 I have opened an online shop where I’m selling all kinds of products with designs I've made from my photography.
If you haven't seen it on my Facebook or Instagram already, the link to my shop is curryosities.myspreadshop.com (or find it in the menu under Other Fun Stuff). This shop is dedicated to my dearly departed mutt, Paughey. He was the most adorably dopey good dog and looks pretty good on a t-shirt! My nephews wear their Paughey shirts proudly with Parker making sure those who comment on it know “he’s dead”. Kids say the darndest things!
I'll be releasing new designs periodically and introducing them here! So keep checking back until you find something you like. Or, if there's something you're interested in, a specific product or animal, LET ME KNOW! I'll do my best to make it happen! I’ve already done several custom orders to rave reviews.  While this was intended to be an artistic outlet, it’s also a side hustle of sorts, so I do get a portion of the profits from your purchase. Help a girl working for a non-profit, living with her parents out. 
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 The San Diego Zoo's Long-Term Conservation Loan Agreement with China has come to a close. This means Bai Yun and Xiao Liwu will be headed to China sometime this spring as a new phase of panda conservation is set to begin. For the past 25 year, the San Diego Zoo has been part of an international effort to prevent panda extinction that has met it's conservation goals. The news of this program ending is therefore heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. It's incredibly impressive that the program has been such as success, especially in San Diego with our rock star Bai Yun as the helm. But, it's going to be sad and strange for the San Diego Zoo to not have any pandas, even if it's only for a short time. I'm also super bummed I won't have a chance to see them in person again before they head back to China but I am honored to say I was a part of such a successful conservation effort! Gao Gao was the most recent panda to head back to China. He has been living it up at a panda retirement home while his offspring have been pumping out more little pandas as part of an ongoing breeding program. Now Mama and baby brother will be joining them in their native land. Plans for the next phase haven't been revealed yet and when I asked for the inside scoop they just replied "stay tuned."  Check out all my panda posts. I love those pandas!
A few days ago, pandas at the Toronto Zoo took full advantage of the cold weather having a BLAST playing in the snow! Giant pandas are from the remote, mountainous regions of central China, in the Min Mountains and Qinling Mountains of the Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, where it often snows in the winter months. The pandas in Canada feel right at home in the cold. While the San Diego Pandas don't get any naturally cold weather, they do get a special delivery of snow a couple times a year and they know just what to do when it arrives!
In honor of the Giant Panda being taken off the Endangered Species List and down-listed to Vulnerable at the recent IUCN World Conservation Congress, here's a video I took in March 2012 of the small, but mighty, Gao Gao being, well, a Panda. There has been a 17% increase in the Giant Panda population within the last decade. My panda t-shirt that says there are only 1,600 left in the wild is now wrong, with the count now believed to be over 2,000 pandas! They say the panda’s dramatic comeback is largely due to research-fueled conservation efforts in China and scientists around the world that have contributed to the effort, which includes researchers at San Diego Zoo Global, which includes me! I am very proud to have been a part of that team and hope some of what I contributed during my 5 years at the Panda Research Station helped the cause. GO PANDAS!
There are still threats to the Giant Panda, so the struggle, and research, is not over. Best of luck to the panda team in keeping the panda moving down the IUCN Red List! |
