THE CHARITY BATTLE ISSUE
"I'm not a fighter I'm a chiller," - Hup Squad
Dear Readers,
It’s the Charity Battle issue!
For those of you new to Wild Green Memos, we typically pick some chaotic theme and use it to tell a silly, meme-and-nature-driven story. This issue, though, is a bit different.
For a few weeks each February, we switch Wild Green Modes and activate the Charity Battle, in which everyone divides into nature-themed “gangs” based on their favorite ecological interests and competes to see which gang can raise the most money for conservation through the official group nonprofit, Wild Green Future. The winning gang gets a spot in the Hall of Champions and bragging rights for a year, and everyone who donates $10 or more gets a sticker specific to their gang. No matter which gang wins, the money all goes to the same causes, and we all get to make the world just a little bit greener.
So! How does that work as a newsletter?
In true nature-nerd fashion, we have written a dichotomous key to help you discover your gang! Each sticker design links to that gang’s donation portal, where you can go to donate (or just admire our beautiful photoshop skills).
The Charity Battle is underway now, and continues through Saturday, March 1st at 11:59 PM EST. We’ve also included information on each of the grants we are fundraising for this year. You can read all that below, and participate in the Wild Green Memes for Ecological Fiends Facebook group.
We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming next month. Until then, enjoy!
Wild Green Unqualified Team is for all those with a passion for wildlife yet no super sciencey credentials.
Members of Wild Green Unqualified team enjoy long walks on the beach, which are only long because they have to stop and ask a more qualified person the names of all the seashells and seaweed.
MycoMob is for those of us who memento mori but actually might be an immortal million ton entity slowly devouring a forest. They might be a little toxic, or they might make a mean sautéed dinner! MycoMob is a powerful gang of unpredictable and diverse organisms that may be secretly running the world’s ecosystems.
Rock Band is for all you geologists and musicians out there. We hear you, and we appreciate the fun facts you share when we drive past rock formations on road trips - especially when they are shared in song form!
Where would the world be if we had to rely on pesky things like the metric system? Banana for Scale Squad is making sure that will never happen.
The Photosyndicate is here to make you an offer you can’t refuse! Ya’ever hear of Producers? Well the world wouldn’t be anywhere without’em. It’d be a real shame if Brassica here decided for some reason that he Brassicouldn’t!
You may not get the credit you deserve, but whether in ocean current providing food and oxygen or forest lichen glistening in the morning dew, we appreciate you!
Animalia Marginalia rifeth from the cornerf of handwritten bookf of yore! Last year’f blowout Charity Battle champion hearkenf back to medieval Europe, when monkf would doodle animalf in the marginf of bookf they were transcribing.
Can you read text written with a long “f”? Do you dream of being a knight on fnailback, fighting a giant rabbit with a fword? Have you feen Henry, the depreffed sloth, in your nightmaref? Do you think birdf lookf kind of suspiciouf? Then Animalia Marginalia might be the champion gang for you!
The Anxietees don’t want to bother anyone! “Oop, let me just step out of the way there, sorry! I am SO clumsy!” It’s probably because they stayed up late thinking about that time in 7th grade when they fell asleep during a test!
HERP GAAAAAAANG! That’s what the chorus is singing! Herp Gang is the only two-time champion of the Charity Battle, and for the first time in years they are making a serious move for the lead in this one!
Herp Gang is for anyone interested in herpetology, the study of reptiles and amphibians. While these two animal groups are not closely related, it’s the humans who adore them that share so much in common. Signs of belonging to Herp Gang include, but are not limited to: trekking through the rainy woods at night during a salamander migration, getting stinky snake musk on your hands, failing to find that especially loud unseen calling frog, declaring “I like turtles!” on a regular basis, and involuntarily shouting “Crikey!” at the sight of a crocodilian.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its condiments. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of barnacled seas of clams, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge of snails will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new baked oyster special.
