Historically, wolves roamed throughout the lower 48 states, but centuries of misconceptions and hostility toward the species led to intense human persecution. These factors coupled with habitat loss effectively wiped out the species throughout most of the country during the twentieth century.

Fact Sheets

Wolf size, weight, colorings, behavior, status and more can be learned in these colorful fact sheets. Complete with sounds, videos and more.

Gray Wolf | Red Wolf | Mexican Wolf

4 Things You Should Know about Wolves

1. Wolves in the wild are not dangerous to people. Although wolves are large, powerful animals that could kill humans, they do not. According to a 2002 study about wolf conflicts with humans, there is no documented case of a healthy, wild wolf killing a human in the United States. By comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate between 10 to 20 people are killed and 4.7 million attacked each year by man's best friend, the domestic dog.

2. Wolves perform a vital role in the environment

3. Wolves are not pets

4. It is everyone's responsibility to do something each day to make the world a
   better place.

Adopt a wolf today

More wolf resources...

Wolf Conservation Center
International Wolf Center

Labels: animal conservation, endangered species, wolves

Late last night I got my latest cover and I'm thrilled!

It's the work of Croco, who I still think is a complete cover art genius and I can't thank her enough for this one.

This is for my latest Cobblestone Press release. There's no release date yet, but I'll keep y'all posted. ;-)

Labels: rick springfield

It could have something to do with staying up until six in the morning two nights in a row, but whatever, I'm still tired! lol

And why did you stay up so late?

Writing? ...nope.

Trouble at home? ...nope

Insomnia? ...nope.

I was addictively playing The Sims2!

I don't let myself play that game very often, because when I do, it's like an alcoholic going on a bender! I don't come up for days!!!! The other day, you see, was just a long day of dead ends and by around ten o'clock or so, I decided to just call it a night, climb in bed, order take-out and knock up sims for the rest of the night...sim babies are SO cute... anwyay...

Good plan.

BUT

My sims had "other" plans!!!

First off, I decide I'm going to create a nice little couple, career focused, but with a bit of a playful side, put them in a house together from the start, turn off their aging and let them rise to the top levels of their career tracks, then start knocking her up till they've had a bagillion kids!

But when I went back in to create the guy, the sim generator gave me a second girl instead, and she was sooooooooooooo cute, I couldn't delete her. So I made her the first girl's sister, and decided they could all live in the same house together and decided for themselves who would pair up.

Not a bad plan, so off we go.

It was clear from the beginning that the business sim (Fern) was far more interested in her career as a professional dancer then she was in the guy. And the guy (Kieren) first entered the military, then became a musician, while Jaqui (the sister) became a home body, cleaning, cooking , making friends, and planting a garden. It was all lovely, until my cheat window refused to open and I couldn't turn off the aging!!! =O

So there they all are, aging away madly! and living their happy little sim lives. Eventually Jaqui and Kieren (yes with a small nudge from me, because they did nothing on their own!) started flirting, which led to kissing, which led to making out, which led to SEX!!! which led to a surprise proposal at the breakfast table one morning.

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

So all was good.

Until Jaqui became a little obsessed with her garden.

Dun dun dun...

All she cared about was her garden and she was spending more and more time out there until finally, one day, I looked up...AND SHE'D BECOME A PLANT SIM!!!!!

A walking breathing plant.

It was bad, so now all she needed was love (which she got from talking to her eggplants) water and sunlight to survive, unlike regular sims who had environmental needs, food needs, entertainment needs, and so on and so on.

So she continued on with her garden obsession, much to the distraughtness of her fiance and her sister.

Eventually they began trying interventions. The sister called the garden club because she knew they sold the potion to unplant yourself, but when the garden club woman arrived, all Jaqui did was request membership!

Then the sister, feeling bad for the fiance, started flirting with him, herself! Eventually they were caught in a romantic embrace and there was much slapping! Everyone was mad at everyone!!!

One day the fiance had had ENOUGH! He wanted his fiancee back. He wanted to get married and have children! So he called the garden club, intent on buying the potion himself and FORCING Jaqui to take it! But when they arrived, she refused to answer the door!

So he FUCKED Fern!!!!!

Who of course as a result ended up pregnant!!!

They felt very guilty, but for the sake of their baby, decided to try and move on from Jaqui and see if they had a future together.

Meanwhile, Jaqui was in sunlight deprivation, but she kept trying to go take a shower! If she didn't get sunlight for a long period of time, she would pass out, maybe even DIE!

So I told her to go sit on the front lawn and watch the clouds for a bit.

It seemed peaceful.

And I'm sure it was...

UNTIL THE METEOR FELL FROM THE SKY AND CRUSHED HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And then the grim reaper came, but since she'd been on such bad terms with her sister and fiance (whom she'd recently broken up with because she felt it was only right that he be with his baby, so he's all kinds of pissed with her, coz he still loved her and wanted to marry her) anyway, bad terms...the grim reaper REFUSED to listen to their pleas for mercy and took her!!!!!

OMG!!!!!

So now...

(and yes it was about this point in the story that Z --my oldest-- said, I'm leaving. I refuse to hear one more word about your desperate housesims. Can you believe that??!!)

