To all of my wonderful, beautiful website visitors. I have made the decision to take a break and regenerate. The website updates will not happen at east until after the first of the year. If there is any huge news that comes out I will for sure let you know. Until I return if you must get in touch with me you may do so via email. Thanks for understanding and I wish everyone a very happy new year.
Ok so by now I think pretty much everyone has heard the announcement. I know I have communicated with several people about it in the last 12 hours. Here is the bottom line, just to lay it out there if I dont figure out a way to at the very least pay the cable bill “internet” next month that DRN in its entirety will be gone for good. Because I own my web server if the connection to the house is cut that means the website will be gone, the ability to update it and upload the show will be gone as well. A had a few fail safes just in case but unfortunately my server is fairly advanced and the backup servers at other locations are not. That being said my fail safe was to move the entire site to one of these other servers for free and host it there until I could figure things out,. As I said though they are far from run of the mill and the site will NOT function on them.
It pains me to see the project that I have been working on for 12 months now start crumbling apart. Making the decision I made to back off on it was in my eyes the ONLY way to try to save even part of it. Most of you know I own a business. While this business is not doing very well right now it is still making money. My hope is that by backing off from DRN and focusing on this business I not only will be able to put more time into it to raise revenue but it will be what not only saves DRN but also saves my house.
When I lost my job I did not see it as a bad thing. At that time I was doing DRN for about 10 months and things were almost growing faster than I could keep up. We were starting to become a driving force, things were happening not because we worked for it to happen persay but because we just picked up the phone and asked for them to happen. People were jumping on board left and right not because of what we were doing or how we were doing it but just because we were doing good. I digress though. I saw loosing my job as a great thing. I could not take 2 things I had a passion for “Reptiles and filming” and make a career out of them. I intensified the work I was doing, taking advantage of every opportunity I could I had to do it, I could not see going back into a career that I did not like.
Now after all this time I look at the following that has been created and still cant believe the did as well as it has but unfortunately things have not worked out the way they were suppose to. I sat and watched people that did not put in nearly a tenth of the work I have pass me up like I was standing still. A lot of promises were made for things that could have greatly helped DRN become much much larger that never happened. Part of me is extremely disappointed in this. I have done every single thing I set out to do and never went back on my word no matter how hard it was to follow through and it panes me to think if one of these things would have happened we could be telling a much different story right now.
For those that follow me and my vlogs very closely you may remember some time ago I talked about a plan, back then I told you if it worked out we are shooting for the stars but if not its over. Well clearly that plan did not happen or has yet to happen so I have held on much much longer that I planned on in the first place. All this being said though this decision is not anyone’s fault. I dont blame anyone for me losing my job and not being about to support this adventure anymore.
When I lost my job my household lost about $4,000 per month of income that we need to make ends meet. I need to now find a way to make that income back up and my #1 priority is to make sure I continue to provide for my family the way they deserve to be provided for. I am taking a huge risk by telling you this as its strictly forbidden but I think you need to see the whole picture to completely understand what is happening. In the past month DRN has made $7.53 there is just no way it is sustainable at that rate. I can live from a %50 cut but before going into this I made that every few minutes so there is no way its a sustainable project at the current schedule.
I have looked for outside sponsors. The website and video alone generate about 3,000 people per day. The videos have been watched by nearly 100,000 people since the started and website has attracted 41,000 page views in the last month. Not long ago I started working on a 30 minute anniversary show and put out the work for advertisers for that but all this has equated to no responses from anyone.
All this being said the game is not over yet. I have until mid January to make this work and when I have the time I am going to be kicking it in the ass to keep it going. We have come to far to just walk away now. The only difference is my public appearances “videos” will be less as I work behind the scenes to try to save what we have built. I wanted to make this announcement now though so if come mid January things have not changed you guys will understand why and not be so shocked if the plug is all of the sudden pulled one day.
I greatly appreciate the help I have gotten and love all the people I have met in the past year and will never forget anyone. I hope to god that something changes very soon so I am able to continue trying to change the world.
Below are not guarantees but are ways that anyone can help DRN
Buy a shirt: http://www.foothillherps.com/news/?page_id=2788
Donate: On the website on the upper let there is a donate button.
