It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011
Reflections on: It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area Focusing on animal education
Project in Lieu of Thesis Julie Unger Master’s Student College of Journalism and Communications University of Florida 2011
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 Introduction This project has evolved and changed greatly over the course of the past year, but within the last few months, the main premise emerged - animal protection, preservation and conservation through educational outlets in Gainesville and the immediately surrounding areas. For the most part, people think about Disney’s Animal Kingdom when thinking about domestic and exotic animals in Florida. However, a few hours north from Orlando are places where visitors can get even closer to these majestic creatures while learning about them and helping protect them. Three locations that are open to the public are the Santa Fe Teaching Zoo, the Two Tails Ranch and the Mill Creek Farm. The Santa Fe Teaching Zoo is part of Santa Fe College’s Zoo Animal Technology Program in Gainesville, Fla., where students learn about how to care for wild animals in a zoo environment. This hands-on program allows the students to already have experience when they start looking for a job, and provides them with experience leading groups of visitors around a zoo setting. The give-and-take learning relationship between the students and visitors allows both to learn simultaneously. The Two Tails Ranch, conjoined with the All About Animals education program, both run by Patricia Zerbini in Williston, Fla., offers tours where visitors can learn about exotic animals such as elephants and zebras, an emu, an ostrich, and any other animals that Zerbini happens to have at her ranch at the time. Zerbini’s family has been working with exotic animals for nine generations, and she has been an elephant trainer for most of her life. The Retirement Home for Horses at Mill Creek Farm in Alachua, Fla., is run by Peter and Mary Gregory, 82 and 78- years- old, respectively, and is a place where horses that are over 20years- old can go to retire. The Gregorys open their doors to the public on Saturdays, where
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 visitors can learn about abused and neglected horses and about horses that have been retired from public service positions. These unique locations fly below the radar. This is partly due to their location in various cities and counties, leading to difficulty in finding comparable data between the three. The goal of this specific website is to allow viewers to explore and understand three locations central to Gainesville that offer an opportunity for animal-related education. The website allows visitors to see just how special these places are, enticing them to explore and learn further. Personally, I spent five years in Gainesville without hearing of these locations. Two of the three were open to the public while I was at the University of Florida earning my undergraduate degree, but the third – Two Tails Ranch – opened to the public in the interim between earning my graduate and undergraduate degree. Two Tails Ranch and the Retirement Home for Horses accept volunteers with open arms. The website aims to increase awareness of the locations and what the locations offer. Research Questions 1. How are people teaching other people about animals, with animals at: a. The Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo? b. All About Elephants at Two Tails Ranch? c. The Retirement Home for Horses at Mill Creek Farm? 2. When given the opportunity to learn about wild animals, will people embrace the opportunity? 3. What occurs behind-the-scenes at: a. The Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo? b. All About Elephants at Two Tails Ranch? c. The Retirement Home for Horses at Mill Creek Farm? 3|Page
It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 Method With the exception of Santa Fe College’s Teaching Zoo, which has been open for 40 years, these locations have received little local media attention. The Two Tails Ranch was discovered by the author as a result of reading an article in the Gainesville Sun in the beginning of 2011. The Gainesville Sun was also responsible for the discovery of the teaching zoo and the Mill Creek Farm. Each of these places were contacted and thoroughly researched. Visits to the locations were arranged as well as interviews. Staff and volunteers were shadowed. Photographs, audio recordings and video recordings, along with written articles presented in a website format are the representation of this project. Some photographs are presented in slideshow format, as it is impractical to have viewers sift through the photographs. Audio and video recordings allow viewers to learn more about the location and have a glimpse of what sort of experience they can expect. The format for the presentation will be a website, hand-coded, because multimedia has exploded as a means of presenting news. Being able to show an understanding of various forms of media will allow the author to prove not only that it is possible to tell a story through words, but also that a story can also be told through pictures, audio and video. Findings Through my research and visits to the three facilities, it became apparent that the public does show a genuine interest in the welfare of animals and a desire to learn about the animals. Santa Fe’s program has a list of students waiting for admission; the Retirement Home for Horses has groups visiting and is flooded with visitors on Saturdays. The phone at the Two Tails Ranch always seems to be ringing with callers wanting to learn more and schedule a tour.
