Jack Hanna and his wife Suzi were hiking in Montana’s Glacier National Park in mid afternoon. As they came around a corner they saw two hikers, along with two other groups of hikers, and a mother grizzly and yearlings within yards.

“You cannot run from these animals. They run a football field in six seconds, 100 yards,” said Jack Hanna in the interview.

Learn more in the article “Zookeeper Jack Hanna Uses Pepper Spray to Save Hikers From Bear“.

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Wolf photo by Carl R. Sams II.

Carl and Jean will be at the Traverse Bay Outdoor Art Fair this Saturday with their popular children’s movies, books, plush and nature and wildlife prints for sale. 

The Traverse Bay Outdoor Art Festival is put on by the Artcenter Traverse City and held on the Northwestern Michigan College Campus in Traverse City, Michigan.  

The Artcenter Traverse City offers a high quality art festival with live music, concessions, artist demonstrations and children’s activities. More than 120 artists from across the country participate.

Come to the 50th Annual Traverse Bay Outdoor Art Fair for a fun day with Carl and Jean and enjoy our popular children’s movies, books and wildlife prints.

Traverse Bay Outdoor Art Fair Hours/Admission
Saturday, July 31:  10am – 5pm
Admission is free and open to the public.

Learn more about the Traverse Bay Outdoor Art Fair at the Artcenter Traverse City website.

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Find My Friends teaches toddlers how creatures of nature use their special colors to hide.

Are you looking for the best board books for toddlers? We are fortunate that many of our customers feel we have some of the best board books on the market.

Below are some quotes from online reviews of our award-winning board book Find My Friends.

Customer Reviews
“Great book. Super photos of Midwest wild animals. Not too big to keep toddlers’ attention. Good heavy cardboard pages for toddlers.”

“Short, sweet and adorable.”

“Wonderful ‘real’ pictures of the animals for a baby to see and learn.”

Our board books for kids include Find My Friends, When Snowflakes Fall, and Winter Friends.

Benefits of Board Books
Toddlers have short attention spans and are very lively. Board books with few words and pictures are a perfect way to engage them and it’s easy for the toddler to understand the story.

Board books are inexpensive (ours are just $7.95 each) and sturdy. They fit in a toddler’s tiny hands and make it easy for the child to turn the pages without tearing them.

Find My Friends is a Midwest Independent Publishers Association Honorable Mention Award Winner. Learn more about Find My Friends, or view all three of our board books for toddlers (scroll down to third row of books once on page).

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It seems the bear entered the car because it had a sandwich in the back seat. Once inside, the bear accidentally hit the automatic transmission shift lever, shifting into neutral and sending the car shooting down a hill with the bear trapped inside. The bear even hit the horn and flashers!

In the article, Colorado wildlife expert Tyler Baskfield said bears often entered cars and houses in search of food. “It happens all the time,” he said. “They’re very smart.”

View the video interview.

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This Executive Order establishes a new National Ocean Policy for the “stewardship of the ocean, our coasts, and Great Lakes, which sets our Nation on a path toward comprehensive planning for the preservation and sustainable uses of these bodies of water.”

Below is an excerpt from the Executive Order (PDF):

“Section 1. Purpose. The ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes provide jobs, food, energy resources, ecological services, recreation, and tourism opportunities, and play critical roles in our Nation’s transportation, economy, and trade, as well as the global mobility of our Armed Forces and the maintenance of international peace and security. The
Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and resulting environmental crisis is a stark reminder of how vulnerable our marine environments are, and how much communities and the Nation rely on healthy and resilient ocean and coastal ecosystems. America’s stewardship of the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes is intrinsically linked to environmental sustainability, human health and well-being, national prosperity, adaptation to climate and other environmental changes, social justice, international diplomacy, and national and homeland security.”

Learn more in the story, “Forging a Coherent Oceans Policy“, in The New York Times. For additional information visit the White House Web page for the National Ocean Council.

To learn how life on Earth is connected by moving water, watch the video clip below from our award-winning children’s movie, The Riddle in a Bottle. Share this video with your kids to help them learn about the importance of ocean and water conservation.

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Forest photo courtesy stock.xchng

The “Discover the Forest” campaign includes a video featuring Miss America talking about the important role nature played in helping shape the person she is today. She links nature to helping children develop a conservation ethic.

A statistic that I find frightening in the video is that children in the United States spend 50% less time outdoors than they did 20 years ago! Miss America, Caressa Cameron, tells us what nature means to her, and why it is so important to help children reconnect with nature in this short video at facebook.com/discovertheforest.

Check out www.discovertheforest.org for more information!

Thank you to ThisDishisVegetarian.com for the heads up on this!

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Ann Arbor Street Art Fair

Visit Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair 2010 this Wednesday, July 21 through Saturday, July 24. Purchase our New York Times best selling children’s picture books, award-winning movies and plush, along with our wildlife prints.

Visit Carl and Jean at booth 307 on Main Street. View map of Ann Arbor Street Fair 2010 (PDF).

Hours
Wednesday-Friday: 10am-9pm
Saturday: 10am-6pm

History
The Original Fair was named the Number One Art Fair in the country by AmericanStyle magazine readers survey (October 2004) and has made the Top Ten Fairs and Festivals list every year since.  

The mission of the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair is to increase public knowledge and appreciation for contemporary fine arts and fine crafts by creating opportunities that connect artists, the Ann Arbor community and the general public to their mutual benefit, culminating in a top quality juried street art fair.

The Street Art Fair is set on North University Avenue and on the University of Michigan’s Central Campus, amidst most elegant architecture and beautifully landscaped pedestrian walkways.

Learn More
Ann Arbor Street Art Fair on Facebook

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Photo courtesy stock.xchng.

Have you heard of “Bug Camp”? I hadn’t heard of Bug Camp either until I came across the term this morning on the Net.

Connecting kids with our natural world is critically important if people are going to continue to care about and be willing to stand up to protect nature. Bug Camp at the Rachel Carson Homestead sounds like the type of camp all kids should have the opportunity to attend to help connect them with our natural world.

I like that there is no electronic media allowed and that the kids are outdoors exploring nature and learning about bugs and wildlife. How fun!

Learn more about Bug Camp in the story “Bug Camp Kids learn about nature at Rachel Carson Homestead“. Learn about Rachel Carson Summer Bug Camp (scroll down once on page).

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Who knew that mountain lions existed in Indiana? I think this is exciting news as we’ve had mountain lion sightings in Michigan also.

To me it means that we still have large tracts of untouched wilderness, which is a what animals like mountain lions, wolverines, and bears need.

Learn more.

The above is a repost of an article I wrote and posted on our blog on May 11, 2010. It’s our most popular post to date.

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A fawn rests alone as its mother grazes nearby. This image is from the book, "Lost in the Woods. Photo by Carl R. Sams II

If you are interested in learning how to take wildlife photos, Backpacker Magazine has a great article, “The Manual: How to Shoot Wildlife Photography”, that I found online. I often take my point and shoot Sony digital camera with me when I go hiking, but I rarely end up with any good photographs of wildlife.

This article stresses the “rule of thirds”, and shooting the animal at eye level, a technique I had not thought of. It’s a short and very helpful article.

Near the top of the article are links to other good articles in the series: “Find Your Prey”; “Conceal Yourself”; “Get in Position”; and “Shoot Like a Pro”.

I hope the article helps you take wildlife photos that you can be proud of. Many thanks to Backpacker Magazine!

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