DRN Weekly Hard Copy: I have a poll on the website for people interested in a paid weekly hard copy of DRN for their home or business. I am still taking votes on who would be interested in getting this. I am not sure of the cost but because of low volume printing costs I am thinking it would cost about $5 per week. Unfortunately we would need as much as 50 paid subscriptions to make it a viable option
There is one MAJOR way people can help which costs nothing but unfortunately its is a violation of the Adsence TOS for me to tell you how “hint hint”
Climate change
is affecting the breeding cycles of toads and salamanders, researchers reported on Tuesday, in the first published evidence of such changes on amphibians.
They documented that two species were breeding later in the autumn than in years past, and two others were breeding earlier in the winter.
Their study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, adds to a growing body of evidence that climate change is affecting animals.
Other studies have shown some birds in North America and Europe are moving northwards as temperatures rise.
Brian Todd of the University of California, Davis and colleagues set up a net around a wetland in South Carolina starting 30 years ago, and trapped the animals that came and went.
“We analyzed 30 years of data on the reproductive timing of 10 amphibian species … and found the first evidence of delayed breeding associated with climate change,” they wrote in their report.
“We also found earlier breeding in two species. The rates of change in reproductive timing in our study are among the fastest reported for any ecological events,” they added.
The changes coincided with a 1.2 degree C (2.16 degrees F)warming in average overnight temperatures at the site.
“Our results highlight the sensitivity of amphibians to environmental change and provide cause for concern in the face of continued climate warming,” Todd and colleagues concluded.
The dwarf salamander Eurycea quadridigitata and marbled salamander Ambystoma opacum, both autumn-breeding species, arrived significantly later in recent years than at the beginning of the study, they found.
The tiger salamander Ambystoma tigrinum and the Pseudacris ornata or ornate chorus frog, both winter-breeding species, were showing up earlier to breed.
Six other species of frogs and toads did not change the timing of their breeding, the researchers said.
The warty and toxic cane toad may be the most reviled animal in Australia, but a charity has devised a way to make good use of the invasive pests — fashioning them into sneakers fit for a prince.
Efforts to eradicate the repulsive hopper, a prolific breeder which has spread widely in the country’s tropical reaches since being introduced to kill beetles in the 1930s, have included killing them with golf clubs and driving over them.
But Rupert Noffs hopes the shoes he and his brother Matt have devised will be a kinder way of depleting the numbers of the incredibly tough amphibian which secretes a poison which can kill pets and wildlife and injure humans.
He says that people who have seen the sneakers — which combine kangaroo leather with a cane toad detail — are taken aback at how a loathsome creature can be converted into a fashion statement.
“Sometimes when people first see them they kinda freak out and then they go ‘Actually, it’s quite beautiful'” he told AFP ahead of the Gideon Shoes launch in Sydney on Thursday.
“They dye them, we’ve got them in blue, gold, red, pink, black and they are actually really beautiful. They are very durable, and as we all know, they are pests, so what better way to use them after they’ve been put down?”
Noffs, who described cane toads as “totally gross” said even he had to be convinced that the hide would be a suitable component for the fashion line he and his brother want to use to fund their charitable works.
But having just come back from New York where the shoe’s concept was well received and with celebrities such as Jay Kay from Jamiroquai taking a pair, he is hopeful consumers will take to them the way cane toads took to Australia.
He said he tells people: “Someone has kissed them and turned them into a handsome little sneaker.”
Rupert, 27, and his 30-year-old brother Matt decided to make the shoes as part of a fashion line they are hoping will fund an expansion of their outreach programmes for young people struggling with drug addiction, homelessness and other problems.
The name Noffs is well known in Sydney, where Rupert’s late grandfather Ted Noffs established the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross in the 1960s to offer refuge to those living on the streets.
The brothers have stuck with the family business, with Rupert setting up the ‘One Noffs’ fashion store for recycled and redesigned clothes and brother Matt and his wife establishing the Street University in western Sydney to help young people.
“It’s really just a space just for kids to find their true potential,” Rupert Noffs said of the Street University.
“Most of these kids have nothing, they come from these horrible backgrounds and then walk into the space — six months later they are reading the Da Vinci Code and studying at university… or we hire them at Gideon.”
More than 20 of these young people now work for Gideon on the shoes which will retail from about 160 dollars (158 US) for the cow leather version to up to 450 dollars for the premium kangaroo and cane toad sneaker.
All the shoes will be hand-stitched with about 20-30 produced each day.
Noffs said part of the reason for the high price was the fact that they are manufactured in Australia rather than China where labour costs are much cheaper but conditions for workers are not as good.
“So we decided to make them in Australia and, yes, they are eight times the cost of making them in China but really it’s the peace of mind of knowing that the people are getting great salaries,” he said.