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 The Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo estimates that it handles more than 30,000 visitors a year. Peter Gregory at the Retirement Home for Horses at Mill Creek Farm estimates that since they have been open, in 1984, more than 200,000 visitors have come to see the horses. This number may seem small, in comparison to the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo, but the zoo is open seven days a week and the Retirement Home for Horses is open to the public only on Saturday’s. Patricia Zerbini opened Two Tails Ranch to the public in 2009 and entertains and teaches groups averaging 25 six days a week. Zerbini also hosts special events. People teach other people through the animals. At the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo, visitors are encouraged to look around and ask questions during guided tours, or self-guided tours. Animals are able to be adopted, the website offers information about various animals, community events are hosted at the Teaching Zoo, and special programs for children take place at the zoo. At Two Tails Ranch, Patricia Zerbini’s guided tour and program offers the ability to learn about Asian and African elephants, zebras, an emu and an ostrich. Zerbini allows visitors, for a nominal fee, to feed an elephant, and offers question-and-answer sessions while describing the life of elephants. At the Retirement Home for Horses at Mill Creek Farm, visitors can speak with Peter or Mary Gregory along with the volunteers in order to learn about the horses. The website offers additional information, but interacting with the horses while feeding them carrots is a means in which visitors learn about compassion and how to safely interact with animals that may have a dark and treacherous past. Hundreds of thousands of people, over the years, have visited these three locations. These numbers are minimal compared to tourist destinations that aggressively advertise, or advertise at all, such as Disney and locations in Orlando, but that shows just how special these locations truly
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 are. Word-of-mouth has been the primary means of advertizing, and people come, often with children in tow. Behind-the-scenes at each of these three locations, individuals are constantly working and observing the animals. Peter Gregory and Patricia Zerbini mentioned many times that not only do they never have a day off, but that they rarely can leave their locations for more than a few hours. At the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo, students work as zookeepers and work on weekends and school vacations. If the animals are there, students are there, along with faculty, to take care of them. Peter and Mary Gregory always have the horses to tend to. The horses don’t care that the Gregory’s are 82 and 78. The horses need food rain or shine, tired humans or not. Patricia Zerbini is considered the matriarch for her elephants and other animals. Leaving the ranch for even half a day is rarely feasible for her, as the elephants look to her for guidance and support. Each day, they are fed every fifteen minutes-to-half hour, in order to make sure that they have proper nutrition and clean food always available. From sunrise to sunset these individuals dedicate their lives to the animals. It really is all about the animals. When I requested to take a photograph of Peter and Mary Gregory, Mary laughed and said that it wasn’t about them, it is about the horses. Patricia Zerbini, who shows exotic animals to thousands of people was shy and requested a specific photograph that was previously taken to be used. They don’t want to be in the spotlight; it isn’t about them. It is about the animals they are so passionate about and the animals they dedicate their lives to. Various government agencies check in on the locations, ensuring the animals are protected and kept in good health. Two Tails Ranch is licensed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Department and the USDA, the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo is accredited by the Association
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 of Zoos and Aquariums and the Retirement Home for Horses at Mill Creek Farm is checked by veterinarians and other agencies. The young and old alike have lessons to learn from the animals. Children learn how to be gentle and caring while adults learn about how the animals interact and live in the wild. A genuine joy and passion show with those who work, volunteer and visit these establishments. Those who know about these places spread the word; people do care. Relevant Coursework Though all coursework taken in the masters program at the University of Florida has been relevant, specific courses were taken in order to enhance the author’s ability to work online in a digital setting. Beginning in June 2010, the author enrolled in classes designed specifically in order to become more well-rounded in multimedia. A class called “Web Skills for Everyone” provided a beginning glimpse into coding a website as well as a refresher for how certain things work with the Internet. In the fall of 2010, “Electronic Publishing” was taken. Electronic Publishing taught not only how to report a story in an easily read web format, but also how to hand-code a beginning website. The class had beginning exposure to programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Notepad++, SoundSlides, YouTube, and Audacity. In order to further enhance multimedia skills, the spring semester of 2011 included an undergraduate introduction to photojournalism course and “Multimedia Blogging.” These courses furthered the multimedia learning of the previous semester and enhanced the ability to take newsworthy photographs and to organize a blog in order to gain public interest. Search engine optimization as well as theories on how to create a readership following were explored. Learning these skills has become somewhat of a necessity, with increasing expectations on reporters knowing how to take good quality audio, video and photographs in addition to 7|Page
It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 writing quality articles. These skills have always been of interest, and this project provided the perfect opportunity to learn practical digital skills and put them to use. Project Outline This project appears online, on the author’s personal website hosted by GoDaddy. The project includes three featured locations presented to the target audience – anyone in the Gainesville area – in an easily digestible format. Multimedia files will be organized in common areas with easily navigated organization. Audio files and photographs will be hosted on the website, and videos will be hosted on YouTube. SoundSlides were eventually moved over to SlideShare, since they were taking too long to buffer. Introductions to each of the places, along with contact information will be the first page. The second pages include articles written based upon interviews and observations while at the facilities. The third pages include the media – pictures in the form of SlideShare videos, YouTube videos and audio clips. Minimal information about the author and the project itself was included, with the exception of a copy of this document, since the focus of this project is not on the author, but rather the subjects. The audio has been edited with Audacity, the video with Windows Live Movie Maker, the photographs with Adobe Photoshop, the slideshows with SoundSlides and SlideShare, and the HTML and CSS with Notepad++ and Adobe Dreamweaver.
