Narrative

“Now boarding flight 2145 to Quebec, Canada.” It was my time for boarding and I was ready for another adventure to the west. “Please fasten your seat belt we are nearing takeoff.”

As I exited the plan I could hear my name being called in the distance. I was guessing that it would be my taxi driver. “Mr. Smith” yelled the taxi man in a Canadian accent. I approached him with a look on my face that told him that “thats me.” “Where are you headed?” the taxi man questioned. “I want to stay as close as I can to the zoo.” I replied.

When we pulled up to the hotel I realized that this hotel was actually part of the zoo. This couldn’t have worked out better. It had fake monkeys hanging from statues, fake tigers roaming the entrance, and the front desk inside was made of a large turtle shell. xThis hotel was made for tourists who travel around the world to see he different animals in the different zoo’s.

The next day finally came and I was very exited about what was about to come. Today I was going to the zoo. When I got to the zoo I questioned myself saying “How many people in the world are lucky enough to travel the world and visit zoos on different continents?” This was my thirty first zoo I had ever gone to in the whole life. After I had bought the ticket to get in I read a sign that said “We have polar bears.” When I saw that my interest in this zoo went up by one hundred percent. I thought to myself that “How many zoos in the world have polar bears in them. Not many.” I noted, talking to myself.

After a long time consuming walk throughout the zoo I had reached the polar bears. “O wow.” I observed. There he was the nine hundred pound, 8 feet 5 inches tall off-white coated polar bear. The polar bear was swimming in his mini salt water pool that was a good twelve feet deep. What was cool was that you could go under the water with a piece of glass separating me and the polar bear. As he was swimming you could see the large claws and paws of the polar bears. They seemed to be bigger than my face.

Once I had watched the bear for a couple of minutes I wanted to read the facts on this fine creature. It read only 20,000-25,000 of these powerful animals remain in the wild and two thirds of the population could be gone by 2050. Then it hit me. I had to some how take action to this huge trouble. At the bottom of the information board it said “Sponsored by: E.S.A. a.k.a. Endangered Species Association.” Then I thought to myself I have to get in touch with this company and help stop polar bear extinction. It is my turn to help.

After a lengthy day at the zoo I remembered what I had read at the polar bear enclosure. Right away I slipped on my way and headed to the nearest library to find out how and what I could do to help this association.

I got to the library and the first thing I did was hop right on to the computer. I clicked into the goggle search bar and searched the Endangered Species Society. The first thing that came up what esa.com. I found my way to the contact us page and sent them an email telling them I would like to help. I wasn’t going to sit here and wait for them to reply. I got up and marched backed to the hotel. I wondered to myself weather they would reply rather quickly or not. After I grabbed a bite to eat I was on my way back to the library for the second time today. I logged on to my email and I had one new message from the E.S.A.. It said, “Hello Mr. Smith, we would like to offer you a job at our company because it seems that you have a big interest in polar bears but are shocked to hear they are going extinct. That is my mission at the E.S.A., to stop polar bear extinction. Are you up for the challenge? Thanks, Art Thomson.” Wow I just got offered a job at this place and I don’t even live in North America.

I had to sleep on this opportunity. I got barely any sleep that night due to all the ideas flying through my head. Morning was here after a long night. I got on the phone with my wife and said “So I got a wonderful job opportunity and would love to follow through with it. It is at the E.S.A. which is the Endangered Species Association. There is a section of this company that their mission is to stop the polar bear extinction and as you know my favorite animal in the world is the polar bear.” “What ever you want” my wife responded. I got off the phone by telling her “I will try this job out but you and the kids stay in Russia. I need to see how this goes.”

As I went to the library for the last time I sent Art an email telling him what I told my wife.

Later that day I took a trip over to the offices of this association.

I walking in thinking what will I do here, is this really what I want to do? I had now located Art’s office. I walked up slowly and knocked on the door with no confidence in myself. “Hi are you Art?” I asked. “Well as a matter a fact I am.” replied Art. “What can I do for you?” “Actually we have already talked but over email.” “Al-righty then, are you Mr. Smith?” “As a matter a fact I am and I would love to get involved in this mission of saving the polar bears.” I said with shiver in my voice. “If you want to help you are welcome to.” he stated. OK, then..... I will be here tomorrow at ten o’clock. I said in excitement” “Sounds good! See you tomorrow morning.” Art said.

I awoke the next morning with a smile on my face. I was ready to get working on this challenging mission.

