Spring 2013 TEMPO - Tampa Preparatory School

changemakersspring 2013 tempo15In 2005 she was selected to be part of theinaugural group of Emerging WildlifeConservation Leaders. She was aConservation Hero judge at the 2011Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival andis a Final Judge for the InternationalWildlife Film Festival later this year.“It’s not wildlife per se that interestsme,” she explained. “It’s the interactiona chart shows the eating needs of a hatchling python.between wildlife and humans.” She tellsa story of her trip to Rwanda and Kenyato see mountain gorillas and lions livingnear small villages. In Rwanda, a womanin her tour group was moved to tears byher proximity to the gorillas living on theedge of the village they were visiting.“I’m no Diane Fossey [zoologist whoadvocated for mountain gorillas] and Idon’t cry when I’m around wildlife,” shesaid. “But I am interested in the emotionsthat are elicited when humans andwildlife interact—like that woman’s tears,or, in a different way, the fear of snakesthat some people have.” The humanwildlifeinteraction was the subject of hermaster’s thesis and included this researchquestion: how does media represent thisinteraction and what impact does a mediastory have on the issues?Perhaps those emotions were what theFlorida Fish and Wildlife ConservationCommission (fwc) anticipated whenthey announced the Python Challenge,an event “to increase public awarenessabout Burmese pythons in theEverglades” and how this invasivespecies is a threat to the Evergladesecosystem, including native wildlife.Now a freelancer in the communicationsfield, Susannah’s expertise plays outin a number of areas. Recently she’s beenreporting from the Everglades wheremore than 1,000 sportsmen, who paid $25each to participate, accepted the PythonChallenge.Susannah registered for the Challenge,too, because she wanted to see if mediagoals were in line with those of the fwc.She discovered that television productioncompanies contacted and interviewed severalof the first 200 registered participants,Susannah included. “The statedgoal of the fwc is not the destruction ofthe Burmese Python as a species in theEverglades, but is to raise awareness ofthis invasive species. Still, media responsehas been mostly about the killing of the‘killer’ snakes,” Susannah explained.She’s also watching to see if the hoursof visual instruction and training, whichall participants receive, have any effect onthe attitude of the armed participantsand the media following them. It’s notjust a matter of randomly shooting apython; as instructions from the fwcexplain, “There is an ethical obligation toensure a Burmese python is killed in ahumane manner that results in immediateloss of consciousness and destructionof the brain.” Burmese pythons must be