COMM 150 and 337: Viral video, blogs get up close and personal with a hungry moose calf, and a wildlife rescue center's operations

• COMM 150: Your documented essay assignment asks, "How are social media ... changing the face of American culture? You may consider entertainment, politics and/or government." You may also wish to consider wildlife conservation and environmental education.
  
• COMM 337: Linked below are a video posted to YouTube by an animal care intern at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and blogs posted by the intern and the biologist/animal curator. How might you use social media in your careers as media professionals?

"Our first orphaned moose calf of the season has received quite a bit of acclaim and a lot of attention from our animal care interns," animal curator Jordan Schaul reported on his blog on National Geographic's NewsWatch website. In a post headlined "'Gilly' the Moose Calf – Video Gone Viral," he linked to a video by AWCC intern Erin Leighton featuring a 3-week-old orphaned moose calf waiting impatiently to be bottle-fed.

"If you were an intern here at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center you would already have put in your time feeding moose calves around the clock," Schaul added. "This video provides a very authentic perspective of a hungry young ungulate awaiting his milk bottle."

Schaul went on to explain how the wildlife center cooperates with the state Department of Fish and Game to care for injured animals or young ones orphaned by hunters, automobile accidents or natural causes. His blog is informative, and as you read other posts, you get a sense of how important the center's animal rescue work is. It also manages a program to re-introduce wood bison to Alaska.

But Schaul's isn't the only blog being written at the wildlife center. The intern who filmed Gilly the moose not only has a YouTube channel, InternErin, but a blog she calls Moose, Bison, and Bears oh My! It's a personal blog, but it's linked to the Wildlife Conservation Center's homepage. In her profile Erin, who blogs under her first name, said she was a "recent college graduate" who was moving to Alaska, where she "will be training Kodiak bear cubs and helping with the re-introduction of wood bison. I don't know what to expect but can't wait for some adventures!"

Intern Erin began her blog when she arrived in Alaska, and her first posts are about getting used to her new job, the weather - and Alaska. It was cold, but AWCC is just a few miles from a world-class ski resort at Girdwood, which certainly didn't hurt. In her first week Erin learned "everyone in Alaska refers to the 'other' states (excluding Hawaii) as the lower 48 which I think is kinda cool." From then on, she started signing off "Good night, lower 48." And she obviously thought the internship was cool, even when she was cleaning out cages. After a month or two, she was explaining how - and why - you have to train bear cubs and keep them in enclosures:

They will live their lives out at a bear park similar to the AWCC. They are unrelated and will not be breed. Since Kodiak Bears are not a threatened bear there is no need to breed them in captivity. It is also hard enough finding room for bears in captivity. They can not be re-released since they missed out on learning fital skills from their mothers. They would also probably become a dangerous bear since they are associated with humans now.

I stumbled across Erin's blog when I was visiting the AWCC website looking for Christmas presents. I was hooked.

As the days lengthened in the spring and summer, Erin kept posting. The moose calves - Gilly was joined by several more orphans - learned to browse on fireweed (an iconic Alaska plant) and grew as tall as the interns. The days grew shorter, and the bears put on weight in the fall, then cut back on eating as they prepared to hibernate. In October, the snow came and Erin was looking forward to the skiing season at Girdwood again.

In the meantime Erin went from cleaning out cages to environmental programs and a kids' puppet show, involving a moose on one hand and an Alaska ranger on the other, at schools in Girdwood, Anchorage and as far away as Fairbanks. Co-starring in her "porcupine presentations" was a seasoned trouper named Snickers (AWCC is a rescue operation, and all the animals that aren't to be released to the wild again seem to have names). Here's one she did this fall at Girdwood Elementary School with another AWCC staffer and, of course, Snickers the porcupine:

This past wednesday we used Snickers for a presentation. We taught kids ages 3-9 about porcupines. After Snickers made his debut we gave every kid some playdo to make their own porcupine. Then they used spaghetti to represent quills on their porcupines. This coming wednesday we will be teaching about insulation animals have in Alaska.

I was pulled into Erin's "Moose, Bison, and Bears oh My" blog because I've visited the conservation center several times and I was curious to see a first-person account of how an intern experienced it. But I kept reading because Erin's detail was fascinating, and I learned a lot about the center's day-to-day operation and environmental education while I was reading. I learned a lot about moose calves, bear cups and porcupines, too.

So ... here's the question again: How might you be able to use the first-person immediacy and narrative format of a personal blog for public education or advocacy in your career?