Hello! My name is Kara DeLanty, and I am the 2009 Polar Bears International Arctic Ambassador for the Milwaukee County Zoo. My husband, Brad, and I recently moved back to Wisconsin from Kansas City, Missouri. We have two incredibly spoiled pets, “Donkey,” our mixed-breed dog, and “Kitty,” our lazy old cat. I love cooking, reading, spending time outdoors, and hanging out with friends and family.
The main thing I expect from my experience at the Polar Bears International Leadership Camp is to come back home armed with firsthand knowledge of what polar bears are going through in the wild. As a zookeeper, I have the opportunity to work with amazing animals every day, many of them critically endangered. However, seeing animals struggling to survive in their natural habitat puts things into a completely different perspective. I know that I will return with the desire to take every action in my power to help the cause.
With the rapid melting of sea ice, we could potentially be reaching a critical “tipping-point” for polar bear survival in the not-so-distant future. The most important message I feel that I have to deliver to my community is that even though we do not live very close to the tundra, we still have a direct impact on polar bears (and other wildlife) through our everyday actions. Five years from now, I hope to live in a world where most people have learned practical solutions to change many of their destructive habits due to the influence of environmental ambassadors like myself.
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