a few of my favorites

Sunrise on North Padre Island
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

Just a super quick update. I am so close to being done with a full draft of my book. So close that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it's still not done which frustrates me because I was only one half-chapter away when I got back from Montana and I have not had time to just do that single half chapter!! I understand why, just basically getting caught up at home, spending time with my beautiful awesome kiddos when I can, some time with Doug, and then writing several Animal Planet blog posts so I can have a week to focus - this week. And here it is, Tuesday!

I wanted to link to some of my favorite Animal Planet Animals in the News blog posts in case you haven't had a chance to read them.

Massive oil spill off Australian coast puts marine life at risk - The news in yesterday's post horrifies me because some 400-2,000 barrels of oil per day are spilling into the Timor Sea off Western Australia and it's been going on since August 21st. Yet it's barely made the news. WWF-Australia made an expedition there to survey the damage to wildlife.

Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" may kill animals- I like this post because it reports on something that, once again, has only started getting the public attention it deserves. It's a frightening story that we all should be aware of! My friend Sharon Wilson who writes the Blue Daze blog has been a longtime advocate of drilling reform in the Barnett Shale of Texas.

Open Season on Gray Wolves - I like this one because it's based on my recent visit to Yellowstone National Park and seeing the wolves in the wild, then I give an update on the first wolf hunting season in recent history.

Costa Rica’s “Leatherback National Park” threatened - Discovery Channel sent me to Las Baulas National Park in 1999 for a totally amazing expedition Love & Death on Turtle Beach! Now the national park may get downgraded by Costa Rica's own government.

Meatless Mondays - I have enjoyed writing about food/meat issues on the blog, which is something "animal" related that I never originally intended to write about. But as I come across story ideas, more and more I realize that food issues affect us all, and actually a lot more than many other wildlife or animal stories. I am trying to do "meatless monday" which means no meat on Mondays, and it's embraced by the likes of Paul McCartney and many others. The goal is to help curb global warming because meat production is one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gases. This post gives the facts about meat consumption as gathered from various sources, and the low-down on meatless Mondays.

Good year for endangered coho salmon - Again part of this was based on my visit to the Pacific Northwest and I really like writing about the places I visit, and learning more about the salmon hatcheries and the endangered species of salmon that live there. I like to choose sustainably harvested seafood and this blog has helped me learn a lot in that regard. According to most seafood watch reports, Alaska salmon is mostly ok, farmed salmon is bad to eat, and it depends on which precise river drainage in the Pacific NW you get your fish from on whether it's sustainable or not...

That's all for now! :) Visit and leave some comments, if you get a chance!

agghhhhhh

My dad's log cabin in Oregon where I spent part of my younger years...
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

Wow this sumer has absolutely flown by. I think I am in the middle of a whirlwind. I want to update my blog more, but only feel like I am being responsible in doing so when I'm on top of my work, which feels dreadfully behind. So, here I am just to give a quick update. This is Shark Week so all my Animal Planet blog posts were on sharks (between 8/7 and 8/3), which was fun! I love sharks! Check them out if you can! As always I love comments, so post some comments - let me know if anything resonates!

Next Tuesday I fly to the Pacific Northwest and am more than a little excited! My dad is getting married to his soul mate, Bev, and I'm delighted for them! And I'm more than excited to be back in the Oregon air, and go hiking, and hopefully see the seashore. I'll try to update from there, but my basic plan is to fly into Seattle, Washington where I'll stay with my cousin in Tacoma and her two cute kiddos (her husband Ross in in Iraq for his second tour of duty, so prayers for him are much appreciated!). Then I'll spend the next few days alternating between working in Portland at a wifi coffee shop hotspot, visiting some friends, and spending evenings with my dad and Bev. I am hoping to get to the beach!!! Oregon's coast is incredibly beautiful, and it's been a long while since I've feasted my eyes on its shores so even if I have to go alone I probably will go. My dad gets married Saturday. As you may recall my last trip there in December I got snowed in!!

While there, I have helped organize a get together for writers in the Pacific NW, some of whom are driving in from out of town! This should be a blast. We're going to Wildwood Recreation Site on Mount Hood which looks amazingly beautiful. Here's a brochure that may take abit to download. Then after a half day hike, heading to Hopworks Urban Brewery, Portland's first eco-brewpub with organic hand crafted beer, and a sustainable building powered by 100% renewable energy. Coolio!

Then it's back to Tacoma to visit my cousin again before flying home. It should be a much needed respite from the drab suburban scenery of Houston... I would say the heat but it had been a scalding 108 in Portland! I heard it had cooled down to a high of 80 so let's hope and pray it stays that way! I hope to get a bit of work done in between my visits and explorations, too.

