The St. Louis Zoo is a favorite place of mine, but the web site for the Zoo doesn't provide all the back stories to the animals. Or at least, not as many as I would like.

Happily, I spotted a story on the Amur Tiger cubs' father, Khuntami by Dr. Jeffrey Bonner, in St. Louis Today—the latest in a year long series on the Zoo. I asked the St. Louis Today for links to the other articles, and the site was kind enough to link the others in.

This is a wonderful series, which I now see is also linked more prominently at the Zoo site. What I especially like about the series is that it focuses on the Zoo's conservation efforts, rather than the "entertainment" items, so many other zoos feature so prominently. For instance, the Amur tiger cubs are winners with the public, true. How could they not be? What's more important, though, is that the Amur tiger is one of the rarest cats in the world, and these five tiger cubs are especially critical for the program to save this endangered cat. The cubs' father, Khuntami, was born in the wild, and orphaned as a cub. His genetic contribution to the Amur Tiger breeding program has been invaluable in the desperate attempt to save this beautiful cat.

But yeah, OK, they are cute little buggers.

More St. Louis Zoo photos.

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The majority of my photos posted recently are from the Missouri Botanical Gardens, or the St. Louis Zoo. I've not explored outside of the St. Louis area this last year primarily because of all the rain and flooding we've had. Though I was not, personally, directly impacted by the flooding, I've been indirectly impacted because of the extremely high mold content. I wasn't aware until recently that I'm allergic to mold pollen, go figure. Add to this my allergic reaction to even the most innocuous Missouri bug bites, and I've spent most of the summer on paved paths and close to home.

A happy byproduct of my restricted explorations, though, is how much I've come to look beyond the obvious in my local walks at the St. Louis Zoo. So much so that I'm starting a new category of writings on the Zoo over at my personal web site, Just Shelley. There is much we can learn about ourselves, as well as the animals, at a zoo.

In the meantime, I have been posting photos from both the Botanical Gardens and the Zoo to the MissouriGreen image galleries. Posted below are some representative examples. Now that the weather is getting cooler, I may expand my explorations again, perhaps even include some fall color photos.

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My last trip to the Botanical didn't just result in some butterfly photos. I was also able to grab some photos of birds, including a rather proud looking goldfinch.

Our bright fellow wasn't by himself, though. This female goldfinch, with more subtle coloring, was busy either trying to hack loose a leaf, or sharpening her bill.

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I spotted my first monarchs this week, and managed to get a couple of photos of them and some of their friends at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

Monarch butterfly:

I was finally able to capture an image of a Cabbage White. Though they are common, they're difficult to photograph because they move about more than most of the other butterflies. They're also a very aggressive butterfly, chasing away other types of butterflies and, on a couple of occasions, small birds.

The following dainty beauty is most likely a male Clouded Sulphur :

There's always room for one more Painted Lady photo:

At first I thought this butterfly was a male Taxiles Skipper, but the Butterflies and Moths of North America guide say that this species has never been spotted in Missouri. Running through all of the Skipper photos, I then found the Fiery Skipper, which is known to be in Missouri. The two are very similar, at least to someone new to butterfly identification.

A quick note to readers: if these photos seem a little washed out, it's because I use color management with my photos. What this means is that the photos are edited using a specialized "sRGB color profile" common to Windows, and then the color profile is inserted into the photo in order for the color to be properly managed in other environments. However, only Safari and Firefox 3 with a special color management add-on correctly interpret the profile on the Mac.

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Ike continues to rain destruction down in its path. It's good to hear the storm surges weren't as bad along the Gulf, but they were bad enough. Hopefully, though, loss of life will be minimal.

Ike just passed through the St. Louis area with both wind and rain. A lot of rain that combined with the remnants of Lowell from the Pacific. Sad as it is to say, we're again looking at major flooding along the Meramec, Missouri, and Mississippi rivers.

This will be our third major flooding event in six months.

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I have not been a frequent visitor to the Missouri Botanical Gardens this summer. I don't care for the crowds the Gardens attracts during the "tourist season". Though the number of people was still a healthy size yesterday, they also reflect the more easy going nature of the "off-season regulars".

The Gardens seem especially nice this year. Everything was healthy, lush, and the proper color, most likely due to this being the wettest year on record (to date) for St. Louis.

It's too early for the Monarchs; we should be seeing them in the next couple of weeks. However, there were plenty of Cabbage Whites and Painted Ladies.