“Not only that but they (the shoes) are also the most beautiful quality.”
Rupert Noffs said the idea for shoes came as the global financial crisis hit charities such as theirs hard.
“What we were seeing was a real lack of donations, especially during the financial crisis. But what I always say is what people don’t realise is that it is always a financial crisis in a charity.
“So my brother and I thought ‘Why don’t we set up a cool fashion label.”
A bonus in selling the shoes overseas will certainly be the Australian angle, so would Noffs consider using any other animal in the fashion range such as a cuddly koala or a cute echidna?
“No way, no way,” he insisted. “We would never go near anything like a koala. No way. But let’s get rid of those cane toads.”
As new residents move into the growing Grays Woods community, a recent species survey identifies rare flora and fauna that already call the Patton Township development home.
The Eastern Spadefoot Toad, which finds a home in wetlands, is hard to track because it’s often underground. Experts said they live in Grays Woods wetlands.
Throughout a 43-acre tract reserved for the planned community’s neighborhood park, more than six acres of wetland vernal pools contain teeming ecosystems of insects, amphibians and plants.
An original sketch plan for Grays Woods provided by developers Dan Hawbaker and Bob Poole showed fields interspersed throughout this wetland complex.
Last year, ClearWater Conservancy sent Patton Township a letter asking officials to tread carefully in developing the 43-acre site near Gray’s Woods Elementary School.
Patton Township hired Wilson Ecological Consulting to do a survey of the site. The final report was presented at a Patton Township Board of Supervisors meeting last week.
Wilson observed the site between March and October. The results yielded 120 wildlife species and 235 types of plants, including the nationally endangered northeastern bulrush.
Found in small wetlands, the bulrush’s stem sometimes reaches 47 inches tall and is topped by clusters of brown flowers surrounded by six rigid bristles, according to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources website.
In addition, the site was labeled as a possible habitat for the eastern spade-foot toad, a species on Pennsylvania’s endangered list.
Manager Doug Erickson said the township must now work with the state Fish and Boat Commission to determine an actual presence of this difficult- to-spot amphibian, which spends much of its life underground.
And the supervisors won’t allow developers to “go willy nilly in there and bulldoze everything flat,” said Supervisor Walt Wise.
Because of species concerns, the township will likely find six to ten acres of the land for safe development of amenities such as sports fields and playgrounds, and provide trails through the wetland areas, Erickson said.
Preserving the wetlands provides a learning opportunity for students at the nearby elementary school, said Supervisor Bryce Boyer.
Several planned regional facilities at Hess Field, Whitehall Road and Oak Hall will likely provide ample sports fields to support the population.
“We’ll have to look very carefully at what the need is there,” Boyer said. “This one, cost-wise, would be a lot more beneficial to people to be used as a nature-centered type park.”
A 300-foot buffer between park development and wetlands is sufficient to protect most amphibian species, which spend their lives in and around vernal pools, said ClearWater Conservancy conservation biologist Katie Ombalski.
But the buffer isn’t required by law, she said.
Other species of concern identified in the habitat don’t require any special protection, either, Ombalski said, because they don’t appear on state or federal endangered species lists.
Such species include the great blue heron and several species of dragonfly and damselfly.
“You don’t want to see a species get listed,” Ombalski said. “Although they don’t receive the same level of protection, we are hoping that the township prioritizes those as an important resource, because they are uncommon.”
A golf course owned by the City of San Francisco has been killing threatened frog species, according to a lawsuit threatened by a coalition of environmental groups.
The course in question is called Sharp Park, and is located in Pacifica. The City allegedly destroyed a wetland in order to construct the park in the 1940s, and the lawsuit claims that the continued operation violates the Endangered Species Act. The federal government has claimed for years that the course interferes with amphibian reproduction.
The worst damage is caused by the draining of ponds around the course. Frogs and snakes lay eggs in and around the water, but they dry out and die when the City drains the ponds. Lawnmowers can also pose a deadly threat.
Two years ago, the groups proposed a similar lawsuit, and the City tried to come up with a solution. Since then they’ve proposed a restoration project around a nearby lagoon, which would cost in the neighborhood of $10 million while keeping the golf course intact. That’s not good enough, say environmentalists.
It is unclear why the City owns a golf course. According to some observers, the golf course loses tens of thousands of dollars every year.
The National Park Service has expressed interest in acquiring the land, but only if it can be converted from golfing to a public park.