I think I saw a putty-cat! I went to The San Diego Safari Park to practice with my new camera, but I got kinda distracted by these little guys. I think this one wanted to come home with me……or else he wanted to eat something right past my ear.

Meet the tiger cubs. One cub was brought to the park from The National Zoo after it was rejected by its mother and the other was confiscated at the San Diego/Mexican border by patrol agents when it was seven weeks old. One is a Bengal Tiger and the other a Sumatran. There are less than 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild.

This wasn’t a fair test of my new RX10 camera because I had to shoot through-multi inch tempered scratched glass, but who cares, these guys were too amazing to pass up and I knew you would like to see…

Imani is a 18 year old lowland gorilla at the San Diego Safari (Wild Animal) Park and this is her newborn baby delivered on March 12, 2014. (Please click to enlarge).

This is the 17th gorilla born at the Park. The baby was delivered by cesarean section and born with a collapsed lung and severe pneumonia. The neonate had surgery at birth, was treated for the pneumonia, and reunited with her mother at age 12 days.

Mama Imani has basically not put the baby down since the reunification.

Gorillas are such good mamas and could teach humans a thing or three about maternal child bonding.

The baby’s head lolls when it falls asleep. Mama is always holding baby’s hand as you can see in these pics.

Mama Imani was also a surrogate mother to Frank, now a five year old gorilla. She is still quite attached to Frank. All the…

We got close enough to see the tiger’s breath! Click to enlarge and see for yourself. If I had to come home from vacation, I must admit this was a very good way to do it!!

The Sumatran Tigers are in a brand new, outdoor, 5.2 acre, multi-level exhibit at The San Diego Safari (Wild Animal) Park. The exhibit houses breeding tigers and is filled with trees, plants, waterfalls, streams and ponds.
There are currently approximately 400 Sumatran Tigers left in the wild.

There were originally nine sub-species of tigers in our world, but three of these are now extinct due to habitat destruction and poaching. All tiger sub-species are critically endangered.

Poachers kill Sumatran Tigers for their bones which are used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine.

The San Diego Zoo and Park supports tiger conservation by breeding tigers to insure genetic diversity through cooperative exchange. It also actively supports…

When you look into these wild eyes,

what do you see?

I see,

wild hearts,

untamed,

yearning to be free.

These mountain lions were photographed at The Big Bear Alpine Zoo in Big Bear Lake California.

Big Bear Alpine Zoo is a rescue and rehabilitation facility that provides injured, orphaned and imprinted wild animals a safe haven, either temporarily as they heal, or permanently if they are unable to survive in the wild. 90% of the animals brought to the facility are released back into the wild.

There are 160 animals in the facility currently, comprising 60 different species. There is a golden eagle with one eye, a bear with three legs, a grizzly that was scheduled for euthanasia at Yellowstone, animals that were kept as pets and abandoned when they become too much to handle, and many more animals with sad histories.

A new zoo is under construction that…

Sun sets on a winter sea
Golden ‘cross wet sand
as we go walking at low tide
as lovers, hand in hand

A recent review of my latest novel, At the River’s Edge, caught my attention. The reviewer appreciated reading a murder mystery that isn’t laced with profanity and sexual content. Similar comments have been made by other readers.

To be clear, I wrote this book for adults, and it does contain earthy language and moderate violence. After all, it is a murder mystery, but it doesn’t contain explicit sex scenes, and the violence is within the context of the story.

I believe you can build tension and suspense in a mystery without gory violence or profane language. I only need to reference Rod Serling and his TV series, The Twilight Zone, to make my point. For younger readers, Google him or take a look at a YouTube clip of one of the episodes from the 1950s and 1960s.

I’ve never overused violence or profane language in any of my…