Rebel Girls Animal Allies: 25 Tales of Women Working with Wildlife
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
6 AMANDA VINCENT AND HEATHER KOLDEWEY MARINE BIOLOGISTS With a scuba tank on her back and goggles protecting her eyes Amanda leaned back Out of the boat she splashed And into the water she went There underwater she got to work doing something no other biologist was doing studying seahorses in their habitat Amanda watched these quirky little fish wrap their wriggly tails around seagrasses and corals to stay put in the constantly shifting shallow waters Such interesting little creatures They use their snouts to suck up food as it floats by And when it comes to babies it is the males who give birth Seahorses were a joy to study but Amanda knew they were also in trouble They get trapped in fishing nets and caught by people who use dried seahorses in traditional medicine Like a detective she tracked the trade in seahorses Amanda also met a powerful partner Heather Heather had planned to be a veterinarian But the tides pulled her in another direction and she became a marine biologist She too wanted to save the seahorses So Amanda and Heather combined forces They needed to learn more about how fishing communities relied on the seahorse trade Soon the devoted scientists were in the Philippines balanced in a boat in the middle of the night with a seahorse fisher Amanda and Heather founded Project Seahorse to bring people together to protect marine ecosystems They got seahorses added to an important worldwide list of endangered species And now 183 nations and counting are working toward a sustainable seahorse trade When oceans are safe for seahorses it's better for all sea creatures and humans too AMANDA BIRTH DATE UNKNOWN HEATHER BORN JANUARY 18 1967 CANADA AND UNITED KINGDOM
IT'S NOT JUST BIOLOGISTS AND SHOULDN'T BE EVERYONE CAN BE A CONSERVATIONIST HEATHER KOLDEWEY ILLUSTRATION BY JOJO CLINCH