I took a bunch of pics from my birthday party in July and my trip to Dallas to visit my mom, stepdad and niece. I'll upload as soon as I get some time. I have to do "personal" things like this in micro-steps because I have soooo much work to do!! I'm sure I'm not the only one to have felt that way before. :)

i'm a blogging fool!

My eyes/Copyright (c) 2009 Wendee Holtcamp

I have decided to start trying to blog here more, but every time I open up the browser window to write something I get a mental block and I end up not blogging. So here I go, I'm a blogging foo! As I've mentioned in my previous scattered posts, things have been bleak over here. I've been struggling. But finally, a major change in my life happened recently, the end of a relationship that has been a bit of a struggle for some time. There's love, and wonderful things, but also challenges that we need to set aside the "us" and each move in life on separate paths now. I am trying to get my footing again, and actually it's been a sort of slow process because I have spent the last two months on and off trying to get back to the gym more, trying to get together with friends more. My creativity feels like it's suffered. and the overwhelm feeling is often there because of sooooo much to do, deadlines, projects, house stuff, life...

One positive thing, I have absolutely enjoyed doing the Animal Planet Animals in the News blog - it's such a joy to write! I think I love it because it's so concise, short, and with a quick turnaround between writing and publication. The story ideas are easy to come by because they're based on stories already out there 'in the news' so I just research, talk to scientists or others, write it up, fact check, put it online, add links, add photo, and before long, wha-la there's my article, published!

I am really enjoying keeping up with all the animal news around the world on a more regular basis too. I love being able to pick what I write about. I love science-based stories. I love positive stories in which conservationists are recovering a species, or there's some good news but boy there's a lot of bad news out there too. I try to write about invertebrates at least once a week because they don't get enough media play compared to the cute cuddlies or the big scaries. And speaking of big scaries, next week is Shark Week!! (Not that I think sharks are scary!) I have all shark stories in the hopper. It reminds me of when I dove with the sharkies in the Coral Sea last April... man that was a truly mind-blowing profound experience!! I have been talking with Sean a bit about maybe doing that documentary in the Solomon Islands, or seeing whether we can get some funding! That would be sooo cool. Oh and hey, the 2-hour documentary Mysteries of the Shark Coast - in which I appear with a yellow bathing suit and braids walking through the background a few time, and acting as the "shark nurse" handing Richard Fitzpatrick tools for the shark surgery - may air again next week so check it out! Here;s a cool descrip of the show, but it's on the Discovery UK site. And just for fun, here's a link to a game I helped write shark questions for: Sharkrunners!

So there you have it. Slow but steady wins the race. I went to my Thursday morning coffee this morn with my girlfriends, a group that has sort of withered away over the past months and I really, really miss it! A woman from the group who had moved across the pond was back in town and I'd never met her but truly enjoyed sharing a wonderful conversation with her about New Zealand, Australia, whale watching, dolphins, sharks and the like!

I'm heading to Dallas tomorrow morning with my kiddos to visit my mom and stepdad and my adorable niece Kira who is in town from Cali (she flew into Houston, actually, so I got to take her to the museum and hang out with her for a while here too - hadn't seen her in 2 years before then!). I haven't been to see my mom/stepdad in quite a while though they've come down here recently. And we didn't kill one another! We actually got along quite lovely this time. So life progresses and unfolds in always weird and wonderful and mysterious ways, doesn't it?

Here are a couple of my latest publications:

Lone Parents: Virgin Birth in Sharks. BioScience Magazine (Am Inst of Biological Sciences) July/Aug 2009.

The discovery that sharks can reproduce asexually means that mammals are the only jawed vertebrate lineage incapable of parthenogenesis. But can this surprising capacity make any difference to shark survival as their populations decline?

Blue-Green Mystery - Texas Parks & Wildlife mag July 2009.

"It may be one of science’s most impressive pieces of detective work. Biologists at the Institute for Ethnomedicine, led by Director Paul Alan Cox, believe they’ve found the culprit for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and other “tangle diseases” including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and supranuclear palsy. The tiny neurotoxic molecule BMAA (β-N-methylamino-L-alanine) is produced by blue-green algae (also called cyanobacteria) found worldwide. The good news? The discovery could lead to a cure. The bad news? BMAA in drinking water could be a health risk even at low levels, but no one’s testing for it in water supplies yet."