I pulled up to the office exited to see what was in store. I walked in a Art was waiting for me near the door. When I entered he said “Hi are you ready to start your first day of work.” “I sure am” I replied. He then introduced me to all of the staff and people that I will be working with. After all of the first day stuff was over it was time for me to actually start work. “One of the jobs here is to work on the computers. On the computers you track polar bears because sometimes we install trackers into the bears. Also you need to look at how well the water is in Canada’s Hudson Bay. Due to all the ships carrying oil going through the canal and into the Bay we need to see if they are trying to do a better job with keeping the oil on the ships. Another thing you need to track is how fast the ice is going away. Polar bears need ice to provide a platform from which to hunt seals, whose thick layers of blubber provide energy for survival, to rest and to breed. The shorter the ice season the harder it is for polar bears to hunt for food. If polar bears don’t find food they can rely on their body fat but for only a certain amount of time. By watching this computer we can tell that Canada’s Hudson Bay declines 22% since 1990. Just thought you might want to know why we stare at these computer screens all day.” After listening to his minute long speech I was bored to death but interested. “I get it. Is this what I am going to do for the day?” “It sure is. If it doesn’t go well there are always other options.” Art said back to me.

Art left me alone now and this computer had a ton of cool facts about the polar bears. The facts were like: Oil can effect the polar bears in many ways, they could die, an oil spill would mess up the whole food chain, and noise generated from onshore and offshore oil companies would disturb the polar bears. It was pretty cool stuff. Then I look on the live cam and what do you know there was a polar bear. It was quite shocking because all of the others didn’t care or that they have seen plenty of polar bears. I needed to get a closer look and in the bottom right hand corner there was a zoom in tool. For some reason it wouldn’t zoom in, I kept clicking and it would not do it. I was getting very angry. What was happening. People started talking. People started to panic. Before you knew it the room was dark of no computers. Had I done something? What did I do? Everyone started to look at me knowing I was the new guy. Art was slowly walking over looking at me with a disappointed look in his face. It was me. Art then said, “Lets find something else for you to do.” Art was not obviously pleased with the work I had done. “So the next possible thing you could do in our office is go to the polar bear study room.” “That sounds fun and something easier.” I said. We walked into the study room and there was a real life polar bear. It was right there. So close that I could touch it. “Does this look like an easier job Mr. Smith?” asked Art. “This looks amazing.” I replied. “Sweet, well what you do here is study the actions and body of the polar bear.” “That seems easy enough.” I said. Art then told me that “This man on you right, Steve, will be showing you what you will be doing.” “Well hello there Mr. Smith I am Steve like Art said and we will be studying the polar bear today. Today we are going to study the actions of this polar bear when we melt the ice in his enclosure rapidly. This will show us a simulation of what will happen in the real world. Another thing on our agenda is to study how the oil of ships killed a polar bear. We have the body of a dead polar bear here today that we though was killed by the effects of oil.” Did he just say study the dead body of a polar bear..... No he didn’t. They wouldn’t make me do that.

The actions of the bear when the ice was melting was quite fascinating. When it was melting the bear started to retreat to the land and after all of the ice was melted he went to sleep. That is exactly what they do in the wild.

After we stopped taking observations on the polar bear and seeing what it did it was time for the next task. I wonder if we will do what I thought heard come out of his mouth. Are we going to look at a dead polar bear. “Here, I will be right back with our next study subject.” It was taking him a while to get what he was getting and it really started to worry me. Is it actually what I thought it was. The next thing I know I hear the door begin to open. I don’t want him to turn around. The next thing he does is turn around and there he was standing there with a dead polar bear in his hand. This was not good. I needed to hold in my emotion but I couldn’t. I screamed “HELP, HELP, HELP” I couldn’t do it. “What is it” Art said rushing into the room. “He is holding a dead polar bear cub.” I said in fear. “That is what we do here Mr. Smith. Are you sure you want to keep working here because it seems as if you can’t contain yourself.” said Art. “Ya I guess this isn’t my type of thing. I do love polar bears though, no dough‘t.”

I was back at the hotel thinking about what I had just did. I needed my sleep.

In the morning with me sweating all over. It must have been what I had been thinking about last night. Then my phone rang. “Hello this is Art. Is this Mr. Smith.” “Yes it is. How are you doing?” “Fine but I have to go soon so what the scientists did last night was think of more ways to stop polar bear extinction.” “OK I don’t work there any more.” “I know but you need to take our plan with you to Russia because we have test run this and it worked. Could you please stop by our office and pick up the plan it would be a huge help.” “Yes that is fine”

I got back to Russia fairly quickly and started the plan. It was a great plan and it seemed to get the message across.

Later that year the polar bear population increased significantly and the plan worked. Then the polar bears, The E.S.A. and I lived happily ever after.