Rebel Girls Animal Allies: 25 Tales of Women Working with Wildlife
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
8 BELLA LACK ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST Bella flopped on the sofa Her eyes were wide and she was ready to learn Images of animals in the wild darted across the TV screen and a deep voice rose over the outdoor images She'd recognize that voice anywhere It was Sir David Attenborough and she loved the wildlife documentaries he made She grabbed a pen and wrote him a letter Something incredible happened David wrote back Every time His replies made Bella feel like her words mattered As a young girl Bella learned about animals that performed in circuses all over the United Kingdom Many lived in tiny cages and faced brutal training She couldn't stand it At first Bella felt small Circuses had been around forever and she was just a teenager But then Bella remembered the letters that had brought her so much joy What if she wrote a letter to lawmakers Bella sat down at her computer and started writing She imagined she was talking to someone like Sir David Attenborough and expressed how much she cared about the bears tigers elephants and other four-legged entertainers She begged the government to outlaw their acts Later she turned her letter into an online petition and asked her friends for help spreading the word They shared it with their friends who shared it with their friends Bella was blown away when 200,000 people signed it Less than a year later a new law passed It banned the use of animals in circuses in the UK Bella is more convinced than ever that her words matter She proved that no one is too small or too young to speak up when something is wrong BORN NOVEMBER 27 2002 UNITED KINGDOM
ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA PEDERSEN THERE'S NO WAY WE CAN GET PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT NATURE IF THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO PROTECT BELLA LACK
