Endangered Species Day 2013

Friday, May 17 was Endangered Species Day 2013. As a donation to our beautiful world, please buy a Vaquita t-shirt at https://campaign.customink.com/savethevaquita.

To my delight, my campaign is currently featured in the “Trending Campaigns” section of Custom Ink’s home page, https://campaign.customink.com! Help keep it there by purchasing one for only around $25! They also make a great gift. 25% of profits will go to ¡Viva Vaquita!, and the rest will go towards the printing of my book. The book will be featured in at least two aquariums’ gift shops and will be at many tables for National Save the Vaquita Day! Look for further updates on all of these things in the future. If you have not already, follow my blog (look in the right sidebar) to receive all new posts by email, just so you don’t miss anything.

 

ESD13

Muskwa’s National Save the Vaquita Day

The Muskwa Club has put up the first episode of their series of shadow puppet videos. You can watch it below. Also, their website is now www.muskwaclub.org.

Attention Muskwa Club members: the deadline for ordering a Vaquita t-shirt is Tuesday, May 7 at 11:59 pm, though I may extend the deadline slightly. Order it here: http://www.customink.com/signup/2nvhf7s2.

I have made a lot of progress on my book, including finishing all text, almost finishing all the illustrations, and I have front and back cover images (courtesy of Memuco and Tom Jefferson). I might even get NOAA or The Cousteau Society to pay for printing by sponsoring it! I hope to send it off to publishing this month.

Immense progress has been made with Muskwa’s National Save the Vaquita Day, about which they are contacting the president to make it an official day, July 6th. They have many, many aquariums participating in or considering participating in the event, with the Waikiki and Cabrillo Aquariums being confirmed for that day. Also, there is a chance I will be manning a table at the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts on June 9 for World Oceans Day, and the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland on July 6 for National Save the Vaquita Day, if they confirm their participation in the event.

The Muskwa Club has a huge range of contacts in every imaginable niche, which is helping make all of this possible. They will be selling my book on July 6 at many of their tables, (¡Viva Vaquita! will be doing the same), and the Cabrillo Aquarium has even offered to sell the book at their gift shop! The Muskwa Club has many projects that they are keeping under wraps for now, but believe me, they are awesome! Also, I am now writing a column for the Muskwa Club’s monthly newsletter.

In other news, Jonathan answered the riddle correctly! Q: What is a Vaquita’s favorite model of computer? A: Microsoft Surface.

Mahalo Mondays

Tomorrow, Monday the 29th, is the last day to join ¡Viva Vaquita! at Hula’s Island Grill and Tiki Room in Monterey, California for Mahalo Mondays, where 10% of all sales go to ¡Viva Vaquita!. Dinner starts at 4 pm.

Please email Endangered Species Chocolate at info@chocolatebar.com and ask them to make a Vaquita bar. It would be an enormous deal for such a big company to advertise the Vaquita!

Also, you probably noticed that I completely changed how my blog looks. I personally like it better now. How do you feel about it?

And, for the 100th News Update, I would like to end with a riddle. Submit your answers in the comments.

What is a Vaquita’s favorite model of computer?

Vaquita Expedition 2013 Campaign

There are a lot of things going on right now in the Vaquita world. Topher Jones of Bisbee, Arizona has created an Indiegogo campaign for a Vaquita Expedition 2013 to get good photographs and video of the Vaquita. I believe this expedition has nothing to do with ¡Viva Vaquita! or their possible 2013 Expedition. Either way, it sounds very neat and worth donating to: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vaquita-expedition?c=home.

A National Geographic article about un-damming the Colorado River seems very positive at first, but it may lead to an increase of illegal fishing in the Vaquita’s range. Read it here: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/12/colorado-river-meet-the-sea/.

The Muskwa Club has contacted many nationwide aquariums and has begun to form a successful Vaquita Day 2013. The day is planned to be July 6th, and we are trying to get as many aquariums to celebrate the Vaquita on that day as possible. I might even have a table at Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey! They have already arranged nationwide media coverage! This will really be a huge event! The Muskwa Club has really helped me achieve my dreams of saving the Vaquita, and they have many more crazy ideas in the works! 🙂

Being a Vaquita conservationist is one busy job!

Memuco is awesome

Memuco is, to put it mildly, awesome. He agreed to illustrate the cover of my book a while ago, and yesterday he sent me the finished products. He didn’t just do one, he did four. All four are the greatest Vaquita paintings I have ever seen. It was so hard to pick one for the cover, but I finally chose a beautiful painting of a mother and calf. But I will definitely use all of them for various purposes in the future. I don’t want to post them yet due to copyright reasons, but take my word for it that they are unbelievable. The book should be published by the end of the summer.

Social media

After reading the pages and some posts on this blog, you will know a few things: One, I am a kid with an obsession for a porpoise that I might never see. Two, the porpoise is extremely endangered due to entanglement in gillnets. Three, it will be gone within a few years without the removal of the nets from the only place they live, the northern Gulf of California. That’s really the most important stuff.

Next, you might be thinking, “Well, I would like to help this thing, but I don’t have much spare money, and I don’t live near where all of the cool events take place to help and learn about it. Anyway, what could I possibly do to help it when there are scientists who are actually trying?” Then you might click out of the page.

I had the exact same thoughts. Living almost as far away from it in this country as possible, I felt like I was missing out on all of the booths and fundraisers and such. I donated a few hundred bucks over the period of a year, but I knew in the back of my mind that such money is dwarfed by the already millions of dollars spent by the Mexican government. Don’t get me wrong, donations to groups like ¡Viva Vaquita! are vital, but it doesn’t always feel that way. You want to know the best way to help the Vaquita from your chair that is nowhere near Mexico, right?

The answer is social media. That’s right, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Google Plus+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, MySpace, DeviantArt, Tumblr, WordPress, and many more. Post something about the Vaquita. Tell your friends and have them do the same. What’s better: one person donating $100, or 200 people each donating $15? Not only does the second one equal 30 times more money for the Vaquita, but 200 people, rather than one, learn about it, and it’s likely they will pass it on too.

So the next time you want to post a status update on Facebook, write about the little Mexican porpoise. As a matter of fact, do it right now. Go ahead, Facebook is waiting.

Informational video

If you live in the area, join ¡Viva Vaquita! at Hula’s Island Grill and Tiki Room in Monterey, California every Monday night in April for their Mahalo Monday fundraiser! 10% of sales will go to ¡Viva Vaquita! It is open for dinner starting at 4 pm. Hope you can come!

Also, William Whittenbury from the Muskwa Club has asked me to write the script for their informational movie that will be on their YouTube channel, possibly a local news station, and maybe even on a loop in the Cabrillo Aquarium and at a Vaquita Fundraising event at the Hawaiian Waikiki Aquarium, which is still an idea in progress that the aquarium has shown much interest in. Many more ideas are also in the works, and I will update them as soon as they become official.

Book illustration

I am going to give a sneak peek of the illustrations that are going to be in my book. The picture below is going to be for the “Taxonomy” chapter of the book. Also, William Whittenbury from the Muskwa Club has asked to use this picture for the introduction of one of their movies! I will post the movie series when it is completed. It promises to be awesome. Also, I will post some of the many drawings, posters, and projects my siblings and I have done in the past few years when I can.

My scientific sketch.

My scientific sketch.