Anyway, so Fern and Kieren can't stand to live in the house they'd shared lo these many years (plus they are a little worried what the pissed off ghost may do to them), so after the baby is born (a boy they named Julian) they move to a new house with the intention of making a life together work.

But once there, some new neighbors come to greet them and lo and behold if Kieren doesn't take one look at Gracie and fall head over heels in love at first sight with her!!!!!

So now he has a terrible dilemma. What does he do? Stay with the mother of his child, in a loveless marriage, or take a chance on happiness with Gracie?

OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!

So that's where my weekend has disappeared to so far and I swear, I have the least supportive kids on the planet. Z's always wanting to rain on my parade...sniffle, he's all, "You do realize these are sims right? They don't have free thought!

LOL sheesh! Obviously he's never played the game. Of course they do! lmao!!!


So anyway in other news, I'm in second round edits on Unatamable. I'm starting a new writing project tomorrow for a charity call. yay! And this week in weight loss...well, lets just call it a learning week.

And what did we learn?

You can't not drink water, and eat at steak houses and McDonalds and Chinese buffets and have alcoholic beverages and still lose weight!

I KNOW!

You must clearly be as shocked as I am!!!

Ok fine, so I blew it this week, but Dale was home!

And yes that was whining you heard.

Anyway, the sound you hear now is me, dusting myself off and starting fresh this week. And next time Dale comes home, I need a better plan than, "go hog wild!" sheesh. :P

Ok off to play more sims, I'm taking the weekend off!! What a concept. lol

Have a fabulous week everyone! ~ Samantha

Labels: Life, Sundays with Samantha

Labels: cute animal photos

The southern sea otter is a threatened species

I'm doing some research for my latest wip (see charity call in the next post) and I've decided to do a weekly "animal awareness" post every Thursday. Animals are the burden of my heart. They always have been, but truthfully, the older I get, the less I am able to do physically.

That makes me sound like I'm 80! It's just, when I was in my 20s I worked with marine life rescue groups. I used to foster dogs and cats from the local no-kill shelters. I've always volunteered at the local zoo and always had a small zoo of rescued animals personally, but I'm just seriously finding it harder to do as much as I used to and it left me feeling very depressed.

Then I realized, I have a voice now! It may not be Oprah Winfrey, but I do have readers and I do have people coming by this blog every day. So I'm going to dedicate Thursdays to my beloved animals I hope you will indulge me. :)

One of my favorite animals ever, is the otter, so this first post is dedicated to them. I hope you come away more aware and more compassionate, but regardless, thanks for reading.

Southern sea otter Enhydra lutris nereis To stay warm in chilly ocean waters, otters wear the world’s densest fur. At its thickest, this two-layer fur is made up of more than a million hairs per square inch. (You’ve probably got 100,000 hairs or less on your whole head!) To keep their luxurious coats waterproof, otters spend many hours a day cleaning and grooming. Such good grooming coats their fur with natural oils from their skin and fluffs it with insulating air bubbles.

Diet	crabs, snails, urchins, clams, mussels and other invertebrates
Size	to 4 feet (1.2 m) and up to 50 pounds (23 kg) for females and 70 pounds (32 kg) for males
Range	Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and California.
Relatives	weasels, skunks, river otters; Family: Mustelidea (sea otters are the only exclusively marine member of this family)
Conservation Notes	In 1750, thousands of sea otters lived and foraged along the California coast. Then fur hunters began killing them for their warm, luxurious pelts. By the early 1900s, only about 50 otters along the isolated Big Sur coast had escaped the slaughter. Today's southern sea otters are descendants of those few survivors. With conservation efforts, the sea otter population has slowly grown to around 2,000, but that number has remained fairly stable for the past few years. Scientists are trying to determine the reasons for the recent lack of growth in the population. These recent growth trends and our lack of understanding about their causes mean an uncertain future for the California sea otter population. Although their numbers have increased, sea otters still face serious risks: oil from a single tanker spill near San Francisco or off the central coast could wipe out the entire California sea otter population.
Cool Facts	An otter may hunt on the seafloor, but always returns to the surface to eat. Floating there on its back, it uses its chest as a table. (And if dinner’s a crab or clam, the otter may use a rock to crack open its prey.) To help it stay warm in cold water, a sea otter burns calories at nearly three times the rate you do. An otter fuels its fast metabolism by eating up to a quarter of its weight in food a day. (A 150-pound person would have to eat 35-40 pounds of food a day to match that!) An otter’s coat has pockets—flaps of skin under each front leg. An otter uses them to stash prey during a dive, which leaves its paws free to hunt some more.

What threatens sea otters today?

The sea otter population in California remains small and vulnerable, and every otter counts. Parasites, such as intestinal worms, and infectious disease cause about 40 percent of otter deaths. Protozoal diseases are usually fatal to marine mammals, and they appear to be on the rise among wild sea otters, possibly because of higher pollution levels in coastal ocean waters.

The greatest threat to the otter population is an oil spill. Because their numbers are low and they are located in a rather small geographic area, the California otter population could be devastated by oil contamination. Oil ruins the insulating property of an otter's fur, so most oiled otters die of hypothermia. Prevention of oil spills is the best strategy, since rehabilitating oiled otters is quite difficult.

Adopt a Sea Otter Today!!!

Labels: Conservation, Sea Otters, wildlife

Labels: animal rescue, animals, blade publishing, it's meow or never