My beautiful niece Kira! The photo as taken by and edited by my daughter Savi! This was at the Museum of Natural Sciences. Kira doesn't like her picture taken! She's incredibly smart, and fun and sweet!
Me, in pigtails... I took this one, a self-portrait
My gorgeous son Sam at the beach. Taken by Savi!

miscellany stuffage

Silhouette of trekkers and porters on a rest stop in eastern Nepal
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I'm going to do one of those quick bulleted lists again. I'm not sure why I'm not blogging as much. I'm also not on Facebook and Twitter quite as much as I was, and I'm getting way behind on emails (though I spent yesterday catching up some). I wish I could say I've been writing like mad, but it is more like just juggling a hundred balls at once. I'm sure you probably know the feeling. Kids, my new blog, my book, household chores, and spending some time with Doug.

So the latest...

• I'm particularly liking the blog post I just wrote for today for the Animal Planet blog, so check it out if you can! Ancient primate ancestor - Holy Grail or hype? I talk about the misuse of the hype and PR these folks are doing to promote their new finding, which may just do a disservice to science and the public understanding of it.
  
  
• I watched Star Trek with Doug, and thought it was really good! I watched Benjamin Button with the kids last night and it was good but not as good as I thought it would be. Then again, I was multi-tasking, going through my email and probably didn't pay good enough attention. I have now watched the first DVD of the first season of LOST, which Doug also introduced me too (like HEROES), and I'm liking it. We have a ways to go, with 6 seasons or so...
  
  
• I have a new online writing class starting up Jun 6th, so if you're interested please check out the writing class website, or email me for more info (bohemian_AT_wendeeholtcamp.com - change the _AT_ to@ of course!)! I believe it's a great class, a fantastic value for your money (some other writing classes online are double the price!), and as one of my recent former students, Hans Tammeragi, just emailed me to say, "Your nature-writing course was excellent technically and also very motivational ... the best writing course I've taken. I particularly appreciated your help with my essays. It obviously helped because I've had two essays accepted since then (one in Canadian Wildlife mag)."
  
  
• I have to go run some errands so that is all the exciting (not) news for now! <:)

Random things

Central Park, New York City. I love New York!
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

I don't have the energy to write a real blog post, but I feel I'm getting behind on keeping everyone up on the latest. So taking the lead from my daughter, who did this on her blog, I am going to do a bulleted list!

• I took Sam to see the Disney/BBC movie earth with his 7th grade class today and it was phenomenal!! The footage is just gorgeous and seeing it on the big screen was incredible. I had watched almost all of the Planet Earth shows on Discovery Channel (in fact, if you didn't know, I wrote half of the animal profiles in the online animal guide!), but this had about half new footage and a great storyline. It takes you all through the earth's major biomes, following the lives of several wildlife species. It includes some funny footage, and some dramatic and breathtaking. Two thumbs up! (OK and that was a very extensive bullet, I get it).
  

• I am learning how very fast I can write! Penning five blog posts a week (on the Animal Planet Animals in the News blog) is quite a feat for me! I am a slow writer, or so I always thought. Writing can be like pulling teeth at times. I sit and stare at my computer screen. But this is different. Research, write, fact check. I've been cranking out stories at double speed because I want to get a backlog of some stories in case I get sick, and also because my book draft is due in a month, and I need a bit of breathing room to get the bloody thing done!
  

• I have written about all manner of cool topics on the blog! They include fluorescent puppies, the Great turtle race, cloning the woolly mammoth, resurrection spiders, and the fact that birds, it turns out, can get down to James Brown (that is, they can dance to a synchronous beat). Upcoming topics include newsy stuff on chimps, worms, Galapagos penguins, cassowaries and more.
  

• I am listening to The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner on audio CD. He's an NPR correspondent and he wrote a book about traveling to the countries that research has shown to be the happiest. So far he's gone to the Netherlands, Switzerland and Bhutan. am enjoying his wry sense of humor. He even invented a word I love - conjoyment which is a cross between joy and content.


• In an attempt to reverse my "feeling down" of late (though it has lifted mostly for the time being) I did two things which bring me joy and which I used to do and haven't in a while! I went to Zumba again, th eone taught by my awesome friend Trish who is so full of energy and love and joie de vivre someone in the class deadpanned (I don't know about Trish. I think they need to do a drug test). The sceond thing is I got together with my girlfriends! Charlotte was in town visiting froim Colorado and she had an informal get together at Wazabi Sushi bar and it was so great to see everyone. Most of my time these days is spent writing, writing and writing some more. I spend any free time with Doug, and/or my kids.

Trish, Me, Georgia, Charlotte and Kate (Amy had left just before)!

So there you have it!

Animals in the News!

I am proud to say I'm now Animal Planet's news blogger! Five days a week I'll post articles or blog posts rather about various issues related to wildlife and pets. Check it out!

http://blogs.discovery.com/animal_news/

My first two posts are "The Great Turtle Race is on!" and "Resurrection spiders." Stay tuned for tomorrow's story! Also check out my official bio "Meet Wendee Holtcamp."