We prefer to explain this one in the form of a song:
The only animals that can make their own custard! Male duck billed platypus are also venomous, via a spur on their hind feet. Very cool!
They’re going to Gatekeep Gaslight Girlboss their way to the top, or at least through this closed door!
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Translation: Corvid Council is comprised of crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, treepies, choughs, nutcrackers, and (non-Australian) magpies. Members of Corvid Council enjoy shiny things, knick knacks, baubles, doodads, trinkets, curios, tchotchkes, and things that are shiny.
Coming from the deep we have the Cave Crew. These subterranean troubadours have many adaptations for their strange environment, including the loss of useless eyes, and extremely slow metabolisms, which can sometimes allow them to sit in one spot for years without moving!
I don’t think they exist.
HUP HUP AND AWAY! The Hup Squad is for all the chillers out there who just seem to float through life. If you have a calm demeanor, if you are friends with everybody, and if you enjoy jumping into water, this may be the gang for you!
Chronically Confused Canines are smort, smol, lorge, and mostly confused! They have great senses which are especially heightened when they head tilt at everything!
Forbidden Feline Fellowship - for those extremely effective predatory creatures which you want to scritch, but know you shouldn’t.
A wise Muppet once said, “Oh, I love trash!” Trash Mob is a truly cosmopolitan gang, whose dumpster-diving lifestyle has made its way across the globe. From the pizza-nabbing rats of the New York City subways to the bin chickens (aka Australian white ibis) of Sydney, from the gulls that prowl New England’s dumps to that one housefly that refuses to leave your kitchen (the door is wide open, buddy!) these creatures, great and small, are true opportunists.
Don’t let their team name fool you - this gang is just as committed to habitat conservation as the rest of them, even if its human members can’t help but find solace in the anxiety of a hissing opossum or hope in the perseverance of a seemingly indestructible cockroach.
So whether your life is feeling like a dumpster fire or you embrace your chaotic raccoon energy, there’s no shame in feeling a little trashy while also dreaming of a brighter, cleaner, wilder, greener future.
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It’s a whole gang of characters, and they’re here to freeze out the competition! This gang is for anyone who looks forward to the winter snow, and who thinks 75 degrees is “just a bit toasty for my taste”.
They’re cute! They’re cuddly! They were literally born yesterday! It’s the Baby Bunch!
So what are we fundraising for?
The Charity Battle has a tiered structure, with each tier going to a different purpose. Here are this year’s!
Tier 1: $15,000 Conserving the Brazil Nut Corridor in Peru
Pictured: Brazil nut seedlings in a vivero paid for by donors to previous Charity Battles!
📷 Rhett Barker
Most of the world's supply of Brazil nuts comes from the Madre de Dios department of Peru. Because Brazil nut trees are dependent on intact rainforest to complete their life cycle, the Peruvian government has designated family-owned concessions where most extractive activities are limited and the sustainable harvest of Brazil nuts can be maintained. As long as the Brazil nut harvest continues to support the concessionaires who live there, this globally-significant region of the Peruvian Amazon will remain intact.
At the request of local concessionaires, the Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon (ASA) is working to ensure the sustainability of the Brazil nut harvest and by extension the survival of this essential piece of the Peruvian Amazon. They do this through the Brazil Nut Corridor Project. Participating concessionaires are provided with workshops on the cultivation and planting of Brazil nut seedlings in forest gaps, and those who complete the program receive 80 Brazil nut seedlings for the lands they manage. Transportation assistance is provided when needed to attend the workshops, and concessionaires are given a guidebook created by ASA and a forestry expert in the region as a reference.
This year, ASA is continuing to expand the program, providing workshops for new concessionaires and checking in with participants from previous years to see their progress. Wild Green Future has had the pleasure of supporting this excellent community-based conservation project since its start in 2021, and we are excited to provide continued funding through Tier 1 of this year’s Charity Battle.
TIER 1 IS NOW COMPLETE - THANK YOU WILD GREEN DONORS!