Post-Project Reflections In my two years as a journalism student, I have learned so much. Prior to my classes, I had never adhered to AP Style, I was horrified at the thought of a one-sentence paragraph and the idea of constantly calling sources until they finally answer or return your calls felt rude and annoying; now I have learned that such phone behavior is sometimes necessary, especially when on a deadline. 8|Page
It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 I learned how hostile people could be toward reporters, how hurtful it is when people just walk away when you try to talk to them and how many sad stories there are. But, I also learned how kind and helpful some people could be. Those kind people were the ones that had to be remembered when others were being hostile. However, friendly or not, people have stories to tell. Generally, the hundreds of individuals that I have come into contact with over the last two years that I ordinarily would never have met have all taught me something in his or her own way. I learned not to let sources bully me and tell me what to write and how to write it and I learned that people might not always like what you write – even if you are using their own words. I have learned that positive feedback is rare, but is staggering, which makes it all the more special. I have talked to more people on the phone in the last two years than I have in the last decade; and strangers, at that. I have had to push aside hesitations and just face the situation and call people. I have wandered around locations hoping someone, anyone, would be willing to talk to me. Eventually, I always did find somebody. My web design and coding has gotten better and is beginning to take less time. In the fall of 2010 I enrolled in Electronic Publishing and learned an introduction to HTML coding and CSS styling. If you have ever right-clicked a website’s page and selected “view page source” you have most likely seen a combination of HTML and CSS. HTML – hypertext markup language is a sort of computer coding language that tells the browser what to display on the screen. CSS – cascading style sheets – tell the browser how to display the HTML on the screen. For example, CSS controls the background color of my website, a web-safe color that is a minty green, and the
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 text’s font size and type, but the HTML determines what text appears. My only other handcoding attempts are from the fall semester; this is my third time writing code. Most things went smoothly with the code, but I had a few time-consuming frustrations with my divs. Divs are essentially containers where the information goes. If you were to fold a piece of paper into four boxes, you could call each box a div. Lining up my left and right divs and having them be side-by-side proved to be time consuming frustrating. I used a clear function in order to keep the styling from the two side-by-side divs from interfering with the rest of the styling of the page. Sometimes it takes a dozen different approaches until something finally works. This was my first attempt at drop-down navigation, and with the instructions I found online, I was able to customize the navigation to meet my needs and my color scheme. My banner, which I actually quite like, is not something I would have known how to make in the fall of 2010. I found free clipart and shrunk it, then increased the opacity before adding it to my banner and arranging it in place. Without a real scale, I had to guess at how large the animals should be in relation to one another and in relation to the tree, but I like my banner’s appearance. With this project, I learned many things. I have a newfound respect for those who shoot and edit video. I used a Flip camcorder to record my videos, without a tripod. However, a bit shaky at times, I was able to capture most of what I aimed to capture. Trying to take pictures with a camera and holding a camcorder at the same time doesn’t work well. Running around while trying to keep the camera – no matter how small – steady and level, while keeping the subject in view and not chopping the subject off at the neck, is not an easy feat. Neither is editing video. I had previously thought editing audio was time consuming and mildly frustrating depending on how persnickety you are; video is so much worse. I used Windows Live Movie
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 Maker and learned the hard way that you are better off uploading videos to YouTube than to your own site, unless you want viewers to have to wait 10 minutes for the 3-minute video to buffer before playing. In my photojournalism class, we learned how to evaluate photographs based on their news merit and on their quality. I had dozens of pictures that were not usable because the lighting was not correct, or things just looked off. Ideal light is not easy to come by, especially when you are trying to take pictures when the sun is almost directly overhead, or mid-morning or mid-afternoon when the sun is blinding. Having limited Photoshop experience prior to this project, I found that I was cropping and rotating pictures much faster toward the end. Though in my photojournalism class we are allowed to lighten areas and adjust color levels subtlety, I chose not to do that for my pictures. I wanted to be able to say across-the-board that they were not altered in any way. My audio clips are short. In retrospect, I should have recorded more than a few minutes’ worth of audio. All of my locations were outside, and the wind really interfered. In order to use the audio for certain projects proved to be a challenge. If I edited out all of the interference, the bird noises would not sound natural and I would be looping a 15-second clip instead of a 45second clip. However, amazing creatures, animals are not easy subjects for capturing video and photographs. I could not ask the monkey or ocelot to do something for me to take a picture of any easier than I could ask a horse or elephant to refrain from doing certain things. I wound up taking over 1,400 pictures and sorting through the best to use for this project. I truly wanted to make readers feel as though they had a small sampling of what kind of experience to expect at these facilities – all of which serve a purpose, have a cause and educate the public.
