Stuffties For The Zoo Fan!
How do you say no to this face? A stuffed emperor tamarin.
Welcome to November! The ramp up to the Christmas season has begun. In support of my gift-giving efforts, I spent some time this weekend with the World Wildlife Fund’s gift catalog. WWF has been one of my favorite nonprofits for many years — they do great work on wildlife conservation all over the world and make intelligent use of their money, which is more than you can say a lot of “environmental” groups. WWF’s conservation funds go where they’re most needed.
Although WWF has a whole slew of feel-good gifts, my favorite section by far is their animal adoption center. For contributions of varying amounts, you can symbolically adopt one of 100 species of wild animals; for a contribution of $50 or more, you get a stuffed animal in addition to your adoption certificate and information about the animal. I have for some years very much enjoyed this catalog because it is the source of some of the funniest stuffed animals I’ve ever seen. Every year, I desperately want to “adopt” at least three or four just because the stuffed animals are so irresistible. Are you passionately devoted to okapis? You can finally get your own stuffed okapi and put money toward WWF’s efforts to preserve wildlife.
My call on the funniest of this year’s offerings is the sea horse, which comes with three velcro-on babies (who can I get this for?), but the proboscis monkey, the three-toed sloth, and the African wild dog have charms that should not be underestimated. The hellbender also comes in high on the “Wouldn’t that be a funny gift for Taco” list. Your contribution doesn’t necessarily go directly toward conservation efforts for that particular animal; it’s used for WWF’s general conservation programs, which are terrific. That’s just as well, though — you don’t have to feel guilty about ignoring the Amur leopard population because you have a yen for the little stuffed raccoon.
So, if you have a niece or nephew who could use an educational but cuddly gift, WWF has you covered. Even if you don’t, I encourage anyone animal-oriented to go take a look at the website and coo over the plushies. It’s well worth a look!