Tier 2: $27,859 Expanding Frosted Elfin Conservation
Pictured: Sundial lupine, one of the frosted elfin’s host plants. 📷 Jaret Daniels
The frosted elfin is a small brown butterfly considered to be rare and declining throughout its geographic range, which extends from New Hampshire and Wisconsin to Florida. It is likely extirpated in several states and provinces of its former range, and is listed as a species of special concern, threatened, or endangered in 11 states. It occurs in small, localized populations, and its caterpillars specialize in sundial lupine and wild indigo. Extremely vulnerable to habitat destruction and fragmentation, frosted elfin populations have been lost from 7 of the 10 locations in Florida where they were present as recently as 2017.
The Daniels Lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History's McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity has over 30 years' experience in captive breeding of at-risk taxa, including the Miami Blue Butterfly and Schaus's Swallowtail.
Last year, Wild Green Future funded the augmentation of the Daniels Lab's frosted elfin captive breeding program with new individuals and diverse DNA from remaining wild Florida populations. Funds from Charity Battle VI also enabled the creation of a manual containing the comprehensive set of husbandry and breeding best practices for conservationists across the butterfly's range.
We are expanding on last year's success in Tier 2. This year's grant will support the creation of a separate captive population with genetics from frosted elfins in Virginia to ensure the survival of that region's genetic variation. It will also allow for the collection of nondestructive tissue samples to enable further genetic analysis of the Virginian populations. Finally, funding from this year's Charity Battle will allow the Daniels Lab to conduct trainings for frosted elfin detection and population survey methods with natural resource professionals in Louisiana and Alabama, enabling these state agencies to better monitor their local populations.
TIER 2 IS NOW COMPLETE - THANK YOU WILD GREEN DONORS!
Tier 3: $31,000 Staff for the ASA
Pictured: A butterfly at the ASA’s field station, Finca las Piedras. 📷Danielle Russell
The ASA is working to ensure a secure future for the people and ecosystems of the Peruvian Amazon through collaboration with local communities and research into the ecology and wildlife of the region. They are a young but already accomplished organization, rapidly expanding in both size and impact.
To help sustain this growth, last year’s Charity Battle provided funding to contribute to ASA's staff salaries for positions including a lead naturalist, fundraising intern, lepidoptera project lead, and assistant researchers.
In Tier 3, we are continuing to support the work of these natural resource professionals. It takes people power to conserve nature, and these positions have had an exponential effect on ASA's work, allowing them to bring even more capacity, expertise, and funding to their efforts.
Tier 4: $25,000 Facilities for Rainforest Conservation
Pictured: A monkey near the ASA’s field station, Finca las Piedras. 📷 Danielle Russell
The ASA conducts most of its activities from its field station in the Peruvian Amazon, Finca las Piedras. Their location allows them to conduct research in the forest and to interface directly and organically with local communities, but the field station’s capacity to support staff and visiting researchers was limited by the lack of facilities in the region.
To help remedy this limitation, Wild Green Future has worked with ASA to fund the construction of resilient infrastructure, including solar panels, bathroom and shower facilities, and a biodigester for waste treatment.
In 2024, Wild Green donors allowed us to continue our support for these vital projects by funding the construction of new staff housing, expanding storage facilities, and conducting necessary improvements and maintenance to the dining hall. With these improvements in infrastructure, Finca las Piedras now has the appropriate living space for its regular staff and the flow of visitors it receives.
This year's infrastructure fundraising goals will support upgrades to their solar energy system to further improve the function of Finca las Piedras and its molecular lab (one of the only such labs for ecology research in South America), continued improvements to the visitors' quarters and kitchen, and the implementation of a new work and collections space in Puerto Maldonado, the nearest major city to the field station.
Tier 5: To Ecology and Beyond!
Pictured: A nightscape in Montana. 📷 Rhett Barker
Any funds donated beyond Tier 4 will support further Wild Green Future grants, projects, and initiatives. Learn more about what we've funded in the past at the links below!