hand in the “blubber bag” is than the one in the “control bag”.
5. Want to see how other materials compare? Try the experiment again using wool, cotton balls, or even tomato sauce! Which keeps you the warmest? You tell us!
They may be tiny, but did you know these fantastic fliers have one of the longest migrations in the animal kingdom? Every year they travel up to 6,000 miles round trip, making the journey south to the spend their winters in Mexico and then travelling north to breed in the grassland habitat they call home for the summer.
Wondering how one teeny butterfly manages to make such an epic journey? Well, the short answer is, it doesn’t! It takes multiple generations of monarchs to make the journey back home to Canada and the United States. This means that after they arrive in Mexico and soak up the sun, the first generation of migrators makes it back only a fraction of the way. They’ll stop to recharge, and while at this stopover site they’ll reproduce, leaving their offspring instead to continue where they left off.
Although it can take more than two generations of monarchs to make it home from Mexico, the group that travels south in the first place is a bit different: they can make it all the way there themselves! But completing this 3,000 mile journey requires a lot of prep. These monarchs need to be well fed and well rested by the time they’re ready to fly south, which means it’s super important that they spend their summers in a habitat that’s full of safe spaces and delicious food. The grassland habitat that stretches through the northern United States and into southern Canada is just what they need, but sadly, this habitat is disappearing.
Earth Rangers is working with Nature Saskatchewan on a project that will help conserve this important grassland habitat, which is part of what has become one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. In Saskatchewan, it’s estimated that less than 20% of the grassland habitat that used to exist there still remains. Nature Saskatchewan is working with local land owners and managers to help them learn not only how to conserve their grassland habitat, but also to teach them how to monitor the monarchs they find there, and to share tips on making their land even better for the feeding and breeding butterflies that call it home!
On the left, animal-saving hero Becky with Nature Saskatchewan out researching on the
endangered native prairie!
Head to the Adoptions Section in the Earth Rangers App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop to get your Adoption Kit and help make a difference today!
Did you know that northern Ontario is home to one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet? Found in the Hudson Bay Lowland, the boreal peatlands are doing amazing things for the planet! A peatland is a type of wetland ecosystem, characterized by its waterlogged ground that builds up TONS of carbon through the decay of dead plants. Once decayed, the plant carbon is stored in the soil where it can stay locked up for thousands of years. All that carbon that ends up in the soil instead of the atmosphere goes a long way for helping slow down climate change!
Even though they cover less than 3% of the earth’s surface, peatlands store more carbon than all of the planet’s forests combined. And here in Ontario, we’re lucky enough to be home to the second biggest peatland complex in the world! Sadly this important ecosystem is under threat from climate change, deforestation, and industrial development – and these animals need your help!
Besides providing habitat for animals like the polar bear, caribou, and wood frog (just to name a few!), the boreal peatlands in northern Ontario are doing amazing things for the planet – and we need to do our part to help protect them! That’s why we’re working on a project with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada to help them advance policy and science actions that will conserve these important peatland ecosystems. Since they’re such an incredible carbon store (remember they can hold carbon in their soil for thousands of years – that’s carbon that won’t get released into the atmosphere!), they should be recognized globally as a natural climate change solution, and we need to learn all we can about how they might be affected if disturbances like climate warming and industrial development continue.
Head to the Adoptions Section in the Earth Rangers App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop to get your Adoption Kit and help make a difference today!
The narwhal (Monodon monoceros) has a ‘horn’ like any ‘real’ unicorn should. But this horn is really an ivory tooth. It can grow up to 2.7 m (8ft 10in) and right through the upper lip! Ouch!
If a narwhal tusk is a tooth, do you think they need to brush it before bed?
Head to the Adoptions Section in the App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop! Get an Earth Rangers Field Notes Notebook FREE with a Plush Adoption Kit until April 30.
Everyone could use a narwhal as a pal. After all, who wouldn’t want a friend with the nickname “unicorn of the sea”? For today’s Eco-Activity, we’re getting crafty and turning an old toilet paper roll into an adorable narwhal buddy!
1. Flatten your toilet paper roll and draw the outline of a whale. It will need an upright fin at the back and a large head.
2. Cut along the bottom of your toilet paper roll so it opens up and cut out the pieces that won’t be part of your narwhal.
3. Paint the toilet paper roll the colour you want for your narwhal’s body.
4. While you’re waiting for the body to dry, make some fins out of construction paper.
5. Next, make your narwhal’s horn. Cut a quarter of a circle out of construction paper and roll up it up to make a thin cone. Secure it with a little glue.
6. Once the paint is dry, glue the horn and fins in place. Next, add googly eyes or make your own from construction paper or paint.
7. Add a little smile and your narwhal buddy is complete!
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