The only reason I knew the name of the small, white (and very hard to photograph) Cabbage White is because of an excellent resource for butterfly identification: Butterflies and Moths of North America. You can look up your state, see what butterflies have been spotted in what county and then click through for pictures and more detailed identification information.

Returning to the Garden, the water lilies are in full bloom, which means, of course, dragonflies.

More photos can be seen in the Missouri Botanical Gardens image gallery.

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I visited Johnson's Shut-Ins last week, before it closed for the season on the 24th. I hadn't visited since 2006, and was very pleased to see how much progress has been made.

The water quality is much improved, and most of the small particulate debris is gone. The Shut-Ins aren't completely healed— you don't heal from such a devastating flood in a couple of years— but both the DNR and Ameren have really made a significant inroads in correcting the damage.

The fens look nicely restored, and I could barely recognize the flood path, the green growth has done much to help it blend into the mountainside.

It does look like some of the boulders will be left in the restored park, which I think is a good thing. They won't impact on the area, but will serve as a reminder, as well as historical marking.

I thought about doing a before/after/after slideshow, but I think I'll wait on this until after the park is officially open, hopefully next May.

More photos of the park in the MissouriGreen Image Gallery.

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You can tell when the gas prices are lower: the stations are filled with big SUVs and trucks. And today we find out that Missouri has the lowest gas prices in the country. For now, that is.

I used some of the lower gas prices to fuel a trip to see Johnson's Shut-Ins before it closed this year. I'll have pictures in a later posting, but for now, it was good to see the park, and good to see how much it has improved.

I've been critical of both Ameren and DNR (Department of Natural Resources) in the past, but they both did a good job cleaning up the shut-in area, and restoring the Fens. I'm looking forward to the full opening of the park next year, when we'll be able to walk around the entire park. I'm also looking forward to a fully restored Ozark Trail.

The park is still fragile, though, and use is severely restricted. Rightfully so—such devastation won't be cured overnight. Food and drink are strictly forbidden, as are dogs. I was therefore irritated to see a couple of ladies carrying their food hamper and McD's soft drink cups to the shut-ins, and even more at the couple letting their dog piddle on some of the newly growing rare and endangered fens. How quickly people forget how close we came to losing a natural treasure.

I want to save the world, but can we save it for just some of the people?

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This is Missouri's week for tigers, but not all the tiger tales are happy ones.

Today, the St. Louis Zoo will introduce five Amur tiger cubs to the public for the first time. The Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, is one of the rarest tigers in the world. At one time, they numbered only about 50 in the wild. Thankfully, rigorous conservation has increased this number to close to 500 tigers in the Amur district in Russia.

Breeding programs like the one for Amur tigers at the St. Louis zoo also help add to the numbers. Unfortunately, though, Siberian tigers raised in captivity don't typically survive when released into the wild. The only hope for conserving the wild Siberian is to maintain strict conservation.

The St. Louis Zoo is an accredited and highly respected animal preservation center, but the same can not be said about two other animal parks in the state, also in the news this week because of tigers. The tales from these two parks, though, are not happy ones.

In Branson, a 16 year old is in critical condition after being *attacked by three tigers while he was in the cage taking photographs for visitors.

I am amazed that this park would encourage its employees to enter a tiger enclosure just to take a picture for some idiot tourist. I hope the young man lives and sues the park for everything it owns. And I hope our state closes this park down.

Not as much, though, as I hope it closes Wesa-A-Geh-Ya, near Warrenton. The day before the Branson attack, a tiger jumped a fence at Wesa-a-Geh-Ya and attacked a worker cleaning her cage. The worker lost his leg below the knee, but is expected to survive. The animal farm people actually tried to cover up the nature of the attack, saying the man was attacked by pit bull, rather than a tiger. Of course, the attacked man is not supporting this lie.

This exotic animal farm has been under investigation in the past, and has had its public display license revoked. PETA and others have been critical of the establishment, because of the animal enclosures.

Supposedly the owner has offered to give up their animals and have them euthanized (animals from these establishments typically can't be integrated into zoo populations), but then has changed her mind. The decision should not be up to her, if her cages are such that animals can escape that easily.

I absolutely loath and despise these "roadside zoos" and believe, strongly, they should be closed. Most are poorly managed, and the animals badly cared for. I also do not agree with having exotic animals for pets. We have domestic cats and dogs needing homes that would make wonderful pets; exotic animal pets are nothing more than ego trips for the owners.

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update The Branson folks are claiming that the tigers did not attack the boy. That they were trying to help him, after he fell and hit his head, which is why he has severe puncture wounds to his neck.

I hope I will be excused for greeting this with a great deal of skepticism.

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