Time:5 min
Difficulty:Easy
The tricksters are out! Some animals who don’t belong have slipped into the crowd. Can you spot the fake in each picture?
Who goes there?!
Oh, it’s you, Earth Rangers! I’m surprised to see you here. You might be wondering what I, Sheriff Pickles, am doing out here in the city. Trying to stop that pesky Single-Use Plastic Gang, of course!
I was called here from the forest by my good friend, Deputy Dipper, who’s charge of protecting city animals from these baddies. There are some new villains on the roster who especially love to invade our city streets. We could really use your help!
These four baddies can be found anywhere in cities:
• Foul Filter is a plastic found in cigarette filters, which a lot of people throw right on the ground (grrr!).
• The Wrapper is plastic wrap that covers snack foods and other items.
• Glum Gum is a sweet treat that you may know as… chewing gum! That’s right, most chewing gum’s gum base is a mix of plastic and other chemicals.
• Styrofoot is a plastic better known as Styrofoam, found in many products from containers and packaging to building insulation.
These plastics are not our friends. All four of these villains can be easily found littered on sidewalks, under benches or in grass. They might wash away into waterways and travel all the way into the ocean. Animals can also mistake them for food, gobbling them up where it gets stuck in their tummies or makes them sick.
Don’t let Glum Gum and Foul Filter trick you! They are just as bad for your health as they are for animals. Just don’t have them. If you find any of these baddies wandering the streets, pick them up using gloves or a garbage picker and throw them out! You can also fight The Wrapper and Styrofoot at home by using reusable containers instead of single-use plastics to carry food and making sure to properly discard any you find outside.
Canada is fighting to ban the usage of plastics like Styrofoot, but we’ve got a long way to go! This is where Deputy Dipper and I need you. Yes, you Earth Rangers can help too to stop these villains! All you need to do to defeat them is stop using them, replace them with reusable products, or make sure they’re disposed of properly.
These are small changes you can do that will make a big difference to us and our animal friends.
Why not start cutting the SUP today?
Check out Sheriff Pickle’s other adventure hunting the Single-Use Plastic Gang here:
Sheriff Pickles and the Plastics
Help Sheriff Pickles stop the entire Single-use Plastic Gang with the More Plastic More Problems Mission! Look for it in the Mission section in the Earth Rangers App!
Congratulations to the winners of the Homeroom What a Peculiar Animal Contest!
Buena Vista School, Saskatoon, SK
Meet Metztli who lives in the Coral Reef
It has a snapping turtle mouth. It can break the spines. It has a dolphin tail so it can swim fast.
The Earth Rangers Homeroom community is brimming with creativity! All of the submissions included very imaginative adaptations and show just how many ways there are for animals to adapt to their environments.
For example, here are two different animals living on the Twin Islands:
Louise Roberts’ Grade 3 class
École New Era School, Brandon, Manitoba
Its webbed feet allow it to swim and float on water and walk on sand. Its sharp teeth break coconuts and crabs. Its whale tail allows it to swim fast.
Ms. Andrade’s Grade 6 Class
St Helen School à Toronto, ON
The Frawshter has adapted to the Twin Islands by utilizing some of its structural and behavioural adaptations to help it survive. It can camouflage into its surroundings. Also, the shark tail helps it to swim very fast in the water. Furthermore, his lizard legs enable him to grip things easily. Having the speed of a lion enables it to escape its predator – the crocodile.
And two different animals living in the Downpour Rainforest:
Teddy Fiolka, Grade 3, Homeschool
Calgary, AB
It can fish with its basilisk legs. Its monkey tail is prehensile and can help it eat bird eggs. Its crocodile mouth eats the fish so it doesn’t slip away from its sharp teeth. It has adapted to live on land or water. Its other tail stores fat for later in case of food shortage.