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 At some points, I had a camera around my neck, a video recorder in one pocket, an audio recorder in another, a lens cover in the third pocket and a pen and notebook in my fourth pocket. This was in addition to carrying a camera bag with two additional lenses. Despite being prepared to the best of my abilities, I wasn’t always fast enough to capture the moments that I wanted. Shooting pictures through chain-link fences was also difficult. I had to discard many photographs because the camera focused on the fence rather than the animal or the fence was just too distracting. Pictures at the Santa Fe Teaching Zoo and the Two Tails Ranch were the most susceptible to failure because of fences or caging, and pictures at the Mill Creek Farm were the most susceptible to over-exposure. This was my first time using a SLR camera instead of a pointand-shoot, and I definitely noticed a difference in quality, even if I did not always know how to get the camera to do what I wanted when taking pictures. Another obstacle was coordinating with the humans involved with each establishment. Peter and Mary Gregory, as well as Patricia Zerbini, run their organizations almost singlehandedly. Those at the Santa Fe Teaching Zoo are also extremely busy, juggling taking care of the zoo and teaching the students. Everyone was extremely gracious with their time and knowledge, which helped with the organization of this project. Acquiring hard data on the local economic impacts of each location proved to be an interesting job. The numerical data presented is based upon formulas, since official data was difficult to obtain. For the most part, I was told that the areas are rural and that research data is expensive, so it isn’t a priority for the areas. Agencies that my chair and I thought would have the data flat-out told me that they don’t concern themselves with such information.
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 Overall, I am glad that I chose to do a project. Even though the lack of structure was intimidating, it forced me to work outside of my comfort zone. I was fortunate enough to learn about some amazing places and lucky enough to be able to meet some amazing people who do amazing things. This project has changed and evolved many times, but has come together even better than anticipated. Acknowledgements My professors have been invaluable resources throughout this project, along with those who run the highlighted locations. Dr. Cleary’s patience and knowledge has been helpful in more ways than I could ever explain in a document. Her experience in the field of journalism across various platforms vastly improved the quality of every aspect of this project. Dr. Rodger’s creativity and linguistic adventures not only allowed a small group of students to form close-knit relationships and have numerous inside jokes, but also taught a different approach to telling a story. Instead of being cut-and-dry, descriptions are more vivid; words were chosen for the connotations as well as their direct meanings. Professor Spiker has helped in forming this project and focusing on what truly is important. His eye for magazine stories and what is necessary to create a compelling story has helped shape this to become more dimensional than it otherwise would have been. Patricia Zerbini allowed me to learn about elephants and other exotic animals that she has on her ranch. Her knowledge and passion for these animals is overwhelming and contagious. It is impossible to leave without learning dozens of facts and being inspired to learn more. Peter and Mary Gregory were kind enough to talk to me and to allow me to talk to their many volunteers. Retiree’s themselves, days are never dull and easy for them, yet they persevere
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It’s a Jungle Out There: Hidden Gems in the Gainesville Area 2011 and dedicate all of their energy to taking care of horses. The stories of many, too many, of the horses, are heartbreaking, and to see such kindness change horses who have been treated terribly in the past eagerly accept human contact is staggering. The faculty and students at the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo were so kind, allowing me to shadow them and explaining about the animals. The students don’t do this as a way to pass time, they are truly dedicated to the animals they care for and to teaching about the animals. Their enthusiasm makes visitors enthusiastic, perpetuating the cycle of learning.
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