Hi, my name is Vicki Hodge. I have been a keeper at the Buffalo Zoo for 15 years. Currently I am on both the polar bear and spectacled bear SSPs. I teach at Niagara County Community College in their Animal Management program. I love playing and watching sports and spending time with my 3 amazing nieces. Any spare time left, I work on my house, otherwise known as the “money pit”.
As for my expectations for PBI camp...I look forward to absorbing as much information about polar bears and their environment as I can. The thing that I am the most excited about is meeting a group of enthusiastic people who will undoubtedly energize me about polar bears, zoos, teaching, sharing and the future. This diverse network of people will be an incredible resource with their knowledge and experience. I am sure lifelong friendships will be made.
I see my impact to be mainly in Buffalo. My influence will be to educate people to make wiser decisions about how they use their planet. Polar bears have become the poster child for our abuses of the environment, most notably global warming. As the polar bears future goes so probably does ours. We can make that future brighter by telling the bears' story and affect change one person at a time. It’s a conversation with a family, a keeper talk, docent training, a lecture at the college, or a talk with some school kids. It’s a dialogue and it can make a difference. We just need to share it and live it.
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