Ms Page’s Grade 5 Class
Ellen Fairclough Primary School Markham, ON
Our peculiar animal can adapt to the Downpour rainforest because the rainforest has a lot of water and our animal has a whale tail and alligator legs which makes it easier to swim. Our animal is an omnivore. Since our animal lives in a forest there is lots of grass and other animals like fish. Our animal’s scaly legs keep him nice and warm. Next, our animals sense of smell is very good. Our animal can smell threats, food and other things. Swafbat is amazing at camouflaging using his turtle back. It also helps our animal swim faster. Swafbat’s eyes are perfect for night vision. It can see everything. Fun fact: The front legs of an alligator’s legs has 5 toes and the back has 4.
Once again, thank you to everyone who participated! There were so many wonderful submissions.
Keep your eyes peeled for our next Homeroom Contest. Sign up for the Homeroom Newsletter to avoid missing out.
Would your class like to put their imagination to the test?
Check out the What a Peculiar Animal activity!
| Save the grizzly bear, American badger, and bighorn sheep! Hi, I’m Julia Poetschke and I’m a Land Stewardship Manager with the Nature Conservancy of Canada (or NCC for short!). I’m working with a team of super- smart, super dedicated scientists and conservationists in the Rocky Mountain Trench, in British Columbia. The trench is a wildlife corridor that’s home to all kinds of animals, including grizzly bears, American badgers, and bighorn sheep! Grizzly bears can be brown to nearly black, with silvery-white longer hairs throughout their fur, giving them a “grizzled” (gray-streaked) look. They live near rivers and streams and make their homes in dens on steep slopes, where they hibernate through the winter. Grizzly bears eat whatever food is available to them, including berries, grasses, and fish. Before they hibernate, they eat A LOT to build up fat and store up energy. During the months they’re hibernating, grizzly bears don’t even go to the bathroom — now that’s a deep sleep! American badgers live in forests and grasslands, and they’re related to both otters and weasels. But don’t let their cuddly appearance fool you: these ferret- family furballs are feisty foragers! Known as fossorial carnivores, American badgers are built to hunt underground prey. Their long snouts help them sniff out small rodents like voles and ground squirrels. The badgers’ front claws can grow up to 2 inches long! Their claws help them tear through the soil to reach their buried buffet. Bighorn sheep are iconic mountain mammals. |
They’re named for the male species’ distinctive spiral horns, which can weigh up to 30 pounds! Did you know that they can balance on cliff sides as narrow as only 2 inches and can jump up to 20 feet between mountain ledges?! Scaling mountains isn’t easy, but bighorn sheep are well adapted for this treacherous task. Their front hooves are bigger than their back hooves, and they have a hard outer rim and soft middle, providing traction that makes mountain climbing a breeze! Can you believe that these three animals, who are so different, all live in the same place? The Rocky Mountain Trench is an amazing geological formation – a long, deep valley that extends from Montana in the U.S. all the way to the top of British Columbia! It has a flat bottom and is surrounded by towering mountain ranges on both sides. The trench itself contains gorgeous forests, grasslands, and even wetlands, and is home to at least 29 endangered species.
It’s truly a sight to behold! Unfortunately, like many of Earth’s beautiful places, human activities and development are putting a strain
on the ecosystem. So, I’m working with a team at NCC to protect and restore it, focused on a treed grassland area by the Kootenay River. And this might sound crazy, but we’re doing it with: fire! Long ago, these treed grasslands regularly had natural, low-intensity wildfires that prevented them from filling in with dense trees. But when people moved into the area, they started to put out the fires as soon as they started. This caused the treed grasslands to transform into dense forest, which wasn’t so great for native species like badgers, elk, deer, and many others who relied on the grasslands for habitat and grazing. So, using safe and controlled fire, the team and I are restoring the treed grasslands to their former glory. But we need help! Check out the Adoptions section in the Earth Rangers App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop to get your Grizzly Bear, American Badger, or Bighorn Sheep Adoption Kits. Make a difference today!
We need your help! This animal is trying to tell us something but we can’t figure it out! Do you know what this deer and crow are thinking?
We’re on route to our next National Park destination, but Emma just stumped herself with a “Who Am I?” animal sound quiz, that is so tricky that even she doesn’t know how to solve it.
