“Ninety-seven percent of all charitable giving goes to support human causes. The remaining three percent is split evenly between our pets and the whole of non-human nature." —Graeme Gibson, author of The Bedside Book of Birds and The Bedside Book of Beasts and council member of the World Wildlife Fund Canada
It's hard to decide which charitable causes to support when so many are so worthy. But I'll go way out on a limb of an endangered old-growth tree to say this: Our home planet deserves more than a 1.5% cut. Here are just a few of the many, many ways to give a holiday gift that helps nature. Click on the links to learn more:
Adopt a whale:
http://www.barharborwhalemuseum.org/adopt2.php
Sponsor an orphaned elephant (one of our favorites over the years):
http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/fostering.asp
Help preserve ancient trees (a wonderful woman from the Michigan-based Archangel Ancient Tree Archive visited the Notebook this summer):
http://www.ancienttreearchive.org/#/en/Home
Adopt a tree to be planted:
http://www.adoptatreetoday.com/adoptatree.html
Adopt an acre of rainforest:http://adopt.nature.org/acre/costa-rica/gift.html
Adopt a tiger
http://www.worldwildlife.org/gift-center/gifts/Species-Adoptions/Tiger.aspx?cqs=CTTG
Help the Jane Goodall Institute protect chimpanzees:
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Help care for an abandoned gibbon (our friend Virginia worked here as a volunteer—we'll be sharing more of her stories and photos in the future):
http://www.highland-farm.org/help/
Help rehabilitate an injured bird of prey:
http://www.arc4raptors.org/adopt
The Other World-Wide Web
I don't know of any sponsor-a-spider holiday gift programs, but maybe there should be one. Even if you suffer from arachnophobia, you'll find the Ted.com talk below interesting. You'll never look at a spider in quite the same way.
Always Leave 'Em Laughing
I was reading last night about kookaburras, the Australian birds (a type of kingfisher) known for their laughter-like calls, so I couldn't resist sharing the sense of hilarity: