Nancy Conney at Skyhunters.org

I wanted to give Nancy Conney's number and info to the person who wants to put the information into one place, or one document, or start collecting it and sending it to me to post....but I don't want her to be overwhelmed either...

she takes care of hundreds, probably thousands of every imagineable species of hawk, owl, eagle, and falcon almost singlehandedly, AND goes out and does educational talks something like 300 days out of the year. Her kitchen always has piles of defrosting rats and mice in the sink, and she's always nurturing a critical case, like an electrocuted eagle or an owl on the edge of dying of starvation that has to be fed through a tube cuz he's too weak to swallow at first..that kind of time intensive activity.

But, she IS on the board for the California wildlife rehabbers association, whatever it's called, so she knows EVERYBODY from the federal wildlife agents to the people who issue permits to the lawmakers.

She's not an internet person - she doesn't have time, and when I went to Julian I discovered how very difficult it is for people up in her area to even get a decent internet connection. EG. I stayed in a lodge that advertised WiFi. They didn't have it. I was on vacation and resting so it didn't bother me, but I was curious so I asked why they don't have it. They said, "Because the neighbor turned his off". hahaha! I couldn't quite get across to them that they would have to buy their OWN wifi and connection...

I was later told, that in Julian, there's a certain business that leaves its wi fi on after closing, and that the parking lot fills up w/ people w/ laptops using this business' wifi to go read their email! hahaha!

Seriously!

And people also sit in the library parking lot w/ their laptops, feeding off of the library's wifi.

So...up in the mountains where you've got go have your own tank of gas filled every couple of weeks to run your stove and washer/dryer, a fast internet connection is a rarity. For whatever reason. Even cellphones don't work up there.

I mean, you have to get satellite internet or something like that....and it's expensive...compared to where I live. Here, I can just connect to my television cable for a fast wideband for a few more dollars per month. Some things are just that way.

So...I think skyhunters.org is the place to get the info as to who to start lobbying for changes in regulations. I do think it can be done!

I never dreamed in a million years that I'd be doing this! I didn't really even know about the problem until wildlife people started telling me their tale of woe about these boxes. I, too, thought they might be ok.

See, I've only ever studied WILD OWLS in WILD NESTS, and have not studied owls in an owl box before. lol!!

and in Wild Nests, this problem is nonexistent.

I'm learning along w/ the everyone else about the racket that's been going on concerning these boxes.

As for "nice". I read the autobiography of a woman who escaped from horrendous abuse and a kind of slavery in one of the most extreme FLDS communities, where everyone from judges to the cops on down were in collusion to marry off 11 and 12 year old girls to old geezers who said it was the "will of god". And, within these multiple wife situations, her "husband" baited each wife against the other, and when one wife was mad at the other, she would beat that wife's CHILDREN mercilessly and at times almost to the point of death, and the mother could do nothing about it.

The worst thing a woman could do was to fail to be "nice". "Niceness" was the key word used to mean, "You cannot speak up for what's right, nor can you defend your children, because you are not coming off as sweet and nice."

That book was an eye opener, I tell you!

They used phrases like "Make sweet" to describe how the woman or girl was supposed to smile through every kind of torturous abuse you can think about, which I won't describe here. And it's amazing that this was the most common accusation lobbed at a woman - that she wasn't being "nice".

Ok I've belabored the point. It just has struck me lately for some reason.

But there are times when, if nice means agreeing with everything and going along with everything, we can't do that. How did we even become a country? Someone had to stand up against the crown. I'm sure there were people who said, "don't make trouble. Just keep your head down." What about the civil rights movement? The movement that stopped child labor in this country - the sweatshops where children were treated like slaves? What about the antislavery movement? The right for women to vote movement. I'm sure those ladies were talked down to and berated and told to just shut up and be happy and nice about it all. I don't mean people have to be ugly but I disagree that people have to always just go along with the way things are.

Real progress happens when people see a problem and fix it. Amen to progress!

Love,
Stacey