Thankfully she gets some help from Sophie Guarasci, one of the amazing wildlife heroes at the Marine Mammal Centre to solve the case!
Emma is on a long train ride towards her next national park. She’s been playing a series of games to pass the time, one of which features… the seal! But just not any seal: a habor seal.
Harbor seals can be found a large range of geographic locations, from the coasts of North America, Europe and Asia. You can come across them in both freshwaters, like the harbor seals of Ungava Peninsula in Quebec, and saltwater like those found along the coast of California.
So does that mean that there are different kinds of harbor seals that live in different places? Yes! There are 5 subspecies of harbor seals: Eastern Atlantic harbor seals, Western Atlantic harbor seals, Eastern Pacific harbor seal, Ungava seals, and Kuril harbor seals. Each of them is just as cute and spotted as the other!
One thing that’s special about these seals is that they don’t have any ear flaps, known as pinna. They instead have an ear opening, that closes when they dive.
And did you know that their cute whiskers (similar to a cat’s) can help them navigate better by detecting the wave pressures of nearby fish.
Have you ever seen a harbor seal relaxing on rocks before? They do that to rest, enjoy the sun, or even spend time together with other seals. But Harbor seals don’t necessarily have to spend their nights on land! They can sleep on both land and in water, as long as their head remains above-water so they can breathe.
A harbor seal can do much more than just float around while sleeping! Seal pups may occasionally ride on their mothers when they are too tired to swim. These cute family interactions don’t last long, as harbor seal pups stay with their mothers for about 4 to 6 weeks before they’re old enough to start trying to forage on their own.
It is during these early stages of a pup’s life that they are most at risk of danger. While separated from their mothers, they can easily get caught up in fishing nets, or end up on urban beaches where they might be at risk of dogs – who can not only injure them, but spread diseases. Seal pups should be left alone, and your dogs should not be allowed near them. If you see an entangled, injured, or stranded seal, report it to your local experts so they can come and tend to it. Specialists such as those at the Marine Mammal Center have the expertise to properly care for an injured harbor seal pup and rehabilitate them back into the wild.
In this episode, Emma calls animal researcher Sophie Guarasci to talk about the harbor seal project. Being a pinniped expert, she knows a ton about seals of all kinds! Sophie is responsible for supervising the care of all animal patients. In addition to performing physical exams and providing surgical assistance, she also oversees and trains students and volunteers in the care of marine mammals.
Sophie works at the Marine Mammal Center, which is focused on advancing global ocean conversation through animal care, research, and education. Their centers take care of all types of different marine mammals, including harbor seal pups. The treatment process involves protecting these pups from stress, making sure they are well-fed, and taught how to dive and hunt on their own, before eventually being released back into the wild.
Sophie has been doing an incredible job helping these adorable animals, and Earth Rangers is determined to help her out! You can too by joining the Shoreline Saver mission, and if you want something fun – why not check out these fun Wildwire articles featuring the harbor seal?
What your favorite harbor seal fact of the episode? Let us know in the comments below!
For more information about the Harbor Seal or to learn more about The Marine Mammal Center’s mission, please visit their website at https://www.marinemammalcenter.org/
Time:10 min
Difficulty:Easy
Do you feel a rumbly in your tumbly? Breakfast, lunch, or snack, we’ve got your family covered!
Step 1: Put a slice of bread into the toaster. While it is toasting, peel and slice up the banana.
Step 2: When your bread is done toasting, slather it with the sandwich spread of your choice.
Step 3: Take two banana slices to make the bear’s ears. And a third banana slice to make the bear’s snout.
Step 4: Take two blueberries to make the bear’s eyes. Place another blueberry on top of the snout to make the bear’s cute little nose.
We got tons of great guesses on Part 1 of this Pixel Puzzler and now it’s time for the answer. Are you ready for the great reveal? Find out if you got it right!
The answer to this Pixel Puzzler is (drum roll please) a Swift Fox! How did you do? Tell us in the comments!
Head to the Adoptions Section in the App or visit the Earth Rangers Shop!
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