Rebel Girls Animal Allies: 25 Tales of Women Working with Wildlife
6 4 CONTENTS FOREWORD BY LUCY KING AMANDA VINCENT AND HEATHER KOLDEWEY Marine Biologists BELLA LACK Environmental Activist BINDI IRWIN TV Personality and Conservationist BIRUTÉ GALDIKAS Primatologist CHRISTINA GORSUCH Zoo Curator 8 10 12 14 16 CORINA NEWSOME Ornithologist CRISTINA MITTERMEIER Photographer and Marine Biologist 18 EUGENIE CLARK Ichthyologist 20 GILLIAN BURKE TV Producer Presenter and Biologist 22 GUNJAN MENON Filmmaker 24 HANA AHMED RAZA Conservationist 26 JA NE GOODALL Primatologist 28 JULIE RAZ AFIMANAHAKA Conservation Biologist 30 KRISTEN BELL Actor and Animal Rights Activist 32 KRISTEN LEAR Conservationist and Science Communicator 34 LAURA KOJIMA Herpetologist 36 LEELA HAZZAH Conservation Biologist 38 MARIA DIE KMANN Conservationist 40 OLIVIA NIENABER Environmentalist 42 RACHEL IKEMEH Conservationist 44 SAENGDUE AN LE K CHAILERT Animal Rights Activist 46 SAMI BAYLY Author and Illustrator 48 SUE CHIN Architect 50 TEMPLE GRAND IN Professor of Animal Sciences 52 TOLANI FRANCISCO Veterinarian 54 WRITE YOUR STORY DRAW YOUR PORTRAIT BE AN ANIMAL ALLY THE ILLUSTRATORS ABOUT REBEL GIRLS 56 57 58 61 62
4 FOREWORD Dear Rebels I was brought up surrounded by animals As a child I befriended two giant Somali spurred tortoises that roamed around in our tangled garden in Mogadishu I also lived on a farm in Lesotho where my family and I had the chance to explore the extraordinary wild corners of southern Africa I always felt pulled to protect and stick up for the special animals that made my young world so interesting and colorful I must have been about five years old bouncing down a sandy game park track on safari in our old Ford Cortina when my father slammed on the brakes The car skidded to a halt and he switched off the engine Elephants They slowly meandered around the car From my lowly position in the back seat I squished my nose against the window and stared up at four towering pillars to a wrinkly gray underbelly The elephants loomed over the top of our car Their presence and sheer size awed me but it was their quiet chest shaking rumbles as they ate that captured my heart I have been completely head over heels in love with elephants ever since I would do anything to protect them and have actually I've ended up in the hospital several times from the rough and tumble of life working with elephants I can see the same passion in the women featured in this book like Rachel Ikemeh who has been striving to safeguard red colobus monkeys in her home country of Nigeria or Leela Hazzah who works with Maasai warriors to protect lions in Kenya Hana Ahmed Raza has lobbied for protected areas to keep the last few Persian leopards from disappearing from Iraq Like these passionate conservationists I have been compelled by my lifelong interest in elephants and my rising awareness of their changing and disappearing habitats to help elephants and humans live in better harmony It's simply impossible for me to imagine the African landscape without elephants By listening to Kenyan herders who live with wild animals every day my team and I at Save the Elephants learned that these giant pachyderms
5 are afraid of honeybees Yup incredible isn't it This led my team and I to develop a novel beehive fence to keep elephants from raiding farms for crops Our beehives are hung between posts and interlinked so they swing and release the bees if an elephant tries to push through By first exploring and understanding the natural behaviors of both elephants and bees we have created a sustainable solution that benefits both species It also protects some of the poorest farmers from elephant conflict I hope that our story of working with animals not against them plus this wonderful compilation of tales about astoundingly fearless Rebel Girls will encourage you to embrace your instincts to protect an animal that captures your heart Do anything to defend it Whether that means helping a local rescue shelter planting flowers for pollinators rehabilitating injured creatures or tracking wild mammals across the plains of Africa we all need to do our part to protect and nurture our fellow earthly species of all shapes and sizes I don't think there is anything more important after all our very lives depend on the health and vitality that animals contribute to our shared planet Lucy King Head of Human-Elephant Co-Existence Program Save the Elephants Kenya
