What do I want to be when I grow up?

There are so many answers to that, it's not even funny. A zookeeper, a teacher, a farmer, a scientist, an explorer, so on an so forth. The thing that every single dream profession has had in common is the animals. For those of you who don't know, I love animals.

Recently, meaning in the past few years, I learned of a potential new job that ties almost all of those old dreams into one - except farming, but I can always grow after I retire!

The name of this profession eludes me, but what they do is fairly simple. They research animals and their natural habitats to show us how animals interact, coexist, and generally live day to day. I found a place where I can start immediately - Snapshot Serengeti.

Here, people from anywhere in the world, and at any age - provided they have internet access and the comprehension level required to recognize an animal - can load anywhere from 1 to 3 images taken in succession by a camera trap. These traps are activated by seeing heat higher than the temperature around them, resulting in very few pictures of plan old grass being taken. Using this information, scientists are estimating populations and population densities, along with determining the interactions at the species level. The only drawback to this, is that since wildebeests, zebras, and gazelles have the highest populations in the savannah, a large percentage of those photographs are of the same three species. I think this could be a serious profession for me, especially if I get to be one of the people who also gives the presentations and such.

Now, like I said, It's a lot of the same few species in the images. So to save you from the boring ones and playing the percentages (because I know you all have lives you must lead, regardless of how much you want to sit at the computer and catalog thousands of zebras all day), I went ahead and pulled a few images of the 'cute' ones. In other words, I grabbed a bunch of snapshots that had babies in them.

To all persons who suffer Cute and Fuzzy Bunny Syndrome, or the irrepressible urge to buy/adopt an animal because of the sheer cute-ness of it, be careful when looking at these images. Or don't blame me when you find yourself flying to Africa to hold a baby elephant. Either way.

Adorable, Right? I think so. And I want to help prevent these creatures from going extinct. For my last little tidbit, I'll direct you below this line. I added these pictures because I find them really picturesque, which is not to say the former weren't.

So that's what I want to do, for this 5 minutes. Save the animals by showing them the way they really are - amazing.